Latest / Takin’ A Walk Nashville / Exploring Nashville’s Music Scene: Americana Singer- Songwriter Jaimee Harris on Her Journey, Sobriety, and the Power of Songwriting

Transcript

Exploring Nashville’s Music Scene: Americana Singer- Songwriter Jaimee Harris on Her Journey, Sobriety, and the Power of Songwriting · Takin’ A Walk Nashville

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: M Taking a Walk nash Hi, everyone, this is Sarah Harrelson,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: your host of Taking a Walk Nashville. I want to
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: thank everyone who has been tuning into the podcast and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: I hope everyone's new year is going great. Please leave
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: us a review or rating if you are enjoying the show.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Here with me today is Jamie Harris. She is a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: Texas born Folk Americana singer songwriter that grew up in
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: a small town outside of Waco.
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: She has released.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Three albums, has been a background studio vocalist for Mini Artist,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: and has written songs for artists such as Ray Wiley, Hubbard,
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: Sam Williams. And her partner Mary Gosha join me in
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: our conversation as we discuss her thriving career here in Nashville.
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: Welcome to Taking a Walk Nashville with your hosts singer
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: songwriter Sarah Harrelson.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Hi, Jamie, thank you so much for being on Taking
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: a Walk Nashville today. You have a ton of tour
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: dates coming up this year with your partner Mary Goshe.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Are you excited for your upcoming shows?
• 1:17
  Speaker 4: I love being on the road.
• 1:19
  Speaker 5: I'm really built for it, Like I was kind of
• 1:21
  Speaker 5: a wild animal and there's something about the container of
• 1:24
  Speaker 5: the road. You know, you wake up in a different
• 1:27
  Speaker 5: place every day, and there's like I love that. It
• 1:30
  Speaker 5: still excites me because I grew up in a small
• 1:32
  Speaker 5: town outside of Waco, and now Wac is I was
• 1:35
  Speaker 5: just there for the holidays. It's a completely different place
• 1:38
  Speaker 5: than where I grew up. There's a lot to do,
• 1:40
  Speaker 5: a lot going on, but I kind of grew up
• 1:42
  Speaker 5: there going like I can't wait to see the world,
• 1:45
  Speaker 5: and now I can't believe that my job allows me
• 1:47
  Speaker 5: to do that almost every day of the year.
• 1:49
  Speaker 4: So I'm built for it. I love it. I'm ready
• 1:51
  Speaker 4: to get back out there.
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Well, it's got to be so special being able to
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: explore different cities with your partner, because a lot of musicians,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: you know, they hit the road, they leave their family
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: back at home. So it's just has to be so
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: wonderful sharing the stage with your partner almost every day.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: It's incredible.
• 2:11
  Speaker 5: If you had told me, like eight years ago that
• 2:14
  Speaker 5: I would end up with a musician, I would.
• 2:16
  Speaker 4: Have told you no way.
• 2:17
  Speaker 5: Songwriter was like, absolutely not, There's no way that I'm
• 2:20
  Speaker 5: going to end up with a songwriter.
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: And it turns out it's the best thing.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: So wow, that's amazing. Yeah, you can find all of
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: your upcoming tour dates on your website. I want to
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: talk about your latest album, Boomerang Town. This derives from
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: nostalgia you felt during the pandemic and explores family, addiction,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: and just ties that bind us together. Would you say
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: you learned more about yourself and your own connection to
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: faith when you were writing this album.
• 2:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's interesting. It's been my experience.
