Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Bonnie Raitt

Transcript

Bonnie Raitt · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

0:15
Speaker 1: Pushkin. Hey, y'all's justin Richmond. Today we have on the
0:22
Speaker 1: show Rock and Roll Hall of Famer the person who
0:25
Speaker 1: has one of my all time favorite singer songwriter albums,
0:29
Speaker 1: Bonnie Rate. She's a ridiculous guitarist, gorgeous singer, wonderful interpreter
0:36
Speaker 1: song and maybe even underrated as a songwriter herself. Bonnie
0:40
Speaker 1: was offered her first record deal as a college student
0:42
Speaker 1: in seventy one after a newsweek reporter saw her playing
0:45
Speaker 1: an early gig in Greenwich Village, but it took almost
0:48
Speaker 1: two decades before she peaked commercially. In eighty nine, her
0:53
Speaker 1: tenth album, Nick of Time, debuted at number one and
0:56
Speaker 1: earned three Grammys, including Album of the Year. She built
1:00
Speaker 1: on that success over the next five years with two
1:02
Speaker 1: more hit albums and even more top ten singles. In
1:06
Speaker 1: addition to her commercial success, Bonnie has been a devout
1:10
Speaker 1: advocate for preserving American blues music, bringing songs of the
1:14
Speaker 1: masses from little known but classic songwriters. On today's episode,
1:19
Speaker 1: Bruce Headlam talks to Bonnie Rate about her meticulous song
1:22
Speaker 1: selection process in the inspiration behind the tunes she wrote
1:26
Speaker 1: for her new album Just Like That. Bonnie also talks
1:29
Speaker 1: about a somewhat awkward dinner she had with Prince and
1:32
Speaker 1: how her slide guitar technique will forever be tied to
1:35
Speaker 1: giving her brother the finger. This is broken record liner
1:42
Speaker 1: notes for the digital age. I'm justin Richmond. Here's Bruce
1:46
Speaker 1: Headlam and Bonnie Ray. Now, my wife is a huge
1:50
Speaker 1: she loves Broadway and she grew up with your father's
1:54
Speaker 1: recording of I think Carousel, the original cast recording. Yeah, yeah,
2:00
Speaker 1: so I admit I was just watching some clips of
2:03
Speaker 1: him on YouTube. First of all, you look a lot
2:06
Speaker 1: like him, my goodness, thank you. But he ever says
2:09
Speaker 1: that I have the same bump in my nose and
2:11
Speaker 1: we have a broad Scottish face. So he's extremely handsome.
2:15
Speaker 1: I didn't quite get that. But he's any any resemblance
2:18
Speaker 1: I'm really proud of. Well. Also, he had a good
2:21
Speaker 1: looking head of hair, as of course to you, thank
2:25
Speaker 1: you very much. Yeah, he all the way un till
2:27
Speaker 1: he was passed away. He had a lion's mane. Now
2:31
Speaker 1: my wife described him as he was Hugh Jackman, big
2:34
Speaker 1: strapping guy. Yep. Thank you for opening this interview paying
2:40
Speaker 1: tribute to him, because I'm such a I'm so grateful
2:43
Speaker 1: that I get to be his daughter, and my mom's too,
2:45
Speaker 1: who is his music director, but they he was nobody
2:49
Speaker 1: better as a leading man. We'll talk about you and
2:52
Speaker 1: then we'll come back to him. It's been six years
2:55
Speaker 1: since your last album. Yeah, what has that six years
2:59
Speaker 1: been like for you? Well? Working backwards, we had the
3:02
Speaker 1: little thing called a shutdown, so we couldn't get my
3:05
Speaker 1: band together, we couldn't tour. We had to cancel altogether
3:08
Speaker 1: four tours of my own and three with James Taylor
3:11
Speaker 1: in Canada. We kept postponing them and that was frustrating
3:16
Speaker 1: for somebody that's been on the road since I was twenty.
3:19
Speaker 1: And then I finally had a window when everybody was
3:21
Speaker 1: vaccinated and before the omicron surge in June and we
3:25
Speaker 1: flew out and it had been over two years since
3:27
Speaker 1: we played live, so I was really thrilled. So that
3:31
Speaker 1: took care of last year and the year before was
3:35
Speaker 1: just doing recordings from my house for various Democratic candidates
3:40
Speaker 1: and farm aide and gun control benefits and lots of
3:43
Speaker 1: musicians relief efforts, and you know, there was climate disasters
3:47
Speaker 1: that needed fundraising force. So I was able to be
3:50
Speaker 1: very busy but I missed cranking up my guitar and
3:54
Speaker 1: planted drums. And then before that we did a couple
3:58
Speaker 1: We did a year and a half with James opening
4:00
Speaker 1: for him and Arenas we double build. You know, sang
4:03
Speaker 1: a little bit on his set, he sang on mine.
4:05
Speaker 1: And before that I did my usual two year album
4:08
Speaker 1: tour with Digging Deep came out in twenty sixteen. It
4:12
Speaker 1: was a two year extension because of the COVID and
4:14
Speaker 1: I'm probably a two year extension to work with James.
4:17
Speaker 1: So is it Touring does not get tiring for you.
4:20
Speaker 1: You've done it so long, you do it so ferociously,
4:23
Speaker 1: it doesn't get old. Well, if I was keeping the
4:27
Speaker 1: same lifestyle I was the first seventeen years, I probably
4:30
Speaker 1: would have been flat on my back and not able
4:32
Speaker 1: to carry on the pace that I do. But as
4:35
Speaker 1: accommodation to being older, we do it. We do two
4:38
Speaker 1: shows in a row instead of three. Used to do
4:41
Speaker 1: three and then one off and two and then one off.
4:43
Speaker 1: So we do two on one off to rest my voice,
4:47
Speaker 1: texting an email has made it really better for saving
4:50
Speaker 1: my voice. I actually played a little bit longer show
4:53
Speaker 1: because I used to do a lot of fundraising receptions
4:56
Speaker 1: after the show too, which also wears out your voice.
4:58
Speaker 1: So I would say the touring part is fun to
5:03
Speaker 1: wake up in five cities a week, fun to have
5:05
Speaker 1: an opening night every night, to prove to the crowd
5:08
Speaker 1: that you're just as if not better than you were
5:11
Speaker 1: a last time, at least as good. And you know,
5:14
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna lie and say that it was. It's
5:17
Speaker 1: as fun as it was the first few decades when
5:20
Speaker 1: we could stay up and party and go to clubs
5:22
Speaker 1: and sit in with bands and act like fools. But
5:26
Speaker 1: it's really satisfying to play the shows. So the extra,
5:30
Speaker 1: the twenty two hours in between the shows is the challenge.
5:34
Speaker 1: But I've made it work for me as I you know,
5:36
Speaker 1: I do yoga, I talk to my friends. I'm not
5:39
Speaker 1: going to see as many of them on this tour,
5:41
Speaker 1: but you know, FaceTime and texting and all that has
5:45
Speaker 1: made it a lot more easy to be in touch
5:47
Speaker 1: with your loved ones. So it's not draining if you
5:50
Speaker 1: take care of yourself, and the bliss and the exaltation
5:54
Speaker 1: and the blast of energy and tribal connection and joy
5:59
Speaker 1: comes from the stage shows. So that I'd have to
6:02
Speaker 1: say that as the driving force and also making a
6:04
Speaker 1: living for twenty five people that would like to continue
6:07
Speaker 1: to pay their heating bill. To get together with your
6:10
Speaker 1: band and to get it to do this album? Is
6:13
Speaker 1: it a matter of gathering all the songs together first?
6:16
Speaker 1: What part of the process is that? Yeah, I mean
6:20
Speaker 1: I start calling songs down from ideas that I've saved
6:23
Speaker 1: over the years. There's certain songs on this record that
6:26
Speaker 1: have been resting and waiting. Do they have their day
6:29
Speaker 1: in court? And I look in earnest all the time.
6:34
Speaker 1: I'm always listening to maybe twenty or thirty songwriters that
6:39
Speaker 1: I really love the work of, some of whom are
6:40
Speaker 1: well known and others are more obscure. And I love
6:44
Speaker 1: the challenge of unearthing some unbelievably obscure jewel off of
6:50
Speaker 1: somebody's early records. So it's a song hunt that unearthed
6:54
Speaker 1: R and B chestnuts, current singer songwriters, old catalog from
6:59
Speaker 1: other artists, lots of publishing submissions, and some of my own.
