December 5, 2023 • 47 mins
Hillary is traveling, and will be back next week with a new episode. In the meantime, we’re bringing back one of her favorites..
“Believe in yourself.” For some people, that’s a lifelong challenge. Then there are those rare folks, immensely talented and hard working, who always knew that they would be somebody. This week, Hillary talks with two of them—multiple Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile, and Broadway legend André De Shields—about the dreams (and setbacks) that led to where they are today.
Brandi Carlile is a six-time Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, performer, and producer. Since her debut in 2004, she has released six studio albums and was the most nominated female artist at the 2019 Grammy Awards with six nominations, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year. Her memoir Broken Horses is a #1 New York Times bestseller.
André De Shields’ acting career spans over 50 years. While currently best known for his performance in the musical Hadestown, he also appeared in The Wiz, Play On!, Ain’t Misbehavin’, and The Full Monty, and has directed and choreographed several shows and appeared on film and television. André has won numerous awards throughout this career, including an Emmy Award, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, you and me, both listeners. I'm currently traveling abroad,
so while I don't have a new episode for you
this week, I want to share with you one of
my favorite episodes from last season in case you missed
it the first time. I hope you enjoy listening to
my conversations with Brandy Carlisle and Andre Dea Shields as
(00:24):
much as I enjoyed talking to them. I find them
both so inspirational and don't we need that right now?
And stay tuned for next week when I'll be back
with a new episode. I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is
you and me. Both Believe in yourself. You know, it's
(00:46):
a piece of advice we hear a lot, but for
many of us, it takes years, if not a lifetime,
to actually get there. And then there are those rare folks,
immensely talented and hard working, somehow always knew that they
would be somebody. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking
(01:14):
with two people who believed in themselves from the get go.
Later we'll hear from the incredibly talented actor, director, and
choreographer Andre Deshields, but first I'm talking to multiple Grammy
Award winning singer and songwriter Brandy Carlisle. I first discovered
(01:36):
Brandy back in twenty nineteen when she performed her song
The Joke at the Grammy Awards. That year, she was
nominated for six, yes, six Grammys for her album By
the Way I Forgive You. I immediately tracked down as
much of her music as I could. I've been a
fan ever since. Brandy grew up in Washington State with
(02:01):
very young parents who struggled to make a living and
provide a stable home, but she was also surrounded by
a lot of love and a lot of music. She's
drawn on those roots to build a beautiful family of
her own with her wife Catherine, and their two daughters,
Evangeline and Elijah. Brandy writes about all of this in
(02:26):
her memoir titled Broken Horses, and that's where I wanted
to start our conversation by asking her what it was
like to pull up those memories, the good, the bad,
the wonderful and write this incredibly open, revealing and compelling book.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I had always kind of mined my past for experience
and songwriting and things like that, but just in little
random verse without the detail, you know. But when I
actually really sat down and kind of meditated on it.
Everything came back smells and floral prints on couches and
you know, whatever vehicle we happened to have at that time,
and just my childhood became really clear and really vivid,
(03:08):
and it poured out of me. I didn't hesitate. I
didn't worry about what I was saying about mom or
dad or you know, my brother and sister, or the
way that we lived, or what was going on and
our lives at that time. I didn't think about embarrassment
because I think in the back of my mind I
knew I could always go and take anything out, I
could edit anything.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
And then I just didn't From what I read, not
only about your parents, but your grandparents aunts, uncles, Yeah,
there was a lot of love, there was a lot
of fun, and there was a lot of unpredictability, instability
and chaos. Yeah, that's true. How would you describe your
mom and your dad? You emphasize how young they were.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, they were, and in some ways and that I mean,
this is a compliment. Are very young, and there's an
energy about them and the endless opportunity for adventure and
fun and honestly mostly chaos. There was always this kind
of undercurrent of like, well, we're different and we don't
(04:09):
have to do things the way other people do them.
And it was like a little bit like that film,
you know, Captain Fantastic. There was a lot of late
night discussion, and I was privy to a lot of
things that I don't know if I needed to be
privy to. But I was also given great wisdom and
insight at a really young age, and for some reason,
I just feel like I knew what to do with it.
(04:31):
And that kind of narrative of like we're different, we
live different was what made not being at the same schools,
or having a lot of different houses, or a little
bit of upheaval not just okay, but what I thought
would be a preferable way to grow upright. And looking
back on it, I don't know that I don't feel
that way now. I feel a pull all the time
(04:54):
to raise my kids eccentrically with a little bit of chaos,
a little bit of spontaneity, a little bit of we
don't know what's going to happen, and my wife makes
me resistant, but.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I don't want to leave your childhood yet. Because you
can also describe the very serious illness you had as
what a four year old? Yeah, can you talk about that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
When I was four years old, I contracted meninjacock meningitis
and presented as really, really sick. But my mother was
really young, I want to say, like twenty at the time,
and knew right away that something was wrong. But she
was the kind of mom where she thought something was
wrong all the time. You know, she had the speed
dial if they even had that, you know in nineteen
(05:37):
eighty what was this been, nineteen eighty five two four nurse,
And she told my dad that something was really wrong,
and you know, he didn't believe her, and my mom
was on the phone with two four nurse and two
four nurse asked my mom to have me touch my
chin to my chest, which I guess is like a
telltale sign that somebody could have meningitis, and it made
me pass out, and I just remember waking up in
(05:59):
the backseat of the car on my way to the
emergency room and wound up being in the hospital in
a coma for quite some time before I came to
and didn't get out of there till after my fifth birthday.
And there's still a bit of trauma I think for
both my parents but mostly I think my mother about
thinking that I wasn't going to pull through that, and
(06:21):
it gave me a sense of specialness. You know, I
was the first grandchild on both sides of the family,
and everybody had this kind of Brandy's got a mission thing,
and it gave me a quite inflated sense of self importance.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
What was your earliest memory of making or listening to music,
because the other part of the book, which I love
is that you had a somewhat musical family, and I
see pictures in the book of you as a really
little kid, all dressed up, You're on stage, you're singing.
What are your earliest memories?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
There's music on both sides of my family, country music
and bluegrassm My dad's father played dobro and followed bluegrass
bands around in his RV, and I didn't get to
spend much time with him musically. He was a quiet
guy that you know. But on my mom's side of
the family, her dad was a cigar salesman and a
(07:16):
country music singer and yodeler, and he was a very
outward personality, big influence that I think about in here
in my head all the time to this day. But
he died really young of als, which is the worst
disease in the world. And when he died, kind of
the last thing he did, whether he knew it or not,
was light of fire in my mother to continue on
(07:39):
the music.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And she did.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
She took all that grief and that little bit of
money and got a PA system and put together a
band and started singing and thought to include me and
my brother. And so I was like seven or eight
years old the first time I got on stage and
sang a Roseanne Cash song Tennessee flat Top Box at
the place called the Northwest grand Ole Opry. I just
(08:02):
want to be a cowgirl.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I loved that. Well. I also really love your mother's
gutsiness that she got that PA system and put herself
up there. That is really making yourself vulnerable. And I
think it's another real tribute to her as a mom
that she knew to include you.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, and she was really good. She looked great, huge hair.
You know, she'd fixed my hair and put our clothes
together and everything, and she just yeah, she'd always tell
me she'd be sitting the front righter, just going move Brandy,
move your body. Stop wrapping the mic cord around your hand.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh God, we're taking a quick break. Stay with us.
The other thing about your upbringing is that you know,
you grew up in a religious family, in a religious community,
(09:00):
and I really like the way that faith and spirituality
run through your story like yours. Yeah, like mine exactly,
and how it evolves. And it was so touching to
me and heartbreaking to read your description about a pastor
(09:24):
refusing to baptize you. I guess because he knew you
were gay and insisted that you renounce, literally renounce yourself
in order to be baptized, and you rightly refuse to
do that. Can you tell that story?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, he really knew I was gay. Like that's really
one of the hardest nuances about that stories, that he
really knew I was gay. Like, I was totally unapologetic
about it. I presented that way. I brought my little
girlfriend to church for some reason. I don't know why.
