May 29, 2025 • 28 mins
Join @thebuzzknight with the incredibly talented singer, songwriter, musician Grace Potter.
Check out Grace Potter as she opens up about the remarkable journey behind her long-lost album, Medicine—finally seeing the light of day after 18 years in the vault. Recorded in 2008 with legendary producer T Bone Burnett and a crew of acclaimed musicians, Medicine captures Potter at a moment of profound transformation, bringing a shadowy intensity and soulful honesty to her songwriting. In this episode, Grace reflects on the creative risks, the heartbreak of shelving the project, and the joy of finally sharing these songs with the world. Hear stories behind standout tracks like “Before The Sky Falls” and “Oasis,” and discover how this powerhouse album became both a time capsule and a thrilling new chapter in her extraordinary catalog.
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Buzz Knight
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
So I'm just really scratching the surface, you know, of
what is possible, and I'm never going to stop, you know,
looking for that new and wondrous realm that I can
step into. But it's not a genre. I don't believe
in time, and I don't believe in genres. Honestly, it's
just kind of like, I don't care when it came out.
I don't care what country it came from. If it
(00:23):
speaks to me, I'm going to chase it down and
find a way to interpret it and find my own
voice in it.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome to another episode of the Taking a Walk podcast
hosted by Buzz Night, where we stroll through stories, music,
and the moments that shape our favorite artists today. Buzz
is joined by a true force of nature, singer, songwriter,
and multi instrumentalist Grace Potter. From her Vermont roots to
the world's biggest stages, Grace's journey is as dynamic as
(00:54):
your voice. She's the powerhouse behind Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.
A solo artist with fearless spirit and a storyteller who
finds inspiration on the open road and in the quiet
corners of home. She's here to talk also about her
new album Medicine and was produced by t Bone Burnett
and recorded eighteen years ago and it's just now being released.
(01:17):
Welcome Grace Potter to the Taking a Walk Podcast with
your host Buzznight.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Grace Potter, Welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Thank you for having me. It's lovely to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
So since we call the podcast taking a Walk, I
do have to ask you if you could take a
walk with somebody living or dead, who would you take
a walk with and where do you think you would
take the walk with them?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
At My great grandmother, Charlotte, I would love to take
a walk with her. She was alive when I was
a very small baby, but I only have pictures of
me being held like this tiny little thing, and she
passed away before I was even a year old. And
I just I'm so curious about the wisdom and experiences
(02:08):
that she could share that I don't think anybody else
in my family would have thought to ask. And yeah,
she was also really musical, so I would love to
get her take on what she thought of her little
her brother Spiegel Wilcox, who was a trombone player. You
know what was the take from the family on that
(02:29):
charismatic guy. You know, it's just all all these things
about my family and my ancestry that I'm really curious about.
I think there's a lot of interesting skeletons in the
closet that she probably wouldn't want to tell me right away.
But that's what a walk is for, right It's to
sort of get those juices flowing, and suddenly you know,
the dopamine is hidden, and the serotonin and the vitamin
(02:51):
D is hitting your skin, and suddenly you're telling your
life story. And I think Charlotte and I would have
a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Oh, I love it. I love it. That's so great.
You know, you exude such joy and performance. How does
it make you feel? You know, seeing that joy come
radiating back to you when you're performing, it.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Feels like love. I don't know if everybody listening has
had the experience of falling in love with someone where
you truly feel seen, But what you're really seeing is
your reflection coming out of their eyes and shining the
experience of experiencing you. And I think there's a feeling
(03:36):
of like, gosh, I must not be that bad. If
everybody's hanging out and they're not leaving, you know, And
I just I really understand that connection that's available to
all of us that comes especially from live music, but
I think it also happens in my daily life and
in conversations where you're finding your own truth through other
(04:02):
people's eyes and you're sharing joy. There's such a reciprocal
experience going on there. I live for that, honestly. I
think it's like my purpose on this planet.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
So it's sider an interesting when you sort of people
watch and you see, you know, so many frowns out
there and so many scowls, and you just sort of think,
why a little bit of a different approach that some
people could take would really change a lot of worlds Totally.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
It's hard for me to when I see people not
being in receptive mode, like when you're in the elevator
on the subway and people are shutting down. There's a
reason for that. I think it's actually biological. I was
just listening to an interesting book on why we shut
down and why we close off and the signals that
our bodies send out when we're not open. But I'm
(04:56):
just one of those people who moves through the world
with a lot of humility and wonder. I'm constantly in
search of my next experience of awe, and I find
it in people all the time, especially the ones you
don't expect, like even a TSA agent who's screaming at
(05:17):
the top of their lungs, and suddenly you just say,
how's your day gone? And they just break open like
the sunshine, and I just I love it.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
It's a difference maker for sure, you know it really is.
We're going to talk about medicine, the fascinating story behind medicine,
that t Bone Burnette project that luckily has now reappeared.
