February 1, 2022 • 47 mins
“Believe in yourself.” For some people, that’s a lifelong challenge. Then there are those rare folks, immensely talented and hard working, who always knew that they would be somebody. This week, Hillary talks with two of them—multiple Grammy Award-winning singer/songwriter Brandi Carlile, and Broadway legend André De Shields—about the dreams (and setbacks) that led to where they are today.
Brandi Carlile is a six-time Grammy Award-winning singer, songwriter, performer, and producer. Since her debut in 2004, she has released six studio albums and was the most nominated female artist at the 2019 Grammy Awards with six nominations, including Album, Record, and Song of the Year. Her memoir Broken Horses is a #1 New York Times bestseller.
André De Shields’ acting career spans over 50 years. While currently best known for his performance in the musical Hadestown, he also appeared in The Wiz, Play On!, Ain’t Misbehavin’, and The Full Monty, and has directed and choreographed several shows and appeared on film and television. André has won numerous awards throughout this career, including an Emmy Award, a Tony Award, and a Grammy Award.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is You and Me Both.
Believe in yourself. You know, it's a piece of advice
we hear a lot, but for many of us, it
takes years, if not a lifetime, to actually get there.
And then there are those rare folks, immensely talented and
(00:24):
hard working, who somehow always knew that they would be somebody. Today,
I have the pleasure of speaking with two people who
believed in themselves from the get go. Later we'll hear
(00:45):
from the incredibly talented actor, director, and choreographer Andre de Shields.
But first I'm talking to multiple Grammy Award winning singer
and songwriter Brandy Carlisle. I first discovered Brandy back in
when she performed her song The Joke at the Grammy Awards.
(01:09):
That year, she was nominated four six, yes six Grammys
for her album By the Way I Forgive You. I
immediately tracked down as much of her music as I could,
and I've been a fan ever since. Brandy grew up
in rural Washington State with very young parents who struggled
(01:29):
to make a living and provide a stable home, but
she was also surrounded by a lot of love and
a lot of music. She's drawn on those roots to
build a beautiful family of her own with her wife
Catherine and their two daughters, Evangeline and Elijah. Brandy writes
(01:50):
about all of this in her memoir titled Broken Horses,
and that's where I wanted to start our conversation by
asking her what it was like to pull up those memories,
the good, the bad, the wonderful and right this incredibly open,
revealing and compelling book. I had always kind of mind
(02:13):
my past for experience and songwriting and things like that,
but just in a little random bursts without the detail,
you know. But when I actually really sat down and
kind of meditated on it, everything came back smells and
floral prints on couches and you know, whatever vehicle we
happened to have at that time, and just my childhood
became really clear and really vivid, and it poured out
(02:35):
of me. I didn't hesitate. I didn't worry about what
I was saying about mom or Dad or you know,
my brother and sister, or the way that we lived
or what was going on and our lives at that time.
I didn't think about embarrassment because I think in the
back of my mind, I knew I could always go
and take anything out, I could edit anything, and then
I just didn't from what I read um not only
(02:56):
about your parents, but your grandparents aunts uncle's. Yeah, there
was a lot of love, there was a lot of fun,
and there was a lot of unpredictability, instability and chaos.
That's true. How would you describe your mom and your dad?
You emphasize how young they were. Yeah, they were, and
(03:17):
in some ways and that I mean, this is a compliment.
Are very young, and there's an energy about them and
that endless opportunities for adventure and fun and honestly mostly chaos.
There was always this kind of undercurrent of like, well,
we're different and we don't have to do things the
way other people do them. And it was like a
(03:39):
little bit like that film, you know, Captain Fantastic. There
was a lot of late night discussion and I was
privy to a lot of things that I don't know
if I needed to be privy to. But I was
also given great wisdom and insight at a really young age,
and for some reason, I just feel like I knew
what to do with it, and that kind of narrative
(03:59):
of like we're different, it we live different was what
made not being at the same schools or having a
lot of different houses, or a little bit of upheaval
not just okay, but what I thought would be a
preferable way to grow up. And looking back on it,
I don't know that. I don't feel that way now.
I feel a pull all the time to raise my
(04:20):
kids eccentrically with a little bit of chaos, a little
bit of spontaneity, a little bit and we don't know
what's going to happen. And um my wife makes me resistant.
But I don't want to leave your childhood yet because
you also describe the very serious illness you had as
what a four year old? Can you talk about that? Yeah,
(04:41):
when I was four years old, I contracted meninji kockumaningitis
and presented as really, really sick. But my mother was
really young, I want to say, like twenty at the time,
and I knew right away that something was wrong. But
she was the kind of mom where she thought something
was wrong all the time. You know, she had the
speed dial if they even had that, you know, in
(05:02):
night what would two four nurse? And she told my
dad that something was really wrong, and you know, he
didn't believe her, and my mom was on the phone
with two four nurse and two foreign nurse asked my
mom to have me touch my chin to my chest,
which I guess is like the telltale sign that somebody
could have meningitis, and it made me pass out and
(05:23):
I just remember waking up in the backseat of the
car on my way to the emergency room and wound
up being in the hospital in a coma for um
quite some time before I came to and didn't get
out of there until after my fifth birthday, and um,
there's still a bit of trauma, I think for both
my parents, but mostly I think my mother about thinking
(05:45):
that I wasn't going to pull through that, and it
gave me a sense of specialness. You know, I was
the first grandchild on both sides of the family, and
and everybody had this kind of Brandy's got a mission thing,
and it gave me a quite inflated sense of selving.
What was your earliest memory of making or listening to music,
(06:06):
because the other part of the book, which I love
is that you had a somewhat musical family, and I
see pictures in the book of you as a really
little kid, all dressed up, You're on stage, you're singing.
What are your earliest memories. There's music on both sides
of my family, country music and blue grass mostly. My
dad's father played dobro and followed blue grass bands around
(06:32):
in his RV, and I didn't get to spend much
time with him musically. He was a quiet guy that
you know. But on my mom's side of the family,
her dad was a cigar salesman and a country music
singer and yodeler, and he was a very outward personality,
big influence that I think about in here in my
head all the time to this day. But he died
really young, of a l s which is the worst
(06:55):
season the world. And uh, when he died, kind of
the last thing he in, whether he knew it or not,
was light a fire in my mother to continue on
the music. And she did. She took all that grief
and that little bit of money and got a p
a system and put together a band and started singing
(07:15):
and thought to include me and my brother. And so
I was like seven or eight years old the first
time I got on stage and sang a Roseanne Cash song.
Tennessee flat top box at this place called the Northwest
grand Ole Opry And I just want to be a cowgirl.
I love that. Well. I also really love your mother's
gutsiness that she got that p a system and put
(07:37):
herself up there. That is really making yourself vulnerable. And
I think it's another real tribute to her as a
mom that she knew to include you. Yeah, and she
was really good. She looked great, huge hair, you know,
she fixed my hair and put our clothes together and everything,
and she just yeah, she'd always tell me she'd be
sit in the front or I just going move, Brandy,
(07:58):
move your body, stop wrapping them cord around your hand.
Oh god, we're taking a quick break. Stay with us.
The other thing about your upbringing is that you know
(08:21):
you grew up in a religious family and a religious community. Um.
And I really like the way that faith and spirituality
run through your story like yours. Yeah, like mine exactly,
and how it evolves. And it was so touching to
(08:43):
me and heartbreaking to read your description about a pastor
refusing to baptize you. I guess because he knew you
were gay and insisted that you renounce, literally renounce your self.
In order to be baptized, and you rightly refused to
(09:04):
do that. Can you tell that story? Yeah, he really
knew I was gay. Like That's really one of the
hardest nuances about that stories, that he really knew I
was gay. Like I was totally unapologetic about it. I
presented that way. I brought my little girlfriend to church
for some reason. I don't know why. I didn't expect that. Um,
it was in the sermons, it was in the subtext.
