Latest / The Bob Lefsetz Podcast / Lucinda Williams

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Lucinda Williams · The Bob Lefsetz Podcast

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsets podcast. My
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: guest today is Lucinda Williams. This year published an autobiography,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Don't Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You, Lucinda. The
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: book came out earlier in the year. What's been the
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: aftermath for you personally?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Well, it's I mean, I've been overwhelmed with great responses
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: and great reviews and everything, mostly people telling me they've
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: read or they've listened to the audio book. A lot
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: of people, a lot of responses about that. The audiobook.
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: People seem to really be responding positively to that, and
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: that makes me feel good.
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: And so you read the audio book yourself? Yes, yeah,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: was that like doing that?
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: It was interesting. I'd never done it before. I Mean,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: the whole experience of writing a book is different than
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: anything I've been through, you know. So, I mean I've
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: written songs, made gone in and recorded albums and you know,
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: done all of that, everything goes along with making an album.
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: But it's there's nothing that compares anything I've done in
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: the past to writing your own book and all the
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: things that go along with that, you know, the editing
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: and the the sending, the you know, writing a piece
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: and then sending it in for the editor to read,
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: and then getting the editors feedback and going back and
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: forth about whether that something should be included or not,
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: and you know that sort of thing.
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: So how did it come about that you actually wrote
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: the book?
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  Speaker 2: Well, for years people have been saying I should write
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: a book, you know, because I guess it's because so
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: many of my songs. I have a handful of narrative songs,
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: and every whenever I perform, I always talk about who
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: I wrote the song about, what I wrote it about,
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: And you know, I go and try to go into
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: as much depth as I can about the songs before
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I sing them when I'm on stage, and the audience
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: seems to really like that and respond well to it.
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: What was the actual process, Well.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: I got an offer from my manager, Tom Overbeek could
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: probably have answer this better.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: But who's also your husband, Let's.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: Say he's awesome my husband, Yes, But anyway, we were
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: approached by you know, a couple of different publishing companies
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: in New York. Of course they're all in New York City,
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: and you know a bunch of meetings were planned where
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: I would go and I would meet with the with
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  Speaker 2: the people at the poshing companies, you know, and they
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: were all very enthusiastic, and you know, we would just
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: talk about what kind of book I wanted to make,
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  Speaker 2: write and see, I said, make like I was making
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: an album, what kind of book I wanted to write.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: And they were very adamant, all every one of them were.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: They were all very adamant about that it be in
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  Speaker 2: my own voice, you know, So that was mainly what
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: they were concerned about.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: So you made the deal, they said what they want.
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: How did you actually write it?
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  Speaker 2: Right? Well, that was the thing. Before I wrote it,
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  Speaker 2: I didn't know how to get started. I mean, I
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: just didn't know what you know, I'm used to when
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: I write songs to getting ready to make an album.
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: You know, I like to be in a certain mood
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: if I'm going to be writing, And this felt more
• 4:14
  Speaker 2: like work, I guess, kind of. You know. I didn't
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: have the luxury of being able to. I used to
• 4:21
  Speaker 2: have this fantasy that if I ever wrote a book,
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: I was going to be you know, like these writers
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  Speaker 2: you hear about you go away to the mountains and
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: live in a cabin for a year, you know, they
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: they have they take a hiatus, you know, to write
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  Speaker 2: the great American novel, and they sit there in their
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  Speaker 2: cabin and drink whiskey or scotch and smoke cigarettes and
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: write their novel. You know, That's what I thought it
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: was always going to be like. But it was anything
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  Speaker 2: but that, you know. I basically grabbed a couple of
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  Speaker 2: legal pass ads, sat down in my favorite chair, which
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: is a good start to be comfortable, and I started writing,
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  Speaker 2: just as if I were telling someone my life story.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: You know. I put everything in order, but I didn't
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  Speaker 2: want it to sound like Okay, I was born in
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  Speaker 2: late Charles, Louisiana, and then I went to this town
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: and then I went to you know, I wanted it
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  Speaker 2: to be well written, and that's what I was mostly
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: concerned about. And I was very concerned that my dad
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  Speaker 2: wasn't alive anymore to kind of oversee my writing, you know,
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  Speaker 2: some because I could. I could have asked him questions
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: and he would have suggested things, and so I felt
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: kind of insecure because he wasn't around anymore, and I
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  Speaker 2: really wanted here's a good example of what it was like.
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  Speaker 2: I was backstage with Roseanna Cash one time at a show.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: We were doing and we were talking about because she
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: had written a book and I was talking about my
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: book and everything, and she suddenly broke the conversation and
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: said with Sinda, you don't have to be James Joyce,
• 6:25
  Speaker 2: and I said, yeah, that's just it. I want to
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: be James Joyce. You know. So I was kind of
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: sort of holding myself back unnecessarily because I wanted to
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: be able to have this well written, you know. I
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: wanted the New York Times to like it and everything
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  Speaker 2: and really want what it really was was. I wanted
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  Speaker 2: my dad to like it. And I wanted all of
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: his writer all these writers I grew up with who
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: are had this imminent respect for. I wanted them to
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: appreciate it and like it.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you finally get over the hub, you sit
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: in a comfortable chair, you have the legal pads. The
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: hardest part is starting.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had to have a certain kind of pen
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  Speaker 2: that I like.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: What kind of pen is that?
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: See? I knew you were going to ask me a question.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: I wasn't ready for Wait a minute, Okay, I don't
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: have it in front of me. I have to get one.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, irrelevant of the brand name, what's so special
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: about that pen.
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  Speaker 2: I just like the consistency of the ink then.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: It comes out even when you write it, or the
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  Speaker 1: way it looks on the page.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, both okay. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And it's a ballpoint No.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: I don't like ballpoint pens. Never have liked this.
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  Speaker 1: So is it like a regular nib with an ink pen?
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  Speaker 2: Yes, it's a John.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: Sorry, we're gonna get a We're gonna get a verdict
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: here on the pen.
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  Speaker 2: I need that pen that a lot.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: So it's one specific pen and you have to fill
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: it with ink. No, okay, So here we have the
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  Speaker 1: pen from John.
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  Speaker 2: We have the actual pen. Okay, it's called a Precise
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: V seven. I've just done it. Commercial.
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  Speaker 1: Is this You've been your favorite pen for years? How
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: do you stumble on this pen?
• 8:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know. How do you ever stumble on a
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: pen upon a pen? It was just around. I started
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: riding with it and liked it. Amazon carries them, yeah, so.
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: It could be delivered. Are you a big Amazon person?
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I shouldn't be, though, because one time I was
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: shopping on Amazon and Steve Earl. I was backstage at
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: a venue and Steve Earl is there and he's looked
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: over my shoulder. And saw what I was doing, and
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: he said, are you shopping on Amazon? And I said yes,
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  Speaker 2: And he said, oh, I don't go on there. He said,
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  Speaker 2: that man is that's a bad man. He's a bad man,
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  Speaker 2: the guy who runs Amazon.
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  Speaker 1: Well, you know, my opinion is this that I had
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  Speaker 1: too many times I went to the store and they
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: didn't have what I was looking for, whereas I know
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  Speaker 1: they have it on Amazon. I'm not polluting, I'm not
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  Speaker 1: driving in Yeah, it's so convenient some things you can
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  Speaker 1: stop online shopping Amazon, Google. Yeah, but these things are
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  Speaker 1: here forever.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty hard to let go of it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they're coming to my house seeming every day. So
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  Speaker 1: how many times did you start and stop and start
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  Speaker 1: to stop before you found your groove?
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  Speaker 2: I don't know, probably two or three months.
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  Speaker 1: Oh really?
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  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's the other thing. I was talking to
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  Speaker 2: a lot of people about writing a book and read
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  Speaker 2: a lot of other people's autobiographies or biographies before I
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: started mine, you know, see how they wrote theirs. And
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  Speaker 2: a lot of other musicians who had written books offered
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  Speaker 2: to talk with me about it, or if I needed
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  Speaker 2: any help, please give them a call. That that kind
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  Speaker 2: of thing, And and several of them told me how
• 10:53
  Speaker 2: long it took them to write their books, and I
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  Speaker 2: was a I was amazed. Actually. I think Ruis Springsteen
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: said ten years. I think Roseanne Cash said seven years.
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  Speaker 2: You know, so that made me feel better about it.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so how long did it actually take you to
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  Speaker 1: write it?
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  Speaker 2: I think it was two or three years overall, and
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  Speaker 2: which sounds amazing. It's not like I was sitting in
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  Speaker 2: the chair for two or three years without moving. But
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  Speaker 2: it's just more about life getting in the way, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and we had we were still touring and recording. You know,
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  Speaker 2: I was trying to write this book in the middle
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  Speaker 2: of all the other stuff I had to do.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, you said something a few minutes ago about getting
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  Speaker 1: in the mood to make a record. Mm hmm. Tell
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  Speaker 1: me about that.
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  Speaker 2: Well, I meant getting in the mood to write okngs right, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: to record for the record.
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  Speaker 1: Well, okay, let's slow down. Do you say, oh, I
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  Speaker 1: want to make a record, I better write songs, or
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  Speaker 1: you're writing songs, say well, I have enough songs to
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  Speaker 1: make a record.
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  Speaker 2: Usually that's a good question. I prefer it's happened both ways.
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  Speaker 2: But I prefer to just be writing songs and then
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  Speaker 2: have enough to go in and make a record. And
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  Speaker 2: I've done it both ways. I've done it that way
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  Speaker 2: where I'm just writing and I'm not I don't feel
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  Speaker 2: pressured about having to get in the studio by a
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  Speaker 2: certain time. But I've also had that pressure a little bit,
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  Speaker 2: you know, like we have to go in the studio.
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  Speaker 2: We've got to have a record out by next year
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  Speaker 2: or something, so you know, we got to get these songs.
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  Speaker 2: I'd rather just concentrate on the songwriting and you know,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: be able to be spontaneous.
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  Speaker 1: So what does that look like? Are you standing in
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  Speaker 1: the shower to go, oh, man, I got it? I
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: got to go to write this song down.
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  Speaker 2: Sometimes, yeah, I do. I come up with ideas in
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  Speaker 2: this shower quite often, actually, or when I first wake
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: up and I'm in that zone between a sleep and awake,
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: you know, and your brain's in a special kind of place.
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  Speaker 2: I get a lot of times I lay in bed
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  Speaker 2: like that before I actually get up and think I've
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  Speaker 2: got lines running through my head and then I have
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  Speaker 2: to find the voice record on my phone or something
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  Speaker 2: that I've got to get it down right away before
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  Speaker 2: I forget.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, do this. Do the words come with the music
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: or the words come down and then you have the music.
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  Speaker 2: Lately what it's been, the words come and then I
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: add the music. But occasionally it happens both ways. Occasionally
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  Speaker 2: I'll a melody will pop out with some words like
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: maybe a hook line.
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  Speaker 1: Okay, so you could be in the shower, you could
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  Speaker 1: be in the bitter and spontaneous. Do you ever sit
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  Speaker 1: down and say I have to write a song and
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  Speaker 1: start writing a.
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  Speaker 2: Song only if I'm being asked to write a song
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  Speaker 2: for something like a movie or something like that. It's
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: not one of the things I enjoy doing as much.
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  Speaker 2: I call it writing on demand. You know Steve Earl
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: is speaking of Steve. He's great at that. He can
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: just whip up these songs, you know, on demand like
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: that for movies or TV shows or that sort of thing.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: Let's go back to the book. You're very personal in
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: the book. Some of these people are still alive. How
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: did you choose what to reveal and to what degree
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: were you self conscious about telling these truths?
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, when it came to talking about previous
• 15:02
  Speaker 2: romantic partners, obviously I didn't want to start talking about
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: you know, the technical, you know, how it was in
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: bed with this person or something like that. You know,
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: other than that too much alcohol may have been consumed
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: and the night didn't go as well as I'd hoped.
• 15:28
  Speaker 2: I think there's something in there about that with one
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: of the guys.
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: You know, well, there are a lot of guys. I
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: love this song by the Tubes called boy Crazy. Would
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: you say that you became boy crazy?