Let's just say, but I do want to ask you
a question, and it's from a listener to the podcast
(05:48):
and also a musician. Her name is Emily Cavanaugh. Emily says,
your song release has always felt like the perfect example
of music as a means of catharsis. Did you find
that release helped you out of something in particular you
(06:11):
were going through?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I think the thing I hold on too with that
song when I was writing it, but also what remains
now is the hope for healing. It's not this like
definitive nicotine patch of you're going to be okay. It's
a question as opposed to a statement or declaration in
which and I really was ready to let go of
(06:38):
and bury the skeletons that were holding me back. But
I knew that the skeletons were holding on really tight
and they weren't really ready to let go. So it's
an invitation. That song is for me more of a
you hit me back when you're ready, you know, like
(06:58):
one of those really brilliant and voice memos or messages
that you get from a friend, and you listen to
it again and again because there's still a question in
the air and maybe you're not ready to answer that question.
That's really what that song captures for me.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Can you talk about the early days in Vermont? I
know you still spend time in Vermont, but those early days,
how did they shape you musically and with your sort
of worldview today?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I didn't understand eras I didn't know that there was
like dates in which records were made. In fact, I
think growing up with a bit of a sense of
timelessness in Vermont was very formative for me because I
spent time with and loved socializing with people of all ages.
I didn't have this understanding that there was like a
sector or age group I was supposed to be in,
(07:52):
and it served me really well because the more I
found access to different points of view and different natures
and different inclinations. And you know, Vermont is a place
where it can be a bit of an echo chamber
of I think. There's a lot of intellectuals and there's
a lot of farmers, so that mixed bag, I think
(08:15):
created a lot of curiosity for me as to how
this group of people all ended up together. You know,
the back to the Land boomers coming in from Ivy
League schools because they had done some ski vacation there
in the sixties. Suddenly they're coming and planting their roots
there among a large group of farmers who've been living
(08:37):
and taking cues from nature for their entire lives, and
living by the season and living by the harvest, living
by the hurricane or the flood that happened that year.
It definitely grounded me, but it also left me constantly
reaching outward and open to whatever the rest of the
world had to offer, mostly because I wanted to bring
(09:00):
it back to the land, just like my parents did.
Culture is a huge part of my life, and yet
if you think about Vermont. There's only a few. It's
it's sort of the people get that glazed overlooking their
eye and they picture cows in a field, they picture
Benajerry's ice cream. They picture, you know, tapping maple syrup,
or skiing down a mountain or riding a mountain bike.
(09:22):
But there's so much more, And from a very young age,
I wanted to dig into that more and I'm still
doing that to this day.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Not that there's anything wrong with just glazing off to
those things either, right, and just we love.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
That that's a brand. That's what we call a brand.
Baby Vermont has a very strong brand, you know. And
and I didn't. I didn't. I wasn't aware of it
until I got out into the wider world that that
not everywhere is like this. And it was kind of
stunning to me, especially as I was heading west, especially
to the Midwest and out outward into the desert regions,
(10:01):
where life is so different and people's way of processing
and viewing things and just observing the world around them
seems so much less about the weather and more about
you know, what an exit are we going to take
to get gas? And where's the nearest movie theater or mall.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
We don't.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I didn't go to the mall. There wasn't a mall.
You know. My dad is a sign maker, and I
remember when he got hired to do the signs for
the mall, and it was like it was a food
court and you know, basically an indoor farmer's market. And
then you know, but I'd watch movies like Clueless or whatever,
(10:41):
and I'd be like, Okay, so there's definitely like a
mall vibe. But I wanted to hear that mus act
like we didn't have that. There was no mus act playing,
there was no I think that the American dream version
of life was something I had to discover really in
my twenties when I when I got out of state
and started traveling around and playing music live. You know.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So take us back to two thousand and eight stepping
into the studio to record Medicine. What were you feeling then?
Do you remember, especially going to work with the iconic
T Bone Burnette.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, it was immensely exciting and world changing. I think
my openness to the collaboration started because he was so open.
You know, I was otherwise ready to take instruction, and
(11:40):
you know, I felt like I needed to behave myself.
You know, I think I'd been warned by executives and
people in the industry that not necessarily not to stand
up for myself, but to like just roll with the
punches like it's that I was told it would be hard,
like a wrestling match. Everything about being in the studio
felt a little bit like brain surgery to me. Up
(12:02):
until that point, there was a lot of opinions. There
was a lot of people that weren't the musicians in
the room who were immensely involved in the process. And
to me that as a young person, I was like
in my late teens early twenties getting into the studio,
I just felt like that must be how it is everywhere.
And I didn't understand that I could be a force
(12:25):
for change or even advocate for myself in the early days.
And it took a lot of experience, and specifically the
experience of working with t Bone to understand that he
cared about my opinion. He actually genuinely wanted to know
what was my natural reaction to something. He would want
to hear me just sing something down in the studio
(12:47):
and see where my instincts would take me. And there
was none of this sort of incision into my instincts
to insert himself into that sound was much more effortless
and organic, and it was a living, breathing experience of
watching four strangers, five strangers in a studio become an
(13:11):
organism that operated as one. And up until then, the
only experiences I'd had like that were with my band live.
And suddenly it felt more like I was in a
concert hall and almost like a Quaker ceremony all at once.
