Lucinda Williams

Singer/songwriter extraordinaire.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Leftsets podcast. My
guest today is Lucinda Williams. This year published an autobiography,
Don't Tell Anybody The Secrets I Told You, Lucinda. The
book came out earlier in the year. What's been the
aftermath for you personally?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Well, it's I mean, I've been overwhelmed with great responses
and great reviews and everything, mostly people telling me they've
read or they've listened to the audio book. A lot
of people, a lot of responses about that. The audiobook.
People seem to really be responding positively to that, and

(00:53):
that makes me feel good.

Speaker 1 (00:55):
And so you read the audio book yourself? Yes, yeah,
was that like doing that?

Speaker 2 (01:02):
It was interesting. I'd never done it before. I Mean,
the whole experience of writing a book is different than
anything I've been through, you know. So, I mean I've
written songs, made gone in and recorded albums and you know,
done all of that, everything goes along with making an album.

(01:23):
But it's there's nothing that compares anything I've done in
the past to writing your own book and all the
things that go along with that, you know, the editing
and the the sending, the you know, writing a piece
and then sending it in for the editor to read,
and then getting the editors feedback and going back and

(01:47):
forth about whether that something should be included or not,
and you know that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
So how did it come about that you actually wrote
the book?

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Well, for years people have been saying I should write
a book, you know, because I guess it's because so
many of my songs. I have a handful of narrative songs,
and every whenever I perform, I always talk about who
I wrote the song about, what I wrote it about,

(02:18):
And you know, I go and try to go into
as much depth as I can about the songs before
I sing them when I'm on stage, and the audience
seems to really like that and respond well to it.

Speaker 1 (02:30):
What was the actual process, Well.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I got an offer from my manager, Tom Overbeek could
probably have answer this better.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
But who's also your husband, Let's.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Say he's awesome my husband, Yes, But anyway, we were
approached by you know, a couple of different publishing companies
in New York. Of course they're all in New York City,
and you know a bunch of meetings were planned where

(03:10):
I would go and I would meet with the with
the people at the poshing companies, you know, and they
were all very enthusiastic, and you know, we would just
talk about what kind of book I wanted to make,
write and see, I said, make like I was making
an album, what kind of book I wanted to write.

(03:30):
And they were very adamant, all every one of them were.
They were all very adamant about that it be in
my own voice, you know, So that was mainly what
they were concerned about.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
So you made the deal, they said what they want.
How did you actually write it?

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Right? Well, that was the thing. Before I wrote it,
I didn't know how to get started. I mean, I
just didn't know what you know, I'm used to when
I write songs to getting ready to make an album.
You know, I like to be in a certain mood
if I'm going to be writing, And this felt more

(04:14):
like work, I guess, kind of. You know. I didn't
have the luxury of being able to. I used to
have this fantasy that if I ever wrote a book,
I was going to be you know, like these writers
you hear about you go away to the mountains and
live in a cabin for a year, you know, they

(04:34):
they have they take a hiatus, you know, to write
the great American novel, and they sit there in their
cabin and drink whiskey or scotch and smoke cigarettes and
write their novel. You know, That's what I thought it
was always going to be like. But it was anything

(04:55):
but that, you know. I basically grabbed a couple of
legal pass ads, sat down in my favorite chair, which
is a good start to be comfortable, and I started writing,
just as if I were telling someone my life story.

(05:17):
You know. I put everything in order, but I didn't
want it to sound like Okay, I was born in
late Charles, Louisiana, and then I went to this town
and then I went to you know, I wanted it
to be well written, and that's what I was mostly
concerned about. And I was very concerned that my dad

(05:39):
wasn't alive anymore to kind of oversee my writing, you know,
some because I could. I could have asked him questions
and he would have suggested things, and so I felt
kind of insecure because he wasn't around anymore, and I
really wanted here's a good example of what it was like.

(06:03):
I was backstage with Roseanna Cash one time at a show.
We were doing and we were talking about because she
had written a book and I was talking about my
book and everything, and she suddenly broke the conversation and
said with Sinda, you don't have to be James Joyce,

(06:25):
and I said, yeah, that's just it. I want to
be James Joyce. You know. So I was kind of
sort of holding myself back unnecessarily because I wanted to
be able to have this well written, you know. I

(06:46):
wanted the New York Times to like it and everything
and really want what it really was was. I wanted
my dad to like it. And I wanted all of
his writer all these writers I grew up with who
are had this imminent respect for. I wanted them to
appreciate it and like it.

Speaker 1 (07:08):
Okay, so you finally get over the hub, you sit
in a comfortable chair, you have the legal pads. The
hardest part is starting.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Yeah, I had to have a certain kind of pen
that I like.

Speaker 1 (07:22):
What kind of pen is that?

Speaker 2 (07:26):
See? I knew you were going to ask me a question.
I wasn't ready for Wait a minute, Okay, I don't
have it in front of me. I have to get one.

Speaker 1 (07:36):
Okay, Well, irrelevant of the brand name, what's so special
about that pen.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
I just like the consistency of the ink then.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
It comes out even when you write it, or the
way it looks on the page.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Yes, both okay. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (07:50):
And it's a ballpoint No.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
I don't like ballpoint pens. Never have liked this.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
So is it like a regular nib with an ink pen?

Speaker 2 (08:01):
Yes, it's a John.

Speaker 1 (08:09):
Sorry, we're gonna get a We're gonna get a verdict
here on the pen.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
I need that pen that a lot.

Speaker 1 (08:18):
So it's one specific pen and you have to fill
it with ink. No, okay, So here we have the
pen from John.

Speaker 2 (08:26):
We have the actual pen. Okay, it's called a Precise
V seven. I've just done it. Commercial.

Speaker 1 (08:38):
Is this You've been your favorite pen for years? How
do you stumble on this pen?

Speaker 2 (08:44):
I don't know. How do you ever stumble on a
pen upon a pen? It was just around. I started
riding with it and liked it. Amazon carries them, yeah, so.

Speaker 1 (08:56):
It could be delivered. Are you a big Amazon person?

Speaker 2 (08:59):
Yeah? I shouldn't be, though, because one time I was
shopping on Amazon and Steve Earl. I was backstage at
a venue and Steve Earl is there and he's looked
over my shoulder. And saw what I was doing, and
he said, are you shopping on Amazon? And I said yes,
And he said, oh, I don't go on there. He said,

(09:22):
that man is that's a bad man. He's a bad man,
the guy who runs Amazon.

Speaker 1 (09:28):
Well, you know, my opinion is this that I had
too many times I went to the store and they
didn't have what I was looking for, whereas I know
they have it on Amazon. I'm not polluting, I'm not
driving in Yeah, it's so convenient some things you can
stop online shopping Amazon, Google. Yeah, but these things are

(09:52):
here forever.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
Yeah, it's pretty hard to let go of it.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
Yeah, they're coming to my house seeming every day. So
how many times did you start and stop and start
to stop before you found your groove?

Speaker 2 (10:13):
I don't know, probably two or three months.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
Oh really?

Speaker 2 (10:18):
Oh yeah, that's the other thing. I was talking to
a lot of people about writing a book and read
a lot of other people's autobiographies or biographies before I
started mine, you know, see how they wrote theirs. And
a lot of other musicians who had written books offered

(10:41):
to talk with me about it, or if I needed
any help, please give them a call. That that kind
of thing, And and several of them told me how
long it took them to write their books, and I
was a I was amazed. Actually. I think Ruis Springsteen
said ten years. I think Roseanne Cash said seven years.

(11:07):
You know, so that made me feel better about it.

Speaker 1 (11:11):
Okay, so how long did it actually take you to
write it?

Speaker 2 (11:16):
I think it was two or three years overall, and
which sounds amazing. It's not like I was sitting in
the chair for two or three years without moving. But
it's just more about life getting in the way, you know,
and we had we were still touring and recording. You know,
I was trying to write this book in the middle

(11:37):
of all the other stuff I had to do.

Speaker 1 (11:41):
Okay, you said something a few minutes ago about getting
in the mood to make a record. Mm hmm. Tell
me about that.

Speaker 2 (11:50):
Well, I meant getting in the mood to write okngs right, yeah,
to record for the record.

Speaker 1 (11:57):
Well, okay, let's slow down. Do you say, oh, I
want to make a record, I better write songs, or
you're writing songs, say well, I have enough songs to
make a record.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Usually that's a good question. I prefer it's happened both ways.
But I prefer to just be writing songs and then
have enough to go in and make a record. And
I've done it both ways. I've done it that way
where I'm just writing and I'm not I don't feel
pressured about having to get in the studio by a

(12:30):
certain time. But I've also had that pressure a little bit,
you know, like we have to go in the studio.
We've got to have a record out by next year
or something, so you know, we got to get these songs.
I'd rather just concentrate on the songwriting and you know,

(12:54):
be able to be spontaneous.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
So what does that look like? Are you standing in
the shower to go, oh, man, I got it? I
got to go to write this song down.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
Sometimes, yeah, I do. I come up with ideas in
this shower quite often, actually, or when I first wake
up and I'm in that zone between a sleep and awake,
you know, and your brain's in a special kind of place.
I get a lot of times I lay in bed
like that before I actually get up and think I've

(13:25):
got lines running through my head and then I have
to find the voice record on my phone or something
that I've got to get it down right away before
I forget.

Speaker 1 (13:37):
Okay, do this. Do the words come with the music
or the words come down and then you have the music.

Speaker 2 (13:44):
Lately what it's been, the words come and then I
add the music. But occasionally it happens both ways. Occasionally
I'll a melody will pop out with some words like
maybe a hook line.

Speaker 1 (14:01):
Okay, so you could be in the shower, you could
be in the bitter and spontaneous. Do you ever sit
down and say I have to write a song and
start writing a.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Song only if I'm being asked to write a song
for something like a movie or something like that. It's
not one of the things I enjoy doing as much.
I call it writing on demand. You know Steve Earl
is speaking of Steve. He's great at that. He can

(14:32):
just whip up these songs, you know, on demand like
that for movies or TV shows or that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (14:41):
Let's go back to the book. You're very personal in
the book. Some of these people are still alive. How
did you choose what to reveal and to what degree
were you self conscious about telling these truths?

Speaker 2 (14:56):
Well, you know, when it came to talking about previous
romantic partners, obviously I didn't want to start talking about
you know, the technical, you know, how it was in
bed with this person or something like that. You know,

(15:19):
other than that too much alcohol may have been consumed
and the night didn't go as well as I'd hoped.
I think there's something in there about that with one
of the guys.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
You know, well, there are a lot of guys. I
love this song by the Tubes called boy Crazy. Would
you say that you became boy crazy?

Speaker 2 (15:43):
At some point I knew, See this is one of
my fears because I had so many guys listed. In
every every other page I talk about being smitten with
someone and worried that there were too much of that
in the book. You know, I'm writing too much about

(16:05):
these this guy and that guy and the other and
you know, and now sure enough you're asking me about that.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
I was. I was asking you that as more of
a personality direction thing. One of the things I thought
was great about the book was you talked about your crushes.
You talked about your relationships in a way that people don't.
I'm not judging you for that, I just think seriously,

(16:38):
but I'm asking how you judge yourself, not how.

