Rita Wilson has an amazing story as a first generation American. She opens up about her parent’s and her dad’s struggle making it to America from Bulgaria and the values it instilled in her. Rita just released her new album called, Rita Wilson Now & Forever: Duets. She tells the stories behind her duets with Keith Urban, Tim McGraw, Willie Nelson, Jimmie Allen and more! Rita has starred in some of the most beloved ’80s, ’90s and 2000’s movies. She shares her stories of her first job as a ticket taker, how she got started acting, her role on the Brady Bunch and what clicked for her to start songwriting in Nashville and how she was so nervous to play the Opry for the first time.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Episode three eight with Rita Wilson. I'll tell you, Mike,
I didn't know what to expect. H I figured it
should be nice. I didn't know what to expect with
this interview. She's awesome. Yeah, like you're just like, dang,
don't don't go back to California to stay here and
be our friend. She has a new album called Rita
Wilson Now and Forever Duets. And you know, also, you
(00:24):
never know where people want to go if they're talking
about specifically we're talking about music, right, and the fact
that she was like, yeah, my first thing was on
The Redy Bunch. She's talked about being on the episode.
I just really enjoyed the interview. Yeah, And so I
had met her briefly once before because we have mutual friends.
And I never want to bother the stars, and so,
(00:45):
because you know what, the stars aren't like us, regardless
of what you read, they're not. They're no, they're often busy,
and they're cooler, and so I don't want to bother her.
But it turns out they're a lot like us, because
she's really nice. So, I mean, Rita Wilson has starred
in so many movies Sleepless in Seattle, Mixed Nuts Now
and then Runaway Bride. It's complicated. She You know. One
(01:05):
of the things that I will do is I will,
in the middle of an interview sometimes tell a story
that I think might somehow resonate with the person I'm interviewing,
where they relate to it in a way. It would
be a quick one. And it's not really a technique
that people recommend because it's me telling a little story
in the middle of an interview with someone else. But
I often can tell a story and if someone reacts
to it, and that's all I'm looking for a reaction,
(01:26):
and I can see what part they react to, and
I know they got something to say. And so when
we start talking about her parents, this is for me
the best part of the whole interview. And sometimes people like, yeah,
parents were good, this is tough for it's easy, or
mom's gone down, who knows, But this was like a
real deal. I just wanted to I could have done
(01:50):
an hour on just that. It's really good. So she
does it all, you know. Again, she has a new album.
We'll talk about it, will play some of it. Obviously,
She's acted in many things. Um, she's I know they
have kids, right and they have yeah, yeah kids, Mary
to Tom Hanks. She's got a million Instagram followers and
(02:11):
she's a really cool person. So I hope you enjoyed
this with Rita Wilson. You and I met. I was
trying to think too. It was an event after something.
It was after the c m A S and it
was at the Marriott Hotel. In the after party, there
were big donuts on a wall, like, that's what I
remember about that in order no offense, big donuts, Rita.
(02:35):
That's about that night. One would say that I've got
a lot of holes in my head, so maybe that's appropriate.
Um No, and you had either just one Dancing with
the Stars or you were in the finals. I can't
remember exactly, but yeah, I was about to do the finals, yes,
and I was exhausted and I was like, why am
I doing this? It's funny you remember that. I do
(02:55):
remember so because I love the show, and I watched
the show. You watch the show? Oh I do? I do?
And now it's gone to streaming, so I'm gonna have to,
you know, set it up on that. But um, could
you do that? Could you dance like that? Can you dance.
Oh heck no, I someone that has every performance skill.
You can't dance. You have every performance skill acting and
(03:16):
comedy and drama. I got we my wife and are
watching Curb Enthusiasm, and then the other night we just
go through and watch random episodes and there you are
and you're crushing and I'm like, what does she not do?
So you're telling me you can't. I don't believe it. Now,
you can be humble, but I don't believe it. Though
I have danced. I have danced, but I'm not what
(03:40):
you would call a dancer. Like any anything that I do,
I have to rehearse a lot. I can't just show
up and be like, Okay, look at me. You know
I'm I'm well. I do that a lot without rehearsing.
Down it's always yes, No, I love it. I love
moving and And the thing is, it's like anything like that,
(04:01):
like dancing, even if you're just dancing at a party
or something. You can't be in a bad mood when
you're dancing because the endorphins just kick in and you're
so happy. I would challenge that, actually, it isn't a
bad mood. Every time I danced, like I can't do
what am I doing. I know I'm terrible, and yet
you one only because the people. That's I mean, really
that's the people. It's very much our culture. The people
(04:23):
like you. They celebrate you, and they lift you. And
then once they lift you, they like to knock you
down and like to lift your back up like a
yo yo. It's like bad mitten kind of goes up,
it comes down slow, and it's at least expect that
we have a mutual friend. I assume you're Christian. Are
still friends? Christian chan Well hard to Christian Bush. Oh,
(04:45):
Christian Bush one of the greatest human beings at that time. Yeah. Literally,
I got to go on tour with him, and he
is and I've written songs with him. One of my
favorite songs I wrote with him and Liz Rose and um,
he's just an amaze human being. The best I'm saying
for me. We've written together when I was doing one
of my comedy projects and Christian writes like a mad scientist.
(05:07):
I don't know what how it was with you, but
I was like, I have this idea for a song.
He was like an iPad that goes like a four
stringed instrument with like the tail of a raccoon coming
out on the top of it, and all of a sudden,
he's got a click in the clock and he's like, okay,
I got He's all over the place and I'm like,
what is that? Beakers? He's pour water into beakers. That
steam is coming over the things. That's different colors. But
you know what, he was a poetry major in college
(05:30):
at Emory, and he thinks like that. He thinks in words.
One time we were writing a song together called I'm guilty,
Guilty of loving you. You know, I was like, sorry,
I'm busted. Yes, I love you. And the writing assignment
this was when I was first starting a songwriting and
he said, Okay, this is the idea, and I want
you to go away and I want you to list
(05:51):
all of the things that you very specifically love about someone.
What do you mean, go away like from the room? Yeah, not,
might just leave for a month, might take a second,
and yeah, exactly take a moment. And it was so
much fun because what he was I think teaching me
was you have to it has to be specific to you,
(06:11):
it has to be authentic to you. And that was
a really great lesson. But he is also one of
the greatest musicians to work with and play within. So
is his band Brandon, his other Benjie Shanks. Like they're
just amazing guys. What's what's remarkable about Christian and Brandon
is that just being around them actually spawns even great
(06:32):
artists and people. We had a girl who was up
here a few weeks ago who is really like catching
on right now. She's probably twenty years old. We were
talking to her. She was like, Yeah, I was an
intern in Atlanta for Brandon, a Christian like just and
like just being around that. You see in the NFL
two around great head coaches, a ground around great directors,
Like sometimes you just pick up stuff. You totally pick
(06:55):
up stuff. Just by being around greatness and seeing work
ethic and seeing how they do it. Work ethic is
so huge. At least for me, I really appreciate that.
I'm always impressed by that, you know, like coming down
here and writing in Nashville, when you write, you have
these two sessions, write a morning session in an afternoon session,
and it when I first came down, it was intimidating
(07:17):
because people were so excellent at what they did, their craftsmanship,
their facility, and by facility. I mean that they were
literally flexible, fascile. It could go in any direction you
wanted to go. And I learned a lot from that,
and I really admire that and respect that because I'm
(07:38):
like that, you know if you if you show up
late on a set, you are in big trouble. Like
they don't like that. So I love that everybody showed
up on time. I'm a very punctual person, So you
are I might have been here early today, not that
I'm surprised that you are. But I will say this,
and I'm not going to say any names, but anytime
(07:58):
that I'm working on a television project in California, and
I did many seasons on certain shows there are people
will be two or three hours late, and it was
like the bigger star you and this this is off,
this is off my conversation, and the bigger star you are.
They felt like the later they could be, and they
would be two or three sometimes four hours late, and
(08:18):
but who am I? I'm like, no, that's wrong. I'm
not top of the call sheets. I'm down a couple
of spots, and so what am I do? You just
wait around? And I was like, man, this is not
the environment that I am comfortable being. I know I
don't like that at all. I have not experienced that,
like what you're describing. That would never fly on anything
I'm working on. And I just thought, well, I guess
(08:40):
this is California l a culture, because in Nashville it's
it's like the red You show up on time and
because other people have showed up on time and you
owe them that respect, that's right. But so you're telling
me everybody in Los Angeles just sadn't pick when they
come to work. I've never know. I have never experienced that,
but I know that if that happens, If that happens,
it should not fly. So I don't know what we're
(09:02):
going to talk off, Mike. I gotta get the beats.
I do want to get to the album in a second.
And how you landed all these amazing artists or how
they landed on your album. I mean, both are really
cool things to even for like Jimmy, like he was
super pumped to be on the Amazing Jimmy Um because
I had done He had called and asked me to
do something on Betty James and we did a song
(09:23):
called when This Is Over with Torn Wells and the
Oak Ridge Boys, and I was so, uh, you know,
thrilled that he asked me because I didn't know him
at that time. He also did dancing when the start did.
I talked to him a lot through it. Yes, I
went down to see him because he was so good.
It was so exhilarating to watch him, met his mom
and his uncle. Was really very fun. Anyway, So when uh,
(09:48):
we were going through the process of selecting songs, the
one that I had in my mind for Jimmy was
the one that he literally came out of his mouth.
I said, you know, I have a couple of songs
I want to, you know, run by you and he
said yes, and I said okay, and he said I'll
be there and I was like, oh my gosh, Jimmy,
(10:10):
I love that song so much. Yes, that's the one
I was thinking of, let's do it. So he's great.
He's great, the great you guys did that song wonderfully together.
And we'll walk to the whole project in a second,
because really some I just a great list of talent
and you included it is all on this project. I
do want to go back, though, because I'm curious about
kind of your roots and even what it was like
(10:33):
growing up, Like how people turn out the way they
are right, Like I I love this. You know, I
grew up a trailer park, and I think a lot
of that influenced how where I am and at what
I do now, Like no doubt about it. When I
was five, A lot of that stuff that happened to
me still buried deep down, still exists exactly. So what
was your house? Like it's seven years old, who's there?
(10:54):
Where do you live? That is such a great question. Well,
I'm a first generation American. My mom was Greek and
my dad was Bulgarian, and they both had to escape
their various countries because during World War Two, my mom's
village was on the border of Greece and Albania, and
as things got tough, they knew they had to leave.
(11:15):
So my mom had cross over these mountains by herself
in the middle of the night to get into Greece,
to get to Athens to eventually restore her American passport
because she was born in America. How old was she
when when she had to do that. She was a
nineteen when she left by herself, just with this backpack.
I call it a backpack, but it was something on
(11:36):
her back that carried this sterling silver flatwear that they
had brought from New York. Did you ever talk to
her about that, like what was going through her mind? Like, oh, yeah,
when she made that decision where Because that's a hard decision,
even if you know you have to do it, it's
a hard decision to go, Okay, now I have to go. Well,
the harder decision was that her parents, sorry, her mother
was there because her dad had died when they went
(11:58):
there on a vacation four years old, just a village
visit the village and um, so her mother was a
widow with four kids at a very young age, and
they were supposed to leave all together, but they got
word that there was going to be a letter coming.
And they knew in this small village that if somebody
(12:19):
came to deliver a letter and no one was there
to receive it, that's unusual where they go, you know,
where everybody is. So my mom offered to stay back
to get the letter so that she could the family
could go ahead of her, and then there would be
no suspicion arouse, like cover exactly. And then my dad,
(12:39):
he Um was born in Greece and raised in Bulgaria.
And oh my god, his story is so I don't
know how much time we have. Okay, it's it's who
I am. It's exactly who I am. And we'll lead
back to Christian Bush in a second. Um, but he
wanted he it's so sad. But he met a woman,
(13:03):
he had a baby, and um, they were married, had
a baby, and on December the baby died, and on December, sorry,
on a December twenty the baby was born. On December
the mother died, his wife, and four months later the
baby died. His name was Emil. I didn't know this
(13:23):
at all. I did that show Who Do You Think
You Are? And all of this came out. My dad
never told me that. So he tried to escape Bulgaria.