You know, there was a very spiritual experience happening. It's
because there was a reverence and a respect being not
(13:32):
only thrown out into the tape reels and into the microphones,
but shown towards me. And it was the beginning of
my understanding that that I had agency and creative importance
in the room, and I had not expected that.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
We'll be right back with more of that Taken a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
So why was this, you know, not released?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Probably they may be I was. I think that the
people that were used to being in the room hadn't
been in the room, and so there was I think
there's a lot of pride and ownership over the process
and at the time. Like I said, there was a
lot of hands on me, There was a lot of
eyes on me. There was a lot of attention and
a lot of money being spent, and the room that
(14:33):
we were in was a very quiet, very still, very
peaceful place. But that also meant that it was not
a place of what do you think? And so there
was no what do you think? Until it was completed.
And I think they actually really liked the record. I
think that. I mean, I got some really amazing feedback
whenever there were little visits to the studio, there was
(14:54):
very little input being put in, but there was a
lot of like, just wow, this is a very different
pressure valve being pushed by your voice, and this music
sounds wildly different. And I think that it was a
concern that the investment that had been made in me
was one thing, and that this was a hard left
(15:16):
too soon in my career, and that it would put
me into a category of almost that legacy sound, that
timeless sound that, while heroic, doesn't necessarily need to or
belong in the career arc of a twenty five, twenty
(15:36):
six year old woman who's just at the beginning. I
think there was a lot at stake and they felt
like taking a second crack at it with a producer
who's more radio friendly, more aware of my age and
the vivacious nature of me, which I think for so
many female musicians it feels like there's a shelf life there.
(15:57):
But I think, you know, Tina Turner can a test
to the fact that that's not at all true. And
I'm certainly doing the same thing now, you know, twenty
years later, almost I've probably got more vivaciousness in me
now than I did even then, because I have more
of a command over it. You know.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Well, I think the work is amazing, so as I
hear you explaining the situation, it sounds like, you know,
from a far sort of typical business gobbledegoot that gets
in the way of creativity and great work by an artist.
That's my take. But yeah, you didn't say that, I
said it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Well, I appreciate that, and I think that true music
fans are going to get a chance to judge for themselves.
And I think that anybody with any experience in the
industry can hear what's happening and appreciate it, even just
the little bits that we have drizzled out into the world.
So far there is a thunderclap of like, oh my god,
(16:57):
this is that, this is that voice, but it's it's
completely recontextualized. And I think, if I look at the
timeline and I look at how my career had been
going in the arc of what we were aiming for,
this was the plane just you know, tilting a little
bit to the left. It was just a little bit
(17:17):
of a subtle adjustment. And I always wonder what it
would have been like if it had come out, and
how my career would have how it would have adjusted things.
Not because I'm unhappy with how things turned out, but
because it was there all along, buried underneath, you know.
And it feels like I think timing is everything, and
(17:42):
for whatever reason, I love the word gobbledegook. By the way,
timing and gobbledygook may have gotten in the way a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Yeah, yeah, Well, I mean the music is so great.
It's it's hypnotic, it's rich sounding, it's it's got that
amazing you know back up crew, which are sort of
legendary unto themselves.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yes, they're the hit men of music. I mean, it's
just so.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
So many, it's incredible. So it's so cool that it's out.
What are your some of your other favorites off of it?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
I think the thing I'm the most excited about is
for people to hear the songs that they already know
that you know. For the people hearing it, it's going
to seem like it's a reimagining of that song. But
actually these songs were recorded before the song as they
know it now, because we made this record April May,
mastering in June, and then went back into the studio
(18:39):
July August, September to re record a large selection of
these songs. So a song like Oasis, which I wrote
with Mark Batson, who produced the eponymous record, I remember
being in the studio with him when I when we
wrote it and it was the first song we wrote,
and going into the studio with t Bone with this
(19:02):
demo from me and Batson, and then hearing t Bone
take it and go okay, but what if it was this,
and then going back to recording it with Bats and
it was a real masterclass in the subtlety but also
the broad sweeps, the brave choices that get made and
that one. I mean, it's an incredibly avant garde approach
(19:22):
to a song that otherwise people know as basically like
a reggaeton drum beat and an eclectic set of visuals
that still are there, but really the only thread that
remains is the key of the song and the lyrics,
but the rest of it has been completely reimagined. So
that's one of my favorites, as well as Colors. Another
(19:45):
one that was I think a paradigm shift from what
it was to what it you know, what it was
when I recorded it with T Bone to what it
was on the record with Mark. So those are those
are the studies, the case studies that I really like
to dive into a heart level. I just think Losing
You and Before the Sky Falls were just like, ah,
(20:07):
I just love them, you know, and no one's ever
heard them before.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
So yeah, I love them too. It's just and I
love how excited you are to get these out to
the world. It's so important for it to be out.