I didn't expect that it was in the sermons, it
was in the subtext. Next, you know, I did have
(10:01):
a sense of audacity that I can't I would love
to reconnect with actually, but yeah, he did, And there
was like a well, the Baptists are very big, by
the way, on public declarations. Oh yes, right, converting to
possible public humiliation. And I already liked being on stage,
so you know, I went up to the front of
the church and on one Sunday and said I'd like
(10:23):
to be baptized, and was applauded and hugged and given
a schedule of, you know, going to lunch with the
pastor and learning the things I need to learn in
the scriptures and understanding what was going to take place,
inviting people, and then got to the church that day
to be baptized, and our town and our family and
our friends kind of filled the church, and the pastor
(10:44):
at the last minute asked me, which was I thought
was really strange, asked me if I quote unquote practiced homosexuality,
and I just remember just furrowed brow looking at him.
I said, you know, I'm gay. I'm coming to church
with my girlfriend, you know, and we go we go
to pizza Hut yesterday, like you know, you know, and
chose that moment to tell me that he wasn't going
(11:05):
to baptize me. And I had to kind of run
out the church in front of everyone. And it's probably
one of the biggest humiliations in my life without trying
to wrap it up into an attractive box and say
that everything's fine now. Without that experience, I wouldn't have
known how much support I actually had, how upset The
(11:25):
people that came to see that happen for me were
holp set. My dad was, and I always felt I
was kind of gay nineties accepted, you know, kind of
like we accept this, but don't put it in our
face kind of thing. Until that day and everybody becoming
so upset, I felt, you know, more seen in that
way than I ever had before, also more rejected than
(11:47):
I ever had before. But it pushed me into another
life that I needed to be pushed into.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
But also from that time forward, you really threw yourself
into your mute music and thinking back to being put
on the stage as this, you know, little girl, three
decades of performing and of writing. How has your relationship
to music evolved over that period of time. Well, I
(12:17):
don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I mean, I think that's the moment that music became
mine and I just I had to really separate my
soul from some things, you know, And so I started
getting interested in getting on airplane. I started getting interested
in going to a big city, meeting different kinds of
people and less and less interested in country music. I
(12:39):
remember that night of my botched baptism. I call it
putting my little CD player Jeff Buckley's Grace on repeat
on Hallelujah, just over and over and over and over again,
and it occurring to me like I want to leave, yeah,
And I want to write. I want to write a
song like this. I don't care if it's a twelve
minute song.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
A longer song for a longer story. But I also
love the way that you found some extraordinary music icons
that became mentors. I mean the kind of relationship that
you describe with Alton John from a far, far distance.
There you are in Washington State, Elton's you know, in
(13:25):
England or Atlanta, wherever he might be, and you are
discovering this extraordinary human being, to say nothing of his,
you know, almost cosmic talent.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I fall in love with Elton John over a six
fifth sixth grade book report about Ryan White, never hearing
a note. I loved him because of his contribution to
this boy's life. Who died I think it was in
nineteen ninety one. It's in the nineties. He died of aids.
He had hemophilia. He contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion.
(13:58):
I did a book report on him and school. I
chose the book myself.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You didn't even know what the book was about.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I just saw a cute boy on the book and
I picked it up in the school library and I
did a book report. And in the end of the book,
he befriends this British gay rock star. He's being politicized,
he's being asked to become the poster child for the
church as a person affected by sin in the world
created by homosexual men. And this was a subtext that
(14:24):
I had been taught in church and was thinking about
this and talking about this a lot in my own home.
And here's this new perspective in a book, Thank God.
And in the end he meets this rock star, and
this rock star has got a couple of songs that
are mentioned in the book, and he sings a song
at this kid's funeral called Skyline Pigeon. And I went
to the King County Library and checked out the CD
(14:47):
here and now Elton John CD a couple other Elton
John c d's in a book by Philip Norman Elton John,
Elton John and I dove into this rock star, and
before I ever heard him sing, I was already obsessed
with him. And then I heard Skyline Pigeon, and then
I heard Funeral for a Friend and Benny and the Jets,
and I just I went in to everything Elton John.
By the time I was like fourteen, there wasn't a
(15:07):
square inch of my bedroom walls that weren't covered with
Elton John memorabilia. I made homemade Elton John jewelry, and
I began playing piano. My parents got me a eighty
dollars toys r us Cassio keyboard and totally changed my life.
And yeah, now he's like, he's my friend.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
He is your friend. But Ryan White died in nineteen
ninety and he had such a an amazing effect on
so many people.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
There eventually was a piece of legislation, the Ryan White Act,
to provide more support on resources for people living with
HIV AIDS, and Elton just connected so immediately with this,
you know, young boy from Indiana. But neither Ryan nor
his mother ever allowed people if they could stop it
(16:02):
using them in a negative way. I mean, they were
big hearted, they were open minded, and I want to
just make one other point, you got that book about
Ryan White in your school library. There are people right
now who want to take a book like that out
(16:22):
of public school libraries. You know, impressionable children shouldn't be
learning about Ryan White. You know. It's just another perfect
example among countless examples of why, you know, we have
to stand up for the right of kids to you know,
seek out and find information, and obviously a school library
is one of the best ways to do that. When
(16:45):
and how did you finally meet Elton in person?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
First of all, that's a really really good point. And
books like that that I had access to and my
school sculpted a lot of things about my life, and
that's just one of the many that gave me, you know,
the worldview that propelled me forward in really really big ways.
So I love that you made that point. What was
the second question, Yeah, When and where did you meet Elton? Okay,
(17:08):
So I met Elton just like you'd hope I would,
in a Las Vegas casino basement recording studio. He called
me like ten years prior to that, or it was
me five years prior to that when I put out
the story, but I hadn't met him yet, and I
always wanted to meet him. I wrote him a letter
when I made my album give Up the Ghost, and
(17:29):
asked him to play piano in one of my songs,
and he just he called me up and said, yeah,
can you get to Vegas? So I did. Oh, and
I just never forget it because I remember coming down
this corridor and I could hear him talking, and I
had all of the every live VHS tape that he
had ever recorded, every interview, and I'm like, oh my god,
that's Elton. I'm gonna walk around the corner and I'm
(17:51):
gonna see Elton John sitting there. And I did, and
he was sitting there in a tracksuit, and he just
gave me an enormous hug and then stayed with me
all day for four hours, just talked to me about music,
just gave me everything that I could have ever hoped
to be given by meeting my very worthy hero. And
by the time I got home, he'd sent me one
hundred CDs with sticky notes.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Oh oh, talk about the day that you found out
you were the most nominated woman of the twenty nineteen Grammys.
Described that because to me, it just blended so much
about what your life is like right now.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I mean it was the middle of the night because
we're on the West coast and I just got the
phone call that from relative obscurity. In terms of the Grammys,
I had been nominated for six of them, and I
was just in total disbelief. I knew it was going
to be a watershed moment. I knew it was going
to change my life, and it really did. Mean it
was my publicistant friend Asha, She's just like, they just
(18:53):
kept saying your name.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I wasn't even awake. It was pitch dark, and I
woke up everybody in my house. But you know, I mean,
you know, because you're a Grammy winner, right, Yeah, that's
right for the spoken word, that's true for the spoken
where's your Grammy? I'm looking for it in the background.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I don't see it. I have it in our library.
It's part of history. Okay, Well, before we go, I
have to ask you. I know you love fishing, and
you know you write in the book nothing's really ever
got a hold of me the way fishing and music have. Okay,
(19:31):
what is the biggest fish you've ever caught? And was
it the same feeling you had when you got all
those Grammys.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
It was the same feeling, I mean, nearly identical, because,
as I said in the book, fishing is merely an
attempt to connect to something that you know is there
but can't see a perpetual series of occasions for hope.
The biggest fish I ever caught was in Alaska on
(19:59):
the Kenai River. It's a forty three pound king salmon.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
That's one big fish.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I've actually fished for salmon in Alaska, and those fish
are big. They are big, that's right. And they're delicious too.
Did they pack your fish and prepare it so that
you could go and eat it later? I prepared it.
