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Amy Grant Says to Stop Looking for What You're Never Going to Find · I Choose Me with Jennie Garth

0:01
Speaker 1: You're listening to I Choose Me with Jenny Girl. Welcome
0:09
Speaker 1: to I Choose Me. I am beyond excited to sit
0:12
Speaker 1: down today with Amy Grant, whose voice has been the
0:16
Speaker 1: soundtrack for millions for more than four decades. She has
0:21
Speaker 1: navigated fame, faith, heartbreak, and healing all in the public eye.
0:28
Speaker 1: Baby Baby, I'm so pleased to have you with me,
0:31
Speaker 1: the remarkable Amy Grant. This is so exciting. I have
0:35
Speaker 1: a funny little question to ask you to start. Okay,
0:39
Speaker 1: Nick Jonas said that you taught him to eat laced
0:43
Speaker 1: potato chips before he performed to coat his throat.
0:47
Speaker 2: Yes you did, you did that. Yes, well, So years
0:53
Speaker 2: ago I started recording. I did four different records at
0:57
Speaker 2: Cariboo Ranch, which was a destination recording studio right outside
1:02
Speaker 2: of Nederland, Colorado. And I can't think of a worse
1:08
Speaker 2: place to record vocals. I mean, the altitude. We had
1:11
Speaker 2: to bring in an oxygen tank for me to just
1:14
Speaker 2: you know, because it's crazy up there. It does, and
1:19
Speaker 2: I was just going, the altitude is killing me. So
1:21
Speaker 2: I would get in the habit of just eating a
1:24
Speaker 2: lace potato chip because it would put a little bit
1:27
Speaker 2: of salt, a little bit of grease, and it's interesting.
1:30
Speaker 2: I mean, it's so then the producer would just always say, hey,
1:36
Speaker 2: why don't you chip up? Take a chip because it
1:39
Speaker 2: would like kind of restore some presence to my voice.
1:42
Speaker 2: I've done that my whole life. That was over forty
1:45
Speaker 2: years ago when I started that.
1:46
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, I feel like you need like a
1:48
Speaker 1: partnership with Laez's Potato chips.
1:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, yeah, I think they did sponsor a tour
1:53
Speaker 2: one tour, but not because of that Amy.
1:55
Speaker 1: You became just a household name so young, before you
1:59
Speaker 1: could even to the record store. You had your first
2:02
Speaker 1: record deal at fifteen. You were dubbed America's Sweetheart in
2:08
Speaker 1: the Christian music industry. And I know those early feelings
2:14
Speaker 1: of fame. It really presents itself as attractive until it's not.
2:21
Speaker 2: And you're speaking from experience, my dear.
2:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh bit, Well, I'm wondering for you, what was
2:27
Speaker 1: it like to carry that label in your teens in
2:29
Speaker 1: your early twenties.
2:31
Speaker 2: Well, it was an earlier time, you know that we
2:34
Speaker 2: were sort of an unobserved generation and so long before
2:39
Speaker 2: social media. But as strange as it might sound, I
2:45
Speaker 2: was just never that curious about what somebody was saying
2:49
Speaker 2: about me, and so I don't I'm not saying it's
2:54
Speaker 2: a terrical caricature of trait or flaw or anything. It
2:58
Speaker 2: was just the way I was wired. I was curious
3:00
Speaker 2: about so many things. But what somebody was saying about
3:04
Speaker 2: me around a table that I was not invited to
3:09
Speaker 2: didn't seem to matter to me. I thought, well, everybody's
3:12
Speaker 2: got their own opinion. I mean, nobody ever agrees on anything,
3:16
Speaker 2: so just live and let live.
3:19
Speaker 1: Did you feel pressure or were you ever worried about
3:25
Speaker 1: making everybody happy as a young person. I just know
3:29
Speaker 1: carrying around the pressure of having a title like that
3:33
Speaker 1: and being famous at such a young age, Like, how
3:36
Speaker 1: did you experience that?
3:38
Speaker 2: Well? I have three older sisters. My dad was a doctor.
3:43
Speaker 2: He was in radiation oncology and one of the first
3:47
Speaker 2: doctors to practice in that way. His practice basically became
3:51
Speaker 2: Tennessee oncology. And so this is going to sound crazy,
3:55
Speaker 2: but like the first three or four years that I
3:57
Speaker 2: sang more than anything anything, people would say, are you
4:02
Speaker 2: Burton Grant's daughter? Okay? And I you know so, because
4:07
Speaker 2: I started in Nashville, I was, oh, I'm Mimi's sister,
4:11
Speaker 2: Oh you're Burton's daughter, Like it took a long time
4:14
Speaker 2: for anybody to go, oh, you're Amy, And so I
4:18
Speaker 2: just you know, I'm from a big family and generationally large,
4:22
Speaker 2: and I don't know, it just never. It never occurred
4:27
Speaker 2: to me that I stuck out in the crowd. And
4:31
Speaker 2: I feel like that was probably the most healthy protection
4:37
Speaker 2: around me was I was, no kidding, part of a
4:40
Speaker 2: big family, and everybody had news, and you know, everybody
4:46
Speaker 2: did things right and did things wrong. That's part of
4:49
Speaker 2: being a family, you know. And so the fact that
4:54
Speaker 2: I would be doing something, write something, yeah, it's just
4:57
Speaker 2: all part of life.
5:00
Speaker 1: Really cool and kind of similar to me before I
5:03
Speaker 1: came to Hollywood. But once I came to Hollywood, things
5:06
Speaker 1: really did kind of change quickly. But you had that
5:11
Speaker 1: kind of fast roll into it too. I mean, I'm curious,
5:15
Speaker 1: did you always have an internal compass because you were
5:18
Speaker 1: faced with making a lot of really big choices early
5:21
Speaker 1: on in your life, professionally, creatively, personally, did you just
5:26
Speaker 1: have this guiding light inside of you.
