November 1, 2024 • 48 mins
In this episode, ArtsAbly is in conversation with Mark Erelli, an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and touring folk musician living in Massachusetts.
During the interview, Mark Erelli mentions a certain number of resources that are listed on ArtsAbly’s website, in the Blog section. Access Mark Erelli’s resources
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
♪ Opening theme music ♪
Hello, and welcome to this episodeof ArtsAbly in Conversation.
My name is Diane Kolin.
This series presents artists, academics,and project leaders who dedicate their
(00:25):
time and energy to a better accessibilityfor people with disabilities in the arts.
You can find more of these conversationson our website, artsably.com,
which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com.
♪ Theme music ♪
(00:55):
Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation with Mark Erelli, who is an American singer-songwriter,
multi-instrumentalist,and touring folk musician
living in Massachusetts.
You can find the resources mentionedby Mark Erelli during this episode
on ArtsAbly website in the blog section.
(01:25):
Hi.
Oh, yeah. Okay.
Hey, buddy. Hi!
♪ Mark Erelli - You're Gonna Wanna Remember This ♪
I don't know where we were going,but Rosalita was on the radio.
(01:55):
I was drumming on the dashand she was whistling to the saxophone.
We never promised each other,but when you only have the summer,
It's almost like September 7th,
(02:16):
you're gonna wanna remember this.
It flies by, it's easy to miss.
Don't play, drink it in.
It happens once and itmight not happen again.
(02:37):
The world's going to keep on turning.
That's just the way it is.
So you're gonna wanna remember this.
♪ Music ♪
(03:01):
Some old friends picked a weekend
to head up north and get out on the lake,
talk about the wives and kids
and reminisce about the glory days.
(03:21):
Years fly by and days are numbered.
Now we're old enough to wonderand just wise enough to know one thing.
You're gonna wanna remember this.
It flies by, but It's easy to miss.
(03:43):
Don't play, drink in it.
It happens once and itmight not happen again.
The world's going to keep on turning.
That's just the way it is.
So you're gonna wanna remember this.
(04:13):
The last time don't always
feel like a last time.
So maybe put your hand in mine
and I promise tonight,
(04:33):
you're gonna wanna remember this.
It flies by, it's easy to miss.
Don't play, drink it in.
It happens once and itmight never happen again.
(04:55):
The world's gonna keep on turning.
That's just the way it is.
So you're gonna wanna remember.
You're gonna wanna remember.
(05:15):
You're gonna wanna remember this.
♪ Music ♪
(05:35):
♪ End of the song. ♪
Welcome to this new episodeof ArtsAbly in Conversation.
Today, I am with Mark Erelli,who is an American singer, songwriter,
multi-instrumentalist, and also a touringfolk musician living in Massachusetts.
(05:57):
Welcome, Mark.
Thank you so much, Diane.
Thank you for taking the timeto speak with me today.
It's my pleasure.
Okay, so I know we have a lotof things to talk about because
your artistic life is really rich.
I wanted to have this opportunityto hear about your background,
(06:20):
where do you come from, what brought you to music?
I come to music basically through
high school musicals and middle school
musicals is where I started out.
Though I guess going back even slightly
before that, I grew up glued to MTV.
(06:41):
That was that MTV went on the airwhen I was a younger kid,
and I just was completelybesotted with this, at the time,
very new marriage of visuals and music.
I was just a big music fan growing up.
(07:02):
Didn't know anyone thatmade music professionally
or at a particularly high level.
I didn't have any musiciansto speak of in my family.
My grandfather would sometimesfool around on a little keyboard,
but it just wasn't part of my life.
I had a middle school art teacher whosaid, You should try out for the musical.
(07:26):
And I did, and I got one of the leads.
And it turned out I could sing,and I hadn't known that before that.
From there, I went from musicalsand learning how to sing
to picking up instruments from there.
So a lot of times people ask me,How do you get started in this
(07:48):
singing and playing at the same time?
I didn't learn how to singand play at the same time.
I learned one thing, and thenI added one thing to it,
and I just kept going with that.
I started playing guitar whenI was in college, started playing
campus coffeehouses, and I was a biology major
(08:08):
at the time, but just was really
taken with this musical/creative outletthat I had in addition to biology.
I just didn't know how to do it.
I knew at this point, I had met actualbiologists, and they were part
of my life, and I didn't reallyknow any actual musicians.
(08:33):
Though whenever any of them came to campusfor a performance, I would somehow
find a way to hang out with themand just badger them with questions
about how one did this for a living.
When I graduated with a degree in biology, I still just didn't
really know how to balance musicand art or how to do art.
(08:57):
I continued on in graduateschool in biology.
I got a master's degreein evolutionary biology.
But all the while, I was playing showsand touring as much as possible
and cutting classes on Fridaysto make it to gigs hours away.
Eventually, that led to getting arecord deal out in Western Massachusetts,
(09:20):
where I was attending graduate school.
My debut self-titled albumcame out, I think, a month before
the defense of my master's thesis.
Not to paper over too manyof the ups and downs since then,
but I basically never looked back since, that was just over 25 years ago
(09:44):
in 1999, and I'm still doing it.
It's a stupid question, but didthe study you had in biology,
did it influence your way of writing,or is it totally separate?
Yeah, that's not a stupid question at all.
(10:05):
Usually, people phrase that question in a
way that I find a little harder to take.
Usually, people say, How did youmove from something totally different,
like science, to something like art?
And then I have to go into my whole spielabout how it's all the same.
(10:28):
I think this is something that we
struggle with as societies, as cultures.
Yes, everybody is a unique snowflakewith their own set of talents.
It is wonderful,and diversity is wonderful,
but we're all basically the same.
(10:50):
To me, that is a source of compassion and
a source of empathy, that commonality.
I think it extends toall the different disciplines
that we find ourselves engaged in.
Religion, philosophy, science,
creative writing, music, singing.
(11:13):
I actually don't see a differencein any of those things.
I mean, there's minor differencesin terms of the approaches or maybe
the philosophical framework thatyou approach things with, but
they're all just ways of asking the same questions.
And so for me, in science, if you're goingto say design an experiment
(11:39):
and carry it out and try andprovide evidence supporting or negating
a particular hypothesis.
You need to be creative, you need to behard working, you need to be persistent,
You need a lot of attention to detail.
You need to be flexible.
You need a lot of good luck.
(11:59):
I'm running out of fingers.
Those are all the thingsthat you need to write a song, too.
For me, I found that the scientific skills
were basically the same ones
that I needed in my musical life as well.
That close observation and the openness
(12:24):
to the interconnectedness of the world
has served me well and comes up overand over again in my heart.