So as you reflect now on your experience working with
T Bone, not the moment in time when it happened,
but kind of years later, how do you think he
(20:32):
made you a better artist?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I want to say the word trust, but that sort
of was broken when the record didn't come out. But
in the moment, it was trust. It was trust. He
trusted me, I trusted him. There was an implicit understanding
of what exactly what we were doing, and that faith
in one another and in the directive, like we had
(20:56):
sort of a prime directive of like a dream state, trancy,
elemental conjuring, and it was fearless. And I've never lost
that fearlessness, and I don't regret the fearlessness that was
implanted from that moment forward in my life. But I
(21:18):
wish that the trust had been there, you know, and
that it could continue through the thread of all the
different people I've been managed by and handled y you know,
I had different management at the time, and I think
there was a lot of thought and a lot of
energy put into what was going on here because it
(21:40):
was clear that I wasn't happy that the record wasn't
coming out, and so there was It was not so
much a breach of trust between me and t Bone
as it was with the greater wider world of just like,
what is going on here? Am I living in a
twilight zone? Like?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
What?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
How is this? Not absolutely what should be shared with
the world right now out? But in a way I
think that's what makes the record coming out now even
more compelling because it is such a curiosity and such
a treasure.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
You know, it is a treasure. Well, speaking of a
treasure too, you have experienced this treasure before. You'll be
experiencing again going out on the road playing dates with
Chris Stapleton, in particular. I know there's a couple of
Madison Square Garden dates, but you've had other dates with
Chris Stapleton. Talk about what that experience is like.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
No, I mean talk about a treasure. He's a truly
just salt of the earth human who seems like he
came from the primordial ooze of music. I've never met
anybody more musical in my life. He's just got it
and it comes at him the second he opens his mouth.
It's like, you know, he doesn't need to wind himself
(22:55):
up to get to that point. He's not precious about it.
It's just there. It's just always there, and it's a
stirring thing to be around. And you can really see
that respect in his band and his crew. I mean,
he's got such an amazing family of people that travel
with him, and I think he's developed that culture of
support within his group it's just it's an empire I
(23:19):
want to live in. You know, I certainly would love
to build that empire myself. But it's not bad to
be in the caravan, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, it's contagious.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Right, Yeah, it is. And it's like working with t bone.
I think there's there's there's a mastery to every craft.
And I've been on many many tours, you know, I've
seen it the same experience, similar obviously, different crew, different vibe.
But when I was out on tour with Kenny Chesney,
just watching that organism of his crew and of the
(23:54):
leap frogging of his gear and his set and his
backdrop from one venue to the next because they had
to travel with too. You know, these are systems that
work very much like nature does. There's a cyclical quality.
There's an ebb and a flow and acceleration and deceleration
to the process. But when you've perfected it to a
(24:15):
form where truly you know, there's a reason why these
are some of the highest selling tickets. You know, over
the course of any given summer, you look at numbers
and you just go, wow, I I have been exposed
to that level of mastery only a few times in
my life, but I never ever take it for granted.
And I think Stapleton is one of the best examples
(24:37):
of someone who's really He's cultivated it over a long
time and put a lot of experience, a lot of heart,
and a lot of intention into it, and it's it's
a good it's a good tool to have.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
So in closing, are there are there any artists or
genres to this date that you have not explored that
you feel that you might like to explore at some
point down the road.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Oh well, I mean New Orleans is sort of my
heart home. That's where I belong when I'm not home
in California or a home in Vermont or home on
the tour bus. And it's exposed me to specifically jazz
and blues, but I think that funk, soul, R and B,
hip hop, gospel, every element that I pull from in
(25:23):
my music is something that I certainly don't belong to,
being a random, you know, farmer, mountain hippie from Vermont.
But I think it just opens the floodgates for me
creatively to want to explore deeper. And I've always wanted
to score movies, so the instrumental and working with orchestras
and working in this place where we go back in
(25:46):
time and you look at you know, Count Basie, or
you look at Billie Holliday, or you look at you know,
my my uncle Spiegel stuff. Bringing it back to Grandma Charlotte.
Uncle Spiegel, her little brother was a trombone player with
Tommy Dorsey. And the big band spirit and the orchestra
spirit are very similar. They all were pulling from New Orleans.
(26:08):
You know, They're all pulling from this incredible gumbo of
American music, and it's kind of an eternal well, you know,
especially when I listen to instrumental music, I'm like, well, okay,
just put some vocals to that, and we've got ourselves
a whole record, you know, Martin Denny and Les Baxter
and Escavel and you know, I love Hawaiian music so much.
(26:32):
I would love to make like a whole Hawaiian record.
I'd love to make an entire Spanish language record. I'm
so inspired by Bossa Nova and I've always wanted to
learn how to play Flamenco guitar, having gone to Spain
and spent time in a huge amount of time in Spain.
So I'm just really scratching the surface, you know, of
what is possible, and I'm never going to stop, you know,
(26:56):
looking for that new and wondrous realm that I could
step into. But it's not a genre. I don't believe
in time, and I don't believe in genres. Honestly, it's
just kind of like I don't care when it came out.
I don't care what country it came from. If it
speaks to me, I'm going to chase it down and
find a way to interpret it and find my own
(27:17):
voice in it.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
From the Flying V to the Flamenco.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Wow, that is awesome.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I believe it.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Grace Potter. Thank you for the joy you continue to
give us. Thank you for letting us talk about medicine
and talk about your creative process. And thanks for being
on Taking a Walk. It's a pure joy.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I had so much fun talking to you, buzz I.
Hope we get to talk again soon.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts,
Taking a Walk.