I think just out of sheer unhappiness. And my dad
really loved the idea of America. So tries to escape,
gets caught, goes They say him, if you try to
(13:44):
escape again, we're going to make you an enemy of
the state. We're gonna put you in jail. He does
it again. He gets caught and they put him in
a labor camp. And this labor camp was one of
the most severe labor camps that that at the time
communist labor camp. He gets a job. It's a coal
sort of mining labor camp, and he notices that at
(14:06):
the night shift there are these trains that come in
and they pick up amounts of coal and they take
them away. It's suspenful and I'm nervous watching the movie
and I know it's not real, but this is a
story about your dad. Yes, and he um he He
bribes one of the guards with a carton of cigarettes
that I guess somebody gave him as a gift on
(14:28):
visiting day. And uh. He wanted to work the night
shift because he knew if he worked the night shift
he had a plan. So he sees the trains come
in he's working the night shift. He says, hey, can
we go down and get some more firewood for the
um fire. They were on a break. It's like two
in the morning, and the guard says, yeah sure. He says,
(14:49):
can I take Richard with me, because you know, easier
to bring more wood back, and goes yeah, sure. So
they go down there and they slotted themselves between the
trains where they couldn't be seen, and they started running
twenty minutes later they figured it out. He could hear
the dogs barking, and they just ran and ran and
ran and ran. Eventually got away, made their way to Turkey.
(15:14):
I'm trying to make it very slow quick. You don't
have to make it quick. Got on a boat. That
was my dad got a job on a freighter boat
shoveling coal and made his way to Philadelphia and jumped
the ship. But what he did was he took Richard
with him as a stowaway because there was no work
for Richard, and so he was stowed away in the
(15:35):
basically the engine room. And Richard and my dad made
it to America, and Richard went on to New zealand
became a very very successful um businessman. Yeah, and so
here's the thing about that is that I felt like,
when you said, what's it like, it's seven years old,
I was keenly aware of how luck he my parents
(16:01):
felt that they were, and they always said things like
my dad was always good, bless America every single day.
And I felt like, I'm really lucky I live in America,
you know. I was really proud, and uh, he never
took that for granted. And Christian and I wrote a
song because I thought to myself, I wonder if courage
(16:21):
is handed down, does courage get handed down? Do we
learn that from somewhere? Do people do people? Can they
do it? And I thought we wrote a song called
heart he handed down Christian Bush and I because I
really thought it was from my children, from my my
kids like to say this, this guy lives in you.
You know, he's I'd like to ask a couple of
(16:42):
questions about your dad, if that's okay, because holy, holy moly,
the fact that he first tried to escape right just
to just to try to leave for a better life,
a lot of bravery there. He got caught. I probably like,
you know what, I'm good. I'm good. I don't want
to I don't want to go jail. I don't want
to be labeled a terrorists, basically is what they said
to him. He does it, he and gets caught again. Okay.
(17:06):
So now though, if they would have caught him a
third time trying to leave labor camp, oh, he would
have been shot and killed. I would have killed him, absolutely.
And when I went back to do that program, they
took me to the you know, Hall of Records. Let's say,
from the Bulgarian government and he was listed as an
enemy of the state. He had a number. If they
ever caught him, he would have been put in jail
(17:27):
for life. Who knows what else. The other thing I
wanted to go back to is so his first son,
Emil was born in December. Well, my sister, her daughter,
firstborn daughter, was born in December, and my youngest son, Truman,
is born on December. And I thought all those birthdays
(17:48):
that my dad on December he was celebrating his grandchildren
and also his son. He was there to see them. Yes, yes,
he died when he was eighty nine. My mom died
when she was ninety three. That also is they lived
to be a wonderfully old age. Yes, all of that.
(18:13):
And when I asked what you were like at seven,
and I can move to thirteen now because I see
the picture of your parents and it's it's it's a
vague picture, but it's a strong picture, right, Like I
would assume that the values they taught you, even maybe
not always purposeful, but just because it was instilled in them,
was like we don't stop like we if it's something
(18:36):
we're passionate about, that's what we value. That's what we
asked some value were just so big in your house,
you know, it was huge. Like my dad was a bartender.
My mom didn't work, and my parents were not educated,
but they were very intelligent and they had enormous character,
and uh it was it was really fun because my
mom also, you know, she did everything she could so cook,
(18:59):
she made our curtains, are bedspreads, are clothes. Like if
I went shopping for a pair of jeans, I'd be like, oh,
these are cute, and she's like, I can make those.
I'm like, no, Mom, I want a pair of jeans.
What jeans I can buy in a store? Okay? Um?
But I I really learned that value of hard work
because I saw how hard my dad worked, and because
(19:21):
he would get tips, he'd bring the tips home and
he would bring them home and you know those purple
felt bags from Crown Royal bottles exactly, he would bring
his tips home in that the coins. We on Saturday mornings,
we'd take them all out, separate out the nickels, the dimes,
the quarters, the pennies, put him in the little paper
(19:41):
rolls that you know you take to the bank right
the account number on and take them that way and
I thought to myself, Oh my god, Like he raised
a family of three in Hollywood, never had debt, and
I didn't even get a credit card until I was
seventeen because I was like, Dad, I can't get a
credit card unless you get a at a card, So
can you please get one so that I can have
(20:03):
one on your account? And and I think that's amazing
because you probably can't do that nowadays. You know, that's
why you're never late. I mean, I mean that's why.
And we laugh, we honestly we laugh. But that's probably like,
deep down in your guts, that's like, I'm not late
because I need to respect the other people that are
showing up on time because my parents taught me. Like,
(20:26):
that's a really amazing comeback to that part of the
conversation here where you're like, yeah, I'm not late. You
know why you're not late even though you're a big star,
because your parents have been still this in you and
it's still sitting with you today that it's so cool.
That's that's very very nice to think of that way. Yeah,
they were just really good people. And I think having
(20:46):
parents that um were immigrants and had accents and things
like that, I remember absolutely feeling like people sort of
treated them differently, and I don't mean that in a
positive way, because they just assumed that they weren't smart
or or not American in that sense, born in America,
(21:09):
and um, there was something about that I think that
allowed it in a way, it teaches you empathy because
I knew, like, these people are awesome. My parents are
fantastic people, even though somebody may not be treating them
that way. So you kind of connect to that in
a way. So seven years old, I was a really
(21:31):
happy kid and um and very you know, like it
was just a very typical child. Even though it was Hollywood, California,
it was still very typical. Could have been any town, USA.
To the final questions about your your parents, when do
(21:53):
you think that they were the most proud of you?
I think they were always proud of me. You know.
My parents offered me an incredible foundation of a home
base so that I could go off and try different things,
and they never stopped me from doing that. They never
said no, that's scary, we don't want you to act,
or and that's weird. You know. They definitely wanted me
(22:16):
to go to college, which I did for about two
years and just kept working and I couldn't stay in school.
But um, they were they were just I think they
were always proud and and they never held me back
from from pursuing anything. So most proud of I don't know.
(22:36):
Probably do you think the pride was because you worked hard?
I mean, just to boil it all down, do you
think the pride wasn't because of some award or job
or accomplishment. It was just because you were consistent and
worked hard, and it's something that they did. I think so.
I think in a way yes, because I think you
can recognize that in your children, you know, and my
(22:57):
brother and sister also worked hard. But I think they
they recognized that we would be okay, Like you know,
all parents want their kids to grow up and be okay.
You know, you're gonna be able to work, have a
roof over your head, that sort of thing. So I
think they were proud that we were um, functioning human beings.
And I'm gonna flip it, now, when were you the
(23:18):
most proud that they were your parents? Oh? Oh my god,
Oh if I tell this story, I'm going to totally cry.
It's safe space here. You couldn't be in a safer space. Okay,
I'll tell this story. Oh my god, this is this
is I'm gonna try to tell him without crying. I
(23:42):
was about twenty three, and I was always incredibly proud
of my parents. But I was dating somebody who was
like from a wealthier family or something. And we went
on a double date with his best friend and the
girl that that guy was dating, and I was intimidated.
(24:05):
You know, they were definitely in a different economic strata
than you know, I was raised in. And the girl
asked me, well, my dad did for a living, And
I said, my dad's a bartender, And she said, why
do you say it like that, because I must have
just like kind of made a face or something like
(24:26):
and she said, my dad died. I would give anything
to have my dad here. And from that point on
everything changed because I was proud of my parents, and
(24:47):
I from that point on, I never ever hesitated or
wavered in being proud of my parents and being proud
of my dad and what he did for a living,
because those values and what he gave me so much
more valuable than anything else that the world could have
given me. The way to go, Bobby, I never ever
(25:12):
got to meet him your parents, Well, they're here in
the room right now. They're amazing. I appreciate your generosity
with with sharing that about who you are, because that
is a lot of who you are. Thank you. But
I can't believe you asked that question, because like after that,
I really had never been prouder. I mean it was
(25:33):
almost like, what did your dad do for a living?
My dad is a bartender and he has raised a
family of three without any debt, without hurting anybody, without
doing anything shady. He's just a good guy that how
can you not be proud of that? I can see
too that you'll go into a songwriting room just from
(25:56):
this conversation here and be extremely vulnerable. And I think
that's the first and hardest wall to break down for
anybody that's trying to get to that level of songwriting
that feels pure and authentic, because a lot of people
can rhyme words and write a decent melody, and there's
a lot of people in this town, a lot of
these rooms that can do it even with you. But
(26:17):
to be able to break down those walls and share
stories like that in a room with two people with
three people and go this is me, how do we
make this into something that like you did it here
with me and we only met once before. It's the
right question. You know that that is a I can
see that as vulnerable as you're being right now, it's
(26:38):
a place that that you still go with confidence, like
you were proud to tell that story. You knew it
was gonna make you emotional. Do you ever, because I
feel like, you know, shame is such a powerful thing
and so many people deal with that, and and what
I feel shame is in some ways is just a
barrier to the vulnerability because you're trying to avoid it
(27:02):
in some ways, and uh, if you can, I felt like,
you know, if you can eliminate that, then just get
to get to the truth. Ah. I've been very lucky
in that. Um the songwriters that the very first songwriter,
the person who told me I should be writing a
song as Karada Gordy and Kara asked this one very
(27:26):
simple question. I said, I can't be a songwriter. I
you know, don't play music and read music or playing instrument.
She goes, neither do I Do you have something you
want to say? And when she said that, I was like,
wait a minute, is that part of like is that
part of it. She said, I'm going to write your
first two songs with you so she could show me
the process, and she did, and I was I wrote
(27:50):
that song was called Grateful, with Jason Reeves and Karada Gordy,
and that showed me, Oh, okay, oh I oh, I
see how this can work. And then all of a sudden,
it's like a cascade of ideas and feelings and thoughts,
and you know, it's one of the most satisfying experiences
that I've ever been, you know, lucky enough to to do.
(28:14):
I never thought it would happen. And in the feelings
because I've written a couple of books, and the feelings
from writing books are even doing a five hour radio
show everywhere I'm talking about things happening to me in
my personal life and different struggles and highlights and the
hard things to talk about. They're never not hard, but
you understand that almost the harder, more vulnerable you are,
(28:35):
the more people and you can get, even yourself, the
more you can actually get from it. So you realize
also after a few times of feeling unsafe and it
ends up not being death right, You're like, Okay, I
can go back and feel that way again and not
have to worry about dying, which I worked. And so
have you felt that in songwriting where you're you're able
to get vulnerable quicker now because and it's always it
(28:56):
doesn't feel good, but you understand it's okay. Yes, not
being taken care of by the people. Yes, And we're
doing something for a reason that's right. And and I
feel again, if people are there writing to write with
me and I'm there to write with them, we have
to be in that space. Uh. And and it's just
(29:17):
almost like a requirement. This is a required behavior for
a long writing session. And you know sometimes sometimes you
don't get there all the time. But um, it's definitely
a good starting point. Why Nashville, Why country music? I mean,
just just a general vague question because I don't know
the answer to it. I know you love it. I
(29:38):
have friends of mine to love you and say she's
legitimate and that her it's her care and her passion.
But I don't know why. All right, I'll tell you.
When I was growing up, we had just AM radio, Okay,
so all those genres were on there. So you're hearing
R and B and soul and pop and country, and
you know, and from forever away because I am radio
(29:59):
traveled all way across the county exactly. It was everywhere.
So all these genres are coming at you every single day,
and for me, it really was storytelling and I would
imagine things. I would imagine the scenarios. And the first
song that I absolutely thought I want to sing this song,
like stand up and sing this song was owed to
(30:21):
Billy Joe by Bobby Gentry. It was just it was
just this girl had something to say here. You know,
there was a story. So I knew Johnny Cash because
of a boy called Sue. I knew Dolly Parton, I
knew um Loretta Lynn, May she rest in peace? Tell
(30:42):
me why Net All those people were coming through the radio.