Maybe that allows you to switchfrom the singer to the songwriter,
to the producer to the sideman.
Can you talk a bit abouthow your career evolved?
(12:45):
Because you didn't stickto songwriting only, right?
You did a lot of different things.
Yeah, correct.
I started out as more of a conventionalsinger-songwriter, releasing records
under my own name, and I still do that.
But as much as I love singingand songwriting, I also have always
(13:06):
really loved the instrumentalists
that are maybe slightly less well known
but played a very formative,supportive role behind the front person.
I'm thinking of an an artist,a guitarist like Ry Cooder and his work
(13:26):
with John Hiatt, or an artist like David Lindley, who was very closely associated
with Jackson Browne for a long time.
I always felt as deeplymoved and as interested
in what those people were doingas I was in the songwriters themselves.
(13:47):
I really wanted to branch into that stuff myself
and ended up through backing up
and accompanying my friends, my fellowindependent singer-singer-songwriter
colleagues, I sidestepped into that sideperson, that accompanist role.
(14:08):
For me, I think a lot of times people
will say, Are you disappointed that
you're not doing your own thingwhen you're serving as a sideman?
I'm like, I am doing my own thing.
This is part of my my own thing.
I also have the best seat in the house.
Even people in the front row,I'm like 6 feet from the artist.
(14:32):
I don't work with peoplejust for a paycheck.
I don't even really get those calls.
If I'm there working with someoneas a side person, I'm there because I
love that person and I love their music.
For me, I get to stand 6 feet from
(14:55):
Lori McKenna or Josh Ritter
or Marc Cohn or Paula Cole or any of the people that I've played with over the years,
and I get to experience their art
from a very, very close perspective,and I get to know them
better as people, too.
It just enhances my overall loveof music, and it energizes me for when I
(15:20):
pivot back towards my my own solo career.
Again, I think a lot of those roles
are only clear-cut or overly
delineated for people thatare maybe looking from the outside in.
(15:43):
For me, again, it's all reallyjust versions of the same thing.
As long as I'm making great musicwith people I love, I'm happy,
whether it's my music or whetherit's their music or whatever it is.
I'm good.
Yeah, but it's a very good pointthat you're making.
(16:05):
It's like we learn from each other,we collaborate, we create together.
That's a very important process,too, and it can bring to your own career
a very enriching experience.
Oh, absolutely.
That doesn't just happen through the music either.
(16:25):
That happens both on stage andin the recording studio and off stage,
away from the music in general.
I see how the people that I work with
deal with adversity in their own lives
(16:45):
or deal with whatever challenge it is.
They get a call from their kidas they're going on stage that someone's
got to a car accident or they've hadsome career setback or some
particular challenge that they're dealing with.
I get to see how they reactand how they approach that situation.
(17:06):
I learned from these artistsin a non creative, non musical way, too,
just about how to approach life.
I feel like I learned so much
from my ancillary roles, if you will,
(17:27):
the roles where I'm not the main attraction.
Actually, I need those times
when I'm not the main focus,
mainly because I've always beenan independent middle class musician.
(17:48):
I'm not this superstar that hasenough resources to just make everything
as easy as it can possibly be.
I'm sure you're aware, as an independent musician,
you're wearing, I don't know how many hats
at any given moment,but certainly in the double digits.
(18:10):
As a side person, I have one job to make -
two jobs, really, to make this artist that I'm working with
feel safe and respected
and to make their music sound as good
as my contribution can possibly make it.
(18:33):
That's a lot simpler than having to be thebooking agent and the publicist,
and the arranger or all that stuff.
It's delightfully streamlined, and I needa break from all the myriad of hats that
you have to wear as a the main artist,to just focus on the music sometimes.
(18:57):
It's a real nice breather for me.
Can you talk about your albums and alsothe process of creation behind each one?
Because I'm pretty sure everythingcame with a different context
and a different period.
Can you talk about that?
Yeah, I mean,
(19:18):
I don't know if I can go through allof them one by one because there's 13 now
of just records under my own name.
But you're correct in that
I am always trying to push myself
into some sort of new territory.
(19:39):
I don't seek out the new creative
territory as a marketing tool or
as a sign of musical restlessness, per se.
I just learn different thingsfrom doing different things.
I think that's how itworks from all of us.
(20:00):
If you do the same thingover and over again, after a while,
that learning curve flattens out, right?
You figure out a lot of how it works.
But if you change it up a lot,you're always coming to things
with that beginner's mindthat the Zen Buddhist like to talk about.
(20:22):
For me, branching out into differentgenres or different recording contexts.
Sometimes I'll record in a conventionalrecording studio, sometimes
I'll record at home, sometimesI'll record on location somewhere
like a Civil War Memorial Hall.
(20:47):
Whether it's different genres ordifferent recording contexts or working
with different musicians, you justlearn different things every time.
When you're doing that, the art is goingin subtly different, vectoring off in
a subtly different directions every time.
(21:07):
If you do that enough times, you justget a much broader, wider understanding
of what it is to do art asa way of life and what it is
that I personally have to offer, you know.
So, I've done -
(21:28):
You can never say I've done everything
because you've never seen everything as,
I think, Bruce Cockburn, the wonderfulCanadian singer-singer-songwriter
has a record called that.
It's true.Every time, it's different.
Even if you did the same thingevery time, you would be different
(21:51):
every time you went back to do it.
Right? So...
I just look at every project
as an opportunity to learn
about myself, about recording techniques,about musical approaches, about genres,
(22:11):
about different people that I'm choosingto work with and what they have to offer.
I just find it endlessly interesting
and I haven't been bored once in 25 years.
(22:32):
That's the beauty of working in music,is that we never get bored.
You never reach the bottomor you never reach the top
or you can always go further in.
I think if you feel stuck at some point,
that's not a sign that you'vereached the end of something.
(22:53):
It's just like something's wrong.
It's like you're not digging deep enoughor you need to focus on your mental
or emotional health or some other aspectof your life that's preventing you
from digging further in.
But you'll never get to the bottomof any creative endeavor.
That's what I love about it.
(23:15):
What are your recent projectsand the ones that you are
turning towards to right now?
Sure. Well, in 2023, I put out my most recent
solo record, which was my first
record that I had put out after revealingto my audience that I was diagnosed
(23:37):
with the retinitis pigmentosa,which is a degenerative retinal disease
that eventually leads to legal blindness.
And that record kind of thematically dealt
with a lot of the the emotional fallout
from coming to grips with that diagnosis.
(24:00):
And my fans and my audiencewere just wonderfully supportive,
both financially and emotionally.