Speaker 2 (00:01):
So I'm just really scratching the surface, you know, of
what is possible, and I'm never going to stop, you know,
looking for that new and wondrous realm that I can
step into. But it's not a genre. I don't believe
in time, and I don't believe in genres. Honestly, it's
just kind of like, I don't care when it came out.
I don't care what country it came from. If it
(00:23):
speaks to me, I'm going to chase it down and
find a way to interpret it and find my own
voice in it.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Welcome to another episode of the Taking a Walk podcast
hosted by Buzz Night, where we stroll through stories, music,
and the moments that shape our favorite artists today. Buzz
is joined by a true force of nature, singer, songwriter,
and multi instrumentalist Grace Potter. From her Vermont roots to
the world's biggest stages, Grace's journey is as dynamic as
(00:54):
your voice. She's the powerhouse behind Grace Potter and the Nocturnals.
A solo artist with fearless spirit and a storyteller who
finds inspiration on the open road and in the quiet
corners of home. She's here to talk also about her
new album Medicine and was produced by t Bone Burnett
and recorded eighteen years ago and it's just now being released.
(01:17):
Welcome Grace Potter to the Taking a Walk Podcast with
your host Buzznight.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Grace Potter, Welcome to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Thank you for having me. It's lovely to be here.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
So since we call the podcast taking a Walk, I
do have to ask you if you could take a
walk with somebody living or dead, who would you take
a walk with and where do you think you would
take the walk with them?
Speaker 2 (01:45):
At My great grandmother, Charlotte, I would love to take
a walk with her. She was alive when I was
a very small baby, but I only have pictures of
me being held like this tiny little thing, and she
passed away before I was even a year old. And
I just I'm so curious about the wisdom and experiences
(02:08):
that she could share that I don't think anybody else
in my family would have thought to ask. And yeah,
she was also really musical, so I would love to
get her take on what she thought of her little
her brother Spiegel Wilcox, who was a trombone player. You
know what was the take from the family on that
(02:29):
charismatic guy. You know, it's just all all these things
about my family and my ancestry that I'm really curious about.
I think there's a lot of interesting skeletons in the
closet that she probably wouldn't want to tell me right away.
But that's what a walk is for, right It's to
sort of get those juices flowing, and suddenly you know,
the dopamine is hidden, and the serotonin and the vitamin
(02:51):
D is hitting your skin, and suddenly you're telling your
life story. And I think Charlotte and I would have
a lot to talk about.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Oh, I love it. I love it. That's so great.
You know, you exude such joy and performance. How does
it make you feel? You know, seeing that joy come
radiating back to you when you're performing, it.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
Feels like love. I don't know if everybody listening has
had the experience of falling in love with someone where
you truly feel seen, But what you're really seeing is
your reflection coming out of their eyes and shining the
experience of experiencing you. And I think there's a feeling
(03:36):
of like, gosh, I must not be that bad. If
everybody's hanging out and they're not leaving, you know, And
I just I really understand that connection that's available to
all of us that comes especially from live music, but
I think it also happens in my daily life and
in conversations where you're finding your own truth through other
(04:02):
people's eyes and you're sharing joy. There's such a reciprocal
experience going on there. I live for that, honestly. I
think it's like my purpose on this planet.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
So it's sider an interesting when you sort of people
watch and you see, you know, so many frowns out
there and so many scowls, and you just sort of think,
why a little bit of a different approach that some
people could take would really change a lot of worlds Totally.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
It's hard for me to when I see people not
being in receptive mode, like when you're in the elevator
on the subway and people are shutting down. There's a
reason for that. I think it's actually biological. I was
just listening to an interesting book on why we shut
down and why we close off and the signals that
our bodies send out when we're not open. But I'm
(04:56):
just one of those people who moves through the world
with a lot of humility and wonder. I'm constantly in
search of my next experience of awe, and I find
it in people all the time, especially the ones you
don't expect, like even a TSA agent who's screaming at
(05:17):
the top of their lungs, and suddenly you just say,
how's your day gone? And they just break open like
the sunshine, and I just I love it.
Speaker 3 (05:25):
It's a difference maker for sure, you know it really is.
We're going to talk about medicine, the fascinating story behind medicine,
that t Bone Burnette project that luckily has now reappeared.
Let's just say, but I do want to ask you
a question, and it's from a listener to the podcast
(05:48):
and also a musician. Her name is Emily Cavanaugh. Emily says,
your song release has always felt like the perfect example
of music as a means of catharsis. Did you find
that release helped you out of something in particular you
(06:11):
were going through?
Speaker 2 (06:13):
I think the thing I hold on too with that
song when I was writing it, but also what remains
now is the hope for healing. It's not this like
definitive nicotine patch of you're going to be okay. It's
a question as opposed to a statement or declaration in
which and I really was ready to let go of
(06:38):
and bury the skeletons that were holding me back. But
I knew that the skeletons were holding on really tight
and they weren't really ready to let go. So it's
an invitation. That song is for me more of a
you hit me back when you're ready, you know, like
(06:58):
one of those really brilliant and voice memos or messages
that you get from a friend, and you listen to
it again and again because there's still a question in
the air and maybe you're not ready to answer that question.
That's really what that song captures for me.