Speaker 2 (16:41):
I well, I just I tried to look at it
as as if you know, someone else were writing it
and how it I feel, you know. And also I
learned a little bit about that by reading some of
the other artists books, like Carly Simon's book was Pretty

(17:07):
you know, she talked about her relationship with James Taylor,
and there are just a couple of things I thought,
wow when I read the book, you know, like that
might have been a little TMI. You know.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
Well, what resonated for me was is said, what kind
of guy you like? You would feel a spark and
you would be active as opposed to passive.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Right, Yeah, well, that's great that you got that impression
of me, wow, because I'm so shy.

Speaker 1 (17:42):
Actually, well, I can talk about relationships in my life
and biggest relationships when I was took action in a
way that I would never take action, and I can't
sit here and tell you why. You know, it's like
all of a sudden, I did something was completely out
of character.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, it usually takes a little bit of wine for
me to do that.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
Two of my most serious relationships went on for years
that I took action, and I both times I could
not replicate that. I don't know what I mean, I
you know, I just acted in a way that I
never would before.

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Yeah, that's great though.

Speaker 1 (18:25):
It is great, but as you talk about being a
shy person, it's not something you can manufacture. Someone said,
go do that. He said, no, no, no, I'm not.

Speaker 2 (18:34):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:34):
Yeah, and you got married to Greg Sowders of the
Long Writers, who I certainly know from the publishing world.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Yeah, you talked about.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Previous relationships of the book. Why did you decide to
get married then?

Speaker 2 (18:54):
Probably because when I you know, when I start the
answer out with probably, that means I don't really know.
Probably because he told me he was my ace and
the hole. You know, I'm the guy who's gonna be
here for you when all the other ones have left,

(19:14):
And I was just ready to hear that, you know, And.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
Okay, how hard was it to end it?

Speaker 2 (19:25):
It was hard? You know. Actually I remember when he
moved in with me. The day he moved in with me,
I had all kinds of concerns and doubts. And you know,
because I was very and I still am very independent,

(19:45):
and I like my quiet alone time, especially if I'm
going to write. So basically he became a born again Christian.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Oh why you were married?

Speaker 2 (20:03):
Well, towards the end of it, you.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Know that's enough to end a relationship.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, it was.

Speaker 1 (20:19):
One thing in the book that you mentioned numerous times.
Is your OCD your obsessive compulsive disorder? Tell us about that?

Speaker 2 (20:29):
Oh God, well, it's a real thing, for one thing,
because you know, people joke about it a lot. Oh
I've got OCD and all of this, but they don't
really usually, you know, because if you really have it,
I mean, it could be a serious thing, get in
the way of life. I heard that Bob Dylan had

(20:52):
a similar thing that I have, where you had you
feel like, you know, you have to wash your hands
on a regular basis, which is a good thing. But
sometimes I've washed my hands when I don't really have to.
I just think, I do you know I don't like
to touch door knobs because other people's hands have touched them. God,

(21:16):
this is so embarrassing.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
I can't I have OCD too. I saw a special
OCD doctor about it. Really helped. Okay, I say, Lucinda,
We're gonna go out for a burger. You lock the door,
can you leave or do you have to check to
see if the walk.

Speaker 2 (21:36):
I can leave? Yeah, I don't have that kind.

Speaker 1 (21:40):
Do you have any hoarding tendencies.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
I don't know. I mean, I do save certain things
like memorabilia, photographs and that sort of thing, but I
don't like clutter. So if i'm I wouldn't be able
to be a hoarder because of the clutter.

Speaker 1 (22:01):
Okay, let's talk about making a record. You say that
you like what you want, but let's go one step further.
Let's just assume you're in complete control. Let's say you're
mixing the final track. How hard will you be for
you to walk away and say this is the one.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
It wouldn't be hard because I would know that this
is the one, you know. But the main thing with
in the studio when you say I'm in control, that's
exactly it. You know. If I am in control, then
I'm able to decide which track is it is you know?

(22:43):
Or if this is the track you know, as opposed
to debating it with the producer or the engineer because
everybody's got their own opinion.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
I'm asking something a little bit different. Okay, Let's say
that you are alone in the room, you were totally
in control. Can you make a decision easily and move
on or do you constantly ruminate or on the decision well,
maybe it could be better, maybe this is a little worse.

Speaker 2 (23:14):
It's kind of a hard question because I've done both things,
and I might do one or the other. But I
like to think that, yes, I would be able to
make a decision and walk away.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
Okay, because that's a classic OCD thing. Yeah, so you
have your washing your hands, you have touching the doorknob.
What else would you classify as your OCD?

Speaker 2 (23:42):
That's it? I mean, you know what I other people
consider OCD. I might not like I like things in order.
I like things to be organized. I probably got that
from my dad because he was like that, you know,
I don't like clutter. I don't think that's OCD though.

Speaker 1 (24:03):
That's just Okay, we're having dinner. We're having dinner, but
we're just talking. The silverware is laid out, and you
notice that my silverware is askew. Are you going to
reach over and straighten it?

Speaker 2 (24:14):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (24:19):
And do you ever get in OCD loops and are
tortured by it?

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (24:28):
And what do you do to get out of the loop?
If anything?

Speaker 2 (24:32):
Well, hand sanitizer has been a game changer because then
I don't necessarily have to find water and soap to
wash my hands. I can just put you know, sprint,
some hand sanitizer on, and then I'm good to go.
So it saves a lot of time. But I need
to have one of those with me all the time.

(24:53):
It's like my little drug or my little you know,
kind of it calms me down.

Speaker 1 (25:00):
But let's say you're home alone, you're not going anywhere,
and you wash your hands. How long will it take
you to wash your hands?

Speaker 2 (25:09):
Oh? You probably read that book Boy who Couldn't Stop washing.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
Well, I'm certainly aware of this, and I have my
own issues. That's why I'm asking.

Speaker 2 (25:17):
Yeah, just a normal time, you know. I mean, I
prefer that the water is hot as opposed to cold.
But even if there's no hot water, I just wash
my hands and go about my day.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Okay. So you have this itinerant lifestyle. Once you hit
your late teams and you don't have great commercial success
for the better part of twenty years, and you're working,
as you say, a lot of low level jobs. You're

(25:57):
working in record stores, et cetera. How did you keep
your mood up?

Speaker 2 (26:06):
Antidepressants? Probably just you know, the group of people I
associated with were fairly up people, and you know, I
tried to surround myself with positive people for the most part.

Speaker 1 (26:29):
Do you take it or did you take antidepressants?

Speaker 2 (26:32):
Yeah? I did, and I do.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
What was the space in between? You were off antidepressants
for a while.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah, Well it took a while before I started taking
them because you know, I didn't have anyone prescribe them.
I mean, it took a while to find, you know,
the right doctor to talk to about it and everything.
But one of them is supposed to target OCD, supposed
to help with that.

Speaker 1 (27:00):
So which one is that?

Speaker 2 (27:02):
Effects or is?

Speaker 1 (27:04):
Okay? Yeah, I know what effects her is.

Speaker 2 (27:06):
Yeah, it's supposed to help with that.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
And you take something along with effects.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Or well, I'm kind of confused right now. That's what
I'm talking to the Dodger about, is whether affectser is
working on its own or if we need to, you know,
add something else or take something else instead. You have

(27:33):
to try out a few different ones to see which
one works better. It sounds like you know this already.

Speaker 1 (27:41):
Yeah, yeah I do, but I know my story. I'm
getting your story. So you know, there's benefits to antidepressants,
but I've never taken a drug without side effects. So
do you find the antidepressants negative affect you in any way,

(28:01):
creatively or in other ways.

Speaker 2 (28:05):
No, it's I've just felt the positive effects which have
been just lifting me out of this black I used
to call it a black cloud. You know that kind
of settles over you and you know, just or having

(28:25):
a sense of well being.

Speaker 1 (28:30):
Was this something you felt from a young age.

Speaker 2 (28:35):
I've probably had problems with that at a young age,
but just didn't recognize didn't know what it was, you know,
just I probably looked at it more as mood swings,
you know, that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Were you ever in existential despair? Like maybe obviously you
didn't commit suicide because you're still here, But was that
something you say like, man, I just can't take it anymore.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
I felt like, man, I can't take it anymore. But
that was as far as it when it was that thought.
We've all felt that way.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
I certainly think so. You know, it's hard to get
an honest take from somebody. Let's switch gears to the beginning.
You're born in Louisiana, your father ends up working in Arkansas.
What the people from the north not get about those
states in the South.

Speaker 2 (29:32):
Thank you for asking that. That's the million dollar question. Well,
what they don't get is that we're not all backwards.
We're not all lazy or stupid or uneducated. We're not
all races, okay, And I mean I was doing this

(29:58):
kind of goes along with what you're at. I was
doing an event one time where I was being interviewed
in front of an audience, and I played some songs
and then the interview is done as part of the performance,
and then the audience was allowed to ask me questions afterwards.

(30:20):
And this woman leaned over and very seriously she asked.
She said, you know, I would really love to travel
down south sometime. But she said, what I really want
to know is is it safe? Right? I mean that
was of serious. That was you know, is it safe? Well,

(30:45):
you know that answers your question right there.

Speaker 1 (30:48):
Well, I lived with a woman for years who was
from Tallahassee, which certainly you can go back a couple
of decades was more Georgia than South, and there were
certain certain things who were defined. She would say, you know,
it's getting cold in here. It took me a long

(31:09):
time race that man raised the window. We're in the north.
We would say, can you raise the window? But there
would always be these little kids surround that you got
to pick up them.

Speaker 2 (31:20):
That's funny.

Speaker 1 (31:24):
And her father was extremely successful financially and ran in
that crowd and drinking was part of the culture. It
was not a class thing whatsoever.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
No, No, that's not a class thing because I grew
up with around all our of riders and they can
certainly drink, they know how to drink. Yeah, I learned
how to drink probably, you know, hanging around in that crowd.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
And to what degree were you and still a consumer
of alcohol?

Speaker 2 (32:08):
Not anymore than socially, you know, So you don't have.

Speaker 1 (32:14):
An addictive personality?

Speaker 2 (32:16):
No, well I don't know. Maybe I do, but but
I didn't get addicted to anything.

Speaker 1 (32:26):
So we're the exact same age. You're growing up in
Louisiana in the fifties and early sixties. What is it like?
You say your family didn't have that much money, but
you weren't aware of it. Were you into the modern
music where you're listening to the Beach Boys in the
Four Seasons where you're watching my three sons? What was

(32:47):
everyday life like?

Speaker 2 (32:50):
Well, you know, we all wanted it to be like
leave it to Beaver, but it was not Leave it
to beaver. You know, there was no mom in a
nice dress, wearing heels, fitzing dinner and that sort of thing.
You know, it was a little it could be a
little chaotic at times. You know. There was my dad,

(33:13):
who was a poet and a college professor, not making
that much money, married to a woman who had was
dealing with mental illness a lot, and then three kids,
you know, running around. I don't know how he did it.
I mean, he would still be writing. I remember looking

(33:35):
seeing him sitting in a corner of the in the
living room with his head bent down over a padded paper.
You know. He was either reading or writing all the time.

