April 9, 2024 • 14 mins
Join singer, songwriter, composer, and educator Martha Redbone as she discusses her career and inspiration with Laura Sweet, DMPA’s Vice President and COO. Martha will perform at the Temple Theater on April 12 as part of the Prairie Meadows Live at the Temple Concert Series.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:05):
Thank you for joining us In thisepisode of d mp A Conversations. I
am Laura Sweet, Vice president andCEO of Des Moines Performing Arts. Today
I'm joined by singer, songwriter,composer and educator Martha Redbone, our next
performer in the Prairie Meadows Live atthe Temple concert series. These podcasts are
designed to give you an insider's perspectiveof the fantastic performances headed to d MPa
(00:28):
stages. Thank you again for joiningus, and now here is my conversation
with Martha Redbone. Thank you Marthaso much for joining us. Your parents
(00:58):
play an important role in your artistry, and if you want to maybe talk
about how your childhood shaped the artyou produced today, you want to start
telling us about that. Sure,my father was a singer. He sang,
but he didn't sing professionally. Hesang for fun in some bands,
and when he was a kid,he sang gospel music. My parents divorced
when I was very young, soI didn't really get to know that side
(01:19):
of the family, you know.But what I did gain out of it
was time with my grandparents on mymother's side in Harlan County, Kentucky and
the music and the sounds of Appalachia, you know, are in my bones
from that and also you know,from my mother being from there and stuff.
And so having that was I feelthe basis of what has inspired the
(01:44):
music that I made today. Nowwhen i'm you know, I've always been
a soul girl, and I youknow, I love Aretha Franklin and Chaka
Khan and these are you know,all my heroes, you know, my
sheroes, and and you know,Sarah vaugh and all these wonderful, wonderful
singers and Barbara streisand and Dolly Partonand all of that. But immediately once
(02:05):
I started singing professionally, I feltit was important for me to write songs
and stories, you know, andthings that inspire me. And then what
really sparked the Roots Project, whichwe ended up calling rout the Redbone Roots
Project. It was just an opportunityto explore home, you know, and
what home means. And so Iwas inspired to explore the music and sounds
(02:29):
of Appalachia and my family lineage andmy ancestry which goes back, you know,
to the beginning of time and allthese hills and moving from like the
Appalachian Hills to the pre gentrified Brooklyn. That had to be quite an experience.
What was that like for you?A culture shock, you know,
coming to Brooklyn. You know,when I left, my parents were still
(02:51):
together, and when I came back, my dad was gone, you know,
and the only thing that was leftwas like this big you know,
those big, old, clunky woodenconsoles that had the record the player turntable
inside of it and you put allthe albums underneath in the cabinet, you
know. And so I had thiswhole collection of records and a console and
a piano, which was the onlything that remained of my dad's. And
(03:14):
then I had to kind of reestablish myself in Brooklyn. And it wasn't
the hood back then, but itslowly changed because it was in the eighties
and it turned into one of thecrack capitals of the country, and so
our neighborhood became very rough overnight inBrooklyn. But was also you know,
in middle school, in the middleschool years, and you know, middle
(03:36):
school years it's all the peer groups, the social groups and identity and all
of that. And so at thetime, you know, I had more
of a cowcl like this, youknow, Kentucky accent, you know,
and so people make fun of meatin and you know, the kids on
the street. So I had toyou know, what they call a code
switching, I guess, you know, so that people didn't make fun of
you. And then it was allthe kind of you know, identity politics
(03:58):
that were going on. Even asa kid. You know, what are
you are you? You know,Latina, Are you Dominican? Are you
you know from Jamaica? Are youfrom Panama? Because this was a kind
of Afro Caribbean area. You know, everyone spoke all these you know,
different languages, Spanish and Haitian andFrench, you know, Creole, and
so you know, we had thiswhole kind of like melting pot of like
(04:20):
black and brown people, and Ithought that was very unique. You know.