Speaker 3 (07:14):
Can you talk about the early days in Vermont? I
know you still spend time in Vermont, but those early days,
how did they shape you musically and with your sort
of worldview today?
Speaker 2 (07:29):
I didn't understand eras I didn't know that there was
like dates in which records were made. In fact, I
think growing up with a bit of a sense of
timelessness in Vermont was very formative for me because I
spent time with and loved socializing with people of all ages.
I didn't have this understanding that there was like a
sector or age group I was supposed to be in,
(07:52):
and it served me really well because the more I
found access to different points of view and different natures
and different inclinations. And you know, Vermont is a place
where it can be a bit of an echo chamber
of I think. There's a lot of intellectuals and there's
a lot of farmers, so that mixed bag, I think
(08:15):
created a lot of curiosity for me as to how
this group of people all ended up together. You know,
the back to the Land boomers coming in from Ivy
League schools because they had done some ski vacation there
in the sixties. Suddenly they're coming and planting their roots
there among a large group of farmers who've been living
(08:37):
and taking cues from nature for their entire lives, and
living by the season and living by the harvest, living
by the hurricane or the flood that happened that year.
It definitely grounded me, but it also left me constantly
reaching outward and open to whatever the rest of the
world had to offer, mostly because I wanted to bring
(09:00):
it back to the land, just like my parents did.
Culture is a huge part of my life, and yet
if you think about Vermont. There's only a few. It's
it's sort of the people get that glazed overlooking their
eye and they picture cows in a field, they picture
Benajerry's ice cream. They picture, you know, tapping maple syrup,
or skiing down a mountain or riding a mountain bike.
(09:22):
But there's so much more, And from a very young age,
I wanted to dig into that more and I'm still
doing that to this day.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
Not that there's anything wrong with just glazing off to
those things either, right, and just we love.
Speaker 2 (09:36):
That that's a brand. That's what we call a brand.
Baby Vermont has a very strong brand, you know. And
and I didn't. I didn't. I wasn't aware of it
until I got out into the wider world that that
not everywhere is like this. And it was kind of
stunning to me, especially as I was heading west, especially
to the Midwest and out outward into the desert regions,
(10:01):
where life is so different and people's way of processing
and viewing things and just observing the world around them
seems so much less about the weather and more about
you know, what an exit are we going to take
to get gas? And where's the nearest movie theater or mall.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
We don't.
Speaker 2 (10:21):
I didn't go to the mall. There wasn't a mall.
You know. My dad is a sign maker, and I
remember when he got hired to do the signs for
the mall, and it was like it was a food
court and you know, basically an indoor farmer's market. And
then you know, but I'd watch movies like Clueless or whatever,
(10:41):
and I'd be like, Okay, so there's definitely like a
mall vibe. But I wanted to hear that mus act
like we didn't have that. There was no mus act playing,
there was no I think that the American dream version
of life was something I had to discover really in
my twenties when I when I got out of state
and started traveling around and playing music live. You know.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
So take us back to two thousand and eight stepping
into the studio to record Medicine. What were you feeling then?
Do you remember, especially going to work with the iconic
T Bone Burnette.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yeah, it was immensely exciting and world changing. I think
my openness to the collaboration started because he was so open.
You know, I was otherwise ready to take instruction, and
(11:40):
you know, I felt like I needed to behave myself.
You know, I think I'd been warned by executives and
people in the industry that not necessarily not to stand
up for myself, but to like just roll with the
punches like it's that I was told it would be hard,
like a wrestling match. Everything about being in the studio
felt a little bit like brain surgery to me. Up
(12:02):
until that point, there was a lot of opinions. There
was a lot of people that weren't the musicians in
the room who were immensely involved in the process. And
to me that as a young person, I was like
in my late teens early twenties getting into the studio,
I just felt like that must be how it is everywhere.
And I didn't understand that I could be a force
(12:25):
for change or even advocate for myself in the early days.
And it took a lot of experience, and specifically the
experience of working with t Bone to understand that he
cared about my opinion. He actually genuinely wanted to know
what was my natural reaction to something. He would want
to hear me just sing something down in the studio
(12:47):
and see where my instincts would take me. And there
was none of this sort of incision into my instincts
to insert himself into that sound was much more effortless
and organic, and it was a living, breathing experience of
watching four strangers, five strangers in a studio become an
(13:11):
organism that operated as one. And up until then, the
only experiences I'd had like that were with my band live.
And suddenly it felt more like I was in a
concert hall and almost like a Quaker ceremony all at once.
You know, there was a very spiritual experience happening. It's
because there was a reverence and a respect being not
(13:32):
only thrown out into the tape reels and into the microphones,
but shown towards me. And it was the beginning of
my understanding that that I had agency and creative importance
in the room, and I had not expected that.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
We'll be right back with more of that Taken a
Walk podcast. Welcome back to the Taking a Walk Podcast.
Speaker 3 (14:03):
So why was this, you know, not released?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
Probably they may be I was. I think that the
people that were used to being in the room hadn't
been in the room, and so there was I think
there's a lot of pride and ownership over the process
and at the time. Like I said, there was a
lot of hands on me, There was a lot of
eyes on me. There was a lot of attention and
a lot of money being spent, and the room that
(14:33):
we were in was a very quiet, very still, very
peaceful place. But that also meant that it was not
a place of what do you think? And so there
was no what do you think? Until it was completed.