(09:26):
You know, I did have a sense of audacity that
I can't I would love to reconnect with actually, um,
but yeah he did. And there was like a well,
the Baptists are very big by the way on public
declarations converting to possible public humiliation. And I already liked
being on stage. So you know, I went up to
the front of the church and on one Sunday and
(09:48):
said I'd like to be baptized, was applauded and hugged
and given a schedule of you know, going to lunch
with the pastor and learning the things I need to
learn in the scriptures and understanding what going to take place,
inviting people, and then got to the church that day
to be baptized. And our talent and our family and
our friends kind of filled the church. And the pastor
(10:10):
at the last minute asked me, which was I thought
was really strange, asked me if I, quote unquote practiced homosexuality,
and I just remember this furrowed brow looking at him.
I said, you know, I'm I'm gay. I'm coming to
church with my girlfriend, you know, and that we go
we go into pizza Hut yesterday, like you know, you know,
and chose that moment to tell me that he wasn't
going to baptize me. And I had to kind of
(10:32):
run out the church in front of everyone. And it's
probably one of the biggest humiliations in my life. Without
trying to wrap it up into a attractive box and
say that everything's fine now, without that experience, I wouldn't
have known how much support actually had, how upset the
people that came to see that happen for me. We're
(10:54):
help set, my dad was, and I always felt I
was kind of gay ninety is accepted, you know, kind
of like we accept this, but don't put it into
our face kind of thing. Until that day and everybody
becoming so upset, I felt, you know, more seen in
that way than I ever had before, also more rejected
than I ever had before. But um, it pushed me
(11:16):
into another life that I needed to be pushed into.
But also from that time forward, you really threw yourself
into your music. And thinking back to being put on
the stage as this, you know, little girl, three decades
of performing and of writing, how has your relationship to
(11:38):
music evolved over that period of time. Well, I don't know.
I mean, I think that's the moment that music became
mine and I just I had to really separate my
soul from some things, you know, And so I started
getting interested in getting on airplane. I started getting interested
(11:58):
in going to a big city, meeting different kinds of people,
and less and less interested in country music. I remember
that night of my botched baptism. I call it putting
my little CD player Jeff Buckley's Grace on repeat on Hallelujah,
just over and over and over and over again, and
(12:18):
occurring to me like I want to leave, and I
want to write. I want to write a song like this.
I don't care if it's a twelve minute song, a
longer song for a longer story. But I also love
the way that you found some extraordinary music icons that
became mentors. I mean the kind of relationship that you
(12:44):
describe with Alton John from a far, far distance. There
you are in Washington State, Alton's you know, in England
or Atlanta or wherever you might be, and you are
discovering this extraordinary human being, to say nothing of his
you know, almost cosmic talent. I fall in love with
(13:04):
Elton John over a six fifth sixth grade book report
about Ryan White, never hearing a note. I loved him
because of his contribution to this boy's life. Who died
I think it was it's in the nineties. He died
of AIDS. He had hemophilia. He contracted AIDS through a
blood transfusion. I did a book report on him in school.
(13:26):
I chose the book myself. You didn't even know what
the book was about. I just saw a cute boy
on the book and I picked it up in the
school library and I did a book report. And in
the end of the book, he befriends this British gay
rock star. He's being politicized, He's being asked to become
the poster child for the church as a person affected
by you know, sin in the world created by home
(13:47):
sexual men. And this was a subtext that I had
been taught in church, and was was thinking about this
and talking about this a lot in my own home.
And here's this new perspective in a book the God.
And in the end he meets this rock star, and
this rock star has got a couple of songs that
are mentioned in the book, and he sings a song
at this kid's funeral called Skyline Pigeon. And I went
(14:09):
to the King County Library and checked out the CD
here and now Elton John c D a couple other
Elton John c ds in a book by Philip Norman
Elton John, Elton John, and I dove into this rock star.
And before I ever heard him saying, I was already
obsessed with him. And then I heard Skyline Pigeon. And
then I heard Funeral for a friend and Benny and
the Jets, and I just I went in to everything
(14:30):
Elton John. By the time I was like fourteen, there
wasn't a square inch of my bedroom walls that weren't
covered with Elton John memorabilia. I made homemade Elton John jewelry,
and um I began playing piano. My parents got me
an eighty dollar toys, rus Cassio keyboard and totally changed
my life. And yeah, now he's like, he's my friend,
(14:53):
he is your friend. But Ryan White died in nineteen nine,
and he had such a an amazing effect on so
many people. You know, there eventually was a piece of legislation,
the Ryan White Act, to provide more support resources for
people living with HIV AIDS, and Alton just connected so
(15:18):
immediately with this, you know, young boy from Indiana. But
neither Ryan nor his mother ever allowed people if they
could stop it using them in a negative way. I mean,
they were bighearted, they were open minded. And I want
to just make one other point. You got that book
(15:40):
about Ryan White in your school library. There are people
right now who want to take a book like that
out of public school libraries. You know, impressionable children shouldn't
be learning about Ryan White. You know, it's just another
perfect example among countless examples of why, you know, we
(16:01):
have to stand up for the right of kids to
you know, seek out and find information, and obviously your
school library is one of the best ways to do that.
When and how did you finally meet Elton in person?
First of all, that's a really really good point. And
books like that that I had access to in my
school sculpted a lot of things about my life. And
that's just one of the many that gave me, you know,
(16:24):
the worldview that propelled me forward in really really big ways.
I love that you made that point. What was this
was the second question? So when and where did you
meet Elton? Okay? So I met Elton, just like you'd
hope I would, in a Las Vegas casino basement recording studio.
He called me like ten years prior to that, or
(16:46):
it gives me five years prior to that when I
put out put out the story, but I hadn't met
him yet, and I always wanted to meet him. I
wrote him a letter when I made my album give
Up the Ghost and asked him to play piano in
one of my songs, and he just he called me
up and said, yeah, can you get to Vegas? So
I did, and I just never forget it because I
remember coming down this corridor and I could hear him
(17:07):
talking and I had all of the every live VHS
tape that he had ever recorded, every interview, and I'm like,
oh my god, that's Elton. I'm gonna walk around the
corner and I'm gonna see Elton John sitting there, And
I did, and he was sitting there in a track suit,
and he just gave me an enormous hug and then
stayed with me all day for four hours, just talk
to me about music. Just gave me everything that I
(17:29):
could have ever hoped to be given by meeting my
very worthy hero. By the time I got home, he'd
sent me a hundred CDs with sticky notes. Oh, talk
about the day that you found out you were the
most nominated woman of the nineteen Grammys. Described that because
(17:51):
to me, it just blended so much about what your
life is like right now. I mean it was the
middle of the night because we're on the West Coast,
and I just the phone call that from relative obscurity
in terms of the Grammys, I have been nominated for
six of them, and I was just in total disbelief.
I knew it was going to be a watershed moment.
(18:12):
I knew it was going to change my life, and
it really did. It was my my publicistant friend, Osha,
She's just like they just kept saying your name. You know.
I wasn't even awake. It was pitch dark, and I
woke up everybody in my house. And but you know,
I mean, you know because you're a Grammy winner, right, Yeah,
that's right for the spoken word, that's true. Where's your
brily I'm looking for in the background. I don't see it.
(18:35):
I have it in our our library. It's part of history. Okay, Well,
before we go, I have to ask you. I know
you love fishing, and you know you you write in
the book nothing's really ever got ahold of me the
way fishing and music cab. Okay, what is the biggest
(18:58):
fish you've ever caught? And was it the same feeling
you had when you got all those Grammys? It was
the same feeling, I mean nearly identical, because, as I
said in the book, fishing is merely an attempt to
connect to something that you know is there but but
can't see a perpetual series of occasions for hope. The
(19:21):
biggest fish I ever caught was in Alaska on the
Kenai River. It's a forty three pound king salmon. That's
one big fish. You know. I've actually fished for salmon
in Alaska and those fish are big. They are big,
and they're delicious too. Did they pack your fish and
(19:42):
prepare it so that you could go and eat it later.