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: At some point I knew, See this is one of
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: my fears because I had so many guys listed. In
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: every every other page I talk about being smitten with
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: someone and worried that there were too much of that
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: in the book. You know, I'm writing too much about
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: these this guy and that guy and the other and
• 16:09
  Speaker 2: you know, and now sure enough you're asking me about that.
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I was. I was asking you that as more of
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: a personality direction thing. One of the things I thought
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: was great about the book was you talked about your crushes.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: You talked about your relationships in a way that people don't.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not judging you for that, I just think seriously,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: but I'm asking how you judge yourself, not how.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: I well, I just I tried to look at it
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: as as if you know, someone else were writing it
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: and how it I feel, you know. And also I
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: learned a little bit about that by reading some of
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: the other artists books, like Carly Simon's book was Pretty
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: you know, she talked about her relationship with James Taylor,
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: and there are just a couple of things I thought,
• 17:16
  Speaker 2: wow when I read the book, you know, like that
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: might have been a little TMI. You know.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Well, what resonated for me was is said, what kind
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: of guy you like? You would feel a spark and
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: you would be active as opposed to passive.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, well, that's great that you got that impression
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: of me, wow, because I'm so shy.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Actually, well, I can talk about relationships in my life
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: and biggest relationships when I was took action in a
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: way that I would never take action, and I can't
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: sit here and tell you why. You know, it's like
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: all of a sudden, I did something was completely out
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: of character.
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it usually takes a little bit of wine for
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: me to do that.
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: Two of my most serious relationships went on for years
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: that I took action, and I both times I could
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: not replicate that. I don't know what I mean, I
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: you know, I just acted in a way that I
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: never would before.
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's great though.
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: It is great, but as you talk about being a
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: shy person, it's not something you can manufacture. Someone said,
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: go do that. He said, no, no, no, I'm not.
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you got married to Greg Sowders of the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Long Writers, who I certainly know from the publishing world.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you talked about.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Previous relationships of the book. Why did you decide to
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: get married then?
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: Probably because when I you know, when I start the
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: answer out with probably, that means I don't really know.
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Probably because he told me he was my ace and
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: the hole. You know, I'm the guy who's gonna be
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: here for you when all the other ones have left,
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: And I was just ready to hear that, you know, And.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, how hard was it to end it?
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: It was hard? You know. Actually I remember when he
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: moved in with me. The day he moved in with me,
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: I had all kinds of concerns and doubts. And you know,
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: because I was very and I still am very independent,
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: and I like my quiet alone time, especially if I'm
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: going to write. So basically he became a born again Christian.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Oh why you were married?
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: Well, towards the end of it, you.
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Know that's enough to end a relationship.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it was.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: One thing in the book that you mentioned numerous times.
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: Is your OCD your obsessive compulsive disorder? Tell us about that?
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: Oh God, well, it's a real thing, for one thing,
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: because you know, people joke about it a lot. Oh
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: I've got OCD and all of this, but they don't
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: really usually, you know, because if you really have it,
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, it could be a serious thing, get in
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: the way of life. I heard that Bob Dylan had
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: a similar thing that I have, where you had you
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: feel like, you know, you have to wash your hands
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: on a regular basis, which is a good thing. But
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: sometimes I've washed my hands when I don't really have to.
• 21:06
  Speaker 2: I just think, I do you know I don't like
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: to touch door knobs because other people's hands have touched them. God,
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: this is so embarrassing.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: I can't I have OCD too. I saw a special
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: OCD doctor about it. Really helped. Okay, I say, Lucinda,
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: We're gonna go out for a burger. You lock the door,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: can you leave or do you have to check to
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: see if the walk.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: I can leave? Yeah, I don't have that kind.
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: Do you have any hoarding tendencies.
• 21:44
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean, I do save certain things
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: like memorabilia, photographs and that sort of thing, but I
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: don't like clutter. So if i'm I wouldn't be able
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: to be a hoarder because of the clutter.
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's talk about making a record. You say that
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: you like what you want, but let's go one step further.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: Let's just assume you're in complete control. Let's say you're
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: mixing the final track. How hard will you be for
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: you to walk away and say this is the one.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: It wouldn't be hard because I would know that this
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: is the one, you know. But the main thing with
• 22:31
  Speaker 2: in the studio when you say I'm in control, that's
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: exactly it. You know. If I am in control, then
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: I'm able to decide which track is it is you know?
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: Or if this is the track you know, as opposed
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: to debating it with the producer or the engineer because
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: everybody's got their own opinion.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I'm asking something a little bit different. Okay, Let's say
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: that you are alone in the room, you were totally
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: in control. Can you make a decision easily and move
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: on or do you constantly ruminate or on the decision well,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: maybe it could be better, maybe this is a little worse.
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: It's kind of a hard question because I've done both things,
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: and I might do one or the other. But I
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: like to think that, yes, I would be able to
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: make a decision and walk away.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, because that's a classic OCD thing. Yeah, so you
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: have your washing your hands, you have touching the doorknob.
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: What else would you classify as your OCD?
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: That's it? I mean, you know what I other people
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: consider OCD. I might not like I like things in order.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: I like things to be organized. I probably got that
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: from my dad because he was like that, you know,
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: I don't like clutter. I don't think that's OCD though.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: That's just Okay, we're having dinner. We're having dinner, but
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: we're just talking. The silverware is laid out, and you
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: notice that my silverware is askew. Are you going to
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: reach over and straighten it?
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: Yes?
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: And do you ever get in OCD loops and are
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: tortured by it?
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: And what do you do to get out of the loop?
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: If anything?
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Well, hand sanitizer has been a game changer because then
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: I don't necessarily have to find water and soap to
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: wash my hands. I can just put you know, sprint,
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: some hand sanitizer on, and then I'm good to go.
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: So it saves a lot of time. But I need
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: to have one of those with me all the time.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: It's like my little drug or my little you know,
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: kind of it calms me down.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: But let's say you're home alone, you're not going anywhere,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: and you wash your hands. How long will it take
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: you to wash your hands?
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: Oh? You probably read that book Boy who Couldn't Stop washing.
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm certainly aware of this, and I have my
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: own issues. That's why I'm asking.
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just a normal time, you know. I mean, I
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: prefer that the water is hot as opposed to cold.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: But even if there's no hot water, I just wash
• 25:31
  Speaker 2: my hands and go about my day.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Okay. So you have this itinerant lifestyle. Once you hit
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: your late teams and you don't have great commercial success
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: for the better part of twenty years, and you're working,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: as you say, a lot of low level jobs. You're
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: working in record stores, et cetera. How did you keep
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: your mood up?
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Antidepressants? Probably just you know, the group of people I
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: associated with were fairly up people, and you know, I
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: tried to surround myself with positive people for the most part.
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: Do you take it or did you take antidepressants?
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I did, and I do.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: What was the space in between? You were off antidepressants
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: for a while.
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well it took a while before I started taking
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: them because you know, I didn't have anyone prescribe them.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: I mean, it took a while to find, you know,
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: the right doctor to talk to about it and everything.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: But one of them is supposed to target OCD, supposed
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: to help with that.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: So which one is that?
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: Effects or is?
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Okay? Yeah, I know what effects her is.
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's supposed to help with that.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: And you take something along with effects.
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: Or well, I'm kind of confused right now. That's what
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: I'm talking to the Dodger about, is whether affectser is
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: working on its own or if we need to, you know,
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: add something else or take something else instead. You have
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: to try out a few different ones to see which
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: one works better. It sounds like you know this already.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah I do, but I know my story. I'm
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: getting your story. So you know, there's benefits to antidepressants,
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: but I've never taken a drug without side effects. So
• 27:56
  Speaker 1: do you find the antidepressants negative affect you in any way,
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: creatively or in other ways.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: No, it's I've just felt the positive effects which have
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: been just lifting me out of this black I used
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: to call it a black cloud. You know that kind
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: of settles over you and you know, just or having
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: a sense of well being.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: Was this something you felt from a young age.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: I've probably had problems with that at a young age,
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: but just didn't recognize didn't know what it was, you know,
• 28:43
  Speaker 2: just I probably looked at it more as mood swings,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: you know, that sort of thing.
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: Were you ever in existential despair? Like maybe obviously you
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: didn't commit suicide because you're still here, But was that
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: something you say like, man, I just can't take it anymore.
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: I felt like, man, I can't take it anymore. But
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: that was as far as it when it was that thought.
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: We've all felt that way.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: I certainly think so. You know, it's hard to get
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: an honest take from somebody. Let's switch gears to the beginning.
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: You're born in Louisiana, your father ends up working in Arkansas.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: What the people from the north not get about those
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: states in the South.
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: Thank you for asking that. That's the million dollar question. Well,
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: what they don't get is that we're not all backwards.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: We're not all lazy or stupid or uneducated. We're not
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: all races, okay, And I mean I was doing this
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: kind of goes along with what you're at. I was
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: doing an event one time where I was being interviewed
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: in front of an audience, and I played some songs
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: and then the interview is done as part of the performance,
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: and then the audience was allowed to ask me questions afterwards.
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: And this woman leaned over and very seriously she asked.
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: She said, you know, I would really love to travel
• 30:30
  Speaker 2: down south sometime. But she said, what I really want
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: to know is is it safe? Right? I mean that
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: was of serious. That was you know, is it safe? Well,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: you know that answers your question right there.
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: Well, I lived with a woman for years who was
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: from Tallahassee, which certainly you can go back a couple
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: of decades was more Georgia than South, and there were
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: certain certain things who were defined. She would say, you know,
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: it's getting cold in here. It took me a long
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: time race that man raised the window. We're in the north.
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: We would say, can you raise the window? But there
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: would always be these little kids surround that you got
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: to pick up them.
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: That's funny.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: And her father was extremely successful financially and ran in
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: that crowd and drinking was part of the culture. It
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: was not a class thing whatsoever.
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: No, No, that's not a class thing because I grew
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: up with around all our of riders and they can
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: certainly drink, they know how to drink. Yeah, I learned
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: how to drink probably, you know, hanging around in that crowd.
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: And to what degree were you and still a consumer
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: of alcohol?
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: Not anymore than socially, you know, So you don't have.
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: An addictive personality?
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: No, well I don't know. Maybe I do, but but
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: I didn't get addicted to anything.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: So we're the exact same age. You're growing up in
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: Louisiana in the fifties and early sixties. What is it like?
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: You say your family didn't have that much money, but
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: you weren't aware of it. Were you into the modern
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: music where you're listening to the Beach Boys in the
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: Four Seasons where you're watching my three sons? What was
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: everyday life like?
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, we all wanted it to be like
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: leave it to Beaver, but it was not Leave it
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: to beaver. You know, there was no mom in a
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: nice dress, wearing heels, fitzing dinner and that sort of thing.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: You know, it was a little it could be a
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: little chaotic at times. You know. There was my dad,
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: who was a poet and a college professor, not making
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: that much money, married to a woman who had was
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: dealing with mental illness a lot, and then three kids,
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: you know, running around. I don't know how he did it.
• 33:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, he would still be writing. I remember looking
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: seeing him sitting in a corner of the in the
• 33:37
  Speaker 2: living room with his head bent down over a padded paper.
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: You know. He was either reading or writing all the time.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: So he could tune out the chaos.
• 33:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, he could tune out the chaos. And I
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: wish I'd learned how to do that.
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: So you're someone who needs your own space, can't be interrupted.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, But my dad, at the same time, he was
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: very we really bonded from an early age, and he
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: was there for me, you know, when my mother might
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: have just not been able to deal with things on
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: any given day, and my dad was always there. You know,
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: he was very he stayed very aware, and he was
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: very open minded and you know, very intelligent and understood
• 34:38
  Speaker 2: what was going on. You know. He was very empathetic
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: towards my mother is the thing. So you know, we
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: didn't go up with this feeling of you know, he
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: always said to the kids I had, there were three
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: of us, I was the oldest. He always said to us,
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: her fault. She can't help it, she's not well, you know,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: so we had somewhere to put it.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Did your parents ultimately break up because your father met
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: someone new or it was time?
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: That's a good question, because he did meet someone new,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: but I think that was after they were already broken up.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: I think it was because it was time.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: And how hard was that for him.
• 35:38
  Speaker 2: I don't remember it being, you know, really heavy and
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: traumatic or anything. As a kid, I remember feeling almost relieved,
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: you know, because there have been so much yelling and
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: fighting and all of that that I think I was
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: kind of relieved that that would be over with, you know,
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: we wouldn't have to listen to the arguing all the time.
