Video Premiere: Humbletown, “Pretty Little Things”
A new music video from the South Dakota duo reflects on the old days with mixed emotions. Get an exclusive first look here!
Morgan Carnes & Dylan Lewis of Humbletown. Photo credit: Destyn Humann.
Morgan Carnes and Dylan Lewis walked different paths for a while—Carnes grew up in California while Lewis is from South Dakota—but their lives had certain parallels. According to one interview, both played music from a young age; in fact, they both started out learning piano at age five or six from their mothers. Both went through a range of genres and instruments but landed on stringed instruments and, eventually, a focus on bluegrass and old-time music. Carnes’ specialty is the clawhammer banjo while Lewis plays flatpick guitar.
The musical threads connecting them culminated in a meet-cute, as they related in another interview. When Carnes moved to South Dakota, she introduced a song called “Whippoorwill” to several musicians. A while later Lewis was invited to play as a guest by a member of her band, who mentioned that Carnes could play “Whippoorwill,” a tune Lewis also knew. Carnes realized the song she’d brought with her from California had made its way to him before they ever met.
In 2017, the two formed their own band. When searching for the perfect name for their act, they settled on one that reflected the small town of Vermillion, South Dakota, which Carnes had fallen in love with when she moved there. “Humbletown” was born.
Humbletown made a splash regionally right away, winning the 2018 South Dakota Folk Off contest, and on the old-time festival circuit across the country. The duo’s debut album took a while longer—they started a family in 2019 and there was the minor inconvenience of a global pandemic—but in December 2022, The Path I Chose to Walk was released to the world.
Dylan Lewis & Morgan Carnes of Humbletown. Photo credit: Zia Mei.
We’re honored to host the exclusive premiere of a music video for “Pretty Little Things,” one of the songs off the new album. On a stellar record of old-time and bluegrass originals, this track stands out, in part for its interplay of two moods and tempos.
The video, filmed by filmed by Destyn Ernest Humann of 605 Media and Entertainment, heightens the contrast. It opens with Morgan Carnes donning lipstick and a vintage dress. She steps up to a mic alone on a darkened stage. If not for the soft banjo backdrop, she could be singing a torch song in a jazz nightclub as she softly croons:
Looking through you
At everything that I had left behind
All has turned to dust
Hold you in my mind
Now I’ve grown older
I’ve got money and everything I need
Shoes and sparkly rings
All the pretty little things
Unexpectedly, the song and video both take a sharp left turn. Now Carnes is out in the rugged countryside in daylight, with Dylan Lewis, dressed down in a denim jacket. Lewis’s light and lightning-fast flatpicking melds with Carnes’ moody clawhammer banjo as they crank up the tempo and join their voices in stunning harmony:
Memories of the days that I could not keep still
Looking for the spaces I could never fill
Held up by my lonely banjo strings
Living on the edge without my pretty little things
The video cuts between the two settings each time the song shifts pace, the contrast between them seeming starker every time.
“This song is a juxtaposition of different times and ways of life I have experienced from young adulthood until now,” Lewis says. “Looking back on a life of adventure and low inhibitions makes me nostalgic for times past, but also appreciative of the ways I choose to live my life today. The video for this song does a great job of expressing this sometimes melancholy reflection.”
Watch “Pretty Little Things” now!
Video Credits
Songwriter: Morgan Carnes
Video Producer: Destyn Humann
Audio Production: Dalton Coffey
Carol Roth. Photo credit: Dan Lee.
Carol Roth is a full-time marketing copywriter and the primary music journalist and social media publicist for Adventures in Americana. In addition to studying the guitar and songwriting, Carol’s additional creative side hustle is writing self-proclaimed “trashy” novels under the pseudonym T.A. Berkeley!