They really showed up to supportmy honesty in that project,
which was really humbling.
After that project, I put out a third record with my Bluegrass band,
(24:24):
which is called Barnstar!,which I share with four other guys.
That was a project that we'd recordedbefore the pandemic and just hadn't found
a way to take back out because we'refive guys that sing around a central mic.
So when there's a pandemichappening, it's a very unsafe
(24:45):
situation, very unsafe set up.
So we were just waiting tillwe could find a good time to do that.
So that came out this year.
And then as far as what's next, there'sreally a couple of things on the horizon.
This past summer, I did a seriesof shows with a string quintet.
(25:08):
I've worked with strings andstring sections on records recently, but
they've been playing supporting roles.
I'll record the rock band basic tracksfirst, and then we'll add the strings on
as an after, not as an afterthought, butafter the fact is what I'm trying to say.
(25:30):
But these shows with the string quintet,it was like, well, what happens if
we take away the rock band andthe strings just are the band?
And it changes the context of everything.
And it was deeply movingand the audiences loved it.
And we recorded the finalshow, multitracked the final show.
And I've always wanted to doan official proper live album, but
(25:55):
I wanted it to be the right musical format.
I didn't just want to rehash what was doneon the records in front of an audience.
I wanted to do something transformative.
It took me 25 years, but I figured it out.
We're going to release
this live string quintet record.
(26:17):
It's going to be the next project,hopefully in the first half of 2025.
Then hopefully in the latter halfof 2025 will be the 14th or
the next studio album and the next batch
of new original songs under my own name.
(26:37):
Before we recorded, you mentionedthat you're going to post a fundraiser?
Yes.
I'm going to be - The lot of the modern
independent artist is that
because of streaming,because of inflation,
(26:59):
because of changes in music consumption,
it's just not really possible to
make enough money from the release of a
particular record to fund the next record.
It can be done, but that recordhas to be wildly successful.
(27:21):
That's just never been my path.
I have a dedicated, I don't wantto call them a cult audience, but they're
a small but mighty base of support.
Every time I need to do a new project, I kind ofhave to go back to them and make the case
(27:43):
for them supporting it in advance.
I'll be launching a kickstarter
in mid-October, I think, to support
the recording and the releaseof not just the live album, but
the next studio album as well.
That'll be a little bitof a different thing for me.
I've done Kickstartersand crowdfunding in the past,
(28:05):
but it was for one particular project.
This time, we're just doingboth projects at the same time
because they're linked in a way.
Please share the link with us, so thatwe can share that with our audience.
Absolutely.Thank you.
Yeah, we'll do.
I have a question about the fact that
(28:28):
a few years ago, you were diagnosed
with retinitis pigmentosa.
I was wondering if it changedyour way of writing your music
and perceiving your music inwhat we call disability arts, basically.
(28:48):
How do you see yourself in that world?
Yeah, good question.
I mean, it definitely -It changed it almost immediately
in the sense that my disability or
my diagnosis terrified me because
(29:09):
I think I'd always associatedsongwriting and what you need to songwrite
as it was a resultof the powers of observation.
And observation is, it's usuallyimplies that you're looking at something.
You're taking it all in visually.
So I was like, if I can't see things or
(29:31):
I can't see things with the visual acuity
and the scale of detail that I'm used to,
doesn't that mean that my songs
and my art will be poor for that?
And I grappled with that for quite some time,
(29:52):
and where I am with all that is that,
and I've learned this through the disability culture
as I've startedto interact with that
subset of wonderful humans that there's other senses,
(30:12):
and seeing is only one of them.
It does enjoy a privileged place
at the top of the pyramidas far as senses go.
But it's not the only wayto experience the world.
I'm not legally blind yet,
(30:33):
except at night or in dark backstage,
I can't see much of anything.
But for someone like
Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder,
do they have any less of a reach
of an artistic life than sighted people?
(30:54):
Of course not.They're geniuses.
I've come to the understanding, maybein the only way that you really can,
which is to lose one of those sensesor to take a hit to one of those senses,
to realize that there's other waysof experiencing the world.
(31:19):
Even in performance, sometimesyou'll get people that feel like
you should be looking rightat the audience, making eye contact
with the audience when you perform.
I've really pushed back on that.
I'm not getting any visual input backif I'm looking into the audience.
(31:42):
All I see is a black void.
It's terrifying at times.
You can feel so alone, evenin a room full of hundreds of people.
I frequentlywill perform with my eyes closed.
I find that I can envision thingsin my mind that way that help me,
(32:07):
that help support the expression of whatI'm trying to communicate in my music.
That's just as valid as being on Broadway
or being in a musical and
hamming it up for the audience and looking them in the eye.
As far as how I see myselfin the disability culture, I'm still
(32:32):
figuring that out, to be honest.
My disability isan invisible one right now.
Unless I'm using my white cane, whichI will use mainly in dark environments
or at night or in unfamiliarenvironments, I still don't take it out
of the house all the time.
(32:54):
If I'm not using that whitecane, you can't tell.
I just look like a dude with glasses.
So...
But that puts me in this interestingposition because I can "pass"
for "normal."
(33:15):
These are not wordsthat we like to use, obviously,
but I use them to make a point.
I'm also a white male, so people treat me
like the thing that everything else
in society is judged against.
I don't say that to agree with it.
I just say that is likethe white male patriarchy is
(33:39):
definitely a thing, and I benefit from thatbecause of the way that I was...
I was just born this way.
I'm treated that way, but I don't have
all of the same capabilities that a person,
a full-sided white middle-aged male has.
(34:01):
I have this deep identification withdisability culture and with people that
share disabilities of any kind, and yet I'm treated as "normal."
And so this puts me in the space where I feel
oftentimes obligated to step up
(34:24):
in the name of folks that may not belistened to,
that might struggle withsimilar things that I struggle with just
to different degreesor they can't hide it.
In in a way that someday Iwon't be able to hide it.
I'll frequently be backstage at a venue
(34:46):
and say, I can't see these stairs here.
I'm afraid I'm going to fall down theseCan we put some brightly-colored tape
on the leading edge of each stair?
Or can we get a light in here?
Because of the way that I look,I don't think anyone has ever
(35:07):
said anything other than, Oh, my gosh,of course, yes, we'll get right on that.
I can see why that would be helpful.
That'll help everybody.
Yes, right away.
I have friends in the disabilityculture, in the disability community
who are female, people of color,
and they're like, Yeah, that's not
(35:28):
my experience for obvious reasons
of sexism and misogyny and racism.
So because of the way that I look and whatI'm living with, I feel like,
at least at this point,one of the ways that I can help
is to just not be afraid to talk about itand not be afraid
(35:53):
to point out things that would help mebecause I know that they're going to help
other people that come after me,and those people may not be
listened to in the way that I am.