You prepared it?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
No, girl, But you know something about that?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Huh oh yeah, Oh my gosh. But I also love
I mean, your definition of fishing is almost like a
perfect definition of faith. I'm going to remember that. I
think that that's exactly what I parallel it with. Well,
Randy Carlia, I cannot thank you enough. This was such
a true delight. Do you have any parting words or
any yeah, I singing words or anything you want to
(20:46):
leave us with.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I cannot tell you how much talking to you today
has meant to me, and I almost can't do anything
else for the rest of the day. Now, I just
I think that you are such a special person. You're
such a gift to the world and a gift in
my life. You know the song we keep skimming over,
the joke that I sang at the Grammys. I wrote
that first line in the second verse about you. Oh,
(21:10):
I'm getting over a cult, so I'm gonna do my best.
You get discouraged, don't you.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Girl.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
It's your brother's world for a little.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
While, Longer, a little while.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Just a little while, younger, not too much, Thank you,
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Randy Carlyle's memoir is Broken Horses. One of my favorite
shows on Broadway in recent years is the Tony Award
winning Best Musical Hades Town. In this modern retelling of
Orpheus and Iriticy, the character of Hermes, messenger to the gods,
(21:58):
carries us through the entire show, and who better to
play a god than the larger than life personality Andre Deshields.
Following a shutdown during the pandemic, Hadestown is up and
running again with Andrea at the helm. But this is
just the latest chapter in his long and glorious history.
(22:23):
At age seventy six. Andre has been performing in the
theater for over fifty years, starting with his professional debut
in the hit rock musical Hair Back in nineteen sixty
nine and I hate to tell you that I actually
saw it way back then. But since then he's appeared
(22:47):
on film and TV and in more musicals like The
Whiz and Ain't Misbehavin. Three Tony Award nominations and one
win later, He's truly a living legend of the stage.
Andre was born in the nineteen forties and grew up
in Baltimore as the ninth of eleven siblings. His mother
(23:10):
was a domestic worker, his father was a tailor. The
stories he tells of how he got from there to here,
always believing in himself along the way, or an inspiration
to anyone with a dream of making it, of making
something that you really can be proud of. I was
(23:32):
so delighted to speak with him. Good morning, Oh, good morning.
I love your red background. Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
We may not know this, it's my aura.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I can understand that, my friend. You know. I was privileged,
as you know, to see you in Hadestown, for which
you won a Tony in twenty nineteen. Yes, as you
marked your fiftieth anniversary of working on the stage, and
I want to go back to the beginning because I
(24:05):
want our listeners to have a little idea of where
you come from, what your roots are. I think it's
really a great American story, but it's more attribute to
your energy and your resilience and your determination in your aura.
So what type of kid were you? Andre? Were you shy?
(24:25):
Were you somebody who liked attention? I know you were
one of eleven kids.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
My roots are in Baltimore, Maryland, and I would not
describe myself as shy. I would describe myself as secretly ambitious.
I come from meager beginnings and that was my impetus
to achieve. There were very few of us who lived
(24:55):
in the innermost of the inner cities in Baltimore who
dared to dream. We were not encouraged to dream. We
were not encouraged to be ambitious. We were not encouraged
to think that we could have a slice of the
vaunted American pie. But that was my first conscious thoughts.
(25:22):
I want my slice of the American pie.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Did anyone in your family know about your dream? Encourage
your dream?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yes, everyone knew about my dream. I shared it with everyone.
I wanted to be Sammy Davis Junior, who arguingly is
the greatest entertainer of the tween kidh century. However, the
response was, oh, you must be out of your mind.
(25:56):
So when I didn't get the biscerport, I thought, well,
let me put this in my vest close to my heart.
Let me keep it there so it wouldn't be sullied.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
So Andre, tell us about your parents. They clearly had
some kind of influence on you, as all parents do,
one way or the other, and tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
When I was old enough to have an adult conversation
with my mother and father, my mother shared with me
that her life's dream was to be a chorus girl.
And I thought what she said? Yes, she didn't use
the term dancers. She said chorus girl, my parents having
(26:45):
been born around the turn of the twentieth century. And
I said, so what happened? Her response was her father
said to her, colored daughter of mine is going to
shuffle her way through life. We've hardly shuffled our way
(27:09):
off the plantation. Now that is very meaningful for me,
because my maternal grandfather was the son of his master.
So I decided, with that information I should ask my
father amazingly, but in retrospect not amazingly at all. His
(27:34):
response was his life dream was he wanted to be
a singer. He had a beautiful tone of voice, and
he sang in church, and he had a club that
he sang with. And I said, well, what happened to
that dream? He said, his father, my paternal grandfather, said,
(27:56):
how do you expect to be a responsible husband? And
father was such an irresponsible career. I tell that story
because what happened is that both my parents deferred their dreams.
I believe that I am the manifestation of those deferred dreams,
(28:21):
because from the morning on a cold January day that
I was evicted from my mother's womb, that was imprinted
on my spirit. You are the manifestation of the deferred
dreams of your parents. I've never had a question about
(28:44):
my path in life.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
That's a great manifestation.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
I knew that in order to overcome these invisible but seeming,
the insurmountable walls that we build around ourselves when we
are constantly told that we cannot achieve, and that there
(29:10):
is a demarcation in the society that says you stay
where you are, there is no mobility.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah right, yeah right, And you know, sadly it is
as you just said, sometimes from the people that you're
living with, people who love you, who are afraid.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
For you, and they want to protect you.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
They want to protect you, and they unfortunately often evidence
that in a way that you know, kind of tries
to pull you down or push you back so that
you don't get out into that world where you will
get hurt. And then of course on the receiving end,
you've got people who are you know, not expecting much
or who are outright, you know, prejudiced and biased against
(29:56):
you and your dream.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
I want to say something about protecting people. I know
it is meant for good, but you cannot protect an
individual from himself. You cannot protect an individual from his ambition.
You cannot protect an individual from his destiny. You have
(30:22):
to encourage an individual, especially when he's young. You must say,
go forth and be the most authentic individual that you can.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I want to ask one last question about this. So
when was the first time you performed in public and
you knew that the dream was not just a dream
you kept close to your heart, it could be your reality.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
After the dream that I was protecting, I had the epiphany,
and that was seeing the film Cabin in the Guy
John Bubbles Sublette. When I saw his performance in Cabin
in the Sky, the quiet voice that lives in the
core of our souls and speaks to us only the truth,
(31:14):
said to me, Andre, that's what you're going to do.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Because all of a sudden you had an epiphany. Because
you know, there's that old saying you can't be what
you can't see exactly, and you saw it.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
I saw it. So as a young precocious Negro boy
in Baltimore. You know about the society of friends, Yes,
I do. They came to me through the Central Scholarship
Bureau and said, you're a young man with potential. We
(31:50):
would like to offer you a scholarship to go to college.
The condition is that you must attend the college of
our choice. I jumped at the opportunity, the first child
in the family to go to college. Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio,
(32:12):
a pristine, intimate Quaker school. And when I was going
to college, and I know you remember this, it was
derry girl to do your junior year abroad. I did
my junior year in Denmark, and when I arrived in Denmark,
(32:32):
I was received as the very opposite to the way
I had been treated in Baltimore. In Baltimore, in many ways,
I was discoming the earth, and I'm not exaggerating. In Denmark,
I was royalty. Can I touch your skin? Can I
touch your Can I touch your hair?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
There was in nineteen sixty seven. It blew through my mind.
It opened my eyes to not only the place in
which I had arrived, but the place from where I
had come. And at that time, all the major cities
were experiencing their urban insurrections, and I thought to myself,
(33:21):
that's where I come from. So when I return, I
have to leave that pristine Quaker environment and go to
where the veil was being ripped from the eyes of
political America. So I ended up at the University of Wisconsin,
(33:44):
one of the hot beds of political change.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
You did jump right in, right right. But what an
incredible realization that you had about yourself and your life
as a relativetively young person. I mean, you're still what
nineteen twenty years old when you decide exactly nineteen, I've
got to get out into this world that's waiting for me.