7:04
Speaker 1: So you know, the process starts a couple of years
7:07
Speaker 1: before we actually get in the studio, and then, like
7:10
Speaker 1: the person that works on the term paper right before
7:12
Speaker 1: it's due, that's when I write my songs is right.
7:15
Speaker 1: When we go ready to go on the studio, I go, oh,
7:18
Speaker 1: I better finish this because I have really high standards
7:21
Speaker 1: and I don't make the cut off. And what do
7:24
Speaker 1: you look for in a song? Has it changed over
7:26
Speaker 1: the years. I'd like to say that it has changed,
7:30
Speaker 1: but not really. The main thing that is on my
7:32
Speaker 1: mind is not repeating myself. So finding something new to
7:36
Speaker 1: say at twenty one albums is musically and lyrically very challenging.
7:41
Speaker 1: So I've covered every aspect of broken love, longing for love,
7:48
Speaker 1: I'm excited to be in love, you know, all of
7:50
Speaker 1: that issue. And then there's some societal kind of songs,
7:54
Speaker 1: and there's just chestnuts from the blues and reggae and
7:57
Speaker 1: world music pantheon of our great artist that I love.
8:01
Speaker 1: So I just kind of want to make it fresh
8:03
Speaker 1: for myself and for my fans, and stretch a little
8:06
Speaker 1: bit and do some feels on the record that are
8:08
Speaker 1: going to add to my show when I go out
8:10
Speaker 1: on the road. I write my own songs kind of
8:13
Speaker 1: on assignment for what groove I'm missing and what topic
8:16
Speaker 1: I'm not covering yet. So I want to be I
8:20
Speaker 1: want to be new and interesting to myself, and I
8:23
Speaker 1: think that pays off for the fans too. I found
8:26
Speaker 1: your own songs on this record to be very different. Now,
8:30
Speaker 1: your last album had one of your favorite songs of mine,
8:34
Speaker 1: which is the Ones We Couldn't Be, which I think
8:37
Speaker 1: is just should be way way up there for you
8:41
Speaker 1: because it's a fantastic song, Thank You, Thank You. This
8:45
Speaker 1: is at least two of the songs are very very
8:47
Speaker 1: different though their narrative songs, and I can't remember you
8:49
Speaker 1: ever writing that kind of song before their storytellers songs. Yeah,
8:55
Speaker 1: I was just going to ask you first about the
8:57
Speaker 1: title track, which is just like that. Yeah. I deliberately
9:02
Speaker 1: wanted to do something different, like a story song. I
9:05
Speaker 1: mean quite quite a bit, inspired by my friend John Prine,
9:08
Speaker 1: and even before he passed away, I had come up
9:11
Speaker 1: with the ideas to do these two songs that are
9:13
Speaker 1: kind of acoustic and story songs. I remember being very
9:17
Speaker 1: moved by the gift of the Magi by O Henry
9:20
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, and I love telling stories
9:23
Speaker 1: that you have a twist a little bit in the ending,
9:26
Speaker 1: and I love reading those. I'm a big short story reader.
9:30
Speaker 1: But I found two incidents out in the world that
9:34
Speaker 1: really inspired these songs. And back in twenty eighteen, I
9:38
Speaker 1: saw a news program, evening News, that finished with a
9:42
Speaker 1: human interest segment, as they often do to balance the
9:45
Speaker 1: bad news with something hopeful, and that crew followed a
9:49
Speaker 1: woman knocking on the door of the gentleman that had
9:53
Speaker 1: received her son's heart as an organ donation, and they
9:57
Speaker 1: were capturing that on camera, and that was emotional enough,
9:59
Speaker 1: but he said, would you like to put your head
10:02
Speaker 1: on my chest and listen to your son's heart? And
10:04
Speaker 1: I lost it. I'm losing it now because it was
10:08
Speaker 1: so moving to me what that must have been like
10:12
Speaker 1: for both of those people. So I knew right then
10:14
Speaker 1: I was going to write a song about it. And
10:16
Speaker 1: I created a character that probably didn't even have any
10:22
Speaker 1: idea that her son organ was going to be donated.
10:25
Speaker 1: Normally have to get permission, but she was responsible for
10:28
Speaker 1: the death of her child and was so mortified when
10:31
Speaker 1: she came out of her whatever coomar or healing, she
10:33
Speaker 1: just left town and disappeared. And the song is about
10:37
Speaker 1: the recipient of her son's heart as a child spending
10:42
Speaker 1: twenty years trying to find her so he could share
10:45
Speaker 1: that with her that she gave him life, and she
10:48
Speaker 1: gave life to them both. It's interesting that you flipped
10:51
Speaker 1: it from the original story. You made the woman the
10:55
Speaker 1: person in the house who didn't know this was happening. Yeah,
10:59
Speaker 1: there's a lot of YouTube videos it turns out, of
11:01
Speaker 1: families meeting each other for the first time that received Yeah,
11:05
Speaker 1: I didn't know about it. You know, when something moves
11:07
Speaker 1: me that much. Was These are the first two songs
11:10
Speaker 1: I had to write for the record. And I knew
11:13
Speaker 1: that I had some other songs saved up that are
11:15
Speaker 1: we going to put in this time, But that song
11:17
Speaker 1: was just very powerful for me to write, and the
11:21
Speaker 1: idea of redemption and being able to finally have some
11:24
Speaker 1: grace and forgive yourself that you don't have to be
11:28
Speaker 1: going through having killed somebody accidentally in a car to
11:31
Speaker 1: feel that way. And it's all the ways that our
11:34
Speaker 1: lives are turned around by an act of grace and
11:36
Speaker 1: love from someone else. And I learned about it from Angel,
11:41
Speaker 1: from Montgomery and from Donald and Lydia, and you know,
11:45
Speaker 1: all the great story songs of Dylan's early records and
11:48
Speaker 1: Jackson Brown and so many others in the folk tradition.
11:51
Speaker 1: I'm really hoping that it resonates with people because it's
11:54
Speaker 1: it sure did with me. How is it different writing
11:57
Speaker 1: this kind of story song. First of all, you're doing
11:59
Speaker 1: some fingerpicking, which we don't often hear, which is lovely
12:02
Speaker 1: to hear. Did it start on the guitar? Did it
12:06
Speaker 1: start with the lyrics? How did you approach this song?
12:08
Speaker 1: Was it different? I wrote the lyrics when I came
12:11
Speaker 1: off the road and I had a break back in
12:12
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen in the winter, and I wrote both of
12:16
Speaker 1: this acoustic songs, and I knew that I was going
12:18
Speaker 1: to be on the guitar because I normally write the
12:21
Speaker 1: songs like the ones we Couldn't Be or All at Once,
12:24
Speaker 1: which is another story song that I wrote years ago.
12:26
Speaker 1: I think it's on luck of the draw. But I
12:29
Speaker 1: wrote the lyrics they were like they like people say.
12:33
Speaker 1: It's a bit of a cliche to say they kind
12:35
Speaker 1: of channeled through me, but that was I had a
12:38
Speaker 1: very kind of sacred intention with wanting to make this
12:42
Speaker 1: story real and I knew. I knew before I set
12:45
Speaker 1: the words down that it was going to end with
12:47
Speaker 1: this woman's life being changed. And it was fun painting
12:50
Speaker 1: in the details, you know, and just making it just right.
12:53
Speaker 1: Because I don't write that often, so it was very satisfying.