So g D. C Riley, Harper Valley p t a
huge and things crossed over back then. So when I
started writing with Kara, we wrote we were writing in
l a Um. She suggested Nashville, and Kristin Chenowith suggested Nashville.
(31:07):
She said, you at the time she was living no
she was living in l a at the time, and
she said, you were going to love it down there,
Go down there. And I had a manager at the
time that was based in Nashville. So I started coming
down and they started setting up rights, and I realized
this is exactly like, this is the storytelling capital of
(31:30):
the world. And when you come to a place where
songwriting is revered and music is revered, it's called music
city for a reason. You understand the that it's valued here,
and that I think is why, you know, I came
down here and started it. But also people were very
(31:51):
open and very receptive, which I I am so thankful for.
Why would they have accepted me as oh yeah, okay,
you know, some chick from Hollywood wants to come down
here and write music. But it was for me, it
was beyond that. It was sort of like what I
always really wanted to do. Like when you think of
(32:12):
something you love to do when you when you were
a kid, by the way, did you have anything like
that that you love to do when you were a kids?
Be on a stage, you know, find there you go. Yeah,
it was you're probably entertaining your friends. Yeah, mine was singing.
It was like, I want to get up and sing.
Were you a good singer as a kid? I have
no idea, no idea as a kid in front of
(32:34):
more than five people like you ever. No, no, no,
never like that. Never. I'm just kidding. No. I would
do school plays and things like that, singing. Oh my god,
you're reminding me. Duh. I sang in a church singing
groom called the Way Home, and we sang songs like uh,
(32:56):
Bridge over Troubled Water, Yes, and we sing it. You know,
it was a quiet We were like maybe we were
a singing group. Those boys and girls. We're thirteen, fourteen
years old. We were patchwork skirts and white blasses. I
have not thought of this in a while. Clearly, I'm like, oh, yeah,
I was singing in front of more than twenty five people,
(33:18):
that is right. Um, did you get a solo? No,
we nobody had solos. It was just sort of like
the church leader played guitar and we were like, you know,
a wholesome patchwork. What did the boys were. I think
they were like brown chords? And did you find fulfillment
as a kid in this group where you like, this
is what I'm supposed to be doing. But like there
(33:41):
was the early stages of that. I totally loved it.
I was obsessed with it. And then that was in
junior high and which we now call middle school, but
then when I went to high school, it there wasn't
anything like that that continued on, like the church group,
singing group didn't continue on. And um, by then, you know,
I had found cheerleading just yelling, not singing. I thought
(34:04):
high school exactly you when you graduated high school, good student?
You said you have college for a couple of years.
What kind of student were you? Um? Not very present
because I was always working doing what acting? So by then,
at sixteen, you know I did the Brady Bunch. I
didn't know that, yes, I got my screen actor's car.
(34:26):
I did not know that, yes, Bobby, would you like
me to do the cheer for you? Because? Okay, so
what role cher Pat Conway with? Who? With Greg and Marcia? Okay,
so this was the episode Greg had a girlfriend. She
was running for a cheerleader. Marsha was also running for
a cheerleader. But the girlfriend was kind of using Greg
(34:49):
because he was a judge of the cheerleading competition. And
so when the time came, it was a tie vote
and he was supposed to be the tie brea and
it was going to get him into deep hot water
with his girlfriend. So instead he chose me The cheerleader
who really was a cheerleader in real life. I've seen
(35:10):
every episode pretty much and and I can vaguely remember
that I did not know that was that was Yeah,
That's how I got my Screen Actors Guild card. Was
that show big? Though? When you went by everyone like
Marie McCormick drove a chocolate brown Mercedes onto the Paramount
Studios a lot, you know, like, oh my god. You
(35:32):
know she's driving a brand new and she was only
fifteen and a half. She had her permit, but she
could drive, you know, with an adult in the car.
So she had a Mercedes, which was like, oh, this
is crazy, fifteen year old of the Mercedes, and um,
the producers were the same ones that produced Gilligan's Island
and all the shows that I loved. And during the filming, UM,
(35:53):
Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha on Bewitched, came to the
setence at high so she was also one of my heroes.
I told ye exactly, So you're sixteen and you're working,
are you like, Okay, this is what I'm supposed to do.
I know I have school, but this is what I
really want to focus on. Or was it just there
was so much fun, Like, well, what is it for
(36:13):
a sixteen year old? It was so much fun. And
also it was consistent. At that point. I also had
an agent now, so I got my screen actor skilled,
I get an agent. I'm now doing a ton of commercials.
And I just kept working and working, and I never stopped.
And there was a point where I realized, Oh, my goodness,
I think this is my job. I was going to
(36:34):
college to become a communications major, like graduate high school
though honestly like if oh no, because I I worked.
Oh well, we had a program at high school called
four four, so you could go to school for four
hours and then work part time for four hours. And
so I got them to agree that modeling after school
(36:54):
for four hours and doing auditions for commercials was a job.
And it was because I was constantly going on auditions.
I guess there are so many kids there that act
or in the arts where those programs are probably at
a lot of the different schools because they have to
be yes here, and that would you know that would
happen because there's not a lot of kids doing that.
But that makes a lot of sense. But it's much
(37:15):
more prevalent when you go to universities now too, and
they all have theater departments, film departments, because it's just,
you know, there's a need from more contact, condum content
and people who make the content. So I think that's
not going anywhere. Was there ever a place in your
career early on where you thought, you know, I want
to sing, Oh yeah, but but to do that, I
(37:35):
might actually two steps back, Like did that ever cross
your mind? I really wanted to, And I remember having
a very specific moment that, you know, I had a
job as a ticket taker at this concert venue called
the Universal Amphitheater, and it was an outdoor venue and
everybody came through there in the seventies, so it was
(37:56):
you know, Joni Mitchell, Carol King, James Taylor, Jackson Brown,
Alton John, the Eagles, you know, you name it. They
came through. And I remember sitting on the steps. I
would take the tickets, then they would allow us to
watch the show. And I remember sitting down on the
steps and having this pit in my stomach, like, how
(38:18):
how do you get up there and be a singer?
How do you get to do that? You know, how's
Linda Ronstad up there? How do you find a band?
Do I have to play instrument like it was. It
was like a palpable pit in your stomach, like alonging
and aching a yearning and not knowing how to make
that happen. And back then, if by the time I
(38:41):
started really being becoming established, if you were an actor,
you stayed in the acting lane, If you were a singer,
you stayed in the singing lane. And there really wasn't
crossover or any overlapping that happened. Back then, it was
just that's your that's what you do. And if you
were on Broadway, that was friends. But Broadway people didn't
do film. It's so weird. Now everybody can do everything.
(39:05):
The mid nineties was kind of the first yes, the
first layer of even then it was kind of weird,
like when Jennifer Lopez would do it. Yeah, but now
everybody does everything exactly. I think that's good. I don't
think that we should be limited. Everybody's creative. Creative people
do more than one thing. Did your friends know you
could sing like where you let's say you're back in
the trailer? Did did they know you as read it?
(39:26):
Who could sing really well? But it's also a great actress.
I'm just trying. I'm just finding where Probably no, But
I went to drama school I had. I had done
this small play called Vanity's and the director of that
play said, you seem to be like to be on
the stage. Have you ever had any formal training? And
I'm like, not formal training. No. He said, well, you
(39:46):
should probably go to get some like Shakespeare stage training.
I was like, where do you do that? Like stage?
You mean like a sound stage and paramount, Like I
literally I don't think I've ever even seen a play.
And he said, oh, there's these schools that you can
go to, and he put me in touch with a
woman that had come from this program in London at
(40:07):
the London Academy Music and Dramatic Art. So I applied
and I got in. While I was there, they would
have us do different things to kind of get us
out of our comfort zone, and one of them was
they assigned me to sing this opera thing English English.
It was actually a Rossini opera, but um I had
(40:28):
to sing it as a duet with another woman, and
this woman was an amazing singer, and I thought, I'm
not never gonna be pulling this off. But anyways, I
did it, and I remember one of my teachers came
up to me and said, I didn't know you could sing.
I was like, am I not? Like I am? I
was you call that singing? I don't know, but it
(40:49):
was nice to hear that, you know, In a way,
I'm always curious about people that have done in one
part of their career, one part of their professional life,
massive things, but then they go somewhere else and they
(41:10):
still get really nervous even when things aren't as massive.
And this has happened to me a few times. And
you know, if I'm doing ready or TV and I
switch over and have to do something in an art
that's not the same, and I want to take it
to the opera in you because I would imagine you're
a little nervous when you're singing at the Grand ol Opera.
Even though we could go down every single thing you've
ever done. It would be like, why would you be
(41:31):
nervous at the Grand ol Opery. But my intuition is
that that means enough to you that you would be
really nervous going out there for the first time. You
have no idea. First of all, when you do it
for the first time, they put you in the very
first where every single person, and all the quotes are
(41:52):
up and exactly all the quotes are on the wall,
all the photographs are on the wall. Everybody leaves their
door open, people come by and welcome you. I know
you've heard the expression of rubber legs. I had never
experienced that until doing the Opery. You come off the
(42:15):
stage and it it feels as if your legs are
like noodles, which I think it will be hard for
people to believe. This was my point because again, you've
done some really massive things in our eyes right when
it comes to movies, television, and now you're at the opera,
which is the big deal. Does but you're like, We're like,
(42:36):
it is nervous. The opery is. Everybody knows. Everybody knows
what the opery is. Everybody knows. You stand in that
circle and there is weight and there is power in
that because of all the people who have stood in
that circle for not is it a hundred years, now
hundred years and uh there's history that that comes along
(43:00):
on with that. And we'll talk about this later, but
even in this album of duets, when we were recording it,
I felt that the history of those songs, not just
the moment that the songwriters wrote them, but everything that
came after that, the original singer, all the people who
(43:21):
have covered those songs, the people who have singed the
have sung those songs in their lives, have used them
for different occasions. There's a power to the history of
things like that, even though they may be ephemeral. And
that's what you're experiencing. The first time that I played
the opery, I remember not being able to anybody's face
(43:43):
because the lights. The second time I played the operate,
it wasn't the same because I had experienced and I
wasn't as as nervous, right, But I remember being so
nervous that the lights seemed way too bright and I
can see nobody's face, and I wouldn't even look all
the way into the crowd, and I just was like,
I don't know how this is going, and there are people,
everybody's there. For your first time, I'm getting chills because
you're saying this it's scary already and this and I
(44:05):
at the first time is more of an experience. But
I actually found the second time more enjoyable because I
got to appreciate, yes, the moment and go, Okay, this
is awesome. The first time, it's like, oh my god,
like what is It's like you're questioning why you even
deserve to be here the first time. But then you
have people like Jeanie Seely who comes up and says,
you know, God, we're so happy to have you, thank
(44:26):
you so much for being here. Everybody is so great. Well,
one of the guys, Larry Paxton, played on my first album.
He's in the Opery Band. The Opery Band is so
amazing that you know, literally they got your back. So
there's all of those elements that conspire to make you
feel more comfortable, but no one will ever be able
to not have the rubber legs coming off that stage.
(44:50):
One more question before we get into the album. It
is that you do come to town a decent amount
to write because people say, hey, we wrote with Rated
today or she was in town. But I think you're
only in town of one day now, right, is it
just yes, so and day. I'm kind of like traveling around.
You know what, when you talk about work ethic, like
you come to town, you work, and you get to
work done, and then you go back and you do
(45:10):
other work. But it's like you're dedicated to this, yes
and this is not an easy trip for someone who
has to go to either way. It's true. It's true.
Why because there's love there, and you know what we
do for love, We bend over backwards. We want to
make things happen. I I have a really wonderful community
(45:31):
of friends here, songwriters, artists, people that live here. That
the only regret that I have is that, you know,
we didn't get an apartment here like ten years ago
when I first started coming down. Because now I come
and I look downtown and I'm counting cranes like whoa.
I think the last time I was here, I counted
like twelve or something in the downtown area. It's like
(45:53):
we have a barn back there. If you gets want
to stay there, thank you. But I want to play
so now, because of legal rules, we can only play
up to a certain amount of time of these songs.