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Speaker 2: Well, it didn't feel like big stuff, it didn't, and
5:32
Speaker 2: so no, it felt I felt like I was part
5:38
Speaker 2: of the community. So this is you know how I
5:43
Speaker 2: think how something launches has a lot to do with
5:46
Speaker 2: how it lands initially, and so for me, I I
5:54
Speaker 2: was not a public singer. I was a songwriter and
5:58
Speaker 2: I just sang, you know, like I'd sung at my school.
6:02
Speaker 2: But the way I got my record deal at fifteen,
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Speaker 2: you know, I had made a tape for my mom
6:09
Speaker 2: and dad because a friend of mine had free studio
6:13
Speaker 2: time at a college in Nashville that taught studio recording,
6:19
Speaker 2: and so I was like, oh my gosh, free studio time.
6:24
Speaker 2: So I went in and took a friend. We recorded
6:27
Speaker 2: the songboodin writing. And then the friend of mine that
6:32
Speaker 2: gave me that studio time had a job in a
6:35
Speaker 2: recording studio, so that he was just taking classes to
6:38
Speaker 2: figure out how to do his job better. Anyway, so
6:42
Speaker 2: he was running off a couple of copies of that
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Speaker 2: cassette tape that I had made, and a friend of
6:49
Speaker 2: his walked in and said, Hey, there's a record company
6:51
Speaker 2: in Texas that wants to launch a contemporary Christian music
6:55
Speaker 2: label and they're trying to find twelve artists to launch with.
7:01
Speaker 2: Do you know of anybody that's like singing faith music?
7:05
Speaker 2: And then the man that walked in said who's that?
7:07
Speaker 2: And it was me? And so it was just such
7:11
Speaker 2: a weird set of circumstances to get a record deal.
7:14
Speaker 2: You know, I was not a seasoned performer, and yeah,
7:20
Speaker 2: and so all along it just felt like I was
7:23
Speaker 2: just trying to figure it out one step at a time.
7:26
Speaker 2: I mean I was still fifteen when the phone rang.
7:29
Speaker 2: It was a call late one night, and my friend,
7:31
Speaker 2: who was an engineer, said, you're not going to believe this,
7:34
Speaker 2: but Word Records wants to offer you a record deal.
7:39
Speaker 2: And I was fifteen, so I think the whole world's
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Speaker 2: making fun of me, and I was like, are you
7:43
Speaker 2: messing with me? My dad picked up the phone and said, hey,
7:48
Speaker 2: it's after phone hours. You're grounded. So I get a
7:52
Speaker 2: record deal and I'm grounded in the same phone call.
7:56
Speaker 2: It was like nothing these of that. Yeah, it was
7:59
Speaker 2: just so you know, just real.
8:03
Speaker 1: It was just real, yeah, real fifteen year old life,
8:08
Speaker 1: except for the record deal part, right right. Wow, I
8:12
Speaker 1: mean that's kind of how I experienced, just starting out
8:15
Speaker 1: like it just happened, and then it kept rolling along.
8:19
Speaker 2: Yeah, tell me tell me the specifics of the first
8:22
Speaker 2: happening for you.
8:23
Speaker 1: Well, I was dancing, and I thought I was going
8:26
Speaker 1: to be a dance teacher. So I went into this
8:28
Speaker 1: pageant to get a dance scholarship for college, and there
8:33
Speaker 1: was somebody there that that said, hey, you have a
8:36
Speaker 1: great look, here's my card. Call me if you want
8:40
Speaker 1: to come out for pilot season, if you want to
8:42
Speaker 1: do anything. So I did, and I started taking acting
8:45
Speaker 1: classes and then I ended up on his doorstep and
8:49
Speaker 1: he is my manager to this day.
8:52
Speaker 2: I was just sixteen years old.
8:54
Speaker 1: Then fifteen or sixteen years old then so and then
8:58
Speaker 1: I got the store. Yeah, so then I yeah, extraordinary thing,
9:02
Speaker 1: but in a very normal life of a normal girl.
9:07
Speaker 1: And then you know, fast forward to just getting parts
9:10
Speaker 1: and really feeling like I was just in the right
9:12
Speaker 1: place at the right time. Like I don't know if
9:15
Speaker 1: they even you know, I don't even know if they
9:18
Speaker 1: know anything about me or my capabilities or anything. But
9:22
Speaker 1: I just kept going with it, and then yeah, one
9:24
Speaker 1: thing led to another.
9:26
Speaker 2: Yes, I absolutely relate to that. Never where you look
9:29
Speaker 2: back and go I don't recall ever having a big agenda.
9:32
Speaker 2: I know people that I'm sure people that worked around you.
9:35
Speaker 2: Your manager, it became his job to I have a
9:40
Speaker 2: wish list and push for that, and you just kept
9:43
Speaker 2: showing up. You know, what's my next assignment?
9:47
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm kind of still that way. I think
9:50
Speaker 1: maybe you can relate to this too, But when your
9:53
Speaker 1: life kind of rolls out like that, you at some point,
9:57
Speaker 1: For me, anyway, I had I was like, Wow, how
10:00
Speaker 1: did I get here?
10:01
Speaker 2: Who am I? What is this world?
10:04
Speaker 1: You know it's been going on at lightning speed all
10:06
Speaker 1: these years? And how to take a pause and think
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Speaker 1: like who am I? And do I even really want this?
10:16
Speaker 2: You know?
10:17
Speaker 1: In all of that, did you ever feel like because
10:20
Speaker 1: it just sort of happened, did you ever feel like, wait,
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Speaker 1: did I really choose this?