• 2:53
  Speaker 5: That the songs are always ahead of me, so like
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: it it's a mysterious thing, but the song always seemed
• 3:00
  Speaker 5: to be ahead of me, and I think kind of
• 3:02
  Speaker 5: where I was was a lot of this record. This
• 3:04
  Speaker 5: record took me a long time to write. I think
• 3:06
  Speaker 5: the seeds for this record were planted in twenty sixteen,
• 3:09
  Speaker 5: twenty seventeen, and there was a lot swirling around. And
• 3:12
  Speaker 5: part of it was that I got sober in twenty fourteen,
• 3:15
  Speaker 5: and I had grown up and was very into this
• 3:19
  Speaker 5: kind of Southern Baptist world. That was my whole community,
• 3:23
  Speaker 5: it was my whole social life. Like that's where I
• 3:26
  Speaker 5: really learned how to build a great set list, to
• 3:29
  Speaker 5: create intense emotion. I mean, there was so much that
• 3:32
  Speaker 5: I learned in that universe and I'm grateful for but
• 3:35
  Speaker 5: eventually that wasn't working for me, and when I got
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: into twelve step recovery, I had to find something that
• 3:45
  Speaker 5: was bigger than myself to surrender to in order to
• 3:47
  Speaker 5: help me get sober. And so I think I did
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: like lean on some of the things that I learned
• 3:52
  Speaker 5: in that community that I came from initially, And there
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: was a lot going on in twenty sixteen twenty seventeen
• 3:59
  Speaker 5: where there was kind of this discussion about like the
• 4:03
  Speaker 5: Christians did this, they did, and I started to feel
• 4:06
  Speaker 5: really conflicted about that, like my mom doesn't think that way,
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: my mom doesn't vote that way, she doesn't believe that way.
• 4:12
  Speaker 5: And so I felt a responsibility to kind of articulate
• 4:16
  Speaker 5: my experience with rediscovering my faith, but without.
• 4:22
  Speaker 4: I don't know how to discribe. This is why I'm
• 4:23
  Speaker 4: a better songwriter than anything. The song speak better than
• 4:27
  Speaker 4: I can.
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: But I felt like a responsibility to kind of not defend,
• 4:32
  Speaker 5: but to explain the world that I came from and
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: how that what it's like to look through that lens,
• 4:42
  Speaker 5: and also what it's like to maybe shake some of
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: that off and come back to it as in a
• 4:49
  Speaker 5: more independent thinking adult.
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm sure so many other people can relate to
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: that going through the same thing, because there's other people
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: who maybe feel a little bit different. And especially in
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you know, small town in Texas southern Baptist community, they
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: don't always embrace you or embrace who you are. So
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: did you feel struggles with that when you were especially
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: when you were writing these songs.
• 5:15
  Speaker 4: I mean, it's funny. I mean I felt so I
• 5:18
  Speaker 4: was so a part of that community. I mean I
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: really it was my entire world.
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: And then when I started drinking, I mean, I was
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: like a really well behaved kid because it was cool,
• 5:30
  Speaker 5: like to fit in where I grew up. It was
• 5:32
  Speaker 5: cool to go to church like five days a week.
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: It was cool to go to retreats and come back
• 5:37
  Speaker 5: wearing the matching T shirt and all of that, and
• 5:39
  Speaker 5: so like I embraced that. And then it wasn't until
• 5:45
  Speaker 5: I started, like, you know, drinking really heavily, and people
• 5:48
  Speaker 5: were really using social media like instead of reaching out
• 5:51
  Speaker 5: to me, like commenting on things, and I went, wait
• 5:53
  Speaker 5: a minute, that's weird that this feels performative. And so
• 5:56
  Speaker 5: I started to feel like really hurt by that like, wait,
• 5:58
  Speaker 5: why wouldn't these people reach out to me directly instead
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: of you know, so, I don't know. I mean, I
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: just felt like I've learned so much from Mary and
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: particularly her work with the veterans, the power of telling
• 6:14
  Speaker 5: a story from behind the eyes of one narrator, Like
• 6:17
  Speaker 5: I'm sure she's mentioned it about a lot. That's like
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: you can't talk about the war because it's too big,
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: but you can tell the story from behind the eyes
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: of one narrator. And so I've learned a lot by
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: listening to her every night, watching her teach. We teach
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: songwriting together quite a bit, and so it was like
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: that song boomerang down the title track, I try to
• 6:36
  Speaker 5: write that song from the perspective of so many different people.