So I'm gonna roll through all of the books. I
think this whole is so good. It's such a great
project with Keith Urban Crazy Love here you go. First
(46:19):
of all, obviously a song that makes me think of
different times in my life, of all the different times
I heard the song by different people rights That is
such a wonderful song Why Keith Urban for that song? Specifically,
Keith has one of the greatest voices ever. You know,
there's something about Keith can reinterpret things. And I know
(46:40):
you've seen him in concert. He's an amazing live performer.
But his voice and on on what do we call
it tape? His voice on tape registers and his tone
is so beautiful. I just, I just, I don't know.
I thought of him for that song and never quite
(47:01):
left my mind. You know, it kind of had to
be him with Smokey Robinson Where's the Love? Where I
mean Smokey Robinson. That's just seeing that name. Oh my goodness.
Did you know Smokey Robins? No? No, I hadn't met him,
you know, in passing, didn't really know him. Okay. He
(47:22):
is one of the greatest songwriters and performers of all time.
When you just think of the songs that he has,
tracks of My Tears, Cruising, Uh, Tears of the Clown.
You know, he goes on and on it. He's written
for himself, he's written for others. The other day, Um,
we did Good Morning America together and we sang where
(47:43):
is the Love? Okay? You know you you know when
you do a show like that, you're up at four
in the morning. Guess who's read on time. Smokey Robinson's
a little early. He's there, We do the rehearsal. He's amazing.
It's surreal. That's another moment where you're like, you're looking
at this person who's got these clear green eyes that
you feel you know because of your history with the
(48:06):
music and knowing who he is, looking across from him
and singing to each other. That's like ridiculous. He and
he loved the song. That's the that's the most fun part.
He loved the song because if the artist didn't love
the song, we would go to another choice and say, Okay,
what else here, here's another one that's so cool. Smokey
Robinson is so cool. That's so cool. Willie Nelson slept
(48:29):
sliding away. I mean, Willie, What can I say about Willie?
Listen to everything? Yeah, I mean, I don't know where
to start because I have all these different decades of
my Willie experience, being with with my grandma, with my mom,
having him on my show, being a fan like Blue
(48:49):
Eyes Part of the Right is one of my favorite
top three songs of all time and so again it's
almost like I'm in all of all these people and
I just want to go like, what was it like?
So it's almost like, what was it like to be
able to do was song with Willie Alison? Well? What
I love it? First of all? Surreal? Okay, My amazing
co producer, Matt Rawlings, was he was living in Nashville, UM.
(49:13):
He produced and won Grammys for Willie's Sinatra album My
Way and also the Gershwin album, and he was the
one who knew Willie, so he made the ask to Willie.
But in this album of duets of seventies cover songs,
what we were trying to do or like, what I
thought would be a cool idea, was all right, how
(49:36):
do you make it different? Well, it's duets, but these
songs typically haven't been done as duets. I knew Willie
liked Paul Simon, and I thought, wow, this would be
perhaps a cool song. So we presented Slip Slide in
a way a great song. And now it felt to
me like some interpretation of a woman saying this about
(49:59):
this man, a man saying this about this woman, and
to hear there's so much poignancy in Willie's voice and
when he says something like the nearer your destination, the
more you're slip sliding away, it gives you chills. But
at the same time, I'm like, yeah, well, you're not
going anywhere for a really long time. I love you,
and you're you're here to stay with Jackson Brown. Here
(50:21):
is let it be me. I mean, all these songs
are so good too. It's like it's reminding me of
all the times even slip slide in a way like
I have like even three cover versions of the originals,
like even like an Akung cover version, even like and
all of it's like, I just I love these songs
(50:42):
so much and in many different places. But Jackson Brown
one of the coolest, the coolest, and you know, in
the seventies he was considered like the songwriter's songwriter in
the Eagles documentary, like Don Henley and Glenn Fry are
looking over there like Jackson lived below us, and you
know we'd be like upstairs party and Jackson would be
down there writing and writing and we'd be hearing in
(51:03):
the song would be getting better and better. And he
is like that. And you know, there's a cool book
called rock Me on the Water, which is about nineteen
seventy four, this year of music and politics and TV
and film. And there's a quote in there by Jackson
that he talked about never hanging out at the Troubadoor.
Troubador was our great local club, because he said, I
(51:25):
knew that if I was at the Troubadoor, I wasn't
at home writing music. That's how dedicated he was as
a songwriter. He's an incredible person. With Leslie Odom Jr. Massachusetts,
(51:47):
what are you saying? He's like butter his voice it's
just so like it literally melts you. Um an incredible talent.
I had met him only once when I had seen
Hamilton's on day three of previews. You know, that's before
the show is even open. They're still kind of tweaking it.
(52:08):
And he opened his mouth to sing as Aaron Burr
in that musical, and I couldn't take my eyes off
of him. And I couldn't take my ears off of him.
He was just incredible. You know, he's he's a wonderful actor,
a wonderful singer, songwriter. Did you get a point where
you're like, I can't believe everybody's saying yes, I can't
believe all these people are saying yes, because it's like
(52:28):
the coolest group of people I've ever seen all together.
And I'm not even I'm just basically halfway through it
right now. I felt like there was something that was
fortuitous for us, and that was that we were in
year two of the pandemic, and I think people still
were not touring and people were home, and when the project,
you know, the idea was pitched to them, I think
(52:50):
they could respond because it was songs that they knew,
songs they could just relate to and connect to. And
I think we got lucky in that way. To you,
one of the ones I was really struck by the
first time I heard it because I love Elvis Costello.
I love I love it. He's so good, He's so good.
Here's Fire. And maybe it's I love Els Costello. Maybe
(53:15):
it's the tone of the guitar, you know. Yeah, I
think that Elvis played on played guitar and some of that,
and I think that is either Dave Levita or Dean
Parks on that solo, which is, you know, two incredible guitarists.
And the sounds great too. I mean, Forever you Fire,
I mean it's that's there's just one thing that Elvis
does which I think is so amazing. And that song
(53:37):
was written by Bruce Springsteen, and the Pointer Sisters made
it famous. But Bruce had actually written it for Elvis
Presley and he sent it. He doesn't know if Elvis
ever heard the song, because Elvis died and then a
guy called Robert Gordon cut it. I don't know if
the Pointer Sisters heard that version or if they heard
(54:00):
a demo, but whatever, they were the ones that made
it famous. But there is a a part in this
song that Elvis Costello sings. When he sings and when
we Kiss Fire, he draws out kiss as if there
is so much frustration and angst, like if he doesn't
get to kiss this woman, he's gonna go bananas. And
(54:20):
then the fire is like this big exclamation point. You know.
I just loved his take on that. Here's our buddy
Tim McGraw on if Much Stop Yeah, oh yeah. By
the way, you know, Tim is like an encyclopedic jukebox.
(54:43):
He's his own, you know, I pod of music. When
it comes to the seventies, he knows so much and
he often does seventies songs as sort of like a
pre stage sort of, you know, let's get together in
the sing before we go on. And I had never
heard him sing like this, but he was a bread fan,
so I love that he picked this song. We mentioned
(55:05):
Jimmy earlier and here is I'll be there. I mean
the Michael Jackson Jackson five just look up on my shoulder.
Jimmy is able to do that as a mature man.
Or it doesn't sound creepy, it doesn't sound like it's
like purely derivative of Michael, but it's still like you go,
(55:26):
oh yeah, you can't even hear Michael doing it. Just
wear my show exactly. And I was like, I was
glad that he kept that in because I don't know,
you know, you don't know if that's an improv when
the Jackson's did it, or if it was if it
was something that was written. But I love that he
left that in there. You know, he's an amazing singer.
(55:48):
And he told me once said he came to Nashville,
he was in When he was in l A, they
said you're two country, and then when he came to Nashville,
he was starting to hear a year two pop. He
is the perfect combination. I think he's defined his sounds
so beautifully and he does it so well, and I'm
so thrilled with all the success that he has had
(56:10):
because he's so deserves that. He's an amazing human. Even
in that it doesn't even feel forced, No, because again,
like you said, was that just them in private? And
I just just add living all the way, you know,
through the song and just and he does that, but
it doesn't sound like he's trying to force it just
for the sake of it. And that really struck me
the first time. Exact Vince Gill without you, I mean,
(56:37):
Vince Gil the hardest person to cover in the whole world,
because he sings like an angel and and at a
at a high, very high. He takes you to have
him for a little visit when you sing with him.
Haven't Josh Groban too? I mean one thing about Vince
that I love and we were like, okay, here here
are the songs he had been on my first album.
(56:57):
He's saying harmonies on Faithless Love. And that album was
called MFM Cover Songs also, and I didn't know him.
When you know, um Fred Mullins my producer that first
Albu I'm asked um Vince to do the song when
I asked him about this album and I said, look Um,
(57:20):
is there a song that you love? I have some
ideas and he said, without you and I love the
song that was his was his suggestions because he said
he would sing that song with his family girls, And yeah, Amy,
it was very cool. The last track speaking of People
to Take You to Heaven Josh Grobe and here songbirds
(57:49):
and vocally Vince and Josh they don't sing anywhere near
each other, but all that just kind of works together.
Those two tracks. I listen to them together. I was like,
and I don't know why you put them in nine
and ten. Maybe it was songs maybe, but I really
liked I don't want to say juxtaposition, but yeah, it
still felt like that, like the perfect combination of songs
beside each other with you and those two I love that,
(58:10):
you know, I think it's important to how youse sequence
an album. I still listen to albums when my friends
or any any album comes out that I'm interested in.
I listened to it from start to finish, and when
sitting I feel like that's what the artists made the
record for, and you know, they're telling a story and
so this was really about these conversations of love and
(58:31):
uh uh. Songbird to me felt like a good ending
because it feels like vows people might be saying to
each other, if you really love someone, you know, I'll
do this for you. You know, I got your back
sort of thing. The album Rita Wilson Now and forever, duets.
Go stream it, go download it, go buy it. People
(58:51):
still buy CDs sometimes, do you know. I'll tell you.
I was with a couple of my nieces last night
and even yesterday. They're from Los Angeles and they him
and they love country music. So I took him to
the Operay and took them all backstage. And I can
do the tour myself now because I just I'm there
so often. I take them all around. And I said, hey,
we have some CDs are like c d s, and
(59:11):
I was like, you know what, never mind, We're gonna
move on. So but it's up. The album is wonderful,
It really is. One of Rita will also be making
a return to New York City's Cafe Carlisle for a
special two week residency October twenty November five. For a ticket,
go to at Rita Wilson which is your your Instagram
social it's all up there. It's it's really great. It
(59:34):
really is really great. I enjoyed sometimes, and I'll be
honest with you, I don't enjoy having to listen to
things if I don't enjoy them before I meet with somebody. Luckily,
I'd already listened to some of yours because I have
friends that were kind of bragging about it. But it's wonderful.
It's wonderful. Um. The final question I have for you
is one of the people on my show they were
at the at c m A Fest and you were
at c m A Fest and they were just sitting
(59:56):
at a random place and they ranted you and your
husband sitting in the random normal people see eats. And
they were like, why would they be sitting in the
random normal people's seats? Where would we be otherwise when
we were at Keith's show. Maybe, yeah, we were at
Keith's show att yeah, But but my point is, what
do you mean where you would you be? You would
be in the fancy where people can't bother you, like
(01:00:17):
with the wine and the champagne and fruit. Fruit. That's
not really getting the experiences it though. Like, by the way,
we've done that and it's great. But if you really
want to get an experience of being like at the show,
you got to be at the show. She was shocked.
She was like, she just came across you guys sitting
with the people, and she was like, nobody was bothering
them because nobody thought that was really them sitting with
(01:00:39):
the people. It was like seeing Jerry Seinfeld at a
gas station in Mississippi. You're like, there's no way that's
really him. So I ain't even gonna try to talk
to that person. Did that happen to you know? But
that's like my analogy of like you just go super
unletted by the way, Well, I do believe that, So
you guys do that, you will go listen. Don't forget
(01:00:59):
I was a ticket taker at a concert me. I
used to sit on the steps and watch the concerts.
That's how you get the show. Well, this has been
a real treat for me. We've done over an hour.
Oh my god, this has been a real treat for me.
I had no idea you were going to get me
to cry, like a little bit of timing. Baby. Uh,
you're very generous with this interview, So thank you. Very much.
(01:01:22):
I appreciate your passion and all aspects. I appreciate your parents.
