Christian music icon and crossover star Amy Grant sits down with Bobby to talk about the tragic bike crash that changed her life and the long road back that followed. She also looks back on getting a record deal at just 15 years old, becoming famous almost by accident, and what it was like trying to navigate success while still being so young. Amy shares why she sees some parallels between her own career and Taylor Swift, reflects on the unexpected path her life took, and tells the story of getting Minnie Pearl’s blessing to name her daughter after her. It’s a conversation about resilience, early success, perspective, and the moments that shaped one of music’s most enduring careers.
Watch The BobbyCast on Netflix!
Follow on Instagram: @TheBobbyCast
Follow on TikTok: @TheBobbyCast
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Listen
Watch
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
I remember when people were first dog in Taylor Swift. Well,
she's pitchy, she says, she's at what I knew because
I had been on that same thing. I was like,
wait till she hits thirty five, she will be at
the top of her game.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Wow. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bobby Cast. I am
joined by the legendary Amy Grant, six time Grammy winner,
one of the most influential voices in Christian music and
pop music. You probably know Baby Baby. After more than
a decade away from releasing original music, she is back.
(00:40):
She's a deeply personal new album called The Me That Remains,
which we're going to talk about here. And we do
talk about new music. We do talk about life in Nashville, motherhood,
we do talk about what keeps her going nearly fifty
years into her incredible career, and we do talk about
her injury, her bicycle accident that turned it into brain injury.
(01:01):
So I'm a big fan of this person, also of
the artist. Here's my conversation with Amy Grant. Amy, good
to see you. How you been I've been good. I've
been good. Yeah, yeah, what does that mean that you've
been good? Like? What is good? For you.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Good for me means to me is settled on the inside.
You know, everything kind of comes from there. I guess
some sometimes in life feel really frantic, and this doesn't.
I'm busy, but I don't feel frantic.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I think I live frantic.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
That's fair. I mean, I'm you know, I'm on a
decade and a half older than you are.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Maybe I don't take it. I don't think it's an
age thing though. For me. Yeah, I just got my
test results back today from a lot of blood work though,
so I'm pretty pumped about that. Okay, good, Yeah, yeah. Hey,
as I get older, I start to get a little
more nervous each time. Right, I've had issues. I had
three a schemic strokes in my brain. You're kidding me, No,
(02:06):
And so I didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
And so are they preventable.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So years ago, I woke up one morning and was like,
I don't really know what's happening. Like I couldn't read,
but my eye doesn't work. This eye doesn't work. So
I thought maybe it's an eye thing. Yeah, And I
spent a couple of weeks not being able to read.
(02:34):
It was a little discombobulated. And it slowly went away. Okay,
you know you've had brain stuff too. I'm only telling
you this because I know you.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, it was that was your stroke in the back
lower part of your brain.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I didn't know it was a stroke first. So the
first one I have, and it takes a month and
a half for me to just kind of get my
bearings back, and then I wake up again. It's all
after I woke up, so I never felt anything, and
so I thought I just slept weird or hired. But
I remember there being like a banana on the table
and I could not identify the name of that yellow thing.
(03:07):
Oh wow, so crazy. It felt fictional, yes, but I
didn't want to tell anybody because I didn't want to
miss work, because I didn't want them to think, oh,
he can't work.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
He's not capable of competent. The above you.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Third one I had right before I went on Dancing
with the Stars, and I can't remember the steps ever,
So I just like physically my way myself through it.
And so when I met my wife. I met her
right after and she was like, I don't think that's normal.
Went to the doctor and he's like, yeah, he looked
at the like the gray matter in my brain white.
He's like, oh, you've had three aeschemic strokes, which are
small strokes, and it was from not sleeping enough. It
(03:42):
was from all those So every time I do these
tests and it comes back, I'm always like a little nervous.
But I have a complete memory loss from a month
basically a month before each of them. Yes, that makes
total sense, which is wild. Yeah. And I started to
try to think back during those strokes and think about
what led up to it, and I had no memory
(04:02):
at all from a month or so prior. But I
wasn't sick. It just has somehow eliminated any anything from
my life in that my I like look at pictures
and not remember it.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Not at all. No, nothing, do you and do you
have a calendar you went through? It really is just
like a blank.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It's yeah, it's and it's about thirty to forty days
because I know when it happened, when I would wake
up and have this tremendous brain foger and the ability
to not recall stuff and at all. Again, Banana, Yeah, right,
that's the easiest one that makes people go, Wow, that's crazy. No,
banana couldn't identify a banana, and so I now because
(04:40):
I go in for MRIs somewhat not regularly enough. Anyway,
I got my results back and it was all good. Today.
You had a bike accident, right, Is that what your
brain injury was from?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Was your memory loss from the impact or is it
like mine where you just remember up to a point
but maybe you don't remember the accident.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I don't remember the accident. I have no memory of that,
but mine, I think I just took such a whack
on the head that I mean, I was unconscious for
ten minutes and bleeding.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
How do you know you're on conscious for ten minutes?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Because my friend who was on the wreck with us,
and you know, I mean, she thought I was dead.
I don't remember the ambulance, right, I don't remember anything,
but I think what happened is that the blow to
my head just everything. You know. The synapsies are an
amazing thing, what connects all of our thought processes and
(05:39):
all that in our bank, in our brains. And I
think so many of the synapses were broken. And so
somebody will go, hey, remember that trip we took to
such and such, and I go keep talking, keep talking,
because I know it's in there. I don't have dementia,
but my friends have helped me re establish those synapses
to find memories.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, and so and I used to try, you know,
at first, I tried to kind of cover, but I
was I was non functioning for a little while. But
now I just go keep talking, keep talking, or I'll
see somebody and I'll say, am I supposed to know
your name? Or just help me? I'll just say, help
me with your name. And once it's here, you know,
(06:19):
I do things to help myself remember and everything is
just what does it take to get through today. I
mean that's true for all of us about anything. And so, yeah,
and I get this is a good stretch because I'm
learning how to pace myself.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Are you still dealing with it at all?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I mean, I'm sure I am. And I'm also sixty five,
so wherever the but I will tell you yesterday I
went into the bedroom and said, I just want to announce.
I put on my underwear standing in the middle of
the bathroom. I didn't have to lean against something because
I've been working on my balance really intensely for about
(07:05):
six months. Because my balance, you know, I would just
like list to the left or hit the wall. It's
just weird, the stuff that goes heywire. And so I've
been doing a whole lot cross brain and standing on
one leg or like kind of doing dancer arms, standing
(07:25):
on my right foot then my left foot, but like
shifting my weight so that each leg learns how to
hold my body and just all stuff I made up myself.
But yesterday I made the announcement and I went, I
can put on my underwear without a wall, without sitting down.
And I'm almost four years out, but I'm still working
(07:48):
on stuff, and I'm you know, I want to go. Hell, yeah,
I can put on my underwear without leaning against the countertop.
That's huge, that's fan fantastic.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I have days, they're actually good days.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Where I will go, Man, I had a great day
with recall today. Yes, And it's something that I obviously
very much took for granted because I had no reason
not to take it for granted beforehand. But I will
have a day at the end of the day and
I will go dang, and I'll like simples, I'll go
through my phone. I'm like, I'll scroll through and I
can go through pictures and those I can go to
(08:27):
those that month, that thirty forty days before, because I
haven't marked on my phone now right now, yes, and
I don't remember them, but it's almost like I'm looking
through like a really dark like a fog. A really
I can almost like see them if I stare at
them long enough. I never thought about that they're probably
still in there, yes, until you said that just now.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
It's still in there.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah. So when I get results back'm always super pumped.
And today I got right before you came in. I
got them, and I was like, oh, good for me.
I don't know what it was for you. That kind
of puts you back on the right track. But we
tried a lot of stuff. I've never actually talked about
this so much, but I feel like you've been through
something worse than I have, so you understand it's just different,
not worse. Fair. And I tried a lot of physical
(09:14):
therapy to just get my brain going, reading puzzles. And
I'm not a big medicine guy. I'm not anti medicine,
but I have such a history of family addiction that
I'm scared to take anything that I could be addicted to.
Right And I, at the encouragement of my doctor at
(09:34):
the time. He was like, Hey, what if you designed
to like chart like charge your brain like pop it
like almost like popping it back in place. And I
was like, what do you mean? See you ever tried
any sort of like adderall or stimulant. I was like,
I haven't. I really didn't try anything. I tried it.
It was it made me feel normal again, and I
haven't done it. I done it like it's Heroin. I
haven't taken it in a long time, but it's the
(09:56):
first thing that I that I took that actually made
me feel like me again, where it's like my like
things just felt normal, even like doing this with my
hands felt normal, my thinking felt normal. Well, was it
for you that helped you kind of get back in
to feel normal again or was it just time?
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I think it was just time. And it was nearly
two years after my accident. They say two years is
sort of like the peak of recovery, like what you
get in two years, and I disagree because of neuroplasticity
(10:36):
and I don't know how all my tests were identified,
but it was several hours of tests with a neuropsychologist
at Vanderbilt, and when I went in for my test results,
he said, now, mind you, anybody doing these tests, they're
not like the top ten of their class at Harvard.
They've all got a reason to be doing these tests.
(10:57):
So however you score, it's relative.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
To the.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
You know, to the people taking the tests. But things
that I thought were not good, like he said, your
vocabulary is in the ninety percentile, your memory is the
ninety is in the ninety something percentile. And I was
like what, But my processing was like in the twenty
five percentile. And just to have him identify that, I went, ah,
(11:25):
that's what it is. I feel like I'm the conversation's
happening in here. I'm down the hall and in the closet. Yeah,
I don't have the one letter. I don't have. And
we talked about it and he said, how do you
feel like this exhibits in your life? And I said,
I feel like I'm more reclusive, you know. And he said, look,
I'm going to tell you lean in to lean into whatever,
(11:49):
Lean into the conversation, lean into what you can't keep
up with. Just lean in. And that's when I went
back and started making music. It was not to make
a record, it was lean into things that had sustained
me in the past, and yeah, and I thought, well,
I've got what I've got. I woke up, how I
(12:11):
am right now, and I know it's different, and that's okay.
It's just you know, And I think that was the
big shift for me. That was my Adderall was kind
of just waking up one day and going, hey, I'm
alive and I and honestly, some things that I used
(12:34):
to feel very anxious about. I'm not sure what they were,
but there was kind of a base level of anxiety
in my life because I just a lot was expected
of me workwise, a lot of things, and I had
kids at home and anyway, and all that was kind
of gone. So that's so dangerous if you're used to
(12:57):
responding to pressure. But it was just like, hey, everybody,
everybody's just trying to navigate their life. I felt such
a connection to people in recovery, anybody who was responding
to a life that was full of decisions that were
(13:18):
not there choosing, and I just thought, well, we all
need each other, and I want to be available by
other people, available to other people the way people have
been available to me, and somewhere in there we're all
going to get through. Was sort of my new approach
(13:38):
to life. But it was slow going because there's a
lot of comparison to how it was before. Gosh, I
remember ten years ago how I was, or five years
ago how I was and then, And I guess anybody
could do that about any part of their life, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And I wonder, because I do that too, But I
wonder do I only feel that way? Am I older
and I've lost it? Or is it because of something
I also feel. I wish I would have been like
one of those people that I don't know hit their
head and they not know eight languages, or they have
brain surgery and they can play the piano automatically, like
I wanted some superpower to come from it. If I
haven't found it yet, like if it's in there, I
(14:22):
don't know what it is yet. I just have always
been fearful that it's going to happen again. The other
the three times, they were all spread apart by a
year and a half or so, and I didn't talk
about it for a long time because I didn't want
anybody to know if it happened again. Because I found
a way to mask it through leaning on people, confiding
in a couple of people to cover me, especially when
(14:44):
I couldn't read right, and so I didn't want, especially
my job to know that I had been through this,
because I didn't need them to see me as someone
who could not, you know, provide them what I've been
providing them for the past, you know, fifteen years or so, right, right.
My wife was great though, she's the one that made
me go to the doctor. And now they have a baby.
(15:04):
We got a baby, and so then you get into
the fears of like is this genetic And I don't know.