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: So your mother moves out. How much contact do you
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: have with your mother then?
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: Quite a bit. She lived in New Orleans. After that,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: she stayed, she loved it. She was from Louisiana, originally,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: and her family was all there. So she lived in
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: New Orleans and I would go visit her from time
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: to time and stay at her apartment, and you know,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: we were close. You know, it was a challenging relationship
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: and difficult at times, but you know I loved her
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: and I knew she loved me, and you know, there
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: wasn't any acting out or anything on her part with me.
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: She saved that for my dad.
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: So when she moved out, she lived far away, New Orleans.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: And how often we were in Baton Rouge? Okay, the
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: university LSU Louisiana State University is located there, and that's
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: when my dad was teaching, So we were living there,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: and she lived in New Orleans, which is right next
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: to Baton Rouge. It's an easy drive.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: And how often would you see her, I don't know,
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: probably once a month or something. And how often would
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: you talk to her?
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: Maybe once a week, It's hard to remember.
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: And when you interacted with her, did you end up
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: being the parent.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Sometimes? Yeah? I know all about that stuff.
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: Okay, So your father brings home one of his students
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: who is not even half a generation older than you are,
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: and you're just hitting puberty yourself. How'd you cope with that?
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: And could you ever accept it?
• 38:13
  Speaker 2: It was difficult. I didn't. I tried to cope with it,
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: but again, it was one of those kind of strained
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: relationships where you know, I've wanted it to be a
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: certain way, but it was you know, you can't really
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: take those things and force them into a certain place,
• 38:34
  Speaker 2: you know. I think she was trying really hard, maybe
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: too hard, to you know, fill this certain role, and
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: I think I felt I remember feeling a little intimidated,
• 38:50
  Speaker 2: a little shy around her, you know.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: And then as a young person in your living in Chile,
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: what's it like being an American living in Chile in
• 39:05
  Speaker 1: a you know, a pre you know, modern technology era.
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, we had a stereo system and I had
• 39:15
  Speaker 2: Beatles albums. I was able to get a hold of
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: him somehow or another and was listening to those NonStop.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: And there was a chile and folks sing were by
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: the name of Violeta Potta, who I discovered while I
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: was living there, who I just absolutely loved, and she
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: was kind of like the John Bayez of Chile. My
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: dad was friends with. Her brother was the poet nikon
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: Or PoTA, who my dad was, became close friends with
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: and that's how I discovered VIOLETA. Potter.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: Let's go back, how did you discover the Beatles?
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: Are we hearing them on the radio and falling in
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: love with the songs and eventually, you know, getting the
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: albums and or the singles?
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: Were you definitely a Beatles girl as opposed to the
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Rolling Stones?
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I was a Beatles girl and then I was
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: a Rolling Stones squirl. I mean it sort of happened
• 40:22
  Speaker 2: at the same time, you know, But I loved the
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Rolling Stones, loved and loved them.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: Okay, So if you were in high school, how would
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: you be described? What kind of person?
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Creative? Friendly, cute?
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: Well? Were you one of those people they say, well,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: she's hip and cool, but she's hangs with the yard crowd,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: or she hangs with us, she's one of us, or
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: she's you know, two cool, she's hanging with the cheerleaders.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: Where were you?
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: No, God, I was not with the cheerleaders. I was
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: not with the with the gym crowd. You know. The
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: working out I failed. I got zero's in Jim. I
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: hated it. I tried to be on the girls softball
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: team and that failed. Miserably because they were so competitive
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: and so mean spirited. I didn't like mean spirited people.
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: I actually had a lot of guys as friends and
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: I would hang out with them a lot.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: Are you physically active, No, you had a stroke, But
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: before and after that, are you physically active?
• 41:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Right now I'm working out with the trainer and
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: lifting weights in the gym. It's a combination. I'm working
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: with somebody who's a physical fitness trainer as well as
• 41:58
  Speaker 2: a physical therapist.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: Okay, so what point do you pick up the guitar?
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: When I was twelve ninety sixty five, which is the
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: height of the folk music boom, which I was really into.
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: And tell me about moving to Mexico.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was my dad received a grant to go
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: teach in Mexico for a year and live there or
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: for a year. That's a lot of the reasons we
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: were in other countries was he would receive these, you know,
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: visiting professorship grants. I'm not sure what they were called,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: but some kind of grant to go live in another
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: country and teach there, work there for the time he
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: was there.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: And do you speak fluent Spanish?
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: I can get by. I wouldn't say it was fluid,
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: but you know, because I forget a lot of my verbs.
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: If I lived somewhere for a while right now where
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: I had to speak Spanish all the time, I would
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: probably it would improve.
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: Okay, So you get a guitar. Is it a nylon
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: string wide necked folk guitar? Is it a narrow string
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: steel guitar?
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: It's a it's an acoustic, but just a regular steel
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: string acoustic guitar from what I understand, from what I remember,
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: one of my dad's writing friends, his name was Bill Harrison.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: He wrote a book called Rollerball, which was made into
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: a movie, and another book called Pretty Baby, which was
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: made into a movie also, And he was a really
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: close old friend of my dad's. And from what I understand,
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: he had left a guitar. He had this old broken
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: guitar that he left at the house one day and
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: I picked it up and just you know, looked at
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: it and tried to play it a little. My dad
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: saw me have an interest in it and he bought
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: me a Dad ended up buying me a silver tone
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: guitar from Sears and Roebuck. That was my first guitar.
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: And how did you learn how to play it.
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: Well, I got dad got me this guy to come
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: over once a week who taught guitar lessons, and he
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: was he had a rock band in town, and he
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: was also a creative writing student. So he had been
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: he had been at some of my dad's classes, and
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: I guess they had been talking, and you know, he said, well,
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: I give guitar lesson. So, you know, my dad arrange
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: for her to come over the house once a week
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: and sit with me and give me guitar lessons. And
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: it took okay.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: So in the mid to late sixties, someone would play
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: the guitar. You would go to somebody's house and everybody
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: would sit there and would sing. Were you the person
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: who would bring the guitar and sing?
• 45:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I was the person who would bring. Or they
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: would come over our house and we'd be sitting around
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: in the living room. My dad would lean over to
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: me and say, honey, why don't you go get your
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: guitar and come sing a couple of songs. He was
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: real proud of me, and I guess he kind of
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: liked to show me off a little bit. And I
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: would go and get my guitar. You know, it would
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: be in another room of the house, and so I'd
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: go get it and come back, and so I had
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: a What that meant was that my first audience was
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: comprised of these brilliant minds, you know, these writers who
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: knew everything there was to know about literature and writing,
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: and they're listening to me, and you know, I mean
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: I was still developing, trying to find my voice. And
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: what I remember at the very beginning was, you know,
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: people coming over to me and saying, kind of patting
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: my shoulder, is saying, you know, telling me I had soul,
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: which basically meant I wasn't there yet, but keep going
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: because there was something there. You know, they could hear
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: something in there, even though I hadn't perfected it yet.
• 47:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, I certainly wasn't joined by Azer Judy Collins.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: What's the difference between Louisiana and Arkansas, Baton Rouge and Fayetteville.
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: That is such a good question. I wish more people
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: would ask questions like that, because you know, a lot
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: of people think the South is it's all the same
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: in the South, and that's so not true. It's probably
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: similar to like I want I might ask or wonder,
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: what's the difference between Maryland and Connecticut or something like that.
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: You know, well, the food would be, you know, the
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: food that was the history of food that you know.
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: I mean, these are modern times now, so you might
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: not find this true now, but like back in the
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: fifties and sixties, you could probably find more of a
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: difference between the states. But I mean that's true everywhere.
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: I think. Now, you know, things have become more homogenized,
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: and you know, like the strip malls across America and
• 48:21
  Speaker 2: that sort of thing. Those have taken over. So now
• 48:25
  Speaker 2: you can't tell the difference as much. But back when
• 48:29
  Speaker 2: you had the mom and pop stores and the mom
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: and pop cafes and restaurants, that's when you would be
• 48:36
  Speaker 2: able to tell the difference more. Probably like Louisiana, you
• 48:40
  Speaker 2: would find more seafood and shell fish dishes that kind
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: of thing. You know. Well, it's because of the Cajun influence,
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: the Creole influence.
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: And what was Faydeville like, And.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: It was a beautiful, almost ideal with little town sitting
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: in the Ozarks, an incredibly beautiful area the Ozark Mountains,
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: you know, and the campus was a beautiful campus, very
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: progressive town. Like if you were going to live in Arkansas,
• 49:24
  Speaker 2: you would want to live in Fayetteville, probably because politically
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: it was more progressive than the rest of the state.
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: You know, Bill Clinton was from Arkansas and he and
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: my dad got to be friends.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: When did they become friends winning Bill's.
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: Career, well, probably during the time I think when he
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: was governor and at a certain point then during that
• 49:52
  Speaker 2: time and and you know, there have been some really
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: talented famous people from Arkansas at Glenn Campbell and the
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: people there are just really cool, friendly. It seems to
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: be a creative bunch. But that might be because I was,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: you know, we were my dad was at the university there,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: and it was a college town, and you know, like
• 50:34
  Speaker 2: most college towns, there are a lot of progressive people
• 50:39
  Speaker 2: living there or working at the university or students going
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: to school there. You know, so lots of pot smoking,
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: lots of the seventies was a pretty really creative time
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: to be there. There are a lot of hippies people
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: moving there because they could get land pretty cheaply, and
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: you know, these the hippie tots would be moving there
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: and building these little cabins out in the country and
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: that sort of thing.
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: You keep on talking about your father's friends. Was he
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: the type of person who was collecting friends in the
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: center of the universe, always had an entourage. What was
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: that going on?
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: Yes, he loved he loved to do that. Yeah.
• 51:33
  Speaker 1: And what was the food like back in the day
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: in Arkansas as opposed to Louisiana.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: It was probably more well, of course, depending on where
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: you went, but the native food would have been, you know,
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: like country cooking, you know, tam bashed potatoes, black eyed peas,
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: that sort of thing.
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're in an era, you're a little young, but
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: this is when all the racial stuff is happening in
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: the South. A lot is happening in Mississippi. Yeah, there's
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: a lot happening in Memphis, was just over the river
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: from Arkansas. What was your experience with racial unrest and
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: the quest for equal rights for all?
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean I remember it being just part
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: of the culture. There was a white's only sign. I
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: remember as when I was in high school. I'd seen
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: it somewhere on the outside of a shop. It said
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: whites only, or you know, you would see that from
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: time to time. And my boyfriend and I jumped at
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: our bicules and rode over there was spray spray painted
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: over it. And my high school was I was very
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: active as a teenager protest movements and marches and demonstrations
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: and all of that. I jumped into all of that
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: with great fervor. And my high school. A couple of
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: times I showed up at school and the kids would
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: be marching around the school as a protest. It was
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: almost like the union or it was almost like a
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: picket line where you didn't want to cross through, you know.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Okay. I was living in Connecticut at that particular time,
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: and there was a lot big social movement. We were protesting,
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: and there were people on the other side, but we
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: get the impression as you went down South, the people
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: on the other side had more fervor, were more pissed
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: about the people who were progressive. Is that true?
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: You mean the people who are the racist people?
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Well, yeah, the people who didn't like you protesting.
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: Oh you mean racist rednecks in the South. Yes, go
• 54:23
  Speaker 2: ahead and say it, go ahead and say that's okay.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: So what was it like being you know, you're a
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: big liberal protesting against the war and for women's rights, etc.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: What are the racist rednecks have to say about that?
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: They weren't real happy, just like you said. I think
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: that was a global issue, you know, at the time.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: So you moved to Mexico with your father, and you
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: don't go to school, no.
• 54:57
  Speaker 2: Because I couldn't. I'd been keep out of school for
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: being involved in these demonstrations in Marshes and as a
• 55:08
  Speaker 2: form of protest. One morning in school, I refused to
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: save the pledge of allegiance because we're in Vietnam, and
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: I was kicked. They added that to my suspension and
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: I went home and my dad said, that's okay, honey,
• 55:26
  Speaker 2: We'll get you an ACLU lawyer, you know, and he did,
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: and it proved to be unconstitutional. So I got let
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: back in school. But because i'd been suspended or expelled,
• 55:40
  Speaker 2: I didn't have my pay proper paperwork to be able
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: to get into school in Mexico. So I was just
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: out of school the entire year that I would have
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: been a senior in high school. And I just read.