12:55
Speaker 1: At no time was I under pressure. I waited to
12:58
Speaker 1: put the music until right before the album, and that
13:01
Speaker 1: is when playing the fingerpicking style, which I knew I
13:05
Speaker 1: was going to do this song. And because I love
13:07
Speaker 1: Jackson's records and John Prine's first album like his others,
13:11
Speaker 1: but his first album is an absolute masterpiece. And it
13:14
Speaker 1: just shows the power of hearing Bob Dylan and Joan
13:18
Speaker 1: Baez when I was a kid and picked up the guitar,
13:20
Speaker 1: and just the power of a voice in one guitar,
13:23
Speaker 1: and I played that music and John Prine was in
13:26
Speaker 1: my heart when I was writing that song. We should
13:29
Speaker 1: talk a bit about your musical background. If you came
13:31
Speaker 1: from a musical family, your mother pianist, your father this
13:35
Speaker 1: Broadway star. What did you get from each of them
13:38
Speaker 1: in terms of music? I would say that because they
13:42
Speaker 1: were a partnership. She helped select his material for his concerts,
13:47
Speaker 1: She helped get his clothes together, he had, you know,
13:50
Speaker 1: they were golfing partners. He was his rehearsal pianist, his
13:53
Speaker 1: music director, and directed the orchestra with her head playing
13:56
Speaker 1: the piano at his concerts, so I hear them together,
14:00
Speaker 1: giving me the joy of music. Both my brothers and
14:03
Speaker 1: I sitting there just in the other rooms of the
14:05
Speaker 1: house listening to my dad warm up and then practice
14:09
Speaker 1: songs for different functions that he was going to be doing,
14:12
Speaker 1: either light opera or the Broadway shows he was about
14:14
Speaker 1: to do, to practice to get used to those or
14:17
Speaker 1: his concerts. So we got a wide range of everything
14:21
Speaker 1: from Frank Sinatra to Nat King Cole and Tony Bennett
14:23
Speaker 1: to Ella Fitzgerald to Mahela Jackson to classical music. So
14:28
Speaker 1: I got the love of a wide range of music
14:31
Speaker 1: from both my folks exposing us to it at a
14:34
Speaker 1: very young age. So my mom was also a really
14:37
Speaker 1: good singer, and I wanted to play piano like she did,
14:41
Speaker 1: and took lessons for five years, and I just gave
14:43
Speaker 1: up because my teacher wouldn't let me play pop songs
14:45
Speaker 1: and I really wanted to play Motown and Beatles songs,
14:49
Speaker 1: and so I would do that at home and then
14:51
Speaker 1: lag behind when I was supposed to play my classical
14:53
Speaker 1: piece for him. So I jettisoned the piano and picked
14:57
Speaker 1: up the guitar, which I had started to learn when
14:59
Speaker 1: I was about nine years old because I emulated my
15:02
Speaker 1: camp counselors. Every summer Moll my dad was in summer Stock,
15:06
Speaker 1: we would go to this camp in the Adirondacks the
15:09
Speaker 1: way from La to Adderdics and the counselors were caught
15:12
Speaker 1: up in the folk revival of the sixties, so Joan Bayez,
15:16
Speaker 1: Pete Seeger, Peter Paul, and Mary King Centrio Odetta. Those
15:20
Speaker 1: were heroes to me, and I taught myself to play
15:22
Speaker 1: off those records, which I begged for it Christmas, along
15:25
Speaker 1: with my guitar. So I was a little folky and
15:29
Speaker 1: ended up getting more interested in the guitar after I
15:32
Speaker 1: didn't take guitar lessons with By then, I had sort
15:34
Speaker 1: of enjoyed picking things out by ear, and so I
15:38
Speaker 1: got my love of the instrument from my mom and
15:40
Speaker 1: my love of singing probably from my dad. It's interesting
15:44
Speaker 1: you sort of combine them because you're a performer like
15:47
Speaker 1: your dad, but like your mother, you're constantly on the
15:51
Speaker 1: lookout for the right song. You're the manager at the
15:54
Speaker 1: same time. Yeah, and you've helped a lot of songwriters
15:57
Speaker 1: careers by looking for these things. That's a treasure for
16:01
Speaker 1: me because I happened to love the songwriter's original demos
16:05
Speaker 1: of the songs they give me, I have a whole
16:07
Speaker 1: collection of them, but some of them wouldn't have the
16:10
Speaker 1: kind of a voice that would get a record deal.
16:12
Speaker 1: So I feel like I have an obligation to be
16:15
Speaker 1: able to make these beautiful pieces of music sing and
16:19
Speaker 1: exposed to a broader audience. I mean not only opening
16:22
Speaker 1: doors for them as a in their career, but I
16:25
Speaker 1: mean I can't imagine being such a talented songwriter and
16:28
Speaker 1: have nobody hear your tune. So you know, I come
16:31
Speaker 1: from the Judy Collins, Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra's school of
16:36
Speaker 1: interpreting other people's material and making it my own. But
16:39
Speaker 1: you're also write, Yeah, you're reminding me because I grew
16:42
Speaker 1: up in southern Ontario and Shirley Ikart used to I
16:46
Speaker 1: was too young, but my sister used to go see her.
16:48
Speaker 1: So she was an example of someone whose career you
16:51
Speaker 1: really made. Yeah, and she had a pretty good I
16:54
Speaker 1: think she had a pretty good following in Canada and
16:56
Speaker 1: she's still making it. She was still making wonderful records.
16:59
Speaker 1: But yeah, that song that she wrote kind of changed
17:02
Speaker 1: my life. But you don't sing it correctly because it's
17:06
Speaker 1: it's really something to talk about. Oh, oh, there you go.
17:10
Speaker 1: Canadians don't understand your version at all. And she didn't
17:13
Speaker 1: sing like that on the demo either, so there you go. No,
17:16
Speaker 1: that would be a very limited audience if she sang
17:18
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, just Canadians, and there's not that many
17:21
Speaker 1: of us. I have a Canadian in my band now.
17:24
Speaker 1: He's from Winnipeg originally, but he lives in Nova, Scotia,
17:28
Speaker 1: Glenn Patcha, and he is a secret weapon of this
17:31
Speaker 1: new album. He's just an incredibly soulful keyboard player but
17:35
Speaker 1: a great singer as well. So I'm a big, big
17:38
Speaker 1: fan of Canadian musicians and comedians. We'll be right back
17:43
Speaker 1: with more from Bonnie Rate than Bruce Head Them. After
17:45
Speaker 1: a break, we're back with more from Bonnie Rate and
17:52
Speaker 1: Bruce Headlam. So was there one particular song that you
17:57
Speaker 1: listen to or you played in the guitar that sort
18:01
Speaker 1: of said to you, I want this to be my life?
18:03
Speaker 1: You know, I was plaintively playing all those joan by
18:07
Speaker 1: his songs, all my trials, everything on her first couple
18:10
Speaker 1: of albums Odetta's songs, and then I just felt hard
18:14
Speaker 1: for Bob Dylan. Taught myself to play all of those
18:17
Speaker 1: in my room and sang so earnestly, with absolutely no
18:21
Speaker 1: desire or need to play for other people. I mean,
18:24
Speaker 1: I led the songs are on the campfire at camp
18:26
Speaker 1: As an assistant counselor, I'd help put on the talent
18:30
Speaker 1: shows on Saturday nights with kids doing musicals. But playing
18:34
Speaker 1: music for me was just a solitary, wonderful emotional outlet.
18:39
Speaker 1: And I just loved the sound that the guitar makes
18:42
Speaker 1: when it's in your lap and through the sound hole
18:44
Speaker 1: and singing and playing it's just so such a release
18:47
Speaker 1: and you go so deep. So I can't really say
18:50
Speaker 1: there was one tune that made me want to go
18:52
Speaker 1: do it for a living. But one of the best
18:54
Speaker 1: inspirations was I took a semester off from college, and
18:58
Speaker 1: my folks said, Okay, you're on your own or not
19:00
Speaker 1: supporting you if you take a semester off. So I
19:02
Speaker 1: got to get a job, and I worked for the
19:05
Speaker 1: American Friend Service Committee as a transcriptionist in Philadelphia. And
19:09
Speaker 1: I went to a club and I saw some young
19:11
Speaker 1: folk singer, a woman opening for the main act at
19:15
Speaker 1: a little tiny club called a second front, and I said,
19:18
Speaker 1: you know what, I could be doing this instead of typing.
19:21
Speaker 1: You know, I like the AFSC, but come on, how
19:24
Speaker 1: much is she getting paid? So I found out I
19:26
Speaker 1: could just make pin money and support myself, and that's
19:30
Speaker 1: how my career took off. It wasn't really a desire
19:32
Speaker 1: to become a musical powerhouse or have a career in music.