Speaker 1 (33:49):
So he could tune out the chaos.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Yeah, yeah, he could tune out the chaos. And I
wish I'd learned how to do that.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
So you're someone who needs your own space, can't be interrupted.

Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, But my dad, at the same time, he was
very we really bonded from an early age, and he
was there for me, you know, when my mother might
have just not been able to deal with things on
any given day, and my dad was always there. You know,

(34:25):
he was very he stayed very aware, and he was
very open minded and you know, very intelligent and understood
what was going on. You know. He was very empathetic
towards my mother is the thing. So you know, we

(34:47):
didn't go up with this feeling of you know, he
always said to the kids I had, there were three
of us, I was the oldest. He always said to us,
her fault. She can't help it, she's not well, you know,
so we had somewhere to put it.

Speaker 1 (35:10):
Did your parents ultimately break up because your father met
someone new or it was time?

Speaker 2 (35:22):
That's a good question, because he did meet someone new,
but I think that was after they were already broken up.
I think it was because it was time.

Speaker 1 (35:33):
And how hard was that for him.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
I don't remember it being, you know, really heavy and
traumatic or anything. As a kid, I remember feeling almost relieved,
you know, because there have been so much yelling and
fighting and all of that that I think I was
kind of relieved that that would be over with, you know,

(35:58):
we wouldn't have to listen to the arguing all the time.

Speaker 1 (36:04):
So your mother moves out. How much contact do you
have with your mother then?

Speaker 2 (36:09):
Quite a bit. She lived in New Orleans. After that,
she stayed, she loved it. She was from Louisiana, originally,
and her family was all there. So she lived in
New Orleans and I would go visit her from time
to time and stay at her apartment, and you know,

(36:31):
we were close. You know, it was a challenging relationship
and difficult at times, but you know I loved her
and I knew she loved me, and you know, there
wasn't any acting out or anything on her part with me.

(36:53):
She saved that for my dad.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
So when she moved out, she lived far away, New Orleans.

Speaker 2 (37:00):
And how often we were in Baton Rouge? Okay, the
university LSU Louisiana State University is located there, and that's
when my dad was teaching, So we were living there,
and she lived in New Orleans, which is right next
to Baton Rouge. It's an easy drive.

Speaker 1 (37:23):
And how often would you see her, I don't know,
probably once a month or something. And how often would
you talk to her?

Speaker 2 (37:37):
Maybe once a week, It's hard to remember.

Speaker 1 (37:40):
And when you interacted with her, did you end up
being the parent.

Speaker 2 (37:46):
Sometimes? Yeah? I know all about that stuff.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
Okay, So your father brings home one of his students
who is not even half a generation older than you are,
and you're just hitting puberty yourself. How'd you cope with that?
And could you ever accept it?

Speaker 2 (38:13):
It was difficult. I didn't. I tried to cope with it,
but again, it was one of those kind of strained
relationships where you know, I've wanted it to be a
certain way, but it was you know, you can't really
take those things and force them into a certain place,

(38:34):
you know. I think she was trying really hard, maybe
too hard, to you know, fill this certain role, and
I think I felt I remember feeling a little intimidated,
a little shy around her, you know.

Speaker 1 (38:57):
And then as a young person in your living in Chile,
what's it like being an American living in Chile in
a you know, a pre you know, modern technology era.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
Yeah, Well, we had a stereo system and I had
Beatles albums. I was able to get a hold of
him somehow or another and was listening to those NonStop.
And there was a chile and folks sing were by
the name of Violeta Potta, who I discovered while I

(39:33):
was living there, who I just absolutely loved, and she
was kind of like the John Bayez of Chile. My
dad was friends with. Her brother was the poet nikon
Or PoTA, who my dad was, became close friends with
and that's how I discovered VIOLETA. Potter.

Speaker 1 (39:55):
Let's go back, how did you discover the Beatles?

Speaker 2 (40:00):
Are we hearing them on the radio and falling in
love with the songs and eventually, you know, getting the
albums and or the singles?

Speaker 1 (40:10):
Were you definitely a Beatles girl as opposed to the
Rolling Stones?

Speaker 2 (40:15):
Yeah? I was a Beatles girl and then I was
a Rolling Stones squirl. I mean it sort of happened
at the same time, you know, But I loved the
Rolling Stones, loved and loved them.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
Okay, So if you were in high school, how would
you be described? What kind of person?

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Creative? Friendly, cute?

Speaker 1 (40:45):
Well? Were you one of those people they say, well,
she's hip and cool, but she's hangs with the yard crowd,
or she hangs with us, she's one of us, or
she's you know, two cool, she's hanging with the cheerleaders.
Where were you?

Speaker 2 (41:01):
No, God, I was not with the cheerleaders. I was
not with the with the gym crowd. You know. The
working out I failed. I got zero's in Jim. I
hated it. I tried to be on the girls softball
team and that failed. Miserably because they were so competitive

(41:23):
and so mean spirited. I didn't like mean spirited people.
I actually had a lot of guys as friends and
I would hang out with them a lot.

Speaker 1 (41:37):
Are you physically active, No, you had a stroke, But
before and after that, are you physically active?

Speaker 2 (41:44):
Yeah? Right now I'm working out with the trainer and
lifting weights in the gym. It's a combination. I'm working
with somebody who's a physical fitness trainer as well as
a physical therapist.

Speaker 1 (42:07):
Okay, so what point do you pick up the guitar?

Speaker 2 (42:12):
When I was twelve ninety sixty five, which is the
height of the folk music boom, which I was really into.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
And tell me about moving to Mexico.

Speaker 2 (42:32):
Yeah, that was my dad received a grant to go
teach in Mexico for a year and live there or
for a year. That's a lot of the reasons we
were in other countries was he would receive these, you know,
visiting professorship grants. I'm not sure what they were called,

(42:55):
but some kind of grant to go live in another
country and teach there, work there for the time he
was there.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
And do you speak fluent Spanish?

Speaker 2 (43:07):
I can get by. I wouldn't say it was fluid,
but you know, because I forget a lot of my verbs.
If I lived somewhere for a while right now where
I had to speak Spanish all the time, I would
probably it would improve.

Speaker 1 (43:26):
Okay, So you get a guitar. Is it a nylon
string wide necked folk guitar? Is it a narrow string
steel guitar?

Speaker 2 (43:35):
It's a it's an acoustic, but just a regular steel
string acoustic guitar from what I understand, from what I remember,
one of my dad's writing friends, his name was Bill Harrison.
He wrote a book called Rollerball, which was made into

(43:56):
a movie, and another book called Pretty Baby, which was
made into a movie also, And he was a really
close old friend of my dad's. And from what I understand,
he had left a guitar. He had this old broken
guitar that he left at the house one day and

(44:17):
I picked it up and just you know, looked at
it and tried to play it a little. My dad
saw me have an interest in it and he bought
me a Dad ended up buying me a silver tone
guitar from Sears and Roebuck. That was my first guitar.

Speaker 1 (44:37):
And how did you learn how to play it.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
Well, I got dad got me this guy to come
over once a week who taught guitar lessons, and he
was he had a rock band in town, and he
was also a creative writing student. So he had been
he had been at some of my dad's classes, and

(45:01):
I guess they had been talking, and you know, he said, well,
I give guitar lesson. So, you know, my dad arrange
for her to come over the house once a week
and sit with me and give me guitar lessons. And
it took okay.

Speaker 1 (45:19):
So in the mid to late sixties, someone would play
the guitar. You would go to somebody's house and everybody
would sit there and would sing. Were you the person
who would bring the guitar and sing?

Speaker 2 (45:32):
Yeah, I was the person who would bring. Or they
would come over our house and we'd be sitting around
in the living room. My dad would lean over to
me and say, honey, why don't you go get your
guitar and come sing a couple of songs. He was
real proud of me, and I guess he kind of
liked to show me off a little bit. And I

(45:55):
would go and get my guitar. You know, it would
be in another room of the house, and so I'd
go get it and come back, and so I had
a What that meant was that my first audience was
comprised of these brilliant minds, you know, these writers who
knew everything there was to know about literature and writing,

(46:18):
and they're listening to me, and you know, I mean
I was still developing, trying to find my voice. And
what I remember at the very beginning was, you know,
people coming over to me and saying, kind of patting

(46:39):
my shoulder, is saying, you know, telling me I had soul,
which basically meant I wasn't there yet, but keep going
because there was something there. You know, they could hear
something in there, even though I hadn't perfected it yet.

(47:00):
I mean, I certainly wasn't joined by Azer Judy Collins.

Speaker 1 (47:05):
What's the difference between Louisiana and Arkansas, Baton Rouge and Fayetteville.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
That is such a good question. I wish more people
would ask questions like that, because you know, a lot
of people think the South is it's all the same
in the South, and that's so not true. It's probably
similar to like I want I might ask or wonder,
what's the difference between Maryland and Connecticut or something like that.

(47:41):
You know, well, the food would be, you know, the
food that was the history of food that you know.
I mean, these are modern times now, so you might
not find this true now, but like back in the

(48:01):
fifties and sixties, you could probably find more of a
difference between the states. But I mean that's true everywhere.
I think. Now, you know, things have become more homogenized,
and you know, like the strip malls across America and
that sort of thing. Those have taken over. So now

(48:25):
you can't tell the difference as much. But back when
you had the mom and pop stores and the mom
and pop cafes and restaurants, that's when you would be
able to tell the difference more. Probably like Louisiana, you
would find more seafood and shell fish dishes that kind

(48:45):
of thing. You know. Well, it's because of the Cajun influence,
the Creole influence.

Speaker 1 (48:55):
And what was Faydeville like, And.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
It was a beautiful, almost ideal with little town sitting
in the Ozarks, an incredibly beautiful area the Ozark Mountains,
you know, and the campus was a beautiful campus, very
progressive town. Like if you were going to live in Arkansas,

(49:24):
you would want to live in Fayetteville, probably because politically
it was more progressive than the rest of the state.
You know, Bill Clinton was from Arkansas and he and
my dad got to be friends.

Speaker 1 (49:40):
When did they become friends winning Bill's.

Speaker 2 (49:42):
Career, well, probably during the time I think when he
was governor and at a certain point then during that
time and and you know, there have been some really

(50:03):
talented famous people from Arkansas at Glenn Campbell and the
people there are just really cool, friendly. It seems to
be a creative bunch. But that might be because I was,

(50:26):
you know, we were my dad was at the university there,
and it was a college town, and you know, like
most college towns, there are a lot of progressive people
living there or working at the university or students going
to school there. You know, so lots of pot smoking,

(50:49):
lots of the seventies was a pretty really creative time
to be there. There are a lot of hippies people
moving there because they could get land pretty cheaply, and
you know, these the hippie tots would be moving there

(51:10):
and building these little cabins out in the country and
that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (51:16):
You keep on talking about your father's friends. Was he
the type of person who was collecting friends in the
center of the universe, always had an entourage. What was
that going on?