• 6:39
  Speaker 5: I started with myself. I tried it from the perspective
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: of a waitress that worked at a diner. And then
• 6:46
  Speaker 5: it turns out the best way to tell that story,
• 6:49
  Speaker 5: which was really the story of where I grew up,
• 6:51
  Speaker 5: which is so personal to me, was from behind the
• 6:53
  Speaker 5: eyes of the seventeen year old boy. And that's what
• 6:56
  Speaker 5: I love about songwriting. This, like the mysterious nature of that,
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: Like what perspective is going to get me the closest
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: to generating empathy, which is really what I'm up to
• 7:06
  Speaker 5: as a songwriter.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's wonderful and a great point that
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: songs can be written in so many different perspectives. And
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you note that your father was responsible for your musical education,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: taking you to Austin City Limits where you had a
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: life changing moment seeing Emmy Lou Harris, Patty Griffin, and
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Buddy and Julie Miller performing all at once on stage together.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: Was this what kind of led you from moving from
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: Texas to Nashville.
• 7:36
  Speaker 4: It's funny.
• 7:37
  Speaker 5: I hadn't thought about that that all of those people
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: that I so associate with that Texas moment, except for Patty,
• 7:42
  Speaker 5: live in Nashville. No, but that's I mean, I wasn't
• 7:45
  Speaker 5: even thinking ahead of that. Actually, because of that situation.
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: My dream was to move to Austin, where Austin City
• 7:51
  Speaker 5: Limits was, you know, where a lot of the songwriters
• 7:54
  Speaker 5: being from Texas that I respected, had spent a lot of.
• 7:57
  Speaker 4: Time in or made their home. That was really my dream.
• 8:01
  Speaker 5: The Nashville moved for me didn't come later until I
• 8:04
  Speaker 5: realized I needed to get closer to the business in
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: order to move forward as a songwriter. But what that
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: did that show that made me become a songwriter? Like
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: I loved Demilou Harris from the time I was five.
• 8:18
  Speaker 5: I heard her voice and I went, whatever that is,
• 8:21
  Speaker 5: I want to do that. But it wasn't until I
• 8:23
  Speaker 5: saw Patty that I said, wait, what are these songs like?
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: And how the sound of like the combination of Buddy
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: Miller's very unique, like kind of rock and roll guitar
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: married with that folk sensibility that like I don't know
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: if we were using the term Americana yet or if
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: we were still in the alt country no depression phase,
• 8:44
  Speaker 5: but that screw the light bulb then for me, I went,
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: that's exactly what I'm drawn to, and I want to
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: try to write music like that.
• 8:50
  Speaker 4: And a week later I wrote my first song.
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  Speaker 5: Wow.
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: And did you shortly move to Nashville or what made
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: you want to make the transition to Nashville?
• 9:00
  Speaker 4: That's funny.
• 9:00
  Speaker 5: So I love living in Austin and I am such
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: a Texan that I really that's in my blood stream.
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: I really miss it a lot.
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: I still find a lot of creative energy and Texas.
• 9:10
  Speaker 4: But I had this.
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: Job where I worked for a doctor who looks like
• 9:15
  Speaker 5: d Sneyder. He was an amazing boss. He loves music
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: and he really didn't like to work. So I only
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: had to physically be in the office Tuesday through Wednesday
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: from ten to six, which was like with an hour
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: and a half lunch. It was the most chill job
• 9:29
  Speaker 5: day job for a musician because it gave me the weekends.
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: And I had started to something had started.
• 9:36
  Speaker 4: To change in Austin.
• 9:37
  Speaker 5: I realized people that I didn't know were coming to
• 9:39
  Speaker 5: my gigs, like there was a new energy. And I
• 9:42
  Speaker 5: was like, oh, I'm collecting. People are coming not because
• 9:44
  Speaker 5: they know me, but because they're connecting to the music.