I went from being in the inthe mountains, you know, with
the simplicity of family life, whereyou know, you're related to so many
people in the same town, toyou know, not being related to anyone
in the city. And so Iwas related to the music and the sounds
of the music that came out,and that was the beginning of hip hop.
(04:43):
So this was a whole new thingwhen I was that kid. And
that really was like the underpinning ofso much popular music that came out of
New York City and also the bigcities. So when I talk about pregentrified
Brooklyn, that's what I mean.It's those those sounds, and so those
are the things that I incorporate intothe music that I do. I love
the fire of that urban sound thatcomes through the folk songs that I sang.
(05:09):
I love because it also the fireand the grid of New York City
also has the fire and the gridof like gospel music and that passion of
that spirit, you know what Imean. So when I'm singing, that's
the spirit that I'm bringing with me. I'm bringing that passion because I want
you to feel the energy of thesongs that I just told you a story
(05:30):
about. One thing I'm curious aboutis in school did you take where you
inquired? Did you play instruments?Like what was your intersection initially with finding
your voice? And you probably werealways naturally going to be a storyteller,
but how did you decide where thatexpression would would take hold? You know,
we didn't have you know, NewYork City's high schools has you know,
(05:50):
the specialized high schools, but there'sno it's not like the rest of
the country where people have band andthat kind of stuff, because they cut
all the funding and the city sounless you were fortunate enough to go to
one of those specialized kind of vocationschools, there was no funds available for
that kind of thing. And soI didn't have band or choir or voice
(06:11):
of that kind of stuff in school. You know, I didn't have the
chance for those extracurricular activities because therewas no extracurricular money. She did manage
to a friend of hers gave hera guitar for me, and she brought
it home and I took some lessonswith the nuns are local Catholic church,
and so I learned, you know, the kumbaya a chords, you know,
(06:34):
and that gave me a great basisfor figuring out records and you know,
learning the tabs and that kind ofstuff. And we used to walk
over to Park Slope in Brooklyn becausethey used to be a little record shop
on Seventh Avenue that had sheet music, and so we used to go in
there and I used to save mylittle pennies and you know, coins and
stuff and get sheet music for whateversongs that we heard on the radio and
(06:59):
would come home and then you know, try to play yes roundabout, you
know, try to play all thesesongs, you know, like at that
time, I think it was likethe Beg's was hot, you know.
So you just get the record andyou see the sheet music, you know,
and we come home and try tojust try to figure it out on
the guitar, you know. Andthen from there, once I learned like
some of the basic chords, Irealized how many stories that I had to
(07:21):
tell. At that time, webelieve it or not, I was painfully
shy and never really sang. Idon't even think my mother knew that I
could sing until I was an adult. So you taught yourself to You taught
yourself to read music, and youwith the help of those nuns or whoever
it was in your Yeah, hername is sister Virginia. She was also
young, and she was great.Yeah, she taught me. Well,
(07:44):
it just takes one person that's thereto kind of show you a doorway into
something like music, And boy arewe all grateful for them. You know
something I do remember, you know, in the sporadic times when I was
very young, my dad taking meto a couple of piano lessons because he
felt that was important for me,and so I got to learn how to
(08:05):
you know, the beginnings of thefoundations of reading music. Your music you
describe as sort of a gumbo ofvarious influences, and it sounds like all
of those different connections through your neighborsand within that community that you were finding
yourself in probably still continue today toinfluence the work that you do, which
is amazing. What do you hopeaudiences experience after seeing you perform? First
(08:30):
and foremost, the music is congregational. We do sing alongs, we do
the church collapse, we do youknow, we have a lot of fun
in our shows. And the reasonwhy I do a lot of the storytelling
with the songs is because, likeI said, I don't have the luxury
of, you know, the bigstars who you know, have the full
on radio play rotation where you knowthe player songs six seven times a day,
(08:52):
and if you're driving your car andtraffic coming home, you'll hear these
songs and you know them. Theybecome a part of you. Like I
remember some outreach work in the QuadCities, and I remember driving from school
to school talking to the kids.And I remember hearing Taylor Swift's Antihero seven
times that day who I was drivingand I've heard Miley Cyrus Flowers five times.