David the doctor was like, you probably just don't sleep enough. Yeah,
and eat more broccoli that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, I drink more water all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
One thing you already said that I think you got
from this and you said, my gratitude, I don't take
it for granted. And you said that in the first
little bit of our conversation. And I do think when
something that you've never doubted would be there, like waking
(15:38):
up and all of a sudden you go, good gosh, like, hey,
we're all on our own unique timeline. We don't know
what it is, but we have what we have.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
I remember being so grateful when I kind of got
my fastball back, because like I got here by being quick,
having things to say or funny things to say, or
compelling thoughts, and that was just taken from me. And
then when I started to slowly kind of get kick
started again. And it wouldn't happen even two days in
a row or two hours in a row, but every
once in a while I'd have it a wow moment
(16:14):
of oh that's that's I kind of feel me again. Yes,
I think having some success at that helped all the
success later on to kind of get me back to normal,
Like I needed those little positive steps in order to
take those bigger positive steps.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yep, yep. And one thing like I would observe about that,
how the lens through which you see life, what gives
you that quirky quick response that all that stuff is
that's you, whether you open your mouth or not, it's
the way you see the world. It's your wiring. And
(16:50):
so there's a part of even if you're not doing
the quick response when you can, it's just your unique
take on life and that's a part of you. And
I think recognizing that about myself gave me to go,
I'm not sure how this is going to come out
(17:10):
how it's going to exhibit eventually. But the way my
wiring and the way I see the world and all
of that is unique to me, and I've I've just
got to show up and if it comes out a
new way, it'll come out a new way.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Is this record the music you started to make from that?
Did you have? Was it harder at first? Not because
of any vulnerability, but literally because of the music, Like
making music writing lyrics? Like was that harder?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
And let me backtrack and say some of those songs
are older because I'm kind of always making a little
bit of music. But when I first called Mac mc
andally and said, hey, I've written some lyrics, writing music
is really hard with short term memory loss, because you know,
(18:04):
I would like be working on something and hit record
on my phone and then forty minutes later go, well,
who wants to dig through that and try to find
you know, the But that limitation for me just created
another way forward. I reached out to Tom Douglas. I've
never written a song with Tom, and I said, hey,
(18:26):
I've got a lyric, any chance you want to put
some music to it, No sacred cows, change anything you want,
And he texted back I'll let you know in five minutes.
And then I was like this like the Gong Show, okay,
and I you know, and I sent him the lyric
and instantly he texted back on it. But I mean, dang,
(18:50):
but I had to find I wanted to do that,
you know. I was trying to lean in. And then
and even you know, called Mac and said, I've got
a couple of songs that I would love to record.
Can can you just help put together a rhythm section?
And would you would you produce it? We never even
signed a contract, you and Mac, No, we never did.
(19:14):
And then yeah, and he just said, let's go on
and have fun. And I didn't have a I didn't
have a contract for a new record.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
And were you even trying to do a new record?
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Oh? I just went into record because it just I
wanted to be creative.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Was this therapeutic creativity?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah? And it was so much fun and I went,
oh my gosh, I forgot how much fun you bring
your little thing died ling ding idea in and everybody's
a master on their instrument and they're kind of playing
through it and listening to each other. And you know,
Fred would change anything on how he was playing the rhythm,
(19:57):
and then it shifts how Glenn wore what he's playing
on bass, you know, because everybody's listening to each other.
And then two or three times through and they go, hey,
that felt great, and just the thing emerged that took everybody,
you know, and I went, I just was going. I forgot,
I forgot, I forgot how great this is. And Max said, hey,
(20:19):
if music's not fine, something's wrong with the world. You
should do more of this. A couple of months later,
six weeks later, I called him back and said, hey,
can we do that again. I've got I got another
four songs. And another month went by and he said, hey,
I'd love to I'd love to show you some stuff
I've been writing. And I said, well, I've got some
more stuff too. But it just happened, just stretched out.
(20:42):
Nobody's holding their breath waiting for anything from me, not
even me.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
What was the purpose of making the record?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Just the joy of it.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Did you have an idea of what you wanted to
do with it once it was done, or were you
just doing the process.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
I was just enjoying the process, and Mac was the one.
At the end of the third day we were recorded
in January, one day in March, one day in April,
and then he'd come to the house. I'd sing the vocals,
he'd go back to his house, he'd add different things,
and then he said, well, girl, we got a record.
I mean, if you want to put a record out.
(21:20):
And then I didn't have a record.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Deal, so.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
And I was like, well, yeah, let's try it. And
it's been so rewarding because what I don't I'm not
looking for the spotlight. I have been famous in my past.
I sort of love the anonymity of my life now,
but I love this music. Allt came. It was so purposeful,
(21:46):
the making of it. It was all honest. None of
it's pretend. And to me, it's playing these songs is
still good medicine for me.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Speaking of fame, did you have an era where you
just really wanted to be famous? So it just was
it was put on to you because of the success
of the music. It was never something you want. You
didn't want the fame part of it.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I didn't think about it. It just came, you know.
I was always a hard worker, and I mean I
was spring break of my senior year in high school.
A record came out, and I'd worked on it for
you know, my junior and senior year.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
But if your A record came out my first record.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
But of course I told no one because if it
were a flop, I didn't want anybody feeling sorry for me.
And you know, when it was time for everybody to
sign their yearbooks, people would bring in a record. But
it just felt like, God, what an amazing thing to
get to do with this hobby that I love so much.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Did your classmates know you were singing? Uh?
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I sang at school?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Okay? Do they know you were like singing though, like
trying to be a singer.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
I wasn't trying. I was, but I wasn't good. I
mean I was just very average. But I loved it.
And they'd say, Hey, bring your guitar. Hey, we're having
a meeting at such and such, will you bring your guitar.
I was not the best singer.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
You were just average.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
I just loved it. I loved I just loved being
around music and so but I wasn't you know, I
wasn't like posing the mirror and didn't think I was
all that.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Where did you live.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I lived in West Nashville in a really nice neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Well you grew up here.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, youngest four girls went to Harpeth Hall.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
I didn't know you were local local.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Here's the unicorn here, one of the few unicorns.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Oh wow. Okay, So that's why you thought you were average.
It makes sense now. If you had grown up in
Spring Film Aseruri, you wouldn't have thought you were average.
You grew up in Atlanta Giants because everybody in Nashville,
everybody is amazing. You don't come here unless you're really good.
And that's why you thought. I was shocked when you
said you were average. I was like, there's no way.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah. But like, here's interesting because Nashville was a lot
smaller than so and I went to public and private school.
You know, I was in grade school when bussing happened
in Nashville, and so so I my parents took me
out of public school and put me in private school
because my bus would have left while it was dark
and I would have gotten home after dark. And I
(24:29):
was entering the sixth grade, and they were like this
for the birds, so they put me in a school
a couple of blocks from our house, which went through
eighth grade. And at the end of eighth grade, one
of my classmates had a connection with the grand Ole
Opry Martha Whiteflower was their family business, and so Minnie
(24:51):
Pearl Sarah Cannon came and spoke at our eighth grade
commencement and that was the first time I met her.
But then I start singing and she's like writing me notes,
I saw you in such and such. Keep smiling, keep trying,
you know. And so my dad was a radiation oncologist
and he treated Johnny Cash's father, and so it would
(25:15):
I can't remember mister Cash's full name, but you know,
so Johnny John depending on whose turn it was to
bring their dad for his treatments. So the first time
I met Johnny Cash, he was like, yeah, I see
your father. Like I was Burton Grant's daughter forever, and
because he helped start Tennessee oncology way back when before
(25:35):
it was called that. But it was like I was
just the little sister of three girls. You know, did
they do music at all? No, they could all sing,
but they were you know, did they just each occupied
their own land. One was kind of a partier. One
was real smart, one was a cheerleader, and I was
(25:55):
just the dorky youngest sister.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Why did you continue to sing if you only thought
you were okay? It was simply you loved it so much.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
I loved it. I loved writing. I loved.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
I mean, music was has always been. Music has never
let me down. When I was a kid, I would
just play my LPs over and over and over. And
I don't know where my childhood record collection is. I'm
sure it's somewhere, but I but I'm just talking about
different records that I listened to. I got to ride
(26:32):
over here with Brian Ward and he was like, I said,
you've got Honky Chateau. You've gotten He brought all these
records Tapestry that were the you know, the records I
grew up with. Jethro Toll. Thik is a brick. It's
just my sister's room was right next door. I went
got it. I'm looking at everything. Emerson, Lincoln Palmer, Beatles,
Elvis and I, Todd, Rundgrend, I loved it, Rod Stewart
(26:56):
Jackson five.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
That's a lot of secular music.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
We didn't have a choir in our church. I didn't
grow up on gospel music.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, you still got into Christian music though.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
First right, I did because when I was a sophomore
in high school, my two oldest sisters had come back
living in the Boston area in the early seventies. One
went to a school called Pine Manor and one went
to Wellesley, and they both transferred back to Vanderbilt. But
(27:31):
kind of that area of Cambridge was really kind of
swept with the Jesus hippie movement. I'm sure equal parts
Jesus music, equal parts pot you know, it was just
kind of Cambridge in the early seventies. And when they
came back to Nashville, they found a church on Music
Row that didn't have a lot of typical church culture,
(27:55):
like everybody showed in blue jeans. They had a coffee shop,
record store next door that had free concerts every Saturday night,
and you know, kind of an artisan area with woodworking
and stained glass, and I mean it was beautiful. It
(28:16):
was a corner of sixteenth and Grand before everything was renamed.
And I loved being a part of that culture. And
so it was my sophomore year at Harpeth Hall, and
I was sitting in a mandatory chapel program. I mean
it's not a Christian school, but just culturally and southern.
You know, there would be a minister or a rabbi
(28:37):
that was invited to come speak once a week for
thirty minutes. And so my weekend experience was this free
flowers in our hair, people sitting in the windowsills in
the church. I mean, it was so vibrant. And I
remember walking out of chapel one day going whood, you
(29:00):
could use some pr down here, because nobody cares about
these chapel programs. And I just walked over to Idanelle
McMurray was the headmistress, even that name, I'm sure it's
different now, head of school now. And I walked over
and said, our students allowed to do chapel programs, and
she said no one's ever asked what are you going
(29:23):
to do? And I said, I don't know, maybe music.
And I signed up for a program and I thought, well,
I better start writing some songs, and so I look up.
Why I started music ever, was to start a conversation,
and I don't feel like I've ever really veered from that.
(29:46):
But then I was like, so I'm I after I had,
you know, ten songs. Maybe. A friend of mine from
church said he worked with the youth group, which which
I was part of. I had a big crush on him,
but he said, my job is at a recording studio
and the class I'm taking at Belmont, I have access
(30:09):
to studio time, but I don't need it. Any chance
you want to go record your songs? I was fifteen,
and I said, like in a real studio. Yeah, And
I went, just myself and a man named Bill Loki,
who was also a kid. He's passed away now, but
he was real involved with on site in a leadership position.
(30:29):
He played piano, and he went and helped me record
my stuff. And then my friend Brown was making copies
of my little tape in the recording studio where he worked,
and an old callge roommate whose studio was walked in
and said, there's a record company in Texas that wants
(30:50):
to launch a new record label with twelve artists like contemporary,
and they're just they're beating the bushes trying to find artists,
and he went, who's that?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
All that fell in like that?
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Just like this? They played my tape over the phone
and the guy from Word Records. His name was Buddy Huey.
He's not alive anymore. And he said, well, she's not
very good, but she sounds sincere. And he said, yeah,
she is. That's how I got my record deal. So
Brown called me at home. By then, it's fall of
(31:23):
my junior year. I'm still fifteen, and he said, hey,
Word Records wants to offer you a record deal. I'm fifteen.
I think he's making fun of me because I'm insecure,
and my dad picks up the phone and said it's
after phone hours. I was grounded. I was grounded, and
(31:46):
I was offered a record deal in the same conversation.
That's so weird.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
What does your dad say about you getting a record deal?
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I don't think I mentioned it that night, but I.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Mean, eventually, that's something he wants his fifteen or sixe
year oldaughter to do.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
I mean, my parents, they knew it was a hobby
that I loved. I mean, I love loved music. I mean,
you know, when I was six years old, I was
such a Sonny and Shaer fan, and my parents bought tickets.
We went down to Municipal Auditorium. David Brenner was the
comedian who opened my sister Carol Wentz, She's year and
(32:21):
a half older than I am. I'm sure they were
bored out of their minds. I was on the edge
of my seat. The next year, my cousin, who was
a career school teacher, never married. Bette Midler was in town.
Barry Manilow was her piano players before Mandy came out,
and I was like, please take me to see Bette Midler.
It was the first time I had ever been in
(32:42):
a community of so many gay men. I didn't I
was just what was I twelve thirteen? All I know
is I wanted that I wanted to be in the
room with that. It was just the creativity and all
these people who were just so expressive and yeah, and
(33:05):
I remember she introduced Barry Manlin. She said he's got
a song that's coming out, and he sang the song
Mandy for the first time. It was not on the
radio yet, and I was thinking, the world is tilting
on its axis. So for me, what I knew was
that I wanted to be a part of that community.