Speaker 2 (51:27):
Yes, he loved he loved to do that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
And what was the food like back in the day
in Arkansas as opposed to Louisiana.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
It was probably more well, of course, depending on where
you went, but the native food would have been, you know,
like country cooking, you know, tam bashed potatoes, black eyed peas,

(52:07):
that sort of thing.

Speaker 1 (52:09):
Okay, you're in an era, you're a little young, but
this is when all the racial stuff is happening in
the South. A lot is happening in Mississippi. Yeah, there's
a lot happening in Memphis, was just over the river
from Arkansas. What was your experience with racial unrest and
the quest for equal rights for all?

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Yeah, well, I mean I remember it being just part
of the culture. There was a white's only sign. I
remember as when I was in high school. I'd seen
it somewhere on the outside of a shop. It said

(52:53):
whites only, or you know, you would see that from
time to time. And my boyfriend and I jumped at
our bicules and rode over there was spray spray painted
over it. And my high school was I was very
active as a teenager protest movements and marches and demonstrations

(53:17):
and all of that. I jumped into all of that
with great fervor. And my high school. A couple of
times I showed up at school and the kids would
be marching around the school as a protest. It was
almost like the union or it was almost like a

(53:38):
picket line where you didn't want to cross through, you know.

Speaker 1 (53:42):
Okay. I was living in Connecticut at that particular time,
and there was a lot big social movement. We were protesting,
and there were people on the other side, but we
get the impression as you went down South, the people
on the other side had more fervor, were more pissed

(54:03):
about the people who were progressive. Is that true?

Speaker 2 (54:09):
You mean the people who are the racist people?

Speaker 1 (54:12):
Well, yeah, the people who didn't like you protesting.

Speaker 2 (54:17):
Oh you mean racist rednecks in the South. Yes, go
ahead and say it, go ahead and say that's okay.

Speaker 1 (54:27):
So what was it like being you know, you're a
big liberal protesting against the war and for women's rights, etc.
What are the racist rednecks have to say about that?

Speaker 2 (54:39):
They weren't real happy, just like you said. I think
that was a global issue, you know, at the time.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
So you moved to Mexico with your father, and you
don't go to school, no.

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Because I couldn't. I'd been keep out of school for
being involved in these demonstrations in Marshes and as a
form of protest. One morning in school, I refused to
save the pledge of allegiance because we're in Vietnam, and
I was kicked. They added that to my suspension and

(55:22):
I went home and my dad said, that's okay, honey,
We'll get you an ACLU lawyer, you know, and he did,
and it proved to be unconstitutional. So I got let
back in school. But because i'd been suspended or expelled,
I didn't have my pay proper paperwork to be able

(55:43):
to get into school in Mexico. So I was just
out of school the entire year that I would have
been a senior in high school. And I just read.
I became a voracious reader, and you know, listen to
my records and play guitar and learned songs and I

(56:07):
was very productive actually during that year out of school.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
So are you still a big reader today?

Speaker 2 (56:15):
Probably? Not as much, because I had so much more
free time back then than I do now. It's usually
now a toss up between reading or working on a song.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
Okay, you're in Mexico. This is when you first start
to play out. Yeah, how did that happen?

Speaker 2 (56:38):
Well, that was me sitting in the living room performing
with There was a friend of the families who his
name was Clark Jones, who we'd met in Arkansas, or
meeting in New Orleans when we were living there, and
I think he was a friend of my mother's in
the beginning. And he was a folk, a bonafide folk,

(56:59):
and he's sort of reminded me of somebody like Pete Seeger.
He could play multiple instruments, guitar, ukulele, auto harp, and
he knew all these old folk songs, the traditional folk songs,

(57:22):
and so we would sit around and play music in
the house. And he came to visit us in Mexico
and we were performing in the living room for friends
of the families, friends of my dad's. One of the
guys who was over at the house at night worked
for the State Department, and Clark and I sat and

(57:43):
sang some songs and the State department. Guy said to
my dad, Wow, this sounds pretty they sound pretty good.
What if we I've got an idea, why don't we?
Min Or and I try to get set up some
shows for them to perform around Mexico at different schools

(58:08):
and places. And he figured it would be a good
you know, like an ambassadorship kind of, you know, a
good way to improved the relationship between the United States
and Mexico. And so that's what we did. So Clark

(58:31):
drove his little car and I sat in the front seat,
and we stayed in motels and roadside ends and you know,
and did these shows as a duo Clark Jones. They
called me Cindy Williams back then, and the Mexican audience

(58:53):
just loved it. They just ate it up. We did
Bob Dylan songs at Peter Paul and Mary and I
wasn't really riding at that time.

Speaker 1 (59:04):
And you were living in Mexico where you're smoking dope.

Speaker 2 (59:09):
Yeah. I used to help meet with these kids in
the park not too far from our house, and these
Mexican hippie kids smoke pot and they would always try
to get me to go to Wahaka for the mushrooms,
you know, they would say, come on, Tony was you know,

(59:34):
we have to go to Wahaca for the mushrooms. And
there was this one guy who I was attracted to,
and he kept saying he wanted to tenero sexel qiero sexel,
I want to have sex. And you know, I knew
what that meant at the time, but it wasn't going

(59:56):
to happen. And my dad found out I was smoking
pot in the park and he got upset, not because
of the pot, but he said, you know, I could
get deported and lose my job and it would just
mess everything up. And he was more comfortable with me
staying at home doing these things, you know, drinking and

(01:00:17):
smoking pot or whatever.

Speaker 1 (01:00:20):
You come back from Mexico, you finish high school, you
go to college for like ten minutes, and you drop out.
In the book you say that your father says, it's okay.
I mean, on the surface, your father's an academic. Both
your parents are college graduates. What do they say about
their oldest daughter says no way.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Well, yeah, my dad was very patient and empathetic when
it came to grades. When I was in high school,
for instance, I didn't do well in math I did.
I did well in languages. Not good with numbers, good

(01:01:02):
with language, you know. And he was saying, well, that's okay.
As long as I was good in certain things, as
long as I was thriving in certain subjects, he was okay.
He didn't expect me to be one hundred percent with everything,
and he just he understood. He just got things, he understood.

(01:01:24):
That's why one reason I loved it and looked up
to him so much. This I'm not sure about. I'm
not sure when you were talking about when I went
to college for ten minutes.

Speaker 1 (01:01:37):
Well, I mean it sounds like from one of the
book that you went for like a semester and then
you went dropped out, went to New Orleans.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
Something like that. Yeah. I went for about a year
to the University of Arkansas, and then at mid semester,
I went and visited my mother in New Orleans, and
I was offered this job and a little little place
called Andy's on Bourbon Street. And that was when I

(01:02:06):
called my dad and I was supposed to go back
to school in the fall. This would have been in
the summer, but I wanted to stay in New Orleans
and play music at this little place for tips instead
of going back to school. And he said, okay, he

(01:02:26):
just got it. He understood because he was an artist also,
he was a poet.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
When did you have the inspiration that you would be
a professional musician, that you wanted to be an artist?

Speaker 2 (01:02:47):
Yeah, well there was the time when I wanted to
be the feeling of I want to do this, and
then there was I'm actually going to make this happen
or this is actually going to happen. You know, those
were two different times.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Well, tell me about those two times.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
Well, the first time was when I was twelve or
twelve and a half and I heard Highway sixty one
were visited for the first time, which was also the
first time I heard Bob Dylan, and it, you know,
just rearranged my brain cells. I didn't understand all the

(01:03:25):
lyrics at the time, but it didn't matter. You know.
It had an effect on me in a big way,
and I decided at that point that I wanted to
be able to write songs like that and do what
he was doing. And what I saw him doing was
taking basically taking something like poetry and setting it to

(01:03:55):
folk rock music. And I just the comment of those
two things just completely blew my mind and I understood
it on some level, even though it was only twelve,
but I understood what he was doing artistically musically, and

(01:04:16):
it really appealed to me.

Speaker 1 (01:04:18):
So that was the inspiration. When did you say this
is a direction I'm going to go?

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
That was the same time. That was the inspiration and
the direction I wanted to go.

Speaker 1 (01:04:35):
So when you're in New Orleans playing for tips, what's
going through your mind in terms of your career?

Speaker 2 (01:04:42):
Probably that you know, I was playing performing by myself,
accompanying myself on guitar that maybe, you know, wouldn't it
be great if I had a band like Bob Dylan
had or something like that, you know, Or wouldn't it
be great if people were listening instead of talking in
the audience. And then over time, you know, that happened.

(01:05:07):
I put a band together, and then you know, I
remember the first time I performed somewhere when people actually
knew who I was and listened.

Speaker 1 (01:05:18):
And when was that?

Speaker 2 (01:05:24):
Probably the eighties, sometime like maybe after that Reugh Trade
album came out.

Speaker 1 (01:05:30):
So that was a long time where they weren't listening. Yeah,
tell us about making the two Folk wse albums.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Yeah, those were that was almost a well. I remember
there was a friend of mine who had met in
New Orleans by the name of Jeff Ampulsk, and he
had recorded an album. He was a singer songwriter, you know,
not known or anything. He was just getting started and

(01:05:58):
he had made an album for Folkways, and he and
I were talking on the phone one day. I was
at my dad's house in Fayetteville and Jeff and I
were on the phone and he said, you know, you
could probably make a record for folk Ways. And I said, really,
you think so? And he said, yeah, I just send
him a cassette tape and I bet they'll like it

(01:06:20):
and they'll make a record with you. And I said okay.
So he gave me their information and I made a
little cassette tape of songs and sent it to Moe
Ash at folk Ways Records, and sure enough they sent
me back a one page contract and a check for

(01:06:41):
two hundred and fifty dollars, and I managed to, with
the help of some friends, managed to scrape together some
studio time at Malaco Studios in Jackson, Mississippi. Because my
dad had a close friend who had connects there. He

(01:07:02):
helped make that happen. So I went down there and
recorded my first album, which was called Rambling on my Mind.
After that Bob d I mean after that Robert Johnson's song,
and I went in one afternoon just with another guy
named John Grimauda who is from Houston, Texas. He played

(01:07:25):
really good blues guitar and he played he accompanied me
on on the songs.

Speaker 1 (01:07:32):
So you have finished the tape, you sent it to
folk Way's Records. If you went to your local record store,
did they have it.

Speaker 2 (01:07:42):
Well, eventually they did. You know, if they carried records
like that, yeah, they would have it. The independent record
stores would have it usually.

Speaker 1 (01:07:52):
Well, did you feel any buzz from having made that record.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
Just locally? You know, maybe locally and regionally around you
know where I was, where I would be playing live.
Eventually I moved to Austin, Texas, and I lived in
Austin and Houston for a number of years, and that's
where I would have felt that little buzz, just on

(01:08:20):
that level.

Speaker 1 (01:08:22):
So you go to New York. You have these two guys,
they put up money for a demo. No one wants
to make a record with you, and you know, do
you ever think man, I'm gonna hang it up.