(09:16):
You know, I learned every wordbecause I was just driving in traffic
up and down these roads, youknow, and I realized, Wow,
this is amazing, No wonder thesethe audiences when they come, all they
have to do is just hear thefirst beginnings of the song and they go
crazy because they already all the work'sbeen done for them. But I don't
have that luxury. So you know, the people who come to see me
have to feel intrigued, like,why are we investing in this person who
(09:39):
we've never heard of when we reada little bit and we heard a little
bit, but we don't really knowthem because they haven't had my song in
their ear, you know, asan earworm constantly. So because of that
and because of being an independent artist, so grassroots style artists have to paint
the picture of why I'm singing thesong to them? Why am I making
this offering to the eye, Andit's because this is something that I truly
(10:01):
care about, and I want youto know since you've invested in me to
come and see me. I'm givingback to you the reason why I'm doing
these songs and why, you know, and that's very important, so that
you know what resonates with me.And when I offer this as an offering,
I just only hope that you knowthat they receive it with the love
(10:24):
that I'm giving it. And it'salso hopefully inspires them to recognize how who
we are as a global community.And so we say we take you to
church. It's congregational music. Webring you to church, bring you to
the mountaintop, you know, andthen we send you back home again,
all warm and fuzzy like a cupof hot coco. But there is something
(10:46):
extra special, and I completely hearwhat you're saying about how there is a
repetition or a frequency with listenership foraudiences if they've heard music before a live
music experience. But what I willsay say to you and what I know
you will experience in our temple theateris there is that open hearted nature in
our audience, and I think thereto me, there's something extra special about
(11:11):
being in a space with three hundredpeople with great acoustics, where we're coming
together, like you're saying, asa congregation, but you're allowing the artist
to not sing something you've heard beforenecessarily, but to take you on a
musical journey and experience together where you'reseeing something about that artist and the things
(11:31):
that you have in your music areintersections with the things we all experience in
our lives, and so that Ithink it's an extra special gift and I
don't want to diminish. Just becausewe will have people in the room that
haven't heard your music before doesn't meanthat they won't be in some ways even
more magically touched by what you'll besharing with us. So absolutely, yeah,
(11:54):
what are you hoping for? What? As an artist? What do
you want the next ten years tobe? Jeez, if I can imagine
myself ten years from now, Iwould like to be alive and healthy and
really just doing what I'm doing.You know. I really love singing,
writing songs and making music and givesme a lot of joy, you know,
(12:16):
I talk about, you know,songwriting, you know, I teach
it and teach a voice and thiskind of stuff, and so I really
think I would like to do moreof it, you know, maybe in
a bigger house. Is there anybodyyou'd want to collaborate with who would be
on your list? Oh my god, I've been so blessed so far.
It's been incredible. Last week Ihad the honor of singing on stage with
(12:41):
Rhiannon Giddens, who is just awonderful, wonderful artist and human being and
a warrior for social justice and truthand community. I just want to continue
being surrounded with friends like that,who love what they do, who believe
in human vanity, who believe incommunity, and most of all, who
(13:03):
are kind. I can do thatfor the next ten years or for the
rest of my life, I thinkI'd be a pretty happy camper. They
don't have to be superstars or anythinglike that. They just have to be
kind people who love what they do. Because if you're kind and love with
you do, those are like themain qualities that make you a badass and
anything that you do, whether you'rea writer or a painter or singer player,
(13:28):
if you're kind and you truly lovewhat you do and embrace it and
offer it to other communities and toyounger generations, I think that makes you
a badass. Thank you so much, Martha. We appreciate you joining us
(13:56):
for this special conversation. The Conversationspodcast is produced by Andrew Downs. To
our donors and season ticket holders,thank you for providing the foundation for great
performances and educational opportunities at Des MoinesPerforming Arts. Visit DMPA dot org or
wherever you get your podcasts for futureconversations like this one. Thank you for listening.