Thank you, Thank you so do I I mean, I
think of all of this. I mean that to resonate
so hard with me about your parents and how much
they loved you, and how much they loved it here,
and how hard they fought to get here they did.
God bless the meta, God bless Dad's You guys, follow
(01:01:42):
read to get tickets, strained the album at Rida Wilson,
and read a real pleasure. Thank you, Thank you, Bobby,
Episode three eight with Rita Wilson. I'll tell you, Mike,
I didn't know what to expect. H I figured it
should be nice. I didn't know what to expect with
this interview. She's awesome. Yeah, like you're just like, dang,
don't don't go back to California to stay here and
be our friend. She has a new album called Rita
Wilson Now and Forever Duets. And you know, also, you
(00:24):
never know where people want to go if they're talking
about specifically we're talking about music, right, and the fact
that she was like, yeah, my first thing was on
The Redy Bunch. She's talked about being on the episode.
I just really enjoyed the interview. Yeah, And so I
had met her briefly once before because we have mutual friends.
And I never want to bother the stars, and so,
(00:45):
because you know what, the stars aren't like us, regardless
of what you read, they're not. They're no, they're often busy,
and they're cooler, and so I don't want to bother her.
But it turns out they're a lot like us, because
she's really nice. So, I mean, Rita Wilson has starred
in so many movies Sleepless in Seattle, Mixed Nuts Now
and then Runaway Bride. It's complicated. She You know. One
(01:05):
of the things that I will do is I will,
in the middle of an interview sometimes tell a story
that I think might somehow resonate with the person I'm interviewing,
where they relate to it in a way. It would
be a quick one. And it's not really a technique
that people recommend because it's me telling a little story
in the middle of an interview with someone else. But
I often can tell a story and if someone reacts
to it, and that's all I'm looking for a reaction,
(01:26):
and I can see what part they react to, and
I know they got something to say. And so when
we start talking about her parents, this is for me
the best part of the whole interview. And sometimes people like, yeah,
parents were good, this is tough for it's easy, or
mom's gone down, who knows, But this was like a
real deal. I just wanted to I could have done
(01:50):
an hour on just that. It's really good. So she
does it all, you know. Again, she has a new album.
We'll talk about it, will play some of it. Obviously,
She's acted in many things. Um, she's I know they
have kids, right and they have yeah, yeah kids, Mary
to Tom Hanks. She's got a million Instagram followers and
(02:11):
she's a really cool person. So I hope you enjoyed
this with Rita Wilson. You and I met. I was
trying to think too. It was an event after something.
It was after the c m A S and it
was at the Marriott Hotel. In the after party, there
were big donuts on a wall, like, that's what I
remember about that in order no offense, big donuts, Rita.
(02:35):
That's about that night. One would say that I've got
a lot of holes in my head, so maybe that's appropriate.
Um No, and you had either just one Dancing with
the Stars or you were in the finals. I can't
remember exactly, but yeah, I was about to do the finals, yes,
and I was exhausted and I was like, why am
I doing this? It's funny you remember that. I do
(02:55):
remember so because I love the show, and I watched
the show. You watch the show? Oh I do? I do?
And now it's gone to streaming, so I'm gonna have to,
you know, set it up on that. But um, could
you do that? Could you dance like that? Can you dance.
Oh heck no, I someone that has every performance skill.
You can't dance. You have every performance skill acting and
(03:16):
comedy and drama. I got we my wife and are
watching Curb Enthusiasm, and then the other night we just
go through and watch random episodes and there you are
and you're crushing and I'm like, what does she not do?
So you're telling me you can't. I don't believe it. Now,
you can be humble, but I don't believe it. Though
I have danced. I have danced, but I'm not what
(03:40):
you would call a dancer. Like any anything that I do,
I have to rehearse a lot. I can't just show
up and be like, Okay, look at me. You know
I'm I'm well. I do that a lot without rehearsing.
Down it's always yes, No, I love it. I love
moving and And the thing is, it's like anything like that,
(04:01):
like dancing, even if you're just dancing at a party
or something. You can't be in a bad mood when
you're dancing because the endorphins just kick in and you're
so happy. I would challenge that, actually, it isn't a
bad mood. Every time I danced, like I can't do
what am I doing. I know I'm terrible, and yet
you one only because the people. That's I mean, really
that's the people. It's very much our culture. The people
(04:23):
like you. They celebrate you, and they lift you. And
then once they lift you, they like to knock you
down and like to lift your back up like a
yo yo. It's like bad mitten kind of goes up,
it comes down slow, and it's at least expect that
we have a mutual friend. I assume you're Christian. Are
still friends? Christian chan Well hard to Christian Bush. Oh,
(04:45):
Christian Bush one of the greatest human beings at that time. Yeah. Literally,
I got to go on tour with him, and he
is and I've written songs with him. One of my
favorite songs I wrote with him and Liz Rose and um,
he's just an amaze human being. The best I'm saying
for me. We've written together when I was doing one
of my comedy projects and Christian writes like a mad scientist.
(05:07):
I don't know what how it was with you, but
I was like, I have this idea for a song.
He was like an iPad that goes like a four
stringed instrument with like the tail of a raccoon coming
out on the top of it, and all of a sudden,
he's got a click in the clock and he's like, okay,
I got He's all over the place and I'm like,
what is that? Beakers? He's pour water into beakers. That
steam is coming over the things. That's different colors. But
you know what, he was a poetry major in college
(05:30):
at Emory, and he thinks like that. He thinks in words.
One time we were writing a song together called I'm guilty,
Guilty of loving you. You know, I was like, sorry,
I'm busted. Yes, I love you. And the writing assignment
this was when I was first starting a songwriting and
he said, Okay, this is the idea, and I want
you to go away and I want you to list
(05:51):
all of the things that you very specifically love about someone.
What do you mean, go away like from the room? Yeah, not,
might just leave for a month, might take a second,
and yeah, exactly take a moment. And it was so
much fun because what he was I think teaching me
was you have to it has to be specific to you,
(06:11):
it has to be authentic to you. And that was
a really great lesson. But he is also one of
the greatest musicians to work with and play within. So
is his band Brandon, his other Benjie Shanks. Like they're
just amazing guys. What's what's remarkable about Christian and Brandon
is that just being around them actually spawns even great
(06:32):
artists and people. We had a girl who was up
here a few weeks ago who is really like catching
on right now. She's probably twenty years old. We were
talking to her. She was like, Yeah, I was an
intern in Atlanta for Brandon, a Christian like just and
like just being around that. You see in the NFL
two around great head coaches, a ground around great directors,
Like sometimes you just pick up stuff. You totally pick
(06:55):
up stuff. Just by being around greatness and seeing work
ethic and seeing how they do it. Work ethic is
so huge. At least for me, I really appreciate that.
I'm always impressed by that, you know, like coming down
here and writing in Nashville, when you write, you have
these two sessions, write a morning session in an afternoon session,
and it when I first came down, it was intimidating
(07:17):
because people were so excellent at what they did, their craftsmanship,
their facility, and by facility. I mean that they were
literally flexible, fascile. It could go in any direction you
wanted to go. And I learned a lot from that,
and I really admire that and respect that because I'm
(07:38):
like that, you know if you if you show up
late on a set, you are in big trouble. Like
they don't like that. So I love that everybody showed
up on time. I'm a very punctual person, So you
are I might have been here early today, not that
I'm surprised that you are. But I will say this,
and I'm not going to say any names, but anytime
(07:58):
that I'm working on a television project in California, and
I did many seasons on certain shows there are people
will be two or three hours late, and it was
like the bigger star you and this this is off,
this is off my conversation, and the bigger star you are.
They felt like the later they could be, and they
would be two or three sometimes four hours late, and
(08:18):
but who am I? I'm like, no, that's wrong. I'm
not top of the call sheets. I'm down a couple
of spots, and so what am I do? You just
wait around? And I was like, man, this is not
the environment that I am comfortable being. I know I
don't like that at all. I have not experienced that,
like what you're describing. That would never fly on anything
I'm working on. And I just thought, well, I guess
(08:40):
this is California l a culture, because in Nashville it's
it's like the red You show up on time and
because other people have showed up on time and you
owe them that respect, that's right. But so you're telling
me everybody in Los Angeles just sadn't pick when they
come to work. I've never know. I have never experienced that,
but I know that if that happens, If that happens,
it should not fly. So I don't know what we're
(09:02):
going to talk off, Mike. I gotta get the beats.
I do want to get to the album in a second.
And how you landed all these amazing artists or how
they landed on your album. I mean, both are really
cool things to even for like Jimmy, like he was
super pumped to be on the Amazing Jimmy Um because
I had done He had called and asked me to
do something on Betty James and we did a song
(09:23):
called when This Is Over with Torn Wells and the
Oak Ridge Boys, and I was so, uh, you know,
thrilled that he asked me because I didn't know him
at that time. He also did dancing when the start did.
I talked to him a lot through it. Yes, I
went down to see him because he was so good.
It was so exhilarating to watch him, met his mom
and his uncle. Was really very fun. Anyway, So when uh,
(09:48):
we were going through the process of selecting songs, the
one that I had in my mind for Jimmy was
the one that he literally came out of his mouth.
I said, you know, I have a couple of songs
I want to, you know, run by you and he
said yes, and I said okay, and he said I'll
be there and I was like, oh my gosh, Jimmy,
(10:10):
I love that song so much. Yes, that's the one
I was thinking of, let's do it. So he's great.
He's great, the great you guys did that song wonderfully together.
And we'll walk to the whole project in a second,
because really some I just a great list of talent
and you included it is all on this project. I
do want to go back, though, because I'm curious about
kind of your roots and even what it was like
(10:33):
growing up, Like how people turn out the way they
are right, Like I I love this. You know, I
grew up a trailer park, and I think a lot
of that influenced how where I am and at what
I do now, Like no doubt about it. When I
was five, A lot of that stuff that happened to
me still buried deep down, still exists exactly. So what
was your house? Like it's seven years old, who's there?
(10:54):
Where do you live? That is such a great question. Well,
I'm a first generation American. My mom was Greek and
my dad was Bulgarian, and they both had to escape
their various countries because during World War Two, my mom's
village was on the border of Greece and Albania, and
as things got tough, they knew they had to leave.
(11:15):
So my mom had cross over these mountains by herself
in the middle of the night to get into Greece,
to get to Athens to eventually restore her American passport
because she was born in America. How old was she
when when she had to do that. She was a
nineteen when she left by herself, just with this backpack.
I call it a backpack, but it was something on
(11:36):
her back that carried this sterling silver flatwear that they
had brought from New York. Did you ever talk to
her about that, like what was going through her mind? Like, oh, yeah,
when she made that decision where Because that's a hard decision,
even if you know you have to do it, it's
a hard decision to go, Okay, now I have to go. Well,
the harder decision was that her parents, sorry, her mother
was there because her dad had died when they went
(11:58):
there on a vacation four years old, just a village
visit the village and um, so her mother was a
widow with four kids at a very young age, and
they were supposed to leave all together, but they got
word that there was going to be a letter coming.
And they knew in this small village that if somebody
(12:19):
came to deliver a letter and no one was there
to receive it, that's unusual where they go, you know,
where everybody is. So my mom offered to stay back
to get the letter so that she could the family
could go ahead of her, and then there would be
no suspicion arouse, like cover exactly. And then my dad,
(12:39):
he Um was born in Greece and raised in Bulgaria.
And oh my god, his story is so I don't
know how much time we have. Okay, it's it's who
I am. It's exactly who I am. And we'll lead
back to Christian Bush in a second. Um, but he
wanted he it's so sad. But he met a woman,
(13:03):
he had a baby, and um, they were married, had
a baby, and on December the baby died, and on December, sorry,
on a December twenty the baby was born. On December
the mother died, his wife, and four months later the
baby died. His name was Emil. I didn't know this
(13:23):
at all. I did that show Who Do You Think
You Are? And all of this came out. My dad
never told me that. So he tried to escape Bulgaria.
