1. For many artists, they cite a defining moment for themselves when they knew they wanted to be a singer. For many it was the appearance of Elvis on the Ed Sullivan show, to another generation it was the Beatles’ appearance on Sullivan half a decade later. Is there such a defining moment for you?
This is a great question, and it's one that pushes my thoughts back to childhood. As a kid, I can recall taking on different guises when listening to tunes. One moment I would be Professor Harold Hill from Meredith Willson's "The Music Man"; the next I was a heart-strung Eric Clapton saddled with the "Bell Bottom Blues." Songs became a way of accessing feelings and possibilities, a bridge back and forth between adulthood and youth. The line dissolves.
2. When you’re not creating music what are you listening to? Who are some of your favorites?
I met Antje Duvekot the other night at a club in Nashville. There were only sixteen people in the audience, but everyone was enraptured because Antje brings it. She has access to the deep muse. So I listen to singers like Antje and Kathleen Edwards, Walt Wilkins, La Lupe, and Celia Cruz. Though the latter two women have left us, they still haunt me. I remember seeing Freedy Johnston out at McCabe's in LA one time, and he told me to get the hell out of Wichita, where I was living at the time. So Nashville became the place for new tunes and old, and it all sort of centers for me there. Mark Knopfler comes back to town from time to time and I always listen to him and seek out his show. The same is true of countless others.
3. What would you say is your greatest moment so far as an artist, either on record or live?
For me, live performance is almost always the best. I like an audience, whether real or imaginary, so my best moments occur then. I knew that I was onto something when the tunes that came through my pen started to give me the same chill and shiver that Dylan and Joni Mitchell and Leonard Cohen evoked in me over the years. These "shiver" moments happen quite frequently, sometimes when I'm rehearsing alone. I remember playing a song of mine called "Sally, Everything's Changed" with Arkansas songwriter Dave Fredrick, and we both knew that we had gone to that rare space. Almost none of this stuff is on record. Like theater, musical performance is often a very ephemeral art.
4. Do you believe music can change the world or is just something to listen to? How much can music influence current events?
Sure. It's both, or can be. I tend to lean toward the heavier stuff, with a social edge, but it can also be pure celebration. Delight and instruct said the old Roman. Songs often do both.
5. How has technology affected the music industry? How has technology affected your career as a musician?
I like the openness of the non-system. New songwriters get their space. But there's a lot of anonymity, too. Valuable blogs like this one are a sound intermediary for bringing the anonymous artist to the public.
6. Now for my Barbara Walters question: If you were a pair of shoes what type of shoes would you be?
Something Italian -- elegant but sturdy. It may be time to cross The Alps.
This week’s Voices to Hear is going to be a bit different than pervious ones. Instead of one voice to highlight in this week’s column we’re going to talk about an entire album’s worth of voices. The album is Song of America and it features 50 artists different artists. (What? You didn’t think an album would have a MySpace page? Everyone and everything has a MySpace page nowdays.)
If you’ve heard of this album at all it’s due to the identity of the executive producer of the record, Janet Reno. Yes, that Janet Reno, the former Attorney General of the United States. Most of the press has focused on that point, which at least gives it a chance to get out there and maybe be heard.
The genesis of the album started ten years ago when Ed Petterson, a singer-songwriter from Brooklyn New York wrote a song about the American cowboy. He brought the song to his Aunt to listen to. His Aunt just happened to be Janet Reno. She liked the song, but suggested that he should go farther than just one song about one point in America’s history. She suggested that he record a collection of songs that would reflect American’s history.
What they ended up envisioning was a collection of songs that would trace the events that shaped our nation’s history. The album became a collection that could be used as a tool to help teach the youth of our country about their history through song. The album was divided into five broad themes from America’s history:
United We Stand, Divided We Fall War and Peace Work Families at Home and on the Move Faith and Ideals
The performers interpreted these songs in their own style for the listeners of today. In some ways it was the same idea that was behind Wilco and Billy Bragg’s updating of Woody Guthrie song’s from Mermaid Avenue. They took the words but made the music their own.
The performers came from all sorts of musical genres. The album opens with a Lakota Indian song and ends with a Woody Guthrie song. To list all the performers on this album would stretch this column out too long, but such performers as The Blind Boys of Alabama, John Wesley Harding, Freedy Johnston, Marah, Janis Ian, Elizabeth Cook, John Mellencamp, Old Crow Medicine Show and a host of others. In keeping with the theme of this column almost all of the performers were not well known. John Mellencamp is probably the biggest name on the album.
The album is divided into three cds: red, white and blue. The red disc starts with songs from the American Revolution and each disc moves the songs through the history of our country. Some of the songs on these two discs you’ve probably heard a million times and may not have thought of since you were in school. Harper Simon (Paul Simon’s son) does a version of Yankee Doodle, The Mavericks do Dixie, Joni Harms does Home On The Range. The blue disc brings us up to the modern era and has songs that most listeners will be more familiar with, at least from radio. This disc has Kim Richey doing the Rascals “Get Together,” Anthony David doing Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On?” Martha Wainwright doing Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman.” Only one artist is represented by two songs on the album, Bruce Springsteen: Matthew Ryan does “Youngstown” and Bettye LaVette does “Streets of Philadelphia.”
This is one of those albums that I was absolutely fascinated with, after listening to it it will make you proud to be an American. And it does it without resorting to the sort of jingo posturing you usually find in these type of projects.
As one final note, with the kind permission of Miss Heather, I’m going to include two songs with this column. There was so much great stuff to chose from it was a really tough decision, but I went with both ends of the timeline. The first song is Harper Simon’s “Yankee Doodle” and the second song is a heart breaking rendition of Bruce Springsteen’s “Streets of Philadelphia” by Bettye LaVette. But I could have easily picked any of the other forty eight songs to showcase, they’re all that good.
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