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: I was the only person that worked in my office,
• 9:50
  Speaker 5: and so I knew there's going to be something that's
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: going to give me the signal that I need to
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: train somebody and get out of here. And I think
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: it was in twenty might have been twenty seventeen twenty sixteen.
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: This a wonderful artist named Kevin Russell. He was in
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: a band called The Gourds and now he's in a
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: band called Shiny Ribs, which is such a fun band.
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: I has like two background singers. It's just a big party.
• 10:12
  Speaker 5: It's such a fun band, and I love Kevin. One
• 10:15
  Speaker 5: of the background singers in that band had left, and
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: he asked me if I could join the band, and
• 10:19
  Speaker 5: I said, I can't, like I've got this job. But
• 10:21
  Speaker 5: that was the signal to me that I needed to
• 10:23
  Speaker 5: train somebody and leave. And Austin had gotten really expensive.
• 10:27
  Speaker 5: It was a very expensive place to live still is,
• 10:30
  Speaker 5: and I thought to myself, there's no way I'm going
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: to be able to afford to live here my first
• 10:35
  Speaker 5: year as a full time musician. And then I started
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: looking at the map. I'd really considered Tulsa. I knew
• 10:41
  Speaker 5: I kind of had to get out of Texas just
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: so I could drive around in my little Honda to
• 10:45
  Speaker 5: play gigs and like, you know, do the thing where
• 10:48
  Speaker 5: I'm building my audience. But then I realized, well, you know,
• 10:53
  Speaker 5: Nashville's in the center of the country, and the business
• 10:56
  Speaker 5: is here, and it would really benefit me to learn
• 10:58
  Speaker 5: the business because I was starting to meet some people
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: in the industry, and I thought, I see the benefit
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: of being physically closer. So I'd put in the notice
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: at my job. I'd put in the notice with my landlord,
• 11:11
  Speaker 5: and then in the middle of that Mary and I
• 11:14
  Speaker 5: collided and became a couple, and so then it made
• 11:17
  Speaker 5: the decision to move to Nashville, like the easiest decision
• 11:20
  Speaker 5: in the world.
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I like that you bring up how you
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: know Nashville is very central and a lot of people
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: move here because within an eight hour radius you can
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: hit so many cities and play gigs and tour.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 11:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, and even the airport is such a hub
• 11:35
  Speaker 5: you can. I mean I would probably be too tired
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: and not cool enough to do it, but you could
• 11:40
  Speaker 5: technically fly to London and play a show the same day.
• 11:43
  Speaker 4: I mean it's insane.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: Some of your songs like how Could You Be Gone?
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: They evoke themes of grief and addiction. And you wrote
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: this song with your partner Mary. How did you meet Marion?
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Did you both instantly click with your backgrounds and your style?
• 12:03
  Speaker 4: It's funny.
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: We met at a songwriting workshop at Eliza Gilkisson's house
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: in Taos, New Mexico, and I had just lost my mentor,
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: a singer songwriter named Jimmy.
• 12:14
  Speaker 4: Lefaith, who died of a.
• 12:16
  Speaker 5: Rare form of cancer, a rare form of sarcoma. I
• 12:19
  Speaker 5: recently learned the same sarcoma that Kate McGarrigle died of,
• 12:23
  Speaker 5: so rufus and Martha's mother. Yeah, and I was just
• 12:28
  Speaker 5: really in a deep period of grief when I showed
• 12:32
  Speaker 5: up at that workshop, and apparently Mary gave a songwriting
• 12:38
  Speaker 5: prompt and I came back in ninety minutes with a
• 12:40
  Speaker 5: song that she said kind of like made her go
• 12:44
  Speaker 5: wait uh oh.
• 12:47
  Speaker 4: But for me, it wasn't immediate.
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: I was just there, you know, having a good time
• 12:51
  Speaker 5: as a student, you know, enjoying being around three of
• 12:56
  Speaker 5: my heroes, you know, Gretchen Peters, Eliza Gilkisson and Mary,
• 12:59
  Speaker 5: and it's fun those I was struggling with the record
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: I was making at the time. I was facing a lot.
• 13:04
  Speaker 5: It was my first album. I've been playing music since
• 13:06
  Speaker 5: I was twelve, but I never made a record. So
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: I was dealing with the world of that and how
• 13:13
  Speaker 5: do I navigate this and how do I find my
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: voice as a woman in this situation?
• 13:17
  Speaker 4: And here I have these, like this.
• 13:19
  Speaker 5: Coven of incredible female songwriters that knew that my mentor
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: had died, and they kind of swept in and said, hey,
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: we're going to help you with this.
• 13:27
  Speaker 4: Call us if you need us, We're going to check
• 13:28
  Speaker 4: on you.
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: And so Mary was calling to check in on me,
• 13:32
  Speaker 5: and it was few and far between, but you know,
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: we connected and mostly we just talked about what was
• 13:36
  Speaker 5: going on with my record, and then I remember it
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: was Towns van Zant's birthday at the Cactus Cafe. We
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: were doing a tribute to Towns on March seventh, and
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: it's thrown by my friend who is a genius songwriter
• 13:47
  Speaker 5: named Butch Hancock. But Butch is like, not really a
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: list guy. He's like he lives in another universe. So
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: the way it works is you sign up and you
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: have no idea when you're going to play. So I'm
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: standing at the bar with my friend Graham and he
• 13:59
  Speaker 5: sees He's like, hey, Mary Goshe is calling you, and
• 14:01
  Speaker 5: I said, yeah, I know, I'll call her back, and
• 14:03
  Speaker 5: he's like, I think you should probably answer When Mary
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: Gosche's I said okay, and so I stepped out and
• 14:09
  Speaker 5: I talked to her and we were just talking about
• 14:12
  Speaker 5: business stuff, and then I said, hey, I'm so sorry.
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: I'm loving this conversation, but I'm in the middle of
• 14:17
  Speaker 5: this thing that's kind of chaotic, and I got to
• 14:20
  Speaker 5: go back in there, so can I call you back?
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: And she said, oh, yeah, I'm on the road for
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: three weeks, but you can call me after I get back.
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: And I said, okay, hung up the phone, and it
• 14:29
  Speaker 5: felt like an arrow got shot in my gut by Cupid,
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: and I went, I don't want to wait three weeks
• 14:35
  Speaker 5: to talk to her, like, oh, oh, no, I'm in
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: love with Mary Goshe, Like I can't in love with
• 14:41
  Speaker 5: Mary Gosche.
• 14:42
  Speaker 4: That's insane.
• 14:42
  Speaker 5: And so I came back and my friend Graham was
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: like he could see by my face like what happened?
• 14:47
  Speaker 5: I said, oh oh, And it took another couple of
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: months for us to get together. It was really slow.
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: So basically from the time that we met, it was
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: almost a year from the time we met to the
• 14:58
  Speaker 5: time we got together.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Now you're writing songs together and performing together as
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: to be so special. What was it like working on
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: the Christmas single Light of the Stable with Jared Tyler
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: and Amy Helm.
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: Oh that was so fun.
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: So my friend Jared Tyler, a wonderful singer songwriter who
• 15:17
  Speaker 5: lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
• 15:19
  Speaker 4: I just went to hang out with him in July.
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: I was rolling through town and playing a gig, and
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: I just love spending time with him, and he's one
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: of my favorite people just to sit around and play
• 15:27
  Speaker 5: songs with, which I think is something that as I've
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: made music my job, that I don't do as often.