(34:09):
I've got an idea. Now where I came from and
where I want to go. You graduated from Wisconsin Universe
consin to Madison in I think nineteen seventy right.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
And the month I graduated, I won a position in
Tom o'horgan's hair.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
That's so great.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
That was my first professional performance. Now that's the equation
I want to share with anybody who's curious about ambition, accomplishment, destiny,
any of those huge ideas. First you must have the dream. Second,
you must have the epiphany. The third part of the
(34:50):
equation is once on that Thursday, when someone comes to
you and puts a check in your hand and pay
for the dream that has now become the work. That's
the equation. From there, your destiny will rise up, shake
(35:11):
your hand and say welcome. I've been waiting for you
all this time.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
But the epiphany and the opportunity also requires work. Once
you were offered that position, you know in hair, you
had to put in the work, didn't you.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
That is correct, But the work starts long before the
paycheck arrives.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
You know. It strikes me that it was in the
Wiz that you had your incredible breakout national moment, and
how appropriate it is that a musical retelling of the
Wizard of Oz through Black culture and music would be
the groundbreaking success it was, and also your opportunity to
(35:54):
manifest that dream. How did you end up in the Wiz?
Speaker 3 (35:58):
So I had gotten my first professional gig in Chicago.
We're in the early seventies now, and we are creating
an off loop theatrical experience, which is tantamount to what
we call off Broadway. And a group of us from
(36:19):
the University of Wisconsin founded the Organic Theater Company and
created a show called Warp Warp. It's the science fiction show.
Producer saw it and thought, wow, this would go well
in New York. He brought us to New York in
nineteen seventy three. We were sumarily dismissed by the New
(36:44):
York critics and the consensus was, listen, you dirty foot hippies,
go back to Chicago now. When the company returned to Chicago,
I said, guys, I love you all. You've been my
family for four years. But now that I'm in New York,
(37:05):
I'm going to take my chances here. And by the
grace of four women friends of mine who were in
New York working, and these four women would allow me
to couch surf, take care of my cat, and you
can sleep on my couch. Wash my dishes and you
can sleep on my couch, and that sort of thing.
(37:27):
As my mother would say. I didn't have a pot
to piss in or a window to throw it out of.
But I was right. But I was in the camelot.
All I had to do was to discover my coat
of arms, if you will. Ken Harper, the producer of
The Whiz, cast a net. We are looking for the
(37:51):
actress who would essay these roles. I got an audition.
I was cut for the scarecrow. I was cut for
the Lion. I was cut for the tin Man. Didn't
matter to me because I wanted to be the Wizard.
But I had to beg for it. And Ken Harper
(38:14):
said to me, all right, I think he thought he
was getting rid of me. Will allow you to audition
for the Wiz. Now. When I got the call back,
I had pulled my hair out to it's Jimmy Hendricks length.
I was wearing my five inch silver study platforms. I
(38:37):
was wearing my hot pants. I was wearing my halter
that had love embroidered all over it. I was wearing
my misie earrings. I was glorious and I went in
and I sang and I think this is part of
(38:58):
your growing up too.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Midnight hour. Oh perfect right.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
I'm going a way till the midnight hour. So I
get to the end of the song and Charlie Small's,
who was the composer for The Wiz, stands up and shouts,
that's my Wiz.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
That's what I'm talking about. When you do the proper preparation,
the destiny unfolds in one golden step after the next,
not immediately. It takes time. But if you continue to
apply yourself, if you continue to cultivate patience, if you
(39:43):
continue to know yourself and be yourself and understand that
authenticity is everything, you will receive the blessing that has
your name written on it.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
I love that you know, you know. So much of
what happens in live theater is ephemeral, but The Wiz
was one of those moments where it was just like
a great earthquake came down from on high and shook
the foundation of American musical theater. In fact, I think
(40:20):
your costume is now in the Smithsonian that is correct.
National Museum of African American History and Culture. Did you
know when you were in the Wiz it was literally
a moment of destiny for the culture.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yes, we all knew as a community that we were
part of a tectonic change in a paradigm, because prior
to the Whiz, the only impact that black culture had
on Broadway had come many years earlier with Lorraine Hansby
(41:01):
Raising in the Sun. It was time that the traditionally
inhospitable terrain of the Great White Way underwent the conditioning
for what we now call diversity, equity, and inclusion. We
didn't use those terms in the early seventies, but we
(41:26):
knew that we were setting the stage for a change.
And here's the miracle of the Whiz. Stephanie Mills played
the role of Dorothy. Once you see Dorothy as a
(41:47):
young girl of color, that is what universalizes the message
of the Wiz, which is there's no place like home.
That's a great lesson to learn. That's one of the
greatest lessons to learn in someone's life. It is we
go searching for our purpose everywhere, and then at some
(42:10):
point we learn, oh, there's no place like home. As
long as that was the exclusive domain of a young,
although brilliant white girl. It didn't resonate for the majority
of young people. Once Dorothy has melanin in her skin,
(42:36):
then that message of there's no place like home becomes.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Universal, becomes a message for everybody, everybody. We'll be right back. Well.
You know. The other thing that, of course I love,
(43:00):
is in Hadestown, where you are again starring, which I
also think of as a groundbreaking musical. You're playing a
Greek god, Kermes, and you are omniscient. You are someone
who is like leading the whole audience and all of
(43:21):
us through the story. I loved your performance. Thank you,
Thank you, absolutely just was knocked out when I think
about it. Though. You are now again because after the pandemic,
Hadestown reopened, so you're back on the stage. You are,
I think, still doing eight shows a week.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Eight shows.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Look, that's not an easy schedule at any age, any age.
And when you accepted your Tony Award, I'll never forget
this in twenty nineteen, you shared with the audience your
three Carnival rules for sustainability and long ngevity, and although
you put it in the context of the arts, I
(44:03):
would say I think these are pretty good rules for anybody.
Could you share them with our listeners on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
I'd be happy to the context in which I learned
it was the arts. Anything you want to do, anything
that you want to master, will be enhanced if the
arts are part of your preparation. You don't have to
become an actor. You don't have to dance, you don't
(44:33):
have to sing. You just have to bebble the hard
edges by saying or understanding that you are an artist.
You are a good mother, you have cultivated the art
of parenthood. You're a good construction worker. You've mastered the
(44:55):
art of building things. You are a good cleaner, garbage collector,
you have massive the art of sanitation. Cultivate the artistry
of whatever it is you do, and then you can
apply these three cardinal rules Colnal rule number one. Surround
(45:17):
yourself with people whose eyes light up when they see
you coming Coldinal rule number two. Slowly is the fastest
way to get to where you want to be. Colon
the rule number three. The top of one mountain is
(45:38):
the bottom of the next, so keep climbing.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
I really appreciate the way that you took those cardinal
rules and expanded them to what we do in our
everyday lives, making it clear everybody can be an artist.
Yes in his or her own way.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Yes, do what you can do. It's a potlucks, bring
your best dish.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
You Literally, I could talk to you all day, my friend.
I just wish you all of the blessings of this
extraordinary life that you're leading. May it continue with joy
and gratitude and you continue to find ways to share
it with Thank you. It really means the world to
(46:27):
me personally.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
May I have the last word?
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Yes, you may.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Hillary Rodham, Clinton, Madam President, Thank you for allowing me
to have this conversation with you. I'm taking it to
everyone whose eyes light up when they see me.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Come You and Me Both. Is brought to you by iHeartRadio.
We're produced by Julie Subren, Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo,
(47:12):
with help from Juma Aberdeen, Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Brianna Johnson,
Nick Merrill, Lona Valmorro and Benita Zuman. Our engineer is
Zach McNeice and the original music is by Forrest Gray.
If you like you and Me Both, tell someone else
about it, and if you're not already a subscriber, what
(47:34):
are you waiting for? You can subscribe to you and
me both on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, and, as Andre says,
keep climbing. I'll see you next week.
Hello, you and me, both listeners. I'm currently traveling abroad,
so while I don't have a new episode for you
this week, I want to share with you one of
my favorite episodes from last season in case you missed
it the first time. I hope you enjoy listening to
my conversations with Brandy Carlisle and Andre Dea Shields as
(00:24):
much as I enjoyed talking to them. I find them
both so inspirational and don't we need that right now?