I prepared it. You prepare it, no, girl, But you
know something about that. Huh. Oh my gosh. But I
also love I mean your your definition of fishing is
almost like a perfect definition of faith. I'm gonna I'm
gonna remember that. I think that that's exactly what I
parallel it with. Well, Brandy Carlisle, I cannot thank you enough.
(20:04):
This was such a true delight. Do you have any
parting words or any yeah I singing words or anything
you want to leave us with. I cannot tell you
how much talking to you today has has meant to me.
And I almost can't do anything else for the rest
of the day now. I just I think that you
are such a special person. You're such a gift to
(20:25):
the world. You've been a gift in my life. You
know the song we keep skimming over, the joke that
I sang at the Grammys. I wrote that first line
in the second verse about you. Oh I'm getting over
a colt, So I'm gonna do my best. You get discouraged,
don't you. Girl. It's your brother's world for a little while, longer,
(20:48):
a little while, just a little while, not too much
Thank you, Thank You. Randy Carlyle's memoir is Broken Horses.
One of my favorite shows on Broadway in recent years
(21:11):
is the Tony Award winning Best Musical Hades Town. In
this modern retelling of Orpheus and Eriticy, the character of
Herme's messenger to the gods carries us through the entire show,
and who better to play a god than the larger
than life personality Andrea de Shields. Following a shutdown during
(21:36):
the pandemic, Hades Town is up and running again with
Andrea at the Helm. But this is just the latest
chapter in his long and glorious history. At age seventy six,
Andre has been performing in the theater for over fifty years,
(21:57):
starting with his professional debut in the hit rock musical
Hair back in nineteen sixty nine and I hate to
tell you that I actually saw it way back then.
But since then he's appeared on film and TV and
in more musicals like The Whiz and Ain't Misbehavior. Three
(22:19):
Tony Award nominations and one win later, He's truly a
living legend of the stage. Andre was born in the
nineteen forties and grew up in Baltimore as the ninth
of eleven siblings. His mother was a domestic worker, his
father was a tailor. The stories he tells of how
(22:41):
he got from there to hear always believing in himself
along the way, or an inspiration to anyone with a
dream of making it, of making something that you really
can be proud of. I was so delighted to speak
with him. Good morning, Oh, good morning. I love your
(23:05):
red background. Wow. We may not know this, it's my aura.
I can understand that, my friend. You know, I was privileged,
as you know, to see you in Hades Town for
which you won a Tony in as you marked your
fiftieth anniversary of working on the stage. And I want
(23:29):
to go back to the beginning because I want our
listeners to have a little idea of where you know
you come from, what your roots are. I think it's
really a great American story, but it's more a tribute
to your energy and your resilience and your determination in
your aura. So what type of kid were you? Andre?
(23:49):
Were you shy? Were you somebody who liked attention? I
know you were one of eleven kids. My roots are
in Baltimore, Maryland, and I would not describe myself as shy,
m I would describe myself as secretly ambitious. I come
(24:10):
from meager beginnings and that was my impetus to achieve.
There were very few of us who lived in the
inner most of the inner cities in Baltimore who dared
to dream. We were not encouraged to dream. We were
(24:32):
not encouraged to be ambitious. We were not encouraged to
think that we could have a slice of the vaunted
American pie. But that was my first conscious thought. I
want my slice of the American pie. Did anyone in
(24:53):
your family know about your dream? Encourage your dreams? Everyone
knew about my dream. I shared it with everyone I
wanted to be Sammy Davis Jr. Who arguably is the
greatest entertainer of However, the response was, oh, you must
(25:20):
be out of your mind. So when I didn't get
the visceral support, I thought, well, let me put this
in my vest, close to my heart. Let me keep
it there so it wouldn't be sullied. So Andrew, tell
us about your parents. They clearly had some kind of
(25:43):
influence on you, as all parents do one way or
the other. And tell us about that. When I was
old enough to have an adult conversation with my mother
and father. My mother shared with me that her life's
dream was to be a chorus girl, and I thought
(26:04):
what she said, Yes, she didn't use the term dances.
She said chorus girl, my parents having been born around
the turn of the twentieth century. And I said, so,
what happened? Her response was her father said to her,
(26:25):
no decent colored daughter of mine is going to shuffle
her way through life. We've hardly shuffled our way off
the plantation. Now that is very meaningful for me because
my maternal grandfather was the son of his master. So
(26:49):
I decided, with that information I should ask my father amazingly,
but in retrospect, not amazingly at all. His response was,
his life dream was he wanted to be a singer.
He had a beautiful tone of voice, and he sang
in church, and he had a club that he's sang with.
(27:12):
And I said, well, what happened to that dream? He said,
his father, my paternal grandfather, said, how do you expect
to be a responsible husband and father with such an
irresponsible career. I tell that story because what happened is
(27:34):
that both my parents deferred their dreams. I believe that
I am the manifestation of those deferred dreams, because from
the morning on a cold January day that I was
evicted from my mother's womb, that was imprinted on my spirit.
(28:00):
You are the manifestation of the deferred reams of your parents.
I've never had a question about my path in life.
That's a great manifestation. I knew that in order to
overcome these invisible but seemingly insurmountable walls that we build
(28:25):
around ourselves when we are constantly told that we cannot achieve,
and that there is a demarcation in the society that
says you stay where you are. There is no mobility
(28:46):
right right, And you know, sadly it is as you
just said, sometimes from the people that you're living with,
people who love you, who are afraid for you, and
they want to protect you. They want to protect you,
and they unfortunately often evidence that in a way that
you know, kind of tries to pull you down or
(29:07):
push you back so that you don't get out into
that world where you will get hurt. And then, of course,
on the receiving end, you've got people who are you know,
not expecting much or who are outright, you know, prejudiced,
and biased against you and your dream. I want to
say something about protecting people. I know it is meant
(29:32):
for good, but you cannot protect an individual from himself.
You cannot protect an individual from his ambition. You cannot
protect an individual from his destiny. You have to encourage
an individual, especially when when he's young. You must say
(29:56):
go forth and being the most authentic individual that you can.
I want to ask one one last question about this.
So when was the first time you performed in public
and you knew that the dream was not just a
dream you kept close to your heart, it could be
your reality. After the dream that I was protecting, I
(30:20):
had the epiphany, and that was seeing the film Cabin
in the Sky. M John Bubbles so Black. When I
saw his performance in Cabin in the Sky, the quiet
voice that lives in the core of our souls and
speaks to us only the truth, said to me, Andre,
(30:43):
that's what you're going to do, because all of a
sudden you had an epiphany, because you know, there's that
old saying you can't be what you can't see exactly,
and you saw it. I saw it so as a
young precaution Negro boy in Bolt. You know about the
(31:04):
Society of Friends. They came to me through the Central
Scholarship Bureau and said, you're a young man with potential.
We would like to offer you a scholarship to go
to college. The condition is that you must attend the
college of our choice. I jumped at the opportunity, the
(31:28):
first child in the family to go to college. Wilmington's
College in Williamington, Ohio, a pristine, intimate Quaker school. And
when I was going to college, and I know you
remember this, it was Derek to do your junior year abroad.
(31:52):
I did my junior year in Denmark. And when I
arrived in Denmark, I was received as the very opposite
to the way I had been treated in Baltimore. In Baltimore,
in many ways, I was discumming the earth, and I'm
not exaggerating. In Denmark, I was royalty. Can I touch
(32:16):
your skin? Can I touch your Can I touch your hair?
I'm not kidding. There was It blew my mind. It
opened my eyes to not only the place in which
I had arrived, but the place from where I had come.