10:25
Speaker 2: Absolutely? There were different times in my life that I thought,
10:29
Speaker 2: if I could choose this, I would stop. And interestingly
10:35
Speaker 2: enough now I think back to my childhood wiring and
10:41
Speaker 2: how I would be so excited when a new record
10:43
Speaker 2: would come out of anybody's that I loved and I
10:46
Speaker 2: would give it my undivided attention, and how music I
10:51
Speaker 2: didn't have to be making it, but just music spoke
10:54
Speaker 2: to me on every level. On every level, it just
10:57
Speaker 2: made me so happy and I and now I look
11:00
Speaker 2: at you know, I still get to pack a bag
11:03
Speaker 2: and travel with amazing musicians and bring my little songs there,
11:08
Speaker 2: like ding diddling ding, thing that I wrote on a guitar,
11:11
Speaker 2: and then they're put in the hands of these craftsman musicians.
11:16
Speaker 2: And at this point, every time I'm around music that
11:21
Speaker 2: I'm making it, I think, in spite of myself, I
11:27
Speaker 2: wound up doing something that I love so much, that
11:31
Speaker 2: was unique to me, you know, nobody mustn't. Yeah, And
11:35
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful. And there are times when something feels
11:39
Speaker 2: like it's like when it feels like you didn't choose it.
11:43
Speaker 2: There are times when you sort of war against it
11:46
Speaker 2: a little bit because you and I both wound up
11:50
Speaker 2: with things that we enjoyed doing. But when none of
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Speaker 2: it is on your timetable, you know, I'll never yet.
12:00
Speaker 2: My dear friend who's my manager now, she started as
12:03
Speaker 2: the executive assistant to the managing partners that I had,
12:08
Speaker 2: and she had her first child into her forties, and
12:12
Speaker 2: so she called me after some was born and she said, well,
12:16
Speaker 2: I'm investing in chapstick And I said, what are you
12:19
Speaker 2: talking about? And she said, when your third child was
12:22
Speaker 2: six weeks old, we insisted that you do a music video.
12:27
Speaker 2: And she said my son is six weeks old, and
12:29
Speaker 2: I still have on soft clothes and all I know
12:32
Speaker 2: is I'm going to be kissing your ass for the
12:34
Speaker 2: rest of my life because of what we asked you
12:36
Speaker 2: to do in total ignorance. But when you're the one
12:40
Speaker 2: doing it, it's like I remember being pregnant with my
12:44
Speaker 2: second child and something would be served at dinner that
12:50
Speaker 2: you know, anything can disagree with you when you're pregnant,
12:54
Speaker 2: and I just remember, like the pre Rold music for
12:57
Speaker 2: a concert and I'm probably three or four months pregnant,
13:00
Speaker 2: kind of going I don't feel right on, like vomiting,
13:03
Speaker 2: and they're like, you've.
13:04
Speaker 1: Got ninety seconds and you just wipe your massive going out.
13:10
Speaker 2: Because the time. But I feel I'm imagining that there
13:14
Speaker 2: is a sort of mental muscular tenacity that you have
13:22
Speaker 2: because of what was required of you, because of the
13:26
Speaker 2: unique work that you chose or that chose you. And
13:30
Speaker 2: I relate to that muscular tenacity, you know, and it's yeah,
13:37
Speaker 2: and it's just like you know or whatever whatever kind
13:41
Speaker 2: of tenacity is, But it's just a kind of fortitude,
13:47
Speaker 2: especially when something is laid out before you and you
13:51
Speaker 2: do it all. But it's not necessarily what you are
13:54
Speaker 2: seeking from the beginning, but you really learn, you just
14:00
Speaker 2: learn how to show up and do your job. Your job, yes, yes,
14:09
Speaker 2: and that's a gift. I and you know what, And
14:11
Speaker 2: I feel like that is the same lesson that every
14:16
Speaker 2: woman learns in motherhood, whether she wanted to be pregnant
14:20
Speaker 2: or not.
14:21
Speaker 1: It's like, you just show up, this is happening.
14:25
Speaker 2: You just show up. Yeah, And it's like yeah, I
14:31
Speaker 2: especially with a second child. There's so many women that
14:34
Speaker 2: finally they're like they've stopped screaming, where did my life go?
14:39
Speaker 2: But they go, hey, we can do this, go yeah,
14:44
Speaker 2: and you just go, oh my gosh, where did that
14:46
Speaker 2: tenacity come from? Where did that resilience? Where did that
14:50
Speaker 2: like other energy come from? And I and I think
14:57
Speaker 2: a lot of time, I think that's uniquely placed on
15:00
Speaker 2: a woman because of reproduction. And I think it also
15:04
Speaker 2: is placed on a lot of people because the way
15:06
Speaker 2: their life plays out for all kinds of reasons. But
15:10
Speaker 2: to me, that's a beautiful thing to see.
15:14
Speaker 1: It's interesting when you break it down that life is
15:17
Speaker 1: just happening, it's moving forward, and when it's showtime, it's showtime.
15:21
Speaker 1: What you can't not go out there to all these
15:25
Speaker 1: people that are.
15:25
Speaker 2: Waiting for you.
15:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, and almost as if you don't in
15:31
Speaker 1: the moment, you don't really even have a choice.
15:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, And somewhere I had a friend and she's still
15:36
Speaker 2: a friend. But I remember when I was younger and
15:39
Speaker 2: I would say something like, oh, I'm so sorry I
15:42
Speaker 2: didn't get around to that, and she would say, please,
15:44
Speaker 2: don't ever apologize. But would you rephrase it? Will you
15:47
Speaker 2: just say I'm so sorry, that's not how I chose
15:50
Speaker 2: to use my time. And she's, you know, a few
15:55
Speaker 2: years older than I am, and I kind of went, oh,
15:57
Speaker 2: my gosh, like that's like owning all of it, and
16:02
Speaker 2: she said, yeah, part of growing up is owning it.
16:05
Speaker 2: My goodness, And.
16:06
Speaker 1: I think about how many times I've said I know,
16:08
Speaker 1: sorry I didn't get to that, or I mean, I've
16:11
Speaker 1: probably said it like five times today.
16:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, but how interesting imagine having a friend who's just
16:17
Speaker 2: a handful of years older saying, just own it. I
16:22
Speaker 2: chose to use my time to do other things because
16:25
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's almost like in that pressure cooker
16:28
Speaker 2: of a lot coming at you.
16:30
Speaker 1: Yeah.
16:32
Speaker 2: I think, like you said, there are times that you go,
16:34
Speaker 2: who am I But then there there's the other swing
16:39
Speaker 2: of the pendulum is you're kind of forced to discover
16:44
Speaker 2: what you're capable of doing, and eventually, I mean, I'm
16:47
Speaker 2: older than you are, but at some point you go
16:52
Speaker 2: you truly find your voice to say I'm not going
16:55
Speaker 2: to do that because I know the resources I have
17:00
Speaker 2: and that's not going to be on the top of
17:02
Speaker 2: my to do.
17:04
Speaker 1: It's so much fun getting to that place in life too.
17:07
Speaker 1: I'm like kind of there, but I still feel like
17:10
Speaker 1: I have to say sorry sometimes when I really don't
17:13
Speaker 1: need to.
17:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, But all that, you know, wherever we are in
17:17
Speaker 2: the process, we're right on time for ourselves because you're
17:20
Speaker 2: just learning it at your pace, which is, yeah.
17:24
Speaker 1: Exactly what would you have done if you didn't do this?
17:34
Speaker 1: What you've done your whole life? Do you ever imagine
17:38
Speaker 1: a different life?
17:40
Speaker 2: Well, I love to cook. I sort of love I
17:45
Speaker 2: use recipes as a springboard. And I have a relative
17:49
Speaker 2: that was in the restaurant business, and I know it's exhausting,
17:53
Speaker 2: but if I could have been a part of a
17:55
Speaker 2: restaurant that was sort of all natural foods and was
17:59
Speaker 2: only open and at lunch, then I would have been
18:04
Speaker 2: the chef for that restaurant. And then the other thing
18:07
Speaker 2: is I've always loved camping. I loved being outside. I
18:12
Speaker 2: love creating spaces in nature, and so I used to
18:17
Speaker 2: say I would have liked to be a camp director.
18:19
Speaker 2: But I actually then did have a decade of my
18:22
Speaker 2: life that I offered the farm that several of us
18:27
Speaker 2: went in to purchase some property that was going to
18:29
Speaker 2: be developed in Franklin, Tennessee. And so I will never
18:33
Speaker 2: live on the part that I wound up with. But
18:38
Speaker 2: we hosted for a ten year period the two weeks
18:43
Speaker 2: launching of a summer day camp, and it was so amazing.
18:47
Speaker 2: It was called Barefoot Republic, and it's kids from all
18:49
Speaker 2: different socio economic backgrounds, racial cultural backgrounds. We just wanted
18:59
Speaker 2: their first experience was somebody that looked different from them,
19:02
Speaker 2: to be beautiful and positive in nature and in nature.
19:08
Speaker 2: And I'm telling you, I would ask these kids, no
19:10
Speaker 2: matter what neighborhood they came from, if they came from
19:12
Speaker 2: the foster care system, or if they came from the
19:15
Speaker 2: nicest neighborhood in the zip code, I would say, when's
19:18
Speaker 2: the last time you were outside in the summertime without
19:23
Speaker 2: air conditioning? From eight thirty in the morning till four
19:26
Speaker 2: thirty in the afternoon.
19:28
Speaker 1: Ever might say never that sounds like a good day
19:32
Speaker 1: to me.
19:33
Speaker 2: Yes, everyone was a good day.
19:37
Speaker 1: Back to your career, you were one of the first
19:41
Speaker 1: Christian music artists to sort of make that transition into
19:45
Speaker 1: mainstream pop and what an impact that had. Was that
19:48
Speaker 1: something that you chose to do, like consciously, was that
19:53
Speaker 1: something that you set out to accomplish or did that
19:55
Speaker 1: just kind of unfold as well?
19:58
Speaker 2: Well? In a way, the the bridge from one of
20:01
Speaker 2: those worlds to the next was built for me. And
20:05
Speaker 2: so in the mid eighties, several different large record companies
20:11
Speaker 2: were saying, hey, there's kind of this grassroots faith music
20:15
Speaker 2: that actually is selling records. And so some people from
20:24
Speaker 2: A and M Records started kind of looking at what
20:29
Speaker 2: I was doing. But really it was the record company.
20:33
Speaker 2: The Christian record company I was signed to was Word Records,
20:37
Speaker 2: and it was originally out of Waco, Texas, but they
20:40
Speaker 2: went I guess it was stand Moser. Somebody from Word
20:46
Speaker 2: Records went to A and M and said, we have
20:49
Speaker 2: an artist that I feel like would appeal to a
20:53
Speaker 2: larger audience. Because way back when where there were no
20:58
Speaker 2: digital music platforms, you know, it was Tower Records, it
21:02
Speaker 2: was mom and pop record stores, and for a lot
21:04
Speaker 2: of faith music, that music was sold in Christian bookstores,
21:08
Speaker 2: so it was like book and music, and so that
21:11
Speaker 2: was pretty niche marketing. And so for that record company,
21:16
Speaker 2: they just said, we feel like we've got somebody that
21:20
Speaker 2: should appear in other record stores and so yeah, so
21:27
Speaker 2: initially I think I had a distribution deal with A
21:30
Speaker 2: and M Records, but then almost immediately I had two
21:34
Speaker 2: independent recording contracts for the same project, with two different labels.
21:40
Speaker 2: And now, yeah, that just sounds like language from the
21:44
Speaker 2: dinosaur era, because now anybody in their bedroom can record
21:47
Speaker 2: something and it's out on all platforms overnight. But you know,
21:51
Speaker 2: just the servicing of music to the public in a way,
21:55
Speaker 2: there were a lot more gatekeepers, which was hard, and
21:59
Speaker 2: now there are no gatekeepers, which in a different way
22:03
Speaker 2: is its own. You know. Now there's such a landscape.