And stay tuned for next week when I'll be back
with a new episode. I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is
you and me. Both Believe in yourself. You know, it's
(00:46):
a piece of advice we hear a lot, but for
many of us, it takes years, if not a lifetime,
to actually get there. And then there are those rare folks,
immensely talented and hard working, somehow always knew that they
would be somebody. Today, I have the pleasure of speaking
(01:14):
with two people who believed in themselves from the get go.
Later we'll hear from the incredibly talented actor, director, and
choreographer Andre Deshields, but first I'm talking to multiple Grammy
Award winning singer and songwriter Brandy Carlisle. I first discovered
(01:36):
Brandy back in twenty nineteen when she performed her song
The Joke at the Grammy Awards. That year, she was
nominated for six, yes, six Grammys for her album By
the Way I Forgive You. I immediately tracked down as
much of her music as I could. I've been a
fan ever since. Brandy grew up in Washington State with
(02:01):
very young parents who struggled to make a living and
provide a stable home, but she was also surrounded by
a lot of love and a lot of music. She's
drawn on those roots to build a beautiful family of
her own with her wife Catherine, and their two daughters,
Evangeline and Elijah. Brandy writes about all of this in
(02:26):
her memoir titled Broken Horses, and that's where I wanted
to start our conversation by asking her what it was
like to pull up those memories, the good, the bad,
the wonderful and write this incredibly open, revealing and compelling book.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
I had always kind of mined my past for experience
and songwriting and things like that, but just in little
random verse without the detail, you know. But when I
actually really sat down and kind of meditated on it.
Everything came back smells and floral prints on couches and
you know, whatever vehicle we happened to have at that time,
and just my childhood became really clear and really vivid,
(03:08):
and it poured out of me. I didn't hesitate. I
didn't worry about what I was saying about mom or
dad or you know, my brother and sister, or the
way that we lived, or what was going on and
our lives at that time. I didn't think about embarrassment
because I think in the back of my mind I
knew I could always go and take anything out, I
could edit anything.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
And then I just didn't From what I read, not
only about your parents, but your grandparents aunts, uncles, Yeah,
there was a lot of love, there was a lot
of fun, and there was a lot of unpredictability, instability
and chaos. Yeah, that's true. How would you describe your
mom and your dad? You emphasize how young they were.
Speaker 2 (03:49):
Yeah, they were, and in some ways and that I mean,
this is a compliment. Are very young, and there's an
energy about them and the endless opportunity for adventure and
fun and honestly mostly chaos. There was always this kind
of undercurrent of like, well, we're different and we don't
(04:09):
have to do things the way other people do them.
And it was like a little bit like that film,
you know, Captain Fantastic. There was a lot of late
night discussion, and I was privy to a lot of
things that I don't know if I needed to be
privy to. But I was also given great wisdom and
insight at a really young age, and for some reason,
I just feel like I knew what to do with it.
(04:31):
And that kind of narrative of like we're different, we
live different was what made not being at the same schools,
or having a lot of different houses, or a little
bit of upheaval not just okay, but what I thought
would be a preferable way to grow upright. And looking
back on it, I don't know that I don't feel
that way now. I feel a pull all the time
(04:54):
to raise my kids eccentrically with a little bit of chaos,
a little bit of spontaneity, a little bit of we
don't know what's going to happen, and my wife makes
me resistant, but.
Speaker 1 (05:04):
I don't want to leave your childhood yet. Because you
can also describe the very serious illness you had as
what a four year old? Yeah, can you talk about that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (05:15):
When I was four years old, I contracted meninjacock meningitis
and presented as really, really sick. But my mother was
really young, I want to say, like twenty at the time,
and knew right away that something was wrong. But she
was the kind of mom where she thought something was
wrong all the time. You know, she had the speed
dial if they even had that, you know in nineteen
(05:37):
eighty what was this been, nineteen eighty five two four nurse,
And she told my dad that something was really wrong,
and you know, he didn't believe her, and my mom
was on the phone with two four nurse and two
four nurse asked my mom to have me touch my
chin to my chest, which I guess is like a
telltale sign that somebody could have meningitis, and it made
me pass out, and I just remember waking up in
(05:59):
the backseat of the car on my way to the
emergency room and wound up being in the hospital in
a coma for quite some time before I came to
and didn't get out of there till after my fifth birthday.
And there's still a bit of trauma I think for
both my parents but mostly I think my mother about
thinking that I wasn't going to pull through that, and
(06:21):
it gave me a sense of specialness. You know, I
was the first grandchild on both sides of the family,
and everybody had this kind of Brandy's got a mission thing,
and it gave me a quite inflated sense of self importance.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
What was your earliest memory of making or listening to music,
because the other part of the book, which I love
is that you had a somewhat musical family, and I
see pictures in the book of you as a really
little kid, all dressed up, You're on stage, you're singing.
What are your earliest memories?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
There's music on both sides of my family, country music
and bluegrassm My dad's father played dobro and followed bluegrass
bands around in his RV, and I didn't get to
spend much time with him musically. He was a quiet
guy that you know. But on my mom's side of
the family, her dad was a cigar salesman and a
(07:16):
country music singer and yodeler, and he was a very
outward personality, big influence that I think about in here
in my head all the time to this day. But
he died really young of als, which is the worst
disease in the world. And when he died, kind of
the last thing he did, whether he knew it or not,
was light of fire in my mother to continue on
(07:39):
the music.
Speaker 1 (07:40):
And she did.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
She took all that grief and that little bit of
money and got a PA system and put together a
band and started singing and thought to include me and
my brother. And so I was like seven or eight
years old the first time I got on stage and
sang a Roseanne Cash song Tennessee flat Top Box at
the place called the Northwest grand Ole Opry. I just
(08:02):
want to be a cowgirl.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
I loved that. Well. I also really love your mother's
gutsiness that she got that PA system and put herself
up there. That is really making yourself vulnerable. And I
think it's another real tribute to her as a mom
that she knew to include you.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, and she was really good. She looked great, huge hair.
You know, she'd fixed my hair and put our clothes
together and everything, and she just yeah, she'd always tell
me she'd be sitting the front righter, just going move Brandy,
move your body. Stop wrapping the mic cord around your hand.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Oh God, we're taking a quick break. Stay with us.
The other thing about your upbringing is that you know,
you grew up in a religious family, in a religious community,
(09:00):
and I really like the way that faith and spirituality
run through your story like yours. Yeah, like mine exactly,
and how it evolves. And it was so touching to
me and heartbreaking to read your description about a pastor
(09:24):
refusing to baptize you. I guess because he knew you
were gay and insisted that you renounce, literally renounce yourself
in order to be baptized, and you rightly refuse to
do that. Can you tell that story?
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Yeah, he really knew I was gay. Like that's really
one of the hardest nuances about that stories, that he
really knew I was gay. Like, I was totally unapologetic
about it. I presented that way. I brought my little
girlfriend to church for some reason. I don't know why.
I didn't expect that it was in the sermons, it
was in the subtext. Next, you know, I did have
(10:01):
a sense of audacity that I can't I would love
to reconnect with actually, but yeah, he did, And there
was like a well, the Baptists are very big, by
the way, on public declarations. Oh yes, right, converting to
possible public humiliation. And I already liked being on stage,
so you know, I went up to the front of
the church and on one Sunday and said I'd like
(10:23):
to be baptized, and was applauded and hugged and given
a schedule of, you know, going to lunch with the
pastor and learning the things I need to learn in
the scriptures and understanding what was going to take place,
inviting people, and then got to the church that day
to be baptized, and our town and our family and
our friends kind of filled the church, and the pastor
(10:44):
at the last minute asked me, which was I thought
was really strange, asked me if I quote unquote practiced homosexuality,
and I just remember just furrowed brow looking at him.