(32:36):
And at that time, all the major cities were experiencing
their urban insurrections. And I thought to myself that's where
I come from. So when I returned, I have to
leave that pristine Quaker environment and go to where the
(33:01):
veil was being ripped from the eyes of political America.
So I ended up at the University of Wisconsin, one
of the hot ded's a political change. Really did you
jump right right right the But what an incredible realization
(33:22):
that you had about yourself and your life as a
relatively young person. I mean, you're still what years old?
When you decide exactly I've got to get out into
this world that's waiting for me. I've got an idea
now where I came from and where I want to go.
You graduated from Wisconsin Universe consin Madison, in I think right,
(33:45):
And the month I graduated, I won a position in
Tom O'hoggian's Hair's So Great. That was my first professional performance.
Now that's the equation I want to share with anybody
who's curious about ambition, accomplishment, destiny, any of those huge ideas.
(34:11):
First you must have the dream. Second you must have
the epiphany. The third part of the equation is once
on that Thursday when someone comes to you and puts
a check in your hand and pays you for the
dream that has now become the work. That's the equation.
(34:33):
From there, your destiny will rise up, shake your hand
and say welcome. I've been waiting for you all this time.
But the epiphany and the opportunity also requires work. Once
you are offered that position, you know in hair, you
have to put in the work, didn't you? That is correct,
(34:55):
But the work starts long before the paycheck arrives. You know.
It strikes me that it was in the Whiz that
you had your incredible breakout national moment, and how appropriate
it is that a musical retelling of the Wizard of
Oz through Black culture and music would be the groundbreaking
(35:16):
success it was, and also your opportunity to manifest that dream.
How did you end up in the Whiz? So I've
gotten my first professional gig in Chicago. We're in the
early seventies now and we are creating an off Loop
theatrical experience, which is tantamount to what we call off Broadway.
(35:44):
And a group of us from the University of Wisconsin
founded the Organic Theater Company and created a show called
Warp w A r P. It's the science fiction show.
Produced a saw it and thought, wow, this would go
well in New York. He brought us to New York
(36:04):
in nine We were sumarily dismissed by the New York critics,
and the consensus was, listen to you dirty foot hippies,
go back to Chicago now. When the company returned to Chicago,
I said, guys, I love you all. You've been my
(36:27):
family for four years. But now that I'm in New York,
I'm going to take my chances here. And by the
grace of four women friends of mine who were in
New York working, and these four women would allow me
to couch surf, take care of my cat, and you
(36:48):
can sleep in my couch, wash my dishes and you
can sleep on my couch, and that sort of thing.
As my mother would say. I didn't have a pot
to piston or a window to throw it out of.
But I was right. But I was in the camelot.
All I had to do was to discover my coat
(37:09):
of arms, if you will. Ken Hopper, the producer of
The Whiz, cast his net. We're looking for the actress
who would say these roles. I got an audition. I
was cut for the scarecrow. I was cut for the lion.
I was cut for the tin man. It didn't matter
(37:30):
to me because I wanted to be the Wizard, but
I had to beg for it. And Ken Harper said
to me, all right, I think he thought he was
getting rid of me. Will allow you to audition for
the Whiz. Now. When I got the call back, I
(37:51):
had pulled my hair out to it's Jimmy Hendricks length.
I was wearing my five inch silver studied platforms. I
was wearing my hot pants. I was wearing my halter
that had love embroidered all over it. I was wearing
my my Sight earrings. I was glorious. And I went
(38:19):
in and I sang and I think this is part
of your growing up to midnight hour. Oh perfect right,
I'm going away till the midnight hour. So I get
to the end of the song and Charlie Smalls, who
was the composer for The Whiz, stands up and shouts,
(38:43):
that's my Whiz. Hallelujah, hallelujah. That's what I'm talking about.
When you do the proper preparation, the destiny unfolds in
one golden step after the next, not immediately. It takes time.
But if you continue to apply yourself, if you continue
(39:05):
to cultivate patients. If you continue to know yourself and
be yourself and understand that authenticity is everything, you will
receive the blessing that has your name written on it.
I love that you know. You know so much of
(39:26):
what happens in live theater is ephemeral. But the Whiz
was one of those moments where it was just like
a great earthquake came down from on high and shook
the foundation of American musical theater. In fact, I think
your costume is now in the Smithsonian, is correct, National
(39:50):
Museum of African American History and Culture. Did you know
when you were in the Whiz it was literally a
moment of destiny for the culture. Yes, we we all
knew as a community that we were part of a
tectonic change in a paradigm because prior to the Whiz,
(40:14):
the only impact that black culture had on Broadway had
come many years earlier with Lorraine Handsbury's Raising in the Sun.
It was time that the traditionally inhospitable terrain of the
(40:35):
Great White Way underwent the conditioning for what we now
call diversity, equity, and inclusion. We didn't use those terms
in the early seventies, but we knew that we were
setting the stage for a change. And here's the miracle
(41:02):
of the Whiz. Stephany Mills play the role of Dorothy.
Once you see Dorothy as a young girl of color,
that is what universalizes the message of the Whiz, which
is there's no place like home. That's a great lesson
(41:26):
to learn. That's one of the greatest lessons to learn.
And once in someone's life, we go searching for our
purpose everywhere, and then at some point we learned, oh,
there's no place like home. As long as that was
the exclusive domain of a young, although brilliant, white girl,
(41:49):
it didn't resonate for the majority of young people. Once
Dorothy has melanine in her skin, then that message of
there's no place like home becomes universal, becomes a message
for everybody, everybody. We'll be right back. Well. You know.
(42:24):
The other thing that, of course I love is in Hadestown,
where you are again starring, which I also think of
as a groundbreaking musical. You're playing a Greek god, Hermes,
and you are omniscient. You are someone who is like
(42:44):
leading the whole audience and all of us through the story.
I loved your performance. Thank you, Thank you absolutely just
was knocked out. When I think about it, though, you
are now again because after the pande Emmick Hadestown reopened,
so you're back on the stage. You are, I think,
(43:06):
still doing eight shows a week. Look, that's not an
easy schedule at any age. And when you accepted your
Tony Award, I'll never forget this in you shared with
the audience your three Carnival rules for sustainability and longevity.
(43:26):
And although you put it in the context of the arts,
I would say, I think these are pretty good rules
for anybody. Could you share them with our listeners on
this podcast, I'd be happy to The context in which
I learned it was the arts. Anything you want to do,
anything that you want to master, will be enhanced if
(43:51):
the arts are part of your preparation. You don't have
to become an actor. You don't have to dance, you
don't have to sing. You just have to bebble the
hard edges by saying or understanding that you are an artist.
(44:12):
You are a good mother, you have cultivated the art
of parenthood. You're a good construction worker, You've mastered the
art of building things. You are a good street cleaner,
garbage collector, you've mastered the art of sanitation. Cultivate the
(44:33):
artistry of whatever it is you do, and then you
can apply these three cardinal rules. Cardinal rule number one,
surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when they
see you coming. Cardinal rule number two. Slowly is the
(44:54):
fastest way to get to where you want to be.
Cardonal rule number three. The top of one mountain is
the bottom of the next, so keep climbing. MMM. I
really appreciate the way that you took those cardinal rules
(45:15):
and expanded them to what we do in our everyday lives,
making it clear everybody can be an artist in his
or her own way. Do what you can do. It's
a pot luck supper. Bring your best dish. You literally
I could. I could talk to you all day, my friend.
(45:36):
I just wish you all of the blessings of this
extraordinary life that you're leading. May it continue with joy
and gratitude and you continue to find ways to share
it with you. It really means the world to me personally.
May I have the last word? Yes, you may. Hillary
(45:59):
Rodham Clinton, Madam President, thank you for allowing me to
have this conversation with you. I'm taking it to everyone
whose eyes light up when they see me. Come. You
(46:31):
and Me Both is brought to you by I Heart Radio.