• 15:35
  Speaker 5: That's another reason why I love going down to Turnlingua
• 15:39
  Speaker 5: for New Year's Eve hanging out at Jimmy Dale Gilmour's
• 15:41
  Speaker 5: house because it's just a bunch of musicians and the
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: guitargets passed around and it feels like kind of when
• 15:46
  Speaker 5: I started playing music just for the fun of playing music,
• 15:49
  Speaker 5: and Jared and I have that kind of relationship. We
• 15:51
  Speaker 5: just sit around and play songs and he's one of
• 15:54
  Speaker 5: the only people that can match my like nearly psychotic
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: fandom of Emmy Luwer.
• 16:00
  Speaker 4: So we're just jamming.
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: I said, hey, we're talking about this Christmas song because
• 16:04
  Speaker 5: that's the song that I heard that made me want
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: to sing, and I later found out it's like Neil Young.
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: I think Linda Ronstadt and Dolly Pardon are the background
• 16:13
  Speaker 5: vocals on that record, so it's like four icons of
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: American music all in one song. And I guess sort
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: of Canadian for Neil, but you know, so we just
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: started sitting around playing it, and he has a little
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: studio in his house. He said, hey, what if we
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: just recorded this? And I said sure, and so we
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: just spent the afternoon in July recording this Christmas song
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: and he sent it back to me and I said, oh,
• 16:34
  Speaker 5: I just spent a lot of time with Amy Helm
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: of course, lee Von's daughter who helps run the barn
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: in Woodstock, and she is just a blast and her
• 16:42
  Speaker 5: voice is like otherworldly, and I love her percussion as well.
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: So after Jared and I put that together, I said, hey, Amy,
• 16:50
  Speaker 5: I think we're actually going to do something with this song.
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: Will you sing on it? And she said yeah, and
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: she said can I play on it too?
• 16:55
  Speaker 4: Absolutely? So that's how that whole thing came together.
• 16:58
  Speaker 5: And it's funny because I had kind of forgotten because
• 17:01
  Speaker 5: I really remember the hanging out with Jared thing, but
• 17:03
  Speaker 5: I forgot that I flew it to Amy and so
• 17:06
  Speaker 5: I was listening to it a couple months ago. I
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: guess right before we entered the holiday season. I went,
• 17:11
  Speaker 5: I didn't sing that. That part is way too cool,
• 17:13
  Speaker 5: and I went, oh yeah, Amy.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's such a beautiful version of that song.
• 17:20
  Speaker 5: Thank you it's like kind of intimidating. I almost felt weird,
• 17:23
  Speaker 5: like we were. Mary and I got to work on
• 17:26
  Speaker 5: this thing called Kamo, which is a floating music festival
• 17:29
  Speaker 5: on a cruise ship, and Emmy Lou Harris was on
• 17:32
  Speaker 5: that cruise and they pump in, you know, different songs
• 17:36
  Speaker 5: of the artists, like if You're eating, if You're hanging
• 17:39
  Speaker 5: outside in between shows on the big speaker, and they
• 17:42
  Speaker 5: kept playing even though it was February, my version of
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: that song, and I was.
• 17:45
  Speaker 4: Like, I don't want her to hear it. That's nervist, you.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: Know, that's funny.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's got to be so much fun collaborating with
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: different artists on different songs.
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: And you know, you have a.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Busy schedule on the road this year, but are you.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: Working on any new music this year?
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: I am.
• 18:03
  Speaker 5: I just made a record in Oklahoma. We made it
• 18:06
  Speaker 5: at a farmhouse owned by Steve Ripley, who I was
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: unaware of, but he was in a band called the
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: Tractors that was beloved.
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: He played with Bob Dylan.
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: It was totally a hole in my musical knowledge that
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: I'm happy to have filled. And he died of cancer
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: a few years ago, but his wife, Charlene runs this
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: which is beautiful because she brings in her dog and
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: you get to pet the dog, she makes collects eggs
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: from the chickens, and she makes you breakfast in the morning.
• 18:33
  Speaker 4: It was just a great experience and me.
