April 30, 2025 • 9 mins
Native Louisvillian Valerie Celeste Bruce was a childhood classmate of Mayor Craig Greenberg. She always knew she'd be in some type of show biz, ultimately heading to law school and then legal work for entertainment pursuits.
Then Valerie segued into production work on BBC shows like Dancing With the Stars and many others.
Her latest project is an as-yet-unnamed album featuring the single Kentucky Mirage. It is sampled in her interview with Terry Meiners.
Then Valerie segued into production work on BBC shows like Dancing With the Stars and many others.
Her latest project is an as-yet-unnamed album featuring the single Kentucky Mirage. It is sampled in her interview with Terry Meiners.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
It's always good to have people come home for the
Kentucky Derby. One of them is Valerie Celeste Bruce. Hi, Valerie,
welcome back, Thank.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You, Terry.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
I'm so excited to be here. It's my favorite event
in the world.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You grew up here. You go other places, you tell
people about the Derby and they're like, I need to
go that sometime, right. Do you hear that? Occasionally?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I do, because.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
They like people like fancy hats, the dress up stuff,
and it's a fun like a little fantasy party. That's
the way that is.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It's a mirage, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You grew up here in Prospect, Is that what you
told me? Prospect, Kentucky? And then you had a classmate.
Let me check my notes again. His name is Craig Greenberg.
You know whatever happened to him.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Craig is such an amazing person friend and mayor of
this fine city.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I don't think anybody was surprised to see him win
the mayor's job. But you knew him when he was
a kid.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I did. We grew up together.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Could you tell that he had leadership potential?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Absolutely? He was meant for it.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Was he one of the guys that answered all the
questions in class and wanted to give up and give
speeches and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Not in that sort of way, but he was very
you know, he was always great at listening and hearing
both sides of every situation.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
He's still that way now. And he's also a runner,
so he doesn't have to get tagged down too many
times by people who don't want to ask him a
question because he can just he's running. I'm sorry, busy,
I'm running fifteen miles. He does that every day. And
then Rachel's awesome, she is. They're just good people. Well,
it's good to have you home. Where do you live now?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I live in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Never heard of it. They're both LA Los Angeles and
the Louisville area, so you can you can just say
you're an LA girl both ways.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Let me guess show business. I read your bio there
that I see that you did you go to you're
a lawyer too, but that was some time ago, and
then you went on to tell me the story.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
So I went to law school. I endeavored on a
career and entertainment. I worked in house at several different
media companies and business and legal affairs then I'm morphed
to the business side. And then I'm morphed to the
real business side of running a production company.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
And what are you producing? TV? Shows? Music?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
What?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
TV?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And that was so I in my past, my most
recent job, I ran BBC Studios La Productions that we
produced television shows for many many of our of the
country's favorites, like Dancing with the Stars.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Never heard of it? No, now, Dancing with the Stars,
that's huge. And then BBC they own the concept and
we stole it, like we steal a lot of British shows,
don't we hear it?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Well, I wouldn't call steel, I would say license formats
and yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
American Idol is another one, right, correct, same sort of thing, Yes,
And the other one that got talent and we call
it America's got talent? Was did Britain have talent? First?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I think there's a different name to it, but I
forget what the same concept we.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
See their premises, their Survivor or whatever it is, Naked Island. Wait,
we're taking that one too, That's just how that goes.
So what are you producing now?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Well, right now, I'm kind of producing myself singing and songwriting.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I heard about this. Tell me about your song.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Well, my newest release is called Kentucky Mirage and it's
a love story set against the Kentucky Derby.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Can I play a little piece of it and then
we'll come back and chat a little bit.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I would have loved that, all right.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Valerie Bruce is in studio. Here, she is in her
own studio recording.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
All the parties on Derby Eve and all the ville
in all Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
He walks into mine. I didn't want to.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Give him my time. The pants and rocoute jus opposed
to her society oil lukashinings Dot settled up against the bar.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Trees about the.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Chill downs would be and hey, maybe we would beat again.
I didn't want to let him in.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So much as awful, distantly.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Looking duncky dom.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Change in a you Okay, I'm gonna faint a little
bit of this. Then we'll come back and finish that
off in a few minutes here. Now see, that's a
great story to tell. And you already know the story,
right I do?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I do?