19:37
Speaker 1: I was always going to be a social activist and
19:40
Speaker 1: it kind of fell into my lap just because I
19:42
Speaker 1: happen to have the inspiration of seeing this girl that's
19:45
Speaker 1: I said. But if she can do that, I can
19:47
Speaker 1: do I'm at least that good, you know. And did
19:49
Speaker 1: you make as much money as you would have as
19:51
Speaker 1: a translator? Oh, I think I've done a little bit
19:54
Speaker 1: better than I've been a better social activist as well,
19:56
Speaker 1: I had more reach. But yeah, I mean right off
19:59
Speaker 1: the bat, I was very lucky to be dating somebody
20:03
Speaker 1: that was also a manager of some great blues artists
20:06
Speaker 1: that it's the Great Sunhouse, Mississippi jo Unhurt and then
20:10
Speaker 1: Mississippi Fred McDowell, who I got to meet and hang
20:13
Speaker 1: out with all these legendary blues guys, which is why
20:15
Speaker 1: I took a semester off because a lot of them
20:17
Speaker 1: were elderly, and I knew they weren't going to live
20:19
Speaker 1: forever and I could always go back to college. So
20:22
Speaker 1: I had a kind of an opening slot with a
20:26
Speaker 1: lot of these little gigs. And you know the gas
20:29
Speaker 1: lad I opened for Fred mcdowellan and my hero John Hammond,
20:32
Speaker 1: and I had no expectation to have the guy from
20:36
Speaker 1: Newsweek come down and give me a review. And next
20:39
Speaker 1: thing I know, I was getting record deal offers. Wow.
20:42
Speaker 1: So nobody more surprised than my folks and me. Was
20:46
Speaker 1: that your first exposure to blues music? No. I became
20:50
Speaker 1: a complete blues fan at fourteen when I Joan by
20:55
Speaker 1: his Vanguard Records was like mecca for me. You know,
20:58
Speaker 1: So anything on Vanguard I wanted to listen to. And
21:01
Speaker 1: the Blues at Newport sixty four had Reverend Gary Davis,
21:05
Speaker 1: John Lee Hooker, John Hammond, Dave Van Ronk, n McGee,
21:09
Speaker 1: Sonny Terry, the Great Mississippi, John Hurt, and Reverend Gary Davis.
21:14
Speaker 1: It was a great record, and I taught myself to play.
21:17
Speaker 1: I'd never heard anything like John Hurt. I didn't know
21:20
Speaker 1: white guys could sing the blues. And I was a
21:22
Speaker 1: huge fan of Chuck Barry, Little, Richard Pat's Domino and
21:26
Speaker 1: Ray Charles. So I was already in the R and
21:29
Speaker 1: B soul music lane like the Beatles were in the
21:32
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones. And when the Stones turned, everybody onto Muddy
21:36
Speaker 1: Waters and how and Wolf. I signed up really just
21:39
Speaker 1: like the rest of us. You know, Now, when did
21:41
Speaker 1: the slide guitar start for you? I was about fifteen.
21:46
Speaker 1: I had heard about bottle like guitaris to read sing
21:49
Speaker 1: Out magazine. I didn't have income to be able to
21:52
Speaker 1: go buy records or because I didn't take guitar lessons.
21:55
Speaker 1: I did know though, that the that you tuned the
21:57
Speaker 1: guitar to an open tuning because my grandpa taught me
22:00
Speaker 1: some hymns on a Hawaiian lap steel, and he said,
22:03
Speaker 1: all you have to do is move the bar, you know,
22:05
Speaker 1: from this position to this and you get the four
22:07
Speaker 1: cord in the five corner. It's a cake. So I
22:11
Speaker 1: soaked the label off a chorused and cold bottle to
22:14
Speaker 1: put on my middle finger, which is not actually very
22:16
Speaker 1: practical for slide, and I just tried to imitate what
22:20
Speaker 1: I heard on the records. When I was about fourteen
22:22
Speaker 1: or fifteen years old, including Little Red Rooster by the
22:25
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones. Now we should say bb King said you
22:28
Speaker 1: were the best, I think, the best damn slide player around.
22:32
Speaker 1: So you've got lots of ploddeds. Yeah, I can. I
22:36
Speaker 1: can go to my grave with that one right there.
22:38
Speaker 1: I mean, if I never got another review, that was
22:40
Speaker 1: the one that I was not expecting any treasure. And
22:44
Speaker 1: you mentioned you use the slide of your second finger,
22:47
Speaker 1: which is not unheard of, but it's unusual. Yeah, it's
22:52
Speaker 1: not optimum because actually it's great to be able to
22:55
Speaker 1: finger the other parts of the chords when you're not
23:00
Speaker 1: just playing the slide, you know, So it's it's it's
23:02
Speaker 1: more limiting. But I had never seen anyone do it
23:05
Speaker 1: in La. I grew up in La and we used
23:07
Speaker 1: what we call flip the bird all that time when
23:09
Speaker 1: I was a tough little tomboy and I had older brother,
23:12
Speaker 1: and I would do this this particular position with my hand,
23:16
Speaker 1: which isolate your middle finger, and that's the finger that
23:21
Speaker 1: seemed really natural to me to put the slide on.
23:23
Speaker 1: And in fact you hold I won't make that finger,
23:26
Speaker 1: but you hold the bottleneck on in the position that's
23:30
Speaker 1: actually the position I'm talking about so well, we've now
23:34
Speaker 1: discovered the secret of you or great slide work flipping
23:37
Speaker 1: the bird to your brother, which I showcased on the
23:41
Speaker 1: David Frost Afternoon Show, my first show ever on TV.
23:45
Speaker 1: My bass player of freebo and I like in seventy
23:48
Speaker 1: two or something like that, and Robert Klein was the
23:50
Speaker 1: guest host, and I had opened for him at a
23:53
Speaker 1: university show and he played harmonic as everybody knows. He
23:56
Speaker 1: had a great bit about I can't stop my leg
23:59
Speaker 1: and a spoof on being a blues guy, and he
24:02
Speaker 1: asked me about it, and I remember being smart alecky
24:05
Speaker 1: and I was holding my finger like that the whole
24:07
Speaker 1: time in this day even Frost show. And then I
24:10
Speaker 1: went home and asked my friends if they saw it.
24:12
Speaker 1: They went, oh, yeah, I can't believe you did that.
24:15
Speaker 1: Ah youth. Yeah, you surprised yourself by getting a record
24:19
Speaker 1: deal and then you had these critically lauded albums through
24:24
Speaker 1: the seventies. Tell me what was that time like for you.
24:28
Speaker 1: I was having a blast. I mean I built my
24:30
Speaker 1: following from opening for my heroes and folk clubs to
24:33
Speaker 1: being on festivals and being on the one or the
24:37
Speaker 1: opening act at three o'clock and next thing, and as back,
24:41
Speaker 1: eventually being asked a headline a couple of nights, and
24:44
Speaker 1: then I drew poorly, and then I drew better, and
24:47
Speaker 1: then I would open for Cat Stevens or James Taylor,
24:50
Speaker 1: and you know the benefit of having someone manage and
24:54
Speaker 1: booked me that was already had acts that he could
24:57
Speaker 1: just call up. And I was cheap, you know. I
24:59
Speaker 1: played my own guitar, didn't need a band. I played
25:01
Speaker 1: a little blues, I played a little folk music, so
25:04
Speaker 1: I was not threatening to the main act. And next thing,
25:07
Speaker 1: you know, I was building my own following so slow
25:10
Speaker 1: and steady. I got the record deal that came out.
25:13
Speaker 1: I couldn't afford a band till after my third album,
25:16
Speaker 1: and it was really touring most of the time to
25:19
Speaker 1: build up my following, and mostly in colleges. So I'm
25:24
Speaker 1: feeling the harvest of that, all that legwork and giving
25:27
Speaker 1: up personal life, you know, time at home, because people
25:30
Speaker 1: are still coming to see me, you know, five decades later,
25:33
Speaker 1: and a lot of them write letters and say I
25:35
Speaker 1: saw you at Case Western Reserve in nineteen seventy six
25:39
Speaker 1: or I was you know, I was in the audience
25:41
Speaker 1: in Schwanksville, Pennsylvania. And you know, all of these people
25:44
Speaker 1: that spent their twenties and thirties, they've stayed loyal with me.
25:48
Speaker 1: So my recollection of that time is six albums in
25:52
Speaker 1: seven years and ten months on the road. Wow, and
25:55
Speaker 1: one woman and a bunch of guys. And I was
25:58
Speaker 1: like Gidget. You know, they told Gidget she couldn't surf,
26:00
Speaker 1: and she was eventually accepted by the guy's community. And
26:04
Speaker 1: I felt that way about being a leader of a
26:06
Speaker 1: band and playing lead guitar. I don't think of you
26:08
Speaker 1: as a Gidget type. Maybe a gidget who's flipping off everybody. Yeah,
26:13
Speaker 1: I went from Gidget when I was thirteen, or Soda
26:16
Speaker 1: Amanda Blake I thought was really great because she had
26:18
Speaker 1: red hair and she didn't have to get married and
26:21
Speaker 1: she owned a saloon, so that I was not lost
26:24
Speaker 1: on me. I went, you know what, I'm not the
26:27
Speaker 1: wife and mother type, but I'm just gonna It was
26:30
Speaker 1: a dream come true to be handed a career like that,
26:32
Speaker 1: and I've never had a day where I don't know
26:34
Speaker 1: how lucky I am. You also showcased some female composers
26:40
Speaker 1: earlier in your career. People who don't have a big
26:42
Speaker 1: following now like Sippy Wallace and Yvonne Blake and clips Arose.
