Latest / Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond / Rhiannon Giddens

Transcript

Rhiannon Giddens · Broken Record with Rick Rubin, Malcolm Gladwell, Bruce Headlam and Justin Richmond

• 0:15
  Speaker 1: Pushkin. So welcome, Rhiannon Giddens. Thank you so much for
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: coming in.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: And you're talking about your new album, Hope is the
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Thing with Feathers. Tell me how that came about.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: You know, it was just time to make that record.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've been in the industry for 20 years now,
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: and I tend to work with the same folks kind
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: of over and over again in kind of different contexts.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: configurations and it's kind of a cyclical thing, you know?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: And it just felt like I needed to just bring
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: as many people as I could from my musical family
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: into the studio and just make some music. So we
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: actually made a bunch of music. There's a whole nother
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: probably two records in what we made in addition to
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: what we have today. But what's really beautiful about this
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: collection is that it showcases my love and kind of
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: rootedness in North Carolina and through the people, the styles
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: of music, and the choice of songs. And it also
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: really is an opportunity for me to have, like, the
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: breadth of my musical collaborators all together. So from my sister,
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: who I was singing with since children, to, like, my
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: most recent collaborator, Newell Tsumbu from, you know, from the Congo,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: who lives in Ireland, and everybody in between. And so...
• 1:40
  Speaker 2: I feel really lucky to be able to do that.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: And it is like, it's been 20 years. So it
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: is kind of one of those, like it's 20 years
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: as a generation. So it is kind of that moment
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: I'm going through menopause or I've been through it or whatever,
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: going through this shift in my life and sort of
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: looking back as I think about looking forward.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: Tell me about working with Neewall because he has such
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: a distinctive sound, such a distinctive way of playing. How
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: does that fit in with the way you do music?
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: He's just a really singular musician. I feel so lucky
• 2:16
  Speaker 2: that he's, you know, happy to play along with my
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: simple music because his brain is just off the charts,
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: you know. He's got a very unique harmonic sense because
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: he's drawn from a lot of different traditions. Obviously, he's
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: kind of an embodied researcher in terms of ethnomusicology. Like,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: he's collected all these different old, you know, guitar styles
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: that are kind of tied to the earlier instruments, you know,
• 2:43
  Speaker 2: say in regions of the Congo. He carries that in
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: his body. He's also played a lot of flamenco music.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: He's been in Ireland for years. He plays Irish music.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: And then he's got his own compositional sense, you know.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: So the title track, Hope is a Thing With Feathers,
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: which is obviously an Emily Dickinson poem, I, you know,
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: sort of downloaded this tune for it in a hotel
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: room somewhere and brought it to Newell. And I was like,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: what do you hear? I just started singing it, and
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: he just started playing immediately what you hear, what you
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: end up hearing on the record. As much as the
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: melody came to me, that tar part came to him,
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: and it so perfectly fit the words and the idea of,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: especially Emily's, if I can call her Emily, her punctuation.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: So often she leaves things with a dash, and you
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: get this feeling that it's not over. You know, there's
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: always going to be another thought that you can't hear it,
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: but you know it's being thought somewhere. And I love
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: that about this poem because, I mean, that's hope, really,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: is that it can't ever stop. Even if it goes
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: down to a low ebb for a while, it can't really,
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: you can't really stop it, you know. And so his
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: guitar just perfectly matches, you know, I feel like the
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: words and the melody. And he just has, I think
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: he has a genius that is just of his own.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: You said that you downloaded it in a hotel room.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like from the infinite, like the tune just came
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: into my head.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Did it come with the words?
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: Like I saw the words, you know, on the Internet.
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I stumbled across the poem or whatever.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm in good company with this song. You know,
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, Alice Randall wrote a song with that as
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: the first line, the first line of that poem and
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: thinking about that. So, you know, it's an obvious, like
• 4:31
  Speaker 2: obviously great. sentiment, you know, it's like I said, I'm
• 4:34
  Speaker 2: in good company with that. But I loved the whole poem.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: And I don't know, I just like heard the, well,
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Saul was reading the words almost for the first time again,
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: you know, they just hit me in a different way.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: And I just sat there in the chair, I remember it,
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: and just started singing the poem. And so I recorded myself,
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: you know, you know, something like, you know, hope is
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: a thing with feathers, perches in the soul. sings the
• 5:00
  Speaker 2: tune without the words, never stops at all, never stops
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: at all. It was kind of like a ballady kind
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: of thing. And then, you know, when I started singing
• 5:12
  Speaker 2: it with Newell, it sort of found the rhythm, you know,
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: we found that kind of together and the repetitions. But yeah,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: that tune just really came. I didn't work on it.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: I didn't go, okay, let me try this upper note,
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: lower note. It just came.
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: Does that happen to you a lot?
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Happens sometimes. When it happens more and more, the kind
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: of more I can, you know, get ego out of
• 5:35
  Speaker 2: the way and get all this other crap out of
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: the way and just kind of like be in the moment.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: It has happened, you know, and those are usually my
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: favorite tunes. Like at the Purchaser's Option, which is a
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: few records ago, it happened that way. Like the chorus
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: just downloaded into my brain. And so I always say
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: that those kind of songs, I shepherd them into existence.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: I like conduit i'm a conduit for them and it
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: is really i i feel a very spiritual experience and
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: i feel very lucky to have those moments and now
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: my my what i'm chasing is not chasing but what
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: i'm trying to do is to continue to let my
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: brain be receptive in that way and and it's only
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: receptive when i fully acknowledge how not in control i
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: am you know it's like none of this is mine
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: It's just mine for a while, and it's not about me.
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: And the more that I situate myself in that, the
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: more gifts, I look at them as gifts come, and
• 6:39
  Speaker 2: I just feel really, really lucky.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Is that happenstance, or are there things you can do
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: to reinforce those ideas?