22:08
Speaker 2: It's like the wild wild West. It's the wilild West,
22:11
Speaker 2: and so nobody is how do they say it? Now,
22:13
Speaker 2: there's there's very little common experience that you talk about
22:17
Speaker 2: at the water cooler. Yeah, so's it's beautiful and everybody
22:23
Speaker 2: can kind of pursue their own preferences, and it does it.
22:28
Speaker 2: So we'll find out what that's doing, you know, decades
22:31
Speaker 2: from now.
22:32
Speaker 1: Well, you certainly made a splash after that transition. I
22:35
Speaker 1: can remember you accepting your Grammy, and I can just
22:39
Speaker 1: remember your outfit and your hair.
22:43
Speaker 2: You were girls, and I was like, wow, she looks cool.
22:47
Speaker 2: That's funny.
22:49
Speaker 1: Oh man, did you pick like your look or were
22:52
Speaker 1: you you know, do they sort of mold you into
22:56
Speaker 1: what they wanted you to be. I don't remember having
23:01
Speaker 1: much of a look that The first kind of look
23:04
Speaker 1: I had was a leoper jacket. But a friend of
23:07
Speaker 1: mine was a musician, a bass player, and his wife
23:11
Speaker 1: had a clothing store in Memphis called Chelsea, and she
23:17
Speaker 1: was a stylist. And actually there were a lot of
23:20
Speaker 1: rockers came from LA and New York to shop at
23:23
Speaker 1: Chelsea in Memphis. Interesting, And I guess she saw me
23:28
Speaker 1: somewhere and said, do I have a jacket for Amy?
23:32
Speaker 2: And she sent me that jacket. I was like, I love.
23:34
Speaker 1: This well, you were it well and you made an
23:36
Speaker 1: impression on me, that's for sure. You know, music is
23:40
Speaker 1: so powerful. Obviously, it moves people, it makes them feel
23:44
Speaker 1: there in her most emotions and it reminds us of
23:48
Speaker 1: like memories from certain pivotal points in our lives. I'm curious,
23:53
Speaker 1: whose music does that for you?
23:56
Speaker 2: Oh man? So many people, so many right. Well, I
24:03
Speaker 2: had the happy experience of having three older sisters, right
24:06
Speaker 2: and they all loved music, and so especially my sister Mimi.
24:13
Speaker 2: She had so many records and so I would heard her.
24:17
Speaker 2: We were we shared the most space, you know, with
24:23
Speaker 2: four girls. Anyway, it's hard to explain that. But she
24:26
Speaker 2: wasn't my next older sister, but the way we just
24:29
Speaker 2: kind of paired up. It was my sister Mimi and me.
24:31
Speaker 2: She was six and a half years older. And I
24:35
Speaker 2: went to see her her freshman year at school in Boston,
24:39
Speaker 2: and and and she took another sister and me to
24:43
Speaker 2: see the Beach Boys. But I, I mean I listened
24:47
Speaker 2: to all of her music and it was everything from
24:49
Speaker 2: Cat Steven, Joan Biaz, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, James Taylor,
24:54
Speaker 2: ARESA Franklin Three Dog Night. I mean, it was just
25:00
Speaker 2: free thing.
25:00
Speaker 1: It's true that you know when music is first stands
25:04
Speaker 1: out for you in your life. I remember my sister Cammy,
25:08
Speaker 1: who's not my next oldest sister, she's two up. She
25:14
Speaker 1: would take me to school in her badass El Camino
25:18
Speaker 1: and we would She would turn the music on so loud,
25:21
Speaker 1: and it was like cheap trick or some crazy, you
25:25
Speaker 1: know band. And I loved it, but I'm pretty sure
25:29
Speaker 1: my hearing is damaged from she would not.
25:31
Speaker 2: Turn it down. Yeah. Yeah, but it had such an impact. Yes, yeah,
25:39
Speaker 2: that's what it does. Let's let's talk.
25:40
Speaker 1: About your new album, The Me That Remains Love that title.
25:45
Speaker 1: Thank you said before that making it required a lot
25:49
Speaker 1: of release for you, and that it also sort of
25:54
Speaker 1: freed you from expectations that you didn't even know you
25:57
Speaker 1: had for yourself. What did you have to release and
26:00
Speaker 1: what were those self inflicted expectations.
26:07
Speaker 2: Well, the writing of this record, most of it happened
26:14
Speaker 2: sort of in a concentrated way in twenty twenty four. Okay,
26:19
Speaker 2: so then it was finished by halfway through twenty twenty five,
26:22
Speaker 2: and then it came out in twenty twenty six. Because
26:25
Speaker 2: no one was there, no one was holding their breath
26:27
Speaker 2: waiting on a record from a sixty five year old.
26:30
Speaker 1: I mean it had been thirteen years, right, a long time?
26:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, but well I leaned into the creative process
26:38
Speaker 2: because it felt healing for me. And you know, all
26:43
Speaker 2: of us have experienced sort of different alternate realities since
26:47
Speaker 2: twenty twenty. Worldwide, we all experienced COVID and then each
26:51
Speaker 2: one of us sort of the fallout of how that
26:54
Speaker 2: affected our work communities, our school communities, all of that.