I said, you know, I'm gay. I'm coming to church
with my girlfriend, you know, and we go we go
to pizza Hut yesterday, like you know, you know, and
chose that moment to tell me that he wasn't going
(11:05):
to baptize me. And I had to kind of run
out the church in front of everyone. And it's probably
one of the biggest humiliations in my life without trying
to wrap it up into an attractive box and say
that everything's fine now. Without that experience, I wouldn't have
known how much support I actually had, how upset The
(11:25):
people that came to see that happen for me were
holp set. My dad was, and I always felt I
was kind of gay nineties accepted, you know, kind of
like we accept this, but don't put it in our
face kind of thing. Until that day and everybody becoming
so upset, I felt, you know, more seen in that
way than I ever had before, also more rejected than
(11:47):
I ever had before. But it pushed me into another
life that I needed to be pushed into.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
But also from that time forward, you really threw yourself
into your mute music and thinking back to being put
on the stage as this, you know, little girl, three
decades of performing and of writing. How has your relationship
to music evolved over that period of time. Well, I
(12:17):
don't know.
Speaker 2 (12:17):
I mean, I think that's the moment that music became
mine and I just I had to really separate my
soul from some things, you know, And so I started
getting interested in getting on airplane. I started getting interested
in going to a big city, meeting different kinds of
people and less and less interested in country music. I
(12:39):
remember that night of my botched baptism. I call it
putting my little CD player Jeff Buckley's Grace on repeat
on Hallelujah, just over and over and over and over again,
and it occurring to me like I want to leave, yeah,
And I want to write. I want to write a
song like this. I don't care if it's a twelve
minute song.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
A longer song for a longer story. But I also
love the way that you found some extraordinary music icons
that became mentors. I mean the kind of relationship that
you describe with Alton John from a far, far distance.
There you are in Washington State, Elton's you know, in
(13:25):
England or Atlanta, wherever he might be, and you are
discovering this extraordinary human being, to say nothing of his,
you know, almost cosmic talent.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
I fall in love with Elton John over a six
fifth sixth grade book report about Ryan White, never hearing
a note. I loved him because of his contribution to
this boy's life. Who died I think it was in
nineteen ninety one. It's in the nineties. He died of aids.
He had hemophilia. He contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion.
(13:58):
I did a book report on him and school. I
chose the book myself.
Speaker 1 (14:01):
You didn't even know what the book was about.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
I just saw a cute boy on the book and
I picked it up in the school library and I
did a book report. And in the end of the book,
he befriends this British gay rock star. He's being politicized,
he's being asked to become the poster child for the
church as a person affected by sin in the world
created by homosexual men. And this was a subtext that
(14:24):
I had been taught in church and was thinking about
this and talking about this a lot in my own home.
And here's this new perspective in a book, Thank God.
And in the end he meets this rock star, and
this rock star has got a couple of songs that
are mentioned in the book, and he sings a song
at this kid's funeral called Skyline Pigeon. And I went
to the King County Library and checked out the CD
(14:47):
here and now Elton John CD a couple other Elton
John c d's in a book by Philip Norman Elton John,
Elton John and I dove into this rock star, and
before I ever heard him sing, I was already obsessed
with him. And then I heard Skyline Pigeon, and then
I heard Funeral for a Friend and Benny and the Jets,
and I just I went in to everything Elton John.
By the time I was like fourteen, there wasn't a
(15:07):
square inch of my bedroom walls that weren't covered with
Elton John memorabilia. I made homemade Elton John jewelry, and
I began playing piano. My parents got me a eighty
dollars toys r us Cassio keyboard and totally changed my life.
And yeah, now he's like, he's my friend.
Speaker 1 (15:27):
He is your friend. But Ryan White died in nineteen
ninety and he had such a an amazing effect on
so many people.
Speaker 3 (15:38):
You know.
Speaker 1 (15:38):
There eventually was a piece of legislation, the Ryan White Act,
to provide more support on resources for people living with
HIV AIDS, and Elton just connected so immediately with this,
you know, young boy from Indiana. But neither Ryan nor
his mother ever allowed people if they could stop it
(16:02):
using them in a negative way. I mean, they were
big hearted, they were open minded, and I want to
just make one other point, you got that book about
Ryan White in your school library. There are people right
now who want to take a book like that out
(16:22):
of public school libraries. You know, impressionable children shouldn't be
learning about Ryan White. You know. It's just another perfect
example among countless examples of why, you know, we have
to stand up for the right of kids to you know,
seek out and find information, and obviously a school library
is one of the best ways to do that. When
(16:45):
and how did you finally meet Elton in person?
Speaker 2 (16:48):
First of all, that's a really really good point. And
books like that that I had access to and my
school sculpted a lot of things about my life, and
that's just one of the many that gave me, you know,
the worldview that propelled me forward in really really big ways.
So I love that you made that point. What was
the second question, Yeah, When and where did you meet Elton? Okay,
(17:08):
So I met Elton just like you'd hope I would,
in a Las Vegas casino basement recording studio. He called
me like ten years prior to that, or it was
me five years prior to that when I put out
the story, but I hadn't met him yet, and I
always wanted to meet him. I wrote him a letter
when I made my album give Up the Ghost, and
(17:29):
asked him to play piano in one of my songs,
and he just he called me up and said, yeah,
can you get to Vegas? So I did. Oh, and
I just never forget it because I remember coming down
this corridor and I could hear him talking, and I
had all of the every live VHS tape that he
had ever recorded, every interview, and I'm like, oh my god,
that's Elton. I'm gonna walk around the corner and I'm
(17:51):
gonna see Elton John sitting there. And I did, and
he was sitting there in a tracksuit, and he just
gave me an enormous hug and then stayed with me
all day for four hours, just talked to me about music,
just gave me everything that I could have ever hoped
to be given by meeting my very worthy hero. And
by the time I got home, he'd sent me one
hundred CDs with sticky notes.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Oh oh, talk about the day that you found out
you were the most nominated woman of the twenty nineteen Grammys.
Described that because to me, it just blended so much
about what your life is like right now.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
I mean it was the middle of the night because
we're on the West coast and I just got the
phone call that from relative obscurity. In terms of the Grammys,
I had been nominated for six of them, and I
was just in total disbelief. I knew it was going
to be a watershed moment. I knew it was going
to change my life, and it really did. Mean it
was my publicistant friend Asha, She's just like, they just
(18:53):
kept saying your name.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
You know.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
I wasn't even awake. It was pitch dark, and I
woke up everybody in my house. But you know, I mean,
you know, because you're a Grammy winner, right, Yeah, that's
right for the spoken word, that's true for the spoken
where's your Grammy? I'm looking for it in the background.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
I don't see it. I have it in our library.
It's part of history. Okay, Well, before we go, I
have to ask you. I know you love fishing, and
you know you write in the book nothing's really ever
got a hold of me the way fishing and music have. Okay,
(19:31):
what is the biggest fish you've ever caught? And was
it the same feeling you had when you got all
those Grammys.
Speaker 2 (19:38):
It was the same feeling, I mean, nearly identical, because,
as I said in the book, fishing is merely an
attempt to connect to something that you know is there
but can't see a perpetual series of occasions for hope.
The biggest fish I ever caught was in Alaska on
(19:59):
the Kenai River. It's a forty three pound king salmon.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
That's one big fish.
Speaker 3 (20:05):
You know.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
I've actually fished for salmon in Alaska, and those fish
are big. They are big, that's right. And they're delicious too.
Did they pack your fish and prepare it so that
you could go and eat it later? I prepared it.
You prepared it?
Speaker 2 (20:20):
No, girl, But you know something about that?
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Huh oh yeah, Oh my gosh. But I also love
I mean, your definition of fishing is almost like a
perfect definition of faith. I'm going to remember that. I
think that that's exactly what I parallel it with. Well,
Randy Carlia, I cannot thank you enough. This was such
a true delight. Do you have any parting words or
any yeah, I singing words or anything you want to
(20:46):
leave us with.
Speaker 2 (20:47):
I cannot tell you how much talking to you today
has meant to me, and I almost can't do anything
else for the rest of the day. Now, I just
I think that you are such a special person. You're
such a gift to the world and a gift in
my life. You know the song we keep skimming over,
the joke that I sang at the Grammys. I wrote
that first line in the second verse about you. Oh,
(21:10):
I'm getting over a cult, so I'm gonna do my best.