And it didn't matter if I were taking out the
(33:25):
trash in a studio. I just that's what I wanted.
I didn't picture myself on stage, but I got a
very brief internship as part of a school program at
a recording studio way back. You know. It was twenty
four tracks, and I would pick the chewing gum off
(33:46):
people's mic stands, and I'd empty the trash and demagnetize
the tape heads for the machines and nothing fancy.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Do you think if it would have been more rigid
or traditional as far as what your sisters had been
a part of and came down and they took you,
maybe you wouldn't have been as involved or loved it
as much, and possibly you wouldn't be here. But because
it was that version, it was more about message more
(34:15):
than presentation.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, yeah, I don't. I mean, I don't know how
to answer that because all I know is what I've known.
But I do think because I did not come from
from a family that was like I don't know how
to say, except forward facing, there was no presentation in
(34:39):
my family like stage persona I was. And our family was,
you know, functional and dysfunctional like every family.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
But I.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Didn't feel like I had to put on a personality
of any kind of walk on stage. And first tick
show I ever did. It was fall of my freshman
year in college and I was hired by somebody to
come to a show at the Will Rogers Auditorium in
(35:13):
Fort Worth, Texas. And it was ticketed, and I was going, like,
who would buy a ticket? I had one record out
and I walked out and I played all the songs
I knew and I looked at my watch and it
was like an hour and ten minutes, and I said,
that's all I know, and somebody in the balcony said,
(35:36):
sing him over again, and I went okay, and I did,
and I just started at the top.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
And there's also some irony to you signing a record
deal with a label in Texas when you grew up
in Nashville and it's all right here, but you signed
with a record label in Texas.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Because they needed something to fill their agenda, their mission.
I'm telling you there's not a talent scout that would
have heard me singing at arpeital and stopped.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Did you get better?
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yes, how I worked hard. You can't you know singing
it's a muscle. My songwriting got better, my performance got better,
and I I was a junior in college the first
time I played with an actual band, and then I
toured with the band out of Memphis, and I just
(36:28):
worked hard to keep up, you know, and I had to.
I mean, I loved that community. And there's not anything
I remember when people were first dog in Taylor Swift,
Well she's pitchy, she says she's at and what I
knew because I had been on that same thing, I
(36:48):
was like, just wait, wait till she's wait till she
hits thirty five, she will be at the top of.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Her game, because you felt that was you.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I just remember when I was a kid and I
had acne, what might and awkward and all that stuff.
My mother would say, hey, take a deep breath. A
woman's most beautiful years are thirty five to forty five
because you've got wisdom, you experience, you've been long enough
in what you love that you're good at it. So
I kind of took the heat off myself. I'm like, hey,
(37:21):
work hard, learn as you go. But every opportunity, Like
I remember Michael Lomarty and who I had met several times,
but he was producing Peter Satira's first album when he
was doing his solo stuff after the big Chicago run,
and I was in Atlanta, visiting my college roommates. So
(37:41):
it was this nineteen the summer of spring of eighty
six maybe, and he said, hey, I want you to
Will you sing this duet with Peter Satira. Well, I
used to watch the Chicago specials on TV, and I said, like,
did all female singers die? Why are you calling me?
(38:04):
And he said, I don't remember what he said. But
Peter didn't know me. Michael knew me. And the next
thing I know, I've flown to LA I'm singing on
Mike and with Peter. I'm asking him about, oh my gosh,
(38:27):
what about this tour? What about that tour? And yeah,
but like every good thing that has happened to me,
it's a door I fell in sideways.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
It's also a door that you had to be near
enough to fall in sideways. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
I mean I've always been a hard worker, and I work,
and you work hard doing things you love. I think
I never ever imagined and imagined an end goal ever,
because things kept happening that were well I didn't, you know,
(39:04):
So I was just like, why plan, Just work hard
and let it take you where it'll take you.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
So we started me asking about fame. When did that happen.
How old were you whenever like baby Baby or any
of those Like how old were you? Then?
Speaker 1 (39:22):
All right, we'll see I was born Thanksgiving weekend of
nineteen sixty and so Baby Baby that happened in ninety one,
so I was thirty.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
So you had been doing it a while.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I had been a hard worker for a long time.
I remember going into Dunkin, not Dunkin Donuts, the donut
den right next to Hillsborough High School, and I guess
Baby Baby was on the radio. I'm still shopping at
the same place, going to get my groceries, going into
for an apple fritter, my very favorite, and some girls
were coming out when I was going in, maybe three up,
(39:57):
and they just screamed right in my face, and I
guess maybe I had a video on MTV. And I
remember just thinking I hi, and I went in and
ordered my Apple Fredder, thinking well, that was weird. But
because I grew up in Nashville and just generations of friends,
(40:19):
you know, it's like everything was buffered by community.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Do you feel like, though, because that was such a
massive pop song, you were treated a bit different because
you were a pop artist and here a country music artist.
They're the grocery store all the time. I see them
all the time. Yeah, I'm friends with them. I see
him walking at Target. But that was like pop that
was larger than what was at the time very much
(41:03):
a niche. Country music is always just now has it
not really been a niche?
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Right? Yeah? But I was. I had toured so much.
I think the tour before that in the late eighties,
eighty eight eighty nine, I mean we were setting attendance record,
like at Pacific Amphitheater and so, and I wasn't on
I was on Christian radio, but I you know, it wasn't.
(41:29):
That was a tour I did with Michael W. Smith
and the woman who's now my manager, Jennifer Cook, had
been to see Rod Stewart the night before at Pacific
Amphitheater and her little sister fifteen years younger, was a
fan of my music and she's so, please take me
to the show. And jen was like, ugh, I gotta
go to a show. It's not going to be nearly
as good as Rod Stewart. Okay, I'll take you. Allison
(41:52):
got me flowers, her little sister and anyway, she said,
I went dreading it. I didn't want to go to
a Christian music show. And I just think that to me,
(42:12):
that response is just nobody really wants to be told
what to do, ever, and they're kind of that description
of music comes with oh, there's a framework of who
you need to be and how you need to live
that is projected onto a person just by virtue of
(42:33):
the genre. To me, that's my and so I thought,
well that, yeah, I get that. But then they came
back afterwards and Jen was so she said the music,
the presentation, all of it was so compelling. She was
a music lover, and she said, I I made a
(42:56):
trip to Nashville to just figure out what what this was.
And then all these years later, you know, do.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
They consult with you whenever they go, hey, we're gonna
put this in a non Christian space.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
No.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
John Hughey has been my booking agent for forty two years,
cia I know him.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, of course, yeah, But they don't say we're gonna
do this song and it's not just gonna playing a
Christian We're gonna go push it a pop or does
that just happen without you knowing about it.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Well, I mean, my job is to make the music,
and so like the you know, when I making that music,
Keith Thomas had the brilliant music. I came up with
a lyric for Baby Baby. I think in my mind
the music is the magic, and I do think a
lyric is important. But when we delivered that song, I
(43:54):
think both record companies, because by then Word Records I
was part of them early on, they they saw that
the draw to my concert. They just said, I don't
think this music is served sufficiently just in Christian bookstores,
which is how you bought music. Then this is like
(44:16):
talking about the Dark Ages, because it's all streaming now.
But without my knowledge or consent. Maybe they talked to
Dan Harrell, Mike Blanton, my managers, but they said, we're
going to pursue talking to a record company for distribution,
(44:36):
somebody that's not in the Christian music veins. So they
went to A and M. I think they talked to Geffen.
I know they consulted with some different people, but they
just felt that the people at A and M believed
in me as an artist. And so that was a
few records, whereas just distribution, and then by nineteen eighty
(44:59):
seven and I actually signed two record contracts for the
same project with Word Records and A and M Records,
and did all the mixing at A and M.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
And was it a crazy time or did it just
feel like the other times, like when that song was hitting,
did it feel bigger?
Speaker 1 (45:20):
It didn't change my workload? You know, I was working,
and by the time baby Baby came out, it was
you know, the lyric was inspire inspired by Millie who
was six weeks old. And then we went into the video.
And I'm sure all my kids have needed therapy, and
most of them are in it just because they had
a mother who was working so hard and so I
(45:43):
dragged them everywhere. But you know, I see how my
kids are parenting and going. They don't really know how
to self regulate until they're whatever age. And I think,
good gosh, you were in a different place every night.
You lived on a bus. I would walk off the
stage and our nanny would hand me a child with
a poopy diaper and say your turn. Yeah, but it's
(46:05):
just like we were all drinking out of a fire hose,
and you know, they're alive. But was I a good mother?
Probably not. I loved them but I don't, you know.
Even when they launched, I was like, I've never paid
my own taxes. I had a business manager since I
was a teenager. I am no help to you, and
(46:26):
life will be a steep learning curve. Good luck. I mean,
that's awful. But they all have the capacity to build
a life, and they're doing it.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
I was looking through your songs on the new record
and listening to it, and as I was flipping through
and listening, I saw I think it's the last track
on the album. I'm just going for a memory here
or so I'm wrong. Please tell me. I believe both
your daughters saying on it. I did not know that
you named one of your daughters after Minnie Pearl. I
did because, yes, living in Nashville obviously, and knowing the
(47:00):
impact Sarah Cannon had and has on people going through
cancer now and to know that was Mini Pearl, and
I saw Sarah Cannon and so then I thought I
needed to look this up. So you named a daughter
after Minni Pearl?
Speaker 1 (47:15):
I did, and she was obviously that was her first
and middle name. But she was married and then went
through divorce, and she said, I'm not the same person
I was I want to take my maiden name back.
I don't, and she said I would. I want to.
I want the full weight of the name of the
woman I was named for. Nothing could have made me happier.
(47:40):
I was pregnant with Sarah and went to see Many
and I said, I'm having a girl. May I name
her for you?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
You asked her.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Yes, and she'd already had a stroke by then heard
this was I mean, Sarah was born in ninety two
fall of ninety two. And Many did not pass for
a little while. But she said, oh, Amy, a name
is so important. A name is so important. And she said,
teacher poetry. I mean, we talked a lot. We had
(48:15):
a conversation that I wrote a paper on one time
and she and she said, it's important to be able
to remember and say poetry, and teach her this, and
teach her that, and tell her the Do you know
the most important color of the color palette? And I'm
like no, And I started guessing colors. My sister is
(48:39):
good with color. And I said, why are you telling
me this? And she said it's important. She said, black,
black is the most important color. Tell her that and
I said okay, And she said, because everything looks two dimensional,
but when you add black, you create depth with everything,
and that's what life is. She is bedridden at this
(49:02):
point giving me this advice. I'm like, yes, ma'am, I'll
tell her.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
What was she like before she got sick.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Well, we were doing a benefit one time. It was
called April Evening and it was out of the farm.
When I was married to Gary Chapman. We had a
beautiful kind of gentleman's farm on Moran Road, and we
had a big event with the Fairfield Four, which, by
the way, there were five of them, but who cares
Minnie Pearl Ashley Cleveland, and we had a big dinner
(49:35):
and she and I were trying to change clothes when
we were in the powder room right off the front
door of Gary's in my house, and you know, it's
just it's a tight little quarters and we're like fully
changing clothes. So I'm trying to give her her space.
I'm face toward the corner of the wall. I'm changing
my clothes, and all of a sudden, she said, Amy,
(49:56):
turn around. I turn around, and she got her pan,
but she's bear breasted, She's got nothing on from the
waist up. I said, yes, ma'am, and she said, I'm
old everywhere else, but I'm eighteen from here to here.
And I said, yes you are, and uh, yeah, that
was so much fun. When was that that would have been?
(50:20):
Uh I don't remember when that was, but and like
for that event as a as a fundraiser, I reached
out to so many songwriters saying and I sent or
Jennifer Cook did it because at the time she's my
manager now, but she was executive assistant for my managers.
(50:42):
And I said, I would pay for a song lyric
if we're trying to raise money for this might have
been prevent prevent byness Tennessee prevent prevent blindness. But I
just try to think what would I pay money for.
I don't want somebody's autograph tennis shoe. What I want
is something I can hang on my wall. And so
(51:05):
I just thought of every songwriter who I loved, admired, respected,
and we sent good quality paper, comfortable pins in the hand,
and said, would you write out at least a chorus,
preferably the whole lyric of one of your songs. And
then we had returned, you know, fedexx envelopes back and
(51:26):
it was like Christmas. Wow, everything went to the office.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
But like.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
Art Garfunkle sent in scarboroughfair Sting sent in fields of Gold,
I mean everybody, James Taylor sent in something. Everybody we
mailed something to sent back a lyric and so we
did five of those as a live auction, but I
bet we had thirty and that was just like a
(51:55):
silent auction. It was so much fun, and that was
the event that many and I did. Nashville is such
a great talent to be in because it's so philanthropic
and everybody gets involved and it just removes the barriers.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
I feel like you're somebody that cares. How do you
keep from being angry at the world right now? Because
I struggle with that, not even the world, I'd say, yeah,
our country now, especially like I have to get off
the internet. How do you do it?