I'm trying to be an ally for a communitythat I'm a part of, almost,
(36:15):
in a way, an advocate and an ally.
Thus far, people seem to be, as I said,really open to hearing things from me.
I try and do it in a really respectfuland congenial way.
(36:35):
I don't want to shame anybody for not
being able to, 100% of the time,
expand their level of consciousness tothe entire spectrum of human experience.
I think we're all human.
We all forget and have blinders
(36:58):
on at some points in our lives.
I try and be nice about it, but I do have
to remember to speak up because I'm not
really just speaking up for myself.
Sometimes when we speak with peoplewho don't know anything about disability,
(37:19):
they don't realize that one thingthat will help us as disabled artists
will also help them as non-disabledfor things that they do every day,
things likevoiceover or things that are very simple
that are now today in our everyday lifeand started with the conversation about,
(37:41):
How can I help thisperson with disability?
We forget a little bit.
If maybe these colorful
bands that you put on the stairs will help more than someone
who has a vision or sighted issues, but
(38:02):
also anybody, because it's convenient to
have a really clear mark on these steps.
Yeah, it could just help someone who's oldand can't see as well as they used to.
They may not really qualifyas having a visual disability.
But yeah, I think that's been oneof the most amazing parts of
(38:23):
getting to familiarize myselfwith disability culture is the degree
of problem solving and the degreeof optimism that is required.
I find that truly inspiring.
A lot of those things,like you say, they've helped us.
(38:45):
I don't know if you've reada book by this guy, Andrew Leland.
It came out last year,The Country of the Blind.
Fascinating book.
I loved it so much that I gave itto literally everybody that I loved for
Christmas, and I found a way to reach outto him, and Andrew and I are buddies now.
(39:07):
But he goes through a lotof these technological improvements
that we take for granted.
LPs, records, vinyl records were a way to
push the boundary for getting audiobooks
for blind people onto fewer disks.
(39:28):
The disks used to only be able to holdwhatever 10 minutes aside or whatever.
To read a whole book, you might havedozens and dozens of disks
that you had to work your way through.
So pushing the boundariesof that recording disk technology
gave us long player records.
I listen to those everyday and I make them myself.
(39:52):
That kind of stuff I really love learning about.
Just the problem solving,optimistic outlook in general, I think is
just something that I really want to beadopting at all times if I can help it.
That's great.
I have one last question for you, and it'sabout people who might have inspired you
(40:16):
or motivated you in your career.
Maybe you have one or two peopleyou're really thinking of in terms of,
this person really put meinto the path and showed me some things
that I don't forget today.
If you had a few peopleto name, who would it be and why?
I know exactly who I would name.
(40:37):
All the formative peoplein my life have been teachers,
and I don't mean that figuratively.
I mean literally teachers.
I'm thinking ofmy middle school art teacher who not only
looked at my drawings and said,You're a really great artist, and
(41:01):
called me an artist for the first time.
My parents always love what I drew,but they love everything I do.
I didn't know what.
I didn't know what that really meant.
To have someone outside of the houserecognize the value of what you do
and call you an artist, that made areally big impression on me.
(41:25):
That was the same teacher that encouragedme to try out for the musicals.
He also ran all the musicalsat the junior high and the high school.
I did musicals with him all upfrom junior high through high school,
so it would have been six years with him.
Also in that time,I had a really influential high school
(41:47):
biology teacherwho, like my art teacher called me
an artist, my my biology teacher treatedme like an actual biologist
and encouraged me to conduct
myself like the classic naturalists
(42:07):
had done over the years to get outsideand make observations and to share those
observations with others and try anduse that to support scientific
research and conservation efforts.
And that biology teacher alsowas a really big fan the Grateful Dead.
It took me to see the Grateful Deada couple of times and shared a bunch of
(42:29):
Grateful Dead concert bootlegs with me.
He really opened up my entire world to
the vast swath of Americans roots music
through the Grateful Dead.
I had teachers in collegethat were the same way,
(42:53):
that in both the arts and in science.
But those two early high school teacherswere really important to me, and they
basically set me off on the twin paths
that I've merged in my life as an adult.
It's something that a lot of people share.
(43:15):
If you have a great teacher at a
very early age who gives you an overview
of what it is to be an artist, thenyou are set to become an artist later
if you're really taking this path.
Yeah, I agree.
I think even more generallythan that, it's just there are teachers
(43:38):
that are better at "seeing kids"
and just dignifying their experience.
So whether they're writersor actors or artists or whether they
love math or whatever it is,
(44:00):
these teachers that really dignify kids
and say, You are this already, and you could continue to do this and take it
and evolve it in ways in your lifethat you can't even really envision yet.
Those teachers,that is God's work right there.
(44:22):
Both my My parents were teachers,so I come from a background
that really values education.
But this is probably a different podcast.
But I feel like the economic ladder
has been up-ended.
(44:45):
I don't know why CEOsmake so much money, personally.
I feel like teachers, I can't think ofanother role in society that
is more important and shouldbe valued economically as such.
But again, different podcast.
(45:06):
They've been invaluable to meas a person and as an artist.
I think a lot of us have,hopefully, we're lucky enough
to have people like that in our lives.
I agree.
Teachers are really, really important.
Plus, we are learningand teaching some people around us
(45:27):
without sometimes realizing it,but we are learning from each other.
If we don't have a teacher who shows usthe value of teaching and learning,
then it's too bad because weare really losing this opportunity
of exchanging, which is beautiful.
Exactly.
(45:47):
Again, that's evolution, right?
You share how you do somethingor what's possible with someone else,
and they may not do it in quite the sameway, or they may see like, Oh, well,
if you can do this, then you can alsodo this, and then they take it further.
That is how things literally evolve.
(46:11):
I feel like that's where me being honestwith my audience about my disability
was really important.
I didn't want to put a lot of effort
into keeping that part of me hidden.
I wasn't embarrassed about it in any way,but it just would have required
(46:35):
so much work to not talk about it.
And by being honest about it,
there's absolutely going to be some kid somewhere
someday that might come across my music
or my story and says, Well, he did it.Maybe I can do it.
(46:57):
I know that because I cameacross other people's stories
and they inspired me in the same way.
Gosh, I hope I live to
see that and see how that happens
and see how that evolves.
That would be just the greatestgift to pass it on.
(47:21):
Okay, so thank you so muchfor sharing your story with us today.
I wish you all the greatest successin your next project.
Thank you.
Yeah, share with us some of the linksthat you want to share I'm sure
we will be more than happyto just share that with the audience.