26:59
Speaker 2: It's just I feel like it there has a lot
27:02
Speaker 2: of people have experienced unique journey since then, and I
27:08
Speaker 2: just it seemed like I just had one sort of
27:11
Speaker 2: unique health journey after another, everything eventually fixable, but there
27:18
Speaker 2: it was just such a long season of recovery for
27:20
Speaker 2: me starting in twenty twenty and really so four years later,
27:26
Speaker 2: twenty twenty four, I am looking in the mirror going
27:31
Speaker 2: who is left? Who am I? And you know, I'd
27:38
Speaker 2: had at that point three major surgeries for different, totally
27:42
Speaker 2: different things, each a bike accident with a head injury,
27:45
Speaker 2: and at some point you just have to kind of go, well,
27:51
Speaker 2: I woke up, I'm still here, and I have this
27:56
Speaker 2: version of myself to live my life, and and so
28:02
Speaker 2: just in kind of in an attempt to wrap my
28:04
Speaker 2: arms around my own life, to belong to myself, and go,
28:08
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna I'm going to be a witness to
28:11
Speaker 2: myself and the world around me and try to be
28:14
Speaker 2: a voice of connection and honesty and all of that
28:18
Speaker 2: was in my attempt to just embrace a healing journey
28:24
Speaker 2: for me, and oddly enough, I just found So there's
28:28
Speaker 2: no posturing on the record. It's all it's sort of
28:33
Speaker 2: no production tricks or gimmicks.
28:37
Speaker 1: It's real you in your beautiful voice.
28:39
Speaker 2: Thank you, and real real musicians playing real instruments, everybody
28:44
Speaker 2: working hard at the craft that they've spent their whole
28:46
Speaker 2: life working on.
28:47
Speaker 1: And it's beautiful.
28:49
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's been so much fun to have new
28:53
Speaker 2: music to sing because for years, you know, I've toured
28:55
Speaker 2: for forty five years longer, and I've spent a lot
28:59
Speaker 2: of that time singing songs that were twenty five, thirty five,
29:03
Speaker 2: forty five years old, and so that like, well, yeah,
29:07
Speaker 2: I mean it's a great it's nostalgia. You know. I
29:11
Speaker 2: can watch an audience and I feel like, song by song,
29:13
Speaker 2: I'm just watching the years peel off of the crowd
29:18
Speaker 2: because they're like, oh my god, I'm back. Yes, but
29:21
Speaker 2: we're also all right here and now. To feel like
29:25
Speaker 2: I can finish that conversation by saying these are all
29:30
Speaker 2: these places we've been, but let's welcome ourselves to today.
29:35
Speaker 2: You know, if we woke up, the adventure continues.
29:38
Speaker 1: So if we woke up, that's right, that's all we
29:41
Speaker 1: need from a day. Yeah, and then we can do
29:44
Speaker 1: whatever we want from there. Yeah, you were married for
29:55
Speaker 1: almost twenty years for your first marriage. Then you met
29:59
Speaker 1: and married Vince Vince Gill for anyone who doesn't know,
30:05
Speaker 1: and I'm wondering, how has that been healing for you?
30:10
Speaker 1: Because you guys have been together for twenty six years.
30:14
Speaker 1: Twenty six years, I know, that's a long time. Yeah,
30:19
Speaker 1: that's a long time, I know. And for a second marriage,
30:22
Speaker 1: that's a long time.
30:23
Speaker 2: I love. Yeah, I don't know what the statistics are,
30:26
Speaker 2: but yeah, I know it's a steep learning curve for
30:31
Speaker 2: all of us. And yeah, yeah, I know you know this.
30:38
Speaker 2: That marriage is not easy and yet you I think
30:42
Speaker 2: you learn the most about yourself. And to marry someone
30:49
Speaker 2: the year that I was turning forty and I guess
30:53
Speaker 2: he was he turned forty three, Yeah, right, weeks after
31:00
Speaker 2: get married. But yeah, I mean, when you're married to somebody,
31:05
Speaker 2: you had your you have your living side by side lives.
31:09
Speaker 2: But to marry a little bit older was different than
31:12
Speaker 2: marrying at twenty one the first time.
31:14
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, how was it different for you?
31:19
Speaker 2: I had a lot of respect for all the years
31:21
Speaker 2: that had gone before me, and and I think, I uh,
31:31
Speaker 2: I love one thing that Vince said early on when
31:34
Speaker 2: we had gotten sideways with each other. And he's a
31:39
Speaker 2: man of few words, and even fewer words when he's mad,
31:42
Speaker 2: and I'm kind of a verbal processor. It just oh
31:47
Speaker 2: my gosh. Yeah. Anyway, but I remember him saying.
31:50
Speaker 1: One time, when I was like, the fuck I got it,
31:54
Speaker 1: he was like, I've never regretted something I didn't say.
32:01
Speaker 2: Oh gosh. I was like, I could learn something from you.
32:07
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's really good advice.
32:12
Speaker 2: I've never regretted something I didn't say. Yeah, that affected
32:17
Speaker 2: me all across the board. And yeah, and then the
32:22
Speaker 2: great thing about being married, I mean this sounds well,
32:27
Speaker 2: just take it for what. The best lesson I learned
32:30
Speaker 2: getting married a second time is really you sort of
32:35
Speaker 2: you drag all of the equation that was yours from
32:40
Speaker 2: your first marriage that didn't go so well, you drag
32:44
Speaker 2: yourself into the second marriage.
32:47
Speaker 1: So it's like the lesson of life is a relentless
32:52
Speaker 1: teacher and so I kind of went, okay, so yeah,
32:56
Speaker 1: so part of that equation was me.
33:00
Speaker 2: And then you know, you just wait and try to
33:03
Speaker 2: figure it out. And everybody's so different, we all bring
33:07
Speaker 2: so many different things to the table. And but I
33:15
Speaker 2: I really appreciate the patience in everything that I've learned
33:19
Speaker 2: from Vince. He's very present and very patient, and and
33:28
Speaker 2: I like those two qualities.
33:29
Speaker 1: I want to write them down on my skin so
33:31
Speaker 1: I remember them, presents and patience.