Speaker 1 (52:26):
I don't spend a lot of time on the internet.
I try not to get my news from I try
to listen to NPR. I try to get my news
from a news source that shows both sides.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Is there even one of those though?
Speaker 1 (52:44):
I don't Probably not.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yeah, I've given up on that, yeah being real.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
But mostly what I try to I just remind myself
how powerful my choices are and in affecting the world
right around me. And if we all used our choice
in how we treat people, the world would be a
better place if we listen to the better angels of
(53:11):
our nature. You know, I got a phone call yesterday
from a woman and she said, I have a friend
that I care for who does not have their papers.
And they have tried, they have tried, they have tried,
so many things have gone wrong, seventy five thousand into
the process. And she goes, nobody's got this kind of money.
(53:33):
Will you help me? Will you help them? And I said,
what I would like to do is create community around that,
and so will you ask several people then, But all
night long, I said, I thought I have not had
(53:54):
an immigrant friend who became a loved one that every
day is nervous every day, And I thought, I need
this in my life. I could have been born there,
I could have my life could have been differently, could
have been lived, could have it could have been otherwise?
(54:15):
And I feel like, you know, the we all have
opportunities to see the people around us, and it's just
you know, are we willing to see?
Speaker 4 (54:26):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
What I struggle with is fortunate or not. I had
no choice. I was born here.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
And a white male.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
Yes, there you get at the time. I was born
a white man at a time. I was born in
the eighties in a country where a white man and
born at this time. You just allowed stuff, right, you
just allowed stuff you are And like I didn't chew.
I didn't get to make a choice before I came
in and said I want to be born in I
(55:11):
was just here. And so when people say, you know,
we're Christians, but we don't really think we should love
that neighbor, that is really bothersome to me because I
feel like it is again, if we're going to go
with rule number one, love thy freaking neighbor, there's a
lot of people not loving thy neighbor, that are acclaiming
(55:32):
their neighbor lovers. And I think that is what is
so bothersome to me about that.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
And it's hard to not use a lot of your
resources being angry with that person. You know, I'm saying,
like your amount, we all have limited resources. I don't
agree with that legislation but I'm What I'm not going
to do is use the energy that I have trying
(56:00):
to change that person's mind. What I want to do
is when I'll cast my ballot, I'll vote when I vote.
But if I have energy I want to be, I'll go, well,
who can I reach out to? Who can I help?
Who can I talk to? Because and that's I mean
(56:23):
years ago, I remember I was with a friend, We're
working on a Christmas song, and the TV was on
in the other room, and all of a sudden, it
was just like I could not take my eyes off
of what was on the TV. The sound was not
even on, And I just said, what if I were
that mother staring from my TV? What if that were
(56:44):
my brown eye baby, hungry as she could be? What
if that were my family and we wrote that song instead?
What if that was my world? Like that's just how
my brain works. If I'm in the twenty five percent processing,
you know what I'm saying, Like, doesn't matter what the
brain tests say. How I'm wired is to go. It
(57:10):
could have been otherwise. I could have been that woman,
she could have been me. And the next course of
what if I were that mother and I was waiting
on me, the big success, so well dressed on the
other side of the street, living with my distractions because
(57:30):
life's been good to me. Maybe she's praying, praying for
a miracle. Maybe he answers me, Lord have mercy on me.
You know, I was. That's kind of how my brain
has always worked. It is the most important work of
(57:50):
our lives is not what people know about. It's like
the person next to you in the grocery store line
and you go, hey, just have three things, throw them
in with mine. How's your day going? And then all
of a sudden, you're in a conversation or a tear
goes down their cheek and you go, it's gonna be okay.
(58:13):
Deep breath. I mean, there's not a day that goes
by that you don't cross somebody's path that is invisible
to the whole world. But they don't have to be
invisible to you.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
My brain process is a different I just want to
fight everybody. Do you want to write songs and I
want to fight everybody?
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (58:34):
I want to fight everyone.
Speaker 1 (58:36):
Yeah, well, you know what, and your life is unique
to you. Discover it and fulfill your purpose. Whatever that
fight is, take it to the big arena.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
And then I go, well, we'll vote, And then I go, well,
they're Jerry Manner and the crap at everything, So what
is the voting even going to matter? That's getting rigged
as well?
Speaker 1 (58:53):
Well don't then don't do the fight that nobody's listening.
But use your voice and all that and go where
can the fight in me affect the most people.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
I have to turn it away from politics. I have
to go and help folks that struggle with what I
struggled with, which is basically eating. Yeah, you know, food
and security. Yeah yeah, but then I still want to fight.
When I'm done, I just have like I just this.
It's really the only thing that I get rage, like
inner rage about that in Arkansas sports losing, those are
(59:27):
the only two things that I really like. I'm so
fired up about that I have to check out of
it completely or I don't. I don't do well.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
Well, Okay, So the other day I went to see
my nephew by marriage, said I want you to come
see what's happening at the farm where I'm working. So
he was a coach at CPA and now he's helping
to manage somebody's farm, and it's so much less stress
in his life. I'm so happy for him. And I
show up and he's he's encouraging animals. It's like a
(59:56):
thousand acre farm. I'm not sure how I got the
job y him, and I see these people working a garden,
but it's like big gardens kind of randomly placed. And
I start meeting these people. You just mentioned Food Insecurity,
and it was several fields of this man's farm that
(01:00:19):
are being cultivated by Cultivate. So you know, last year Cultivate,
which started in Nashville, produced over a million, yeah, a
million pounds of food for Food Insecure. And their workforce
comes from men of valor, men coming out of the
prison system for a sustainable wage. And then you know,
(01:00:45):
the suit and tie corporate world wants to have a
work day and they wind up Cultivate is managing all
that come and work next to the men of valor.
So then you've got a guide that's been in prison
just out next to a guy who has well into
a six figure salary, and they're working side by side,
(01:01:06):
and it's like it's changing both of them and creating opportunities.
You know, So like, I look, so many great things
have happened in Nashville, and it doesn't go to the polls.
Nashville is it's a freakishly creative city to be in.
No wonder everybody's coming here. But like Ellington Agricultural Area,
(01:01:34):
like the idea for cultivate. The first ask was can
we have any city owned land? And those were the
first fields and I was like, well yeah, And then suddenly,
now anybody that's food insecure, then they can purchase that
food at it. You know, I'm just saying, you can
(01:01:55):
be mad about anything, but if you dig deep enough,
if you let your curiosity lead you, somebody is doing
something besides shouting. And I want to find the people
who are doing stuff and just be led by your curiosity.
Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
But then I want to shout, to fight, I want
to do it, do all that, then I want to fight.
I'm just saying, I'm just telling you so with this record,
we were talking about it before you came in. You
didn't plan to make it. You made it. It's a
full body of work. Now what do you think the
full body of work stands for? Though?
Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
Well, I think it's a witness, my witness to life.
And what does it represent?
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
I don't even know what it represents But what like
because you did it in pieces without the intention of
it being one big piece, right, you never had the
idea We're going to do a whole record once it
all came together, Like, what do you feel like it
means now?
Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Well, it means a great deal to me because different
songs came from different places. A week ago, I was
on Staten Island singing with Public School twenty two PS
twenty two and they just posted it yesterday. But their
music teacher, Greg's last name I can't pronounce. He teaches
(01:03:20):
the fourth and fifth grade music class harmony singing and
they invite different guest artists to come in and sing
with them, and their faces are so alive. And it
was a song that I wrote with Ruby am Mamfu
And I was inspired by my trip to Capitol Hill
(01:03:42):
in Tennessee in Nashville, trying to meet with legislative legislators
on both sides of the isle and Bill Lee for
better gun control, a safer just a safer environment for
our kids. And you know, such a gridlock. And everybody's
doesn't want to lose their rights, don't want their passions
(01:04:04):
infringed on in any way, and you know, and more
and more shootings are happening, and mental health is not
great in our country, and people are isolated. And I thought, well,
I'm going to do what I do. And I wrote
a song, and to hear children singing, how do we
get there from here? How do we take the first step?
How to take the next step? How do we get
(01:04:25):
there from here? Instead of saying we're not ready yet?
How do we learn to trust each other? Instead of
living life and fear? How do we get there from here?
I was like, I can't even sing it, and I
you know, and maybe we've all kind of screwed it
up and the next generation will write the ship. I
don't know with you shouting.
Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Yeah, well I'm also helping.
Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
You are helping.
Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Yeah, I know. I have some money, and I spend
the money to help. Yes, I do some stuff, you know.
I don't just get money. Like I like to show
up and do stuff, but I like to shout and
fight to it. It gets good.
Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
But then I got to check out because my wife's like,
you're going too crazy. Turned the TV off. You can't
watch the news anymore, You're going crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
My thing is just let don't let that be it,
you know, don't just watch somebody else's thing and implode,
because we all what's that Victor Frankel quote, you know,
survivor of multiple concentration camps and the Nazi regime. And
my niece who's in recovery enough, an amazing therapist, and
(01:05:29):
she framed it for me his words, between the stimulus
and the response, there's a space, and in that space
lies our freedom and our power. And so it was like,
all right, Oh, there's a luck coming at me, but
what comes from me? I get to choose.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Ah, that's good too. Yeah, that's good. Well, I appreciate
you coming by. I always enjoy when you come by.
Did you bring a record I've brought because.
Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
I brought one of my records, but I brought this
is a much better version of tapestry. Look all the
lyrics are on the back.
Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Oh wow, will you hold that up and show the camera.
So why is that record so important to you?
Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
I think I haven't listened to it in this form
in a long time. Carol King's a great songwriter. I
fell in love with her when I was a kid.
And my sixth grade boyfriend, Johnny Dicker, we would get
on the phone, and we would press the need of
our turntable down so that the records were spinning at
the exact same time. And you know, I love that
(01:06:39):
she had kind of an average voice, because I was
a kid with an average voice that loved music and
I loved songs, and I I thought, I can, I
can find a way to make a life doing something
I didn't know what, but somehow involved with music.
Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Is there a song on that record that when you're here,
it kind of puts you back in a place.
Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
Oh my gosh, well will you will you love me tomorrow?
We still love me tomorrow? That was on my original
set list when I was fifteen and played at the
Chapel program, So we used to love Me Tomorrow, the
song about the one night stand I put right between
a couple of my Jesus songs. It's perfect, that's life.
Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Do you ever sing that song now?
Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
I mean I sing it to myself. I haven't put
it in this set list in a long time.
Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
That's fine. That's a great record.
Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Isn't it home again? Natural woman? Golly? I feel it?
Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Yeah? Does it bring my memories? Just look at it
at it right now?
Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
Oh gosh, yeah, yeah. I need my glasses. I'm staring
at it like I can read any of this.
Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Yeah, what a great record. Thank you for the time. Seriously,
I always love spending any time that we could spend together.
And I hope that everything that you want to get
out of this record you get out of it, and
maybe all that you were to get out of it
was all you got while making it.
Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
That is that was the only thing that I could
actually sign up for and not control but actively participate in.
And now you know I've said it free, it'll do
what it'll do. And put that PS. Twenty two on
Staten Island. That was great, And Sony, anything else that
(01:08:33):
comes up that would open a door, I do it.
Speaker 4 (01:08:37):
Amy, thank you, thank you, thanks for listening to a
Bobby Cast production.
I remember when people were first dog in Taylor Swift. Well,
she's pitchy, she says, she's at what I knew because
I had been on that same thing. I was like,
wait till she hits thirty five, she will be at
the top of her game.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Wow. Hey, everybody, welcome to the Bobby Cast. I am
joined by the legendary Amy Grant, six time Grammy winner,
one of the most influential voices in Christian music and
pop music. You probably know Baby Baby. After more than
a decade away from releasing original music, she is back.
(00:40):
She's a deeply personal new album called The Me That Remains,
which we're going to talk about here. And we do
talk about new music. We do talk about life in Nashville, motherhood,
we do talk about what keeps her going nearly fifty
years into her incredible career, and we do talk about
her injury, her bicycle accident that turned it into brain injury.
(01:01):
So I'm a big fan of this person, also of
the artist. Here's my conversation with Amy Grant. Amy, good
to see you. How you been I've been good. I've
been good. Yeah, yeah, what does that mean that you've
been good? Like? What is good? For you.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
Good for me means to me is settled on the inside.
You know, everything kind of comes from there. I guess
some sometimes in life feel really frantic, and this doesn't.