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: And my friends, including John Fulbright, another great singer songwriter.
• 18:39
  Speaker 5: It was basically John and his band were the band
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: for this record, and we all lived in the farmhouse
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: together for a week while we made it, so it
• 18:47
  Speaker 5: was kind of like folk summer camp. And so we're
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: working on mixing that record right now and it's it'll
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: come out this year twenty twenty six.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah, we are looking forward to that.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: Amy.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: My last question for you, I always ask my guests
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: this we're on taking a walk Nashville. Do you have
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a favorite place you like to take a walk here
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: in Nashville.
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: I love Percy Warner Park. That Red Trail is like,
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: no matter how many times I do, it is so hard.
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that was Mary's answer.
• 19:17
  Speaker 5: Well, I like being from Texas, like I have very
• 19:20
  Speaker 5: little experience with seasons, and so in the pandemic, we
• 19:23
  Speaker 5: go out there like every day and walk because we
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: could get outside right And I was blown away by
• 19:29
  Speaker 5: watching the seasons change. First of all, I've never been
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: in one place long enough to really see seasons, you know,
• 19:34
  Speaker 5: But I mean every day the forest is miraculously different.
• 19:38
  Speaker 5: Like you'd walk by a spot and there's all these
• 19:41
  Speaker 5: mushrooms that weren't there at the day before.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: I loved that. It's a really beautiful experience, very meditative
• 19:47
  Speaker 4: out there. But I've just become a runner.
• 19:49
  Speaker 5: I'm training for my first marathon right now, and so
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: a lot of times I'll just run in a cab
• 19:53
  Speaker 5: park because it's like a loop and at some point
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: you go, well, I have to finish the loop because
• 19:58
  Speaker 5: I have to get.
• 19:59
  Speaker 4: Back home, like I can't stop myself.
• 20:01
  Speaker 5: So I'm enjoying running out there, and and I'm enjoying
• 20:06
  Speaker 5: running and walking. I've always enjoyed walking, but this running
• 20:08
  Speaker 5: thing is really cool because I'm covering so much more
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: ground than I ever have before.
• 20:14
  Speaker 4: And that's a.
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: New way that I'm experiencing this town that I live in.
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: I had no idea there's a greenway right by where
• 20:20
  Speaker 5: we live. It'll take us like right by this cafe.
• 20:23
  Speaker 4: That I love.
• 20:24
  Speaker 5: I'm like, wow, I'm so it's always changing, But for running,
• 20:28
  Speaker 5: it's like I'm just getting to see so much of
• 20:30
  Speaker 5: the city and everywhere that we're visiting.
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: But Percy Warner is still the absolute best for a walk.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Well, even if you're training for a marathon, just running
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: that Red Trail gets you in so much shape.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: It gets you ready for the hills.
• 20:45
  Speaker 4: I try.
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: You know, that's so funny you say that. I tried
• 20:47
  Speaker 5: that because I was feeling like really beastly, like I
• 20:49
  Speaker 5: got this and I was like, what was No, I'm
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: not at this level.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: It definitely stops you in your track. So are you
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: doing a rock and roll marathon?
• 21:00
  Speaker 4: Your nash Austin Marathon? Actually?
• 21:03
  Speaker 5: Okay, Jemuary fifteenth, and my brother is going to run
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: it with me. I mean, he'll probably be way ahead
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: of me. He's a lot faster than me, but we're
• 21:09
  Speaker 5: going to do it together.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: Nice. Yeah, that'll be special.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: You'll Yeah, training on the hills in Nashville will definitely
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: get you.
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: Prepared for that.
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: Thank you for being on Taking a Walk Nashville today.
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: Thanks for having me, Thanks for listening to Taking a
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: Walk Nashville with Sarah Harrelson. Please check out our other
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: shows produced by Buzznight Media Productions. Comedy save Me and Music.
• 21:35
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• 21:39
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• 21:44
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