Speaker 2 (01:08:37):
It crossed my mind, but I didn't want to. I
just I don't know. I guess I was, well, I
see expression fool hardy and something fancy free and fool
hardy or something, you know. I just I felt like
it was going to happen at some point because I
had all these people around me encouraging me a lot,

(01:09:00):
and that kept me going.

Speaker 1 (01:09:03):
Meanwhile, you're working minimum wage jobs. Yeah, minimum wage jobs
are not that fun.

Speaker 2 (01:09:10):
No, But you know, every other musician I knew was
working those kind of jobs, and it just came with
the you know, it's part of the package. That's just
what you have to do.

Speaker 1 (01:09:26):
So you weren't saying I'd like to have a house
a new car. You were saying, this is what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:33):
Yeah, I mean I was probably thinking that in the
back of my mind.

Speaker 1 (01:09:41):
And then tell us about moving to La.

Speaker 2 (01:09:46):
Well, I had some close friends who were real supportive
of me and my music, and one of them was
trying to become a manager in the music business. See,
he actually ended up working with me for a little
bit and he encouraged me to come out there. You know,

(01:10:08):
I think I just went initially went out there to play.
He helped set up a gig for me out there,
But in the back of my mind, I think I
was thinking I was probably gonna stay. I didn't know
for sure, but I went out there and I actually
liked it a lot. I like the people on that

(01:10:30):
I like the weather. Of course, everybody says that it's true,
but the music scene was really viable and exciting. I
felt like there are a lot of great artists playing
around the city at that time, like Dave Alvin and
the Blasters, and you know, the local music scene was

(01:10:53):
just fabulous at that time in Houston, and it was
very eclectic. You know, there were these different kinds of
music that were blending together, and bands like The Lonesome
Strangers who played a hybrid of you know, a hybrid

(01:11:15):
version of country and punk. They used to call it cowpunk.
You know. It's kind of like country music sped up
real fast, and I would open shows for those guys sometimes,
and you know, Rosie Flores was getting going, you know,

(01:11:36):
she was creating a pretty good buzz, and Dwight Yoakum
was getting ready to hit really big at that time,
and then there were all these other like on the
fringe kind of rock bands like Grin on Red and
Blood on the Saddle, and they were kind of pump
based roots like roots of music mixed with punk kind

(01:11:59):
of well punk Israeli roots music initially. But you know,
so that was going on a lot back then, So
there was an openness happening in that scene that it
really appealed to me, and a lot of places to play.

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
Okay, just to be clear, you said, you said, you
mean lost. This is all happening in Los Angeles. But
the late seventies early eighties, there's a ton of bands,
all the acts you mentioned, and there's a thin layer
that gets signed and then the others seemed to work
for a while and then spread apart, but you don't

(01:12:42):
get a deal, right, How depressing is yeah?

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
Yeah, I mean, you know, it's interesting because that hybrid
thing that I was talking about also could have applied
to me because I was met sing country with rock,
you know, but or they said, actually I fell on
the cracks between country and rock, and you know, they

(01:13:09):
didn't know what to.

Speaker 1 (01:13:10):
Do with that, you know, And you mentioned this in
the book that the record company people are full of
shit and don't know what's going on. But did you
ever sit at home and say, I know what they're
looking for. I'm going to write a hit, and that'll
get my foot in the door.

Speaker 2 (01:13:26):
You know, that's just it, Bob. I didn't know how
to write a hit. I would love to write a
hit song if I could figure out how to do it,
you know. But no, I didn't think that because I
was an died in the wool rebel. I think I
was probably born a rebel.

Speaker 1 (01:13:46):
Okay, it's seventy years old. Are you still a rebel?

Speaker 2 (01:13:49):
Hell?

Speaker 1 (01:13:49):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:13:52):
Or as they say, hell to the yell?

Speaker 1 (01:13:56):
How would that manifest itself at everyday life?

Speaker 2 (01:14:01):
Oh? God, you probably need to talk to people who
live with me. I don't know. I've just you know,
the record you have to remember like back then at least,
and it's still that way, I guess to some degree.
But you know, there was that feeling of them and us.
You know, it's like we're the artists. You know, we're

(01:14:23):
the creators, we're the magic makers. Those guys are the
corporate business makers, and they don't know anything about creativity
and art and music or anything, you know, record company people,
you know, they're just it's there was this wall between

(01:14:46):
the artists and the record company guys. Which isn't to
say that there weren't some really good people in the
record company business. There were some great ones, and still
are some good ones, but far and few between. You know,
most of them were thinking about the dollar, not how

(01:15:06):
creative something or how good something is creatively.

Speaker 1 (01:15:10):
You know, from my perch at this late date, the
artists changed. Where the rebel spirit that you embody and
was in Texas for a few decades, everybody moved to
the center. It's almost like politics. It's like, you know,
the mainstream Democrat was let me say, like Nixon would

(01:15:31):
be a Democrat today, which is hard to believe.

Speaker 2 (01:15:35):
God, that's a scary thought.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
All the artists, you know, Yeah, they don't want to
be too edgy, you know, or else there are people
with no talent or complaining and that's all thing unto itself.

Speaker 2 (01:15:47):
Yeah, because you have to have if you're going to complain,
you have to have something to bring to the table.
That's the name of that game. You have to have
something they want before you can make demands. I figured
that out out early on.

Speaker 1 (01:16:01):
You know, So you end up making a record for
rough Trade. Yeah, Now, granted it was a different era
back then. Today everything's been blown apart. But everybody who
knew what Rough Trade was, which was basically an English company,
would say, if you're playing roots to find music, this

(01:16:22):
could be the worst label to ever make a deal with.

Speaker 2 (01:16:27):
Well you might think that, but they were so much
more creative based and open minded than any of the
other labels who were approaching me. You know, most of
a lot of the labels were who passed on me
were major labels, but even the really small other labels

(01:16:47):
passed on me, like Rounder Records and Rhino Records, which
was signing people at the time, sugar Hill Records, you know,
all those small folky, kind of rootsy labels. Except for
Rough Trade. They were the only ones who basically approached

(01:17:09):
me and said, we like your voice, we like your songs,
let's make a record. They'd never seen me perform live before,
unlike Rounder Records. You came to see me play at
this dive bar in La and Hollywood on the fourth
of July or something, and I had a bunch of

(01:17:30):
the Longwriders guys sitting in with me. You know, it's
a drunken, crazy night fourth of July, and they came
to see me play, and you know, afterwards I talked
to him and they said, well, we just don't thinking
ready to go on the road yet, you know, because

(01:17:53):
my stage presence with the band wasn't polished enough. Basically
it's rock and roll, man, Come on, god, what happened
to that? Like you were saying, you know, would that
have happened back in the day in the sixties?

Speaker 1 (01:18:10):
You know, when well the sixties, the executives woke up
and said, we have no fucking idea, and they hired
young people the so called my air Quotes label hippie
and then then there became so much money in the seventies.
And then by time this a little bit later, by
time you hit the Tommy Mottola era at Sony, you know,

(01:18:31):
the label head start wearing suits and they think they're
the stars.

Speaker 2 (01:18:36):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:18:36):
So, but the Rough Rough Trade album comes out. It
is the most successful American act Rough Trade ever has
And it's not like it explodes, but it becomes a
real cult item, and as years go by, it gets
gains even more and more respect. What was it like

(01:18:57):
being the artist in that world?

Speaker 2 (01:19:00):
It was awesome. It was great. I mean, the reviews
were coming in the critics loved it. I was getting
all this publicity and exposure, you know, for the first time.
And ANDTRA I mean they were just a great little label.
You know. They were independent though, and they didn't have

(01:19:21):
the of course, the financial you know, they just didn't
have the funds that are bigger label would have, so
certain things they weren't able to do as well, like
they didn't have as big of a staff, and they
had trouble getting the albums shipped to record stores. You know,

(01:19:44):
the record stores wouldn't order enough albums, you know, they
just order a few, whereas if you're on Sony Records
or something like that, you know, the record stores order
an enormous amount because you know, you're on a big
label and there's more guarantee they think that it's going
to sell in the store. You know. So there was

(01:20:07):
there were a few drawbacks like that, but just in
terms of the heart and spirit of the label, Rough
Trade was just you know, miles ahead of any of
those other labels at the time. They sent me to
Europe on tour. I mean, they really invested quite a
bit in me.

Speaker 1 (01:20:29):
Were you making any money or you were famous and broke.

Speaker 2 (01:20:32):
No famous and broke, so.

Speaker 1 (01:20:36):
You sign up, sign, you make a deal with Bob
Booziak at RCA, he gets squeezed out, then he goes
to Chameleon Pritzker's label. And how did you feel about
that album coming out?

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
Well, first of all, I loved Bobbyziak. He was one
of the good guys, you know, even though he was
running a big major label RCAA, but he had the
mentality more of an independent record guy, you know, So
I felt really good about him, which is basically the
only He's the only reason I ever went to RCA

(01:21:16):
that had real mixed feelings about it, because I was
on Rough Trade and RCA, you know, jumped in and
wanted to sign me. And you know, I didn't want
to abandon Rough Trade because they had opened the door
for me when nobody else would. So when that became

(01:21:37):
a whole other story. When I went with RCAA. You
may have heard the story about the A and R guy.
He was appointed to me and when we were we
were rehearsing with my band at the time to get
ready to go in the studio and start the I
think it was the Sweet Old World album would have

(01:21:58):
been the next one, yeah, Yeah, and the A and
R guy. His name is sorry, I'm gonna say his name,
Bob booziakran the label. He was in the no I'm sorry, Yeah,
Bennett Kaufman was my He was that he had been
appointed the head of A and R for the entire

(01:22:19):
West coast of the United States, you know. And we're
in this in rehearsal studio going over the songs with
the band and everything, and we started talking about producers
and I mentioned Bob Johnson, at which point he asked,
who's Bob Johnson? Well, right there, you know, we've got

(01:22:40):
a problem. Who's Bob Johnson? And I said, well, you know,
he produced Blonde on Blonde And he goes, and I
swear that I'm serious as a heart attack. He says, oh,
Blonde don Blonde? Is that a band? And I feel
bad when I tell this story in a way because
I feel like I just I'm you know, joking at

(01:23:03):
his expense.

Speaker 1 (01:23:07):
But it's very disheartening when they own you.

Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
It's very disheartening. And I feel stuck and trapped, and
I'm thinking, Okay, I've got to work with this guy now,
you know. And it was just I was shocked. We
were all shocked. The guys in the band and I
just all looked at each other and rolled our eyes, like,
I mean, this guy's credibility went out the window. You know,

(01:23:32):
I'm never going to be able to communicate with or
connect with him.

Speaker 1 (01:23:38):
So ultimately, you make a deal with Rick Rubin. What's
your take on Rick Rubin?

Speaker 2 (01:23:49):
I was a little intimidated by him at the beginning.
You know, he was a you know, rather large physical presence,
really long wavy hair and a big, long beard. But
he had his sweet nature, very good natured, and I
could tell that he respected what I was doing musically.