I'm busy, but I don't feel frantic.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I think I live frantic.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
That's fair. I mean, I'm you know, I'm on a
decade and a half older than you are.
Speaker 2 (01:43):
Maybe I don't take it. I don't think it's an
age thing though. For me. Yeah, I just got my
test results back today from a lot of blood work though,
so I'm pretty pumped about that. Okay, good, Yeah, yeah. Hey,
as I get older, I start to get a little
more nervous each time. Right, I've had issues. I had
three a schemic strokes in my brain. You're kidding me, No,
(02:06):
And so I didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
And so are they preventable.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
So years ago, I woke up one morning and was like,
I don't really know what's happening. Like I couldn't read,
but my eye doesn't work. This eye doesn't work. So
I thought maybe it's an eye thing. Yeah, And I
spent a couple of weeks not being able to read.
(02:34):
It was a little discombobulated. And it slowly went away. Okay,
you know you've had brain stuff too. I'm only telling
you this because I know you.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, it was that was your stroke in the back
lower part of your brain.
Speaker 2 (02:44):
I didn't know it was a stroke first. So the
first one I have, and it takes a month and
a half for me to just kind of get my
bearings back, and then I wake up again. It's all
after I woke up, so I never felt anything, and
so I thought I just slept weird or hired. But
I remember there being like a banana on the table
and I could not identify the name of that yellow thing.
(03:07):
Oh wow, so crazy. It felt fictional, yes, but I
didn't want to tell anybody because I didn't want to
miss work, because I didn't want them to think, oh,
he can't work.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
He's not capable of competent. The above you.
Speaker 2 (03:21):
Third one I had right before I went on Dancing
with the Stars, and I can't remember the steps ever,
So I just like physically my way myself through it.
And so when I met my wife. I met her
right after and she was like, I don't think that's normal.
Went to the doctor and he's like, yeah, he looked
at the like the gray matter in my brain white.
He's like, oh, you've had three aeschemic strokes, which are
small strokes, and it was from not sleeping enough. It
(03:42):
was from all those So every time I do these
tests and it comes back, I'm always like a little nervous.
But I have a complete memory loss from a month
basically a month before each of them. Yes, that makes
total sense, which is wild. Yeah. And I started to
try to think back during those strokes and think about
what led up to it, and I had no memory
(04:02):
at all from a month or so prior. But I
wasn't sick. It just has somehow eliminated any anything from
my life in that my I like look at pictures
and not remember it.
Speaker 1 (04:14):
Not at all. No, nothing, do you and do you
have a calendar you went through? It really is just
like a blank.
Speaker 2 (04:19):
It's yeah, it's and it's about thirty to forty days
because I know when it happened, when I would wake
up and have this tremendous brain foger and the ability
to not recall stuff and at all. Again, Banana, Yeah, right,
that's the easiest one that makes people go, Wow, that's crazy. No,
banana couldn't identify a banana, and so I now because
(04:40):
I go in for MRIs somewhat not regularly enough. Anyway,
I got my results back and it was all good. Today.
You had a bike accident, right, Is that what your
brain injury was from?
Speaker 1 (04:51):
Yes?
Speaker 2 (04:52):
Was your memory loss from the impact or is it
like mine where you just remember up to a point
but maybe you don't remember the accident.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I don't remember the accident. I have no memory of that,
but mine, I think I just took such a whack
on the head that I mean, I was unconscious for
ten minutes and bleeding.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
How do you know you're on conscious for ten minutes?
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Because my friend who was on the wreck with us,
and you know, I mean, she thought I was dead.
I don't remember the ambulance, right, I don't remember anything,
but I think what happened is that the blow to
my head just everything. You know. The synapsies are an
amazing thing, what connects all of our thought processes and
(05:39):
all that in our bank, in our brains. And I
think so many of the synapses were broken. And so
somebody will go, hey, remember that trip we took to
such and such, and I go keep talking, keep talking,
because I know it's in there. I don't have dementia,
but my friends have helped me re establish those synapses
to find memories.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (05:58):
Yeah, and so and I used to try, you know,
at first, I tried to kind of cover, but I
was I was non functioning for a little while. But
now I just go keep talking, keep talking, or I'll
see somebody and I'll say, am I supposed to know
your name? Or just help me? I'll just say, help
me with your name. And once it's here, you know,
(06:19):
I do things to help myself remember and everything is
just what does it take to get through today. I
mean that's true for all of us about anything. And so, yeah,
and I get this is a good stretch because I'm
learning how to pace myself.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Are you still dealing with it at all?
Speaker 1 (06:42):
I mean, I'm sure I am. And I'm also sixty five,
so wherever the but I will tell you yesterday I
went into the bedroom and said, I just want to announce.
I put on my underwear standing in the middle of
the bathroom. I didn't have to lean against something because
I've been working on my balance really intensely for about
(07:05):
six months. Because my balance, you know, I would just
like list to the left or hit the wall. It's
just weird, the stuff that goes heywire. And so I've
been doing a whole lot cross brain and standing on
one leg or like kind of doing dancer arms, standing
(07:25):
on my right foot then my left foot, but like
shifting my weight so that each leg learns how to
hold my body and just all stuff I made up myself.
But yesterday I made the announcement and I went, I
can put on my underwear without a wall, without sitting down.
And I'm almost four years out, but I'm still working
(07:48):
on stuff, and I'm you know, I want to go. Hell, yeah,
I can put on my underwear without leaning against the countertop.
That's huge, that's fan fantastic.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
I have days, they're actually good days.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Where I will go, Man, I had a great day
with recall today. Yes, And it's something that I obviously
very much took for granted because I had no reason
not to take it for granted beforehand. But I will
have a day at the end of the day and
I will go dang, and I'll like simples, I'll go
through my phone. I'm like, I'll scroll through and I
can go through pictures and those I can go to
(08:27):
those that month, that thirty forty days before, because I
haven't marked on my phone now right now, yes, and
I don't remember them, but it's almost like I'm looking
through like a really dark like a fog. A really
I can almost like see them if I stare at
them long enough. I never thought about that they're probably
still in there, yes, until you said that just now.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
It's still in there.
Speaker 2 (08:51):
Yeah. So when I get results back'm always super pumped.
And today I got right before you came in. I
got them, and I was like, oh, good for me.
I don't know what it was for you. That kind
of puts you back on the right track. But we
tried a lot of stuff. I've never actually talked about
this so much, but I feel like you've been through
something worse than I have, so you understand it's just different,
not worse. Fair. And I tried a lot of physical
(09:14):
therapy to just get my brain going, reading puzzles. And
I'm not a big medicine guy. I'm not anti medicine,
but I have such a history of family addiction that
I'm scared to take anything that I could be addicted to.
Right And I, at the encouragement of my doctor at
(09:34):
the time. He was like, Hey, what if you designed
to like chart like charge your brain like pop it
like almost like popping it back in place. And I
was like, what do you mean? See you ever tried
any sort of like adderall or stimulant. I was like,
I haven't. I really didn't try anything. I tried it.
It was it made me feel normal again, and I
haven't done it. I done it like it's Heroin. I
haven't taken it in a long time, but it's the
(09:56):
first thing that I that I took that actually made
me feel like me again, where it's like my like
things just felt normal, even like doing this with my
hands felt normal, my thinking felt normal. Well, was it
for you that helped you kind of get back in
to feel normal again or was it just time?
Speaker 1 (10:14):
I think it was just time. And it was nearly
two years after my accident. They say two years is
sort of like the peak of recovery, like what you
get in two years, and I disagree because of neuroplasticity
(10:36):
and I don't know how all my tests were identified,
but it was several hours of tests with a neuropsychologist
at Vanderbilt, and when I went in for my test results,
he said, now, mind you, anybody doing these tests, they're
not like the top ten of their class at Harvard.
They've all got a reason to be doing these tests.
(10:57):
So however you score, it's relative.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
To the.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
You know, to the people taking the tests. But things
that I thought were not good, like he said, your
vocabulary is in the ninety percentile, your memory is the
ninety is in the ninety something percentile. And I was
like what, But my processing was like in the twenty
five percentile. And just to have him identify that, I went, ah,
(11:25):
that's what it is. I feel like I'm the conversation's
happening in here. I'm down the hall and in the closet. Yeah,
I don't have the one letter. I don't have. And
we talked about it and he said, how do you
feel like this exhibits in your life? And I said,
I feel like I'm more reclusive, you know. And he said, look,
I'm going to tell you lean in to lean into whatever,
(11:49):
Lean into the conversation, lean into what you can't keep
up with. Just lean in. And that's when I went
back and started making music. It was not to make
a record, it was lean into things that had sustained
me in the past, and yeah, and I thought, well,
I've got what I've got. I woke up, how I
(12:11):
am right now, and I know it's different, and that's okay.
It's just you know, And I think that was the
big shift for me. That was my Adderall was kind
of just waking up one day and going, hey, I'm
alive and I and honestly, some things that I used
(12:34):
to feel very anxious about. I'm not sure what they were,
but there was kind of a base level of anxiety
in my life because I just a lot was expected
of me workwise, a lot of things, and I had
kids at home and anyway, and all that was kind
of gone. So that's so dangerous if you're used to
(12:57):
responding to pressure. But it was just like, hey, everybody,
everybody's just trying to navigate their life. I felt such
a connection to people in recovery, anybody who was responding
to a life that was full of decisions that were
(13:18):
not there choosing, and I just thought, well, we all
need each other, and I want to be available by
other people, available to other people the way people have
been available to me, and somewhere in there we're all
going to get through. Was sort of my new approach
(13:38):
to life. But it was slow going because there's a
lot of comparison to how it was before. Gosh, I
remember ten years ago how I was, or five years
ago how I was and then, And I guess anybody
could do that about any part of their life, you know.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
And I wonder, because I do that too, But I
wonder do I only feel that way? Am I older
and I've lost it? Or is it because of something
I also feel. I wish I would have been like
one of those people that I don't know hit their
head and they not know eight languages, or they have
brain surgery and they can play the piano automatically, like
I wanted some superpower to come from it. If I
haven't found it yet, like if it's in there, I
(14:22):
don't know what it is yet. I just have always
been fearful that it's going to happen again. The other
the three times, they were all spread apart by a
year and a half or so, and I didn't talk
about it for a long time because I didn't want
anybody to know if it happened again. Because I found
a way to mask it through leaning on people, confiding
in a couple of people to cover me, especially when
(14:44):
I couldn't read right, and so I didn't want, especially
my job to know that I had been through this,
because I didn't need them to see me as someone
who could not, you know, provide them what I've been
providing them for the past, you know, fifteen years or so, right, right.
My wife was great though, she's the one that made
me go to the doctor. And now they have a baby.
(15:04):
We got a baby, and so then you get into
the fears of like is this genetic And I don't know.
David the doctor was like, you probably just don't sleep enough. Yeah,
and eat more broccoli that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1 (15:16):
Yeah, I drink more water all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah.
One thing you already said that I think you got
from this and you said, my gratitude, I don't take
it for granted. And you said that in the first
little bit of our conversation. And I do think when
something that you've never doubted would be there, like waking
(15:38):
up and all of a sudden you go, good gosh, like, hey,
we're all on our own unique timeline. We don't know
what it is, but we have what we have.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
I remember being so grateful when I kind of got
my fastball back, because like I got here by being quick,
having things to say or funny things to say, or
compelling thoughts, and that was just taken from me. And
then when I started to slowly kind of get kick
started again. And it wouldn't happen even two days in
a row or two hours in a row, but every
once in a while I'd have it a wow moment
(16:14):
of oh that's that's I kind of feel me again. Yes,
I think having some success at that helped all the
success later on to kind of get me back to normal,
Like I needed those little positive steps in order to
take those bigger positive steps.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
Yep, yep. And one thing like I would observe about that,
how the lens through which you see life, what gives
you that quirky quick response that all that stuff is
that's you, whether you open your mouth or not, it's
the way you see the world. It's your wiring. And
(16:50):
so there's a part of even if you're not doing
the quick response when you can, it's just your unique
take on life and that's a part of you. And
I think recognizing that about myself gave me to go,
I'm not sure how this is going to come out
(17:10):
how it's going to exhibit eventually. But the way my
wiring and the way I see the world and all
of that is unique to me, and I've I've just
got to show up and if it comes out a
new way, it'll come out a new way.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Is this record the music you started to make from that?
Did you have? Was it harder at first? Not because
of any vulnerability, but literally because of the music, Like
making music writing lyrics? Like was that harder?