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: It's like bird seed. As soon as you put some
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: bird seed in your hand and it's like you're staring
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: at the seed waiting for the bird to land, it's
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: never going to happen. As soon as you look over
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: here and just relax, the bird comes, you know. And
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: as soon as you stop focusing on the outcome, I mean,
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: my mom told me this years ago. It's been something
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: I've really tried to model my life after. If you're
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: looking for a specific frame, you know, a specific outcome,
• 7:15
  Speaker 2: a specific shape, size, color to whatever it is that
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: you're trying to do, then you often miss the cooler
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: thing over here that you couldn't see, you know. And so...
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: I try to aim for a substance and then let
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: how it looks or how it sounds come as it may.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: So for me, the substance is about trying to be
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: as centered as I can, trying to use this life
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: that I've been given as much as I can. It
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: is a responsibility that I feel because what friction do
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: I have in my life? So it behooves me to
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: really use it to its utmost to do what I'm
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: trying to do.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: It's true, but Modern society makes it very hard to
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: not think about the outcome.
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it does. It is a discipline. It's a discipline.
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: And we tend to focus on, I mean, I've done
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: a bit of research, you know, it was for a project,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: but I just, I've been a fan of Thich Nhat
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: Hanh for a while. And, I mean, this is not
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: about wellness. Like, this is not the wellness industry, right?
• 8:20
  Speaker 2: This is really about the discipline of trying to find
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: the silence within ourselves. so that it can be filled
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: with other things, so that it can be receptive to
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: inspiration or movement or whatever it is that we want
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: to call God, the infinite, whatever that is bigger than ourselves, right?
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Even just the energy between two people is bigger than yourself.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Our culture is so much about commodification. So even the
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: idea of meditation, even the idea of focusing on this
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: discipline becomes a product of And it becomes seven easy
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: lessons and it becomes books and it becomes an industry.
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  Speaker 2: When really, like, of course, there's writings that can help
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: and there's people's wisdom that you want to take in.
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: But it's really just you and yourself and you at
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: the end of the day. And modern society is built
• 9:12
  Speaker 2: to distract you from that because how can they sell
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: you something if you don't need it? You know?
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know why this comes to mind. But when
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: I was listening to the record, because you're talking about
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: being centered and you were talking about silences. You taped
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: this in different studios over the course of a year
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: and a half?
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: It was all in one studio.
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: Oh, it was all in one studio.
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: Okay. We made several trips.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Okay. This was one of those albums that when I
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: listened to it, I thought I could hear the room.
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: And maybe it was because they're quiet songs, they're loud songs,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: there are silences within the songs. But I really felt
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: the room, which you don't always feel with records.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: That's great because that's what we want. We did a
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: lot of live recording, so there's only overdubs when they
• 10:05
  Speaker 2: have to be, like somebody can't play two instruments at once.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: You know?
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: Um, and we tried to be very sparing with that
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: is we is my co-producer, Dirk Powell. It's also his,
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: his studio. It's kind of like a small house, very
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: old house that he sort of turned into a studio.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: So it's very warm, old wood. It's next to a bayou,
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: you know, it's, it's, on family land and all of
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: this so it's a very welcoming space and i've been
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: making music there for a long time with him um
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: but for this one you know we had there's moments
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: like angel fire where there's like five people playing at
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: once and so it's all being recorded there's no isolation
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: booths none of that you know it was it's literally
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: like we're all in the room together so we wanted
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: the room to be its own you know i mean
• 10:50
  Speaker 2: obviously without being distracting like But it's kind of an
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: extension of what I did last, the last record I released,
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: which was made outside with the nature sounds and the
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: locusts and the birds and everything. And this was obviously
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: more of a studio recording, but still wanted that feel.
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: Because for me, we're going further and further and like, look,
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: we can go as far down the road as you want,
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: you know, in terms of the elephant in the room
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: of AI. But in terms of music being something that
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: for most of human existence is created by the hands
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: and the voice and the human body and was unable
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: to be separated from the human, right? Until the recording industry,
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: which is only a hundred years old. And so when
• 11:38
  Speaker 2: we do make recordings for me, I'm more interested now
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: at this point in my life and maintaining the humanness
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: of it, you know? So you don't forget like this
• 11:47
  Speaker 2: was people making this in a room, not, some, you know,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: zeros and ones or whatever, you know. So I'm kind
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: of leaning into that because I'm like, the other stuff
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: is covered. You know what I mean? No one needs
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: me to do that. So this is what I'm good
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: at is, you know, is handmade music and reminding folks
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: if they need reminding that this can also be a
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: good thing.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Reminds me of another project you just did I wanted
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: to talk about. And I happen to have it right here,
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: which is your amazing book of African-American music called Go
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Back and Fetch It. First of all, can you explain
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: the title for people who don't know it?
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Go Back and Fetch It is Sankofa, is a
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: translation of Sankofa, which is an Akan proverb. And it means,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: you know, it's often represented by a bird walking forward
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: but looking back. sort of having a seed that it's
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: looking back to get. And the idea is that you
• 12:53
  Speaker 2: reach back and then you pull it forward. I first
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: heard it from Sule Greg Wilson, who was, you know,
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: in the chocolate drop universe, Carolina chocolate drop universe back
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: in the day. He's a great kind of folklorist and
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: musician from, from Arizona. But the idea of, you know,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: it's not just enough to go back. You got to
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: fetch it and bring it forward, you know? And so
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: this book is really, um, kind of the first, I hope,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: in a series of reframing the pieces that we have
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: from early Atlantic, the Atlantic world, because really it's not
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: African American. It's really also the Caribbean. It's the Atlantic world.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: We often don't, in mainstream culture, when we talk about history,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: we don't look at it as a world, but it was.
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: All of the seaboard and the as many enslaved people
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: were brought from the Caribbean up into North America, which
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: were many from the very beginning, 1600s. So it is
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: a constant sort of thing that needs to be remembered.