(01:24:12):
And you know, who knows what would have happened had
he actually become the producer of my next album. Look
what he did for the Beastie Boys. He invited me
over to his house into the Hollywood Hills, which was
massively impressive along just that alone his home there, and

(01:24:36):
we sat around in his living room with the stereo
system and all these records piled up in CDs, and
he said, I have an album I want to play you,
and it was PJ. Harvey's. It might have been her
first album, I'm not sure. It was the one that

(01:24:56):
The Edge produced. And he's you know, he's this is
what I have in mind for you kind of that's
what he told me. I think he got me basically,
but I think he also saw more possibilities than had

(01:25:18):
been explored. Maybe.

Speaker 1 (01:25:21):
Okay, even when he does produce you, he's a pretty
hands off guy. You go into the studio, you send
him cassettes. What did he say?

Speaker 2 (01:25:35):
He said, you know, he liked the direction was going in,
but he wanted to it needed at a certain point.
What started to show up was when we were mixing,
you know, that's when he wanted to add keyboards or
at one point we recorded Drunken Angel, he wanted to

(01:25:56):
take one of the verses out because it was too long.
Well that was probably because he never explained, you know,
why is it too long? It was probably too long
for the radio for airplay, you know, because they had
this rule about it can't be longer than whatever it is,
you know, two and a half minutes or something. And

(01:26:18):
he wanted me to remove one of the verses, and
I said, no. See that's the kind of thing. That's
where the rebel thing comes in. But it's not really
it'sn't as much a rebel thing as it is an
artistic decision. I'm not going to take a verse out
of his song because it needs to be in there.
It's part of the story, you know. I don't care

(01:26:40):
if it fits on the radio. Fuck the radio, you know.
I mean, so that was me. So he's saying take
a verse out. I say no, and you know, he
said okay. At least at least I can give him
that he didn't force me or anything.

Speaker 1 (01:27:06):
Has anybody ever told you what to do when they
were right?

Speaker 2 (01:27:13):
That's a good question too. You're just full of them today,
Bob God, I wish I could remember. Yeah, I've guessed.
Maybe the good example, as close as example as I
can get to that would be like maybe I wanted

(01:27:37):
to do a vocal over on a song and was told,
you know, you don't need to do this over again.
It's fine, it's great, you're singing your ass off, and
it was, you know, and then I would try to
sing it over, you know, But then I realized, yeah,
they're right, it's done. I don't need to try to

(01:27:58):
improve it, you know. But the point WHI is and
was though that I might maybe I just want to
try to do it again just for my own satisfaction,
and that would be the difference between people. When I
was working at the studio, like when I worked with
Charlie Sexton on the Essence album. We were working on

(01:28:22):
my song Blue and I felt like I could have
maybe got I could maybe get a better vocal. So
I wanted to try to sing it again and he said, well,
I don't think you need to, but if you want
to go ahead. That was what I wanted someone to say,
not no, you know, just whatever makes you feel comfortable.

Speaker 1 (01:28:42):
Well, I think that's one of the shifts. You know,
after the sixties and the seventies, the record contracts where
we deliver the album. You have to put it out.
Whatever it is. Doesn't mean you have to promote it,
but you have to put it out. Whereas today everybody
at the label thinks they're an expert, when if you're
a true artist, you know, it's a different mentality. So

(01:29:04):
you ultimately put out car wheels on a gravel road,
and that really cements your place in the firmament. Yeah,
the record is done. Did you know that was going
to happen?

Speaker 2 (01:29:19):
No? I did not know because it was so chaotic
getting the record. None that you know. I was insecure.
I wasn't sure about this. I wasn't sure about that.
I was questioning everything. I just hadn't had a whole
lot of experience in the studio making records. This is
what you have to remember, you know, So you know,

(01:29:42):
I was still to me, it was just still this
amazing process and scary process kind of because whatever goes
down there is permanent, that's it, you know. And however,
many thousands of people are going to hear this, and
what if I make a mistake and I can't fix
it or you know, all these kinds of thoughts are

(01:30:03):
running through my head. That's probably my part of my
OCD thing carried over into the studio.

Speaker 1 (01:30:11):
Well, that's why I was asking earlier, you know, whether
you could be satisfied or need to redo it all.
That's where I was going.

Speaker 2 (01:30:18):
Well, I would have a hard time when it came
to my vocal A lot of times, you know, I
would think, oh that I had a flat note there.
I've got to fix it. You know, the producer or
engineer whoever would be saying, no, Lew, it's not flat.
It's fine. You just think it's flat. I could I
understand why you might think it's flat, but I remember

(01:30:39):
my engineer, Dusty Weakeman, when we're working on car wals.
At one point he said with Sunday. He says, you
know the Native American Indians when they would weave a blanket,
they would leave a mistake in the blanket on purpose,
so it wouldn't be perfect, you know. And he used

(01:31:00):
that as an analogy to try to get me to
understand that the idea of imperfection.

Speaker 1 (01:31:09):
Well, there are two things there. I think the imperfections
make the records human. And I could talk a number
of records the imperfections of what make them great. However,
that is classic OCD and is a distorted thought when
something is okay but you can't settle down with it.

Speaker 2 (01:31:28):
Yeah. Yeah, I had that problem in the studio.

Speaker 1 (01:31:34):
So car Wheels comes out. What's your experience?

Speaker 2 (01:31:39):
Well, there were a couple of things on't it. I
didn't like that. I just spread it over, would listen
to and every time I'd just be oh, I hate that.
Every time it would go by, and I didn't think
it sounded good. And then over time, of course it
didn't bother me. But I was completely in awe and

(01:32:00):
shocked when I won that Grammy for Contemporary Best Contemporary
Folk Album. I mean, I was completely I was not
expecting that at all. That blew me out of the water.

Speaker 1 (01:32:17):
Okay. I was talking to my psychiatrist earlier today and
he's older than I am, not a hip guy, and
I say, yeah, well today I'm doing this podcast with
Louse send to Williams goes, Oh, he knew who you were.
So that showed that you permeate the culture. Did you?
Did you? Did you start to feel that?

Speaker 2 (01:32:42):
Over time? I started realizing that, you know, something's happening here.
You know, people are hearing this record. My name's getting around.
You know, the critics loved it. I guess I would
have been called the critics darling. Yeah, you know, so

(01:33:03):
I was lucky in that regard.

Speaker 1 (01:33:08):
Okay, you have the success, you win this Grammy. How
hard is it to write songs and go to the
studio next.

Speaker 2 (01:33:17):
Ooh it was hard Because now I'm thinking about it
too much. My mind is running away with me, and
I'm thinking, Okay, they loved Carwell's for these reasons. But
these particular songs that are all narrative, are the songs
that were getting the most attention were narrative songs. Those

(01:33:40):
kinds of songs take a lot of work, or these
particular ones took a lot of work. Songs like Drunken Angel,
late Charles Pintiola, you know, about specific people with really
interesting stories behind them, and those are the kind of
songs I can just whip up, you know. And a

(01:34:01):
lot of the songs in Rough Trade were written during
that down time that I had in silver Lake after
I'd gotten a development deal with Sony Records, and I
had time to sit in my apartment silver Lake and
write songs every day, you know, because I had this
development deal they've given me, which meant, you know, I

(01:34:23):
got to check every month from them. You know, they
give you the funds to live on for six months
or whatever it is, and so you can buy groceries
and pay your rent, and you know, to spend that
time writing working on songs, and then you do a
demo tape at the end of that period, which I

(01:34:43):
did for them, and you know, then they decide if
they're going to give you an actual recording deal or
not based on the demo tape that you do when
you have that after you get the development deal. I
had done that for Sony Records. This guy Ron Oberman

(01:35:05):
was the A and R guy who pulled me in there,
and he was real nice. He was a cool guy.
But then they passed on me basically after I did
the demo tape. This is when that country in Rock
division thing started, because I did that demo tape for
Sony in LA, and Sony in LA said it was

(01:35:28):
too country for rock, so they sent it to Sony
in Nashville, who said it was too rock for country.

Speaker 1 (01:35:36):
In any event, you didn't get a deal. So how
did you feel?

Speaker 2 (01:35:41):
Really disappointed? Because when I first got the development deal,
I thought, well, this is a done deal. You know,
they're gonna sign me. I'm going to make a record
for Sony Records. I'm not going to have to I'm
going to be able to quit my day jobs, and
this is gonna be great. And I was on Cloud
nine and you know, I did the demo tape. Fantastic
musicians on that demo tape. Some of the guys from

(01:36:05):
NRBQ played on it. David Mansfield, the keyboard player from NRBQ,
was on it, and some other really good people, and
you know, I just thought there was this whirlwind of
activity and it felt real positive, and you know then

(01:36:26):
when they decided no, because you know, it's that classic
thing where Ron Oberman was. He wanted to do it,
but then he had to convince the rest of the label.
You know, that's where the business, that's where the numbers
guys come in. You know, well, what is this. We're
not sure how to market it? You know, then you

(01:36:48):
become a product like that. They're trying to market and
they have these meetings and the men in suits come
and they start talking numbers. And that's when I decided no.

Speaker 1 (01:37:03):
Okay, let's jump forward. We got into this story because
you're saying songs like Lake Charles, you can't write in
a day, but you have to make another album.

Speaker 2 (01:37:14):
Yeah, and I managed to come up with the songs.
But even Sweet O'd World. I remember we went in
and we cut a bunch of stuff, and I'm you know,
I was comparing everything to car Wheels already, and I
was terrified. You know, I said, I felt stuck because
I felt like, whatever album I make after car Wheels,

(01:37:37):
people are gonna compare it to car wheels. It's they're
either gonna say it sounds the same as car wheels,
or they're gonna say it's not as good as Car Wheels.
So I felt like I couldn't win for losing, and
we cut some stuff for Sweet O'.

Speaker 1 (01:37:54):
World and I think we're at Essence now.

Speaker 2 (01:37:57):
Okay, wait, I'm sorry now the it wasn't Sweet Old
World right after Carl Willers.

Speaker 1 (01:38:04):
Sweet Ol'd World was before Car Wheels. Then came Essence.
Sweet Old World was after the Rough Trade record.

Speaker 2 (01:38:11):
Oh yeah, that's what I'm thinking that and that was hard.

Speaker 1 (01:38:16):
To Okay, so you had a hard time following up
the Rough Trade record? Yeah, tell me about the hard
time following up Car Wheels.

Speaker 2 (01:38:26):
Well, it was, you know, similar issue where because Car
Wills was so successful, I felt like it was going
to everything was going to be compared to it, so
the songs had to be as good or better on
the next record.

Speaker 1 (01:38:45):
You was talking your book about changing your writing style.

Speaker 2 (01:38:49):
Well, I started. I was working on songs for Essence,
and I was coming up with these songs that weren't
really lashed out lyrically that much, but the music was
really cool, and I thought, you know, is this going
to be okay to do? Can I get away with this?
Because before that my songs were you know, like I said,

(01:39:15):
a lot of narrative lyrics and you know, it's paying
a lot of attention to the lyrics. And I was
still doing that. But what really helped me was at
the time Bob Dylan's album Time out of Mind had
come out, that Rick Rubin had done, and I listened

(01:39:36):
to it and loved it, and I felt like, this
is so musical. It's such a musical album, you know,
it's different than most of his other records. And in fact,
the Nashville Paper gave it a bad review because they
said the lyrics weren't up to Bob Dylan quality, you know.