Speaker 1 (17:42):
And let me backtrack and say some of those songs
are older because I'm kind of always making a little
bit of music. But when I first called Mac mc
andally and said, hey, I've written some lyrics, writing music
is really hard with short term memory loss, because you know,
(18:04):
I would like be working on something and hit record
on my phone and then forty minutes later go, well,
who wants to dig through that and try to find
you know, the But that limitation for me just created
another way forward. I reached out to Tom Douglas. I've
never written a song with Tom, and I said, hey,
(18:26):
I've got a lyric, any chance you want to put
some music to it, No sacred cows, change anything you want,
And he texted back I'll let you know in five minutes.
And then I was like this like the Gong Show, okay,
and I you know, and I sent him the lyric
and instantly he texted back on it. But I mean, dang,
(18:50):
but I had to find I wanted to do that,
you know. I was trying to lean in. And then
and even you know, called Mac and said, I've got
a couple of songs that I would love to record.
Can can you just help put together a rhythm section?
And would you would you produce it? We never even
signed a contract, you and Mac, No, we never did.
(19:14):
And then yeah, and he just said, let's go on
and have fun. And I didn't have a I didn't
have a contract for a new record.
Speaker 2 (19:22):
And were you even trying to do a new record?
Speaker 1 (19:26):
Oh? I just went into record because it just I
wanted to be creative.
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Was this therapeutic creativity?
Speaker 1 (19:35):
Yeah? And it was so much fun and I went,
oh my gosh, I forgot how much fun you bring
your little thing died ling ding idea in and everybody's
a master on their instrument and they're kind of playing
through it and listening to each other. And you know,
Fred would change anything on how he was playing the rhythm,
(19:57):
and then it shifts how Glenn wore what he's playing
on bass, you know, because everybody's listening to each other.
And then two or three times through and they go, hey,
that felt great, and just the thing emerged that took everybody,
you know, and I went, I just was going. I forgot,
I forgot, I forgot how great this is. And Max said, hey,
(20:19):
if music's not fine, something's wrong with the world. You
should do more of this. A couple of months later,
six weeks later, I called him back and said, hey,
can we do that again. I've got I got another
four songs. And another month went by and he said, hey,
I'd love to I'd love to show you some stuff
I've been writing. And I said, well, I've got some
more stuff too. But it just happened, just stretched out.
(20:42):
Nobody's holding their breath waiting for anything from me, not
even me.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
What was the purpose of making the record?
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Just the joy of it.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Did you have an idea of what you wanted to
do with it once it was done, or were you
just doing the process.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
I was just enjoying the process, and Mac was the one.
At the end of the third day we were recorded
in January, one day in March, one day in April,
and then he'd come to the house. I'd sing the vocals,
he'd go back to his house, he'd add different things,
and then he said, well, girl, we got a record.
I mean, if you want to put a record out.
(21:20):
And then I didn't have a record.
Speaker 3 (21:21):
Deal, so.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
And I was like, well, yeah, let's try it. And
it's been so rewarding because what I don't I'm not
looking for the spotlight. I have been famous in my past.
I sort of love the anonymity of my life now,
but I love this music. Allt came. It was so purposeful,
(21:46):
the making of it. It was all honest. None of
it's pretend. And to me, it's playing these songs is
still good medicine for me.
Speaker 4 (21:56):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Speaking of fame, did you have an era where you
just really wanted to be famous? So it just was
it was put on to you because of the success
of the music. It was never something you want. You
didn't want the fame part of it.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
I didn't think about it. It just came, you know.
I was always a hard worker, and I mean I
was spring break of my senior year in high school.
A record came out, and I'd worked on it for
you know, my junior and senior year.
Speaker 2 (22:39):
But if your A record came out my first record.
Speaker 1 (22:42):
But of course I told no one because if it
were a flop, I didn't want anybody feeling sorry for me.
And you know, when it was time for everybody to
sign their yearbooks, people would bring in a record. But
it just felt like, God, what an amazing thing to
get to do with this hobby that I love so much.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
Did your classmates know you were singing? Uh?
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Huh?
Speaker 1 (23:02):
I sang at school?
Speaker 2 (23:03):
Okay? Do they know you were like singing though, like
trying to be a singer.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
I wasn't trying. I was, but I wasn't good. I
mean I was just very average. But I loved it.
And they'd say, Hey, bring your guitar. Hey, we're having
a meeting at such and such, will you bring your guitar.
I was not the best singer.
Speaker 2 (23:21):
You were just average.
Speaker 1 (23:22):
I just loved it. I loved I just loved being
around music and so but I wasn't you know, I
wasn't like posing the mirror and didn't think I was
all that.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Where did you live.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
I lived in West Nashville in a really nice neighborhood.
Speaker 2 (23:42):
Well you grew up here.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
Yeah, youngest four girls went to Harpeth Hall.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
I didn't know you were local local.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
Here's the unicorn here, one of the few unicorns.
Speaker 1 (23:50):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Oh wow. Okay, So that's why you thought you were average.
It makes sense now. If you had grown up in
Spring Film Aseruri, you wouldn't have thought you were average.
You grew up in Atlanta Giants because everybody in Nashville,
everybody is amazing. You don't come here unless you're really good.
And that's why you thought. I was shocked when you
said you were average. I was like, there's no way.
Speaker 1 (24:08):
Yeah. But like, here's interesting because Nashville was a lot
smaller than so and I went to public and private school.
You know, I was in grade school when bussing happened
in Nashville, and so so I my parents took me
out of public school and put me in private school
because my bus would have left while it was dark
and I would have gotten home after dark. And I
(24:29):
was entering the sixth grade, and they were like this
for the birds, so they put me in a school
a couple of blocks from our house, which went through
eighth grade. And at the end of eighth grade, one
of my classmates had a connection with the grand Ole
Opry Martha Whiteflower was their family business, and so Minnie
(24:51):
Pearl Sarah Cannon came and spoke at our eighth grade
commencement and that was the first time I met her.
But then I start singing and she's like writing me notes,
I saw you in such and such. Keep smiling, keep trying,
you know. And so my dad was a radiation oncologist
and he treated Johnny Cash's father, and so it would
(25:15):
I can't remember mister Cash's full name, but you know,
so Johnny John depending on whose turn it was to
bring their dad for his treatments. So the first time
I met Johnny Cash, he was like, yeah, I see
your father. Like I was Burton Grant's daughter forever, and
because he helped start Tennessee oncology way back when before
(25:35):
it was called that. But it was like I was
just the little sister of three girls. You know, did
they do music at all? No, they could all sing,
but they were you know, did they just each occupied
their own land. One was kind of a partier. One
was real smart, one was a cheerleader, and I was
(25:55):
just the dorky youngest sister.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Why did you continue to sing if you only thought
you were okay? It was simply you loved it so much.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
I loved it. I loved writing. I loved.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
I mean, music was has always been. Music has never
let me down. When I was a kid, I would
just play my LPs over and over and over. And
I don't know where my childhood record collection is. I'm
sure it's somewhere, but I but I'm just talking about
different records that I listened to. I got to ride
(26:32):
over here with Brian Ward and he was like, I said,
you've got Honky Chateau. You've gotten He brought all these
records Tapestry that were the you know, the records I
grew up with. Jethro Toll. Thik is a brick. It's
just my sister's room was right next door. I went
got it. I'm looking at everything. Emerson, Lincoln Palmer, Beatles,
Elvis and I, Todd, Rundgrend, I loved it, Rod Stewart
(26:56):
Jackson five.
Speaker 2 (26:58):
That's a lot of secular music.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
We didn't have a choir in our church. I didn't
grow up on gospel music.
Speaker 2 (27:05):
Yeah, you still got into Christian music though.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
First right, I did because when I was a sophomore
in high school, my two oldest sisters had come back
living in the Boston area in the early seventies. One
went to a school called Pine Manor and one went
to Wellesley, and they both transferred back to Vanderbilt. But
(27:31):
kind of that area of Cambridge was really kind of
swept with the Jesus hippie movement. I'm sure equal parts
Jesus music, equal parts pot you know, it was just
kind of Cambridge in the early seventies. And when they
came back to Nashville, they found a church on Music
Row that didn't have a lot of typical church culture,
(27:55):
like everybody showed in blue jeans. They had a coffee shop,
record store next door that had free concerts every Saturday night,
and you know, kind of an artisan area with woodworking
and stained glass, and I mean it was beautiful. It
(28:16):
was a corner of sixteenth and Grand before everything was renamed.
And I loved being a part of that culture. And
so it was my sophomore year at Harpeth Hall, and
I was sitting in a mandatory chapel program. I mean
it's not a Christian school, but just culturally and southern.
You know, there would be a minister or a rabbi
(28:37):
that was invited to come speak once a week for
thirty minutes. And so my weekend experience was this free
flowers in our hair, people sitting in the windowsills in
the church. I mean, it was so vibrant. And I
remember walking out of chapel one day going whood, you
(29:00):
could use some pr down here, because nobody cares about
these chapel programs. And I just walked over to Idanelle
McMurray was the headmistress, even that name, I'm sure it's
different now, head of school now. And I walked over
and said, our students allowed to do chapel programs, and
she said no one's ever asked what are you going
(29:23):
to do? And I said, I don't know, maybe music.
And I signed up for a program and I thought, well,
I better start writing some songs, and so I look up.
Why I started music ever, was to start a conversation,
and I don't feel like I've ever really veered from that.
(29:46):
But then I was like, so I'm I after I had,
you know, ten songs. Maybe. A friend of mine from
church said he worked with the youth group, which which
I was part of. I had a big crush on him,
but he said, my job is at a recording studio
and the class I'm taking at Belmont, I have access
(30:09):
to studio time, but I don't need it. Any chance
you want to go record your songs? I was fifteen,
and I said, like in a real studio. Yeah, And
I went, just myself and a man named Bill Loki,
who was also a kid. He's passed away now, but
he was real involved with on site in a leadership position.
(30:29):
He played piano, and he went and helped me record
my stuff. And then my friend Brown was making copies
of my little tape in the recording studio where he worked,
and an old callge roommate whose studio was walked in
and said, there's a record company in Texas that wants
(30:50):
to launch a new record label with twelve artists like contemporary,
and they're just they're beating the bushes trying to find artists,
and he went, who's that?
Speaker 2 (31:00):
All that fell in like that?
Speaker 1 (31:02):
Just like this? They played my tape over the phone
and the guy from Word Records. His name was Buddy Huey.
He's not alive anymore. And he said, well, she's not
very good, but she sounds sincere. And he said, yeah,
she is. That's how I got my record deal. So
Brown called me at home. By then, it's fall of
(31:23):
my junior year. I'm still fifteen, and he said, hey,
Word Records wants to offer you a record deal. I'm fifteen.
I think he's making fun of me because I'm insecure,
and my dad picks up the phone and said it's
after phone hours. I was grounded. I was grounded, and
(31:46):
I was offered a record deal in the same conversation.
That's so weird.
Speaker 2 (31:50):
What does your dad say about you getting a record deal?
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I don't think I mentioned it that night, but I.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Mean, eventually, that's something he wants his fifteen or sixe
year oldaughter to do.
Speaker 1 (32:00):
I mean, my parents, they knew it was a hobby
that I loved. I mean, I love loved music. I mean,
you know, when I was six years old, I was
such a Sonny and Shaer fan, and my parents bought tickets.
We went down to Municipal Auditorium. David Brenner was the
comedian who opened my sister Carol Wentz, She's year and
(32:21):
a half older than I am. I'm sure they were
bored out of their minds. I was on the edge
of my seat. The next year, my cousin, who was
a career school teacher, never married. Bette Midler was in town.
Barry Manilow was her piano players before Mandy came out,
and I was like, please take me to see Bette Midler.
It was the first time I had ever been in
(32:42):
a community of so many gay men. I didn't I
was just what was I twelve thirteen? All I know
is I wanted that I wanted to be in the
room with that. It was just the creativity and all
these people who were just so expressive and yeah, and
(33:05):
I remember she introduced Barry Manlin. She said he's got
a song that's coming out, and he sang the song
Mandy for the first time. It was not on the
radio yet, and I was thinking, the world is tilting
on its axis. So for me, what I knew was
that I wanted to be a part of that community.
And it didn't matter if I were taking out the
(33:25):
trash in a studio. I just that's what I wanted.
I didn't picture myself on stage, but I got a
very brief internship as part of a school program at
a recording studio way back. You know. It was twenty
four tracks, and I would pick the chewing gum off
(33:46):
people's mic stands, and I'd empty the trash and demagnetize
the tape heads for the machines and nothing fancy.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
Do you think if it would have been more rigid
or traditional as far as what your sisters had been
a part of and came down and they took you,
maybe you wouldn't have been as involved or loved it
as much, and possibly you wouldn't be here. But because
it was that version, it was more about message more
(34:15):
than presentation.
Speaker 1 (34:16):
Yeah, yeah, I don't. I mean, I don't know how
to answer that because all I know is what I've known.