We're produced by Julie Subran, Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo,
with help from Homa Aberdeen, Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Brianna Johnson,
Nick Merrill, Lona Valmorrow and Benita Zuman. Our engineer is
Zack McNeice and the original music is by Forrest Gray.
(46:54):
If you like You and Me Both, tell someone else
about it. And if you're not already a subscriber, what
are you waiting for? You can subscribe to You and
Me Both on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, and,
as Andrea says, keep climbing. I'll see you next week.
You and Me Both is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Hillary Clinton, and this is You and Me Both.
Believe in yourself. You know, it's a piece of advice
we hear a lot, but for many of us, it
takes years, if not a lifetime, to actually get there.
And then there are those rare folks, immensely talented and
(00:24):
hard working, who somehow always knew that they would be somebody. Today,
I have the pleasure of speaking with two people who
believed in themselves from the get go. Later we'll hear
(00:45):
from the incredibly talented actor, director, and choreographer Andre de Shields.
But first I'm talking to multiple Grammy Award winning singer
and songwriter Brandy Carlisle. I first discovered Brandy back in
when she performed her song The Joke at the Grammy Awards.
(01:09):
That year, she was nominated four six, yes six Grammys
for her album By the Way I Forgive You. I
immediately tracked down as much of her music as I could,
and I've been a fan ever since. Brandy grew up
in rural Washington State with very young parents who struggled
(01:29):
to make a living and provide a stable home, but
she was also surrounded by a lot of love and
a lot of music. She's drawn on those roots to
build a beautiful family of her own with her wife
Catherine and their two daughters, Evangeline and Elijah. Brandy writes
(01:50):
about all of this in her memoir titled Broken Horses,
and that's where I wanted to start our conversation by
asking her what it was like to pull up those memories,
the good, the bad, the wonderful and right this incredibly open,
revealing and compelling book. I had always kind of mind
(02:13):
my past for experience and songwriting and things like that,
but just in a little random bursts without the detail,
you know. But when I actually really sat down and
kind of meditated on it, everything came back smells and
floral prints on couches and you know, whatever vehicle we
happened to have at that time, and just my childhood
became really clear and really vivid, and it poured out
(02:35):
of me. I didn't hesitate. I didn't worry about what
I was saying about mom or Dad or you know,
my brother and sister, or the way that we lived
or what was going on and our lives at that time.
I didn't think about embarrassment because I think in the
back of my mind, I knew I could always go
and take anything out, I could edit anything, and then
I just didn't from what I read um not only
(02:56):
about your parents, but your grandparents aunts uncle's. Yeah, there
was a lot of love, there was a lot of fun,
and there was a lot of unpredictability, instability and chaos.
That's true. How would you describe your mom and your dad?
You emphasize how young they were. Yeah, they were, and
(03:17):
in some ways and that I mean, this is a compliment.
Are very young, and there's an energy about them and
that endless opportunities for adventure and fun and honestly mostly chaos.
There was always this kind of undercurrent of like, well,
we're different and we don't have to do things the
way other people do them. And it was like a
(03:39):
little bit like that film, you know, Captain Fantastic. There
was a lot of late night discussion and I was
privy to a lot of things that I don't know
if I needed to be privy to. But I was
also given great wisdom and insight at a really young age,
and for some reason, I just feel like I knew
what to do with it, and that kind of narrative
(03:59):
of like we're different, it we live different was what
made not being at the same schools or having a
lot of different houses, or a little bit of upheaval
not just okay, but what I thought would be a
preferable way to grow up. And looking back on it,
I don't know that. I don't feel that way now.
I feel a pull all the time to raise my
(04:20):
kids eccentrically with a little bit of chaos, a little
bit of spontaneity, a little bit and we don't know
what's going to happen. And um my wife makes me resistant.
But I don't want to leave your childhood yet because
you also describe the very serious illness you had as
what a four year old? Can you talk about that? Yeah,
(04:41):
when I was four years old, I contracted meninji kockumaningitis
and presented as really, really sick. But my mother was
really young, I want to say, like twenty at the time,
and I knew right away that something was wrong. But
she was the kind of mom where she thought something
was wrong all the time. You know, she had the
speed dial if they even had that, you know, in
(05:02):
night what would two four nurse? And she told my
dad that something was really wrong, and you know, he
didn't believe her, and my mom was on the phone
with two four nurse and two foreign nurse asked my
mom to have me touch my chin to my chest,
which I guess is like the telltale sign that somebody
could have meningitis, and it made me pass out and
(05:23):
I just remember waking up in the backseat of the
car on my way to the emergency room and wound
up being in the hospital in a coma for um
quite some time before I came to and didn't get
out of there until after my fifth birthday, and um,
there's still a bit of trauma, I think for both
my parents, but mostly I think my mother about thinking
(05:45):
that I wasn't going to pull through that, and it
gave me a sense of specialness. You know, I was
the first grandchild on both sides of the family, and
and everybody had this kind of Brandy's got a mission thing,
and it gave me a quite inflated sense of selving.
What was your earliest memory of making or listening to music,
(06:06):
because the other part of the book, which I love
is that you had a somewhat musical family, and I
see pictures in the book of you as a really
little kid, all dressed up, You're on stage, you're singing.
What are your earliest memories. There's music on both sides
of my family, country music and blue grass mostly. My
dad's father played dobro and followed blue grass bands around
(06:32):
in his RV, and I didn't get to spend much
time with him musically. He was a quiet guy that
you know. But on my mom's side of the family,
her dad was a cigar salesman and a country music
singer and yodeler, and he was a very outward personality,
big influence that I think about in here in my
head all the time to this day. But he died
really young, of a l s which is the worst
(06:55):
season the world. And uh, when he died, kind of
the last thing he in, whether he knew it or not,
was light a fire in my mother to continue on
the music. And she did. She took all that grief
and that little bit of money and got a p
a system and put together a band and started singing
(07:15):
and thought to include me and my brother. And so
I was like seven or eight years old the first
time I got on stage and sang a Roseanne Cash song.
Tennessee flat top box at this place called the Northwest
grand Ole Opry And I just want to be a cowgirl.
I love that. Well. I also really love your mother's
gutsiness that she got that p a system and put
(07:37):
herself up there. That is really making yourself vulnerable. And
I think it's another real tribute to her as a
mom that she knew to include you. Yeah, and she
was really good. She looked great, huge hair, you know,
she fixed my hair and put our clothes together and everything,
and she just yeah, she'd always tell me she'd be
sit in the front or I just going move, Brandy,
(07:58):
move your body, stop wrapping them cord around your hand.
Oh god, we're taking a quick break. Stay with us.
The other thing about your upbringing is that you know
(08:21):
you grew up in a religious family and a religious community. Um.
And I really like the way that faith and spirituality
run through your story like yours. Yeah, like mine exactly,
and how it evolves. And it was so touching to
(08:43):
me and heartbreaking to read your description about a pastor
refusing to baptize you. I guess because he knew you
were gay and insisted that you renounce, literally renounce your self.
In order to be baptized, and you rightly refused to
(09:04):
do that. Can you tell that story? Yeah, he really
knew I was gay. Like That's really one of the
hardest nuances about that stories, that he really knew I
was gay. Like I was totally unapologetic about it. I
presented that way. I brought my little girlfriend to church
for some reason. I don't know why. I didn't expect that. Um,
it was in the sermons, it was in the subtext.
(09:26):
You know, I did have a sense of audacity that
I can't I would love to reconnect with actually, um,
but yeah he did. And there was like a well,
the Baptists are very big by the way on public
declarations converting to possible public humiliation. And I already liked
being on stage. So you know, I went up to
the front of the church and on one Sunday and
(09:48):
said I'd like to be baptized, was applauded and hugged
and given a schedule of you know, going to lunch
with the pastor and learning the things I need to
learn in the scriptures and understanding what going to take place,
inviting people, and then got to the church that day
to be baptized. And our talent and our family and
our friends kind of filled the church. And the pastor
(10:10):
at the last minute asked me, which was I thought
was really strange, asked me if I, quote unquote practiced homosexuality,
and I just remember this furrowed brow looking at him.