(47:44):
Thank you so much, Diane.We'll do.
Okay.Have a great day.
You too..
♪ Opening theme music ♪
Hello, and welcome to this episodeof ArtsAbly in Conversation.
My name is Diane Kolin.
This series presents artists, academics,and project leaders who dedicate their
(00:25):
time and energy to a better accessibilityfor people with disabilities in the arts.
You can find more of these conversationson our website, artsably.com,
which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com.
♪ Theme music ♪
(00:55):
Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation with Mark Erelli, who is an American singer-songwriter,
multi-instrumentalist,and touring folk musician
living in Massachusetts.
You can find the resources mentionedby Mark Erelli during this episode
on ArtsAbly website in the blog section.
(01:25):
Hi.
Oh, yeah. Okay.
Hey, buddy. Hi!
♪ Mark Erelli - You're Gonna Wanna Remember This ♪
I don't know where we were going,but Rosalita was on the radio.
(01:55):
I was drumming on the dashand she was whistling to the saxophone.
We never promised each other,but when you only have the summer,
It's almost like September 7th,
(02:16):
you're gonna wanna remember this.
It flies by, it's easy to miss.
Don't play, drink it in.
It happens once and itmight not happen again.
(02:37):
The world's going to keep on turning.
That's just the way it is.
So you're gonna wanna remember this.
♪ Music ♪
(03:01):
Some old friends picked a weekend
to head up north and get out on the lake,
talk about the wives and kids
and reminisce about the glory days.
(03:21):
Years fly by and days are numbered.
Now we're old enough to wonderand just wise enough to know one thing.
You're gonna wanna remember this.
It flies by, but It's easy to miss.
(03:43):
Don't play, drink in it.
It happens once and itmight not happen again.
The world's going to keep on turning.
That's just the way it is.
So you're gonna wanna remember this.
(04:13):
The last time don't always
feel like a last time.
So maybe put your hand in mine
and I promise tonight,
(04:33):
you're gonna wanna remember this.
It flies by, it's easy to miss.
Don't play, drink it in.
It happens once and itmight never happen again.
(04:55):
The world's gonna keep on turning.
That's just the way it is.
So you're gonna wanna remember.
You're gonna wanna remember.
(05:15):
You're gonna wanna remember this.
♪ Music ♪
(05:35):
♪ End of the song. ♪
Welcome to this new episodeof ArtsAbly in Conversation.
Today, I am with Mark Erelli,who is an American singer, songwriter,
multi-instrumentalist, and also a touringfolk musician living in Massachusetts.
(05:57):
Welcome, Mark.
Thank you so much, Diane.
Thank you for taking the timeto speak with me today.
It's my pleasure.
Okay, so I know we have a lotof things to talk about because
your artistic life is really rich.
I wanted to have this opportunityto hear about your background,
(06:20):
where do you come from, what brought you to music?
I come to music basically through
high school musicals and middle school
musicals is where I started out.
Though I guess going back even slightly
before that, I grew up glued to MTV.
(06:41):
That was that MTV went on the airwhen I was a younger kid,
and I just was completelybesotted with this, at the time,
very new marriage of visuals and music.
I was just a big music fan growing up.
(07:02):
Didn't know anyone thatmade music professionally
or at a particularly high level.
I didn't have any musiciansto speak of in my family.
My grandfather would sometimesfool around on a little keyboard,
but it just wasn't part of my life.
I had a middle school art teacher whosaid, You should try out for the musical.
(07:26):
And I did, and I got one of the leads.
And it turned out I could sing,and I hadn't known that before that.
From there, I went from musicalsand learning how to sing
to picking up instruments from there.
So a lot of times people ask me,How do you get started in this
(07:48):
singing and playing at the same time?
I didn't learn how to singand play at the same time.
I learned one thing, and thenI added one thing to it,
and I just kept going with that.
I started playing guitar whenI was in college, started playing
campus coffeehouses, and I was a biology major
(08:08):
at the time, but just was really
taken with this musical/creative outletthat I had in addition to biology.
I just didn't know how to do it.
I knew at this point, I had met actualbiologists, and they were part
of my life, and I didn't reallyknow any actual musicians.
(08:33):
Though whenever any of them came to campusfor a performance, I would somehow
find a way to hang out with themand just badger them with questions
about how one did this for a living.
When I graduated with a degree in biology, I still just didn't
really know how to balance musicand art or how to do art.
(08:57):
I continued on in graduateschool in biology.
I got a master's degreein evolutionary biology.
But all the while, I was playing showsand touring as much as possible
and cutting classes on Fridaysto make it to gigs hours away.
Eventually, that led to getting arecord deal out in Western Massachusetts,
(09:20):
where I was attending graduate school.
My debut self-titled albumcame out, I think, a month before
the defense of my master's thesis.
Not to paper over too manyof the ups and downs since then,
but I basically never looked back since, that was just over 25 years ago
(09:44):
in 1999, and I'm still doing it.
It's a stupid question, but didthe study you had in biology,
did it influence your way of writing,or is it totally separate?
Yeah, that's not a stupid question at all.
(10:05):
Usually, people phrase that question in a
way that I find a little harder to take.
Usually, people say, How did youmove from something totally different,
like science, to something like art?
And then I have to go into my whole spielabout how it's all the same.
(10:28):
I think this is something that we
struggle with as societies, as cultures.
Yes, everybody is a unique snowflakewith their own set of talents.
It is wonderful,and diversity is wonderful,
but we're all basically the same.
(10:50):
To me, that is a source of compassion and
a source of empathy, that commonality.
I think it extends toall the different disciplines
that we find ourselves engaged in.
Religion, philosophy, science,
creative writing, music, singing.
(11:13):
I actually don't see a differencein any of those things.
I mean, there's minor differencesin terms of the approaches or maybe
the philosophical framework thatyou approach things with, but
they're all just ways of asking the same questions.
And so for me, in science, if you're goingto say design an experiment
(11:39):
and carry it out and try andprovide evidence supporting or negating
a particular hypothesis.
You need to be creative, you need to behard working, you need to be persistent,
You need a lot of attention to detail.
You need to be flexible.
You need a lot of good luck.
(11:59):
I'm running out of fingers.
Those are all the thingsthat you need to write a song, too.
For me, I found that the scientific skills
were basically the same ones
that I needed in my musical life as well.
That close observation and the openness
(12:24):
to the interconnectedness of the world
has served me well and comes up overand over again in my heart.
Maybe that allows you to switchfrom the singer to the songwriter,
to the producer to the sideman.
Can you talk a bit abouthow your career evolved?