26:50
Speaker 1: Was that delivered on your part? Was this something that
26:52
Speaker 1: interested you about blues history? Well? To me as a
26:55
Speaker 1: blues fan, the classic blues singers were just all fantastic
26:59
Speaker 1: and so different. But I loved that Sippy wrote songs
27:03
Speaker 1: from kind of a as a young feminist in my
27:05
Speaker 1: early twenties, you know, in that late lateeen to hear
27:09
Speaker 1: you can make me do what you want to do.
27:11
Speaker 1: But you got to know how, you know, it was
27:13
Speaker 1: just so saucy and women be wise, keep your mouth shut,
27:17
Speaker 1: don't advertise your man. You know, all the feminists were going.
27:20
Speaker 1: You know, how could you say that sisters would never
27:22
Speaker 1: steal each other's man? I said, what what world are
27:25
Speaker 1: you living in? You know? You know, if you talk
27:28
Speaker 1: about your baby, you tell me he's so fine. Don't
27:30
Speaker 1: be surprised if I come up check him out sometime.
27:33
Speaker 1: You know. So Sippy, I had no idea that she
27:36
Speaker 1: was still alive, and so to actually record her songs
27:39
Speaker 1: because I loved her music above all the classic blues
27:42
Speaker 1: singers and find out that she was alive and become
27:45
Speaker 1: friends with her at the ann Arbor Blues and Jazz
27:47
Speaker 1: Festival and go on and tour together for fifteen years.
27:51
Speaker 1: It was just an incredible gift. So, you know, something
27:54
Speaker 1: that I had an intention, it was musically driven, ended
27:58
Speaker 1: up being a benefit culturally for me and for her
28:01
Speaker 1: just to expose her to a wider, wider audience. And
28:06
Speaker 1: that is a great joy for me to take people
28:08
Speaker 1: that are under a shaded I mean, Clypso music is
28:11
Speaker 1: one of my other favorites and Clipso Rose is a
28:14
Speaker 1: huge star in that world. And Van Dyke Parks is
28:17
Speaker 1: the one that turned me onto that song. So on
28:19
Speaker 1: the record, I was working with him in Little George
28:21
Speaker 1: and you know we did that song. What's she going
28:24
Speaker 1: to do? If I can't repeat it here? But there's
28:26
Speaker 1: a little bit of some double untender lyrics, as it
28:29
Speaker 1: often is in the blues and Clypso music. What was
28:32
Speaker 1: Sippy Wallace like? What was she like as a person.
28:35
Speaker 1: She had an incredibly great laugh which she loved to laugh,
28:40
Speaker 1: left a kid around, but she was very religious. And
28:44
Speaker 1: you know I was meeting on her sixties or late sixties.
28:47
Speaker 1: She had recovered from a stroke and she was you
28:50
Speaker 1: had been in a wheelchair for a while, but was
28:52
Speaker 1: walking slowly, and she was only going to do gospel
28:56
Speaker 1: music after she stopped. You know, the whole blues industry
28:59
Speaker 1: went downhill when there was the depression and the Second
29:02
Speaker 1: World War. They needed the vinyl for other things, and
29:05
Speaker 1: the black music industry was the one that took the hit.
29:08
Speaker 1: So she really was settled on this plane. In church,
29:12
Speaker 1: she played organ and piano in the church and led
29:14
Speaker 1: the choir. And she heard that I had done one
29:18
Speaker 1: of her songs, and her manager, who had kind of
29:20
Speaker 1: brought her out of retirement and nursed her back to
29:24
Speaker 1: you know, the idea of playing in public again after
29:26
Speaker 1: her stroke. She was only going to do a gospel
29:29
Speaker 1: song at the anne of her Blues and Jazz festival,
29:31
Speaker 1: and I was going to pay tribute to her. And
29:34
Speaker 1: then we rehearsed it in my trailer. We were soprano, saxophone,
29:38
Speaker 1: and my guitar singing her own song, and she started
29:42
Speaker 1: to rock back and forth, and she said, well, maybe
29:44
Speaker 1: I'll just do that one. So she was playful and wise,
29:49
Speaker 1: and I asked her lots of questions about men, about
29:53
Speaker 1: what it was like to be on the road when
29:55
Speaker 1: she was a young woman with mostly men. I mean,
29:57
Speaker 1: did she get hit on? Did they treat her with respect?
30:00
Speaker 1: What was it like to be widowed by her husband
30:02
Speaker 1: dying so relatively early? And did she miss being married?
30:06
Speaker 1: And you know, I asked her about Jesus and asked
30:08
Speaker 1: her about racism and Jim Crow, And it was an
30:11
Speaker 1: incredible to have her as my kind of like a
30:16
Speaker 1: grandmother or an elderly aunt, to give me a window
30:19
Speaker 1: on her world musically and culturally. Did it help you
30:24
Speaker 1: in those years when you were the woman on the
30:26
Speaker 1: road usually opening for men and I'm sure getting hit on?
30:29
Speaker 1: And well, I was just my own boss, you know.
30:33
Speaker 1: I grew up with my dad having to my dad
30:35
Speaker 1: mostly waiting to get another show. I mean, would he
30:38
Speaker 1: would steady book himself in the summertime on the very
30:42
Speaker 1: lucrative one star at touring in Carrousel, Oklahoma, Pajama game
30:47
Speaker 1: shows that there there's a circuit of regional theater in
30:50
Speaker 1: the summer, it's called summer Stock, And he would do
30:52
Speaker 1: eight shows a week and for three months and just
30:55
Speaker 1: be out there no air conditioning. Most of them are
30:57
Speaker 1: intense in the round. But basically he didn't have a
31:00
Speaker 1: chance to get a new He couldn't generate a new
31:03
Speaker 1: show for himself. And I just noticed that, and I said,
31:07
Speaker 1: you know what I'm gonna If I'm gonna do this,
31:09
Speaker 1: I want to have total control over what I record
31:12
Speaker 1: and when I released the record, and what the ticket
31:15
Speaker 1: prices will be, and you know who I opened for
31:18
Speaker 1: and who opens for me. And so I was much
31:21
Speaker 1: more hands on self managing. You know, I needed a
31:25
Speaker 1: booking agent and a tour manager, but the rest of
31:28
Speaker 1: it I handled. So I think Sippy was more of
31:31
Speaker 1: a woman of her time. She was very young when
31:34
Speaker 1: she started, and then I think guys just took care
31:37
Speaker 1: of her, you know, the guys, the music directors, but
31:40
Speaker 1: they were always very respectful. She didn't have I think
31:43
Speaker 1: she probably got married early to be able to be protected.
31:47
Speaker 1: You talked about sort of being in control of your
31:49
Speaker 1: own career, but then in the eighties your career took
31:53
Speaker 1: this well, I'm not sure your career even took a dive.
31:56
Speaker 1: Maybe record companies just changed their ways. But Warner Brothers
32:00
Speaker 1: dropped you at the same time that I think Prince
32:04
Speaker 1: was interested in working with you. Well within a few
32:07
Speaker 1: years later. Yeah, I mean answer, I kind of veered
32:10
Speaker 1: off when you asked me how I felt about the
32:12
Speaker 1: seventies and my albums. You know, I would have liked
32:14
Speaker 1: to have them promoted more. I mean, we always went
32:18
Speaker 1: out of my way to have a good single on
32:20
Speaker 1: the record, But I think because I didn't have a
32:22
Speaker 1: manager and I didn't want to be directed at all
32:26
Speaker 1: or told what to wear, and I didn't care about
32:28
Speaker 1: having a hit single. I mean, my deal with Warners
32:30
Speaker 1: was predicated on being an album artist. So it's something
32:34
Speaker 1: that an Americana music now it's just not even thought of.