(01:39:57):
But the way I felt about it was that he
was stretching out a little bit and letting the music talk.
You know, I'd always want. I loved the stuff that
I loved that I was listening to was talking heads.
I loved them because great lyrics, but the music, you know,

(01:40:24):
which supported the lyrics. And I mean, I love good
I love rock music, you know, I love beats, I
love hip hop. One of my favorite artists is this
guy Atmosphere out of Minneapolis, who I just absolutely love.

(01:40:47):
He's a great writer, he's a great lyricist, and his
music is just infectious, you know. It's a similar thing
to what Bob Dylan was doing when he first won
an electric you know, I love that kind of stuff.
I've always been drawn to it. I love Thievery Corporation

(01:41:09):
because they do that, you know, Marching the Hate Machines
into the Sun, the song they co wrote with Wayne
Korn from Flaming Lips. So I love that combination of
the you know, really interesting, well written lyrics, but infectious

(01:41:30):
you know, hip hoppy rock music behind it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
Okay for someone who got a lite start, had all
sorts of issues going from label to label. In the
last twenty years, you put on more records than anybody
of your stature, so you just hit a groove. What
accounts for that?

Speaker 2 (01:41:55):
Well, you know, I signed ended up signing with Lost Highway,
and you know, so when you signed with a label,
you have a contract. You have to give them so
many a certain amount of recordings, you know, that year
or whatever it is. So that was part of it,
just the and when I was on Lost Highway, I

(01:42:19):
felt like I'd finally found my family to a large extent,
you know, just absolutely adored Rick or not Rick Luke
Lewis just loved working with him, you know, he put
his money where his mouth was and walk the walk

(01:42:39):
and talk the talk, and you know, he was a
musical Ever.

Speaker 1 (01:42:46):
Well, he ultimately, you know, gets pushed aside. The label
closes and you continue to make records independently distributed by
thirty tigers, so you know it's yeah, you might have ant,
but now you have no contract, you're still making the records.

Speaker 2 (01:43:04):
Well, a lot of that I have to owe to
my husband, manager Tom, who is always coming up with ideas.
He worked at record labels for a number of years.
He used to work for Best Buy, and so he
has that. He's that capability of he's got the business

(01:43:26):
sense and the creative sense combined. So he's the one.
Like one of the things I did were those jukebox
you know, the jukebox recordings, an idea that Tom came
up with. Basically, we're, you know, just in between record albums,
and I was talking about sons I loved by other people,

(01:43:49):
and he said, well, why don't we go in and
record some of those? So we would. He would say,
you know, pick your favorite Bob del songs, whoever it
might be, Tom Petty, and we go in. We went
in and worked him up with the band and recorded
on them and we ended up getting a couple of

(01:44:10):
filmmaker guys photographers to come in and document it in
the studio and you know, people saw it and heard
it and loved it. And then Tom got the idea
to you know, put it on make it available online.
They could downstream it or whatever it's called, you know,

(01:44:31):
and we jumped on that wagon, you know, that bandwagon,
the social media thing with it, and you know, it
took off and you know, so that was an idea
that Tom had come up with to fill the gap
in between records.

Speaker 1 (01:44:52):
Well does he ever come up with an idea and
you say, no, not going to do that?

Speaker 2 (01:44:58):
Sometimes yeah, you know, then we talk about it and.

Speaker 1 (01:45:03):
So when in this equation do you start making any money?

Speaker 2 (01:45:08):
Huh that's a good question too. Uh. I remember telling
Tom at one point recently, like when am I going
to start seeing the results of the fruits of my labor?
You know, like you hear about you know, all these
rock bands who get famous and they have all these
cars and multiple houses and all this stuff, and you know,

(01:45:32):
it's not like that because you know, you have to
pay taxes first of all, which is true for every American.
But the more money you make, the more taxes you
have to pay. So I mean you still have to
watch your spending and all of that. It's just on

(01:45:55):
a different level. I guess.

Speaker 1 (01:45:58):
Well, do you ever go I'm wear and say too expensive,
not going to pay?

Speaker 2 (01:46:04):
Tom will say that sometimes, but usually once if we
go to the trouble you mean, like a nice restaurant
or something.

Speaker 1 (01:46:13):
So that could be a good example.

Speaker 2 (01:46:14):
Yoh, yeah, we won't go. If he thinks it's going
to be too expensive, then we just go somewhere else,
you know. And I would give him a hard time anyway,
if he would know better than to say that.

Speaker 1 (01:46:28):
And do you have any personal extravagance something you do
or something you own or somewhere you go?

Speaker 2 (01:46:36):
Hmmm, probably like what you were talking about before. I
like to shop on line. I love buying. I probably
shouldn't go into office supply stores. I love buying. I
go crazy when I see blank, fresh new notebooks and

(01:47:00):
pads of paper and pens. I just want to buy
them all, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:47:07):
So let's go sideways for a minute here. You are
a woman in a male dominated business. What's that been like?

Speaker 2 (01:47:17):
It sucks? Basically, I mean you know, sometimes I have
to remind myself how many that there aren't women? You know,
we don't. The majority of engineers are men, majority of
producers are men. Men run all the record labels. I mean,
I don't know. I have a label run by a woman.

(01:47:38):
So you know, there's that majority of musicians are men.
You know, I love seeing a woman playing drums. I
love seeing a woman playing an instrument generally reserved for men.
There's something really sexy and cool about that, you know,

(01:47:58):
a woman playing bass or drums.

Speaker 1 (01:48:02):
And how any me too moments?

Speaker 2 (01:48:06):
Huh?

Speaker 1 (01:48:07):
Any sexual harassments.

Speaker 2 (01:48:09):
I haven't had anything like that, thank god, Just you know,
comments like when I was first starting out, guys would
say stuff like, you're pretty good for a girl, you know,
or worse yet, they would say, you're pretty good for chick.
I hated that word back then because that was effeminist.

(01:48:31):
I like to think of myself as a feminist, so
you know, that was not cool back in the day
to call women chicks.

Speaker 1 (01:48:39):
Although I will say I have two sisters. Starting somewhere
in the eighties or nineties, they started to use the
word chick. Yeah, it's almost like black people using the
N word.

Speaker 2 (01:48:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:48:52):
And you know, it's a funny thing because I come
from a female dominated family. You can get caught up
in a conversation and saying jokingly, and there are certain
people saying, say, oh, you can't say that.

Speaker 2 (01:49:02):
Yeah, I know. Yeah, we can call each other chick
and bitch and whatever else we want to call each other.
You know, I know what you mean.

Speaker 1 (01:49:13):
Yeah, So how about in business, Like you go for
a meeting and they you feel if you were a
guy in a meeting or in a studio, it would
go down differently.

Speaker 2 (01:49:27):
Well, you know, I just my head just doesn't go
in that direction. I don't think in those terms of
like you know, all men do this or all women
are like this. So, you know, I just think I
would think more in terms of the actual person, Like
if so and so was in here right now, like

(01:49:48):
Steve Earle, who is just like you know, when he
says something, that's it. You know, he's just got one
of those personalities, you know, And I'm just not like that.
I'm more kind of you know, shy, or I kind
of retreat back, you know, like it's harder for me
to be aggressive or assertive as opposed to like so

(01:50:10):
if I was in the studio. I might say I
wish Steve was in here with me right now because
he could explain what I mean to them, and part
of it would be just trying to describe and explain
what I wanted to the sound I wanted to get
or something like that, you know, to the engineer and
the producer like that would be hard sometimes.

Speaker 1 (01:50:30):
So tell us about the stroke.

Speaker 2 (01:50:36):
Yeah, that was a surprise and a shock if there
ever was one. I was. It was a normal, regular day.
I was in the bathroom getting ready to take a
shower at our house in Nashville, and I just felt
really exhausted all of a sudden, like to the point
where all I want to do is lay down. I
didn't care where I was. I just wanted to and

(01:50:57):
it was this overwhelming need to lay down, and I
just felt kind of weak. My legs just felt real
weak underneath me, and I remember I didn't fall down.
I saw some towels and I grabbed them and laid
down on the floor in the bathroom for a minute.
I just thought, I'm just gonna lay down for a
minute before I get in the shower, because I don't

(01:51:18):
want to fall down to the shower, so I just
laid down on the floor and then Tom, my husband, Tom,
at some point saw me in there and he figured
something was He didn't know if I'd fallen or what
had happened, but he knew something was off. So he
ended up on the phone with our doctor, our primary

(01:51:40):
care physician in Nashville, described what was going under her.
She told her to call an ambulance and they came,
and you know, we didn't know it was a stroke
right away until I got to the hospital, and then
they said that that was what had happened. I was
in the hospital for a couple of weeks, and then

(01:52:05):
they at a certain point I started doing rehab in
the hospital because they had a rehab division section there
with physical therapists, so they got me into that very quickly,
which I think really helped made a big difference. So
I did some rehab in the hospital, and then I
came home and then I had caregivers come to the

(01:52:29):
house and helped me, and I had physical theorists come
to the house and worked with them. So I was
doing a lot of outpatient physical therapy and starting to
get a little at least be able to walk across
the room without falling down because I couldn't walk it first,

(01:52:49):
and then I rollized I couldn't play guitar, which has
been my main big obstacle. So that's what I'm working
on now, is trying to get back to that.

Speaker 1 (01:53:01):
So you had some level of paralysis. Where are you
at now physically?

Speaker 2 (01:53:11):
Well, I don't know if it was paralysis, you mean
not being able to walk.

Speaker 1 (01:53:15):
Well, whatever it is, you know better than I do.

Speaker 2 (01:53:17):
Uh.

Speaker 1 (01:53:19):
You know what ended up? You have the stroke. Let's
start from the beginning, purely out of the blue or
was this something genetic and they say it was going
to happen?

Speaker 2 (01:53:29):
No, it was out of the blue, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:53:33):
Okay, So what were the effects of the stroke?

Speaker 2 (01:53:37):
Okay? The stroke? Basically, you know, I didn't even know
what a stroke was. But it's when you have a
blood thought on one side of your brain, and you know,
basically your brain is confused. So that means your body
is confused because your brain tells your body what to do.

(01:54:01):
So you have to retrain your brain. Basically, you know,
your brain tells your legs what to do when you walk.
You know, you don't think about that consciously because you're
so used to walking, you just you don't think about it.
But you know, when you after you have a stroke,
all of a sudden, you have to think about what
you're doing all the time. And it also what's interesting

(01:54:24):
is like my blood clot was on the right side
of my brain, so the whole, entire less side of
my body was affected. And you know, you just have
to relearn everything. I had to learn how to walk again,
which I'm still working on. I still don't walk like

(01:54:45):
I used to, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:54:49):
So if we take a snapshot today, what's your state today.