(12:45):
Because you didn't stickto songwriting only, right?
You did a lot of different things.
Yeah, correct.
I started out as more of a conventionalsinger-songwriter, releasing records
under my own name, and I still do that.
But as much as I love singingand songwriting, I also have always
(13:06):
really loved the instrumentalists
that are maybe slightly less well known
but played a very formative,supportive role behind the front person.
I'm thinking of an an artist,a guitarist like Ry Cooder and his work
(13:26):
with John Hiatt, or an artist like David Lindley, who was very closely associated
with Jackson Browne for a long time.
I always felt as deeplymoved and as interested
in what those people were doingas I was in the songwriters themselves.
(13:47):
I really wanted to branch into that stuff myself
and ended up through backing up
and accompanying my friends, my fellowindependent singer-singer-songwriter
colleagues, I sidestepped into that sideperson, that accompanist role.
(14:08):
For me, I think a lot of times people
will say, Are you disappointed that
you're not doing your own thingwhen you're serving as a sideman?
I'm like, I am doing my own thing.
This is part of my my own thing.
I also have the best seat in the house.
Even people in the front row,I'm like 6 feet from the artist.
(14:32):
I don't work with peoplejust for a paycheck.
I don't even really get those calls.
If I'm there working with someoneas a side person, I'm there because I
love that person and I love their music.
For me, I get to stand 6 feet from
(14:55):
Lori McKenna or Josh Ritter
or Marc Cohn or Paula Cole or any of the people that I've played with over the years,
and I get to experience their art
from a very, very close perspective,and I get to know them
better as people, too.
It just enhances my overall loveof music, and it energizes me for when I
(15:20):
pivot back towards my my own solo career.
Again, I think a lot of those roles
are only clear-cut or overly
delineated for people thatare maybe looking from the outside in.
(15:43):
For me, again, it's all reallyjust versions of the same thing.
As long as I'm making great musicwith people I love, I'm happy,
whether it's my music or whetherit's their music or whatever it is.
I'm good.
Yeah, but it's a very good pointthat you're making.
(16:05):
It's like we learn from each other,we collaborate, we create together.
That's a very important process,too, and it can bring to your own career
a very enriching experience.
Oh, absolutely.
That doesn't just happen through the music either.
(16:25):
That happens both on stage andin the recording studio and off stage,
away from the music in general.
I see how the people that I work with
deal with adversity in their own lives
(16:45):
or deal with whatever challenge it is.
They get a call from their kidas they're going on stage that someone's
got to a car accident or they've hadsome career setback or some
particular challenge that they're dealing with.
I get to see how they reactand how they approach that situation.
(17:06):
I learned from these artistsin a non creative, non musical way, too,
just about how to approach life.
I feel like I learned so much
from my ancillary roles, if you will,
(17:27):
the roles where I'm not the main attraction.
Actually, I need those times
when I'm not the main focus,
mainly because I've always beenan independent middle class musician.
(17:48):
I'm not this superstar that hasenough resources to just make everything
as easy as it can possibly be.
I'm sure you're aware, as an independent musician,
you're wearing, I don't know how many hats
at any given moment,but certainly in the double digits.
(18:10):
As a side person, I have one job to make -
two jobs, really, to make this artist that I'm working with
feel safe and respected
and to make their music sound as good
as my contribution can possibly make it.
(18:33):
That's a lot simpler than having to be thebooking agent and the publicist,
and the arranger or all that stuff.
It's delightfully streamlined, and I needa break from all the myriad of hats that
you have to wear as a the main artist,to just focus on the music sometimes.
(18:57):
It's a real nice breather for me.
Can you talk about your albums and alsothe process of creation behind each one?
Because I'm pretty sure everythingcame with a different context
and a different period.
Can you talk about that?
Yeah, I mean,
(19:18):
I don't know if I can go through allof them one by one because there's 13 now
of just records under my own name.
But you're correct in that
I am always trying to push myself
into some sort of new territory.
(19:39):
I don't seek out the new creative
territory as a marketing tool or
as a sign of musical restlessness, per se.
I just learn different thingsfrom doing different things.
I think that's how itworks from all of us.
(20:00):
If you do the same thingover and over again, after a while,
that learning curve flattens out, right?
You figure out a lot of how it works.
But if you change it up a lot,you're always coming to things
with that beginner's mindthat the Zen Buddhist like to talk about.
(20:22):
For me, branching out into differentgenres or different recording contexts.
Sometimes I'll record in a conventionalrecording studio, sometimes
I'll record at home, sometimesI'll record on location somewhere
like a Civil War Memorial Hall.
(20:47):
Whether it's different genres ordifferent recording contexts or working
with different musicians, you justlearn different things every time.
When you're doing that, the art is goingin subtly different, vectoring off in
a subtly different directions every time.
(21:07):
If you do that enough times, you justget a much broader, wider understanding
of what it is to do art asa way of life and what it is
that I personally have to offer, you know.
So, I've done -
(21:28):
You can never say I've done everything
because you've never seen everything as,
I think, Bruce Cockburn, the wonderfulCanadian singer-singer-songwriter
has a record called that.
It's true.Every time, it's different.
Even if you did the same thingevery time, you would be different
(21:51):
every time you went back to do it.
Right? So...
I just look at every project
as an opportunity to learn
about myself, about recording techniques,about musical approaches, about genres,
(22:11):
about different people that I'm choosingto work with and what they have to offer.
I just find it endlessly interesting
and I haven't been bored once in 25 years.
(22:32):
That's the beauty of working in music,is that we never get bored.
You never reach the bottomor you never reach the top
or you can always go further in.
I think if you feel stuck at some point,
that's not a sign that you'vereached the end of something.
(22:53):
It's just like something's wrong.
It's like you're not digging deep enoughor you need to focus on your mental
or emotional health or some other aspectof your life that's preventing you
from digging further in.
But you'll never get to the bottomof any creative endeavor.
That's what I love about it.
(23:15):
What are your recent projectsand the ones that you are
turning towards to right now?
Sure. Well, in 2023, I put out my most recent
solo record, which was my first
record that I had put out after revealingto my audience that I was diagnosed
(23:37):
with the retinitis pigmentosa,which is a degenerative retinal disease
that eventually leads to legal blindness.
And that record kind of thematically dealt
with a lot of the the emotional fallout
from coming to grips with that diagnosis.
(24:00):
And my fans and my audiencewere just wonderfully supportive,
both financially and emotionally.
They really showed up to supportmy honesty in that project,
which was really humbling.
After that project, I put out a third record with my Bluegrass band,
(24:24):
which is called Barnstar!,which I share with four other guys.