But I do think because I did not come from
from a family that was like I don't know how
to say, except forward facing, there was no presentation in
(34:39):
my family like stage persona I was. And our family was,
you know, functional and dysfunctional like every family.
Speaker 4 (34:50):
But I.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Didn't feel like I had to put on a personality
of any kind of walk on stage. And first tick
show I ever did. It was fall of my freshman
year in college and I was hired by somebody to
come to a show at the Will Rogers Auditorium in
(35:13):
Fort Worth, Texas. And it was ticketed, and I was going, like,
who would buy a ticket? I had one record out
and I walked out and I played all the songs
I knew and I looked at my watch and it
was like an hour and ten minutes, and I said,
that's all I know, and somebody in the balcony said,
(35:36):
sing him over again, and I went okay, and I did,
and I just started at the top.
Speaker 2 (35:41):
And there's also some irony to you signing a record
deal with a label in Texas when you grew up
in Nashville and it's all right here, but you signed
with a record label in Texas.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
Because they needed something to fill their agenda, their mission.
I'm telling you there's not a talent scout that would
have heard me singing at arpeital and stopped.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Did you get better?
Speaker 1 (36:05):
Yes, how I worked hard. You can't you know singing
it's a muscle. My songwriting got better, my performance got better,
and I I was a junior in college the first
time I played with an actual band, and then I
toured with the band out of Memphis, and I just
(36:28):
worked hard to keep up, you know, and I had to.
I mean, I loved that community. And there's not anything
I remember when people were first dog in Taylor Swift,
Well she's pitchy, she says she's at and what I
knew because I had been on that same thing, I
(36:48):
was like, just wait, wait till she's wait till she
hits thirty five, she will be at the top of.
Speaker 2 (36:55):
Her game, because you felt that was you.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
I just remember when I was a kid and I
had acne, what might and awkward and all that stuff.
My mother would say, hey, take a deep breath. A
woman's most beautiful years are thirty five to forty five
because you've got wisdom, you experience, you've been long enough
in what you love that you're good at it. So
I kind of took the heat off myself. I'm like, hey,
(37:21):
work hard, learn as you go. But every opportunity, Like
I remember Michael Lomarty and who I had met several times,
but he was producing Peter Satira's first album when he
was doing his solo stuff after the big Chicago run,
and I was in Atlanta, visiting my college roommates. So
(37:41):
it was this nineteen the summer of spring of eighty
six maybe, and he said, hey, I want you to
Will you sing this duet with Peter Satira. Well, I
used to watch the Chicago specials on TV, and I said, like,
did all female singers die? Why are you calling me?
(38:04):
And he said, I don't remember what he said. But
Peter didn't know me. Michael knew me. And the next
thing I know, I've flown to LA I'm singing on
Mike and with Peter. I'm asking him about, oh my gosh,
(38:27):
what about this tour? What about that tour? And yeah,
but like every good thing that has happened to me,
it's a door I fell in sideways.
Speaker 2 (38:38):
It's also a door that you had to be near
enough to fall in sideways. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (38:43):
I mean I've always been a hard worker, and I work,
and you work hard doing things you love. I think
I never ever imagined and imagined an end goal ever,
because things kept happening that were well I didn't, you know,
(39:04):
So I was just like, why plan, Just work hard
and let it take you where it'll take you.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
So we started me asking about fame. When did that happen.
How old were you whenever like baby Baby or any
of those Like how old were you? Then?
Speaker 1 (39:22):
All right, we'll see I was born Thanksgiving weekend of
nineteen sixty and so Baby Baby that happened in ninety one,
so I was thirty.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
So you had been doing it a while.
Speaker 1 (39:35):
I had been a hard worker for a long time.
I remember going into Dunkin, not Dunkin Donuts, the donut
den right next to Hillsborough High School, and I guess
Baby Baby was on the radio. I'm still shopping at
the same place, going to get my groceries, going into
for an apple fritter, my very favorite, and some girls
were coming out when I was going in, maybe three up,
(39:57):
and they just screamed right in my face, and I
guess maybe I had a video on MTV. And I
remember just thinking I hi, and I went in and
ordered my Apple Fredder, thinking well, that was weird. But
because I grew up in Nashville and just generations of friends,
(40:19):
you know, it's like everything was buffered by community.
Speaker 3 (40:28):
The Bobby Cast will be right back. This is the
Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (40:43):
Do you feel like, though, because that was such a
massive pop song, you were treated a bit different because
you were a pop artist and here a country music artist.
They're the grocery store all the time. I see them
all the time. Yeah, I'm friends with them. I see
him walking at Target. But that was like pop that
was larger than what was at the time very much
(41:03):
a niche. Country music is always just now has it
not really been a niche?
Speaker 1 (41:08):
Right? Yeah? But I was. I had toured so much.
I think the tour before that in the late eighties,
eighty eight eighty nine, I mean we were setting attendance record,
like at Pacific Amphitheater and so, and I wasn't on
I was on Christian radio, but I you know, it wasn't.
(41:29):
That was a tour I did with Michael W. Smith
and the woman who's now my manager, Jennifer Cook, had
been to see Rod Stewart the night before at Pacific
Amphitheater and her little sister fifteen years younger, was a
fan of my music and she's so, please take me
to the show. And jen was like, ugh, I gotta
go to a show. It's not going to be nearly
as good as Rod Stewart. Okay, I'll take you. Allison
(41:52):
got me flowers, her little sister and anyway, she said,
I went dreading it. I didn't want to go to
a Christian music show. And I just think that to me,
(42:12):
that response is just nobody really wants to be told
what to do, ever, and they're kind of that description
of music comes with oh, there's a framework of who
you need to be and how you need to live
that is projected onto a person just by virtue of
(42:33):
the genre. To me, that's my and so I thought,
well that, yeah, I get that. But then they came
back afterwards and Jen was so she said the music,
the presentation, all of it was so compelling. She was
a music lover, and she said, I I made a
(42:56):
trip to Nashville to just figure out what what this was.
And then all these years later, you know, do.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
They consult with you whenever they go, hey, we're gonna
put this in a non Christian space.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
No.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
John Hughey has been my booking agent for forty two years,
cia I know him.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
Yeah, of course, yeah, But they don't say we're gonna
do this song and it's not just gonna playing a
Christian We're gonna go push it a pop or does
that just happen without you knowing about it.
Speaker 1 (43:27):
Well, I mean, my job is to make the music,
and so like the you know, when I making that music,
Keith Thomas had the brilliant music. I came up with
a lyric for Baby Baby. I think in my mind
the music is the magic, and I do think a
lyric is important. But when we delivered that song, I
(43:54):
think both record companies, because by then Word Records I
was part of them early on, they they saw that
the draw to my concert. They just said, I don't
think this music is served sufficiently just in Christian bookstores,
which is how you bought music. Then this is like
(44:16):
talking about the Dark Ages, because it's all streaming now.
But without my knowledge or consent. Maybe they talked to
Dan Harrell, Mike Blanton, my managers, but they said, we're
going to pursue talking to a record company for distribution,
(44:36):
somebody that's not in the Christian music veins. So they
went to A and M. I think they talked to Geffen.
I know they consulted with some different people, but they
just felt that the people at A and M believed
in me as an artist. And so that was a
few records, whereas just distribution, and then by nineteen eighty
(44:59):
seven and I actually signed two record contracts for the
same project with Word Records and A and M Records,
and did all the mixing at A and M.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
And was it a crazy time or did it just
feel like the other times, like when that song was hitting,
did it feel bigger?
Speaker 1 (45:20):
It didn't change my workload? You know, I was working,
and by the time baby Baby came out, it was
you know, the lyric was inspire inspired by Millie who
was six weeks old. And then we went into the video.
And I'm sure all my kids have needed therapy, and
most of them are in it just because they had
a mother who was working so hard and so I
(45:43):
dragged them everywhere. But you know, I see how my
kids are parenting and going. They don't really know how
to self regulate until they're whatever age. And I think,
good gosh, you were in a different place every night.
You lived on a bus. I would walk off the
stage and our nanny would hand me a child with
a poopy diaper and say your turn. Yeah, but it's
(46:05):
just like we were all drinking out of a fire hose,
and you know, they're alive. But was I a good mother?
Probably not. I loved them but I don't, you know.
Even when they launched, I was like, I've never paid
my own taxes. I had a business manager since I
was a teenager. I am no help to you, and
(46:26):
life will be a steep learning curve. Good luck. I mean,
that's awful. But they all have the capacity to build
a life, and they're doing it.
Speaker 2 (46:38):
I was looking through your songs on the new record
and listening to it, and as I was flipping through
and listening, I saw I think it's the last track
on the album. I'm just going for a memory here
or so I'm wrong. Please tell me. I believe both
your daughters saying on it. I did not know that
you named one of your daughters after Minnie Pearl. I
did because, yes, living in Nashville obviously, and knowing the
(47:00):
impact Sarah Cannon had and has on people going through
cancer now and to know that was Mini Pearl, and
I saw Sarah Cannon and so then I thought I
needed to look this up. So you named a daughter
after Minni Pearl?
Speaker 1 (47:15):
I did, and she was obviously that was her first
and middle name. But she was married and then went
through divorce, and she said, I'm not the same person
I was I want to take my maiden name back.
I don't, and she said I would. I want to.
I want the full weight of the name of the
woman I was named for. Nothing could have made me happier.
(47:40):
I was pregnant with Sarah and went to see Many
and I said, I'm having a girl. May I name
her for you?
Speaker 2 (47:50):
You asked her.
Speaker 1 (47:51):
Yes, and she'd already had a stroke by then heard
this was I mean, Sarah was born in ninety two
fall of ninety two. And Many did not pass for
a little while. But she said, oh, Amy, a name
is so important. A name is so important. And she said,
teacher poetry. I mean, we talked a lot. We had
(48:15):
a conversation that I wrote a paper on one time
and she and she said, it's important to be able
to remember and say poetry, and teach her this, and
teach her that, and tell her the Do you know
the most important color of the color palette? And I'm
like no, And I started guessing colors. My sister is
(48:39):
good with color. And I said, why are you telling
me this? And she said it's important. She said, black,
black is the most important color. Tell her that and
I said okay, And she said, because everything looks two dimensional,
but when you add black, you create depth with everything,
and that's what life is. She is bedridden at this
(49:02):
point giving me this advice. I'm like, yes, ma'am, I'll
tell her.
Speaker 2 (49:09):
What was she like before she got sick.
Speaker 1 (49:12):
Well, we were doing a benefit one time. It was
called April Evening and it was out of the farm.
When I was married to Gary Chapman. We had a
beautiful kind of gentleman's farm on Moran Road, and we
had a big event with the Fairfield Four, which, by
the way, there were five of them, but who cares
Minnie Pearl Ashley Cleveland, and we had a big dinner
(49:35):
and she and I were trying to change clothes when
we were in the powder room right off the front
door of Gary's in my house, and you know, it's
just it's a tight little quarters and we're like fully
changing clothes. So I'm trying to give her her space.
I'm face toward the corner of the wall. I'm changing
my clothes, and all of a sudden, she said, Amy,
(49:56):
turn around. I turn around, and she got her pan,
but she's bear breasted, She's got nothing on from the
waist up. I said, yes, ma'am, and she said, I'm
old everywhere else, but I'm eighteen from here to here.
And I said, yes you are, and uh, yeah, that
was so much fun. When was that that would have been?
(50:20):
Uh I don't remember when that was, but and like
for that event as a as a fundraiser, I reached
out to so many songwriters saying and I sent or
Jennifer Cook did it because at the time she's my
manager now, but she was executive assistant for my managers.
(50:42):
And I said, I would pay for a song lyric
if we're trying to raise money for this might have
been prevent prevent byness Tennessee prevent prevent blindness. But I
just try to think what would I pay money for.
I don't want somebody's autograph tennis shoe. What I want
is something I can hang on my wall. And so
(51:05):
I just thought of every songwriter who I loved, admired, respected,
and we sent good quality paper, comfortable pins in the hand,
and said, would you write out at least a chorus,
preferably the whole lyric of one of your songs. And
then we had returned, you know, fedexx envelopes back and
(51:26):
it was like Christmas. Wow, everything went to the office.
Speaker 2 (51:29):
But like.
Speaker 1 (51:32):
Art Garfunkle sent in scarboroughfair Sting sent in fields of Gold,
I mean everybody, James Taylor sent in something. Everybody we
mailed something to sent back a lyric and so we
did five of those as a live auction, but I
bet we had thirty and that was just like a
(51:55):
silent auction. It was so much fun, and that was
the event that many and I did. Nashville is such
a great talent to be in because it's so philanthropic
and everybody gets involved and it just removes the barriers.