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Did you spit this one out pretty quickly?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yes? I did.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
The lyrics, yes, the music's different project.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Actually both were very seamless and quick. I have a
process with my producers. In each song, I come up
with the lyrics. I have an idea for the melody
that I work with a producer and from start to
finish just three hours.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Now did this start when you were a kid way
back in the.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Day, or this this this desire?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yes, I was in this creative streak. Musically, that's a
different well.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I always wanted to sing when I was a little girl,
and I did sing, and I was in the choir.
I was in Ballard's choir, their Gate choral program. I
was in the church choir. And then I embarked on
the law school, business side journey and entertainment.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
And when I turned fifty, I was reflecting on.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
My life and I was like, what if I always
wanted to do that I never did, and that was singing.
And I set a goal to write and record one
song by fifty one, and instead I got an album.
So now I've written an album, I've performed live, I've
you know, all of these new things?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Are the rest of the songs about places? Are they there?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Some are?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
There's one about Aspen that hasn't been released yet. There's
one about London, which has been released. That was my
first release.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
The BBC forgot to pay me, but helping you.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Oh that could be the next that could be the
next song. I'm do you want co writing credit on
that one?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
No? No, that's all you are.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Boy.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
You are a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I always say you can't take it out of you,
which is an amazing thing.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, well this is fun though. It's such a different
creative streak as opposed to you know, doing legal work.
All the other things that are they have rigidity to them,
but in being able to create, it's just the you know,
everything's wide open, it's an empty canvas, and then you
wake up and think, I'm gonna try this.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah, it's it's really a whole it's a whole new world.
I mean, I've always loved fashion and I've done I
did a fashion collaboration in my you know a few
years back. But this I get to pick out what
outfits I'm wearing to both perform and to put on
my single you know cover art, and I get to
(07:01):
design the cover art. I get to come up with titles.
I get to you know, create my lyrics. So everything
is just created and now I actually have learned so
many new skills.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I've learned how to edit, I've.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Learned how to actually talk into an iPhone and record
myself because with so many years of being behind the
scenes and promoting everybody else or promoting other talent, promoting
companies that I've worked, you know with, it was never
one of the things that I was, you know, out
talking about something that I just did for me.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And people can make full length movies on an iPhone. Now,
that's the amazing thing with technology. Now before you had
to go rent the studio and do this and do that. Well,
the world's a little different now, I know.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And it's moving fast.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yeah, and chat GPT has become my very close friend
of mine.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I call him.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Chad, and it makes perfect sense. I have conversations with
mine now and again too. And you know, what you've
done here and this amount of time is astounding, so
good work on this. This particular song, what's the name
of the whole album, Well, that.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Is a bit in flux.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
It started out as Independence, then it became Pink Flame.
Now it's Flame four one nine. And by the time
I wrote because right now we're releasing one single at
a time, by the time we get to the end.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Who knows what the name is going to be.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
But the Kentucky Mirage. Is this song correct? Because I
found it online already. That's out there.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Ev Yes, it's out there.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
It's on all of the platforms, Spotify, you know, Apple, YouTube.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Everywhere, so you can just go get it somewhere. Yes,
Valerian is great talking to you.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I'm curious to see where this goes next for you?
Is it Are you going to stay musical? There's something
else too, because you're obviously very visually interesting as well.
I saw your album cover. You look incredible today.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
People see all this stuff online because we're posting this audio.
But you know, I'm I'm just curious see where you
are in three four years.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, well the universe will well, it'll all unfold.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Well, you're not shy about chasing things. That's good. Just
keep doing it.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I will thank you for having me, Terry.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Valerie Celeste Bruce. The song is called Kentucky Mirage. It's
our love story from here in Louisville and you pass,
she said, pick it up on any digital platform now,
always have a
It's always good to have people come home for the
Kentucky Derby. One of them is Valerie Celeste Bruce. Hi, Valerie,
welcome back, Thank.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
You, Terry.