I said, you know, I'm I'm gay. I'm coming to
church with my girlfriend, you know, and that we go
we go into pizza Hut yesterday, like you know, you know,
and chose that moment to tell me that he wasn't
going to baptize me. And I had to kind of
(10:32):
run out the church in front of everyone. And it's
probably one of the biggest humiliations in my life. Without
trying to wrap it up into a attractive box and
say that everything's fine now, without that experience, I wouldn't
have known how much support actually had, how upset the
people that came to see that happen for me. We're
(10:54):
help set, my dad was, and I always felt I
was kind of gay ninety is accepted, you know, kind
of like we accept this, but don't put it into
our face kind of thing. Until that day and everybody
becoming so upset, I felt, you know, more seen in
that way than I ever had before, also more rejected
than I ever had before. But um, it pushed me
(11:16):
into another life that I needed to be pushed into.
But also from that time forward, you really threw yourself
into your music. And thinking back to being put on
the stage as this, you know, little girl, three decades
of performing and of writing, how has your relationship to
(11:38):
music evolved over that period of time. Well, I don't know.
I mean, I think that's the moment that music became
mine and I just I had to really separate my
soul from some things, you know, And so I started
getting interested in getting on airplane. I started getting interested
(11:58):
in going to a big city, meeting different kinds of people,
and less and less interested in country music. I remember
that night of my botched baptism. I call it putting
my little CD player Jeff Buckley's Grace on repeat on Hallelujah,
just over and over and over and over again, and
(12:18):
occurring to me like I want to leave, and I
want to write. I want to write a song like this.
I don't care if it's a twelve minute song, a
longer song for a longer story. But I also love
the way that you found some extraordinary music icons that
became mentors. I mean the kind of relationship that you
(12:44):
describe with Alton John from a far, far distance. There
you are in Washington State, Alton's you know, in England
or Atlanta or wherever you might be, and you are
discovering this extraordinary human being, to say nothing of his
you know, almost cosmic talent. I fall in love with
(13:04):
Elton John over a six fifth sixth grade book report
about Ryan White, never hearing a note. I loved him
because of his contribution to this boy's life. Who died
I think it was it's in the nineties. He died
of AIDS. He had hemophilia. He contracted AIDS through a
blood transfusion. I did a book report on him in school.
(13:26):
I chose the book myself. You didn't even know what
the book was about. I just saw a cute boy
on the book and I picked it up in the
school library and I did a book report. And in
the end of the book, he befriends this British gay
rock star. He's being politicized, He's being asked to become
the poster child for the church as a person affected
by you know, sin in the world created by home
(13:47):
sexual men. And this was a subtext that I had
been taught in church, and was was thinking about this
and talking about this a lot in my own home.
And here's this new perspective in a book the God.
And in the end he meets this rock star, and
this rock star has got a couple of songs that
are mentioned in the book, and he sings a song
at this kid's funeral called Skyline Pigeon. And I went
(14:09):
to the King County Library and checked out the CD
here and now Elton John c D a couple other
Elton John c ds in a book by Philip Norman
Elton John, Elton John, and I dove into this rock star.
And before I ever heard him saying, I was already
obsessed with him. And then I heard Skyline Pigeon. And
then I heard Funeral for a friend and Benny and
the Jets, and I just I went in to everything
(14:30):
Elton John. By the time I was like fourteen, there
wasn't a square inch of my bedroom walls that weren't
covered with Elton John memorabilia. I made homemade Elton John jewelry,
and um I began playing piano. My parents got me
an eighty dollar toys, rus Cassio keyboard and totally changed
my life. And yeah, now he's like, he's my friend,
(14:53):
he is your friend. But Ryan White died in nineteen nine,
and he had such a an amazing effect on so
many people. You know, there eventually was a piece of legislation,
the Ryan White Act, to provide more support resources for
people living with HIV AIDS, and Alton just connected so
(15:18):
immediately with this, you know, young boy from Indiana. But
neither Ryan nor his mother ever allowed people if they
could stop it using them in a negative way. I mean,
they were bighearted, they were open minded. And I want
to just make one other point. You got that book
(15:40):
about Ryan White in your school library. There are people
right now who want to take a book like that
out of public school libraries. You know, impressionable children shouldn't
be learning about Ryan White. You know, it's just another
perfect example among countless examples of why, you know, we
(16:01):
have to stand up for the right of kids to
you know, seek out and find information, and obviously your
school library is one of the best ways to do that.
When and how did you finally meet Elton in person?
First of all, that's a really really good point. And
books like that that I had access to in my
school sculpted a lot of things about my life. And
that's just one of the many that gave me, you know,
(16:24):
the worldview that propelled me forward in really really big ways.
I love that you made that point. What was this
was the second question? So when and where did you
meet Elton? Okay? So I met Elton, just like you'd
hope I would, in a Las Vegas casino basement recording studio.
He called me like ten years prior to that, or
(16:46):
it gives me five years prior to that when I
put out put out the story, but I hadn't met
him yet, and I always wanted to meet him. I
wrote him a letter when I made my album give
Up the Ghost and asked him to play piano in
one of my songs, and he just he called me
up and said, yeah, can you get to Vegas? So
I did, and I just never forget it because I
remember coming down this corridor and I could hear him
(17:07):
talking and I had all of the every live VHS
tape that he had ever recorded, every interview, and I'm like,
oh my god, that's Elton. I'm gonna walk around the
corner and I'm gonna see Elton John sitting there, And
I did, and he was sitting there in a track suit,
and he just gave me an enormous hug and then
stayed with me all day for four hours, just talk
to me about music. Just gave me everything that I
(17:29):
could have ever hoped to be given by meeting my
very worthy hero. By the time I got home, he'd
sent me a hundred CDs with sticky notes. Oh, talk
about the day that you found out you were the
most nominated woman of the nineteen Grammys. Described that because
(17:51):
to me, it just blended so much about what your
life is like right now. I mean it was the
middle of the night because we're on the West Coast,
and I just the phone call that from relative obscurity
in terms of the Grammys, I have been nominated for
six of them, and I was just in total disbelief.
I knew it was going to be a watershed moment.
(18:12):
I knew it was going to change my life, and
it really did. It was my my publicistant friend, Osha,
She's just like they just kept saying your name. You know.
I wasn't even awake. It was pitch dark, and I
woke up everybody in my house. And but you know,
I mean, you know because you're a Grammy winner, right, Yeah,
that's right for the spoken word, that's true. Where's your
brily I'm looking for in the background. I don't see it.
(18:35):
I have it in our our library. It's part of history. Okay, Well,
before we go, I have to ask you. I know
you love fishing, and you know you you write in
the book nothing's really ever got ahold of me the
way fishing and music cab. Okay, what is the biggest
(18:58):
fish you've ever caught? And was it the same feeling
you had when you got all those Grammys? It was
the same feeling, I mean nearly identical, because, as I
said in the book, fishing is merely an attempt to
connect to something that you know is there but but
can't see a perpetual series of occasions for hope. The
(19:21):
biggest fish I ever caught was in Alaska on the
Kenai River. It's a forty three pound king salmon. That's
one big fish. You know. I've actually fished for salmon
in Alaska and those fish are big. They are big,
and they're delicious too. Did they pack your fish and
(19:42):
prepare it so that you could go and eat it later.
I prepared it. You prepare it, no, girl, But you
know something about that. Huh. Oh my gosh. But I
also love I mean your your definition of fishing is
almost like a perfect definition of faith. I'm gonna I'm
gonna remember that. I think that that's exactly what I
parallel it with. Well, Brandy Carlisle, I cannot thank you enough.