32:37
Speaker 1: You know, if you straddle genres and you know you
32:40
Speaker 1: don't want to have a you don't need to have
32:42
Speaker 1: a commercial single off your record. That's people don't even
32:45
Speaker 1: blink now. But back then they wanted you to be
32:48
Speaker 1: able to promote a record. And when the record business
32:51
Speaker 1: took off with Rumors and Thriller in Miami, Vice Soundtrack,
32:56
Speaker 1: these were billion selling records and those of us that
32:59
Speaker 1: were more moderate sellers just got pushed a little bit
33:04
Speaker 1: to the side and they'd rather sign somebody else that
33:06
Speaker 1: could bring in a more bang for their buck. They
33:08
Speaker 1: were also absorbed big corporations, you know, Warner elector Atlantic, consolidated,
33:13
Speaker 1: Warner Communications took over. There was a different set of
33:16
Speaker 1: priorities in the eighties, so you know, they dropped t
33:22
Speaker 1: Bone Burnett and Van Morrison and Arlo Guthrie and me,
33:26
Speaker 1: and you know, we weren't bringing in the big bucks.
33:28
Speaker 1: So the eighties weren't real friendly to my kind of music.
33:32
Speaker 1: It wasn't a great political decade. There was this war
33:35
Speaker 1: in Central America. It was alert to the right politically
33:39
Speaker 1: and the consolidation of the record business, and it wasn't
33:43
Speaker 1: until the end of the decade that the college radio
33:47
Speaker 1: and album oriented rock and VH one came along. And
33:52
Speaker 1: you know, Tracy Chapman had a number one record, Edie Brickell,
33:56
Speaker 1: Robert Cray, the Fabulous Thunderbirds. My kind of music was
34:00
Speaker 1: having hit a hit play, so I would it was
34:03
Speaker 1: a good time for me to come back into the
34:04
Speaker 1: four but I never expected to have that huge success.
34:08
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody did. But you were back playing
34:11
Speaker 1: solo shows, is that right? You didn't have a band
34:14
Speaker 1: at that point. I played with my guitar player who
34:17
Speaker 1: backed up on bass and sang harmony, and we would
34:19
Speaker 1: do that in the months when we weren't with the
34:21
Speaker 1: band in the summer and Prince approached me a couple
34:25
Speaker 1: of years after I'd been dropped because I had a
34:29
Speaker 1: record ready to come out and a tour with Stevie
34:31
Speaker 1: Ray Vaughan, I had to cancel it, and he said,
34:35
Speaker 1: you know you were treated badly, why don't you come
34:37
Speaker 1: over with Paisley Park and make a record with me?
34:39
Speaker 1: And we ended up trying to work on some things together,
34:41
Speaker 1: but he had done the tracks all of himself in
34:44
Speaker 1: a key that I don't sing in and lyrics that
34:47
Speaker 1: I couldn't relate to. So we were going to work
34:50
Speaker 1: together again in the future, but our schedules just didn't
34:53
Speaker 1: work out. Was he a nice guy to work with
34:56
Speaker 1: despite everything being in the wrong key. He was really
34:59
Speaker 1: as fascinating as you read about him. He's very shy,
35:02
Speaker 1: you know, when he ate dinner with him, he was like,
35:05
Speaker 1: I felt uncomfortable because I'm pretty extroverted and he was
35:08
Speaker 1: just really self conscious about looking down at his food
35:12
Speaker 1: and putting the food in his mouth. So it was
35:13
Speaker 1: kind of endearing. But what a badass though. You know.
35:17
Speaker 1: It was just the combination of shy and sexually so forthright,
35:22
Speaker 1: and you know the thing that all of us musicians
35:25
Speaker 1: have in common is our love of music. So that's
35:29
Speaker 1: what we just every time that we got together was
35:31
Speaker 1: a couple of long evenings in LA and once in Minneapolis,
35:35
Speaker 1: just huge floor to ceiling screens watching this. You know,
35:39
Speaker 1: Staples Singers and Sly and the family Stone. I mean,
35:43
Speaker 1: we just were Stone music fans, and that's what we
35:45
Speaker 1: had in common. He was a great, great guy. Did
35:49
Speaker 1: you ever just sit across from him and play guitar?
35:52
Speaker 1: I played guitar on some of the tracks that he
35:54
Speaker 1: had put together for us to poss for me to try,
35:57
Speaker 1: and so I did that, but it was a thwarted
36:00
Speaker 1: It wasn't a fully realized collaboration because I told him
36:03
Speaker 1: I appreciated the interest, but I wanted to be fifty
36:06
Speaker 1: fifty and and there's some things happen were you know,
36:09
Speaker 1: I was injured and I had to get over a
36:11
Speaker 1: thumb injury. So we had to postpone the sessions, and
36:14
Speaker 1: so he went ahead and just got some songs from
36:16
Speaker 1: his vault or wrote some songs that he thought I
36:18
Speaker 1: would relate to, but they just weren't in my wheelhouse. So,
36:23
Speaker 1: you know, just I wish we could have worked together
36:25
Speaker 1: because I had great admiration for him. We have to
36:28
Speaker 1: take a quick break, but we'll be right back with
36:30
Speaker 1: more from Bonnie Ray. We're back with the rest of
36:37
Speaker 1: Bruce's conversation with Bonnie Ray. I do want to talk
36:41
Speaker 1: about some of the songwriters you've worked with and just
36:43
Speaker 1: your first encounters, and I have to start with John Prine.
36:47
Speaker 1: Can you tell me about meeting him or encountering his
36:50
Speaker 1: songs for the first time. Yeah. I heard his first
36:54
Speaker 1: album on Atlantic, his debut record, and I was just
36:57
Speaker 1: absolutely floored. And I don't know when in the timeline,
37:00
Speaker 1: but I was playing the Gaslight and he was playing
37:02
Speaker 1: The Bitter End, And we ended up meeting in New
37:05
Speaker 1: York City in the village, and soon after we both
37:08
Speaker 1: played the Philadelphia Folk Festival together, and we just forged
37:12
Speaker 1: a friendship right away that was absolutely immediate. He was
37:14
Speaker 1: a fan of mine, I was a fan of his.
37:16
Speaker 1: Who was Angel the first song you did his? Yes,
37:20
Speaker 1: I knew of the first time I heard that song
37:22
Speaker 1: on his album, that I'd be cutting that song, and
37:24
Speaker 1: I just just astonished that someone of his age could
37:28
Speaker 1: crawl inside that woman who in that long time marriage
37:32
Speaker 1: and just so beautifully and succinctly. I mean, he's so
37:37
Speaker 1: much has been written, especially since he passed, But I
37:40
Speaker 1: mean the masterpiece of economy of that song, and how
37:44
Speaker 1: every line is just laden with meaning and you don't
37:48
Speaker 1: need to go in. It doesn't have to be a
37:51
Speaker 1: long story. It's just immediately there. And I sing that
37:55
Speaker 1: song for all the women when I was a young woman,
37:59
Speaker 1: for all the women that are stuck in marriages and
38:02
Speaker 1: can't leave if they wanted to try a different kind
38:05
Speaker 1: of life, or get a job, or have someone to
38:08
Speaker 1: talk to, just not I remember seeing the film The
38:12
Speaker 1: Bridges of Madison County and thinking that so perfectly described
38:17
Speaker 1: what Angel from Montgomery was about without giving it away,
38:20
Speaker 1: that moment when she makes a decision to not follow
38:23
Speaker 1: her bliss. So I sing the song for my mom's generation.
38:28
Speaker 1: I sing the song for women around the world that
38:31
Speaker 1: don't have the choice to get stay single, or get
38:34
Speaker 1: out of a bad marriage, or get an education. So
38:37
Speaker 1: it's taken on very mythic proportions for me. Another writer
38:41
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you about was Richard Thompson. Oh,
38:44
Speaker 1: I'm so glad he's another guy that how could he
38:47
Speaker 1: write that dimming of the day in his early twenties.
38:50
Speaker 1: You know, give me a break. He's one of the
38:53
Speaker 1: greatest ones we have. I'm a huge fan of his,
38:58
Speaker 1: and he's as fascinating a person. He has a wonderful
39:02
Speaker 1: memoir that he just put out, and it's really his
39:06
Speaker 1: Sufi religion, his path going to the Sufi spirituality. Mixed
39:13
Speaker 1: in with all of it, the wonderful behind the scenes
39:16
Speaker 1: of what it was like to be creating an entirely
39:20
Speaker 1: new form of music by electrifying and making originals of
39:24
Speaker 1: Celtic traditions. It's just there's nobody like him. He's absolutely brilliant.