I think just out of sheer unhappiness. And my dad
really loved the idea of America. So tries to escape,
gets caught, goes They say him, if you try to
(13:44):
escape again, we're going to make you an enemy of
the state. We're gonna put you in jail. He does
it again. He gets caught and they put him in
a labor camp. And this labor camp was one of
the most severe labor camps that that at the time
communist labor camp. He gets a job. It's a coal
sort of mining labor camp, and he notices that at
(14:06):
the night shift there are these trains that come in
and they pick up amounts of coal and they take
them away. It's suspenful and I'm nervous watching the movie
and I know it's not real, but this is a
story about your dad. Yes, and he um he He
bribes one of the guards with a carton of cigarettes
that I guess somebody gave him as a gift on
(14:28):
visiting day. And uh. He wanted to work the night
shift because he knew if he worked the night shift
he had a plan. So he sees the trains come
in he's working the night shift. He says, hey, can
we go down and get some more firewood for the
um fire. They were on a break. It's like two
in the morning, and the guard says, yeah sure. He says,
(14:49):
can I take Richard with me, because you know, easier
to bring more wood back, and goes yeah, sure. So
they go down there and they slotted themselves between the
trains where they couldn't be seen, and they started running
twenty minutes later they figured it out. He could hear
the dogs barking, and they just ran and ran and
ran and ran. Eventually got away, made their way to Turkey.
(15:14):
I'm trying to make it very slow quick. You don't
have to make it quick. Got on a boat. That
was my dad got a job on a freighter boat
shoveling coal and made his way to Philadelphia and jumped
the ship. But what he did was he took Richard
with him as a stowaway because there was no work
for Richard, and so he was stowed away in the
(15:35):
basically the engine room. And Richard and my dad made
it to America, and Richard went on to New zealand
became a very very successful um businessman. Yeah, and so
here's the thing about that is that I felt like,
when you said, what's it like, it's seven years old,
I was keenly aware of how luck he my parents
(16:01):
felt that they were, and they always said things like
my dad was always good, bless America every single day.
And I felt like, I'm really lucky I live in America,
you know. I was really proud, and uh, he never
took that for granted. And Christian and I wrote a
song because I thought to myself, I wonder if courage
(16:21):
is handed down, does courage get handed down? Do we
learn that from somewhere? Do people do people? Can they
do it? And I thought we wrote a song called
heart he handed down Christian Bush and I because I
really thought it was from my children, from my my
kids like to say this, this guy lives in you.
You know, he's I'd like to ask a couple of
(16:42):
questions about your dad, if that's okay, because holy, holy moly,
the fact that he first tried to escape right just
to just to try to leave for a better life,
a lot of bravery there. He got caught. I probably like,
you know what, I'm good. I'm good. I don't want
to I don't want to go jail. I don't want
to be labeled a terrorists, basically is what they said
to him. He does it, he and gets caught again. Okay.
(17:06):
So now though, if they would have caught him a
third time trying to leave labor camp, oh, he would
have been shot and killed. I would have killed him, absolutely.
And when I went back to do that program, they
took me to the you know, Hall of Records. Let's say,
from the Bulgarian government and he was listed as an
enemy of the state. He had a number. If they
ever caught him, he would have been put in jail
(17:27):
for life. Who knows what else. The other thing I
wanted to go back to is so his first son,
Emil was born in December. Well, my sister, her daughter,
firstborn daughter, was born in December, and my youngest son, Truman,
is born on December. And I thought all those birthdays
(17:48):
that my dad on December he was celebrating his grandchildren
and also his son. He was there to see them. Yes, yes,
he died when he was eighty nine. My mom died
when she was ninety three. That also is they lived
to be a wonderfully old age. Yes, all of that.
(18:13):
And when I asked what you were like at seven,
and I can move to thirteen now because I see
the picture of your parents and it's it's it's a
vague picture, but it's a strong picture, right, Like I
would assume that the values they taught you, even maybe
not always purposeful, but just because it was instilled in them,
was like we don't stop like we if it's something
(18:36):
we're passionate about, that's what we value. That's what we
asked some value were just so big in your house,
you know, it was huge. Like my dad was a bartender.
My mom didn't work, and my parents were not educated,
but they were very intelligent and they had enormous character,
and uh it was it was really fun because my
mom also, you know, she did everything she could so cook,
(18:59):
she made our curtains, are bedspreads, are clothes. Like if
I went shopping for a pair of jeans, I'd be like, oh,
these are cute, and she's like, I can make those.
I'm like, no, Mom, I want a pair of jeans.
What jeans I can buy in a store? Okay? Um?
But I I really learned that value of hard work
because I saw how hard my dad worked, and because
(19:21):
he would get tips, he'd bring the tips home and
he would bring them home and you know those purple
felt bags from Crown Royal bottles exactly, he would bring
his tips home in that the coins. We on Saturday mornings,
we'd take them all out, separate out the nickels, the dimes,
the quarters, the pennies, put him in the little paper
(19:41):
rolls that you know you take to the bank right
the account number on and take them that way and
I thought to myself, Oh my god, Like he raised
a family of three in Hollywood, never had debt, and
I didn't even get a credit card until I was
seventeen because I was like, Dad, I can't get a
credit card unless you get a at a card, So
can you please get one so that I can have
(20:03):
one on your account? And and I think that's amazing
because you probably can't do that nowadays. You know, that's
why you're never late. I mean, I mean that's why.
And we laugh, we honestly we laugh. But that's probably like,
deep down in your guts, that's like, I'm not late
because I need to respect the other people that are
showing up on time because my parents taught me. Like,
(20:26):
that's a really amazing comeback to that part of the
conversation here where you're like, yeah, I'm not late. You
know why you're not late even though you're a big star,
because your parents have been still this in you and
it's still sitting with you today that it's so cool.
That's that's very very nice to think of that way. Yeah,
they were just really good people. And I think having
(20:46):
parents that um were immigrants and had accents and things
like that, I remember absolutely feeling like people sort of
treated them differently, and I don't mean that in a
positive way, because they just assumed that they weren't smart
or or not American in that sense, born in America,
(21:09):
and um, there was something about that I think that
allowed it in a way, it teaches you empathy because
I knew, like, these people are awesome. My parents are
fantastic people, even though somebody may not be treating them
that way. So you kind of connect to that in
a way. So seven years old, I was a really
(21:31):
happy kid and um and very you know, like it
was just a very typical child. Even though it was Hollywood, California,
it was still very typical. Could have been any town, USA.
To the final questions about your your parents, when do
(21:53):
you think that they were the most proud of you?
I think they were always proud of me. You know.
My parents offered me an incredible foundation of a home
base so that I could go off and try different things,
and they never stopped me from doing that. They never
said no, that's scary, we don't want you to act,
or and that's weird. You know. They definitely wanted me
(22:16):
to go to college, which I did for about two
years and just kept working and I couldn't stay in school.
But um, they were they were just I think they
were always proud and and they never held me back
from from pursuing anything. So most proud of I don't know.
(22:36):
Probably do you think the pride was because you worked hard?
I mean, just to boil it all down, do you
think the pride wasn't because of some award or job
or accomplishment. It was just because you were consistent and
worked hard, and it's something that they did. I think so.
I think in a way yes, because I think you
can recognize that in your children, you know, and my
(22:57):
brother and sister also worked hard. But I think they
they recognized that we would be okay, Like you know,
all parents want their kids to grow up and be okay.
You know, you're gonna be able to work, have a
roof over your head, that sort of thing. So I
think they were proud that we were um, functioning human beings.
And I'm gonna flip it, now, when were you the
(23:18):
most proud that they were your parents? Oh? Oh my god,
Oh if I tell this story, I'm going to totally cry.
It's safe space here. You couldn't be in a safer space. Okay,
I'll tell this story. Oh my god, this is this
is I'm gonna try to tell him without crying. I
(23:42):
was about twenty three, and I was always incredibly proud
of my parents. But I was dating somebody who was
like from a wealthier family or something. And we went
on a double date with his best friend and the
girl that that guy was dating, and I was intimidated.
(24:05):
You know, they were definitely in a different economic strata
than you know, I was raised in. And the girl
asked me, well, my dad did for a living, And
I said, my dad's a bartender, And she said, why
do you say it like that, because I must have
just like kind of made a face or something like
(24:26):
and she said, my dad died. I would give anything
to have my dad here. And from that point on
everything changed because I was proud of my parents, and
(24:47):
I from that point on, I never ever hesitated or
wavered in being proud of my parents and being proud
of my dad and what he did for a living,
because those values and what he gave me so much
more valuable than anything else that the world could have
given me. The way to go, Bobby, I never ever
(25:12):
got to meet him your parents, Well, they're here in
the room right now. They're amazing. I appreciate your generosity
with with sharing that about who you are, because that
is a lot of who you are. Thank you. But
I can't believe you asked that question, because like after that,
I really had never been prouder. I mean it was
(25:33):
almost like, what did your dad do for a living?
My dad is a bartender and he has raised a
family of three without any debt, without hurting anybody, without
doing anything shady. He's just a good guy that how
can you not be proud of that? I can see
too that you'll go into a songwriting room just from
(25:56):
this conversation here and be extremely vulnerable. And I think
that's the first and hardest wall to break down for
anybody that's trying to get to that level of songwriting
that feels pure and authentic, because a lot of people
can rhyme words and write a decent melody, and there's
a lot of people in this town, a lot of
these rooms that can do it even with you. But
(26:17):
to be able to break down those walls and share
stories like that in a room with two people with
three people and go this is me, how do we
make this into something that like you did it here
with me and we only met once before. It's the
right question. You know that that is a I can
see that as vulnerable as you're being right now, it's
(26:38):
a place that that you still go with confidence, like
you were proud to tell that story. You knew it
was gonna make you emotional. Do you ever, because I
feel like, you know, shame is such a powerful thing
and so many people deal with that, and and what
I feel shame is in some ways is just a
barrier to the vulnerability because you're trying to avoid it
(27:02):
in some ways, and uh, if you can, I felt like,
you know, if you can eliminate that, then just get
to get to the truth. Ah. I've been very lucky
in that. Um the songwriters that the very first songwriter,
the person who told me I should be writing a
song as Karada Gordy and Kara asked this one very
(27:26):
simple question. I said, I can't be a songwriter. I
you know, don't play music and read music or playing instrument.
She goes, neither do I Do you have something you
want to say? And when she said that, I was like,
wait a minute, is that part of like is that
part of it. She said, I'm going to write your
first two songs with you so she could show me
the process, and she did, and I was I wrote
(27:50):
that song was called Grateful, with Jason Reeves and Karada Gordy,
and that showed me, Oh, okay, oh I oh, I
see how this can work. And then all of a sudden,
it's like a cascade of ideas and feelings and thoughts,
and you know, it's one of the most satisfying experiences
that I've ever been, you know, lucky enough to to do.
(28:14):
I never thought it would happen. And in the feelings
because I've written a couple of books, and the feelings
from writing books are even doing a five hour radio
show everywhere I'm talking about things happening to me in
my personal life and different struggles and highlights and the
hard things to talk about. They're never not hard, but
you understand that almost the harder, more vulnerable you are,
(28:35):
the more people and you can get, even yourself, the
more you can actually get from it. So you realize
also after a few times of feeling unsafe and it
ends up not being death right, You're like, Okay, I
can go back and feel that way again and not
have to worry about dying, which I worked. And so
have you felt that in songwriting where you're you're able
to get vulnerable quicker now because and it's always it
(28:56):
doesn't feel good, but you understand it's okay. Yes, not
being taken care of by the people. Yes, And we're
doing something for a reason that's right. And and I
feel again, if people are there writing to write with
me and I'm there to write with them, we have
to be in that space. Uh. And and it's just
(29:17):
almost like a requirement. This is a required behavior for
a long writing session. And you know sometimes sometimes you
don't get there all the time. But um, it's definitely
a good starting point. Why Nashville, Why country music? I mean,
just just a general vague question because I don't know
the answer to it. I know you love it. I
(29:38):
have friends of mine to love you and say she's
legitimate and that her it's her care and her passion.
But I don't know why. All right, I'll tell you.
When I was growing up, we had just AM radio, Okay,
so all those genres were on there. So you're hearing
R and B and soul and pop and country, and
you know, and from forever away because I am radio
(29:59):
traveled all way across the county exactly. It was everywhere.
So all these genres are coming at you every single day,
and for me, it really was storytelling and I would
imagine things. I would imagine the scenarios. And the first
song that I absolutely thought I want to sing this song,
like stand up and sing this song was owed to
(30:21):
Billy Joe by Bobby Gentry. It was just it was
just this girl had something to say here. You know,
there was a story. So I knew Johnny Cash because
of a boy called Sue. I knew Dolly Parton, I
knew um Loretta Lynn, May she rest in peace? Tell
(30:42):
me why Net All those people were coming through the radio.
So g D. C Riley, Harper Valley p t a
huge and things crossed over back then. So when I
started writing with Kara, we wrote we were writing in
l a Um. She suggested Nashville, and Kristin Chenowith suggested Nashville.