33:34
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then and I will say, and the thing
33:37
Speaker 2: that I have the real surprise because he and I
33:44
Speaker 2: didn't know each other very well when we got married
33:47
Speaker 2: and been there HU and I, but there were there
33:53
Speaker 2: were things about him that I so admired and those
33:58
Speaker 2: things have always been there, but kind of all the
34:02
Speaker 2: other things that were sort of my projections that early on,
34:06
Speaker 2: I just kept feeling waves of disappointment because I was
34:09
Speaker 2: waiting for these things to appear that I was certain
34:12
Speaker 2: were there, and they.
34:14
Speaker 1: Weren't, but only because they were all things I had projected.
34:22
Speaker 1: So I and what I finally realized, and this was
34:27
Speaker 1: years and years into it, was when I finally stopped
34:30
Speaker 1: looking for what I was never going to find because
34:34
Speaker 1: I spent so much energy looking for these things that
34:38
Speaker 1: I had projected. You know, it's not he didn't promise it,
34:43
Speaker 1: you know, he never postured one thing or another.
34:47
Speaker 2: But you know, it's just so much a part of
34:51
Speaker 2: who we are. We don't even know we're projecting, but
34:54
Speaker 2: we are. But what I discovered is when I stopped
34:57
Speaker 2: looking for what I was never going to find because
35:00
Speaker 2: that occupied a lot of my energy, then I unexpectedly
35:07
Speaker 2: discovered the presence of things that I didn't know to
35:11
Speaker 2: look for.
35:12
Speaker 1: That's interesting because when you say when I stopped looking
35:14
Speaker 1: for what I wasn't going to find, that's our nature
35:19
Speaker 1: and I do that a lot. Yeah, you can't help,
35:21
Speaker 1: but yeah, like you have, you have hope, and you
35:24
Speaker 1: have you believe in someone. Like, what can you give
35:28
Speaker 1: me an example, what's something that you kept looking for
35:30
Speaker 1: that fell into that category?
35:34
Speaker 2: Well one would be just like the processing with words
35:38
Speaker 2: m M. You know, I was waiting for him to
35:42
Speaker 2: be endlessly curious about every thought of mine, to be
35:46
Speaker 2: endlessly curious about the projects that mattered to me, whatever
35:51
Speaker 2: it was, and he's a great listener, but I would
35:55
Speaker 2: go I finally was like, I don't have the energy
35:58
Speaker 2: to tell you this thing that's really important to me,
36:00
Speaker 2: But I will when I have energy. But I was
36:04
Speaker 2: not going to have to be like brushing away a
36:08
Speaker 2: thousand questions from him. So you know, it was he
36:14
Speaker 2: vinces a man who he really stays in his lane.
36:21
Speaker 2: He knows this, he knows where he wants his resources
36:25
Speaker 2: to go, mentally, emotionally, physically, and I'm kind of all
36:30
Speaker 2: over the map, you know. I remember saying to him
36:34
Speaker 2: there was an author and a songwriter that both lived
36:38
Speaker 2: in Boothbay Harbor, Maine, and I had an opportunity to
36:43
Speaker 2: go and meet with a songwriter anyway I had planned,
36:50
Speaker 2: and the coast of Maine is beautiful, and I was like,
36:52
Speaker 2: oh my gosh, I've got this great idea. Let's fly
36:55
Speaker 2: to Portland, rent a car. There's great golf up there,
36:59
Speaker 2: and we're just going to tour around and all this stuff.
37:01
Speaker 1: And i'd describe the trip, wind up in Massachusetts with
37:05
Speaker 1: a college friend of mine, fly home, and I kind
37:07
Speaker 1: of tell him about it.
37:09
Speaker 2: Well, I feel like one of my strong suits is
37:15
Speaker 2: being actually getting excited about something that I didn't plan.
37:20
Speaker 2: That was my whole life. You know, maybe some of
37:23
Speaker 2: yours too. As you're sort of handed your agenda and
37:26
Speaker 2: you go, oh, yeah, we can do this, and you
37:29
Speaker 2: make it fun. So like I plan a trip. This
37:32
Speaker 2: was just a couple of summers ago, and I said,
37:34
Speaker 2: I've got to anyway. I described the trip to me
37:37
Speaker 2: and he said, dear God, please don't make me do that.
37:42
Speaker 2: I said, nothing about that sounds good to you, and
37:45
Speaker 2: he said nothing, Oh my god. And I went, well,
37:49
Speaker 2: do you mind if I just go like I I've
37:53
Speaker 2: got places to stay. Would you feel left behind? He said,
37:56
Speaker 2: please do that without me. Yeah, And to me that
38:01
Speaker 2: might seem strange to another couple, but I sit here
38:05
Speaker 2: and go, oh, we are wired so differently. I'm so
38:09
Speaker 2: glad that he like I always want to return to him.
38:15
Speaker 2: But you know, we sing different songs, we have different
38:20
Speaker 2: skill sets. But I know the joy and the beauty
38:25
Speaker 2: and the loneliness of his touring life and he knows
38:30
Speaker 2: that of mine too. But when you go, I want
38:35
Speaker 2: to do this thing I'm very passionate about and I've
38:38
Speaker 2: like worked my whole life to write these songs. What
38:41
Speaker 2: a gift that I get to do this. But I
38:43
Speaker 2: want to come home to you. And so in that
38:49
Speaker 2: common ground, there's also a lot of not common ground,
38:53
Speaker 2: and so to go, well, I'm just going to see
38:55
Speaker 2: all that otherness as a gift. And and you know,
39:01
Speaker 2: all this comes with you really, and this is getting
39:04
Speaker 2: married close to forty, but you really it's important to
39:09
Speaker 2: wrap your arms around your own life, figure out what
39:13
Speaker 2: makes it okay, what makes you okay with yourself? Yes,
39:18
Speaker 2: and then from that place of maturity, you invite somebody
39:22
Speaker 2: else in. You invite in a friend, you invite in
39:25
Speaker 2: a partner. And you know, and I guess my religious
39:30
Speaker 2: language when I was I don't know if this was
39:33
Speaker 2: even taught to me, but what I what I the
39:40
Speaker 2: picture I built in my head around that Bible language,
39:44
Speaker 2: the two shall become one was trying to find all
39:49
Speaker 2: kind of mental emotional curiosity common ground. And I think
39:57
Speaker 2: and if I couldn't find the common ground, well then
39:59
Speaker 2: I'll just change all that wiring and me and lean
40:02
Speaker 2: towards this other person. You know, all the ways that
40:04
Speaker 2: your young mind is just trying to make yourself fit right, right,
40:11
Speaker 2: maybe into an equation that nobody was actually trying to
40:14
Speaker 2: teach you. Maybe it was poetic language. But so some
40:19
Speaker 2: of that deconstruction is going. You know, two people are
40:21
Speaker 2: kind of always two people. I love that.