And I think they actually really liked the record. I
think that. I mean, I got some really amazing feedback
whenever there were little visits to the studio, there was
(14:54):
very little input being put in, but there was a
lot of like, just wow, this is a very different
pressure valve being pushed by your voice, and this music
sounds wildly different. And I think that it was a
concern that the investment that had been made in me
was one thing, and that this was a hard left
(15:16):
too soon in my career, and that it would put
me into a category of almost that legacy sound, that
timeless sound that, while heroic, doesn't necessarily need to or
belong in the career arc of a twenty five, twenty
(15:36):
six year old woman who's just at the beginning. I
think there was a lot at stake and they felt
like taking a second crack at it with a producer
who's more radio friendly, more aware of my age and
the vivacious nature of me, which I think for so
many female musicians it feels like there's a shelf life there.
(15:57):
But I think, you know, Tina Turner can a test
to the fact that that's not at all true. And
I'm certainly doing the same thing now, you know, twenty
years later, almost I've probably got more vivaciousness in me
now than I did even then, because I have more
of a command over it. You know.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Well, I think the work is amazing, so as I
hear you explaining the situation, it sounds like, you know,
from a far sort of typical business gobbledegoot that gets
in the way of creativity and great work by an artist.
That's my take. But yeah, you didn't say that, I
said it.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
Well, I appreciate that, and I think that true music
fans are going to get a chance to judge for themselves.
And I think that anybody with any experience in the
industry can hear what's happening and appreciate it, even just
the little bits that we have drizzled out into the world.
So far there is a thunderclap of like, oh my god,
(16:57):
this is that, this is that voice, but it's it's
completely recontextualized. And I think, if I look at the
timeline and I look at how my career had been
going in the arc of what we were aiming for,
this was the plane just you know, tilting a little
bit to the left. It was just a little bit
(17:17):
of a subtle adjustment. And I always wonder what it
would have been like if it had come out, and
how my career would have how it would have adjusted things.
Not because I'm unhappy with how things turned out, but
because it was there all along, buried underneath, you know.
And it feels like I think timing is everything, and
(17:42):
for whatever reason, I love the word gobbledegook. By the way,
timing and gobbledygook may have gotten in the way a
little bit.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
Yeah, yeah, Well, I mean the music is so great.
It's it's hypnotic, it's rich sounding, it's it's got that
amazing you know back up crew, which are sort of
legendary unto themselves.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Yes, they're the hit men of music. I mean, it's
just so.
Speaker 3 (18:09):
So many, it's incredible. So it's so cool that it's out.
What are your some of your other favorites off of it?
Speaker 2 (18:16):
I think the thing I'm the most excited about is
for people to hear the songs that they already know
that you know. For the people hearing it, it's going
to seem like it's a reimagining of that song. But
actually these songs were recorded before the song as they
know it now, because we made this record April May,
mastering in June, and then went back into the studio
(18:39):
July August, September to re record a large selection of
these songs. So a song like Oasis, which I wrote
with Mark Batson, who produced the eponymous record, I remember
being in the studio with him when I when we
wrote it and it was the first song we wrote,
and going into the studio with t Bone with this
(19:02):
demo from me and Batson, and then hearing t Bone
take it and go okay, but what if it was this,
and then going back to recording it with Bats and
it was a real masterclass in the subtlety but also
the broad sweeps, the brave choices that get made and
that one. I mean, it's an incredibly avant garde approach
(19:22):
to a song that otherwise people know as basically like
a reggaeton drum beat and an eclectic set of visuals
that still are there, but really the only thread that
remains is the key of the song and the lyrics,
but the rest of it has been completely reimagined. So
that's one of my favorites, as well as Colors. Another
(19:45):
one that was I think a paradigm shift from what
it was to what it you know, what it was
when I recorded it with T Bone to what it
was on the record with Mark. So those are those
are the studies, the case studies that I really like
to dive into a heart level. I just think Losing
You and Before the Sky Falls were just like, ah,
(20:07):
I just love them, you know, and no one's ever
heard them before.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
So yeah, I love them too. It's just and I
love how excited you are to get these out to
the world. It's so important for it to be out.
So as you reflect now on your experience working with
T Bone, not the moment in time when it happened,
but kind of years later, how do you think he
(20:32):
made you a better artist?
Speaker 2 (20:35):
I want to say the word trust, but that sort
of was broken when the record didn't come out. But
in the moment, it was trust. It was trust. He
trusted me, I trusted him. There was an implicit understanding
of what exactly what we were doing, and that faith
in one another and in the directive, like we had
(20:56):
sort of a prime directive of like a dream state, trancy,
elemental conjuring, and it was fearless. And I've never lost
that fearlessness, and I don't regret the fearlessness that was
implanted from that moment forward in my life. But I
(21:18):
wish that the trust had been there, you know, and
that it could continue through the thread of all the
different people I've been managed by and handled y you know,
I had different management at the time, and I think
there was a lot of thought and a lot of
energy put into what was going on here because it
(21:40):
was clear that I wasn't happy that the record wasn't
coming out, and so there was It was not so
much a breach of trust between me and t Bone
as it was with the greater wider world of just like,
what is going on here? Am I living in a
twilight zone? Like?