(31:07):
She said, you at the time she was living no
she was living in l a at the time, and
she said, you were going to love it down there,
Go down there. And I had a manager at the
time that was based in Nashville. So I started coming
down and they started setting up rights, and I realized
this is exactly like, this is the storytelling capital of
(31:30):
the world. And when you come to a place where
songwriting is revered and music is revered, it's called music
city for a reason. You understand the that it's valued here,
and that I think is why, you know, I came
down here and started it. But also people were very
(31:51):
open and very receptive, which I I am so thankful for.
Why would they have accepted me as oh yeah, okay,
you know, some chick from Hollywood wants to come down
here and write music. But it was for me, it
was beyond that. It was sort of like what I
always really wanted to do. Like when you think of
(32:12):
something you love to do when you when you were
a kid, by the way, did you have anything like
that that you love to do when you were a kids?
Be on a stage, you know, find there you go. Yeah,
it was you're probably entertaining your friends. Yeah, mine was singing.
It was like, I want to get up and sing.
Were you a good singer as a kid? I have
no idea, no idea as a kid in front of
(32:34):
more than five people like you ever. No, no, no,
never like that. Never. I'm just kidding. No. I would
do school plays and things like that, singing. Oh my god,
you're reminding me. Duh. I sang in a church singing
groom called the Way Home, and we sang songs like uh,
(32:56):
Bridge over Troubled Water, Yes, and we sing it. You know,
it was a quiet We were like maybe we were
a singing group. Those boys and girls. We're thirteen, fourteen
years old. We were patchwork skirts and white blasses. I
have not thought of this in a while. Clearly, I'm like, oh, yeah,
I was singing in front of more than twenty five people,
(33:18):
that is right. Um, did you get a solo? No,
we nobody had solos. It was just sort of like
the church leader played guitar and we were like, you know,
a wholesome patchwork. What did the boys were. I think
they were like brown chords? And did you find fulfillment
as a kid in this group where you like, this
is what I'm supposed to be doing. But like there
(33:41):
was the early stages of that. I totally loved it.
I was obsessed with it. And then that was in
junior high and which we now call middle school, but
then when I went to high school, it there wasn't
anything like that that continued on, like the church group,
singing group didn't continue on. And um, by then, you know,
I had found cheerleading just yelling, not singing. I thought
(34:04):
high school exactly you when you graduated high school, good student?
You said you have college for a couple of years.
What kind of student were you? Um? Not very present
because I was always working doing what acting? So by then,
at sixteen, you know I did the Brady Bunch. I
didn't know that, yes, I got my screen actor's car.
(34:26):
I did not know that, yes, Bobby, would you like
me to do the cheer for you? Because? Okay, so
what role cher Pat Conway with? Who? With Greg and Marcia? Okay,
so this was the episode Greg had a girlfriend. She
was running for a cheerleader. Marsha was also running for
a cheerleader. But the girlfriend was kind of using Greg
(34:49):
because he was a judge of the cheerleading competition. And
so when the time came, it was a tie vote
and he was supposed to be the tie brea and
it was going to get him into deep hot water
with his girlfriend. So instead he chose me The cheerleader
who really was a cheerleader in real life. I've seen
(35:10):
every episode pretty much and and I can vaguely remember
that I did not know that was that was Yeah,
That's how I got my Screen Actors Guild card. Was
that show big? Though? When you went by everyone like
Marie McCormick drove a chocolate brown Mercedes onto the Paramount
Studios a lot, you know, like, oh my god. You
(35:32):
know she's driving a brand new and she was only
fifteen and a half. She had her permit, but she
could drive, you know, with an adult in the car.
So she had a Mercedes, which was like, oh, this
is crazy, fifteen year old of the Mercedes, and um,
the producers were the same ones that produced Gilligan's Island
and all the shows that I loved. And during the filming, UM,
(35:53):
Elizabeth Montgomery, who played Samantha on Bewitched, came to the
setence at high so she was also one of my heroes.
I told ye exactly, So you're sixteen and you're working,
are you like, Okay, this is what I'm supposed to do.
I know I have school, but this is what I
really want to focus on. Or was it just there
was so much fun, Like, well, what is it for
(36:13):
a sixteen year old? It was so much fun. And
also it was consistent. At that point. I also had
an agent now, so I got my screen actor skilled,
I get an agent. I'm now doing a ton of commercials.
And I just kept working and working, and I never stopped.
And there was a point where I realized, Oh, my goodness,
I think this is my job. I was going to
(36:34):
college to become a communications major, like graduate high school
though honestly like if oh no, because I I worked.
Oh well, we had a program at high school called
four four, so you could go to school for four
hours and then work part time for four hours. And
so I got them to agree that modeling after school
(36:54):
for four hours and doing auditions for commercials was a job.
And it was because I was constantly going on auditions.
I guess there are so many kids there that act
or in the arts where those programs are probably at
a lot of the different schools because they have to
be yes here, and that would you know that would
happen because there's not a lot of kids doing that.
But that makes a lot of sense. But it's much
(37:15):
more prevalent when you go to universities now too, and
they all have theater departments, film departments, because it's just,
you know, there's a need from more contact, condum content
and people who make the content. So I think that's
not going anywhere. Was there ever a place in your
career early on where you thought, you know, I want
to sing, Oh yeah, but but to do that, I
(37:35):
might actually two steps back, Like did that ever cross
your mind? I really wanted to, And I remember having
a very specific moment that, you know, I had a
job as a ticket taker at this concert venue called
the Universal Amphitheater, and it was an outdoor venue and
everybody came through there in the seventies, so it was
(37:56):
you know, Joni Mitchell, Carol King, James Taylor, Jackson Brown,
Alton John, the Eagles, you know, you name it. They
came through. And I remember sitting on the steps. I
would take the tickets, then they would allow us to
watch the show. And I remember sitting down on the
steps and having this pit in my stomach, like, how
(38:18):
how do you get up there and be a singer?
How do you get to do that? You know, how's
Linda Ronstad up there? How do you find a band?
Do I have to play instrument like it was. It
was like a palpable pit in your stomach, like alonging
and aching a yearning and not knowing how to make
that happen. And back then, if by the time I
(38:41):
started really being becoming established, if you were an actor,
you stayed in the acting lane, If you were a singer,
you stayed in the singing lane. And there really wasn't
crossover or any overlapping that happened. Back then, it was
just that's your that's what you do. And if you
were on Broadway, that was friends. But Broadway people didn't
do film. It's so weird. Now everybody can do everything.
(39:05):
The mid nineties was kind of the first yes, the
first layer of even then it was kind of weird,
like when Jennifer Lopez would do it. Yeah, but now
everybody does everything exactly. I think that's good. I don't
think that we should be limited. Everybody's creative. Creative people
do more than one thing. Did your friends know you
could sing like where you let's say you're back in
the trailer? Did did they know you as read it?
(39:26):
Who could sing really well? But it's also a great actress.
I'm just trying. I'm just finding where Probably no, But
I went to drama school I had. I had done
this small play called Vanity's and the director of that
play said, you seem to be like to be on
the stage. Have you ever had any formal training? And
I'm like, not formal training. No. He said, well, you
(39:46):
should probably go to get some like Shakespeare stage training.
I was like, where do you do that? Like stage?
You mean like a sound stage and paramount, Like I
literally I don't think I've ever even seen a play.
And he said, oh, there's these schools that you can
go to, and he put me in touch with a
woman that had come from this program in London at
(40:07):
the London Academy Music and Dramatic Art. So I applied
and I got in. While I was there, they would
have us do different things to kind of get us
out of our comfort zone, and one of them was
they assigned me to sing this opera thing English English.
It was actually a Rossini opera, but um I had
(40:28):
to sing it as a duet with another woman, and
this woman was an amazing singer, and I thought, I'm
not never gonna be pulling this off. But anyways, I
did it, and I remember one of my teachers came
up to me and said, I didn't know you could sing.
I was like, am I not? Like I am? I
was you call that singing? I don't know, but it
(40:49):
was nice to hear that, you know, In a way,
I'm always curious about people that have done in one
part of their career, one part of their professional life,
massive things, but then they go somewhere else and they
(41:10):
still get really nervous even when things aren't as massive.
And this has happened to me a few times. And
you know, if I'm doing ready or TV and I
switch over and have to do something in an art
that's not the same, and I want to take it
to the opera in you because I would imagine you're
a little nervous when you're singing at the Grand ol Opera.
Even though we could go down every single thing you've
ever done. It would be like, why would you be
(41:31):
nervous at the Grand ol Opery. But my intuition is
that that means enough to you that you would be
really nervous going out there for the first time. You
have no idea. First of all, when you do it
for the first time, they put you in the very
first where every single person, and all the quotes are
(41:52):
up and exactly all the quotes are on the wall,
all the photographs are on the wall. Everybody leaves their
door open, people come by and welcome you. I know
you've heard the expression of rubber legs. I had never
experienced that until doing the Opery. You come off the
(42:15):
stage and it it feels as if your legs are
like noodles, which I think it will be hard for
people to believe. This was my point because again, you've
done some really massive things in our eyes right when
it comes to movies, television, and now you're at the opera,
which is the big deal. Does but you're like, We're like,
(42:36):
it is nervous. The opery is. Everybody knows. Everybody knows
what the opery is. Everybody knows. You stand in that
circle and there is weight and there is power in
that because of all the people who have stood in
that circle for not is it a hundred years, now
hundred years and uh there's history that that comes along
(43:00):
on with that. And we'll talk about this later, but
even in this album of duets, when we were recording it,
I felt that the history of those songs, not just
the moment that the songwriters wrote them, but everything that
came after that, the original singer, all the people who
(43:21):
have covered those songs, the people who have singed the
have sung those songs in their lives, have used them
for different occasions. There's a power to the history of
things like that, even though they may be ephemeral. And
that's what you're experiencing. The first time that I played
the opery, I remember not being able to anybody's face
(43:43):
because the lights. The second time I played the operate,
it wasn't the same because I had experienced and I
wasn't as as nervous, right, But I remember being so
nervous that the lights seemed way too bright and I
can see nobody's face, and I wouldn't even look all
the way into the crowd, and I just was like,
I don't know how this is going, and there are people,
everybody's there. For your first time, I'm getting chills because
you're saying this it's scary already and this and I
(44:05):
at the first time is more of an experience. But
I actually found the second time more enjoyable because I
got to appreciate, yes, the moment and go, Okay, this
is awesome. The first time, it's like, oh my god,
like what is It's like you're questioning why you even
deserve to be here the first time. But then you
have people like Jeanie Seely who comes up and says,
you know, God, we're so happy to have you, thank
(44:26):
you so much for being here. Everybody is so great. Well,
one of the guys, Larry Paxton, played on my first album.
He's in the Opery Band. The Opery Band is so
amazing that you know, literally they got your back. So
there's all of those elements that conspire to make you
feel more comfortable, but no one will ever be able
to not have the rubber legs coming off that stage.
(44:50):
One more question before we get into the album. It
is that you do come to town a decent amount
to write because people say, hey, we wrote with Rated
today or she was in town. But I think you're
only in town of one day now, right, is it
just yes, so and day. I'm kind of like traveling around.
You know what, when you talk about work ethic, like
you come to town, you work, and you get to
work done, and then you go back and you do
(45:10):
other work. But it's like you're dedicated to this, yes
and this is not an easy trip for someone who
has to go to either way. It's true. It's true.
Why because there's love there, and you know what we
do for love, We bend over backwards. We want to
make things happen. I I have a really wonderful community
(45:31):
of friends here, songwriters, artists, people that live here. That
the only regret that I have is that, you know,
we didn't get an apartment here like ten years ago
when I first started coming down. Because now I come
and I look downtown and I'm counting cranes like whoa.
I think the last time I was here, I counted
like twelve or something in the downtown area. It's like
(45:53):
we have a barn back there. If you gets want
to stay there, thank you. But I want to play
so now, because of legal rules, we can only play
up to a certain amount of time of these songs.
So I'm gonna roll through all of the books. I
think this whole is so good. It's such a great
project with Keith Urban Crazy Love here you go. First
(46:19):
of all, obviously a song that makes me think of
different times in my life, of all the different times
I heard the song by different people rights That is
such a wonderful song Why Keith Urban for that song? Specifically,
Keith has one of the greatest voices ever. You know,
there's something about Keith can reinterpret things. And I know
(46:40):
you've seen him in concert. He's an amazing live performer.