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: But this book came out of my need of this book, actually,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: in this weird kind of way. Because the thing about
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: if you're trying to research music made by enslaved people,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: it's very difficult because the historical record is very slim.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: The historical record is slim for poor people in general,
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: like especially back in the day. The historical record is
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: usually negative for people who aren't part of the aristocracy
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: or who have money. So by negative records, I mean
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: court cases, runaway slave ads or self-emancipatory ads, whatever you
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: want to call them, advertisements for people, wills. I mean
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: things like that where people are being left to other
• 14:39
  Speaker 2: people in their will, right? These are negative sources. So
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: it's sometimes really hard to find the voice of these
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: folks and let alone their names. So what I was
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: doing was I kept going to the websites that would
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: post these scraps of, you know, here's a tune written
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: down in 16 whatever and here's a tune written down
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: in 17. And I kept like downloading the JPEG. And
• 15:05
  Speaker 2: there was Laurent Dubois and his group in Duke put
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: up a website, and I kept going to that one.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: And then Christina Gaddy was the other who had collected
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: all these things for her book, Well of Souls, about
• 15:19
  Speaker 2: the early history of the banjo. And I just said
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: to Christina, God, can you send me these JPEGs? She
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: sent me some JPEGs. I was like, we just need
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: to make a book and put them all in one book.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: And then here it is. It's just kind of wild.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: That's an amazing book.
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: Thank you. I'm really, really proud of it. I mean,
• 15:38
  Speaker 2: Christina is like doing the heavy lifting with the historical frameworks,
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: but luckily she had already done a lot of that
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: work and it was just kind of had been, there
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: wasn't space for it in Well of Souls. So it
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: was actually a great for both of us because she
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: could use all of this that had been kind of
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: cut from that book in this book. And then I
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: engaged with each tune to make a tablature for banjo,
• 16:03
  Speaker 2: which is, you know, kind of a simultaneous, you know,
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: making it accessible for anybody who plays any kind of
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: five-string banjo, but then also a chance to explain some
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: of the techniques that I've learned by studying 1850s banjo tutors.
• 16:19
  Speaker 2: So I kind of took those techniques, which, because I
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: play a replica from 1858, so they would have been
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: gut-strong and... fretless and so it's a very different technique
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: to the modern wire strung metal banjos that you know
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: just just the mechanics of what you're doing with your
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: hand is different and they called it stroke style and
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: so i kind of extrapolated that backwards because i'm like
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: that's coming from already a couple hundred years of acculturation
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: on the banjo so there's clearly if i want to
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: take it back and i was playing these tunes with
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: the with that style and going wow it really works
• 16:56
  Speaker 2: So it is an act of creation, but an act
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: of creation that's very rooted in the sources that we have.
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: It's a music book that reads like a detective story. Yeah,
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: I like that. You're going through and you're like, oh,
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: they're putting all this together. What you said about music
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: being between people, this is like writing down things that
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: were handed down.
• 17:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: And also it's very important to remember that You know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: like there's a concept in quantum mechanics, right? The act
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: of observing disturbs the observed because of the nature of
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: the photon. Like it knocks the particle off its right,
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: all that. And it's the same in cultural life, right?
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: If you see something, the act of observing it often
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: changes even the person playing it because they see they're
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: being watched. That can change. If you're observing it and
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: you write it down, you've already put your lens on it.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: So however you see it... A lot of this music
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: was written down by European observers. There's some that were
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: written or from actual black sources. There were some that
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: were named something like Congo, but like feel like we
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: don't know where they're coming, you know. So we say
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: all of that in the book. Then I'm putting it
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: in tablature. So I'm bringing my own, you know, kind
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: of lens onto it. So it's very important to declare
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: your position. So my position is thinking about sitting knee
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: to knee. I sat knee to knee along with the
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: other original Chocolate Drops with Joe Thompson. And as an apprentice,
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: we were apprentices. He didn't charge us money. This was
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: the old style, whereas you carry on the lineage. That's
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: the repayment. So for him, the fact that we went
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: down and played with him the same tunes over and
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: over and over again, that was what was in his culture.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: You know, that's how you learn. Now, it was already
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: one step out because we didn't grow up with him.
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: You know, like my family's from that area, but I
• 18:52
  Speaker 2: didn't grow up in Mebane, you know, and I didn't
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: grow up with him. So that's already one step out,
• 18:55
  Speaker 2: but it was still, here we are.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: It's still a remarkable experience that you don't get much
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: in the world anymore.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: It's incredible. Like the older I get, the more I go, wow,
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: we were so lucky, you know, and we did like,
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: we did do it. We did go, but we had
• 19:11
  Speaker 2: that opportunity to go. We were young. We were unfettered.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: I wasn't married with kids. They were younger than me.
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: And we had the opportunity to do that. We had enough.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: We had a car. We had the time. All of
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: these things that not everybody has. And then we had
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: the desire to go. And then we had Joe. All
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: of that came together in a way that the older
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: I get, the more I'm like, wow. Obviously, you can't
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: go back in time. But how do you look at
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: what's happening now? I'm very... Like even the book... It's
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: supposed to be a starting point. You know, like if
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: somebody came up to me and said, can I just
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: sit with you and play Georgia Bug for an hour?
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: I'd be like, sure. I'm not going to charge them
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: for that. You know, that's why I don't teach. I'm
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: not interested in teaching something to a student. Like I'll
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: go to a teacher. done a teaching week where, you know,
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: you kind of teach a class for the week, whatever.
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: I've experimented with that some. But if somebody came to
• 20:05
  Speaker 2: me and said, you know, I want to learn a
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: Joe tune, can I sit with you and learn it?
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: I would sit and play with them. Like that feels
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: right to me. You know, nobody does that. which is interesting.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: It's been very, very few people, you know, have reached out.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: And when they do, it's been great. You know, here,
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: come to the gig. We'll sit for an hour, you know.
• 20:27
  Speaker 2: And I can't do it all the time, obviously. I'm
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: not even close to that, though, because it's been, you know,
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: I think people are so used to purchasing a book,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: purchasing a lesson, purchasing a degree and learning music that way.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: It's like the academization of music. Which is okay. I
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: went to a conservatory. That's how I learned European art music.