Thank you for joining us In thisepisode of d mp A Conversations. I
am Laura Sweet, Vice president andCEO of Des Moines Performing Arts. Today
I'm joined by singer, songwriter,composer and educator Martha Redbone, our next
performer in the Prairie Meadows Live atthe Temple concert series. These podcasts are
designed to give you an insider's perspectiveof the fantastic performances headed to d MPa
(00:28):
stages. Thank you again for joiningus, and now here is my conversation
with Martha Redbone. Thank you Marthaso much for joining us. Your parents
(00:58):
play an important role in your artistry, and if you want to maybe talk
about how your childhood shaped the artyou produced today, you want to start
telling us about that. Sure,my father was a singer. He sang,
but he didn't sing professionally. Hesang for fun in some bands,
and when he was a kid,he sang gospel music. My parents divorced
when I was very young, soI didn't really get to know that side
(01:19):
of the family, you know.But what I did gain out of it
was time with my grandparents on mymother's side in Harlan County, Kentucky and
the music and the sounds of Appalachia, you know, are in my bones
from that and also you know,from my mother being from there and stuff.
And so having that was I feelthe basis of what has inspired the
(01:44):
music that I made today. Nowwhen i'm you know, I've always been
a soul girl, and I youknow, I love Aretha Franklin and Chaka
Khan and these are you know,all my heroes, you know, my
sheroes, and and you know,Sarah vaugh and all these wonderful, wonderful
singers and Barbara streisand and Dolly Partonand all of that. But immediately once
(02:05):
I started singing professionally, I feltit was important for me to write songs
and stories, you know, andthings that inspire me. And then what
really sparked the Roots Project, whichwe ended up calling rout the Redbone Roots
Project. It was just an opportunityto explore home, you know, and
what home means. And so Iwas inspired to explore the music and sounds
(02:29):
of Appalachia and my family lineage andmy ancestry which goes back, you know,
to the beginning of time and allthese hills and moving from like the
Appalachian Hills to the pre gentrified Brooklyn. That had to be quite an experience.
What was that like for you?A culture shock, you know,
coming to Brooklyn. You know,when I left, my parents were still
(02:51):
together, and when I came back, my dad was gone, you know,
and the only thing that was leftwas like this big you know,
those big, old, clunky woodenconsoles that had the record the player turntable
inside of it and you put allthe albums underneath in the cabinet, you
know. And so I had thiswhole collection of records and a console and
a piano, which was the onlything that remained of my dad's. And
(03:14):
then I had to kind of reestablish myself in Brooklyn. And it wasn't
the hood back then, but itslowly changed because it was in the eighties
and it turned into one of thecrack capitals of the country, and so
our neighborhood became very rough overnight inBrooklyn. But was also you know,
in middle school, in the middleschool years, and you know, middle
(03:36):
school years it's all the peer groups, the social groups and identity and all
of that. And so at thetime, you know, I had more
of a cowcl like this, youknow, Kentucky accent, you know,
and so people make fun of meatin and you know, the kids on
the street. So I had toyou know, what they call a code
switching, I guess, you know, so that people didn't make fun of
you. And then it was allthe kind of you know, identity politics
(03:58):
that were going on. Even asa kid. You know, what are
you are you? You know,Latina, Are you Dominican? Are you
you know from Jamaica? Are youfrom Panama? Because this was a kind
of Afro Caribbean area. You know, everyone spoke all these you know,
different languages, Spanish and Haitian andFrench, you know, Creole, and
so you know, we had thiswhole kind of like melting pot of like
(04:20):
black and brown people, and Ithought that was very unique. You know.
I went from being in the inthe mountains, you know, with
the simplicity of family life, whereyou know, you're related to so many
people in the same town, toyou know, not being related to anyone
in the city. And so Iwas related to the music and the sounds
of the music that came out,and that was the beginning of hip hop.