39:29
Speaker 1: You know. It's one of my fantasies that you do
39:31
Speaker 1: an entire album of Richard Thompson songs. What a cool idea,
39:36
Speaker 1: you know, down where the Drunkard's roll or walking on
39:39
Speaker 1: the wire, misunderstood persuasion. I mean, there's so many that
39:43
Speaker 1: I love. You could do fifty two vincent black Lightning
39:47
Speaker 1: from the point of view the woman. Oh my god,
39:50
Speaker 1: that would be very original. That would be mighty, wouldn't it.
39:53
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a woman with red hair and a motorcycle.
39:56
Speaker 1: I don't I'd have to sing about a guy with
39:59
Speaker 1: a black hair on the motorcycle, but you could do
40:01
Speaker 1: it anyway you want it. That's my elevator, pitch Well suggested,
40:05
Speaker 1: because I just think he's phenomenal and he keeps growing
40:08
Speaker 1: and he's so a thick and if it was just
40:10
Speaker 1: his songwriting, that would be enough to put him in
40:14
Speaker 1: the top. But his singing style and his topics and
40:18
Speaker 1: his guitar playing, I mean, really thank you for reminding
40:23
Speaker 1: me to so I could just live in that moment
40:26
Speaker 1: with him. And you're a big Mose Allison fan. I
40:29
Speaker 1: am a huge Mose Allison fan. Now have you done
40:32
Speaker 1: a lot of his songs? Or I've only done Everybody's
40:35
Speaker 1: Crying Mercy? I did that on my third album in
40:38
Speaker 1: seventy three, and I had become a headliner. I first
40:42
Speaker 1: opened for Jackson Brown my first national tour in seventy four,
40:47
Speaker 1: one woman in thirteen guys in both bands on one bus.
40:51
Speaker 1: It was fifty cities of that. It was incredible. But
40:55
Speaker 1: after that I was able to headline and I invited
40:58
Speaker 1: Tom Waits to come and open the tour. So and
41:01
Speaker 1: somewhere in there I asked Mose Allison if he would
41:04
Speaker 1: like to do It was either three or six weeks together,
41:07
Speaker 1: probably three of colleges, and I know it was an
41:10
Speaker 1: unusual idea, but he I said, Mose, you know we could,
41:14
Speaker 1: You could make good money. I'll give you, I'll pay
41:16
Speaker 1: you more than what you're asking, and you can open
41:18
Speaker 1: up this whole market that needs to know about you.
41:21
Speaker 1: And he said yes, so selfishly. Just to be able
41:24
Speaker 1: to sit in the wings and listen to him every night,
41:26
Speaker 1: it was incredible and we were very good friends all
41:29
Speaker 1: the way through his life. I hear ideas of his
41:32
Speaker 1: sometimes in your music, including on this album, but other
41:36
Speaker 1: than the one song I Know You Haven't you haven't
41:38
Speaker 1: covered him. My older brother brought a record of his one.
41:42
Speaker 1: You know how you idolize your siblings sometimes when they're older.
41:45
Speaker 1: And he was dating someone from Bennington College and we
41:48
Speaker 1: came back to Christmas vacation and he brought the Birds
41:52
Speaker 1: and Freddie Hubbard and John Lee Hooker and later Jimmy Hendrix,
41:56
Speaker 1: but he brought Mose Allison's record. That's where I first
41:59
Speaker 1: heard it. I was like sixteen, and I just couldn't
42:02
Speaker 1: wait to be a beatneck and go to New York
42:04
Speaker 1: and hang out with guys with turtlenecks and berets and goatees,
42:10
Speaker 1: and I just think Mose is the coolest blues guy
42:12
Speaker 1: I've ever heard in my life. Incredible. So the eighties,
42:16
Speaker 1: your career, or Warner's career wasn't going so well, let
42:20
Speaker 1: me put it that way, and then you had this
42:22
Speaker 1: incredible tear when you went to Capital and they signed
42:27
Speaker 1: you for some small deal for one hundred and fifty
42:29
Speaker 1: thousand or something, not even that one hundred twenty five
42:31
Speaker 1: I think. But all we needed was the budget. That
42:34
Speaker 1: was the budget we were going to make the record with. Well,
42:37
Speaker 1: that was the best one hundred twenty five thousand dollars
42:40
Speaker 1: Capitol Records ever spent. Well what did they know? I mean,
42:43
Speaker 1: they knew that if we were going to make a
42:45
Speaker 1: really simple record that it doesn't cost you know, I
42:48
Speaker 1: just make records live mostly, it doesn't shouldn't cost that
42:50
Speaker 1: much to make. I don't do big productions or anything.
42:53
Speaker 1: And Joe Smith signed me to Warners in seventy one,
42:57
Speaker 1: and he signed me to Capitol and eighty eight, So
43:01
Speaker 1: that was part of it. But to have a new label,
43:04
Speaker 1: some of which are people that some of the people
43:07
Speaker 1: came over from Warners with Joe, but they had something
43:10
Speaker 1: to prove. They knew that I was really changing my
43:14
Speaker 1: life and wanting to make a really great record, and
43:17
Speaker 1: my pairing with Don was was real kismet. It was great.
43:20
Speaker 1: What else changed you think that made it suddenly possible
43:24
Speaker 1: for people to hear you in a different way. Well,
43:27
Speaker 1: Number one, I think it was a switch and label
43:29
Speaker 1: and have a very enthusiastic team that had something to prove.
43:33
Speaker 1: H one and was just starting. And I would have
43:36
Speaker 1: never been played on MTV because I was forty years
43:40
Speaker 1: old so and not a babe. So VH one needed
43:43
Speaker 1: some new artists to showcase their new adult channel. You know,
43:48
Speaker 1: I don't know. You can't call it an adult channel.
43:50
Speaker 1: What can you call it mature? I don't know what
43:52
Speaker 1: it could call it. It's just not the kids channel.
43:55
Speaker 1: I think the fact that I got sober and eighty
43:58
Speaker 1: seven and was much healthier and happier and had written
44:03
Speaker 1: some songs, and you know, I had a particularly good
44:06
Speaker 1: batch of tunes and a great partner and Don was
44:09
Speaker 1: and all of those things coupled with the fact that
44:12
Speaker 1: radio actually had formats that would play me. That is
44:16
Speaker 1: a huge change from the middle of the eighties and before.
44:21
Speaker 1: There's no way that Tracy Chapman would have won Album
44:23
Speaker 1: the Year in nineteen eighty one, or eating Eatie Brickell
44:27
Speaker 1: or the Thunderbirds or Robert Cray having big hit records
44:30
Speaker 1: like that. So things have changed and the burgeoning American
44:35
Speaker 1: I'm seen kind of what was happening right about that time.
44:39
Speaker 1: Are there still outlets that are going to play your
44:41
Speaker 1: new stuff, that are going to say, here's the new
44:43
Speaker 1: bonny rate? Yes, I think so, I mean there's only
44:46
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't get mainstream play. I don't think
44:48
Speaker 1: at all. I've only had a couple of songs that
44:50
Speaker 1: crossed over in the in that Nick of Time period
44:53
Speaker 1: with I Can't Make You Love Me and have a
44:56
Speaker 1: Heart maybe, And I think Thing called Love was a
44:59
Speaker 1: radio hit, but only on the adult album are adult
45:04
Speaker 1: oriented radio whatever, there's AC and AC light, adult content,
45:09
Speaker 1: adult contemporary light. Those stations that would play Nick of
45:12
Speaker 1: Time wouldn't play Thing called Love and vice versa. And
45:15
Speaker 1: I think nowadays there's tremendous competition, not just for styles
45:20
Speaker 1: of music, but four generations of music. I mean, every
45:24
Speaker 1: four years is another thirty artists that are vying for
45:28
Speaker 1: the same radio time. So I'm thank god I got
45:31
Speaker 1: my foot in the door in the nineties because I'm
45:34
Speaker 1: still played as a legacy artist on You know, I
45:38
Speaker 1: don't really study the formats of the stations that play me,
45:41
Speaker 1: but I just know that there's independent what we call
45:44
Speaker 1: FM stations that have been incredibly loyal to me and
45:48
Speaker 1: probably get a little play on college stations and maybe
45:51
Speaker 1: even country stations. I don't know, but there's a circuit
45:54
Speaker 1: that plays me just like they played John Hyatt, John Prine,
45:57
Speaker 1: Jackson Brown. Thank God. It's a little bit wildering to
46:02
Speaker 1: me that I mentioned the song off your last album
46:05
Speaker 1: with the ones we Couldn't Be, which, you know, to me,
46:08
Speaker 1: I don't see any reason why that's not as big
46:11
Speaker 1: a hit as I Can't Make You Love Me. Oh
46:15
Speaker 1: my gosh. You know, no one's ever mentioned that song really,
46:18
Speaker 1: really no. I mean, I'm very proud of it, but
46:21
Speaker 1: it's I just figured it's too personally, you know. I
46:23
Speaker 1: have a three or four songs like that that are
46:26
Speaker 1: on the keyboard and kind of contemplative, you know, not
46:30
Speaker 1: universal themes, but very personal, and they probably don't have
46:34
Speaker 1: the production or the musical style to cross over and
46:37
Speaker 1: be a single like that. I mean, there's a beautiful
46:39
Speaker 1: song called Wounded Hard. A couple of albums before that
46:42
Speaker 1: I thought was just a massive deepening for everybody to
46:47
Speaker 1: listen to. It's by Jude Johnston. But thank you for
46:50
Speaker 1: appreciating that. I just I wish in a perfect world
46:53
Speaker 1: that those every ballad could have a lot of showcase.