Speaker 1 (21:54):
What?
Speaker 2 (21:55):
How is this? Not absolutely what should be shared with
the world right now out? But in a way I
think that's what makes the record coming out now even
more compelling because it is such a curiosity and such
a treasure.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
You know, it is a treasure. Well, speaking of a
treasure too, you have experienced this treasure before. You'll be
experiencing again going out on the road playing dates with
Chris Stapleton, in particular. I know there's a couple of
Madison Square Garden dates, but you've had other dates with
Chris Stapleton. Talk about what that experience is like.
Speaker 2 (22:32):
No, I mean talk about a treasure. He's a truly
just salt of the earth human who seems like he
came from the primordial ooze of music. I've never met
anybody more musical in my life. He's just got it
and it comes at him the second he opens his mouth.
It's like, you know, he doesn't need to wind himself
(22:55):
up to get to that point. He's not precious about it.
It's just there. It's just always there, and it's a
stirring thing to be around. And you can really see
that respect in his band and his crew. I mean,
he's got such an amazing family of people that travel
with him, and I think he's developed that culture of
support within his group it's just it's an empire I
(23:19):
want to live in. You know, I certainly would love
to build that empire myself. But it's not bad to
be in the caravan, I'll tell you what.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
Yeah, it's contagious.
Speaker 2 (23:30):
Right, Yeah, it is. And it's like working with t bone.
I think there's there's there's a mastery to every craft.
And I've been on many many tours, you know, I've
seen it the same experience, similar obviously, different crew, different vibe.
But when I was out on tour with Kenny Chesney,
just watching that organism of his crew and of the
(23:54):
leap frogging of his gear and his set and his
backdrop from one venue to the next because they had
to travel with too. You know, these are systems that
work very much like nature does. There's a cyclical quality.
There's an ebb and a flow and acceleration and deceleration
to the process. But when you've perfected it to a
(24:15):
form where truly you know, there's a reason why these
are some of the highest selling tickets. You know, over
the course of any given summer, you look at numbers
and you just go, wow, I I have been exposed
to that level of mastery only a few times in
my life, but I never ever take it for granted.
And I think Stapleton is one of the best examples
(24:37):
of someone who's really He's cultivated it over a long
time and put a lot of experience, a lot of heart,
and a lot of intention into it, and it's it's
a good it's a good tool to have.
Speaker 3 (24:49):
So in closing, are there are there any artists or
genres to this date that you have not explored that
you feel that you might like to explore at some
point down the road.
Speaker 1 (25:02):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (25:02):
Oh well, I mean New Orleans is sort of my
heart home. That's where I belong when I'm not home
in California or a home in Vermont or home on
the tour bus. And it's exposed me to specifically jazz
and blues, but I think that funk, soul, R and B,
hip hop, gospel, every element that I pull from in
(25:23):
my music is something that I certainly don't belong to,
being a random, you know, farmer, mountain hippie from Vermont.
But I think it just opens the floodgates for me
creatively to want to explore deeper. And I've always wanted
to score movies, so the instrumental and working with orchestras
and working in this place where we go back in
(25:46):
time and you look at you know, Count Basie, or
you look at Billie Holliday, or you look at you know,
my my uncle Spiegel stuff. Bringing it back to Grandma Charlotte.
Uncle Spiegel, her little brother was a trombone player with
Tommy Dorsey. And the big band spirit and the orchestra
spirit are very similar. They all were pulling from New Orleans.
(26:08):
You know, They're all pulling from this incredible gumbo of
American music, and it's kind of an eternal well, you know,
especially when I listen to instrumental music, I'm like, well, okay,
just put some vocals to that, and we've got ourselves
a whole record, you know, Martin Denny and Les Baxter
and Escavel and you know, I love Hawaiian music so much.
(26:32):
I would love to make like a whole Hawaiian record.
I'd love to make an entire Spanish language record. I'm
so inspired by Bossa Nova and I've always wanted to
learn how to play Flamenco guitar, having gone to Spain
and spent time in a huge amount of time in Spain.
So I'm just really scratching the surface, you know, of
what is possible, and I'm never going to stop, you know,
(26:56):
looking for that new and wondrous realm that I could
step into. But it's not a genre. I don't believe
in time, and I don't believe in genres. Honestly, it's
just kind of like I don't care when it came out.
I don't care what country it came from. If it
speaks to me, I'm going to chase it down and
find a way to interpret it and find my own
(27:17):
voice in it.
Speaker 3 (27:19):
From the Flying V to the Flamenco.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (27:23):
Wow, that is awesome.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
I believe it.
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Grace Potter. Thank you for the joy you continue to
give us. Thank you for letting us talk about medicine
and talk about your creative process. And thanks for being
on Taking a Walk. It's a pure joy.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
I had so much fun talking to you, buzz I.
Hope we get to talk again soon.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Taking a
Walk Podcast. Share this and other episodes with your friends
and follow us so you never miss an episode. Taking
a Walk is available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
and wherever you get your podcasts,
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