(04:43):
So this was a whole new thingwhen I was that kid. And
that really was like the underpinning ofso much popular music that came out of
New York City and also the bigcities. So when I talk about pregentrified
Brooklyn, that's what I mean.It's those those sounds, and so those
are the things that I incorporate intothe music that I do. I love
the fire of that urban sound thatcomes through the folk songs that I sang.
(05:09):
I love because it also the fireand the grid of New York City
also has the fire and the gridof like gospel music and that passion of
that spirit, you know what Imean. So when I'm singing, that's
the spirit that I'm bringing with me. I'm bringing that passion because I want
you to feel the energy of thesongs that I just told you a story
(05:30):
about. One thing I'm curious aboutis in school did you take where you
inquired? Did you play instruments?Like what was your intersection initially with finding
your voice? And you probably werealways naturally going to be a storyteller,
but how did you decide where thatexpression would would take hold? You know,
we didn't have you know, NewYork City's high schools has you know,
(05:50):
the specialized high schools, but there'sno it's not like the rest of
the country where people have band andthat kind of stuff, because they cut
all the funding and the city sounless you were fortunate enough to go to
one of those specialized kind of vocationschools, there was no funds available for
that kind of thing. And soI didn't have band or choir or voice
(06:11):
of that kind of stuff in school. You know, I didn't have the
chance for those extracurricular activities because therewas no extracurricular money. She did manage
to a friend of hers gave hera guitar for me, and she brought
it home and I took some lessonswith the nuns are local Catholic church,
and so I learned, you know, the kumbaya a chords, you know,
(06:34):
and that gave me a great basisfor figuring out records and you know,
learning the tabs and that kind ofstuff. And we used to walk
over to Park Slope in Brooklyn becausethey used to be a little record shop
on Seventh Avenue that had sheet music, and so we used to go in
there and I used to save mylittle pennies and you know, coins and
stuff and get sheet music for whateversongs that we heard on the radio and
(06:59):
would come home and then you know, try to play yes roundabout, you
know, try to play all thesesongs, you know, like at that
time, I think it was likethe Beg's was hot, you know.
So you just get the record andyou see the sheet music, you know,
and we come home and try tojust try to figure it out on
the guitar, you know. Andthen from there, once I learned like
some of the basic chords, Irealized how many stories that I had to
(07:21):
tell. At that time, webelieve it or not, I was painfully
shy and never really sang. Idon't even think my mother knew that I
could sing until I was an adult. So you taught yourself to You taught
yourself to read music, and youwith the help of those nuns or whoever
it was in your Yeah, hername is sister Virginia. She was also
young, and she was great.Yeah, she taught me. Well,
(07:44):
it just takes one person that's thereto kind of show you a doorway into
something like music, And boy arewe all grateful for them. You know
something I do remember, you know, in the sporadic times when I was
very young, my dad taking meto a couple of piano lessons because he
felt that was important for me,and so I got to learn how to
(08:05):
you know, the beginnings of thefoundations of reading music. Your music you
describe as sort of a gumbo ofvarious influences, and it sounds like all
of those different connections through your neighborsand within that community that you were finding
yourself in probably still continue today toinfluence the work that you do, which
is amazing. What do you hopeaudiences experience after seeing you perform? First
(08:30):
and foremost, the music is congregational. We do sing alongs, we do
the church collapse, we do youknow, we have a lot of fun
in our shows. And the reasonwhy I do a lot of the storytelling
with the songs is because, likeI said, I don't have the luxury
of, you know, the bigstars who you know, have the full
on radio play rotation where you knowthe player songs six seven times a day,
(08:52):
and if you're driving your car andtraffic coming home, you'll hear these
songs and you know them. Theybecome a part of you. Like I
remember some outreach work in the QuadCities, and I remember driving from school
to school talking to the kids.And I remember hearing Taylor Swift's Antihero seven
times that day who I was drivingand I've heard Miley Cyrus Flowers five times.