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: I became a voracious reader, and you know, listen to
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: my records and play guitar and learned songs and I
• 56:07
  Speaker 2: was very productive actually during that year out of school.
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: So are you still a big reader today?
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: Probably? Not as much, because I had so much more
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: free time back then than I do now. It's usually
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: now a toss up between reading or working on a song.
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: Okay, you're in Mexico. This is when you first start
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: to play out. Yeah, how did that happen?
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: Well, that was me sitting in the living room performing
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: with There was a friend of the families who his
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: name was Clark Jones, who we'd met in Arkansas, or
• 56:49
  Speaker 2: meeting in New Orleans when we were living there, and
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: I think he was a friend of my mother's in
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: the beginning. And he was a folk, a bonafide folk,
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: and he's sort of reminded me of somebody like Pete Seeger.
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: He could play multiple instruments, guitar, ukulele, auto harp, and
• 57:17
  Speaker 2: he knew all these old folk songs, the traditional folk songs,
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: and so we would sit around and play music in
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: the house. And he came to visit us in Mexico
• 57:29
  Speaker 2: and we were performing in the living room for friends
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: of the families, friends of my dad's. One of the
• 57:36
  Speaker 2: guys who was over at the house at night worked
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: for the State Department, and Clark and I sat and
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: sang some songs and the State department. Guy said to
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: my dad, Wow, this sounds pretty they sound pretty good.
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: What if we I've got an idea, why don't we?
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: Min Or and I try to get set up some
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: shows for them to perform around Mexico at different schools
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: and places. And he figured it would be a good
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: you know, like an ambassadorship kind of, you know, a
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: good way to improved the relationship between the United States
• 58:26
  Speaker 2: and Mexico. And so that's what we did. So Clark
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: drove his little car and I sat in the front seat,
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: and we stayed in motels and roadside ends and you know,
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: and did these shows as a duo Clark Jones. They
• 58:48
  Speaker 2: called me Cindy Williams back then, and the Mexican audience
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: just loved it. They just ate it up. We did
• 58:57
  Speaker 2: Bob Dylan songs at Peter Paul and Mary and I
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: wasn't really riding at that time.
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: And you were living in Mexico where you're smoking dope.
• 59:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I used to help meet with these kids in
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: the park not too far from our house, and these
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: Mexican hippie kids smoke pot and they would always try
• 59:22
  Speaker 2: to get me to go to Wahaka for the mushrooms,
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: you know, they would say, come on, Tony was you know,
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: we have to go to Wahaca for the mushrooms. And
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: there was this one guy who I was attracted to,
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: and he kept saying he wanted to tenero sexel qiero sexel,
• 59:49
  Speaker 2: I want to have sex. And you know, I knew
• 59:53
  Speaker 2: what that meant at the time, but it wasn't going
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: to happen. And my dad found out I was smoking
• 59:59
  Speaker 2: pot in the park and he got upset, not because
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: of the pot, but he said, you know, I could
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 2: get deported and lose my job and it would just
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 2: mess everything up. And he was more comfortable with me
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: staying at home doing these things, you know, drinking and
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 2: smoking pot or whatever.
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: You come back from Mexico, you finish high school, you
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: go to college for like ten minutes, and you drop out.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: In the book you say that your father says, it's okay.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: I mean, on the surface, your father's an academic. Both
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: your parents are college graduates. What do they say about
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: their oldest daughter says no way.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, my dad was very patient and empathetic when
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: it came to grades. When I was in high school,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: for instance, I didn't do well in math I did.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: I did well in languages. Not good with numbers, good
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: with language, you know. And he was saying, well, that's okay.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 2: As long as I was good in certain things, as
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: long as I was thriving in certain subjects, he was okay.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: He didn't expect me to be one hundred percent with everything,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: and he just he understood. He just got things, he understood.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: That's why one reason I loved it and looked up
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: to him so much. This I'm not sure about. I'm
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: not sure when you were talking about when I went
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: to college for ten minutes.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean it sounds like from one of the
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: book that you went for like a semester and then
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: you went dropped out, went to New Orleans.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: Something like that. Yeah. I went for about a year
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: to the University of Arkansas, and then at mid semester,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 2: I went and visited my mother in New Orleans, and
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 2: I was offered this job and a little little place
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: called Andy's on Bourbon Street. And that was when I
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: called my dad and I was supposed to go back
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: to school in the fall. This would have been in
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: the summer, but I wanted to stay in New Orleans
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: and play music at this little place for tips instead
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: of going back to school. And he said, okay, he
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: just got it. He understood because he was an artist also,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: he was a poet.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: When did you have the inspiration that you would be
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: a professional musician, that you wanted to be an artist?
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well there was the time when I wanted to
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: be the feeling of I want to do this, and
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 2: then there was I'm actually going to make this happen
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 2: or this is actually going to happen. You know, those
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: were two different times.
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: Well, tell me about those two times.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 2: Well, the first time was when I was twelve or
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 2: twelve and a half and I heard Highway sixty one
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: were visited for the first time, which was also the
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 2: first time I heard Bob Dylan, and it, you know,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: just rearranged my brain cells. I didn't understand all the
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: lyrics at the time, but it didn't matter. You know.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 2: It had an effect on me in a big way,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 2: and I decided at that point that I wanted to
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: be able to write songs like that and do what
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: he was doing. And what I saw him doing was
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 2: taking basically taking something like poetry and setting it to
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: folk rock music. And I just the comment of those
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: two things just completely blew my mind and I understood
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: it on some level, even though it was only twelve,
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 2: but I understood what he was doing artistically musically, and
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: it really appealed to me.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: So that was the inspiration. When did you say this
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: is a direction I'm going to go?
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: That was the same time. That was the inspiration and
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: the direction I wanted to go.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: So when you're in New Orleans playing for tips, what's
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: going through your mind in terms of your career?
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: Probably that you know, I was playing performing by myself,
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 2: accompanying myself on guitar that maybe, you know, wouldn't it
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: be great if I had a band like Bob Dylan
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: had or something like that, you know, Or wouldn't it
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 2: be great if people were listening instead of talking in
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: the audience. And then over time, you know, that happened.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 2: I put a band together, and then you know, I
• 1:05:11
  Speaker 2: remember the first time I performed somewhere when people actually
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 2: knew who I was and listened.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 1: And when was that?
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: Probably the eighties, sometime like maybe after that Reugh Trade
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: album came out.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: So that was a long time where they weren't listening. Yeah,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: tell us about making the two Folk wse albums.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, those were that was almost a well. I remember
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 2: there was a friend of mine who had met in
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 2: New Orleans by the name of Jeff Ampulsk, and he
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: had recorded an album. He was a singer songwriter, you know,
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: not known or anything. He was just getting started and
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: he had made an album for Folkways, and he and
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: I were talking on the phone one day. I was
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 2: at my dad's house in Fayetteville and Jeff and I
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: were on the phone and he said, you know, you
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 2: could probably make a record for folk Ways. And I said, really,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 2: you think so? And he said, yeah, I just send
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: him a cassette tape and I bet they'll like it
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: and they'll make a record with you. And I said okay.
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: So he gave me their information and I made a
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: little cassette tape of songs and sent it to Moe
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 2: Ash at folk Ways Records, and sure enough they sent
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 2: me back a one page contract and a check for
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty dollars, and I managed to, with
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 2: the help of some friends, managed to scrape together some
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 2: studio time at Malaco Studios in Jackson, Mississippi. Because my
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: dad had a close friend who had connects there. He
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: helped make that happen. So I went down there and
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: recorded my first album, which was called Rambling on my Mind.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: After that Bob d I mean after that Robert Johnson's song,
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: and I went in one afternoon just with another guy
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: named John Grimauda who is from Houston, Texas. He played
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: really good blues guitar and he played he accompanied me
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: on on the songs.
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: So you have finished the tape, you sent it to
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: folk Way's Records. If you went to your local record store,
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: did they have it.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: Well, eventually they did. You know, if they carried records
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: like that, yeah, they would have it. The independent record
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 2: stores would have it usually.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 1: Well, did you feel any buzz from having made that record.
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 2: Just locally? You know, maybe locally and regionally around you
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 2: know where I was, where I would be playing live.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 2: Eventually I moved to Austin, Texas, and I lived in
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 2: Austin and Houston for a number of years, and that's
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 2: where I would have felt that little buzz, just on
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 2: that level.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: So you go to New York. You have these two guys,
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: they put up money for a demo. No one wants
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: to make a record with you, and you know, do
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: you ever think man, I'm gonna hang it up.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 2: It crossed my mind, but I didn't want to. I
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: just I don't know. I guess I was, well, I
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 2: see expression fool hardy and something fancy free and fool
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: hardy or something, you know. I just I felt like
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 2: it was going to happen at some point because I
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 2: had all these people around me encouraging me a lot,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 2: and that kept me going.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: Meanwhile, you're working minimum wage jobs. Yeah, minimum wage jobs
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: are not that fun.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 2: No, But you know, every other musician I knew was
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 2: working those kind of jobs, and it just came with
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: the you know, it's part of the package. That's just
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 2: what you have to do.
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: So you weren't saying I'd like to have a house
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 1: a new car. You were saying, this is what I'm doing.
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I was probably thinking that in the
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: back of my mind.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: And then tell us about moving to La.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I had some close friends who were real supportive
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: of me and my music, and one of them was
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: trying to become a manager in the music business. See,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 2: he actually ended up working with me for a little
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 2: bit and he encouraged me to come out there. You know,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: I think I just went initially went out there to play.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: He helped set up a gig for me out there,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 2: But in the back of my mind, I think I
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: was thinking I was probably gonna stay. I didn't know
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: for sure, but I went out there and I actually
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: liked it a lot. I like the people on that
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 2: I like the weather. Of course, everybody says that it's true,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: but the music scene was really viable and exciting. I
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 2: felt like there are a lot of great artists playing
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: around the city at that time, like Dave Alvin and
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: the Blasters, and you know, the local music scene was
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: just fabulous at that time in Houston, and it was
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: very eclectic. You know, there were these different kinds of
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 2: music that were blending together, and bands like The Lonesome
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 2: Strangers who played a hybrid of you know, a hybrid
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 2: version of country and punk. They used to call it cowpunk.
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: You know. It's kind of like country music sped up
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 2: real fast, and I would open shows for those guys sometimes,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 2: and you know, Rosie Flores was getting going, you know,
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 2: she was creating a pretty good buzz, and Dwight Yoakum
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: was getting ready to hit really big at that time,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 2: and then there were all these other like on the
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 2: fringe kind of rock bands like Grin on Red and
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 2: Blood on the Saddle, and they were kind of pump
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 2: based roots like roots of music mixed with punk kind
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 2: of well punk Israeli roots music initially. But you know,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 2: so that was going on a lot back then, So
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: there was an openness happening in that scene that it
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 2: really appealed to me, and a lot of places to play.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, just to be clear, you said, you said, you
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: mean lost. This is all happening in Los Angeles. But
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: the late seventies early eighties, there's a ton of bands,
• 1:12:29
  Speaker 1: all the acts you mentioned, and there's a thin layer
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: that gets signed and then the others seemed to work
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: for a while and then spread apart, but you don't
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: get a deal, right, How depressing is yeah?
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting because that hybrid
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: thing that I was talking about also could have applied
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 2: to me because I was met sing country with rock,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 2: you know, but or they said, actually I fell on
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 2: the cracks between country and rock, and you know, they
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: didn't know what to.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: Do with that, you know, And you mentioned this in
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: the book that the record company people are full of
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: shit and don't know what's going on. But did you
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 1: ever sit at home and say, I know what they're
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: looking for. I'm going to write a hit, and that'll
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: get my foot in the door.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 2: You know, that's just it, Bob. I didn't know how
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 2: to write a hit. I would love to write a
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 2: hit song if I could figure out how to do it,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: you know. But no, I didn't think that because I
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: was an died in the wool rebel. I think I
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 2: was probably born a rebel.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: Okay, it's seventy years old. Are you still a rebel?