(20:04):
This was such a true delight. Do you have any
parting words or any yeah I singing words or anything
you want to leave us with. I cannot tell you
how much talking to you today has has meant to me.
And I almost can't do anything else for the rest
of the day now. I just I think that you
are such a special person. You're such a gift to
(20:25):
the world. You've been a gift in my life. You
know the song we keep skimming over, the joke that
I sang at the Grammys. I wrote that first line
in the second verse about you. Oh I'm getting over
a colt, So I'm gonna do my best. You get discouraged,
don't you. Girl. It's your brother's world for a little while, longer,
(20:48):
a little while, just a little while, not too much
Thank you, Thank You. Randy Carlyle's memoir is Broken Horses.
One of my favorite shows on Broadway in recent years
(21:11):
is the Tony Award winning Best Musical Hades Town. In
this modern retelling of Orpheus and Eriticy, the character of
Herme's messenger to the gods carries us through the entire show,
and who better to play a god than the larger
than life personality Andrea de Shields. Following a shutdown during
(21:36):
the pandemic, Hades Town is up and running again with
Andrea at the Helm. But this is just the latest
chapter in his long and glorious history. At age seventy six,
Andre has been performing in the theater for over fifty years,
(21:57):
starting with his professional debut in the hit rock musical
Hair back in nineteen sixty nine and I hate to
tell you that I actually saw it way back then.
But since then he's appeared on film and TV and
in more musicals like The Whiz and Ain't Misbehavior. Three
(22:19):
Tony Award nominations and one win later, He's truly a
living legend of the stage. Andre was born in the
nineteen forties and grew up in Baltimore as the ninth
of eleven siblings. His mother was a domestic worker, his
father was a tailor. The stories he tells of how
(22:41):
he got from there to hear always believing in himself
along the way, or an inspiration to anyone with a
dream of making it, of making something that you really
can be proud of. I was so delighted to speak
with him. Good morning, Oh, good morning. I love your
(23:05):
red background. Wow. We may not know this, it's my aura.
I can understand that, my friend. You know, I was privileged,
as you know, to see you in Hades Town for
which you won a Tony in as you marked your
fiftieth anniversary of working on the stage. And I want
(23:29):
to go back to the beginning because I want our
listeners to have a little idea of where you know
you come from, what your roots are. I think it's
really a great American story, but it's more a tribute
to your energy and your resilience and your determination in
your aura. So what type of kid were you? Andre?
(23:49):
Were you shy? Were you somebody who liked attention? I
know you were one of eleven kids. My roots are
in Baltimore, Maryland, and I would not describe myself as shy,
m I would describe myself as secretly ambitious. I come
(24:10):
from meager beginnings and that was my impetus to achieve.
There were very few of us who lived in the
inner most of the inner cities in Baltimore who dared
to dream. We were not encouraged to dream. We were
(24:32):
not encouraged to be ambitious. We were not encouraged to
think that we could have a slice of the vaunted
American pie. But that was my first conscious thought. I
want my slice of the American pie. Did anyone in
(24:53):
your family know about your dream? Encourage your dreams? Everyone
knew about my dream. I shared it with everyone I
wanted to be Sammy Davis Jr. Who arguably is the
greatest entertainer of However, the response was, oh, you must
(25:20):
be out of your mind. So when I didn't get
the visceral support, I thought, well, let me put this
in my vest, close to my heart. Let me keep
it there so it wouldn't be sullied. So Andrew, tell
us about your parents. They clearly had some kind of
(25:43):
influence on you, as all parents do one way or
the other. And tell us about that. When I was
old enough to have an adult conversation with my mother
and father. My mother shared with me that her life's
dream was to be a chorus girl, and I thought
(26:04):
what she said, Yes, she didn't use the term dances.
She said chorus girl, my parents having been born around
the turn of the twentieth century. And I said, so,
what happened? Her response was her father said to her,
(26:25):
no decent colored daughter of mine is going to shuffle
her way through life. We've hardly shuffled our way off
the plantation. Now that is very meaningful for me because
my maternal grandfather was the son of his master. So
(26:49):
I decided, with that information I should ask my father amazingly,
but in retrospect, not amazingly at all. His response was,
his life dream was he wanted to be a singer.
He had a beautiful tone of voice, and he sang
in church, and he had a club that he's sang with.
(27:12):
And I said, well, what happened to that dream? He said,
his father, my paternal grandfather, said, how do you expect
to be a responsible husband and father with such an
irresponsible career. I tell that story because what happened is
(27:34):
that both my parents deferred their dreams. I believe that
I am the manifestation of those deferred dreams, because from
the morning on a cold January day that I was
evicted from my mother's womb, that was imprinted on my spirit.
(28:00):
You are the manifestation of the deferred reams of your parents.
I've never had a question about my path in life.
That's a great manifestation. I knew that in order to
overcome these invisible but seemingly insurmountable walls that we build
(28:25):
around ourselves when we are constantly told that we cannot achieve,
and that there is a demarcation in the society that
says you stay where you are. There is no mobility
(28:46):
right right, And you know, sadly it is as you
just said, sometimes from the people that you're living with,
people who love you, who are afraid for you, and
they want to protect you. They want to protect you,
and they unfortunately often evidence that in a way that
you know, kind of tries to pull you down or
(29:07):
push you back so that you don't get out into
that world where you will get hurt. And then, of course,
on the receiving end, you've got people who are you know,
not expecting much or who are outright, you know, prejudiced,
and biased against you and your dream. I want to
say something about protecting people. I know it is meant
(29:32):
for good, but you cannot protect an individual from himself.
You cannot protect an individual from his ambition. You cannot
protect an individual from his destiny. You have to encourage
an individual, especially when when he's young. You must say
(29:56):
go forth and being the most authentic individual that you can.
I want to ask one one last question about this.
So when was the first time you performed in public
and you knew that the dream was not just a
dream you kept close to your heart, it could be
your reality. After the dream that I was protecting, I
(30:20):
had the epiphany, and that was seeing the film Cabin
in the Sky. M John Bubbles so Black. When I
saw his performance in Cabin in the Sky, the quiet
voice that lives in the core of our souls and
speaks to us only the truth, said to me, Andre,
(30:43):
that's what you're going to do, because all of a
sudden you had an epiphany, because you know, there's that
old saying you can't be what you can't see exactly,
and you saw it. I saw it so as a
young precaution Negro boy in Bolt. You know about the
(31:04):
Society of Friends. They came to me through the Central
Scholarship Bureau and said, you're a young man with potential.
We would like to offer you a scholarship to go
to college. The condition is that you must attend the
college of our choice. I jumped at the opportunity, the
(31:28):
first child in the family to go to college. Wilmington's
College in Williamington, Ohio, a pristine, intimate Quaker school. And
when I was going to college, and I know you
remember this, it was Derek to do your junior year abroad.
(31:52):
I did my junior year in Denmark. And when I
arrived in Denmark, I was received as the very opposite
to the way I had been treated in Baltimore. In Baltimore,
in many ways, I was discumming the earth, and I'm
not exaggerating. In Denmark, I was royalty. Can I touch
(32:16):
your skin? Can I touch your Can I touch your hair?
I'm not kidding. There was It blew my mind. It
opened my eyes to not only the place in which
I had arrived, but the place from where I had come.
(32:36):
And at that time, all the major cities were experiencing
their urban insurrections. And I thought to myself that's where
I come from. So when I returned, I have to
leave that pristine Quaker environment and go to where the
(33:01):
veil was being ripped from the eyes of political America.
So I ended up at the University of Wisconsin, one
of the hot ded's a political change. Really did you
jump right right right the But what an incredible realization
(33:22):
that you had about yourself and your life as a
relatively young person. I mean, you're still what years old?
When you decide exactly I've got to get out into
this world that's waiting for me. I've got an idea
now where I came from and where I want to go.