Speaker 3 (00:08):
I'm so excited to be here. It's my favorite event
in the world.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You grew up here. You go other places, you tell
people about the Derby and they're like, I need to
go that sometime, right. Do you hear that? Occasionally?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
I do, because.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
They like people like fancy hats, the dress up stuff,
and it's a fun like a little fantasy party. That's
the way that is.
Speaker 2 (00:31):
It's a mirage, all right.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
You grew up here in Prospect, Is that what you
told me? Prospect, Kentucky? And then you had a classmate.
Let me check my notes again. His name is Craig Greenberg.
You know whatever happened to him.
Speaker 3 (00:46):
Craig is such an amazing person friend and mayor of
this fine city.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
I don't think anybody was surprised to see him win
the mayor's job. But you knew him when he was
a kid.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I did. We grew up together.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Could you tell that he had leadership potential?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Absolutely? He was meant for it.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Was he one of the guys that answered all the
questions in class and wanted to give up and give
speeches and that sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
Not in that sort of way, but he was very
you know, he was always great at listening and hearing
both sides of every situation.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
He's still that way now. And he's also a runner,
so he doesn't have to get tagged down too many
times by people who don't want to ask him a
question because he can just he's running. I'm sorry, busy,
I'm running fifteen miles. He does that every day. And
then Rachel's awesome, she is. They're just good people. Well,
it's good to have you home. Where do you live now?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I live in Los Angeles.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Never heard of it. They're both LA Los Angeles and
the Louisville area, so you can you can just say
you're an LA girl both ways.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
Let me guess show business. I read your bio there
that I see that you did you go to you're
a lawyer too, but that was some time ago, and
then you went on to tell me the story.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
So I went to law school. I endeavored on a
career and entertainment. I worked in house at several different
media companies and business and legal affairs then I'm morphed
to the business side. And then I'm morphed to the
real business side of running a production company.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
And what are you producing? TV? Shows? Music?
Speaker 4 (02:17):
What?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
TV?
Speaker 3 (02:18):
And that was so I in my past, my most
recent job, I ran BBC Studios La Productions that we
produced television shows for many many of our of the
country's favorites, like Dancing with the Stars.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
Never heard of it? No, now, Dancing with the Stars,
that's huge. And then BBC they own the concept and
we stole it, like we steal a lot of British shows,
don't we hear it?
Speaker 3 (02:45):
Well, I wouldn't call steel, I would say license formats
and yeah, So.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
American Idol is another one, right, correct, same sort of thing, Yes,
And the other one that got talent and we call
it America's got talent? Was did Britain have talent? First?
Speaker 3 (03:00):
I think there's a different name to it, but I
forget what the same concept we.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
See their premises, their Survivor or whatever it is, Naked Island. Wait,
we're taking that one too, That's just how that goes.
So what are you producing now?
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Well, right now, I'm kind of producing myself singing and songwriting.
Speaker 1 (03:19):
I heard about this. Tell me about your song.
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Well, my newest release is called Kentucky Mirage and it's
a love story set against the Kentucky Derby.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
Can I play a little piece of it and then
we'll come back and chat a little bit.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
I would have loved that, all right.
Speaker 1 (03:34):
Valerie Bruce is in studio. Here, she is in her
own studio recording.
Speaker 4 (03:39):
All the parties on Derby Eve and all the ville
in all Kentucky.
Speaker 2 (03:45):
He walks into mine. I didn't want to.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Give him my time. The pants and rocoute jus opposed
to her society oil lukashinings Dot settled up against the bar.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Trees about the.
Speaker 4 (04:08):
Chill downs would be and hey, maybe we would beat again.
I didn't want to let him in.
Speaker 1 (04:20):
So much as awful, distantly.
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Looking duncky dom.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
Change in a you Okay, I'm gonna faint a little
bit of this. Then we'll come back and finish that
off in a few minutes here. Now see, that's a
great story to tell. And you already know the story,
right I do?
Speaker 2 (04:40):
I do?
Speaker 1 (04:41):
Did you spit this one out pretty quickly?
Speaker 2 (04:43):
Yes? I did.
Speaker 1 (04:44):
The lyrics, yes, the music's different project.