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: Hell?
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Yes?
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 2: Or as they say, hell to the yell?
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: How would that manifest itself at everyday life?
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 2: Oh? God, you probably need to talk to people who
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: live with me. I don't know. I've just you know,
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: the record you have to remember like back then at least,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: and it's still that way, I guess to some degree.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 2: But you know, there was that feeling of them and us.
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: You know, it's like we're the artists. You know, we're
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 2: the creators, we're the magic makers. Those guys are the
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: corporate business makers, and they don't know anything about creativity
• 1:14:34
  Speaker 2: and art and music or anything, you know, record company people,
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 2: you know, they're just it's there was this wall between
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 2: the artists and the record company guys. Which isn't to
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: say that there weren't some really good people in the
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 2: record company business. There were some great ones, and still
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 2: are some good ones, but far and few between. You know,
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: most of them were thinking about the dollar, not how
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: creative something or how good something is creatively.
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: You know, from my perch at this late date, the
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: artists changed. Where the rebel spirit that you embody and
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: was in Texas for a few decades, everybody moved to
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: the center. It's almost like politics. It's like, you know,
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: the mainstream Democrat was let me say, like Nixon would
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: be a Democrat today, which is hard to believe.
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: God, that's a scary thought.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: All the artists, you know, Yeah, they don't want to
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 1: be too edgy, you know, or else there are people
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: with no talent or complaining and that's all thing unto itself.
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because you have to have if you're going to complain,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: you have to have something to bring to the table.
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 2: That's the name of that game. You have to have
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 2: something they want before you can make demands. I figured
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: that out out early on.
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: You know, So you end up making a record for
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 1: rough Trade. Yeah, Now, granted it was a different era
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: back then. Today everything's been blown apart. But everybody who
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: knew what Rough Trade was, which was basically an English company,
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: would say, if you're playing roots to find music, this
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: could be the worst label to ever make a deal with.
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 2: Well you might think that, but they were so much
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 2: more creative based and open minded than any of the
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 2: other labels who were approaching me. You know, most of
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 2: a lot of the labels were who passed on me
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: were major labels, but even the really small other labels
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 2: passed on me, like Rounder Records and Rhino Records, which
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: was signing people at the time, sugar Hill Records, you know,
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: all those small folky, kind of rootsy labels. Except for
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: Rough Trade. They were the only ones who basically approached
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: me and said, we like your voice, we like your songs,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: let's make a record. They'd never seen me perform live before,
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: unlike Rounder Records. You came to see me play at
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: this dive bar in La and Hollywood on the fourth
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: of July or something, and I had a bunch of
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 2: the Longwriders guys sitting in with me. You know, it's
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 2: a drunken, crazy night fourth of July, and they came
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 2: to see me play, and you know, afterwards I talked
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: to him and they said, well, we just don't thinking
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: ready to go on the road yet, you know, because
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: my stage presence with the band wasn't polished enough. Basically
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 2: it's rock and roll, man, Come on, god, what happened
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 2: to that? Like you were saying, you know, would that
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 2: have happened back in the day in the sixties?
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: You know, when well the sixties, the executives woke up
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: and said, we have no fucking idea, and they hired
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: young people the so called my air Quotes label hippie
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 1: and then then there became so much money in the seventies.
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: And then by time this a little bit later, by
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: time you hit the Tommy Mottola era at Sony, you know,
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: the label head start wearing suits and they think they're
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: the stars.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: So, but the Rough Rough Trade album comes out. It
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: is the most successful American act Rough Trade ever has
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: And it's not like it explodes, but it becomes a
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: real cult item, and as years go by, it gets
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: gains even more and more respect. What was it like
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: being the artist in that world?
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 2: It was awesome. It was great. I mean, the reviews
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 2: were coming in the critics loved it. I was getting
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 2: all this publicity and exposure, you know, for the first time.
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 2: And ANDTRA I mean they were just a great little label.
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 2: You know. They were independent though, and they didn't have
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 2: the of course, the financial you know, they just didn't
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 2: have the funds that are bigger label would have, so
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 2: certain things they weren't able to do as well, like
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 2: they didn't have as big of a staff, and they
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 2: had trouble getting the albums shipped to record stores. You know,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 2: the record stores wouldn't order enough albums, you know, they
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 2: just order a few, whereas if you're on Sony Records
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 2: or something like that, you know, the record stores order
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 2: an enormous amount because you know, you're on a big
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 2: label and there's more guarantee they think that it's going
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 2: to sell in the store. You know. So there was
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: there were a few drawbacks like that, but just in
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 2: terms of the heart and spirit of the label, Rough
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 2: Trade was just you know, miles ahead of any of
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 2: those other labels at the time. They sent me to
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 2: Europe on tour. I mean, they really invested quite a
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 2: bit in me.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: Were you making any money or you were famous and broke.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 2: No famous and broke, so.
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: You sign up, sign, you make a deal with Bob
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: Booziak at RCA, he gets squeezed out, then he goes
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: to Chameleon Pritzker's label. And how did you feel about
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: that album coming out?
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I loved Bobbyziak. He was one
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 2: of the good guys, you know, even though he was
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 2: running a big major label RCAA, but he had the
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 2: mentality more of an independent record guy, you know, So
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 2: I felt really good about him, which is basically the
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 2: only He's the only reason I ever went to RCA
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 2: that had real mixed feelings about it, because I was
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 2: on Rough Trade and RCA, you know, jumped in and
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: wanted to sign me. And you know, I didn't want
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 2: to abandon Rough Trade because they had opened the door
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 2: for me when nobody else would. So when that became
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 2: a whole other story. When I went with RCAA. You
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 2: may have heard the story about the A and R guy.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 2: He was appointed to me and when we were we
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: were rehearsing with my band at the time to get
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 2: ready to go in the studio and start the I
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 2: think it was the Sweet Old World album would have
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 2: been the next one, yeah, Yeah, and the A and
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 2: R guy. His name is sorry, I'm gonna say his name,
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: Bob booziakran the label. He was in the no I'm sorry, Yeah,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: Bennett Kaufman was my He was that he had been
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 2: appointed the head of A and R for the entire
• 1:22:19
  Speaker 2: West coast of the United States, you know. And we're
• 1:22:23
  Speaker 2: in this in rehearsal studio going over the songs with
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 2: the band and everything, and we started talking about producers
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: and I mentioned Bob Johnson, at which point he asked,
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 2: who's Bob Johnson? Well, right there, you know, we've got
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: a problem. Who's Bob Johnson? And I said, well, you know,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: he produced Blonde on Blonde And he goes, and I
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 2: swear that I'm serious as a heart attack. He says, oh,
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: Blonde don Blonde? Is that a band? And I feel
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 2: bad when I tell this story in a way because
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: I feel like I just I'm you know, joking at
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 2: his expense.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: But it's very disheartening when they own you.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: It's very disheartening. And I feel stuck and trapped, and
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking, Okay, I've got to work with this guy now,
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: you know. And it was just I was shocked. We
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 2: were all shocked. The guys in the band and I
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 2: just all looked at each other and rolled our eyes, like,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 2: I mean, this guy's credibility went out the window. You know,
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 2: I'm never going to be able to communicate with or
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 2: connect with him.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: So ultimately, you make a deal with Rick Rubin. What's
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 1: your take on Rick Rubin?
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 2: I was a little intimidated by him at the beginning.
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 2: You know, he was a you know, rather large physical presence,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 2: really long wavy hair and a big, long beard. But
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: he had his sweet nature, very good natured, and I
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: could tell that he respected what I was doing musically.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: And you know, who knows what would have happened had
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 2: he actually become the producer of my next album. Look
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 2: what he did for the Beastie Boys. He invited me
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 2: over to his house into the Hollywood Hills, which was
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: massively impressive along just that alone his home there, and
• 1:24:36
  Speaker 2: we sat around in his living room with the stereo
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 2: system and all these records piled up in CDs, and
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 2: he said, I have an album I want to play you,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 2: and it was PJ. Harvey's. It might have been her
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 2: first album, I'm not sure. It was the one that
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 2: The Edge produced. And he's you know, he's this is
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 2: what I have in mind for you kind of that's
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 2: what he told me. I think he got me basically,
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 2: but I think he also saw more possibilities than had
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 2: been explored. Maybe.
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: Okay, even when he does produce you, he's a pretty
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: hands off guy. You go into the studio, you send
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: him cassettes. What did he say?
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: He said, you know, he liked the direction was going in,
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: but he wanted to it needed at a certain point.
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: What started to show up was when we were mixing,
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 2: you know, that's when he wanted to add keyboards or
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: at one point we recorded Drunken Angel, he wanted to
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 2: take one of the verses out because it was too long.
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: Well that was probably because he never explained, you know,
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 2: why is it too long? It was probably too long
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 2: for the radio for airplay, you know, because they had
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 2: this rule about it can't be longer than whatever it is,
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 2: you know, two and a half minutes or something. And
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 2: he wanted me to remove one of the verses, and
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 2: I said, no. See that's the kind of thing. That's
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 2: where the rebel thing comes in. But it's not really
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 2: it'sn't as much a rebel thing as it is an
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 2: artistic decision. I'm not going to take a verse out
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 2: of his song because it needs to be in there.
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 2: It's part of the story, you know. I don't care
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: if it fits on the radio. Fuck the radio, you know.
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 2: I mean, so that was me. So he's saying take
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 2: a verse out. I say no, and you know, he
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 2: said okay. At least at least I can give him
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 2: that he didn't force me or anything.
• 1:27:06
  Speaker 1: Has anybody ever told you what to do when they
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: were right?
• 1:27:13
  Speaker 2: That's a good question too. You're just full of them today,
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: Bob God, I wish I could remember. Yeah, I've guessed.
• 1:27:29
  Speaker 2: Maybe the good example, as close as example as I
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 2: can get to that would be like maybe I wanted
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 2: to do a vocal over on a song and was told,
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 2: you know, you don't need to do this over again.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 2: It's fine, it's great, you're singing your ass off, and
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 2: it was, you know, and then I would try to
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 2: sing it over, you know, But then I realized, yeah,
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 2: they're right, it's done. I don't need to try to
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 2: improve it, you know. But the point WHI is and
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 2: was though that I might maybe I just want to
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 2: try to do it again just for my own satisfaction,
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 2: and that would be the difference between people. When I
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 2: was working at the studio, like when I worked with
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 2: Charlie Sexton on the Essence album. We were working on
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 2: my song Blue and I felt like I could have
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 2: maybe got I could maybe get a better vocal. So
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 2: I wanted to try to sing it again and he said, well,
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 2: I don't think you need to, but if you want
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 2: to go ahead. That was what I wanted someone to say,
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 2: not no, you know, just whatever makes you feel comfortable.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that's one of the shifts. You know,
• 1:28:44
  Speaker 1: after the sixties and the seventies, the record contracts where
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 1: we deliver the album. You have to put it out.
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: Whatever it is. Doesn't mean you have to promote it,
• 1:28:53
  Speaker 1: but you have to put it out. Whereas today everybody
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: at the label thinks they're an expert, when if you're
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: a true artist, you know, it's a different mentality. So
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: you ultimately put out car wheels on a gravel road,
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 1: and that really cements your place in the firmament. Yeah,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: the record is done. Did you know that was going
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: to happen?
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 2: No? I did not know because it was so chaotic
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 2: getting the record. None that you know. I was insecure.
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 2: I wasn't sure about this. I wasn't sure about that.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 2: I was questioning everything. I just hadn't had a whole
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 2: lot of experience in the studio making records. This is
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 2: what you have to remember, you know, So you know,
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 2: I was still to me, it was just still this
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: amazing process and scary process kind of because whatever goes
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 2: down there is permanent, that's it, you know. And however,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: many thousands of people are going to hear this, and
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 2: what if I make a mistake and I can't fix
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 2: it or you know, all these kinds of thoughts are
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 2: running through my head. That's probably my part of my
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 2: OCD thing carried over into the studio.
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: Well, that's why I was asking earlier, you know, whether
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: you could be satisfied or need to redo it all.
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: That's where I was going.
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 2: Well, I would have a hard time when it came
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: to my vocal A lot of times, you know, I
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 2: would think, oh that I had a flat note there.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 2: I've got to fix it. You know, the producer or
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 2: engineer whoever would be saying, no, Lew, it's not flat.