(09:16):
You know, I learned every wordbecause I was just driving in traffic
up and down these roads, youknow, and I realized, Wow,
this is amazing, No wonder thesethe audiences when they come, all they
have to do is just hear thefirst beginnings of the song and they go
crazy because they already all the work'sbeen done for them. But I don't
have that luxury. So you know, the people who come to see me
have to feel intrigued, like,why are we investing in this person who
(09:39):
we've never heard of when we reada little bit and we heard a little
bit, but we don't really knowthem because they haven't had my song in
their ear, you know, asan earworm constantly. So because of that
and because of being an independent artist, so grassroots style artists have to paint
the picture of why I'm singing thesong to them? Why am I making
this offering to the eye, Andit's because this is something that I truly
(10:01):
care about, and I want youto know since you've invested in me to
come and see me. I'm givingback to you the reason why I'm doing
these songs and why, you know, and that's very important, so that
you know what resonates with me.And when I offer this as an offering,
I just only hope that you knowthat they receive it with the love
(10:24):
that I'm giving it. And it'salso hopefully inspires them to recognize how who
we are as a global community.And so we say we take you to
church. It's congregational music. Webring you to church, bring you to
the mountaintop, you know, andthen we send you back home again,
all warm and fuzzy like a cupof hot coco. But there is something
(10:46):
extra special, and I completely hearwhat you're saying about how there is a
repetition or a frequency with listenership foraudiences if they've heard music before a live
music experience. But what I willsay say to you and what I know
you will experience in our temple theateris there is that open hearted nature in
our audience, and I think thereto me, there's something extra special about
(11:11):
being in a space with three hundredpeople with great acoustics, where we're coming
together, like you're saying, asa congregation, but you're allowing the artist
to not sing something you've heard beforenecessarily, but to take you on a
musical journey and experience together where you'reseeing something about that artist and the things
(11:31):
that you have in your music areintersections with the things we all experience in
our lives, and so that Ithink it's an extra special gift and I
don't want to diminish. Just becausewe will have people in the room that
haven't heard your music before doesn't meanthat they won't be in some ways even
more magically touched by what you'll besharing with us. So absolutely, yeah,
(11:54):
what are you hoping for? What? As an artist? What do
you want the next ten years tobe? Jeez, if I can imagine
myself ten years from now, Iwould like to be alive and healthy and
really just doing what I'm doing.You know. I really love singing,
writing songs and making music and givesme a lot of joy, you know,
(12:16):
I talk about, you know,songwriting, you know, I teach
it and teach a voice and thiskind of stuff, and so I really
think I would like to do moreof it, you know, maybe in
a bigger house. Is there anybodyyou'd want to collaborate with who would be
on your list? Oh my god, I've been so blessed so far.
It's been incredible. Last week Ihad the honor of singing on stage with
(12:41):
Rhiannon Giddens, who is just awonderful, wonderful artist and human being and
a warrior for social justice and truthand community. I just want to continue
being surrounded with friends like that,who love what they do, who believe
in human vanity, who believe incommunity, and most of all, who
(13:03):
are kind. I can do thatfor the next ten years or for the
rest of my life, I thinkI'd be a pretty happy camper. They
don't have to be superstars or anythinglike that. They just have to be
kind people who love what they do. Because if you're kind and love with
you do, those are like themain qualities that make you a badass and
anything that you do, whether you'rea writer or a painter or singer player,
(13:28):
if you're kind and you truly lovewhat you do and embrace it and
offer it to other communities and toyounger generations, I think that makes you
a badass. Thank you so much, Martha. We appreciate you joining us
(13:56):
for this special conversation. The Conversationspodcast is produced by Andrew Downs. To
our donors and season ticket holders,thank you for providing the foundation for great
performances and educational opportunities at Des MoinesPerforming Arts. Visit DMPA dot org or
wherever you get your podcasts for futureconversations like this one. Thank you for listening.
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