Speaker 2 (01:54:58):
I think I'm doing really well. People who've known me
since the beginning can see the progress. I mean, I'm
lifting weights in the studio with the trainers, so you know,
because I just refuse to. I don't want to get
out of shape and weak and all that. I was

(01:55:19):
in a wheelchair for part of that time, and we
still do that. Like if we have to go to
the airport to catch a flight, they'll have a wheelchair
there to roll me through the airport because it's it's
too hard for me to walk through and it takes
too long.

Speaker 1 (01:55:37):
And what's the status of playing guitar.

Speaker 2 (01:55:42):
Right now? I'm not playing, so I've been performing without guitar,
was just my band backing me up. But the hardest
part is when I go in the studio to record,
because that's how I started. At a certain point, I
realize the best way for me to record with the

(01:56:02):
band was for them to follow me, you know, for
me to play the guitar, and they get the vibe
and the tempo and everything for me. And since I
can't play, I have to rely on someone else to
play rhythm, and that makes it a lot more difficult

(01:56:23):
to record songs because nobody's gonna play like I do,
you know. So that's the best way for me to
record is for me to play. In the very beginning,
somebody else would grab the guitar and sit and play.
I never would even play. And then at some point

(01:56:45):
someone in the studio, it might have been Steve Girls
suggested and said, Lou, you need to play guitar and
sing the song and then let everybody else follow you.
And that proved to be the best way for me
to record my stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:57:02):
And do you anticipate being able to play the guitar again?

Speaker 2 (01:57:07):
Yeah? I mean I have to say yes, because I
just refuse to give up.

Speaker 1 (01:57:13):
Okay, we're the same age, and hitting sixty was rough.
Hitting seventy was rough in a different way. You've accomplished
all this. You have all these albums, you have all
this acclaim. Even if you did nothing again, you have
a good legacy. But what do you want to accomplish

(01:57:34):
other than the physical things which we've just changed. What
do you want and what do you need for the
time that's left.

Speaker 2 (01:57:48):
I would just say just keep writing songs and keep
getting better. I feel like I can still there's always
room to improve, you.

Speaker 1 (01:57:57):
Know, Okay, when I turn sixty. It's like you know
the trick. You see advertising and you go if I
you know, if this is good, I'll hear about it.
Whereas you're a kid, you see something advertised with cartoons,
you go, I want that. Then seventy he realized, well
I'm not going to be here forever, and your perspective changes.

(01:58:22):
In addition, we live in this era. You know, you
and me grew up in the area. It turned on
the radio, everybody knew those songs. Now there's almost no
regular frame of reference. So do you just put your
head down and say this is what I'm doing, or
does it affect you how things have changed both because

(01:58:44):
of age and the landscape.

Speaker 2 (01:58:46):
Yeah, it affects me just like it affects you and
everybody else, especially people our age, you know, and it
buns me out a lot of times. You're talking about
like what you you mean, what you were talking about
before about there aren't any rebels left and that sort
of thing. Oh yeah, Yeah, it definitely affects me. But

(01:59:11):
I see some though still, you know, there are you know,
I keep on top of what's going on, and I listen.
I love to listen to new artists. You know. I'll
hear about somebody. Somebody will say, you need to hear
this guy's really good. And I go out of my
way to listen to people, you know, who are just

(01:59:32):
getting started. And you know, I get excited when I
hear somebody I think it's really good, and you know,
I'll go out and support them and talk with them
and everything, and listen to their music at home, and
you know, give them advice maybe sometimes if they ask

(01:59:52):
for it, you know, just give them support, you know,
because I remember what it's like when I first started,
you know. So there was a girl who in Nashville,
who's her name is Alicia Blue, which is a great
stage name, but it's actually her real name. And she's

(02:00:16):
quite good. She's a really good lyricist, really good songs
she did, She recorded and did a video of her
singing this song. Jane says that Jane's Addiction did and
it's really it's really good. She just played it for

(02:00:38):
me recently. And so you know, there are I mean,
there are younger artists. I think, who are I haven't
enough of that rebellion in them, you know, but the
business has changed somewhat too, so you have to look
at that, and I get more frustrated, I guess when

(02:01:01):
I probably more about the business into things than the
artists actually, or the lack thereof, because a lot of
times I'll see and hear an artists I think is
really really good and wonder why he or she doesn't
get the attention they deserve, or you know, why he
or she hasn't gotten record deal yet, and you know,

(02:01:24):
people aren't paying attention to them like they should be,
And that probably frustrates me as much as anything.

Speaker 1 (02:01:32):
Well, the other thing that frustrates me is people our age.
We are half dead. I mean, you're very alive. You're
staying up on things you have opinions. Then there are
other people. I know, well I'm old, I'm retired, I'm
you know, just into lifestyle. They're very weird.

Speaker 2 (02:01:48):
Yeah, they just start thinking old. They're old because they
think they're old.

Speaker 1 (02:01:55):
You know, well you're certainly young, Lucinda. I want to think,
thank you for taking the time with my audience.

Speaker 2 (02:02:03):
Well, you're more than welcome. I've enjoyed this conversation.

Speaker 1 (02:02:09):
Great. Hopefully I asked some questions. We went some places
that were not we normally go.

Speaker 2 (02:02:15):
Yeah, we did.

Speaker 1 (02:02:18):
That's okay, No, that's what I want people who have
been interviewed, you know, you try and ask to ask
the same questions because then their eyes roll in the back.

Speaker 2 (02:02:27):
Of the Yeah. Yeah, but I mean I like that
you asked different questions. I wasn't expecting a lot of them.
But that's okay, Okay, you're a rebel.

Speaker 1 (02:02:41):
Oh you have no idea. I am that person. You
know what I used to say in the old days
was I believed in this wave theory. So in the
fifties the waves came in, everybody was a beat. Nick
the wave went out and we had Manor G. Krebs

(02:03:03):
On Sure he was left on shore then the sixties
we had uh what's his name, uh Ginsburg, the poet
he was left on shore.

Speaker 2 (02:03:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:03:15):
I never wore a leisure suit. I never did anything.
I stayed true to who I was.

Speaker 2 (02:03:22):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (02:03:23):
But even worse now today people don't even remember the
way it was. You know, I feel like Grandpa saying, well,
back in the sixties, back in the seventies, Yeah, when
people had values and they would say no, you know,
you talk about being an artist whatever. Everybody say, Oh,
I can make money, I can get fame. Yes, drives

(02:03:46):
me crazy.

Speaker 2 (02:03:47):
Yeah. Is there you think there's still that that that
still happens.

Speaker 1 (02:03:53):
I mean, okay, you're a middle class person. Your father
was a college professor. We are the same age. We
didn't grow up in the same part of the country.
But when I went to high school, regular public high school,
there were kids who were middle class and they were
the art kids. They were separate from the cool, separate

(02:04:14):
from the jock, etc. Etc. And those people became the artists.
An equal story is Jefferson Airplane. You know, if you're
a middle class person, you say no. Bill Graham was
the manager for while. He said, whenever they had any success,
they didn't want to work. They want to stay home
and smoke dope. It's like, you know, they had a

(02:04:35):
feel for it. They wouldn't do anything for money, whereas today, Yeah,
if you people won't do anything for money, they'll play
with dictators, they'll work.

Speaker 2 (02:04:46):
You know.

Speaker 1 (02:04:47):
It's like you're saying, you're not cutting the verse from
the song. Well, we grew up in the era where
the people who are performing wrote the songs and although
there are some there are some great intro.

Speaker 2 (02:05:00):
That was a sorry to interrupt, but that is probably
the biggest change I think over the you know, over
the years has been going from artist recording who didn't write,
to artists recording who wrote their own songs.

Speaker 1 (02:05:19):
I think this is huge, you I think I was
talking to somebody the other day and I say, look
at the frame of reference. When Mariah Carey came in
the nineties, that was pop. We hadn't had pop like
that since the sixties. But today everybody was brought up
on that and they think, you know, like what you

(02:05:40):
see on TV shows with competition shows, where for us,
no way. The other thing is there are people our
age who get plastic surgery and they go on stage
and play the old hits to people who look old,
but they you know, it's like, you know, if somebody
wants to go, fine, but it creeps me out. It's like, yeah,

(02:06:05):
especially as I've seen these acts so many times, Like,
you know, unless you're my friend, whatever, I'm not gonna go.
I remember when.

Speaker 2 (02:06:12):
Yeah, well that's just boring.

Speaker 1 (02:06:16):
I mean, but a lot of people are disheartened. I mean,
your success came a little later in age, but you're
continuing to work. There's certain you know, that comes down
to whether you're an artist, and a lot of people can't.

Speaker 2 (02:06:31):
They can't. That's I'm an artist first and foremost. You know,
I live, eat, and breathe and sleep with my art.
You know, that's the thing. At the risk of sounding idealistic,
you know, but it's true though.

Speaker 1 (02:06:48):
Well you know, an artist can say no and won't compromise.
I mean, you might say, well, I'll cut my set
short ten minutes, but I'm not you know, strings on
this track.

Speaker 2 (02:07:03):
No, Yeah, because everything is made from an artistic perspective,
you know, So is it gonna help the song or
is it not? It's that simple, you know.

Speaker 1 (02:07:21):
Another element and I've had personal experience with this, the
audience knows. Everybody was. I was on a percentage phrase.
Oh do the commercial do the ads? No one cares
about that. Oh there's not that's not true.

Speaker 2 (02:07:37):
They do. Yeah, they pay attention to everything. And that's
the other thing is a lot of artists and performers
underestimate their audience. I think, you know, well, give me
a little deeper. Well, I mean, I just think, what

(02:07:59):
kind of I what you were saying. You might not
think they care if you take this verse out of
a song or something, but they pay attention to the versus.
You know, I have the best fans ever, I think
in the whole world, because they're loyal. I mean, they're patient.
You know, they stick with me if I make a

(02:08:19):
mistake when I'm performing, They're still there at the end
of the night. You know, they don't leave. You know,
they listen to what I'm saying. They pay attention to
the lyrics and the songs, and they remember my songs
and they love them and they love me. I feel
like there's a real family thing there between my fans

(02:08:42):
and me.

Speaker 1 (02:08:43):
Well that's what it's all about today. Because the machine
doesn't exist like terrestrial radio, I don't know anybody listens
to terrestrial radio. You know, it's like it's all everybody
that's talking to my shrink about this earlier today everybody
their own thing. Now it's like you make your own breaks.

(02:09:04):
Nobody is world dominant. Like for all this hype about
Taylor Swift, I mean, we remember when everybody knew every
word to every song because it was on the radio
and we all listen to the radio. Whereas today you
go around, most people can even name a Taylor Swift song.
It's not not making it about her because she's really big,
bad bunny. There's a couple of these people. They are

(02:09:29):
The Stones went on tour in seventy two. It was like,
you know, it's like the second Coming. Everybody can rage,
can sing satisfaction, jumping Jackflash, we know that shit. Yeah, Okay, Lousen,
I'm gonna go till next time. This is Bob Left
Sets