• 1:30:32
  Speaker 2: It's fine. You just think it's flat. I could I
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 2: understand why you might think it's flat, but I remember
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 2: my engineer, Dusty Weakeman, when we're working on car wals.
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 2: At one point he said with Sunday. He says, you
• 1:30:46
  Speaker 2: know the Native American Indians when they would weave a blanket,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 2: they would leave a mistake in the blanket on purpose,
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 2: so it wouldn't be perfect, you know. And he used
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 2: that as an analogy to try to get me to
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 2: understand that the idea of imperfection.
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: Well, there are two things there. I think the imperfections
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: make the records human. And I could talk a number
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: of records the imperfections of what make them great. However,
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: that is classic OCD and is a distorted thought when
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 1: something is okay but you can't settle down with it.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I had that problem in the studio.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: So car Wheels comes out. What's your experience?
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 2: Well, there were a couple of things on't it. I
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 2: didn't like that. I just spread it over, would listen
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 2: to and every time I'd just be oh, I hate that.
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: Every time it would go by, and I didn't think
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 2: it sounded good. And then over time, of course it
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 2: didn't bother me. But I was completely in awe and
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 2: shocked when I won that Grammy for Contemporary Best Contemporary
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 2: Folk Album. I mean, I was completely I was not
• 1:32:12
  Speaker 2: expecting that at all. That blew me out of the water.
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: Okay. I was talking to my psychiatrist earlier today and
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 1: he's older than I am, not a hip guy, and
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: I say, yeah, well today I'm doing this podcast with
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: Louse send to Williams goes, Oh, he knew who you were.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 1: So that showed that you permeate the culture. Did you?
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 1: Did you? Did you start to feel that?
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 2: Over time? I started realizing that, you know, something's happening here.
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 2: You know, people are hearing this record. My name's getting around.
• 1:32:54
  Speaker 2: You know, the critics loved it. I guess I would
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 2: have been called the critics darling. Yeah, you know, so
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 2: I was lucky in that regard.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, you have the success, you win this Grammy. How
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: hard is it to write songs and go to the
• 1:33:15
  Speaker 1: studio next.
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 2: Ooh it was hard Because now I'm thinking about it
• 1:33:23
  Speaker 2: too much. My mind is running away with me, and
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking, Okay, they loved Carwell's for these reasons. But
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 2: these particular songs that are all narrative, are the songs
• 1:33:35
  Speaker 2: that were getting the most attention were narrative songs. Those
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 2: kinds of songs take a lot of work, or these
• 1:33:42
  Speaker 2: particular ones took a lot of work. Songs like Drunken Angel,
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 2: late Charles Pintiola, you know, about specific people with really
• 1:33:53
  Speaker 2: interesting stories behind them, and those are the kind of
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 2: songs I can just whip up, you know. And a
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 2: lot of the songs in Rough Trade were written during
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 2: that down time that I had in silver Lake after
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 2: I'd gotten a development deal with Sony Records, and I
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 2: had time to sit in my apartment silver Lake and
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 2: write songs every day, you know, because I had this
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 2: development deal they've given me, which meant, you know, I
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 2: got to check every month from them. You know, they
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 2: give you the funds to live on for six months
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is, and so you can buy groceries
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 2: and pay your rent, and you know, to spend that
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 2: time writing working on songs, and then you do a
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 2: demo tape at the end of that period, which I
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 2: did for them, and you know, then they decide if
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 2: they're going to give you an actual recording deal or
• 1:34:52
  Speaker 2: not based on the demo tape that you do when
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 2: you have that after you get the development deal. I
• 1:35:00
  Speaker 2: had done that for Sony Records. This guy Ron Oberman
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 2: was the A and R guy who pulled me in there,
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 2: and he was real nice. He was a cool guy.
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 2: But then they passed on me basically after I did
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 2: the demo tape. This is when that country in Rock
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 2: division thing started, because I did that demo tape for
• 1:35:23
  Speaker 2: Sony in LA, and Sony in LA said it was
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 2: too country for rock, so they sent it to Sony
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 2: in Nashville, who said it was too rock for country.
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: In any event, you didn't get a deal. So how
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: did you feel?
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 2: Really disappointed? Because when I first got the development deal,
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 2: I thought, well, this is a done deal. You know,
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 2: they're gonna sign me. I'm going to make a record
• 1:35:49
  Speaker 2: for Sony Records. I'm not going to have to I'm
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 2: going to be able to quit my day jobs, and
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 2: this is gonna be great. And I was on Cloud
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 2: nine and you know, I did the demo tape. Fantastic
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 2: musicians on that demo tape. Some of the guys from
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 2: NRBQ played on it. David Mansfield, the keyboard player from NRBQ,
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 2: was on it, and some other really good people, and
• 1:36:18
  Speaker 2: you know, I just thought there was this whirlwind of
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 2: activity and it felt real positive, and you know then
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 2: when they decided no, because you know, it's that classic
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 2: thing where Ron Oberman was. He wanted to do it,
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 2: but then he had to convince the rest of the label.
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 2: You know, that's where the business, that's where the numbers
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 2: guys come in. You know, well, what is this. We're
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 2: not sure how to market it? You know, then you
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 2: become a product like that. They're trying to market and
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 2: they have these meetings and the men in suits come
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 2: and they start talking numbers. And that's when I decided no.
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's jump forward. We got into this story because
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: you're saying songs like Lake Charles, you can't write in
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: a day, but you have to make another album.
• 1:37:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I managed to come up with the songs.
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 2: But even Sweet O'd World. I remember we went in
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 2: and we cut a bunch of stuff, and I'm you know,
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 2: I was comparing everything to car Wheels already, and I
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 2: was terrified. You know, I said, I felt stuck because
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 2: I felt like, whatever album I make after car Wheels,
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 2: people are gonna compare it to car wheels. It's they're
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 2: either gonna say it sounds the same as car wheels,
• 1:37:43
  Speaker 2: or they're gonna say it's not as good as Car Wheels.
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 2: So I felt like I couldn't win for losing, and
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 2: we cut some stuff for Sweet O'.
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: World and I think we're at Essence now.
• 1:37:57
  Speaker 2: Okay, wait, I'm sorry now the it wasn't Sweet Old
• 1:38:01
  Speaker 2: World right after Carl Willers.
• 1:38:04
  Speaker 1: Sweet Ol'd World was before Car Wheels. Then came Essence.
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 1: Sweet Old World was after the Rough Trade record.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's what I'm thinking that and that was hard.
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 1: To Okay, so you had a hard time following up
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: the Rough Trade record? Yeah, tell me about the hard
• 1:38:22
  Speaker 1: time following up Car Wheels.
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 2: Well, it was, you know, similar issue where because Car
• 1:38:30
  Speaker 2: Wills was so successful, I felt like it was going
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 2: to everything was going to be compared to it, so
• 1:38:38
  Speaker 2: the songs had to be as good or better on
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 2: the next record.
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 1: You was talking your book about changing your writing style.
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 2: Well, I started. I was working on songs for Essence,
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 2: and I was coming up with these songs that weren't
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 2: really lashed out lyrically that much, but the music was
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 2: really cool, and I thought, you know, is this going
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 2: to be okay to do? Can I get away with this?
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 2: Because before that my songs were you know, like I said,
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 2: a lot of narrative lyrics and you know, it's paying
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 2: a lot of attention to the lyrics. And I was
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 2: still doing that. But what really helped me was at
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 2: the time Bob Dylan's album Time out of Mind had
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 2: come out, that Rick Rubin had done, and I listened
• 1:39:36
  Speaker 2: to it and loved it, and I felt like, this
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 2: is so musical. It's such a musical album, you know,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 2: it's different than most of his other records. And in fact,
• 1:39:47
  Speaker 2: the Nashville Paper gave it a bad review because they
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 2: said the lyrics weren't up to Bob Dylan quality, you know.
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 2: But the way I felt about it was that he
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 2: was stretching out a little bit and letting the music talk.
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 2: You know, I'd always want. I loved the stuff that
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 2: I loved that I was listening to was talking heads.
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 2: I loved them because great lyrics, but the music, you know,
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 2: which supported the lyrics. And I mean, I love good
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 2: I love rock music, you know, I love beats, I
• 1:40:35
  Speaker 2: love hip hop. One of my favorite artists is this
• 1:40:39
  Speaker 2: guy Atmosphere out of Minneapolis, who I just absolutely love.
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 2: He's a great writer, he's a great lyricist, and his
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 2: music is just infectious, you know. It's a similar thing
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 2: to what Bob Dylan was doing when he first won
• 1:40:59
  Speaker 2: an electric you know, I love that kind of stuff.
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 2: I've always been drawn to it. I love Thievery Corporation
• 1:41:09
  Speaker 2: because they do that, you know, Marching the Hate Machines
• 1:41:13
  Speaker 2: into the Sun, the song they co wrote with Wayne
• 1:41:17
  Speaker 2: Korn from Flaming Lips. So I love that combination of
• 1:41:24
  Speaker 2: the you know, really interesting, well written lyrics, but infectious
• 1:41:30
  Speaker 2: you know, hip hoppy rock music behind it.
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: Okay for someone who got a lite start, had all
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: sorts of issues going from label to label. In the
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 1: last twenty years, you put on more records than anybody
• 1:41:47
  Speaker 1: of your stature, so you just hit a groove. What
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: accounts for that?
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I signed ended up signing with Lost Highway,
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 2: and you know, so when you signed with a label,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 2: you have a contract. You have to give them so
• 1:42:06
  Speaker 2: many a certain amount of recordings, you know, that year
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 2: or whatever it is. So that was part of it,
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 2: just the and when I was on Lost Highway, I
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 2: felt like I'd finally found my family to a large extent,
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 2: you know, just absolutely adored Rick or not Rick Luke
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 2: Lewis just loved working with him, you know, he put
• 1:42:35
  Speaker 2: his money where his mouth was and walk the walk
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 2: and talk the talk, and you know, he was a
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 2: musical Ever.
• 1:42:46
  Speaker 1: Well, he ultimately, you know, gets pushed aside. The label
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: closes and you continue to make records independently distributed by
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 1: thirty tigers, so you know it's yeah, you might have ant,
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 1: but now you have no contract, you're still making the records.
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 2: Well, a lot of that I have to owe to
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 2: my husband, manager Tom, who is always coming up with ideas.
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 2: He worked at record labels for a number of years.
• 1:43:19
  Speaker 2: He used to work for Best Buy, and so he
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 2: has that. He's that capability of he's got the business
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 2: sense and the creative sense combined. So he's the one.
• 1:43:31
  Speaker 2: Like one of the things I did were those jukebox
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 2: you know, the jukebox recordings, an idea that Tom came
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 2: up with. Basically, we're, you know, just in between record albums,
• 1:43:45
  Speaker 2: and I was talking about sons I loved by other people,
• 1:43:49
  Speaker 2: and he said, well, why don't we go in and
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 2: record some of those? So we would. He would say,
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 2: you know, pick your favorite Bob del songs, whoever it
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 2: might be, Tom Petty, and we go in. We went
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 2: in and worked him up with the band and recorded
• 1:44:08
  Speaker 2: on them and we ended up getting a couple of
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 2: filmmaker guys photographers to come in and document it in
• 1:44:15
  Speaker 2: the studio and you know, people saw it and heard
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 2: it and loved it. And then Tom got the idea
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 2: to you know, put it on make it available online.
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 2: They could downstream it or whatever it's called, you know,
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 2: and we jumped on that wagon, you know, that bandwagon,
• 1:44:35
  Speaker 2: the social media thing with it, and you know, it
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 2: took off and you know, so that was an idea
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 2: that Tom had come up with to fill the gap
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 2: in between records.
• 1:44:52
  Speaker 1: Well does he ever come up with an idea and
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: you say, no, not going to do that?
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 2: Sometimes yeah, you know, then we talk about it and.
• 1:45:03
  Speaker 1: So when in this equation do you start making any money?
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 2: Huh that's a good question too. Uh. I remember telling
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 2: Tom at one point recently, like when am I going
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 2: to start seeing the results of the fruits of my labor?