You get discouraged, don't you.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
Girl.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
It's your brother's world for a little.
Speaker 1 (21:19):
While, Longer, a little while.
Speaker 2 (21:24):
Just a little while, younger, not too much, Thank you,
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
Randy Carlyle's memoir is Broken Horses. One of my favorite
shows on Broadway in recent years is the Tony Award
winning Best Musical Hades Town. In this modern retelling of
Orpheus and Iriticy, the character of Hermes, messenger to the gods,
(21:58):
carries us through the entire show, and who better to
play a god than the larger than life personality Andre Deshields.
Following a shutdown during the pandemic, Hadestown is up and
running again with Andrea at the helm. But this is
just the latest chapter in his long and glorious history.
(22:23):
At age seventy six. Andre has been performing in the
theater for over fifty years, starting with his professional debut
in the hit rock musical Hair Back in nineteen sixty
nine and I hate to tell you that I actually
saw it way back then. But since then he's appeared
(22:47):
on film and TV and in more musicals like The
Whiz and Ain't Misbehavin. Three Tony Award nominations and one
win later, He's truly a living legend of the stage.
Andre was born in the nineteen forties and grew up
in Baltimore as the ninth of eleven siblings. His mother
(23:10):
was a domestic worker, his father was a tailor. The
stories he tells of how he got from there to here,
always believing in himself along the way, or an inspiration
to anyone with a dream of making it, of making
something that you really can be proud of. I was
(23:32):
so delighted to speak with him. Good morning, Oh, good morning.
I love your red background. Wow.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
We may not know this, it's my aura.
Speaker 1 (23:44):
I can understand that, my friend. You know. I was privileged,
as you know, to see you in Hadestown, for which
you won a Tony in twenty nineteen. Yes, as you
marked your fiftieth anniversary of working on the stage, and
I want to go back to the beginning because I
(24:05):
want our listeners to have a little idea of where
you come from, what your roots are. I think it's
really a great American story, but it's more attribute to
your energy and your resilience and your determination in your aura.
So what type of kid were you? Andre? Were you shy?
(24:25):
Were you somebody who liked attention? I know you were
one of eleven kids.
Speaker 3 (24:31):
My roots are in Baltimore, Maryland, and I would not
describe myself as shy. I would describe myself as secretly ambitious.
I come from meager beginnings and that was my impetus
to achieve. There were very few of us who lived
(24:55):
in the innermost of the inner cities in Baltimore who
dared to dream. We were not encouraged to dream. We
were not encouraged to be ambitious. We were not encouraged
to think that we could have a slice of the
vaunted American pie. But that was my first conscious thoughts.
(25:22):
I want my slice of the American pie.
Speaker 1 (25:27):
Did anyone in your family know about your dream? Encourage
your dream?
Speaker 3 (25:31):
Yes, everyone knew about my dream. I shared it with everyone.
I wanted to be Sammy Davis Junior, who arguingly is
the greatest entertainer of the tween kidh century. However, the
response was, oh, you must be out of your mind.
(25:56):
So when I didn't get the biscerport, I thought, well,
let me put this in my vest close to my heart.
Let me keep it there so it wouldn't be sullied.
Speaker 1 (26:12):
So Andre, tell us about your parents. They clearly had
some kind of influence on you, as all parents do,
one way or the other, and tell us about that.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
When I was old enough to have an adult conversation
with my mother and father, my mother shared with me
that her life's dream was to be a chorus girl.
And I thought what she said? Yes, she didn't use
the term dancers. She said chorus girl, my parents having
(26:45):
been born around the turn of the twentieth century. And
I said, so what happened? Her response was her father
said to her, colored daughter of mine is going to
shuffle her way through life. We've hardly shuffled our way
(27:09):
off the plantation. Now that is very meaningful for me,
because my maternal grandfather was the son of his master.
So I decided, with that information I should ask my
father amazingly, but in retrospect not amazingly at all. His
(27:34):
response was his life dream was he wanted to be
a singer. He had a beautiful tone of voice, and
he sang in church, and he had a club that
he sang with. And I said, well, what happened to
that dream? He said, his father, my paternal grandfather, said,
(27:56):
how do you expect to be a responsible husband? And
father was such an irresponsible career. I tell that story
because what happened is that both my parents deferred their dreams.
I believe that I am the manifestation of those deferred dreams,
(28:21):
because from the morning on a cold January day that
I was evicted from my mother's womb, that was imprinted
on my spirit. You are the manifestation of the deferred
dreams of your parents. I've never had a question about
(28:44):
my path in life.
Speaker 1 (28:45):
That's a great manifestation.
Speaker 3 (28:48):
I knew that in order to overcome these invisible but seeming,
the insurmountable walls that we build around ourselves when we
are constantly told that we cannot achieve, and that there
(29:10):
is a demarcation in the society that says you stay
where you are, there is no mobility.
Speaker 1 (29:20):
Yeah right, yeah right, And you know, sadly it is
as you just said, sometimes from the people that you're
living with, people who love you, who are afraid.
Speaker 3 (29:32):
For you, and they want to protect you.
Speaker 1 (29:34):
They want to protect you, and they unfortunately often evidence
that in a way that you know, kind of tries
to pull you down or push you back so that
you don't get out into that world where you will
get hurt. And then of course on the receiving end,
you've got people who are you know, not expecting much
or who are outright, you know, prejudiced and biased against
(29:56):
you and your dream.
Speaker 3 (29:57):
I want to say something about protecting people. I know
it is meant for good, but you cannot protect an
individual from himself. You cannot protect an individual from his ambition.
You cannot protect an individual from his destiny. You have
(30:22):
to encourage an individual, especially when he's young. You must say,
go forth and be the most authentic individual that you can.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
I want to ask one last question about this. So
when was the first time you performed in public and
you knew that the dream was not just a dream
you kept close to your heart, it could be your reality.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
After the dream that I was protecting, I had the epiphany,
and that was seeing the film Cabin in the Guy
John Bubbles Sublette. When I saw his performance in Cabin
in the Sky, the quiet voice that lives in the
core of our souls and speaks to us only the truth,
(31:14):
said to me, Andre, that's what you're going to do.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Because all of a sudden you had an epiphany. Because
you know, there's that old saying you can't be what
you can't see exactly, and you saw it.
Speaker 3 (31:29):
I saw it. So as a young precocious Negro boy
in Baltimore. You know about the society of friends, Yes,
I do. They came to me through the Central Scholarship
Bureau and said, you're a young man with potential. We
(31:50):
would like to offer you a scholarship to go to college.
The condition is that you must attend the college of
our choice. I jumped at the opportunity, the first child
in the family to go to college. Wilmington College in Wilmington, Ohio,
(32:12):
a pristine, intimate Quaker school. And when I was going
to college, and I know you remember this, it was
derry girl to do your junior year abroad. I did
my junior year in Denmark, and when I arrived in Denmark,
(32:32):
I was received as the very opposite to the way
I had been treated in Baltimore. In Baltimore, in many ways,
I was discoming the earth, and I'm not exaggerating. In Denmark,
I was royalty. Can I touch your skin? Can I
touch your Can I touch your hair?
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I'm not kidding.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
There was in nineteen sixty seven. It blew through my mind.
It opened my eyes to not only the place in
which I had arrived, but the place from where I
had come. And at that time, all the major cities
were experiencing their urban insurrections, and I thought to myself,
(33:21):
that's where I come from. So when I return, I
have to leave that pristine Quaker environment and go to
where the veil was being ripped from the eyes of
political America. So I ended up at the University of Wisconsin,
(33:44):
one of the hot beds of political change.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
You did jump right in, right right. But what an
incredible realization that you had about yourself and your life
as a relativetively young person. I mean, you're still what
nineteen twenty years old when you decide exactly nineteen, I've
got to get out into this world that's waiting for me.
(34:09):
I've got an idea. Now where I came from and
where I want to go. You graduated from Wisconsin Universe
consin to Madison in I think nineteen seventy right.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
And the month I graduated, I won a position in
Tom o'horgan's hair.
Speaker 1 (34:26):
That's so great.