You graduated from Wisconsin Universe consin Madison, in I think right,
(33:45):
And the month I graduated, I won a position in
Tom O'hoggian's Hair's So Great. That was my first professional performance.
Now that's the equation I want to share with anybody
who's curious about ambition, accomplishment, destiny, any of those huge ideas.
(34:11):
First you must have the dream. Second you must have
the epiphany. The third part of the equation is once
on that Thursday when someone comes to you and puts
a check in your hand and pays you for the
dream that has now become the work. That's the equation.
(34:33):
From there, your destiny will rise up, shake your hand
and say welcome. I've been waiting for you all this time.
But the epiphany and the opportunity also requires work. Once
you are offered that position, you know in hair, you
have to put in the work, didn't you? That is correct,
(34:55):
But the work starts long before the paycheck arrives. You know.
It strikes me that it was in the Whiz that
you had your incredible breakout national moment, and how appropriate
it is that a musical retelling of the Wizard of
Oz through Black culture and music would be the groundbreaking
(35:16):
success it was, and also your opportunity to manifest that dream.
How did you end up in the Whiz? So I've
gotten my first professional gig in Chicago. We're in the
early seventies now and we are creating an off Loop
theatrical experience, which is tantamount to what we call off Broadway.
(35:44):
And a group of us from the University of Wisconsin
founded the Organic Theater Company and created a show called
Warp w A r P. It's the science fiction show.
Produced a saw it and thought, wow, this would go
well in New York. He brought us to New York
(36:04):
in nine We were sumarily dismissed by the New York critics,
and the consensus was, listen to you dirty foot hippies,
go back to Chicago now. When the company returned to Chicago,
I said, guys, I love you all. You've been my
(36:27):
family for four years. But now that I'm in New York,
I'm going to take my chances here. And by the
grace of four women friends of mine who were in
New York working, and these four women would allow me
to couch surf, take care of my cat, and you
(36:48):
can sleep in my couch, wash my dishes and you
can sleep on my couch, and that sort of thing.
As my mother would say. I didn't have a pot
to piston or a window to throw it out of.
But I was right. But I was in the camelot.
All I had to do was to discover my coat
(37:09):
of arms, if you will. Ken Hopper, the producer of
The Whiz, cast his net. We're looking for the actress
who would say these roles. I got an audition. I
was cut for the scarecrow. I was cut for the lion.
I was cut for the tin man. It didn't matter
(37:30):
to me because I wanted to be the Wizard, but
I had to beg for it. And Ken Harper said
to me, all right, I think he thought he was
getting rid of me. Will allow you to audition for
the Whiz. Now. When I got the call back, I
(37:51):
had pulled my hair out to it's Jimmy Hendricks length.
I was wearing my five inch silver studied platforms. I
was wearing my hot pants. I was wearing my halter
that had love embroidered all over it. I was wearing
my my Sight earrings. I was glorious. And I went
(38:19):
in and I sang and I think this is part
of your growing up to midnight hour. Oh perfect right,
I'm going away till the midnight hour. So I get
to the end of the song and Charlie Smalls, who
was the composer for The Whiz, stands up and shouts,
(38:43):
that's my Whiz. Hallelujah, hallelujah. That's what I'm talking about.
When you do the proper preparation, the destiny unfolds in
one golden step after the next, not immediately. It takes time.
But if you continue to apply yourself, if you continue
(39:05):
to cultivate patients. If you continue to know yourself and
be yourself and understand that authenticity is everything, you will
receive the blessing that has your name written on it.
I love that you know. You know so much of
(39:26):
what happens in live theater is ephemeral. But the Whiz
was one of those moments where it was just like
a great earthquake came down from on high and shook
the foundation of American musical theater. In fact, I think
your costume is now in the Smithsonian, is correct, National
(39:50):
Museum of African American History and Culture. Did you know
when you were in the Whiz it was literally a
moment of destiny for the culture. Yes, we we all
knew as a community that we were part of a
tectonic change in a paradigm because prior to the Whiz,
(40:14):
the only impact that black culture had on Broadway had
come many years earlier with Lorraine Handsbury's Raising in the Sun.
It was time that the traditionally inhospitable terrain of the
(40:35):
Great White Way underwent the conditioning for what we now
call diversity, equity, and inclusion. We didn't use those terms
in the early seventies, but we knew that we were
setting the stage for a change. And here's the miracle
(41:02):
of the Whiz. Stephany Mills play the role of Dorothy.
Once you see Dorothy as a young girl of color,
that is what universalizes the message of the Whiz, which
is there's no place like home. That's a great lesson
(41:26):
to learn. That's one of the greatest lessons to learn.
And once in someone's life, we go searching for our
purpose everywhere, and then at some point we learned, oh,
there's no place like home. As long as that was
the exclusive domain of a young, although brilliant, white girl,
(41:49):
it didn't resonate for the majority of young people. Once
Dorothy has melanine in her skin, then that message of
there's no place like home becomes universal, becomes a message
for everybody, everybody. We'll be right back. Well. You know.
(42:24):
The other thing that, of course I love is in Hadestown,
where you are again starring, which I also think of
as a groundbreaking musical. You're playing a Greek god, Hermes,
and you are omniscient. You are someone who is like
(42:44):
leading the whole audience and all of us through the story.
I loved your performance. Thank you, Thank you absolutely just
was knocked out. When I think about it, though, you
are now again because after the pande Emmick Hadestown reopened,
so you're back on the stage. You are, I think,
(43:06):
still doing eight shows a week. Look, that's not an
easy schedule at any age. And when you accepted your
Tony Award, I'll never forget this in you shared with
the audience your three Carnival rules for sustainability and longevity.
(43:26):
And although you put it in the context of the arts,
I would say, I think these are pretty good rules
for anybody. Could you share them with our listeners on
this podcast, I'd be happy to The context in which
I learned it was the arts. Anything you want to do,
anything that you want to master, will be enhanced if
(43:51):
the arts are part of your preparation. You don't have
to become an actor. You don't have to dance, you
don't have to sing. You just have to bebble the
hard edges by saying or understanding that you are an artist.
(44:12):
You are a good mother, you have cultivated the art
of parenthood. You're a good construction worker, You've mastered the
art of building things. You are a good street cleaner,
garbage collector, you've mastered the art of sanitation. Cultivate the
(44:33):
artistry of whatever it is you do, and then you
can apply these three cardinal rules. Cardinal rule number one,
surround yourself with people whose eyes light up when they
see you coming. Cardinal rule number two. Slowly is the
(44:54):
fastest way to get to where you want to be.
Cardonal rule number three. The top of one mountain is
the bottom of the next, so keep climbing. MMM. I
really appreciate the way that you took those cardinal rules
(45:15):
and expanded them to what we do in our everyday lives,
making it clear everybody can be an artist in his
or her own way. Do what you can do. It's
a pot luck supper. Bring your best dish. You literally
I could. I could talk to you all day, my friend.
(45:36):
I just wish you all of the blessings of this
extraordinary life that you're leading. May it continue with joy
and gratitude and you continue to find ways to share
it with you. It really means the world to me personally.
May I have the last word? Yes, you may. Hillary
(45:59):
Rodham Clinton, Madam President, thank you for allowing me to
have this conversation with you. I'm taking it to everyone
whose eyes light up when they see me. Come. You
(46:31):
and Me Both is brought to you by I Heart Radio.
We're produced by Julie Subran, Kathleen Russo and Rob Russo,
with help from Homa Aberdeen, Oscar Flores, Lindsay Hoffman, Brianna Johnson,
Nick Merrill, Lona Valmorrow and Benita Zuman. Our engineer is
Zack McNeice and the original music is by Forrest Gray.
(46:54):
If you like You and Me Both, tell someone else
about it. And if you're not already a subscriber, what
are you waiting for? You can subscribe to You and
Me Both on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening, and,
as Andrea says, keep climbing. I'll see you next week.
Host
Hillary Clinton
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