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 2: You know, like you hear about you know, all these
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 2: rock bands who get famous and they have all these
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 2: cars and multiple houses and all this stuff, and you know,
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 2: it's not like that because you know, you have to
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 2: pay taxes first of all, which is true for every American.
• 1:45:42
  Speaker 2: But the more money you make, the more taxes you
• 1:45:45
  Speaker 2: have to pay. So I mean you still have to
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 2: watch your spending and all of that. It's just on
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 2: a different level. I guess.
• 1:45:58
  Speaker 1: Well, do you ever go I'm wear and say too expensive,
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: not going to pay?
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 2: Tom will say that sometimes, but usually once if we
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 2: go to the trouble you mean, like a nice restaurant
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 2: or something.
• 1:46:13
  Speaker 1: So that could be a good example.
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 2: Yoh, yeah, we won't go. If he thinks it's going
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 2: to be too expensive, then we just go somewhere else,
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 2: you know. And I would give him a hard time anyway,
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 2: if he would know better than to say that.
• 1:46:28
  Speaker 1: And do you have any personal extravagance something you do
• 1:46:32
  Speaker 1: or something you own or somewhere you go?
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 2: Hmmm, probably like what you were talking about before. I
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 2: like to shop on line. I love buying. I probably
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 2: shouldn't go into office supply stores. I love buying. I
• 1:46:54
  Speaker 2: go crazy when I see blank, fresh new notebooks and
• 1:47:00
  Speaker 2: pads of paper and pens. I just want to buy
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 2: them all, you know.
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: So let's go sideways for a minute here. You are
• 1:47:10
  Speaker 1: a woman in a male dominated business. What's that been like?
• 1:47:17
  Speaker 2: It sucks? Basically, I mean you know, sometimes I have
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 2: to remind myself how many that there aren't women? You know,
• 1:47:26
  Speaker 2: we don't. The majority of engineers are men, majority of
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 2: producers are men. Men run all the record labels. I mean,
• 1:47:34
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I have a label run by a woman.
• 1:47:38
  Speaker 2: So you know, there's that majority of musicians are men.
• 1:47:43
  Speaker 2: You know, I love seeing a woman playing drums. I
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 2: love seeing a woman playing an instrument generally reserved for men.
• 1:47:53
  Speaker 2: There's something really sexy and cool about that, you know,
• 1:47:58
  Speaker 2: a woman playing bass or drums.
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: And how any me too moments?
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 2: Huh?
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 1: Any sexual harassments.
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 2: I haven't had anything like that, thank god, Just you know,
• 1:48:13
  Speaker 2: comments like when I was first starting out, guys would
• 1:48:20
  Speaker 2: say stuff like, you're pretty good for a girl, you know,
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 2: or worse yet, they would say, you're pretty good for chick.
• 1:48:28
  Speaker 2: I hated that word back then because that was effeminist.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 2: I like to think of myself as a feminist, so
• 1:48:34
  Speaker 2: you know, that was not cool back in the day
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 2: to call women chicks.
• 1:48:39
  Speaker 1: Although I will say I have two sisters. Starting somewhere
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: in the eighties or nineties, they started to use the
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: word chick. Yeah, it's almost like black people using the
• 1:48:50
  Speaker 1: N word.
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: And you know, it's a funny thing because I come
• 1:48:54
  Speaker 1: from a female dominated family. You can get caught up
• 1:48:57
  Speaker 1: in a conversation and saying jokingly, and there are certain
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 1: people saying, say, oh, you can't say that.
• 1:49:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know. Yeah, we can call each other chick
• 1:49:07
  Speaker 2: and bitch and whatever else we want to call each other.
• 1:49:10
  Speaker 2: You know, I know what you mean.
• 1:49:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So how about in business, Like you go for
• 1:49:18
  Speaker 1: a meeting and they you feel if you were a
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: guy in a meeting or in a studio, it would
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: go down differently.
• 1:49:27
  Speaker 2: Well, you know, I just my head just doesn't go
• 1:49:30
  Speaker 2: in that direction. I don't think in those terms of
• 1:49:33
  Speaker 2: like you know, all men do this or all women
• 1:49:37
  Speaker 2: are like this. So, you know, I just think I
• 1:49:41
  Speaker 2: would think more in terms of the actual person, Like
• 1:49:44
  Speaker 2: if so and so was in here right now, like
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 2: Steve Earle, who is just like you know, when he
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 2: says something, that's it. You know, he's just got one
• 1:49:54
  Speaker 2: of those personalities, you know, And I'm just not like that.
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 2: I'm more kind of you know, shy, or I kind
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 2: of retreat back, you know, like it's harder for me
• 1:50:04
  Speaker 2: to be aggressive or assertive as opposed to like so
• 1:50:10
  Speaker 2: if I was in the studio. I might say I
• 1:50:13
  Speaker 2: wish Steve was in here with me right now because
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 2: he could explain what I mean to them, and part
• 1:50:19
  Speaker 2: of it would be just trying to describe and explain
• 1:50:21
  Speaker 2: what I wanted to the sound I wanted to get
• 1:50:24
  Speaker 2: or something like that, you know, to the engineer and
• 1:50:26
  Speaker 2: the producer like that would be hard sometimes.
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: So tell us about the stroke.
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was a surprise and a shock if there
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 2: ever was one. I was. It was a normal, regular day.
• 1:50:43
  Speaker 2: I was in the bathroom getting ready to take a
• 1:50:45
  Speaker 2: shower at our house in Nashville, and I just felt
• 1:50:49
  Speaker 2: really exhausted all of a sudden, like to the point
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 2: where all I want to do is lay down. I
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 2: didn't care where I was. I just wanted to and
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 2: it was this overwhelming need to lay down, and I
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 2: just felt kind of weak. My legs just felt real
• 1:51:04
  Speaker 2: weak underneath me, and I remember I didn't fall down.
• 1:51:08
  Speaker 2: I saw some towels and I grabbed them and laid
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 2: down on the floor in the bathroom for a minute.
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 2: I just thought, I'm just gonna lay down for a
• 1:51:16
  Speaker 2: minute before I get in the shower, because I don't
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 2: want to fall down to the shower, so I just
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 2: laid down on the floor and then Tom, my husband, Tom,
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 2: at some point saw me in there and he figured
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 2: something was He didn't know if I'd fallen or what
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 2: had happened, but he knew something was off. So he
• 1:51:37
  Speaker 2: ended up on the phone with our doctor, our primary
• 1:51:40
  Speaker 2: care physician in Nashville, described what was going under her.
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 2: She told her to call an ambulance and they came,
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 2: and you know, we didn't know it was a stroke
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 2: right away until I got to the hospital, and then
• 1:51:55
  Speaker 2: they said that that was what had happened. I was
• 1:52:00
  Speaker 2: in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and then
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 2: they at a certain point I started doing rehab in
• 1:52:08
  Speaker 2: the hospital because they had a rehab division section there
• 1:52:13
  Speaker 2: with physical therapists, so they got me into that very quickly,
• 1:52:17
  Speaker 2: which I think really helped made a big difference. So
• 1:52:21
  Speaker 2: I did some rehab in the hospital, and then I
• 1:52:24
  Speaker 2: came home and then I had caregivers come to the
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 2: house and helped me, and I had physical theorists come
• 1:52:32
  Speaker 2: to the house and worked with them. So I was
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 2: doing a lot of outpatient physical therapy and starting to
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 2: get a little at least be able to walk across
• 1:52:44
  Speaker 2: the room without falling down because I couldn't walk it first,
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 2: and then I rollized I couldn't play guitar, which has
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 2: been my main big obstacle. So that's what I'm working
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 2: on now, is trying to get back to that.
• 1:53:01
  Speaker 1: So you had some level of paralysis. Where are you
• 1:53:05
  Speaker 1: at now physically?
• 1:53:11
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't know if it was paralysis, you mean
• 1:53:13
  Speaker 2: not being able to walk.
• 1:53:15
  Speaker 1: Well, whatever it is, you know better than I do.
• 1:53:17
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: You know what ended up? You have the stroke. Let's
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: start from the beginning, purely out of the blue or
• 1:53:25
  Speaker 1: was this something genetic and they say it was going
• 1:53:28
  Speaker 1: to happen?
• 1:53:29
  Speaker 2: No, it was out of the blue, you know.
• 1:53:33
  Speaker 1: Okay, So what were the effects of the stroke?
• 1:53:37
  Speaker 2: Okay? The stroke? Basically, you know, I didn't even know
• 1:53:39
  Speaker 2: what a stroke was. But it's when you have a
• 1:53:45
  Speaker 2: blood thought on one side of your brain, and you know,
• 1:53:52
  Speaker 2: basically your brain is confused. So that means your body
• 1:53:56
  Speaker 2: is confused because your brain tells your body what to do.
• 1:54:01
  Speaker 2: So you have to retrain your brain. Basically, you know,
• 1:54:05
  Speaker 2: your brain tells your legs what to do when you walk.
• 1:54:10
  Speaker 2: You know, you don't think about that consciously because you're
• 1:54:13
  Speaker 2: so used to walking, you just you don't think about it.
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 2: But you know, when you after you have a stroke,
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you have to think about what
• 1:54:21
  Speaker 2: you're doing all the time. And it also what's interesting
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 2: is like my blood clot was on the right side
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 2: of my brain, so the whole, entire less side of
• 1:54:30
  Speaker 2: my body was affected. And you know, you just have
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 2: to relearn everything. I had to learn how to walk again,
• 1:54:42
  Speaker 2: which I'm still working on. I still don't walk like
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 2: I used to, you know.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: So if we take a snapshot today, what's your state today.
• 1:54:58
  Speaker 2: I think I'm doing really well. People who've known me
• 1:55:01
  Speaker 2: since the beginning can see the progress. I mean, I'm
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 2: lifting weights in the studio with the trainers, so you know,
• 1:55:12
  Speaker 2: because I just refuse to. I don't want to get
• 1:55:15
  Speaker 2: out of shape and weak and all that. I was
• 1:55:19
  Speaker 2: in a wheelchair for part of that time, and we
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 2: still do that. Like if we have to go to
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 2: the airport to catch a flight, they'll have a wheelchair
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 2: there to roll me through the airport because it's it's
• 1:55:32
  Speaker 2: too hard for me to walk through and it takes
• 1:55:34
  Speaker 2: too long.
• 1:55:37
  Speaker 1: And what's the status of playing guitar.
• 1:55:42
  Speaker 2: Right now? I'm not playing, so I've been performing without guitar,
• 1:55:48
  Speaker 2: was just my band backing me up. But the hardest
• 1:55:52
  Speaker 2: part is when I go in the studio to record,
• 1:55:54
  Speaker 2: because that's how I started. At a certain point, I
• 1:56:00
  Speaker 2: realize the best way for me to record with the
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 2: band was for them to follow me, you know, for
• 1:56:06
  Speaker 2: me to play the guitar, and they get the vibe
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 2: and the tempo and everything for me. And since I
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 2: can't play, I have to rely on someone else to
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 2: play rhythm, and that makes it a lot more difficult
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 2: to record songs because nobody's gonna play like I do,
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 2: you know. So that's the best way for me to
• 1:56:35
  Speaker 2: record is for me to play. In the very beginning,
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 2: somebody else would grab the guitar and sit and play.
• 1:56:41
  Speaker 2: I never would even play. And then at some point
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 2: someone in the studio, it might have been Steve Girls
• 1:56:49
  Speaker 2: suggested and said, Lou, you need to play guitar and
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 2: sing the song and then let everybody else follow you.
• 1:56:57
  Speaker 2: And that proved to be the best way for me
• 1:56:59
  Speaker 2: to record my stuff.
• 1:57:02
  Speaker 1: And do you anticipate being able to play the guitar again?
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean I have to say yes, because I
• 1:57:10
  Speaker 2: just refuse to give up.
• 1:57:13
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're the same age, and hitting sixty was rough.
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: Hitting seventy was rough in a different way. You've accomplished
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: all this. You have all these albums, you have all
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 1: this acclaim. Even if you did nothing again, you have
• 1:57:30
  Speaker 1: a good legacy. But what do you want to accomplish
• 1:57:34
  Speaker 1: other than the physical things which we've just changed. What
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: do you want and what do you need for the
• 1:57:40
  Speaker 1: time that's left.