40:24
Speaker 1: You're saying this because I've always had a problem with that.
40:27
Speaker 1: To become one notion, I've never experienced it, and I've
40:34
Speaker 1: been married three times, and so I was like, well,
40:38
Speaker 1: I must really suck at this relationship stuff if I
40:41
Speaker 1: can't find that one person that we've become. But I
40:45
Speaker 1: know now that it was we were always supposed to
40:49
Speaker 1: be two people who come back to each other. And
40:52
Speaker 1: you know, I call it circle, square circle, where both
40:54
Speaker 1: our own circles, and then in the middle there's a square.
40:57
Speaker 1: And what we put into that square, that's our together.
41:00
Speaker 2: And that's our one. Yeah.
41:03
Speaker 1: We get to go and be independent and make our
41:05
Speaker 1: own choices and do the things that light us up individually.
41:11
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful way to look at marriage in partnership. Yeah.
41:17
Speaker 2: Well, and once again, everybody's wired so uniquely. Yeah, and
41:23
Speaker 2: different coupleships people. You know, I'm sure there are some
41:27
Speaker 2: partners that have the same length stride, they have the
41:31
Speaker 2: same passions they have And if you're not one of
41:34
Speaker 2: those couples, you can kind of go, well, what's wrong
41:36
Speaker 2: with us? Right? Right?
41:37
Speaker 1: And then you start to compare. I think, oh, something's
41:41
Speaker 1: not working here because We're not like Susie and Bob
41:44
Speaker 1: over there, who are so happy all the time.
41:46
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And so really my feeling the only the
41:50
Speaker 2: only relationship over which you really have control is the
41:55
Speaker 2: relationship you have with yourself. And so to say I'm
42:01
Speaker 2: going to welcome myself, I'm going to subject myself to
42:08
Speaker 2: the things that I think are important or matter. That
42:11
Speaker 2: might be a health regime that you make yourself stick to,
42:16
Speaker 2: just taking care of your body. It can be saying
42:21
Speaker 2: I want to feed appetites in me that matter. I
42:24
Speaker 2: want to feed an appetite for eternal things for the
42:30
Speaker 2: part of life I can't see my spiritual wellbeing. You know,
42:35
Speaker 2: to me, I grew up in a church going family.
42:39
Speaker 2: Sometimes feeding that part of my life is not necessarily
42:43
Speaker 2: sitting in church. Sometimes it's standing in the woods, very quiet.
42:51
Speaker 2: And so but it's going, what is that? How does
42:54
Speaker 2: all this work? Okay? So, but although you know, it's
42:57
Speaker 2: like going, what matters to me? And I want to
43:00
Speaker 2: feed the things that I want to grow. And then
43:04
Speaker 2: as you sort of developed those understanding how you're wired
43:08
Speaker 2: and what matters to you and all that, then then
43:13
Speaker 2: you're free to invite somebody else in and say, would
43:18
Speaker 2: you like to life with me?
43:19
Speaker 1: Would you like to do that alongside me?
43:22
Speaker 2: Yeah? You know, my fifties and sixties are my favorite
43:26
Speaker 2: decades so far. Same And really it's just having enough
43:31
Speaker 2: margin of time and experience that you can sort of
43:35
Speaker 2: look back and go, oh, oh, my gosh, that was
43:39
Speaker 2: Why didn't I see that all along? Why didn't I
43:43
Speaker 2: see that all this? When I would go through this
43:47
Speaker 2: period of real unsettleness, I was like, ah, and I'm
43:51
Speaker 2: just like looking at the other person, and then I go, now,
43:57
Speaker 2: I have lived enough of life to know that that
44:00
Speaker 2: unsettleness within me was it wasn't a reason to blame
44:05
Speaker 2: shift it was going that actually was a like note
44:11
Speaker 2: to self. You're ready to make a change, whatever that is.
44:15
Speaker 2: You're ready to face something from your childhood. You're ready
44:18
Speaker 2: to choose some different way to use your time. You're
44:24
Speaker 2: ready to draw, to learn to say no to something.
44:28
Speaker 2: But you know, all that unsettledness when you're younger, you're
44:32
Speaker 2: just you're just trying to shift it onto other people.
44:35
Speaker 2: If you'd be different, I'd feel better. And that is
44:38
Speaker 2: that's just part of being young. And then you get
44:41
Speaker 2: older and you go oh, no, no, no, welcome that
44:43
Speaker 2: on suddenness because it means you're ready, You're ready to
44:47
Speaker 2: take another step in deepening your understanding of yourself, and
44:52
Speaker 2: it usually means you're ready to actually do something pretty
44:56
Speaker 2: substantial in your own life that's I'm gonna actually sort
45:02
Speaker 2: of incidentally benefit the people around you.
45:04
Speaker 1: Thank you for being so open and kind, Amy, I
45:07
Speaker 1: am just loving our time together and Amy has so
45:12
Speaker 1: many universal lessons to share, so we will continue this
45:17
Speaker 1: conversation very soon. Stay tuned for part two