That was a project that we'd recordedbefore the pandemic and just hadn't found
a way to take back out because we'refive guys that sing around a central mic.
So when there's a pandemichappening, it's a very unsafe
(24:45):
situation, very unsafe set up.
So we were just waiting tillwe could find a good time to do that.
So that came out this year.
And then as far as what's next, there'sreally a couple of things on the horizon.
This past summer, I did a seriesof shows with a string quintet.
(25:08):
I've worked with strings andstring sections on records recently, but
they've been playing supporting roles.
I'll record the rock band basic tracksfirst, and then we'll add the strings on
as an after, not as an afterthought, butafter the fact is what I'm trying to say.
(25:30):
But these shows with the string quintet,it was like, well, what happens if
we take away the rock band andthe strings just are the band?
And it changes the context of everything.
And it was deeply movingand the audiences loved it.
And we recorded the finalshow, multitracked the final show.
And I've always wanted to doan official proper live album, but
(25:55):
I wanted it to be the right musical format.
I didn't just want to rehash what was doneon the records in front of an audience.
I wanted to do something transformative.
It took me 25 years, but I figured it out.
We're going to release
this live string quintet record.
(26:17):
It's going to be the next project,hopefully in the first half of 2025.
Then hopefully in the latter halfof 2025 will be the 14th or
the next studio album and the next batch
of new original songs under my own name.
(26:37):
Before we recorded, you mentionedthat you're going to post a fundraiser?
Yes.
I'm going to be - The lot of the modern
independent artist is that
because of streaming,because of inflation,
(26:59):
because of changes in music consumption,
it's just not really possible to
make enough money from the release of a
particular record to fund the next record.
It can be done, but that recordhas to be wildly successful.
(27:21):
That's just never been my path.
I have a dedicated, I don't wantto call them a cult audience, but they're
a small but mighty base of support.
Every time I need to do a new project, I kind ofhave to go back to them and make the case
(27:43):
for them supporting it in advance.
I'll be launching a kickstarter
in mid-October, I think, to support
the recording and the releaseof not just the live album, but
the next studio album as well.
That'll be a little bitof a different thing for me.
I've done Kickstartersand crowdfunding in the past,
(28:05):
but it was for one particular project.
This time, we're just doingboth projects at the same time
because they're linked in a way.
Please share the link with us, so thatwe can share that with our audience.
Absolutely.Thank you.
Yeah, we'll do.
I have a question about the fact that
(28:28):
a few years ago, you were diagnosed
with retinitis pigmentosa.
I was wondering if it changedyour way of writing your music
and perceiving your music inwhat we call disability arts, basically.
(28:48):
How do you see yourself in that world?
Yeah, good question.
I mean, it definitely -It changed it almost immediately
in the sense that my disability or
my diagnosis terrified me because
(29:09):
I think I'd always associatedsongwriting and what you need to songwrite
as it was a resultof the powers of observation.
And observation is, it's usuallyimplies that you're looking at something.
You're taking it all in visually.
So I was like, if I can't see things or
(29:31):
I can't see things with the visual acuity
and the scale of detail that I'm used to,
doesn't that mean that my songs
and my art will be poor for that?
And I grappled with that for quite some time,
(29:52):
and where I am with all that is that,
and I've learned this through the disability culture
as I've startedto interact with that
subset of wonderful humans that there's other senses,
(30:12):
and seeing is only one of them.
It does enjoy a privileged place
at the top of the pyramidas far as senses go.
But it's not the only wayto experience the world.
I'm not legally blind yet,
(30:33):
except at night or in dark backstage,
I can't see much of anything.
But for someone like
Ray Charles or Stevie Wonder,
do they have any less of a reach
of an artistic life than sighted people?
(30:54):
Of course not.They're geniuses.
I've come to the understanding, maybein the only way that you really can,
which is to lose one of those sensesor to take a hit to one of those senses,
to realize that there's other waysof experiencing the world.
(31:19):
Even in performance, sometimesyou'll get people that feel like
you should be looking rightat the audience, making eye contact
with the audience when you perform.
I've really pushed back on that.
I'm not getting any visual input backif I'm looking into the audience.
(31:42):
All I see is a black void.
It's terrifying at times.
You can feel so alone, evenin a room full of hundreds of people.
I frequentlywill perform with my eyes closed.
I find that I can envision thingsin my mind that way that help me,
(32:07):
that help support the expression of whatI'm trying to communicate in my music.
That's just as valid as being on Broadway
or being in a musical and
hamming it up for the audience and looking them in the eye.
As far as how I see myselfin the disability culture, I'm still
(32:32):
figuring that out, to be honest.
My disability isan invisible one right now.
Unless I'm using my white cane, whichI will use mainly in dark environments
or at night or in unfamiliarenvironments, I still don't take it out
of the house all the time.
(32:54):
If I'm not using that whitecane, you can't tell.
I just look like a dude with glasses.
So...
But that puts me in this interestingposition because I can "pass"
for "normal."
(33:15):
These are not wordsthat we like to use, obviously,
but I use them to make a point.
I'm also a white male, so people treat me
like the thing that everything else
in society is judged against.
I don't say that to agree with it.
I just say that is likethe white male patriarchy is
(33:39):
definitely a thing, and I benefit from thatbecause of the way that I was...
I was just born this way.
I'm treated that way, but I don't have
all of the same capabilities that a person,
a full-sided white middle-aged male has.
(34:01):
I have this deep identification withdisability culture and with people that
share disabilities of any kind, and yet I'm treated as "normal."
And so this puts me in the space where I feel
oftentimes obligated to step up
(34:24):
in the name of folks that may not belistened to,
that might struggle withsimilar things that I struggle with just
to different degreesor they can't hide it.
In in a way that someday Iwon't be able to hide it.
I'll frequently be backstage at a venue
(34:46):
and say, I can't see these stairs here.
I'm afraid I'm going to fall down theseCan we put some brightly-colored tape
on the leading edge of each stair?
Or can we get a light in here?
Because of the way that I look,I don't think anyone has ever
(35:07):
said anything other than, Oh, my gosh,of course, yes, we'll get right on that.
I can see why that would be helpful.
That'll help everybody.
Yes, right away.
I have friends in the disabilityculture, in the disability community
who are female, people of color,
and they're like, Yeah, that's not
(35:28):
my experience for obvious reasons
of sexism and misogyny and racism.
So because of the way that I look and whatI'm living with, I feel like,
at least at this point,one of the ways that I can help
is to just not be afraid to talk about itand not be afraid
(35:53):
to point out things that would help mebecause I know that they're going to help
other people that come after me,and those people may not be
listened to in the way that I am.