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 2: I would just say just keep writing songs and keep
• 1:57:51
  Speaker 2: getting better. I feel like I can still there's always
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 2: room to improve, you.
• 1:57:57
  Speaker 1: Know, Okay, when I turn sixty. It's like you know
• 1:58:03
  Speaker 1: the trick. You see advertising and you go if I
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: you know, if this is good, I'll hear about it.
• 1:58:09
  Speaker 1: Whereas you're a kid, you see something advertised with cartoons,
• 1:58:12
  Speaker 1: you go, I want that. Then seventy he realized, well
• 1:58:16
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to be here forever, and your perspective changes.
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: In addition, we live in this era. You know, you
• 1:58:25
  Speaker 1: and me grew up in the area. It turned on
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: the radio, everybody knew those songs. Now there's almost no
• 1:58:32
  Speaker 1: regular frame of reference. So do you just put your
• 1:58:38
  Speaker 1: head down and say this is what I'm doing, or
• 1:58:41
  Speaker 1: does it affect you how things have changed both because
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: of age and the landscape.
• 1:58:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it affects me just like it affects you and
• 1:58:50
  Speaker 2: everybody else, especially people our age, you know, and it
• 1:58:55
  Speaker 2: buns me out a lot of times. You're talking about
• 1:58:59
  Speaker 2: like what you you mean, what you were talking about
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 2: before about there aren't any rebels left and that sort
• 1:59:04
  Speaker 2: of thing. Oh yeah, Yeah, it definitely affects me. But
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 2: I see some though still, you know, there are you know,
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 2: I keep on top of what's going on, and I listen.
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 2: I love to listen to new artists. You know. I'll
• 1:59:23
  Speaker 2: hear about somebody. Somebody will say, you need to hear
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 2: this guy's really good. And I go out of my
• 1:59:29
  Speaker 2: way to listen to people, you know, who are just
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 2: getting started. And you know, I get excited when I
• 1:59:37
  Speaker 2: hear somebody I think it's really good, and you know,
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 2: I'll go out and support them and talk with them
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 2: and everything, and listen to their music at home, and
• 1:59:49
  Speaker 2: you know, give them advice maybe sometimes if they ask
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 2: for it, you know, just give them support, you know,
• 1:59:57
  Speaker 2: because I remember what it's like when I first started,
• 2:00:01
  Speaker 2: you know. So there was a girl who in Nashville,
• 2:00:06
  Speaker 2: who's her name is Alicia Blue, which is a great
• 2:00:12
  Speaker 2: stage name, but it's actually her real name. And she's
• 2:00:16
  Speaker 2: quite good. She's a really good lyricist, really good songs
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 2: she did, She recorded and did a video of her
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 2: singing this song. Jane says that Jane's Addiction did and
• 2:00:33
  Speaker 2: it's really it's really good. She just played it for
• 2:00:38
  Speaker 2: me recently. And so you know, there are I mean,
• 2:00:43
  Speaker 2: there are younger artists. I think, who are I haven't
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 2: enough of that rebellion in them, you know, but the
• 2:00:52
  Speaker 2: business has changed somewhat too, so you have to look
• 2:00:55
  Speaker 2: at that, and I get more frustrated, I guess when
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 2: I probably more about the business into things than the
• 2:01:05
  Speaker 2: artists actually, or the lack thereof, because a lot of
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 2: times I'll see and hear an artists I think is
• 2:01:11
  Speaker 2: really really good and wonder why he or she doesn't
• 2:01:15
  Speaker 2: get the attention they deserve, or you know, why he
• 2:01:19
  Speaker 2: or she hasn't gotten record deal yet, and you know,
• 2:01:24
  Speaker 2: people aren't paying attention to them like they should be,
• 2:01:26
  Speaker 2: And that probably frustrates me as much as anything.
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: Well, the other thing that frustrates me is people our age.
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 1: We are half dead. I mean, you're very alive. You're
• 2:01:38
  Speaker 1: staying up on things you have opinions. Then there are
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 1: other people. I know, well I'm old, I'm retired, I'm
• 2:01:45
  Speaker 1: you know, just into lifestyle. They're very weird.
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they just start thinking old. They're old because they
• 2:01:52
  Speaker 2: think they're old.
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: You know, well you're certainly young, Lucinda. I want to think,
• 2:02:00
  Speaker 1: thank you for taking the time with my audience.
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 2: Well, you're more than welcome. I've enjoyed this conversation.
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 1: Great. Hopefully I asked some questions. We went some places
• 2:02:12
  Speaker 1: that were not we normally go.
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we did.
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: That's okay, No, that's what I want people who have
• 2:02:21
  Speaker 1: been interviewed, you know, you try and ask to ask
• 2:02:24
  Speaker 1: the same questions because then their eyes roll in the back.
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 2: Of the Yeah. Yeah, but I mean I like that
• 2:02:31
  Speaker 2: you asked different questions. I wasn't expecting a lot of them.
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 2: But that's okay, Okay, you're a rebel.
• 2:02:41
  Speaker 1: Oh you have no idea. I am that person. You
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: know what I used to say in the old days
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 1: was I believed in this wave theory. So in the
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: fifties the waves came in, everybody was a beat. Nick
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: the wave went out and we had Manor G. Krebs
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 1: On Sure he was left on shore then the sixties
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 1: we had uh what's his name, uh Ginsburg, the poet
• 2:03:12
  Speaker 1: he was left on shore.
• 2:03:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:03:15
  Speaker 1: I never wore a leisure suit. I never did anything.
• 2:03:20
  Speaker 1: I stayed true to who I was.
• 2:03:22
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:03:23
  Speaker 1: But even worse now today people don't even remember the
• 2:03:27
  Speaker 1: way it was. You know, I feel like Grandpa saying, well,
• 2:03:31
  Speaker 1: back in the sixties, back in the seventies, Yeah, when
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 1: people had values and they would say no, you know,
• 2:03:38
  Speaker 1: you talk about being an artist whatever. Everybody say, Oh,
• 2:03:42
  Speaker 1: I can make money, I can get fame. Yes, drives
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: me crazy.
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Is there you think there's still that that that
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 2: still happens.
• 2:03:53
  Speaker 1: I mean, okay, you're a middle class person. Your father
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: was a college professor. We are the same age. We
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 1: didn't grow up in the same part of the country.
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: But when I went to high school, regular public high school,
• 2:04:08
  Speaker 1: there were kids who were middle class and they were
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 1: the art kids. They were separate from the cool, separate
• 2:04:14
  Speaker 1: from the jock, etc. Etc. And those people became the artists.
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: An equal story is Jefferson Airplane. You know, if you're
• 2:04:23
  Speaker 1: a middle class person, you say no. Bill Graham was
• 2:04:27
  Speaker 1: the manager for while. He said, whenever they had any success,
• 2:04:30
  Speaker 1: they didn't want to work. They want to stay home
• 2:04:32
  Speaker 1: and smoke dope. It's like, you know, they had a
• 2:04:35
  Speaker 1: feel for it. They wouldn't do anything for money, whereas today, Yeah,
• 2:04:40
  Speaker 1: if you people won't do anything for money, they'll play
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 1: with dictators, they'll work.
• 2:04:46
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: It's like you're saying, you're not cutting the verse from
• 2:04:50
  Speaker 1: the song. Well, we grew up in the era where
• 2:04:53
  Speaker 1: the people who are performing wrote the songs and although
• 2:04:57
  Speaker 1: there are some there are some great intro.
• 2:05:00
  Speaker 2: That was a sorry to interrupt, but that is probably
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 2: the biggest change I think over the you know, over
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 2: the years has been going from artist recording who didn't write,
• 2:05:14
  Speaker 2: to artists recording who wrote their own songs.
• 2:05:19
  Speaker 1: I think this is huge, you I think I was
• 2:05:20
  Speaker 1: talking to somebody the other day and I say, look
• 2:05:23
  Speaker 1: at the frame of reference. When Mariah Carey came in
• 2:05:27
  Speaker 1: the nineties, that was pop. We hadn't had pop like
• 2:05:31
  Speaker 1: that since the sixties. But today everybody was brought up
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: on that and they think, you know, like what you
• 2:05:40
  Speaker 1: see on TV shows with competition shows, where for us,
• 2:05:44
  Speaker 1: no way. The other thing is there are people our
• 2:05:48
  Speaker 1: age who get plastic surgery and they go on stage
• 2:05:52
  Speaker 1: and play the old hits to people who look old,
• 2:05:56
  Speaker 1: but they you know, it's like, you know, if somebody
• 2:05:59
  Speaker 1: wants to go, fine, but it creeps me out. It's like, yeah,
• 2:06:05
  Speaker 1: especially as I've seen these acts so many times, Like,
• 2:06:07
  Speaker 1: you know, unless you're my friend, whatever, I'm not gonna go.
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: I remember when.
• 2:06:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's just boring.
• 2:06:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, but a lot of people are disheartened. I mean,
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: your success came a little later in age, but you're
• 2:06:24
  Speaker 1: continuing to work. There's certain you know, that comes down
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 1: to whether you're an artist, and a lot of people can't.
• 2:06:31
  Speaker 2: They can't. That's I'm an artist first and foremost. You know,
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 2: I live, eat, and breathe and sleep with my art.
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 2: You know, that's the thing. At the risk of sounding idealistic,
• 2:06:45
  Speaker 2: you know, but it's true though.
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: Well you know, an artist can say no and won't compromise.
• 2:06:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, you might say, well, I'll cut my set
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: short ten minutes, but I'm not you know, strings on
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: this track.
• 2:07:03
  Speaker 2: No, Yeah, because everything is made from an artistic perspective,
• 2:07:11
  Speaker 2: you know, So is it gonna help the song or
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 2: is it not? It's that simple, you know.
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: Another element and I've had personal experience with this, the
• 2:07:25
  Speaker 1: audience knows. Everybody was. I was on a percentage phrase.
• 2:07:30
  Speaker 1: Oh do the commercial do the ads? No one cares
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: about that. Oh there's not that's not true.
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 2: They do. Yeah, they pay attention to everything. And that's
• 2:07:43
  Speaker 2: the other thing is a lot of artists and performers
• 2:07:47
  Speaker 2: underestimate their audience. I think, you know, well, give me
• 2:07:53
  Speaker 2: a little deeper. Well, I mean, I just think, what
• 2:07:59
  Speaker 2: kind of I what you were saying. You might not
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 2: think they care if you take this verse out of
• 2:08:03
  Speaker 2: a song or something, but they pay attention to the versus.
• 2:08:07
  Speaker 2: You know, I have the best fans ever, I think
• 2:08:10
  Speaker 2: in the whole world, because they're loyal. I mean, they're patient.
• 2:08:16
  Speaker 2: You know, they stick with me if I make a
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 2: mistake when I'm performing, They're still there at the end
• 2:08:23
  Speaker 2: of the night. You know, they don't leave. You know,
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 2: they listen to what I'm saying. They pay attention to
• 2:08:30
  Speaker 2: the lyrics and the songs, and they remember my songs
• 2:08:33
  Speaker 2: and they love them and they love me. I feel
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 2: like there's a real family thing there between my fans
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 2: and me.
• 2:08:43
  Speaker 1: Well that's what it's all about today. Because the machine
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: doesn't exist like terrestrial radio, I don't know anybody listens
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 1: to terrestrial radio. You know, it's like it's all everybody
• 2:08:56
  Speaker 1: that's talking to my shrink about this earlier today everybody
• 2:09:00
  Speaker 1: their own thing. Now it's like you make your own breaks.
• 2:09:04
  Speaker 1: Nobody is world dominant. Like for all this hype about
• 2:09:08
  Speaker 1: Taylor Swift, I mean, we remember when everybody knew every
• 2:09:13
  Speaker 1: word to every song because it was on the radio
• 2:09:15
  Speaker 1: and we all listen to the radio. Whereas today you
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: go around, most people can even name a Taylor Swift song.
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: It's not not making it about her because she's really big,
• 2:09:24
  Speaker 1: bad bunny. There's a couple of these people. They are
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: The Stones went on tour in seventy two. It was like,
• 2:09:32
  Speaker 1: you know, it's like the second Coming. Everybody can rage,
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: can sing satisfaction, jumping Jackflash, we know that shit. Yeah, Okay, Lousen,
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go till next time. This is Bob Left
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: Sets