Speaker 3 (04:47):
Actually both were very seamless and quick. I have a
process with my producers. In each song, I come up
with the lyrics. I have an idea for the melody
that I work with a producer and from start to
finish just three hours.
Speaker 1 (05:02):
Now did this start when you were a kid way
back in the.
Speaker 2 (05:05):
Day, or this this this desire?
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Yes, I was in this creative streak. Musically, that's a
different well.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
I always wanted to sing when I was a little girl,
and I did sing, and I was in the choir.
I was in Ballard's choir, their Gate choral program. I
was in the church choir. And then I embarked on
the law school, business side journey and entertainment.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
And when I turned fifty, I was reflecting on.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
My life and I was like, what if I always
wanted to do that I never did, and that was singing.
And I set a goal to write and record one
song by fifty one, and instead I got an album.
So now I've written an album, I've performed live, I've
you know, all of these new things?
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Are the rest of the songs about places? Are they there?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Some are?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
There's one about Aspen that hasn't been released yet. There's
one about London, which has been released. That was my
first release.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
The BBC forgot to pay me, but helping you.
Speaker 3 (06:04):
Oh that could be the next that could be the
next song. I'm do you want co writing credit on
that one?
Speaker 1 (06:10):
No? No, that's all you are.
Speaker 3 (06:14):
Boy.
Speaker 1 (06:14):
You are a lawyer.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:18):
I always say you can't take it out of you,
which is an amazing thing.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, well this is fun though. It's such a different
creative streak as opposed to you know, doing legal work.
All the other things that are they have rigidity to them,
but in being able to create, it's just the you know,
everything's wide open, it's an empty canvas, and then you
wake up and think, I'm gonna try this.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
Yeah, it's it's really a whole it's a whole new world.
I mean, I've always loved fashion and I've done I
did a fashion collaboration in my you know a few
years back. But this I get to pick out what
outfits I'm wearing to both perform and to put on
my single you know cover art, and I get to
(07:01):
design the cover art. I get to come up with titles.
I get to you know, create my lyrics. So everything
is just created and now I actually have learned so
many new skills.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
I've learned how to edit, I've.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
Learned how to actually talk into an iPhone and record
myself because with so many years of being behind the
scenes and promoting everybody else or promoting other talent, promoting
companies that I've worked, you know with, it was never
one of the things that I was, you know, out
talking about something that I just did for me.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
And people can make full length movies on an iPhone. Now,
that's the amazing thing with technology. Now before you had
to go rent the studio and do this and do that. Well,
the world's a little different now, I know.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
And it's moving fast.
Speaker 3 (07:47):
Yeah, and chat GPT has become my very close friend
of mine.
Speaker 2 (07:51):
I call him.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
Chad, and it makes perfect sense. I have conversations with
mine now and again too. And you know, what you've
done here and this amount of time is astounding, so
good work on this. This particular song, what's the name
of the whole album, Well, that.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Is a bit in flux.
Speaker 3 (08:08):
It started out as Independence, then it became Pink Flame.
Now it's Flame four one nine. And by the time
I wrote because right now we're releasing one single at
a time, by the time we get to the end.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
Who knows what the name is going to be.
Speaker 1 (08:23):
But the Kentucky Mirage. Is this song correct? Because I
found it online already. That's out there.
Speaker 2 (08:30):
Ev Yes, it's out there.
Speaker 3 (08:31):
It's on all of the platforms, Spotify, you know, Apple, YouTube.
Speaker 1 (08:36):
Everywhere, so you can just go get it somewhere. Yes,
Valerian is great talking to you.
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
I'm curious to see where this goes next for you?
Is it Are you going to stay musical? There's something
else too, because you're obviously very visually interesting as well.
I saw your album cover. You look incredible today.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
People see all this stuff online because we're posting this audio.
But you know, I'm I'm just curious see where you
are in three four years.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Yeah, well the universe will well, it'll all unfold.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Well, you're not shy about chasing things. That's good. Just
keep doing it.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
I will thank you for having me, Terry.
Speaker 1 (09:11):
Valerie Celeste Bruce. The song is called Kentucky Mirage. It's
our love story from here in Louisville and you pass,
she said, pick it up on any digital platform now,
always have a
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