Speaker 2 (52:08):
I feel like you're somebody that cares. How do you
keep from being angry at the world right now? Because
I struggle with that, not even the world, I'd say, yeah,
our country now, especially like I have to get off
the internet. How do you do it?
Speaker 1 (52:26):
I don't spend a lot of time on the internet.
I try not to get my news from I try
to listen to NPR. I try to get my news
from a news source that shows both sides.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
Is there even one of those though?
Speaker 1 (52:44):
I don't Probably not.
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yeah, I've given up on that, yeah being real.
Speaker 1 (52:48):
But mostly what I try to I just remind myself
how powerful my choices are and in affecting the world
right around me. And if we all used our choice
in how we treat people, the world would be a
better place if we listen to the better angels of
(53:11):
our nature. You know, I got a phone call yesterday
from a woman and she said, I have a friend
that I care for who does not have their papers.
And they have tried, they have tried, they have tried,
so many things have gone wrong, seventy five thousand into
the process. And she goes, nobody's got this kind of money.
(53:33):
Will you help me? Will you help them? And I said,
what I would like to do is create community around that,
and so will you ask several people then, But all
night long, I said, I thought I have not had
(53:54):
an immigrant friend who became a loved one that every
day is nervous every day, And I thought, I need
this in my life. I could have been born there,
I could have my life could have been differently, could
have been lived, could have it could have been otherwise?
(54:15):
And I feel like, you know, the we all have
opportunities to see the people around us, and it's just
you know, are we willing to see?
Speaker 4 (54:26):
Let's take a quick pause for a message from our sponsor,
and we're back on the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 2 (54:40):
What I struggle with is fortunate or not. I had
no choice. I was born here.
Speaker 1 (54:50):
And a white male.
Speaker 2 (54:51):
Yes, there you get at the time. I was born
a white man at a time. I was born in
the eighties in a country where a white man and
born at this time. You just allowed stuff, right, you
just allowed stuff you are And like I didn't chew.
I didn't get to make a choice before I came
in and said I want to be born in I
(55:11):
was just here. And so when people say, you know,
we're Christians, but we don't really think we should love
that neighbor, that is really bothersome to me because I
feel like it is again, if we're going to go
with rule number one, love thy freaking neighbor, there's a
lot of people not loving thy neighbor, that are acclaiming
(55:32):
their neighbor lovers. And I think that is what is
so bothersome to me about that.
Speaker 1 (55:38):
And it's hard to not use a lot of your
resources being angry with that person. You know, I'm saying,
like your amount, we all have limited resources. I don't
agree with that legislation but I'm What I'm not going
to do is use the energy that I have trying
(56:00):
to change that person's mind. What I want to do
is when I'll cast my ballot, I'll vote when I vote.
But if I have energy I want to be, I'll go, well,
who can I reach out to? Who can I help?
Who can I talk to? Because and that's I mean
(56:23):
years ago, I remember I was with a friend, We're
working on a Christmas song, and the TV was on
in the other room, and all of a sudden, it
was just like I could not take my eyes off
of what was on the TV. The sound was not
even on, And I just said, what if I were
that mother staring from my TV? What if that were
(56:44):
my brown eye baby, hungry as she could be? What
if that were my family and we wrote that song instead?
What if that was my world? Like that's just how
my brain works. If I'm in the twenty five percent processing,
you know what I'm saying, Like, doesn't matter what the
brain tests say. How I'm wired is to go. It
(57:10):
could have been otherwise. I could have been that woman,
she could have been me. And the next course of
what if I were that mother and I was waiting
on me, the big success, so well dressed on the
other side of the street, living with my distractions because
(57:30):
life's been good to me. Maybe she's praying, praying for
a miracle. Maybe he answers me, Lord have mercy on me.
You know, I was. That's kind of how my brain
has always worked. It is the most important work of
(57:50):
our lives is not what people know about. It's like
the person next to you in the grocery store line
and you go, hey, just have three things, throw them
in with mine. How's your day going? And then all
of a sudden, you're in a conversation or a tear
goes down their cheek and you go, it's gonna be okay.
(58:13):
Deep breath. I mean, there's not a day that goes
by that you don't cross somebody's path that is invisible
to the whole world. But they don't have to be
invisible to you.
Speaker 2 (58:28):
My brain process is a different I just want to
fight everybody. Do you want to write songs and I
want to fight everybody?
Speaker 1 (58:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (58:34):
I want to fight everyone.
Speaker 1 (58:36):
Yeah, well, you know what, and your life is unique
to you. Discover it and fulfill your purpose. Whatever that
fight is, take it to the big arena.
Speaker 2 (58:45):
And then I go, well, we'll vote, And then I go, well,
they're Jerry Manner and the crap at everything, So what
is the voting even going to matter? That's getting rigged
as well?
Speaker 1 (58:53):
Well don't then don't do the fight that nobody's listening.
But use your voice and all that and go where
can the fight in me affect the most people.
Speaker 2 (59:04):
I have to turn it away from politics. I have
to go and help folks that struggle with what I
struggled with, which is basically eating. Yeah, you know, food
and security. Yeah yeah, but then I still want to fight.
When I'm done, I just have like I just this.
It's really the only thing that I get rage, like
inner rage about that in Arkansas sports losing, those are
(59:27):
the only two things that I really like. I'm so
fired up about that I have to check out of
it completely or I don't. I don't do well.
Speaker 1 (59:35):
Well, Okay, So the other day I went to see
my nephew by marriage, said I want you to come
see what's happening at the farm where I'm working. So
he was a coach at CPA and now he's helping
to manage somebody's farm, and it's so much less stress
in his life. I'm so happy for him. And I
show up and he's he's encouraging animals. It's like a
(59:56):
thousand acre farm. I'm not sure how I got the
job y him, and I see these people working a garden,
but it's like big gardens kind of randomly placed. And
I start meeting these people. You just mentioned Food Insecurity,
and it was several fields of this man's farm that
(01:00:19):
are being cultivated by Cultivate. So you know, last year Cultivate,
which started in Nashville, produced over a million, yeah, a
million pounds of food for Food Insecure. And their workforce
comes from men of valor, men coming out of the
prison system for a sustainable wage. And then you know,
(01:00:45):
the suit and tie corporate world wants to have a
work day and they wind up Cultivate is managing all
that come and work next to the men of valor.
So then you've got a guide that's been in prison
just out next to a guy who has well into
a six figure salary, and they're working side by side,
(01:01:06):
and it's like it's changing both of them and creating opportunities.
You know, So like, I look, so many great things
have happened in Nashville, and it doesn't go to the polls.
Nashville is it's a freakishly creative city to be in.
No wonder everybody's coming here. But like Ellington Agricultural Area,
(01:01:34):
like the idea for cultivate. The first ask was can
we have any city owned land? And those were the
first fields and I was like, well yeah, And then suddenly,
now anybody that's food insecure, then they can purchase that
food at it. You know, I'm just saying, you can
(01:01:55):
be mad about anything, but if you dig deep enough,
if you let your curiosity lead you, somebody is doing
something besides shouting. And I want to find the people
who are doing stuff and just be led by your curiosity.
Speaker 2 (01:02:09):
But then I want to shout, to fight, I want
to do it, do all that, then I want to fight.
I'm just saying, I'm just telling you so with this record,
we were talking about it before you came in. You
didn't plan to make it. You made it. It's a
full body of work. Now what do you think the
full body of work stands for? Though?
Speaker 1 (01:02:30):
Well, I think it's a witness, my witness to life.
And what does it represent?
Speaker 2 (01:02:41):
I don't even know what it represents But what like
because you did it in pieces without the intention of
it being one big piece, right, you never had the
idea We're going to do a whole record once it
all came together, Like, what do you feel like it
means now?
Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
Well, it means a great deal to me because different
songs came from different places. A week ago, I was
on Staten Island singing with Public School twenty two PS
twenty two and they just posted it yesterday. But their
music teacher, Greg's last name I can't pronounce. He teaches
(01:03:20):
the fourth and fifth grade music class harmony singing and
they invite different guest artists to come in and sing
with them, and their faces are so alive. And it
was a song that I wrote with Ruby am Mamfu
And I was inspired by my trip to Capitol Hill
(01:03:42):
in Tennessee in Nashville, trying to meet with legislative legislators
on both sides of the isle and Bill Lee for
better gun control, a safer just a safer environment for
our kids. And you know, such a gridlock. And everybody's
doesn't want to lose their rights, don't want their passions
(01:04:04):
infringed on in any way, and you know, and more
and more shootings are happening, and mental health is not
great in our country, and people are isolated. And I thought, well,
I'm going to do what I do. And I wrote
a song, and to hear children singing, how do we
get there from here? How do we take the first step?
How to take the next step? How do we get
(01:04:25):
there from here? Instead of saying we're not ready yet?
How do we learn to trust each other? Instead of
living life and fear? How do we get there from here?
I was like, I can't even sing it, and I
you know, and maybe we've all kind of screwed it
up and the next generation will write the ship. I
don't know with you shouting.
Speaker 2 (01:04:45):
Yeah, well I'm also helping.
Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
You are helping.
Speaker 2 (01:04:49):
Yeah, I know. I have some money, and I spend
the money to help. Yes, I do some stuff, you know.
I don't just get money. Like I like to show
up and do stuff, but I like to shout and
fight to it. It gets good.
Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
That's good.
Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
But then I got to check out because my wife's like,
you're going too crazy. Turned the TV off. You can't
watch the news anymore, You're going crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:05:07):
My thing is just let don't let that be it,
you know, don't just watch somebody else's thing and implode,
because we all what's that Victor Frankel quote, you know,
survivor of multiple concentration camps and the Nazi regime. And
my niece who's in recovery enough, an amazing therapist, and
(01:05:29):
she framed it for me his words, between the stimulus
and the response, there's a space, and in that space
lies our freedom and our power. And so it was like,
all right, Oh, there's a luck coming at me, but
what comes from me? I get to choose.
Speaker 2 (01:05:49):
Ah, that's good too. Yeah, that's good. Well, I appreciate
you coming by. I always enjoy when you come by.
Did you bring a record I've brought because.
Speaker 1 (01:06:01):
I brought one of my records, but I brought this
is a much better version of tapestry. Look all the
lyrics are on the back.
Speaker 2 (01:06:10):
Oh wow, will you hold that up and show the camera.
So why is that record so important to you?
Speaker 1 (01:06:15):
I think I haven't listened to it in this form
in a long time. Carol King's a great songwriter. I
fell in love with her when I was a kid.
And my sixth grade boyfriend, Johnny Dicker, we would get
on the phone, and we would press the need of
our turntable down so that the records were spinning at
the exact same time. And you know, I love that
(01:06:39):
she had kind of an average voice, because I was
a kid with an average voice that loved music and
I loved songs, and I I thought, I can, I
can find a way to make a life doing something
I didn't know what, but somehow involved with music.
Speaker 2 (01:07:00):
Is there a song on that record that when you're here,
it kind of puts you back in a place.
Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
Oh my gosh, well will you will you love me tomorrow?
We still love me tomorrow? That was on my original
set list when I was fifteen and played at the
Chapel program, So we used to love Me Tomorrow, the
song about the one night stand I put right between
a couple of my Jesus songs. It's perfect, that's life.
Speaker 2 (01:07:26):
Do you ever sing that song now?
Speaker 1 (01:07:30):
I mean I sing it to myself. I haven't put
it in this set list in a long time.
Speaker 2 (01:07:34):
That's fine. That's a great record.
Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
Isn't it home again? Natural woman? Golly? I feel it?
Speaker 2 (01:07:43):
Yeah? Does it bring my memories? Just look at it
at it right now?
Speaker 3 (01:07:45):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
Oh gosh, yeah, yeah. I need my glasses. I'm staring
at it like I can read any of this.
Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
Yeah, what a great record. Thank you for the time. Seriously,
I always love spending any time that we could spend together.
And I hope that everything that you want to get
out of this record you get out of it, and
maybe all that you were to get out of it
was all you got while making it.
Speaker 1 (01:08:13):
That is that was the only thing that I could
actually sign up for and not control but actively participate in.
And now you know I've said it free, it'll do
what it'll do. And put that PS. Twenty two on
Staten Island. That was great, And Sony, anything else that
(01:08:33):
comes up that would open a door, I do it.
Speaker 4 (01:08:37):
Amy, thank you, thank you, thanks for listening to a
Bobby Cast production.
Host
Bobby Bones
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by Audiochuck Media Company.
Betrayal Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. If you would like to share your story, you can reach out to the Betrayal Team by emailing them at betrayalpod@gmail.com and follow us on Instagram at @betrayalpod and @glasspodcasts. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations, and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience, and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack.