Latest / Basic Folk / Laurie Lewis' Bluegrass Love Letter to California, ep. 337

Transcript

Laurie Lewis' Bluegrass Love Letter to California, ep. 337 · Basic Folk

0:12
[SPEAKER_00]: and welcome to Basic Folk where we have honest conversations with folk musicians on the Bluegrass situation.
0:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's your host Cindy House.
0:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, hello and hi.
0:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you so much for joining us today.
0:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope everything is going great.
0:26
[SPEAKER_00]: We have Lori Lewis.
0:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Bluegrass Queen on Basic Folk Today, very excited to get into that, but first, how you do it?
0:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you signed up for Basic Folk's newsletter?
0:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You can do so very easily at the link in the show notes or you can go to BasicFoke.com.
0:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also follow us on social media.
0:44
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to tell you that Instagram is the biggest bang for your book, but we're also on Facebook and YouTube.
0:50
[SPEAKER_00]: is TikTok a thing anymore.
0:52
[SPEAKER_00]: We have an account.
0:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I have an open the app in quite a while.
0:55
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm afraid to, honestly, to be honest, I'm afraid to do anything with TikTok right now.
1:00
[SPEAKER_00]: But we can find us on social media at BasicFokePod.
1:05
[SPEAKER_00]: You can also become a supporter through us some dollars.
1:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You can make your contribution at BasicFoke.com slash donate or the link is in the
1:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Alright, Lori Lewis, originally part of the 70s Bay Area Bluegrass scene, Lori Lewis knows the power of collaboration.
1:23
[SPEAKER_00]: She's been part of an ensemble in recent years that called themselves Lori Lewis and the right hands with Lori on fiddle guitar and vocals, Brandon Godman on fiddle, George Guthrie on Banjo and Hazy Ciacco on string bass.
1:37
[SPEAKER_00]: They play a huge part on her new album, O' California.
1:40
[SPEAKER_00]: A collection of songs that explore our places in the natural world and in each other's hearts that also serves as a love letter to her home state.
1:49
[SPEAKER_00]: One standout track, the traditional fair and tender ladies is a duet with Siyako, and that really makes the song and cautionary tale come alive.
1:58
[SPEAKER_00]: In our conversation, Laurie talks about what it's been like to learn traditional songs and then actually catching their meanings long after figuring out the tune.
2:08
[SPEAKER_00]: She emphasizes the communal and collaborative nature that defines her musicianship.
2:13
[SPEAKER_00]: She recounts her early exposure to music played socially when her father and his friends gathered at their home to all play classical music when she was young.
2:23
[SPEAKER_00]: She marks that experience with solidifying her decision to learn to play so she could have as much fun as they did.
2:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Lori opens up about her path to finding independence from her father's expectations, and her eventual return to music through modern dance and folk tradition.
2:37
[SPEAKER_00]: She also touches on her passion for nature, recounting transformative hiking experiences, and reveals her thoughts on collaboration and mentorship within the music community.
2:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Additionally, she reflects on the profound impact of losing her voice in 2021 and the emotional journey of rediscovering her musical identity.
2:56
[SPEAKER_00]: We wrap up our conversation talking about her friend Alice Girard, whom she covers on the new album.
3:02
[SPEAKER_00]: After we hung up Laurie emailed me in a denim about Alice that I wanted to share.
3:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Laurie says, I forgot to say when you asked me about Alice Girard that I also greatly admire her community involvement in the music she loves as evidenced by her starting and running the old time herald for so many years.
3:20
[SPEAKER_00]: She's a remarkable person.
3:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Plus, she trained her dog to fetch a beer out of the fridge for her and then put the empty can in the recycling.
3:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Just incredible.
3:30
[SPEAKER_00]: We'll listen to a clip of that traditional song fair and tender ladies from the new album, O. California, and then we'll get to our conversation with Lori Lewis on Basic Folk.
3:50
[SPEAKER_02]: Take warning how you caught young men They're like the stars on a summer's morning First they'll appear and then they're gone They'll tell to you Some love and stories
4:20
[SPEAKER_02]: They'll swear to you that their love is true The straight way they'll go And court some other And that's the love they have for me
4:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Lori Lewis, welcome to Basic Folks.
4:48
[SPEAKER_00]: So glad to have you on.
4:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you.
4:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad to be here.
4:52
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to talk about your early musical surroundings.
4:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, you are very much in the folk tradition, but you weren't necessarily exposed to that tradition at a very young age.
5:06
[SPEAKER_00]: But you were witness to performing music socially, which is like definitely part of the folk tradition.
5:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Your dad was a doctor who played flute and piccolo with his doctor friends and you have stories of listening to them playing while you were in bed.
5:22
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like they were having so much fun.
5:24
[SPEAKER_00]: It's interesting to me that it was classical music that he was playing socially.
5:29
[SPEAKER_00]: What can you say about that style of music usually like so rigid, so defined, being performed in that type of setting?
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, let's see, what can I say about that?
5:42
[SPEAKER_01]: It's kind of a testament to the looseness of those, that particular group of people that they could just, they were just reading site reading, woodwind quintets.
5:55
[SPEAKER_01]: and they would sit around and have fun and sight read and then they'd screw up and go back, oh, let's go back to B and take it from there or something.
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And to my mind, it wasn't too different.
6:11
[SPEAKER_01]: from sit around and playing music with people, not reading music.
6:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Although I have to say that you know, I studied classical violin and one of my big problems with the classical violin was the actual reading of music.
6:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I was so
6:29
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess it was tension.
6:31
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not exactly sure what my parents thought at first.
6:34
[SPEAKER_01]: I was allergic to rosin and that it was an allergic reaction.
6:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Like a for real allergic or they're being fun.
6:41
[SPEAKER_01]: No, for real, they got me some synthetic rosin to see if it would help.
6:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And
6:47
[SPEAKER_01]: It did not.
6:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, I would get so tense.
6:51
[SPEAKER_01]: My eyes would just get beat red and it was very hard for me to read music and make music come out of the instrument at the same time.
7:05
[SPEAKER_01]: and a terrible site reader, and I never depend on music reading.
7:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I can read a chart, fine, but not the little dots on paper for some reason.
7:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so it's that's so interesting because I have a dyslexic kid, so maybe that had something to do with it.
7:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, okay, interesting.
7:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Like, okay, so I have this question about
7:33
[SPEAKER_00]: how you kind of had this incredible pull towards like blue grass and towards like folk and roots music.
7:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Like it seems like almost cosmic, you know, and me hearing that you had such a hard time sight reading it.
7:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You're such a like a legendary accomplished player.
7:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It feels like it is this kind of like cosmic, huge thing for you.
7:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I guess that, you know, it's part of your, your um,
8:01
[SPEAKER_01]: strength being defined by your weaknesses, you know.
8:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I honestly seem to have a physiological issue with reading music.
8:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Therefore, I fell in love with a music that I don't have to read.
8:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
8:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Amazing.
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
8:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Another question about your dad.
8:24
[SPEAKER_00]: So for better or worse, he was a big part of your early musical journey.
8:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But it sounds like he could be like heavy handed in his encouragement to the point where you were discouraged.
8:35
[SPEAKER_00]: but it seemed like he never gave up pushing you towards music, like he really wanted you to play classical, but eventually it seems like he accepted and then like fully leaned into your love of bluegrass, and thinking about that, how do you reflect on your dad's role in your musicality?
8:53
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I think it both hindered me and helped me and possibly in about equal amounts.
9:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I was a very, very shy kid and pretty much
9:14
[SPEAKER_01]: afraid of any adult figure.
9:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know why that was.
9:18
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just was in me.
9:21
[SPEAKER_01]: My mom says she was the same way, so maybe it's genetic.
9:25
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's a shyness gene, I suppose.
9:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And for generational trauma.
9:32
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, who knows?
9:34
[SPEAKER_01]: So hiding out in the fials of Norway or something
9:42
[SPEAKER_01]: afraid the Vikings will come and get us.
9:44
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure exactly right.
9:47
[SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, besides all that, my dad would try and
9:54
[SPEAKER_01]: and get me to perform when I really did not want to.
10:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And it got much worse after my parents got divorced and it was a very litigious and ugly divorce and my dad was the bad guy.
10:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I just didn't want to do anything my dad wanted me to do.
10:17
[SPEAKER_01]: aside from that.
10:20
[SPEAKER_01]: But after I sort of escaped playing music for a while and went into modern dance, which he didn't understand anything about, or didn't really care about, I got my own firm footing of who I was and what I wanted to do, more or less, and I wasn't
10:48
[SPEAKER_01]: by his expectations or what he wanted me to do.
10:53
[SPEAKER_01]: So, I think that it was great that he introduced me to a lot of music and he encouraged a lot of,
11:03
[SPEAKER_01]: a lot of stuff.
11:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I really, really appreciate that.
11:05
[SPEAKER_01]: But it got to a point where I had to escape him and learn to not pay attention to him.
11:16
[SPEAKER_01]: And then when he came back, when I got
11:21
[SPEAKER_01]: interested in music again, or re-interested in playing music again and singing, he came around sort of almost as soon as I started performing.
11:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And he was just so full of
11:36
[SPEAKER_01]: of ideas of what I should be doing, you know, and he heard me Yodalina goes, oh, you should Yodalina every set.
11:44
[SPEAKER_01]: You should do this, and you should do that, and you should always play the banjo, and you should, you know, and then play the violin too, and of course, you should play guitar, and kind of wanted me to be a Barbara Mandrell sort of, you know, here I am playing the pedal steel, and here I am, you know, dancing, and here I am doing this and that, and I just,
12:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I had learned by that point to just go, no.
12:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
12:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you.
12:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Thank you, but no.
12:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
12:11
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was in my 20s at that point.
12:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
12:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So wow, so but he introduced me to a lot of wonderful people and he became such a fan that he was constantly promoting my music to other people, you know, he would get any time I made a new CD, he would get it and you know, give them away to all of his friends and I've certainly expanded my fan base that way.
12:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Nice.
12:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
12:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So in his playing with his friends in a social setting and you feeling like that was so much fun.
12:52
[SPEAKER_00]: That was a huge incentive for you to start playing music with other people.
12:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
12:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Why did you start playing with other people and how did it feel versus how you thought it might feel?
13:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe there's two separate start times.
13:06
[SPEAKER_01]: There's when I was a teenager, and I was playing music, and I was playing, I loved playing with my friend Dana, and we would particularly work out harmonies, and who was playing guitar on what, or who was, you know, capoed where or doing something, and we would just,
13:29
[SPEAKER_01]: She loved Irish music and so we would do a lot of Irish music and that was my first
13:41
[SPEAKER_01]: experience of playing music with other people that was really joyful and fun and also frustrating and painstaking and all of that other stuff, which music is.
13:54
[SPEAKER_01]: But when I was, I think maybe 22 or so, 23, I...
14:01
[SPEAKER_01]: found the kind of Bay Area Bluegrass music scene.
14:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And that just really, I was just in love immediately.
14:13
[SPEAKER_01]: This was the music that I, that I'd heard as a teenager that I loved that I was trying to play on the ban show that I didn't know anybody else that was interested in.
14:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Suddenly, there they all were, and they were fantastic musicians and it was so much fun to just sit and play a tune together or and see what somebody else would do and how that would influence what you would do and
14:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like having a conversation as a, as a, as a shy person having a musical conversation as a lot easier than having an actual sit down communication without an instrument in front of you.
14:56
[SPEAKER_00]: I found this line from you about the bluegrass scene in Northern California.
15:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You said there weren't a lot of cutting contests.
15:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It was all about making music together, a focus on interdependency rather than individual prowess.
15:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you think that original collaboration over a competition vibe impacts the type of musician that you are today?
15:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I've definitely, um, much more like that.
15:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, the latest album is a real band album that, uh, we all, all the four of us just all worked on together every single arrangement is, is collaborative and, uh, you know, all the harmony parts, everything is just a collaboration all the way.
15:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um,
15:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I have just loved that aspect of human interaction that's been my, it's been my go-to human interaction.
15:58
[SPEAKER_01]: I think since I was a kid, do you feel like you have a competitive side?
16:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, sometimes I think sometimes I, I,
16:14
[SPEAKER_01]: It's complicated.
16:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I would say because sometimes I just I feel like well, maybe I don't really get the recognition that I might deserve if people were actually paying attention at listening to me, but on the other hand.
16:32
[SPEAKER_01]: There's, I have a big streak as I think many, many musicians do, I mean, I know my worth in terms of cutting contests and that kind of competition, and I'm just,
16:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I would get cut down immediately so so maybe it's just I know what my strengths are and my strengths are in collaboration rather than and they're not reading music Yeah, and they're not cutting competitions.
17:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because I would fail
17:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I have kind of a weird women versus men in bluegrass question.
17:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe it's on a versus but like women and men and the differences.
17:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And this question was inspired by your partner Tom Rosen.
17:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It was from an interview where he was talking about how you first met and then what it was like to start playing together.
17:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And I was wondering if
17:36
[SPEAKER_00]: not well versed in bluegrass or in playing music.
17:41
[SPEAKER_00]: What he is talking about.
17:43
[SPEAKER_00]: So he says playing in keys suited to a woman's voice also made me relax knowing that my playing wouldn't include as many of the predictable licks that one hears when other bands share the same or similar material.
17:57
[SPEAKER_00]: So I was grateful not to feel like a competing athlete in the bluegrass
18:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's, that's a very insightful little thing of times.
18:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for one thing, okay, there's a, there's a, there's a big streak in bluegrass of, you know, well, you got to play it like the masters played it, you know, there's a very strong.
18:18
[SPEAKER_01]: traditional, although we could get into what's actually traditional or not.
18:24
[SPEAKER_01]: But a very strong streak in bluegrass about, you know, while you got to play that lick like Belman Road did or something like that.
18:36
[SPEAKER_01]: But if you instantly change the whole footing by saying, well, we're not going to do it in
18:45
[SPEAKER_01]: the standard key of B.
18:48
[SPEAKER_01]: We're going to do it in D because that's where it suits my voice, not Belman Rose voice or whatever.
18:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
18:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Who ever is voice?
18:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And so instantly you're not expected to transfer the exact licks or the exact field because keys do make a difference in how something sounds, you know, what you can do in that key is different than what you could do in another.
19:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So what Thomas, so eloquently saying is that he, uh, he was freed.
19:25
[SPEAKER_01]: playing with a woman lead singer, as opposed to playing in an all in a male band where you were going to be more, it's already an anomaly, or it was at the time.
19:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's hardly as any more, which is so fantastic.
19:44
[SPEAKER_01]: But it was already an anomaly to have a woman lead singer and band leader.
19:54
[SPEAKER_01]: All those people who expect the traditional thing, they're just not going to get it in the way they expect to get it.
20:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So the bluegrass Olympics is not sort of like, because I was thinking about it in terms of like, we can play really fast and we can play really hard, but the bluegrass Olympics is more like the bluegrass beauty pageant of like, who is the most like Ralph Stanley.
20:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, possibly.
20:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
20:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
20:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I think there was a lot of that in there in what Tom is saying.
20:21
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we can play hard and we can play fast, but it might sound different because it's being a different key.
20:32
[SPEAKER_00]: mentorship.
20:34
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a reputation for being a generous and passionate mentor, making sure that younger players feel welcome especially young women.
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: It may be interesting to know did you have any women mentors and bluegrass and what can you say about how you learn to be a good mentor?
20:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's see, maybe, yes, I had women mentors in Bluegrass.
21:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Here in the Bay area, it was different than I've most places I think around the country in the 1970s.
21:11
[SPEAKER_01]: When I first went to Paul Saloon in San Francisco, the first band I saw had a woman fiddler in the band, and the second band I saw had a woman mandalim player in the band.
21:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And probably the third band I went to see had a woman guitar player in the band.
21:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And so that the Bay Area was, was different that way.
21:37
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there were already a lot of women involved in the,
21:42
[SPEAKER_01]: the feeling in the community was if you love the music and if you want to play it and you know honor it we don't care if you're from Mars you know just come on come on over and or Venus for that matter just just just play the music and we'll accept whatever it is yeah and uh that
22:09
[SPEAKER_01]: didn't really strike me as being a thing until I started touring and talking to other women from other parts of the country.
22:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I know that the Lynn Morris has experiences for instance are radically different from mine when she started playing.
22:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And we've talked about that in the past.
22:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But, uh, I think when I really started recognizing, uh, I mean, I never really thought of myself as a mentor, but if you just get excited about what young people are doing and, um, you're all really listening, I guess they can latch onto you and take you as a mentor.
22:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
22:58
[SPEAKER_00]: That seems like the best way to do it.
23:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I guess I'm not about a plan.
23:02
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I never mapped out a plan.
23:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I actually, a thing that really helped me was being asked to be a part, to teach at a fiddle camp that was specifically for young for kids, you know, seven, eight, nine, ten, 12, 14 year olds, you know.
23:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And, um,
23:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I was really leery about doing it.
23:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I said, I don't know if I can teach kids, right?
23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But because being a self-employed musician, I've always been mostly in the campus saying, yes, to everything.
23:43
[SPEAKER_01]: So even though I was afraid and didn't know how to do it, I just said, yes.
23:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And it ended up being,
23:50
[SPEAKER_01]: I taught at the camp for about six years in a row and made some of my best friends who grew up to be wonderful musicians there.
23:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I just feel like it's been a super important part of my life.
24:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Another really important part of your life is being outside.
24:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You enjoy hiking, walking, you do these amazing white water rafting, bluegrass trips, you will post and reference hikes in the woods and walks around the city.
24:24
[SPEAKER_00]: There are endless references to the outside world in your songs.
24:29
[SPEAKER_00]: How does being in nature inspire you as an artist and when did that begin?
24:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I've just always been an outdoor child.
24:39
[SPEAKER_01]: I've just always been fascinated with wild animals and bugs and trees and grass.
24:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It's always been my thing.
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how that started.
25:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But there were...
25:03
[SPEAKER_01]: a number of decades in my life where I was not really in touch with that very much.
25:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I was really had my nose to the grindstone in terms of touring with my band and working in a violin shop and I just never had any time
25:23
[SPEAKER_01]: really to look around me.
25:24
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would get out, you know, maybe up I'm out, Tamil Pious or something, and I would just, something would open up inside me, but I would, I just never had never prioritized the time that I needed.
25:42
[SPEAKER_01]: What changed?
25:43
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, what really changed was I was in my 60s and early 60s and my friend Betty Wheeler asked me if I would hike the John Muir Trail with her.
25:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And before I got into music professionally, I had backpacked a lot as a teenager and you know, young adult.
26:09
[SPEAKER_01]: But I'd kind of like,
26:12
[SPEAKER_01]: forgotten about it.
26:13
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't know.
26:14
[SPEAKER_01]: But she asked me to do this like 22-day hike with her backpacking.
26:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I said yes, because it's what I do.
26:25
[SPEAKER_01]: I said yes.
26:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Right, you say yes.
26:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
26:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was just, I mean, I just blew my mind.
26:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And I mean, I had been out, you know, I was already spent.
26:37
[SPEAKER_01]: every year I'd go on a couple of river trips and I would and I loved being outdoors but there was something about just having it all on my back, having everything I needed on my back and just being out there and having nothing else to do except walk that just really made me realize how incredibly important it is for me to do it more and more.
27:07
[SPEAKER_00]: I've been doing it more and more.
27:12
[SPEAKER_00]: You experienced paralysis and your larynx, which resulted in you losing your voice for six months back in 2021.
27:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
27:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I read this about the beautiful show you did at the freight in the Bay Area where friends came and sang your songs
27:37
[SPEAKER_00]: like healing experience for you.
27:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like a terrible thing.
27:41
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that makes me cry to just think of it.
27:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I have had for almost 30 years at that time, I had had an annual show at the Freighten Salvage, which was my annual night.
28:00
[SPEAKER_01]: The Saturday after Thanksgiving.
28:06
[SPEAKER_01]: And when I lost my voice, I mean, I honestly could not sing at all.
28:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I could talk, but I couldn't put any pressure on my vocal cords because only one side was working.
28:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And the doctors had said, well, you know, it comes back 50% of the time.
28:26
[SPEAKER_01]: She might come back, might not, you know, and I was just like, oh, God, why don't we
28:35
[SPEAKER_01]: I just did not want to give up my night at the freight.
28:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So I thought, what can I do, and I thought, I'll just ask some people if they would come and sing my songs, and everybody I asked said yes.
28:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And they say, no, you say yes all the time, it's what we do.
28:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Everybody I asked said yes and they all, I put up like a Dropbox folder of all my songs and they just went through and picked things and nobody picked the same thing.
29:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, it was like, it was kind of the best Lori Lewis night ever.
29:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Awesome.
29:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
29:20
[SPEAKER_01]: I was just that kind of feeling that kind of support from the community was really wonderful.
29:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Was it a surprise?
29:29
[SPEAKER_01]: It was a surprise to me that everybody said yes and it was a surprise that it was as good as it was.
29:37
[SPEAKER_01]: But, you know, after everybody said yes, I knew it was going to be
29:49
[SPEAKER_01]: songs stylists, you know, they're not going back to that bluegrass analogy, bluegrass thing of, you know, trying to imitate.
29:58
[SPEAKER_01]: Nobody really tried to imitate me.
30:00
[SPEAKER_01]: They just took my songs and did them in the ways that they heard them in their heads, which was in some, and on some occasions, very, very different.
30:11
[SPEAKER_01]: and allowed me to hear my songs in a totally different way, too.
30:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I really appreciate it as on all levels.
30:25
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to ask you about in that time where you couldn't sing.
30:28
[SPEAKER_00]: How did your relationships, how did your relationships your other instrument change while you had no voice?
30:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to do anything.
30:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I honestly did not feel like I wanted to play fiddle.
30:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't feel like I wanted to play guitar.
30:44
[SPEAKER_01]: It made me realize that the,
30:51
[SPEAKER_01]: what I love most in music is my ability to communicate, to an audience or whoever is listening.
31:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like I do that best with my voice.
31:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Partly because it's so direct, you know, you can use actual lyrics, actual words,
31:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, uh, when I lost my voice, I've just felt like I lost everything.
31:27
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't want to, I didn't feel like playing the fiddle.
31:30
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't feel like playing the guitar, but it just made me realize that I was, I'm kind of a one-track mind person, maybe.
31:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what has it been like getting to know your new voice?
31:46
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting.
31:47
[SPEAKER_01]: I like aspects of it quite a bit.
31:51
[SPEAKER_01]: There are places where I have to learn to jump around over and under things that are still kind of rough spots in my voice, but I'm having fun.
32:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm having fun relearning how to use it.
32:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's changed in fact from the time we recorded
32:17
[SPEAKER_01]: that some of the recordings were done, and I, my voice has changed since then, oh yeah, and it's, I think it's changed for the better, as, as things have opened back up, but,
32:33
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I don't know.
32:37
[SPEAKER_01]: How do you think it's changed since the album?
32:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I've gained more of my high notes back again, which is great.
32:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm re-learning how to navigate the voice break between Chest and Head and the top of my chest voice is more I can count on it more than I used to be able to.
33:04
[SPEAKER_01]: It's great.
33:05
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
33:05
[SPEAKER_00]: I know.
33:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Excited.
33:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
33:09
[SPEAKER_00]: The new album, O'Kalifornia, it'll be out by the time this interview is released.
33:15
[SPEAKER_00]: You're talking about how it is like a truly band album, a real collaboration.
33:20
[SPEAKER_00]: And as a band leader, you say that you learn from your bandmates while helping them make their best music.
33:27
[SPEAKER_00]: What did you learn from your band during this recording session?
33:32
[SPEAKER_01]: well I learned how truly awesome they all are.
33:35
[SPEAKER_01]: That was pretty great.
33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's see, what did I learn from them?
33:43
[SPEAKER_01]: I just, everybody's got something to offer.
33:47
[SPEAKER_01]: Not every suggestion is a great one, but there there are
33:55
[SPEAKER_01]: If you listen to everything and honestly try everything, you'll find that there's a lot more richness than what certainly than what I could come up with on my own.
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: And I really appreciate that.
34:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Makes me appreciate them even more.
34:16
[SPEAKER_00]: You share the photo of yourself when you were 14 years old with a banjo, and that's right around the time that you started playing the traditional song, fair and tender ladies.
34:26
[SPEAKER_00]: The new recording of that song is just outstanding.
34:29
[SPEAKER_00]: I was floored when I heard it.
34:31
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a duet between you and Hazyciaco, your base player.
34:36
[SPEAKER_00]: It was her idea to split the verses and make it a duet, so her voice comes in and then your voice comes in.
34:43
[SPEAKER_00]: And she's, I don't know how old she is,
34:46
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot.
34:47
[SPEAKER_00]: She's younger.
34:48
[SPEAKER_01]: She's younger than me.
34:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I think I figured that by the time I'm twice her age She'll be like 45 and I'll be 90 or something like that right on still singing this song Probably I hope so how did this approach change that song for you?
35:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's just made it so much better.
35:14
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, for one thing, it's easier to find a key for the song, because the version of it that we sing really has quite a range in it.
35:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And breaking it up made it just way easier to find a key that was suitable.
35:37
[SPEAKER_01]: because it starts off maybe a little hazy single-all little higher than I would maybe start it if I were singing the lead, but then it goes pretty low.
35:49
[SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know.
35:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I also just, I like the aspect of it being two women's voices, less of a, or what was me sort of thing, and more of a, more of a statement.
36:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So in that photo of you when you're 14, you wrote in the caption that you know you started playing this song right around the time you were 14 fair and tender ladies you did not know what it meant you just thought it was a nice song which may be wonder
36:27
[SPEAKER_00]: how you have come to relate to the meanings of different traditional songs that you've been playing since when you were young, when can you recall times where you became like conscious of what the message of any particular traditional song was?
36:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh boy, well,
36:49
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not sure if I can think of an exact thing.
36:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Things have just sort of morphed and changed over the years.
37:00
[SPEAKER_01]: As a young person singing something, singing a murder ballad, for instance, where a woman is stabbed and beaten, dragged by her hair and thrown in the river, is...
37:12
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like a little different when you're in your shoulder.
37:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the impact of it is quite a bit stronger as you get it out of the horror film and into real life sort of aspect.
37:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it's changed my attitude about songs like that.
37:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't...
37:38
[SPEAKER_01]: have a thing about not singing any murder ballads, but I would, I would check them at the door first and make sure that I really know what it is I'm singing about.
37:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
37:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
37:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I used to, um, in thinking about, you know, the meanings of songs, I used to be a DJ, like a morning DJ and we used to play NPR news headlines and
38:08
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, this, this day in age, you're not most DJs are not playing their songs off the cuff.
38:15
[SPEAKER_00]: Your shows have been scheduled out in advance, you know, you've got your computer playlist going and there was like some news story about a shooting.
38:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And then my first song coming out of that was smack water jack, Carol King, as about a guy who has a gun and somebody, you know,
38:38
[SPEAKER_00]: somebody complained and I was like oh geez yeah like oh yeah you do have to sometime you mean you have to be conscious and be aware yeah just like that yeah definitely I imagine like really like learning a song like crawling inside of it learning the music learning the the lyrics and learning how to sing it it would have like um
39:02
[SPEAKER_00]: and even greater surprise when all of a sudden you're like, well, wait, what am I singing?
39:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
39:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and other things, I mean, I was a child of the 60s in Berkeley, California, and so it's like, protests, singing was,
39:20
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I learned every Dylan song, you know, word for word.
39:26
[SPEAKER_01]: I can't remember them all now, but, you know, singing masters of war and, you know, of course where all the flowers gone and all that stuff, but it's like, when you really see
39:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not luckily not firsthand, but it really changed my life a lot when I was a maybe 16 years old and I went to sing with a group of high school kids for
40:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Navy soldiers, sailors at the Oknoll Naval Medical Hospital.
40:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And the song that they wanted to hear the most was where all the flowers got.
40:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just...
40:30
[SPEAKER_01]: It really hit me then.
40:32
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I knew the song, I had learned the song, but I never had connected it to... Do their plight.
40:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that's powerful.
40:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
40:48
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, anyway, you got it.
40:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You got to just learn the songs and then hope that you catch their meaning at some point.
41:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to ask about the song Red Rocking Chair.
41:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah.
41:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Kind of like fair and tender ladies, it features lead vocals that are not you.
41:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is singing on that song?
41:15
[SPEAKER_00]: That's George Guthrie.
41:16
[SPEAKER_00]: He's the George Plastery Banjo.
41:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And a little bit of guitar.
41:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Please guitar on O'Kell for now.
41:23
[SPEAKER_00]: How did you come to decide that someone else would take a lead on a song on this record with Hazy doing fair and tender ladies
41:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Because they just sound so good, and if it's going to be a band album, it needs to reflect more of what we do in a show, which is like, I am not the single thing happening, you know, it's a collaboration with these three other people.
41:54
[SPEAKER_01]: And so,
41:55
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why there's, you know, Brandon Godman's featured on a fiddle tune and he's he and George are both featured on on vocals because I love their vocals and I want to hear them.
42:08
[SPEAKER_01]: I like that.
42:09
[SPEAKER_01]: I figure whoever's going to buy the album is going to really like it too.
42:13
[SPEAKER_01]: Like it also, you know, I like variety.
42:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's it makes for a richer room to have everybody involved.
42:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
42:25
[SPEAKER_00]: One more question and then a quick lightning around.
42:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh.
42:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes.
42:30
[SPEAKER_00]: The song's sweet, south and a river is written by your friend, Alice Girard.
42:35
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the only song in the record that's not either a traditional song or one written by you.
42:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I just wanted to hear what does this song mean to you, what does Alice's writing mean to you?
42:48
[SPEAKER_00]: the world.
42:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, I just think Alice is, um, Kali, I'm just getting all emotional talking about all these things I love.
42:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Sorry.
42:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
42:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I, it's also, now this is, um,
43:03
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a part of me that I've never been able to kind of control is how emotional I feel when I start, how emotional I get when I start, talking about things that I'm really passionate about.
43:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
43:21
[SPEAKER_00]: The floodgates is what we like to call that.
43:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Yep, yep, they've opened.
43:26
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, okay, so.
43:28
[SPEAKER_01]: I have been an admirer of Alice's writing and singing for decades and it wasn't until I
43:43
[SPEAKER_01]: recorded, I produced an album of hers called Bitter Suite, which is all her original songs.
43:50
[SPEAKER_01]: It's many original songs.
43:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And sweet South Hannah River is on that.
43:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's a very different arrangement.
44:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very sort of rubato in a way.
44:05
[SPEAKER_01]: It's piano.
44:07
[SPEAKER_01]: cello and violin, and it's, and there are other voices, but, uh, I just, I love that song, and that's been like 10 years ago that, that I've recorded that album for Alice, and I've been thinking about that song ever since.
44:28
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, and so I just thought, oh, now's the time I've got to do it.
44:36
[SPEAKER_01]: So we we worked it out and instantly the quartet sounds so beautiful on it I think with a who knew George who who sings higher than me on this album sometimes on some of the harmony parts who knew he was a bass singer as well I didn't
44:55
[SPEAKER_01]: until we started, well, we just started, you know, working out, okay, it's trying to make Brandon sing bass because George and Hazy and I are used to the trio right together.
45:07
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just didn't work, Brandon couldn't, he didn't have those notes in his range.
45:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And George, I think George said, well, let me try it.
45:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And bam, it just worked immediately.
45:26
[SPEAKER_00]: If you are a good leader, people feel welcome to kind of step up and offer themselves in that way.
45:34
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really cool, Lori.
45:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I hope that that's true.
45:40
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes.
45:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
45:44
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let's do this.
45:45
[SPEAKER_00]: She says, yes, again.
45:46
[SPEAKER_00]: She says, yes, again.
45:48
[SPEAKER_00]: We're the day, yes.
45:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, let's wipe away.
45:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, our emotions.
45:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, what are your bucket list hikes or best hikes of all time?
46:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Ah, oh my God.
46:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, this hike I took over,
46:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Elizabeth Pass in King's Canyon, Sequoia National Park was truly amazing.
46:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Up, dead man, canyon.
46:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was really, really beautiful and the weather up there is so incredibly crazy.
46:31
[SPEAKER_01]: That's one of the all-time great hikes.
46:35
[SPEAKER_01]: How is it crazy?
46:39
[SPEAKER_01]: electrical something up in those peaks above Elizabeth pass, I think, that that creates really unsettled weather.
46:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's pretty scary up there, actually.
46:57
[SPEAKER_01]: I think, because the weather, everything changes so radically, so quickly.
47:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounds awesome.
47:05
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and it's incredibly beautiful.
47:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god.
47:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It's some of the most beautiful places I've ever I've ever been and I've been incredibly in incredibly beautiful places.
47:18
[SPEAKER_01]: So that's one.
47:19
[SPEAKER_01]: I could name a bunch of others.
47:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Probably if you
47:23
[SPEAKER_01]: to build on our lightning.
47:24
[SPEAKER_01]: You want this thing.
47:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Just well, nine lakes basin over on the other side of those mountains where that craziness happens.
47:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
47:35
[SPEAKER_01]: Is this place called nine lakes basin and Sequoia National Park.
47:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And
47:41
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just an incredibly beautiful, kind of un-trampled area where I've been a few times and one time went on a solo backpacking trip up in there, which was just great.
48:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, if it's not a solo hike, who is going on the hike and what are you doing after?
48:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, my most constant companion for backpacking has been Barbara Higby and we starting from just before the pandemic and all through the pandemic, we did a bunch of backpacking trips together and she's my most constant companion hike backpacking because she.
48:34
[SPEAKER_01]: is always full of wonder and never complains, and she's also just really kind of a horse.
48:43
[SPEAKER_01]: She just keeps, she keeps going.
48:46
[SPEAKER_01]: She's a lot slower than me, but she doesn't seem to, that doesn't seem to bother her at all.
48:51
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't bother me.
48:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't bother her.
48:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we're well suited for each other.
49:01
[SPEAKER_01]: I forget what the second part of that question was.
49:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if this was like an afternoon hike, sounds like you go on like overnight, backpacking, tens hikes, what is the activity following an afternoon hike?
49:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, these days, unfortunately, I have to fit them in, so my schedule is kind of not my own anymore, because I'm mostly, I'm a full-time caregiver, much at a time.
49:31
[SPEAKER_01]: But so after a hike, it might be that I have to run to the store and go shopping and cook dinner and clean up and do all that stuff.
49:41
[SPEAKER_01]: But it also...
49:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It definitely means there's some food involved, because I have to eat, especially have to a backpacking trip.
49:52
[SPEAKER_01]: The next stop is going to be to a restaurant where you get to sit down and have somebody serve you and eat some good food.
49:59
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what I mean.
50:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, speaking of that, what is your favorite tasty treat that is specific to Berkeley?
50:08
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a popcorn that's made here that not in Berkeley.
50:12
[SPEAKER_01]: No, it's made, I think it's made in Sebastopol.
50:15
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll accept that.
50:16
[SPEAKER_01]: OK.
50:18
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's called.
50:21
[SPEAKER_01]: This is going to sound so lame.
50:23
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's called Cosmic Corn or something like that.
50:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And the flavor I really like is hippie dust.
50:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Awesome.
50:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Great.
50:32
[SPEAKER_00]: This all tracks.
50:34
[SPEAKER_00]: This all tracks Cosmic Corn hippie dust.
50:37
[SPEAKER_00]: OK.
50:38
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the last question.
50:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Who is your non-blue grass or roots, non-rutes music, dream, collaboration?
50:48
[SPEAKER_01]: You mean they're not in the roots music at all?
50:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Right.
50:52
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, I don't know.
50:54
[SPEAKER_01]: I would love to do something with David E. Dollgo of Los Lobos.
51:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
51:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen.
51:01
[SPEAKER_01]: But, oh, here he close to the roots line.
51:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I know, I know.
51:06
[SPEAKER_01]: It's very close to the roots line.
51:16
[SPEAKER_00]: For this episode of Basic Folk was produced by CJ Nungesser, Dietrich Strauss composes our music.
51:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Our street team leader is Andrea Weber, Basic Folk is a production of the Bluegrass situation.
51:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You can find all of our episodes there.
51:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You can check us out at Basic Folk.com.
51:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Search for us on the Series XM app under Basic Folk.
51:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Find us on Folkallysmobileapp or folkallys.com.
51:39
[SPEAKER_00]: Or you can listen wherever you get your shows.
51:43
[SPEAKER_00]: If you enjoyed this episode, send it to your aunt who is really into the natural health food store.
51:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And always brings her reusable bags and has done so since the 1970s send it to her.
51:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, we'll talk to you next time.
52:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Hmm, bye.