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: It's really important to say I'm not pooping on that.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: There's different ways of learning different things. But I think
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: that I would love to have a bit more nuance
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: as to what is seen as a good way to
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: learn things. I think we look at the book learning
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: and the classes as the only way. Because of the
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: way that our economy is set up and the way
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: that our modern life is set up, it doesn't offer
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: a way of having that be a part of life.
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: That's hard, you know, and I get it.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: The institutions that used to make that possible, I mean,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: I guess people still learn gospel singing in church. That's
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: not something they, I mean, they have hymnals, but that's
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: not the primary way they do it. You're living in
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Ireland where I'm sure there are still people learning Irish
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: tunes in the old way, but made a lot less
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: of it.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: It is very interesting to be in Ireland because it's
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: a very fascinating case study for traditional music and the
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: commodification of it, the institutionalization of it, and yet it's
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: still being passed on in communities today. It's also, you know,
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: there's places where people come and they learn a tune
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: for the week and then they go back home and,
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: you know, do they pick up that instrument again? I mean,
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: you know, it's a larger topic than I think we
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: could get into, but I don't know what to think,
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: to be honest. I guess that's why I'm not really
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: articulate with this, even though I think about it a lot,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: is what we're doing to music and what music did
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: for us for so long. I just feel like we're getting,
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: we're really getting away from it. It's like, even the
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: idea of like playing tunes, it's like a lot of
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: people just like collect all the, they just collect a
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: bunch of tunes that they play. And I'm like, but
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: what are we doing with those tunes? You know, I mean, obviously,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Joe Thompson came out of a period of history where
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: music was a part of culture in a certain way,
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: like handmade dance music, Obviously, World War II and after that,
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: television killed it all over the place, killed these folk
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: traditions and communities, storytelling, dance music, all of this kind
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: of stuff. It really did a number on it. So
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: I understand music comes out of necessity. It comes out
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: of culture. But I think we have a lot of
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: choice in how we go forward. And I think it's just...
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: It would be really important to be intentional about what
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: are we doing with this music. I think art has
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: been taken out of people's everyday lives in a way
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: that I find distressing because it's not like everybody was
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: a genius player and an artist like back in the day.
• 23:44
  Speaker 2: There's variations always. There's people who just have a knack
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: for it. There's people who want to focus on it
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: and get really good. And there's people who just want
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: to play. play a little bit, sing a little bit.
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: Everybody used to be able to sing a little bit,
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: you know? And I really feel like there's so much
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: focus on, I mean, I have taught workshops of singing
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: in the past, you know, and the amount of people like, well,
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: you know, I was told I wasn't a good singer
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: when I was in fourth grade and you can just
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: see the pain still, you know? And it just makes
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: me so sad. I'm like, who told them that and why? Well,
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: because they didn't have a fantastic voice that maybe they
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: could be a professional singer. Like who gives a crap?
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? Like, But that's the music
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: has been co-opted by, you know, capitalism in this, you know,
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: there's only one reason to make music and that's to
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: be a professional music maker, a professional content provider, a
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: professional thing maker. I think that's unfair, you know. So
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: like instead of making a bit of music, you like
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: work the job and then you go listen to the
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: music or you have the music on all the time
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: and you don't even notice it anymore. You know, the
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: experience of listening to music has changed so much, you know.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: And all of this, of course, there's variation within this.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: In general, that is what you see. And I'm an
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: advocate for picking up an instrument. I just picked up
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: the concertina. I'm 49 years old. It's a hard freaking instrument.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: And there's nothing like breaking yourself back down to basics
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: and sucking at something. Bruce DeBauer is a great photographer
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: and his website is Permission to Suck. It's so good.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, I've thought about that so much. I love
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: the idea of just letting go and being bad because
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: that's the only way to be good. Nobody starts good.
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: There's a few geniuses that can just pick it up, right?
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: But even then, they're not really good. You know what
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: I mean? They still got to work. So my daughter
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: does because she's one of those that just picks up
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: shit and plays it. I'm like, yeah, but you'll never
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: be actually really good unless you practice. And it's like,
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: I love it. I love learning something new because it
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: just Levels me out and takes me down all the
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: pegs that I've climbed up thinking I'm so good. And,
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: you know, I'm such a good singer. I can't play
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: a freaking, you know, tune on, like, I can't play Twinkle,
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Twinkle Little Star on this thing. Like, what's going on,
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: you know? And I think it's just great for the brain,
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: you know?
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Well, a lot of what you're talking about is the
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: social aspect of music that's been lost.
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: The social aspect is really... I think one of the
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: biggest tragedies from singing in.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: A choir, because the other thing.
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: About, you know, or playing in a garage band or,
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: you know, playing tunes with somebody, because the other thing
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: is that you have to negotiate. When you're in groups
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: of people, you have to learn how to negotiate. You
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: have to be like, you know what? I don't like
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: the way you did that. Okay, moving on. You know
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: what I mean? You don't always like it. You don't
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: always get on all the time. You have to learn,
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: and that's what we're in our sort of little isolated moments.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: We're losing the ability, and you see it in our discourse,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: of having a disagreement. So when you're in a band
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: or you're in a choir and you're like, I don't
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: think we should sing it this way, you have to
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: learn how to figure out how to get to a
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: place where everybody is, maybe they're not ecstatic, but they're content.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: And I think those are skills that we're losing because-
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'll just keep to music, you know, that
• 27:20
  Speaker 2: used to be a really good place, a really safe
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: place if you were lucky to like work that stuff out.
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: And if you do that from children, you know, it
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: works that muscle. And so then you can apply it
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: to other things. But like just, you know, push and
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: play doesn't give you that.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: Well, you also, the few, the little playing I've done
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: in ensembles, you have to watch other people. Yes.
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: It's a communication always.
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: Always.
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: And like to be a good ensemble player, I say
• 27:49
  Speaker 2: this in Silk Road, like the Silk Road Ensemble that
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: I'm artistic director of, you have to listen louder than
• 27:53
  Speaker 2: you play. That is the only way to be a
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: good ensemble player because if you're so loud that you
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: can't hear them, that's not a conversation. You're talking over
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: somebody and it's the same when you're just having a chat.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: We're losing the ability to listen to people, you know?
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: As much as we're gaining other things, right, it's always
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: a push and a pull. But I just– I really
• 28:16
  Speaker 2: feel like singing in a choir was so fundamental for me,
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: singing with my sister, singing with my dad, you know,
• 28:23
  Speaker 2: listening to music with my mom. I mean, I didn't
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: play any instruments, but, like, we sang all the time.
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: And I am really grateful for that because I think
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: it really has shaped, you know, how I look at things.
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: You know, I do love– the emphasis, this is what
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the book is about, on instrumental music because so much,
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: you know, when I think of, you know, Blues People,
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: the famous book about African-American music, it's very, very focused
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: on vocal music.
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 28:55
  Speaker 1: And so this is this whole history that people, I
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: just don't think it's common currency for people.
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: No, I mean, that's been kind of part of my push.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: When you say, oh, a fiddler from 1830s, We know
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: what we have in mind.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And also when you look at the similarities
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: and the differences between like what's happening. So like because
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: I'm working on a book right now about the working
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: class cultural collaborative nature of American music, right? So to
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: understand what people were doing on this side of the ocean,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: you have to understand what they're coming from. And that
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: has been a really interesting conversation. kind of enlightening thing.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: And it's like, what traditions are happening here? What traditions
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: are happening here? And you see some things like, you know,
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: when I went to Africa, I went to the Gambia
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: to study the Akonteng, which is like a band. ancestor.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: And I noticed that they never played without singing. They're
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: playing and singing like constantly, right? And I started thinking
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: about like other traditions, like the Angoni, like these other
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: like lute traditions. And then you think about traditional divisions from, say,
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: the British Isles where you have ballads and then you
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: have instrumental music or you have an accompanied. But the
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: dance tunes with words, it's not really a thing. And
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: so in America, you get that. All of Joe's tunes
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: had words.
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: Really?
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: Most of them that I was taught by him, that's
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: all I can say, had words. And they may have
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: been like, silly words or whatever, but there were words.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: And that started making me think, I'm like, wow, there's
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: all of these like things that we take for granted
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: here that could very well be like born of these
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: combos of, I say like Africa and Europe, but like
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: this combination in a way that has nothing to do
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: with rhythm, you know? So it's like, these are the
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: things that I think are really interesting, but you have
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: to like take into account what's happening before You know,
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: you have to think about all the different lute instruments
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: that are like all over West Africa, like that would
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: have been brought by, you know, the Arabs, you know,
• 31:08
  Speaker 2: which themselves, they're getting them from China and India. You know,
• 31:12
  Speaker 2: there's like the instruments are making this long trek with
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: people like over the continents and over the centuries. So like,
• 31:20
  Speaker 2: it's just a constant thing. But to know more about
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: what's happening beforehand, you can really start to see oh,
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: that's really interesting. Well, maybe this is that, you know,
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: and I'm not a, you know, I just have a
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: degree in music, opera performance, you know what I mean?
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: So I'm, all my stuff is self-taught and I rely
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: heavily on academics, but I'm trying to find a way
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: through where I can just, you know, people who are
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: never going to read those books to give them a
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: different kind of way of looking at American music. That's
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: not the sort of simplified narrative that we're given, you know?
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: I have one more question, which is, When you were
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: in this book, and I promise we'll get to your album.
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: That's all good.
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: You said a lot of the tunes were probably in 12-8.
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: What I've discovered in engaging with this early material, whether
• 32:11
  Speaker 2: it's from Caribbean sources or early American sources, is that
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: the feeling of duple and triple that happens at the
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: same time in music all over the world, but particularly
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: you really feel it in a lot of different kind
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: of African musics, right?
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: Is very present in these tunes. And the whole reason why,
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: you know, I even got here is because when I
• 32:36
  Speaker 2: started with the tunes from the banjo tutor in 1850, 1855,
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: and I started playing with Francesco Teresi, who plays, you know,
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: kind of North African Mediterranean percussion, I was like, oh,
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: that really worked with some of them. But then I
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: also started playing with Newell. And immediately it was like, whoa,
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: like the three verses to just, I just started playing
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: like the emphasis popped out in a, in a way
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: that I hadn't before. And you really hear that in
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: these tunes. And so just trying to think about how
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: do you notate them for a Western, Western notation to,
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: so the 12, eight kind of gives you in some
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: ways the, the, the feel. of that you know if
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: you don't have a cultural feel for it you're trying
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: to put it so that people can approximate that you
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: know what i mean but when you take the the
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: stroke style of banjo eventually becomes claw hammer banjo right
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: and because it you know it has different cultural functions
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: and it's it's in different communities it eventually gets a
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: little bit flattened i don't want to say flattened because
• 33:49
  Speaker 2: it's got its own complexities but it loses very much
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: that that feel, you know? And so for me, like
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: just being able to try to articulate that into, that's
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: why you don't see jigs in Kloheimer banjo because there's
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: no ambiguity anymore. Whereas in a lot of these tunes,
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: it's like when I play them with Newell, like I
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: feel like he taps the three sometimes, you know, it's
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: like we did a Pompeo ran away, you know, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun.
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Which is in here. So he'll tap that.
• 34:32
  Speaker 4: Oh, wow.
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: And I'm playing. Whoa.
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: It's the most simple tune. But all of that rhythmic
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: complexity is in its DNA, which you don't know unless
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: you play it on a minstrel banjo. Like you don't
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: feel that on– I don't feel that on a modern
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: banjo because there's just– the strings don't have to– which
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: is why embodied research is so important, right? It's important
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: for me to take these tunes onto the instrument that
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: it was made for and then have those discoveries play
• 35:07
  Speaker 2: with a musician from Africa. There's no guarantee that he's
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: going to feel a certain way because like music has
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: moved on. But he's also interested in what did they
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: play because so many things have been destroyed, you know,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: in Congo, right? So– We're both making this sort of
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: excavation and kind of meeting in the middle, which has
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: been really beautiful.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: This brings me to two of the songs in your
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: album that you did. And I'm wondering how those traditions
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: filtered down. And the first one is Freight Train by
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth Cotton. Now, you should tell the story of Elizabeth
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: Cotton because anybody who plays the guitar had to play
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: Freight Train at some point.
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? Like she's left-handed.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: She played the guitar upside down and backwards, backwards to us, right?
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Right for her.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: But the, the thing, the strings are swapped, you know,
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: so nobody, you can't really play like her exactly.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: You know, I have no idea how she played. Yeah.
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: She's amazing. You know, she played guitar. I think she
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: also played banjo when she was younger, but I do
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: know that she went into domestic service and ended up,
• 36:17
  Speaker 2: you know, working for the Seeger family, which is like,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: If you're going to go into domestic service as a
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: priceless treasure of folk guitar, go to the singers because
• 36:26
  Speaker 2: then they'll immediately say, please go play the guitar and
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: stop working for us, which is what they did, Mike
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: and Peggy in particular. I'm very grateful for that while
• 36:33
  Speaker 2: also acknowledging that it's what a terrible thing that she
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: had to go into service and not play guitar because
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: so many women played in the home, but there was
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: no outlet for them professionally. So she kind of galvanized
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: so many guitarists during the folk revival, like just with
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: her style. And she's so North Carolina, rooted in North
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: Carolina and her playing. And also, I think because she
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: hadn't played for a while, it's an older style of
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: playing that I think people hadn't really been exposed to.
• 37:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, this is just me kind of thinking about it.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm not a scholar of Elizabeth Cotton. And
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: to think that that tune made the round, that's why
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: I never sang it. Because I'm like, everybody does freight train,
• 37:14
  Speaker 2: like we don't need to do freight train. I did
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: Shake Sugary, you know, when I recorded one of her tunes.
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: I've done Oh Baby, It Ain't No Lie. But it
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: just kind of was like, well, maybe it's time. And,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: you know, Dirk is an amazing guitarist, and he has
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: such an affinity and feel for that style. And what
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: was really interesting is last night we actually performed it
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: with Michelle Dorrance, who's from Chapel Hill, and she has
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: lineage of, like, you know, John D. Holman and that
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: kind of, percussive dance that's very rooted in, in the
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: Piedmont of North Carolina. And we actually did it all
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: together last night. It was really special. Like talk about
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: rooting it in place, you know, here, here we are
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: in New York, but like there's, you know, I mean,
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: Dirk's very rooted in these traditions and I'm obviously, you know,
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: both of us from North Carolina, me and Michelle and
• 38:02
  Speaker 2: rooted in, in the, the dance and the music of
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: that area. And it really makes me think about how
• 38:08
  Speaker 2: little we do that. You know, it's like, I don't
• 38:11
  Speaker 2: need to play the old time music. of the country.
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: I play North Carolina music, you know, and like, that's
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: what we used to do. Like people didn't move all
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: the time, you know, so they would be in one
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: community and they would learn those tunes and they would
• 38:25
  Speaker 2: just play those tunes over and over and over again,
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: you know, because there was no constant influx. There was,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: there was influx, but it wasn't anywhere near to the
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: volume as it is now. So for me, this record
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: is really about planting a flag again, as I keep
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: planting a flag in North Carolina and going, I'm very
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: content to stay here. You know, obviously I play with
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: different people. I've got Silk Road. But it's still I'm
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: representing North Carolina within the context of those frameworks. So
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: when I think about what am I here for, I
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: don't need to do all the things. I just need
• 39:03
  Speaker 2: to do the things that make me feel like I'm
• 39:06
  Speaker 2: offering something that is rooted, you know, in place. Even
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: though I don't live in North Carolina anymore, I– am
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: of North Carolina.
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: What I love about your version, and maybe it's Dirk's playing,
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: is how syncopated it is. Now hers is too. When
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: I went back and listened to it, I thought, you know,
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: I never really heard it that way. And I thought,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: this is embarrassing. I've never heard any of her other songs.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: So I started listening to her. She made a live album.
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: She did an album that the Seegers helped her make.
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: And her playing is so much more eccentric and so
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: much more syncopated.
• 39:43
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: It has a completely different feel. Is that the Piedmont tradition?
• 39:48
  Speaker 1: Is that her? Where does that come from?
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: I mean, I think so. Again, it's not my area
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: of expertise, you know. but that's what I've heard. You know,
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Piedmont style blues is, you know, it's hard to know
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: sometimes what somebody's just called something, something, and then it
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? So I can't really speak
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: to the guitar too much. But, you know, when you
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: think about Etta Baker, who was in Morganton, which is
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: like right next to the Piedmont, you know, that style
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: is very much that's syncopated, which itself is like, I think,
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: very probably banjo influenced. You know, this is just me
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: talking now. Don't quote me on this, but You know,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: like Scott Joplin's parents played the banjo. He played the
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: banjo as well. Like those early rags were almost like
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: I think some of the early rags were recorded on banjo,
• 40:34
  Speaker 2: you know. So it's like the banjo has a fifth string.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: It is naturally a syncopated instrument. Like it has to be,
• 40:41
  Speaker 2: you know. But Libba Cotton is, I think, such an
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: influence on people. And it's really interesting, your experience, because
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: I think it's kind of taken for granted at this point.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: And you kind of went back and listened to it
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: with kind of fresh ears. Like, what is it that
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: she's doing? And then you can hear why people were
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: freaking out about what she was playing because it's just
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: like that's something that eventually kind of will get cleaned
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: up and sort of regulated and sort of turned into
• 41:10
  Speaker 2: a style. And how much of it is because she
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: hadn't been playing, so she was kind of in amber
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: of how she used to play before or whatever. It
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: doesn't really matter. But it is a really special thing.
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: So Dirk has a very idiomatic and very kind of
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: dynamic style, which I think, you know, represents it while
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: still being his own playing.
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: Mm-hmm. Another song you play is the Ola Belle Reed,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: who you describe as this great, great songwriter from North Carolina.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: So tell me about that.
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, she's just cool. Like, I did her Ruby,
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Are You Mad at Your Man? I think that's the
• 41:49
  Speaker 2: Ola Belle Reed song.
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 41:51
  Speaker 2: And she just had this knack of making these songs
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: that sound like they've been around forever. Her and Hazel
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: Dickens and Alice Gerard, these women just rooted in the community,
• 42:04
  Speaker 2: the life, the music, and who can just make these
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: incredible songs. So yeah, it was just a great opportunity.
• 42:10
  Speaker 2: I had the guys to do it, to make a
• 42:14
  Speaker 2: version that kind of pulls on that high lonesome sound.
• 42:17
  Speaker 2: My dad's side of the My family are obviously white
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: and from the Piedmont area. Piedmont means foot of the
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: hill or foot of the mountain. So we're right next
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: to Appalachia. So there's a lot of overlap. And the sounds,
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: I always kind of was like, why does that sound
• 42:37
  Speaker 2: draw me? I've done a lot of Sheila K. Adams'
• 42:41
  Speaker 2: family's songs. She's a friend of mine and a wonderful
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: ballad carrier. But that high lonesome sound is something that's
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: never been hard for me to get, you know? I mean,
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: I've heard a lot of, like, old country and bluegrass
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: and stuff. My uncle was in a bluegrass band. So
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: it's been a part of my cultural upbringing. But also
• 43:00
  Speaker 2: it's like, oh, like, you know, I was just on
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: Finding Your Roots. Like, so many folks from, like, you know,
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: that frame of mind, you know what I mean? So
• 43:10
  Speaker 2: it's just kind of like. It's just great to just
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: lean into it and go, I am a product of
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: all of these things, you know, and I'm not going
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: to apologize for it.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: They're a great song. And another one, you go back
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: to listen to her album, she's like, she's such a
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: character on her song. Yeah. The way she introduces them.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: She's very funny. She's always talking to the audience. It's very,
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: I think both those experiences for me were really sort
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: of disarming.
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: Oh, I love that. Yeah.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: It was wonderful.
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: Glad I can help.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk about some of the other
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: songs you did. You duet with your sister. You do
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Chuck Old Hen. You do a classic. And it just
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: becomes a great, I don't know if you'd call it
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: bluegrass or porch music. I don't know what you'd call it.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: Porch music works.
• 43:54
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: You know, I mean, I always say, like, we would
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: call that old time.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: You know, it's Climber Banjo. I mean, I hate to
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: get too label-y, but. Because everything is called bluegrass these days,
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: I kind of just say bluegrass is a commercial art
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: form that came about in the 1940s and 50s, and
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: it is based on older forms of music. And it
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: has solos, and it's a performance music. It doesn't mean
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: you can't dance to it, but it's really meant for performing,
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: whereas old time is a community music, and that's different.
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: You make the music together. It's trance music. It's not
• 44:27
  Speaker 2: really meant to be put on performance stages. Now, the
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: Chocolate Drops figured out ways to do that, you know,
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: because we were doing, we were, we had a mission, but,
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: you know, Cluck Old Hen is a dance tune. And
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: so that's why, you know, we included all the kind
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: of chatter, you know, because it's like, that's how it was.
• 44:44
  Speaker 2: We just like got, we just sat down and we're like,
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: all right, let's rip one out. Like, you know.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: It sounded like fun.
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: It was super fun, you know.
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: So tell me a little bit about writing, first of all,
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: Carolina Rain, which is, which is I guess as close
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: as you get to what would I call a pop tune.
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: It's got drums.
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: It's got drums. Yeah. It's a fun song. It's one
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: that Dirk and I wrote some years ago. And it's
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: a kind of reminder for me that you can inhabit
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: different kinds of songs, you know, and it doesn't mean
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: that that's all I'm going to do. you know, for
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: my next record, right? It's just, I can visit. I
• 45:24
  Speaker 2: can visit and then go back to my corner, you know?
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: You've never, I mean, you did, you know, you played
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: on the Beyonce record. It's not tempting to say, what
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: would that look like if I did something that was
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: closer to the pop direction?
• 45:39
  Speaker 2: No.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: No?
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, we did You're the One, which is kind
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: of the closest I've ever been. You know, I worked
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: with a producer who's much more in that world, lovely guy.
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: and it was still, you know, rooted in what I do,
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: but I don't know. I just think there's so many
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: people in the world making songs. So many people making
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: pop songs. Does anybody need me to do that? I
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: don't think so. You know what I mean? Like, I just,
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: I'm not interested. So I don't really write personal songs
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: very much because I'm just like, I am not interesting.
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: What I do is interesting. My life is not interesting,
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: you know? And it's, There's people who write songs that
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: are personal, that people draw great comfort from. And it's
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: not to say that I don't think that should happen.
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: I don't need to do it. I've enjoyed my share
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: of pop music. But like I said, I don't think
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: that's my strength. So I just don't want to waste
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: any time chasing something. For what reason? Like if I
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: really wanted to make a pop song, I would do
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: it just because I wanted to make it. But I
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: don't need to try to find more followers and more
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: fans by... appealing to a more mainstream, whatever that is,
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: since I just want to stick to what I'm doing.
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: That's an interesting question. You know, you talk about people
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: draw a lot from certain kinds of, you know, pop
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: songs or opera or anything else you've explored. What do
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: you think people draw from your music?
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: I think a sense of connection, because I'm always connecting
• 47:15
  Speaker 3: to like what came before thinking about what's coming.
• 47:19
  Speaker 2: I try to present an emotional conduit for folks. I
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: feel like that is really what we're for, artists. And
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: if we're performers, I feel like it is that way
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: to help people touch their own sense of the infinite.
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: And then they can take that away and maybe they
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: want to do something with that. Because it shouldn't just
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: be a one-time thing. It should be something that makes
• 47:45
  Speaker 2: people makes us want to do something. Like when I'm touched,
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: when I watch somebody play, I'm inspired to go do more,
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: you know? And that's what I want for people. I
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: want people to pick up the banjo. I want them
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: to pick up... Even somebody was like, I'm going to
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: get a concertina. I'm like, oh my God, that's amazing.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: You know what I mean? That's what I want people
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: to sing. I want them to go get a book
• 48:05
  Speaker 2: and read up on something. I'm not interested in being
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: the end terminus, you know? I want it to be
• 48:11
  Speaker 2: the beginning.
• 48:12
  Speaker 3: So....
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: I just, you know, follow my muse or follow what
• 48:17
  Speaker 2: I think I'm supposed to do. And whoever is touched
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: by that comes along for the ride. It's not going
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: to be for everybody. And that's okay.
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: Because you talk about being a conduit for things in
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: the past. And that's a tricky thing to do. You're smiling.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: You know, I'm thinking particularly you did the opera, Omar,
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: which won the Pulitzer Prize. Well-deserved.
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 48:45
  Speaker 1: A lot like this book, you were pulling from very
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: fragmentary sources. In the case, Omar, now, he had written
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: his life story. He had a narrative written in Arabic.
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: Right. Yeah, which has many layers to that, but yes.
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: But you had to fill in things around it, which
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: is a tricky situation to be in because Omar, who
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: was an enslaved Muslim from … Senegal. He was from Senegal.
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: That's not a story that's been accurately told throughout history.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: And so you have this story you want to tell.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: You want to tell it accurately, but you want to
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: tell it imaginatively as well, which means sometimes, as you
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: head to in this book, filling in some of the gaps.
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: The thing is, like, history is a creative endeavor always
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: because we were not there. So it's always a creative endeavor,
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: and the people who I respect and trust the most
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: are the ones who admit that. These are the facts
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: as we know them. Everything else is supposition. You know
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: what I mean?
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 49:50
  Speaker 2: And even the facts can be.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: Incorrect, right?
• 49:53
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: What portrait is this from the Elizabethan area? Like even
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: stuff like that where you'd go, of course it's this person,
• 50:01
  Speaker 2: but we find out it's actually somebody completely different like
• 50:04
  Speaker 2: hundreds of years after the fact, right? So for me,
• 50:08
  Speaker 2: like something like Omar, which already is so layered, Islam
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: itself is a colonizer religion that would have replaced the
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: native religions that were in the area. to begin with, right?
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: So Omar is learning Arabic to read the Quran. That
• 50:22
  Speaker 2: is not his cultural language. His cultural language would have been,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: I don't know, Fula or Wolof or whatever, right? Some variation,
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: he probably would have had three or four languages that
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: he knew, which most people do in that area. So
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: even the words that he wrote, he didn't learn Arabic
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: to write an autobiography. He learned Arabic to read the Quran.
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: So when you read what he wrote, so that's Number
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: one is going through that lens. Number two, he's got
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: his enslavers looking over his shoulder. They can't read it,
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: but somebody will, right? Somebody will translate it. So what
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: does he feel like he can say? You know what
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: I mean? So there's all of these layers that go
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: into it even before I set eyes on it and
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: decide to turn it into something. And, you know, shout
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: out to the Spoleto Festival for, you know, commissioning me,
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: and I brought Michael Ables into it. absolute priceless collaborator.
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: It was, like, the best thing I've done in my career.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Just bringing it in. But thinking about whenever I ran
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: into a wall of, like, what am I doing? Like,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: I'm just, like, I'm this American woman, like, who's non-denominational. Like,
• 51:31
  Speaker 2: why am I telling this story? I kept going back
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: to his words and his choice of Quranic verses. His
• 51:40
  Speaker 2: choice of verses actually became the way that he was
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: talking to me.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: Hmm.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: Because he was very deliberate in his choice of what
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: he quoted because he was in a very dangerous position.
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: He had to be seen to convert. He was like
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: 50 years. He's doing this walk. It's insane not being
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: able to connect back to his community. So what does
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: he choose to hold on to? That's how he talks
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: to us. And any time I got lost or frustrated,
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: I just went back to that. and thought about what
• 52:16
  Speaker 2: is it that's going to allow what I feel like,
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: what I've gained from his writings. It was a very spiritual,
• 52:27
  Speaker 2: intense process that I don't still understand to this day.
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: There's some stuff I like read it, like, because I
• 52:33
  Speaker 2: wrote the libretto. There's some stuff that I read and
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't even know how I wrote that.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: I'm so steeped in the history, of course, you know,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: But still, it was just like, wow. And that's the
• 52:46
  Speaker 2: kind of stuff that gives me hope, you know, because
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm so honored to have brought that into
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: the world and to have found the right collaborators and
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: all of that. That is when I'm reminded of this
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: is not about me and it's never about me. And
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: for me, the best stuff has nothing to do with me.
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: OK, well, hope is the thing with feathers is some
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: of your best stuff. Thank you so much for coming in.
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: Everybody should listen to your album. Everybody should buy your book.
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: And then they should go out and buy a concertina.
• 53:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much for coming in.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me.
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: It was wonderful.
• 53:26
  Speaker 4: Broken Record is produced and edited by Leah Rose with
• 53:28
  Speaker 4: marketing help from Eric Sandler and Jordan McMillan. Our engineer
• 53:31
  Speaker 4: is Ben Talladay. Broken Record is a production of Pushkin Industries.
• 53:35
  Speaker 4: If you love this show and others from Pushkin, consider
• 53:38
  Speaker 4: subscribing to Pushkin Plus. Pushkin Plus is a podcast subscription
• 53:41
  Speaker 4: that offers bonus content and ad-free listening for $ 4. 99 a month.
• 53:45
  Speaker 4: Look for Pushkin Plus on Apple Podcast Subscriptions. And if
• 53:49
  Speaker 4: you like this show, please remember to share, rate, and
• 53:51
  Speaker 4: review us on your podcast app. Our theme music's by
• 53:53
  Speaker 4: Kenny Beats. I'm Justin Richmond.