I'm trying to be an ally for a communitythat I'm a part of, almost,
(36:15):
in a way, an advocate and an ally.
Thus far, people seem to be, as I said,really open to hearing things from me.
I try and do it in a really respectfuland congenial way.
(36:35):
I don't want to shame anybody for not
being able to, 100% of the time,
expand their level of consciousness tothe entire spectrum of human experience.
I think we're all human.
We all forget and have blinders
(36:58):
on at some points in our lives.
I try and be nice about it, but I do have
to remember to speak up because I'm not
really just speaking up for myself.
Sometimes when we speak with peoplewho don't know anything about disability,
(37:19):
they don't realize that one thingthat will help us as disabled artists
will also help them as non-disabledfor things that they do every day,
things likevoiceover or things that are very simple
that are now today in our everyday lifeand started with the conversation about,
(37:41):
How can I help thisperson with disability?
We forget a little bit.
If maybe these colorful
bands that you put on the stairs will help more than someone
who has a vision or sighted issues, but
(38:02):
also anybody, because it's convenient to
have a really clear mark on these steps.
Yeah, it could just help someone who's oldand can't see as well as they used to.
They may not really qualifyas having a visual disability.
But yeah, I think that's been oneof the most amazing parts of
(38:23):
getting to familiarize myselfwith disability culture is the degree
of problem solving and the degreeof optimism that is required.
I find that truly inspiring.
A lot of those things,like you say, they've helped us.
(38:45):
I don't know if you've reada book by this guy, Andrew Leland.
It came out last year,The Country of the Blind.
Fascinating book.
I loved it so much that I gave itto literally everybody that I loved for
Christmas, and I found a way to reach outto him, and Andrew and I are buddies now.
(39:07):
But he goes through a lotof these technological improvements
that we take for granted.
LPs, records, vinyl records were a way to
push the boundary for getting audiobooks
for blind people onto fewer disks.
(39:28):
The disks used to only be able to holdwhatever 10 minutes aside or whatever.
To read a whole book, you might havedozens and dozens of disks
that you had to work your way through.
So pushing the boundariesof that recording disk technology
gave us long player records.
I listen to those everyday and I make them myself.
(39:52):
That kind of stuff I really love learning about.
Just the problem solving,optimistic outlook in general, I think is
just something that I really want to beadopting at all times if I can help it.
That's great.
I have one last question for you, and it'sabout people who might have inspired you
(40:16):
or motivated you in your career.
Maybe you have one or two peopleyou're really thinking of in terms of,
this person really put meinto the path and showed me some things
that I don't forget today.
If you had a few peopleto name, who would it be and why?
I know exactly who I would name.
(40:37):
All the formative peoplein my life have been teachers,
and I don't mean that figuratively.
I mean literally teachers.
I'm thinking ofmy middle school art teacher who not only
looked at my drawings and said,You're a really great artist, and
(41:01):
called me an artist for the first time.
My parents always love what I drew,but they love everything I do.
I didn't know what.
I didn't know what that really meant.
To have someone outside of the houserecognize the value of what you do
and call you an artist, that made areally big impression on me.
(41:25):
That was the same teacher that encouragedme to try out for the musicals.
He also ran all the musicalsat the junior high and the high school.
I did musicals with him all upfrom junior high through high school,
so it would have been six years with him.
Also in that time,I had a really influential high school
(41:47):
biology teacherwho, like my art teacher called me
an artist, my my biology teacher treatedme like an actual biologist
and encouraged me to conduct
myself like the classic naturalists
(42:07):
had done over the years to get outsideand make observations and to share those
observations with others and try anduse that to support scientific
research and conservation efforts.
And that biology teacher alsowas a really big fan the Grateful Dead.
It took me to see the Grateful Deada couple of times and shared a bunch of
(42:29):
Grateful Dead concert bootlegs with me.
He really opened up my entire world to
the vast swath of Americans roots music
through the Grateful Dead.
I had teachers in collegethat were the same way,
(42:53):
that in both the arts and in science.
But those two early high school teacherswere really important to me, and they
basically set me off on the twin paths
that I've merged in my life as an adult.
It's something that a lot of people share.
(43:15):
If you have a great teacher at a
very early age who gives you an overview
of what it is to be an artist, thenyou are set to become an artist later
if you're really taking this path.
Yeah, I agree.
I think even more generallythan that, it's just there are teachers
(43:38):
that are better at "seeing kids"
and just dignifying their experience.
So whether they're writersor actors or artists or whether they
love math or whatever it is,
(44:00):
these teachers that really dignify kids
and say, You are this already, and you could continue to do this and take it
and evolve it in ways in your lifethat you can't even really envision yet.
Those teachers,that is God's work right there.
(44:22):
Both my My parents were teachers,so I come from a background
that really values education.
But this is probably a different podcast.
But I feel like the economic ladder
has been up-ended.
(44:45):
I don't know why CEOsmake so much money, personally.
I feel like teachers, I can't think ofanother role in society that
is more important and shouldbe valued economically as such.
But again, different podcast.
(45:06):
They've been invaluable to meas a person and as an artist.
I think a lot of us have,hopefully, we're lucky enough
to have people like that in our lives.
I agree.
Teachers are really, really important.
Plus, we are learningand teaching some people around us
(45:27):
without sometimes realizing it,but we are learning from each other.
If we don't have a teacher who shows usthe value of teaching and learning,
then it's too bad because weare really losing this opportunity
of exchanging, which is beautiful.
Exactly.
(45:47):
Again, that's evolution, right?
You share how you do somethingor what's possible with someone else,
and they may not do it in quite the sameway, or they may see like, Oh, well,
if you can do this, then you can alsodo this, and then they take it further.
That is how things literally evolve.
(46:11):
I feel like that's where me being honestwith my audience about my disability
was really important.
I didn't want to put a lot of effort
into keeping that part of me hidden.
I wasn't embarrassed about it in any way,but it just would have required
(46:35):
so much work to not talk about it.
And by being honest about it,
there's absolutely going to be some kid somewhere
someday that might come across my music
or my story and says, Well, he did it.Maybe I can do it.
(46:57):
I know that because I cameacross other people's stories
and they inspired me in the same way.
Gosh, I hope I live to
see that and see how that happens
and see how that evolves.
That would be just the greatestgift to pass it on.
(47:21):
Okay, so thank you so muchfor sharing your story with us today.
I wish you all the greatest successin your next project.
Thank you.
Yeah, share with us some of the linksthat you want to share I'm sure
we will be more than happyto just share that with the audience.
(47:44):
Thank you so much, Diane.We'll do.
Okay.Have a great day.
You too..
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