But his voice and on on what do we call
it tape? His voice on tape registers and his tone
is so beautiful. I just, I just, I don't know.
I thought of him for that song and never quite
(47:01):
left my mind. You know, it kind of had to
be him with Smokey Robinson Where's the Love? Where I
mean Smokey Robinson. That's just seeing that name. Oh my goodness.
Did you know Smokey Robins? No? No, I hadn't met him,
you know, in passing, didn't really know him. Okay. He
(47:22):
is one of the greatest songwriters and performers of all time.
When you just think of the songs that he has,
tracks of My Tears, Cruising, Uh, Tears of the Clown.
You know, he goes on and on it. He's written
for himself, he's written for others. The other day, Um,
we did Good Morning America together and we sang where
(47:43):
is the Love? Okay? You know you you know when
you do a show like that, you're up at four
in the morning. Guess who's read on time. Smokey Robinson's
a little early. He's there, We do the rehearsal. He's amazing.
It's surreal. That's another moment where you're like, you're looking
at this person who's got these clear green eyes that
you feel you know because of your history with the
(48:06):
music and knowing who he is, looking across from him
and singing to each other. That's like ridiculous. He and
he loved the song. That's the that's the most fun part.
He loved the song because if the artist didn't love
the song, we would go to another choice and say, Okay,
what else here, here's another one that's so cool. Smokey
Robinson is so cool. That's so cool. Willie Nelson slept
(48:29):
sliding away. I mean, Willie, What can I say about Willie?
Listen to everything? Yeah, I mean, I don't know where
to start because I have all these different decades of
my Willie experience, being with with my grandma, with my mom,
having him on my show, being a fan like Blue
(48:49):
Eyes Part of the Right is one of my favorite
top three songs of all time and so again it's
almost like I'm in all of all these people and
I just want to go like, what was it like?
So it's almost like, what was it like to be
able to do was song with Willie Alison? Well? What
I love it? First of all? Surreal? Okay, My amazing
co producer, Matt Rawlings, was he was living in Nashville, UM.
(49:13):
He produced and won Grammys for Willie's Sinatra album My
Way and also the Gershwin album, and he was the
one who knew Willie, so he made the ask to Willie.
But in this album of duets of seventies cover songs,
what we were trying to do or like, what I
thought would be a cool idea, was all right, how
(49:36):
do you make it different? Well, it's duets, but these
songs typically haven't been done as duets. I knew Willie
liked Paul Simon, and I thought, wow, this would be
perhaps a cool song. So we presented Slip Slide in
a way a great song. And now it felt to
me like some interpretation of a woman saying this about
(49:59):
this man, a man saying this about this woman, and
to hear there's so much poignancy in Willie's voice and
when he says something like the nearer your destination, the
more you're slip sliding away, it gives you chills. But
at the same time, I'm like, yeah, well, you're not
going anywhere for a really long time. I love you,
and you're you're here to stay with Jackson Brown. Here
(50:21):
is let it be me. I mean, all these songs
are so good too. It's like it's reminding me of
all the times even slip slide in a way like
I have like even three cover versions of the originals,
like even like an Akung cover version, even like and
all of it's like, I just I love these songs
(50:42):
so much and in many different places. But Jackson Brown
one of the coolest, the coolest, and you know, in
the seventies he was considered like the songwriter's songwriter in
the Eagles documentary, like Don Henley and Glenn Fry are
looking over there like Jackson lived below us, and you
know we'd be like upstairs party and Jackson would be
down there writing and writing and we'd be hearing in
(51:03):
the song would be getting better and better. And he
is like that. And you know, there's a cool book
called rock Me on the Water, which is about nineteen
seventy four, this year of music and politics and TV
and film. And there's a quote in there by Jackson
that he talked about never hanging out at the Troubadoor.
Troubador was our great local club, because he said, I
(51:25):
knew that if I was at the Troubadoor, I wasn't
at home writing music. That's how dedicated he was as
a songwriter. He's an incredible person. With Leslie Odom Jr. Massachusetts,
(51:47):
what are you saying? He's like butter his voice it's
just so like it literally melts you. Um an incredible talent.
I had met him only once when I had seen
Hamilton's on day three of previews. You know, that's before
the show is even open. They're still kind of tweaking it.
(52:08):
And he opened his mouth to sing as Aaron Burr
in that musical, and I couldn't take my eyes off
of him. And I couldn't take my ears off of him.
He was just incredible. You know, he's he's a wonderful actor,
a wonderful singer, songwriter. Did you get a point where
you're like, I can't believe everybody's saying yes, I can't
believe all these people are saying yes, because it's like
(52:28):
the coolest group of people I've ever seen all together.
And I'm not even I'm just basically halfway through it
right now. I felt like there was something that was
fortuitous for us, and that was that we were in
year two of the pandemic, and I think people still
were not touring and people were home, and when the project,
you know, the idea was pitched to them, I think
(52:50):
they could respond because it was songs that they knew,
songs they could just relate to and connect to. And
I think we got lucky in that way. To you,
one of the ones I was really struck by the
first time I heard it because I love Elvis Costello.
I love I love it. He's so good, He's so good.
Here's Fire. And maybe it's I love Els Costello. Maybe
(53:15):
it's the tone of the guitar, you know. Yeah, I
think that Elvis played on played guitar and some of that,
and I think that is either Dave Levita or Dean
Parks on that solo, which is, you know, two incredible guitarists.
And the sounds great too. I mean, Forever you Fire,
I mean it's that's there's just one thing that Elvis
does which I think is so amazing. And that song
(53:37):
was written by Bruce Springsteen, and the Pointer Sisters made
it famous. But Bruce had actually written it for Elvis
Presley and he sent it. He doesn't know if Elvis
ever heard the song, because Elvis died and then a
guy called Robert Gordon cut it. I don't know if
the Pointer Sisters heard that version or if they heard
(54:00):
a demo, but whatever, they were the ones that made
it famous. But there is a a part in this
song that Elvis Costello sings. When he sings and when
we Kiss Fire, he draws out kiss as if there
is so much frustration and angst, like if he doesn't
get to kiss this woman, he's gonna go bananas. And
(54:20):
then the fire is like this big exclamation point. You know.
I just loved his take on that. Here's our buddy
Tim McGraw on if Much Stop Yeah, oh yeah. By
the way, you know, Tim is like an encyclopedic jukebox.
(54:43):
He's his own, you know, I pod of music. When
it comes to the seventies, he knows so much and
he often does seventies songs as sort of like a
pre stage sort of, you know, let's get together in
the sing before we go on. And I had never
heard him sing like this, but he was a bread fan,
so I love that he picked this song. We mentioned
(55:05):
Jimmy earlier and here is I'll be there. I mean
the Michael Jackson Jackson five just look up on my shoulder.
Jimmy is able to do that as a mature man.
Or it doesn't sound creepy, it doesn't sound like it's
like purely derivative of Michael, but it's still like you go,
(55:26):
oh yeah, you can't even hear Michael doing it. Just
wear my show exactly. And I was like, I was
glad that he kept that in because I don't know,
you know, you don't know if that's an improv when
the Jackson's did it, or if it was if it
was something that was written. But I love that he
left that in there. You know, he's an amazing singer.
(55:48):
And he told me once said he came to Nashville,
he was in When he was in l A, they
said you're two country, and then when he came to Nashville,
he was starting to hear a year two pop. He
is the perfect combination. I think he's defined his sounds
so beautifully and he does it so well, and I'm
so thrilled with all the success that he has had
(56:10):
because he's so deserves that. He's an amazing human. Even
in that it doesn't even feel forced, No, because again,
like you said, was that just them in private? And
I just just add living all the way, you know,
through the song and just and he does that, but
it doesn't sound like he's trying to force it just
for the sake of it. And that really struck me
the first time. Exact Vince Gill without you, I mean,
(56:37):
Vince Gil the hardest person to cover in the whole world,
because he sings like an angel and and at a
at a high, very high. He takes you to have
him for a little visit when you sing with him.
Haven't Josh Groban too? I mean one thing about Vince
that I love and we were like, okay, here here
are the songs he had been on my first album.
(56:57):
He's saying harmonies on Faithless Love. And that album was
called MFM Cover Songs also, and I didn't know him.
When you know, um Fred Mullins my producer that first
Albu I'm asked um Vince to do the song when
I asked him about this album and I said, look Um,
(57:20):
is there a song that you love? I have some
ideas and he said, without you and I love the
song that was his was his suggestions because he said
he would sing that song with his family girls, And yeah, Amy,
it was very cool. The last track speaking of People
to Take You to Heaven Josh Grobe and here songbirds
(57:49):
and vocally Vince and Josh they don't sing anywhere near
each other, but all that just kind of works together.
Those two tracks. I listen to them together. I was like,
and I don't know why you put them in nine
and ten. Maybe it was songs maybe, but I really
liked I don't want to say juxtaposition, but yeah, it
still felt like that, like the perfect combination of songs
beside each other with you and those two I love that,
(58:10):
you know, I think it's important to how youse sequence
an album. I still listen to albums when my friends
or any any album comes out that I'm interested in.
I listened to it from start to finish, and when
sitting I feel like that's what the artists made the
record for, and you know, they're telling a story and
so this was really about these conversations of love and
(58:31):
uh uh. Songbird to me felt like a good ending
because it feels like vows people might be saying to
each other, if you really love someone, you know, I'll
do this for you. You know, I got your back
sort of thing. The album Rita Wilson Now and forever, duets.
Go stream it, go download it, go buy it. People
(58:51):
still buy CDs sometimes, do you know. I'll tell you.
I was with a couple of my nieces last night
and even yesterday. They're from Los Angeles and they him
and they love country music. So I took him to
the Operay and took them all backstage. And I can
do the tour myself now because I just I'm there
so often. I take them all around. And I said, hey,
we have some CDs are like c d s, and
(59:11):
I was like, you know what, never mind, We're gonna
move on. So but it's up. The album is wonderful,
It really is. One of Rita will also be making
a return to New York City's Cafe Carlisle for a
special two week residency October twenty November five. For a ticket,
go to at Rita Wilson which is your your Instagram
social it's all up there. It's it's really great. It
(59:34):
really is really great. I enjoyed sometimes, and I'll be
honest with you, I don't enjoy having to listen to
things if I don't enjoy them before I meet with somebody. Luckily,
I'd already listened to some of yours because I have
friends that were kind of bragging about it. But it's wonderful.
It's wonderful. Um. The final question I have for you
is one of the people on my show they were
at the at c m A Fest and you were
at c m A Fest and they were just sitting
(59:56):
at a random place and they ranted you and your
husband sitting in the random normal people see eats. And
they were like, why would they be sitting in the
random normal people's seats? Where would we be otherwise when
we were at Keith's show. Maybe, yeah, we were at
Keith's show att yeah, But but my point is, what
do you mean where you would you be? You would
be in the fancy where people can't bother you, like
(01:00:17):
with the wine and the champagne and fruit. Fruit. That's
not really getting the experiences it though. Like, by the way,
we've done that and it's great. But if you really
want to get an experience of being like at the show,
you got to be at the show. She was shocked.
She was like, she just came across you guys sitting
with the people, and she was like, nobody was bothering
them because nobody thought that was really them sitting with
(01:00:39):
the people. It was like seeing Jerry Seinfeld at a
gas station in Mississippi. You're like, there's no way that's
really him. So I ain't even gonna try to talk
to that person. Did that happen to you know? But
that's like my analogy of like you just go super
unletted by the way, Well, I do believe that, So
you guys do that, you will go listen. Don't forget
(01:00:59):
I was a ticket taker at a concert me. I
used to sit on the steps and watch the concerts.
That's how you get the show. Well, this has been
a real treat for me. We've done over an hour.
Oh my god, this has been a real treat for me.
I had no idea you were going to get me
to cry, like a little bit of timing. Baby. Uh,
you're very generous with this interview, So thank you. Very much.
(01:01:22):
I appreciate your passion and all aspects. I appreciate your parents.
Thank you, Thank you so do I I mean, I
think of all of this. I mean that to resonate
so hard with me about your parents and how much
they loved you, and how much they loved it here,
and how hard they fought to get here they did.
God bless the meta, God bless Dad's You guys, follow
(01:01:42):
read to get tickets, strained the album at Rida Wilson,
and read a real pleasure. Thank you, Thank you, Bobby,
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