Speaker 3 (34:28):
That was my first professional performance. Now that's the equation
I want to share with anybody who's curious about ambition, accomplishment, destiny,
any of those huge ideas. First you must have the dream. Second,
you must have the epiphany. The third part of the
(34:50):
equation is once on that Thursday, when someone comes to
you and puts a check in your hand and pay
for the dream that has now become the work. That's
the equation. From there, your destiny will rise up, shake
(35:11):
your hand and say welcome. I've been waiting for you
all this time.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
But the epiphany and the opportunity also requires work. Once
you were offered that position, you know in hair, you
had to put in the work, didn't you.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
That is correct, But the work starts long before the
paycheck arrives.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
You know. It strikes me that it was in the
Wiz that you had your incredible breakout national moment, and
how appropriate it is that a musical retelling of the
Wizard of Oz through Black culture and music would be
the groundbreaking success it was, and also your opportunity to
(35:54):
manifest that dream. How did you end up in the Wiz?
Speaker 3 (35:58):
So I had gotten my first professional gig in Chicago.
We're in the early seventies now, and we are creating
an off loop theatrical experience, which is tantamount to what
we call off Broadway. And a group of us from
(36:19):
the University of Wisconsin founded the Organic Theater Company and
created a show called Warp Warp. It's the science fiction show.
Producer saw it and thought, wow, this would go well
in New York. He brought us to New York in
nineteen seventy three. We were sumarily dismissed by the New
(36:44):
York critics and the consensus was, listen, you dirty foot hippies,
go back to Chicago now. When the company returned to Chicago,
I said, guys, I love you all. You've been my
family for four years. But now that I'm in New York,
(37:05):
I'm going to take my chances here. And by the
grace of four women friends of mine who were in
New York working, and these four women would allow me
to couch surf, take care of my cat, and you
can sleep on my couch. Wash my dishes and you
can sleep on my couch, and that sort of thing.
(37:27):
As my mother would say. I didn't have a pot
to piss in or a window to throw it out of.
But I was right. But I was in the camelot.
All I had to do was to discover my coat
of arms, if you will. Ken Harper, the producer of
The Whiz, cast a net. We are looking for the
(37:51):
actress who would essay these roles. I got an audition.
I was cut for the scarecrow. I was cut for
the Lion. I was cut for the tin Man. Didn't
matter to me because I wanted to be the Wizard.
But I had to beg for it. And Ken Harper
(38:14):
said to me, all right, I think he thought he
was getting rid of me. Will allow you to audition
for the Wiz. Now. When I got the call back,
I had pulled my hair out to it's Jimmy Hendricks length.
I was wearing my five inch silver study platforms. I
(38:37):
was wearing my hot pants. I was wearing my halter
that had love embroidered all over it. I was wearing
my misie earrings. I was glorious and I went in
and I sang and I think this is part of
(38:58):
your growing up too.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Midnight hour. Oh perfect right.
Speaker 3 (39:04):
I'm going a way till the midnight hour. So I
get to the end of the song and Charlie Small's,
who was the composer for The Wiz, stands up and shouts,
that's my Wiz.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Hallelujah, hallelujah.
Speaker 3 (39:21):
That's what I'm talking about. When you do the proper preparation,
the destiny unfolds in one golden step after the next,
not immediately. It takes time. But if you continue to
apply yourself, if you continue to cultivate patience, if you
(39:43):
continue to know yourself and be yourself and understand that
authenticity is everything, you will receive the blessing that has
your name written on it.
Speaker 1 (39:57):
I love that you know, you know. So much of
what happens in live theater is ephemeral, but The Wiz
was one of those moments where it was just like
a great earthquake came down from on high and shook
the foundation of American musical theater. In fact, I think
(40:20):
your costume is now in the Smithsonian that is correct.
National Museum of African American History and Culture. Did you
know when you were in the Wiz it was literally
a moment of destiny for the culture.
Speaker 3 (40:34):
Yes, we all knew as a community that we were
part of a tectonic change in a paradigm, because prior
to the Whiz, the only impact that black culture had
on Broadway had come many years earlier with Lorraine Hansby
(41:01):
Raising in the Sun. It was time that the traditionally
inhospitable terrain of the Great White Way underwent the conditioning
for what we now call diversity, equity, and inclusion. We
didn't use those terms in the early seventies, but we
(41:26):
knew that we were setting the stage for a change.
And here's the miracle of the Whiz. Stephanie Mills played
the role of Dorothy. Once you see Dorothy as a
(41:47):
young girl of color, that is what universalizes the message
of the Wiz, which is there's no place like home.
That's a great lesson to learn. That's one of the
greatest lessons to learn in someone's life. It is we
go searching for our purpose everywhere, and then at some
(42:10):
point we learn, oh, there's no place like home. As
long as that was the exclusive domain of a young,
although brilliant white girl. It didn't resonate for the majority
of young people. Once Dorothy has melanin in her skin,
(42:36):
then that message of there's no place like home becomes.
Speaker 1 (42:40):
Universal, becomes a message for everybody, everybody. We'll be right back. Well.
You know. The other thing that, of course I love,
(43:00):
is in Hadestown, where you are again starring, which I
also think of as a groundbreaking musical. You're playing a
Greek god, Kermes, and you are omniscient. You are someone
who is like leading the whole audience and all of
(43:21):
us through the story. I loved your performance. Thank you,
Thank you, absolutely just was knocked out when I think
about it. Though. You are now again because after the pandemic,
Hadestown reopened, so you're back on the stage. You are,
I think, still doing eight shows a week.
Speaker 3 (43:41):
Eight shows.
Speaker 1 (43:42):
Look, that's not an easy schedule at any age, any age.
And when you accepted your Tony Award, I'll never forget
this in twenty nineteen, you shared with the audience your
three Carnival rules for sustainability and long ngevity, and although
you put it in the context of the arts, I
(44:03):
would say I think these are pretty good rules for anybody.
Could you share them with our listeners on this podcast.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
I'd be happy to the context in which I learned
it was the arts. Anything you want to do, anything
that you want to master, will be enhanced if the
arts are part of your preparation. You don't have to
become an actor. You don't have to dance, you don't
(44:33):
have to sing. You just have to bebble the hard
edges by saying or understanding that you are an artist.
You are a good mother, you have cultivated the art
of parenthood. You're a good construction worker. You've mastered the
(44:55):
art of building things. You are a good cleaner, garbage collector,
you have massive the art of sanitation. Cultivate the artistry
of whatever it is you do, and then you can
apply these three cardinal rules Colnal rule number one. Surround
(45:17):
yourself with people whose eyes light up when they see
you coming Coldinal rule number two. Slowly is the fastest
way to get to where you want to be. Colon
the rule number three. The top of one mountain is
(45:38):
the bottom of the next, so keep climbing.
Speaker 1 (45:44):
I really appreciate the way that you took those cardinal
rules and expanded them to what we do in our
everyday lives, making it clear everybody can be an artist.
Yes in his or her own way.
Speaker 3 (45:56):
Yes, do what you can do. It's a potlucks, bring
your best dish.
Speaker 1 (46:07):
You Literally, I could talk to you all day, my friend.
I just wish you all of the blessings of this
extraordinary life that you're leading. May it continue with joy
and gratitude and you continue to find ways to share
it with Thank you. It really means the world to
(46:27):
me personally.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
May I have the last word?
Speaker 1 (46:31):
Yes, you may.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
Hillary Rodham, Clinton, Madam President, Thank you for allowing me
to have this conversation with you. I'm taking it to
everyone whose eyes light up when they see me.
Speaker 1 (46:50):
Come You and Me Both. Is brought to you by iHeartRadio.
We're produced by Julie Subren, Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo,
(47:12):
with help from Juma Aberdeen, Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Brianna Johnson,
Nick Merrill, Lona Valmorro and Benita Zuman. Our engineer is
Zach McNeice and the original music is by Forrest Gray.
If you like you and Me Both, tell someone else
about it, and if you're not already a subscriber, what
(47:34):
are you waiting for? You can subscribe to you and
me both on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, and, as Andre says,
keep climbing. I'll see you next week.
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