46:57
Speaker 1: So you've continued to put out albums great album since,
47:01
Speaker 1: like Fundamental and slip Stream, which I think did very
47:04
Speaker 1: very well for you. How was this new album different
47:08
Speaker 1: for you? Obviously the world was different. Yes, with COVID,
47:12
Speaker 1: was there a different thought going into this record? It's
47:15
Speaker 1: always the same for me. I find a ten or
47:17
Speaker 1: twelve best songs I can find and write some that
47:21
Speaker 1: say things that I can't find from other people. And
47:25
Speaker 1: I've got the same focus of looking for new things
47:29
Speaker 1: to say and new ways to say it and stretch
47:32
Speaker 1: if I can, and have a couple of surprises for people.
47:37
Speaker 1: So it wasn't really different. It's just we just had
47:39
Speaker 1: to wait a long time before I could get in
47:40
Speaker 1: the studio, and you know, there was no assurance that
47:45
Speaker 1: this year was going to actually the tour that we
47:47
Speaker 1: booked a year ago for this year. We didn't have
47:49
Speaker 1: any idea, and I guess we still don't know if
47:51
Speaker 1: it's going to one hundred percent happened, but it looks
47:54
Speaker 1: pretty good. So I called up May the Staples, and
47:57
Speaker 1: I called up Lucinda Williams, and I said, would you
48:00
Speaker 1: be my special guests? So the tour is kind of
48:03
Speaker 1: split with them, each one of them doing a different part,
48:06
Speaker 1: and the sales have been great so far. So going
48:10
Speaker 1: into this record, I just knew that I wanted to
48:12
Speaker 1: stretch a little bit and do those acoustic songs that
48:14
Speaker 1: are not about my personal life. And I also wanted
48:17
Speaker 1: to write a song about recovery, and just not just recovery,
48:22
Speaker 1: but the way the devil is on your shoulder trying
48:24
Speaker 1: to urge you to do the things that you know
48:26
Speaker 1: you shouldn't do, and what a slippery slope that is
48:30
Speaker 1: and musically waiting for you to blow, which is the
48:33
Speaker 1: music to that idea. That has some of the more
48:36
Speaker 1: adventurous musical arranging that I've ever come up with, So
48:39
Speaker 1: I'm proud of I'm especially proud of that one. And
48:42
Speaker 1: then Living for the Ones is the song I wanted
48:44
Speaker 1: to write about what we just went through in the
48:47
Speaker 1: last couple of years and all the people that we've lost.
48:49
Speaker 1: So I got a little bit of everything that I
48:52
Speaker 1: needed to say in there. Okay, we are anticipating all
48:56
Speaker 1: my questions, which is good. No, No, that's absolutely fine.
49:01
Speaker 1: But I do want to ask you about the other
49:04
Speaker 1: slower song, the story song on this which was down
49:08
Speaker 1: the hall. Tell me a bit about that. Well, that
49:11
Speaker 1: one was great journalism by the New York Times. Again,
49:14
Speaker 1: the Sunday magazine has some of the most incisive, unexpected stories,
49:18
Speaker 1: and I make room in my life to read cover
49:21
Speaker 1: to cover unless I'm too blown out by reading about
49:25
Speaker 1: war and poverty and starvation on a Sunday morning. So
49:29
Speaker 1: I saw this photo essay and a beautiful article in
49:35
Speaker 1: the New York Times magazine Sunday paper in May of
49:39
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, and I just was devastated. When I finished,
49:45
Speaker 1: I just wept. I put it down and I just wept.
49:49
Speaker 1: And I don't even know if I went outside again
49:51
Speaker 1: that day. And it continued to stay with me and
49:54
Speaker 1: moved me so deeply, and I knew that it was
49:57
Speaker 1: going to be what I wanted to write a song about.
50:00
Speaker 1: And it had to do with a prison hospice program
50:03
Speaker 1: where in Vacaville, California. They have a program where volunt
50:09
Speaker 1: prisoners can volunteer to be of service on the hospice board.
50:12
Speaker 1: And the photos that accompanied the interviews and the writing
50:16
Speaker 1: of Seleca's incredible writing for the piece, which was one
50:20
Speaker 1: of the most beautiful marriages of journalism and heart and
50:23
Speaker 1: human interest and redemption and grace, and those are the
50:27
Speaker 1: things that in the last couple of years, with the
50:29
Speaker 1: wrenching polarity and vitriol and climate nightmare and suffering and
50:35
Speaker 1: migration and black lives matter, it's unprecedented and I don't
50:39
Speaker 1: know how to handle it. So I was really moved
50:44
Speaker 1: by the impact of this story, and I knew I
50:47
Speaker 1: wanted to write a song from the point of view
50:49
Speaker 1: of someone I would make that decision that, you know,
50:52
Speaker 1: for no gain, no shortening of his sentence, no money.
50:56
Speaker 1: Just saw a guy being wheeled into the hospice ward
50:59
Speaker 1: and asked the nurse if his family he comes in
51:02
Speaker 1: at the end, and she said most of them don't
51:04
Speaker 1: have anybody, and he just, you know, what else has
51:07
Speaker 1: he got to do? He didn't have to volunteer it.
51:09
Speaker 1: I just put myself in his place and what it
51:12
Speaker 1: would be like for him to get over the tribal
51:16
Speaker 1: segregation and animosity of one population in the prison community
51:21
Speaker 1: has for the other, and they in the hospital. Word,
51:23
Speaker 1: everybody's the same. We all need human contact and love
51:28
Speaker 1: and care and someone to be with us at the end.
51:30
Speaker 1: And I just wanted to be able to write songs,
51:33
Speaker 1: these two songs about redemption and grace and forgiveness, and
51:39
Speaker 1: I think it's medicine for these difficult times and they're
51:42
Speaker 1: beautiful songs. Thank you so much for talking. Thank you,
51:46
Speaker 1: Thank you for appreciating what I do and making these
51:48
Speaker 1: great suggestions as well. Thanks the Bonny Rate for talking
51:55
Speaker 1: about the inspiration behind her new album Just like that.
51:59
Speaker 1: You can hear a new album and all of our
52:00
Speaker 1: favorite Bonnie Rate songs on my playlist at broken record
52:03
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube
52:07
Speaker 1: channel YouTube dot com slash broken record Podcast, where you
52:10
Speaker 1: can find all of our new episodes. You can follow
52:13
Speaker 1: us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is produced
52:16
Speaker 1: with help from Lea Rose, Jason Gambrel, Bent, Holiday, Eric Sandler,
52:20
Speaker 1: and Jennifer Sanchez, with engineering help from Nick Chafee. Our
52:24
Speaker 1: executive producer is Mia Lobell. Broken Record is a production
52:28
Speaker 1: of Pushkin Industries. If you like this show and others
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Speaker 1: from Pushkin, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is
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Speaker 1: Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcasts subscriptions, and if you like
52:46
Speaker 1: the show, please remember to share, rate, and review us
52:48
Speaker 1: on your podcast app Our theme musics by Kenny Beats.
52:51
Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond.