Woodsmeister’s note – The following article is by FolkBlog Australian contributor Sue Barrett and published here by her permission.
By Sue Barrett
“Tuesday night I reorganize my record collection; I often do this at periods of emotional stress…When Laura was here I had the records arranged alphabetically; before that I had them filed in chronological order…Tonight, though, I fancy something different, so I try to remember the order I bought them in…”
(Nick Hornby – High Fidelity, 1995)
At breakfast, a few days ago, Ronnie Gilbert was singing ‘Mothers, Daughters, Wives’; June Taber performed ‘He Fades Away’; and Totally Gourdgeous sang ‘Strangers and Foreigners’ – on tape, that is, not in person.
Ronnie, June and Totally Gourdgeous present something of a problem for music collectors, however, given their mixture of solo and non-solo recordings.
If one looks to Rob (the record shop owning anti-hero of High Fidelity) for a solution, then one probably isn’t going to find it. Although Rob’s alphabetical phase was probably the most practical, alphabetical order doesn’t cope well with all circumstances – including Ronnie’s albums with The Weavers and Holly Near; June’s albums with Martin Simpson and Maddy Prior; and the solo albums of the various members of Totally Gourdgeous.
There could be a case for keeping all Christmas recordings together, rarities together and signed copies together. One might want to shelve Hunter Davis’ Torn with the Cris Williamson recordings (because of their duet performance of ‘Arm and a Leg’), to put Shelby Lynne’s Just a Little Lovin’ with the Dusty Springfield albums and to slip the Young Blood II compilation album (with its Kings of the World track, featuring Jen Anderson) amongst Weddings Parties Anything’s output. And coping with Gretchen Phillips, given her many collaborations and handmade covers, is definitely for another day!
Then there’s the issue of what to do when a performer does something that is totally different to their previous recordings – like a singer-songwriter releasing an album of covers.
Actually, singer-songwriters releasing a covers album is an issue in its own right, one about which singer-songwriters Kate Campbell, Richard Shindell and Cyndi Boste have first-hand experience…
KATE CAMPBELL (www.katecampbell.com)
Kate Campbell is an American singer-songwriter, whose compositions focus on “people and everyday living”. She was born in New Orleans (Louisiana), spent some time in Sledge (Mississippi), but has lived most of her life in Nashville, Tennessee. Kate’s CD, Twang on a Wire (2003), focuses on songs written by other people and released by female performers in the late 1960s and early 1970s, including Dolly Parton (‘Down from Dover’), Donna Fargo (‘Funny Face’) and Emmylou Harris (‘Boulder to Birmingham’). The album takes its name from the song ‘Twang on a Wire’, which Kate wrote with Mark Narmore.
When and how did you begin writing songs?
I wrote my first song when I was six or seven – so I’ve been writing since I was a very little girl. I wrote it on the ukulele. My father is a minister and I hung out with teenagers (who were playing guitar, doing Dylan, singing Peter Paul and Mary). I thought that everybody played guitar and wrote songs and sang – so I did! My parents gave me the ukulele, then I started taking piano when I was about seven. I played clarinet in the band – starting in the fourth grade or whenever you could. I really began to write by the fifth or sixth grade – like 12 years old.
Of your own songs that you’ve recorded, which are the oldest?
Well, you know, there are recordings which no one will ever hear that we have from before my first album that was officially released! But some of the older tunes that I’ve recorded since I’ve been making records are ‘Trains Don’t Run From Nashville’, ‘Jerusalem Inn’ and ‘Would You Be a Parson’.
When and how did you begin performing your own songs?
I think the very first time I ever sang was when my hands were bigger and I’d started moving from the ukulele to the regular guitar. Me and a friend sang ‘Silent Night’ in the third grade. Another of the very first songs I sang was a Dolly Parton song – ‘Daddy was an Old Time Preacher Man’ – and my sister and I sang that at church for an event they were having for my father. I mostly sang at church – it was a good place because people were encouraging – even if you were bad they wouldn’t tell you.
How do you go about learning/performing someone else’s song?
It’s harder. It’s harder, for me. When I was first learning – when I was playing the piano and picking up the guitar here in Nashville (I’ve mostly lived my life in Nashville – my father’s family has lived in Nashville for 200 years), the Sunday paper [The Tennessean] had this colored insert called the ‘Sunday Showcase’ and it used to have the TV listings and the chords and lyrics of a song. I would get the song out of the paper and sit down at the piano or guitar and try to play it. I would have heard the song on the radio, ’cause it was mostly pop songs (although every now and then there would be a country song). Most often it wasn’t in a key that I could sing it in, so I figured out how to transpose.
I like to sing songs from the radio, but from early on I would mostly sing what I wrote. Early in my career – I was through college and back in Nashville trying to get a publishing deal – I got hired a couple of nights to do cover tunes in a bar. I hated it and I’m sure I was awful. I had to use notes because I’m just not a cover tune person.
With my tunes, even those from the very first record, I’m asked to do them frequently enough for them to come back easily. There are probably only three or four of my tunes that I couldn’t do and that’s only usually tunes that I never, for whatever reason, did very much in the first place in concert.
I hardly ever do any of the Twang on a Wire songs in concert because I can’t remember the words. There are so many songs in my head now that I have make myself learn the words (the words more than anything) to perform somebody else’s song.
Why did you decide to record an album of songs mainly written by other people? And how did you come to select the songs on Twang on a Wire?
I’m truly a product of the American south and its music. I was born in New Orleans, lived in the Delta and I’ve spent most of my life in Nashville. I’ve done half of my records in Muscle Shoals [Alabama] and written for Fame Publishing. My mother’s from Kentucky and my grandfather in Kentucky loved bluegrass music – even though the least amount of influence that people will hear in my music is bluegrass. I like to tell people that I have a lot of blue but no grass in my music! There are three main strains that people hear in my music – Mississippi acoustic blues underneath, gospel music and the Nashville country sound.
The tunes on Twang on a Wire are tunes that I remember inspired me as a girl and that I think are great songs, great performances, great songwriters. Twang on a Wire is my tribute record to those women, those songs and those songwriters (some of whom were men). The songs come from a critical time in my life – it was when I was really beginning to sing and play the guitar. I was listening to the radio. I was in Nashville. And the women’s movement was also beginning to grow.
With some of these songs, it’s amazing that they were on the radio, on AM country radio, in Nashville – songs like ‘Honey on His Hands’ and ‘Mississippi Woman, Louisiana Man’, songs by Loretta Lynn and Tammy Wynette.
Then there was ‘Funny Face’, which was not necessarily a strong woman’s song, except that it was HUGE hit.
I could have put any number of Dolly Parton songs on – but I think ‘Down from Dover’ is an incredible song. I think it’s so pure, how Dolly Parton writes. I haven’t met Dolly, but my mother sat next to her on an airplane once!
Kris Kristofferson wrote ‘Help me Make it through the Night’, but what changed the song is that a woman sang it – it was a number one for Sammi Smith in the country music market in the early ’70s.
Those songs definitely influenced my life. I don’t necessarily agree with all the thing in the songs – but they definitely formed my musical heritage. And I wanted everybody else to enjoy them as well.
Did you write the song ‘Twang on a Wire’ particularly for the album?
I wrote the song close to doing the album – I wrote it with my friend Mark Narmore. I have no idea where the title came from – sometimes you feel like titles fall from the sky – and I just felt that I had it one day. I spent a year or so thinking about it, then Mark and I were talking about it and we ended up writing the song – truly about me playing the guitar. It’s kinda my story. The song came first, then I realised that it was a way to do my country women tribute record.
Did you listen/re-listen to other people singing the songs before recording them?
I listened to the versions that I remembered – I didn’t listen to any other people recording them. Then me and the guys got together and played them. We had a great time! There’s a different feel on some of them, but with some of them I felt the original feel was so lovely (like Rose Garden). I wasn’t trying to do a reinterpretation by any means, although there are a couple of songs that we did kinda re-invent (like ‘Would You Lay With Me in a Field of Stone’).
In recording Twang on a Wire, did part of you fear that it might result in people no longer wanting to hear you perform your own songs?
No – it didn’t enter my mind at all! I guess by the time I did Twang on a Wire, I felt that people would truly see this as a tribute record. And I think that’s how people have seen it. Lots of times people want me to sing ‘Boulder to Birmingham’ in concert – so I’ll do an encore of ‘Boulder to Birmingham’. Every now and then, people want me to do ‘Harper Valley PTA’, but it’s much better with a band. I just loved those performances and those women and those songs. And I hope that other people like it and remember those songs and remember country music and the impact that music can have on us all.
What’s been happening in your world in recent times?
I came out with a new CD last October, called Save the Day. And people seem to be enjoying that. From a recording stand point, it sounds super. John Prine is one of my favorites and he is absolutely spectacular on it. And, of course, Nanci Griffith came and sang along. Mac McAnally, who appears on a lot of my CDs, shows up on this one. I’m proud of it; I think it sounds well; and I hope I continue to grow as a songwriter.
What are some of your future plans?
This summer, I’m have some song writing camps – I’ve been doing 2 or 3 every year for about 5 or 6 years. Then I’m going back to the UK in October 2009. And it looks like in 2010 that I may do a little trip to Ireland, where I’m the host and we see the sites and listen to music every night in a pub.
We’re thinking about, maybe, doing a live album. I think there are very few great live albums – I can only name a couple, like the Allman Brothers Band and the Steve Miller Band. I just can’t envisage someone wanting to hear me sing and play guitar live over and over again – but we’re contemplating it. It’s something that I have to talk to Will Kimbrough [producer, songwriter, guitarist] about. So that may be next.
I’ve never done a holiday record (and I really don’t want to), but I kinda want to do a peace record. One of the songs that I’d want to record is Will’s song, ‘God Forgive our Warring Ways’.
In his novel High Fidelity, English writer Nick Hornby covers such vitally important things as organising music collections and making compilation tapes. Can you tell us about your music collection and how it is organised?
I’ve read Nick Hornby’s book and I have the accompanying CD!
I’m a very eclectic listener.
I love classical music and I have my classical music together. I really like requiems.
I like jazz – usually jazz blues, blue dark jazz (Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Thelonious Monk). So I have that together.
And then I’ll kinda do stuff in alphabetical order.
I love southern rock.
I also like electronic out-there stuff – like Air.
I love the great songwriters – I’m a huge Tom Waits fan and I have all of Springsteen’s. And people like Guy Clark are great – but they’re not heard on the radio that much.
I’m on a Rolling Stones binge right now – I’ve been listening to Beggars Banquet over and over again. To me, the interesting thing about Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones was their ability to write their own music, but to also do tremendous blues covers and country music songs.
If I was to make a CD to listen to, then it would be The Allman Brothers, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Miles Davis, Elvis Presley (he did some really weird recordings and those are the ones I like the most), Bonnie “Prince” Billy (he’s really dark – and I like him a lot), Ray LaMontagne.
No one would ever probably know the songs I write by what I listen to!
Editor’s note – after the jump- Richard Shindell and Cyndi Boste
RICHARD SHINDELL (www.richardshindell.com)
Richard Shindell has been living in Argentina for much of the past decade, although he was born and bred in the USA. Richard’s CD, South of Delia (2007) is a collection of cover tracks, including Bruce Springsteen’s ‘Born in the USA’, Peter Gabriel’s ‘Mercy Street’ and Josh Ritter’s ‘Lawrence, KS’. The album includes Richard Thompson on electric guitar and Lucy Kaplansky and Eliza Gilkyson on harmony vocals.
When and how did you begin writing songs?
The first one arrived in 1987. Although I had tried to write songs prior to that, I had never finished one. They all got abandoned when it became clear that they were terrible. Then one day, I finished one (which, ipso facto, means I did not think it was terrible!). As to why, I can only chalk it up to the fortuitous meeting of good love gone bad and a particularly resonant stairwell.
When and how did you begin performing your own songs?
I was living in New York City at the time. There was a coffeehouse at Columbia University (across the street) which would let me play – not as much as I wanted, but as LITTLE as I wanted. I wanted to perform the songs as they began to roll off the presses. But I had a horrible case of stage fright. So a club that would let me play for as long as I could stand it (and no more) was invaluable. Little by little I learned to love the audience.
How do you go about learning/performing someone else’s song?
Three steps:
- I start as a fan, listening to a song obsessively, over and over.
- After a while, I stop listening and move on to something else. Meanwhile, that first song is gestating in my brain somewhere.
- Some time goes by, during which I forget enough about the original version to be able to sing it as if it were mine.
- I play it from memory.
Sorry, that’s four steps!
Why did you decide to record an album of songs written by other people?
We all start off singing songs by other people. It’s the most natural thing in the world. We also start off as fans. Then one day some of us go off and transform ourselves into auteurs (in stairwells, for example). Once this transformation happens, this earlier relationship gets complicated, or even lost. This is unfortunate. So my little record is just me doing what I’ve done ever since I can remember, authorship be damned.
How did you come to select the songs on South of Delia and how did it come to be a collection of songs, with the possible exception of the two traditional tracks, written by male songwriters?
I chose songs I like, songs that I feel capable of singing as if they were my own. Perhaps that explains the skewed representation. But I must say that in considering the suitability of a song for my repertoire, the gender of the writer is of no importance whatsoever. Having said that, I could do an entire record of Joni Mitchell songs (and I would still be on my feet).
How did you come up with the album title, South of Delia?
It’s from a line in Josh Ritter’s song, ‘Lawrence, KS’. I looked on a map, and it turns out that Delia, Kansas is more or less in the geographical center of the continental US. Since I conceived of the record in part as a return to Americana (after the Argentine-tinged Vuelta, released in 2004), it seemed appropriate. And the titles of all of my records (with the exception of the latest one, Not Far Now) are place-names.
Did you listen/re-listen to other people singing the songs before recording them?
No I did not. Like I said, I prefer to thoroughly internalize the songs and then let them emerge as I would sing them, as if I had written them (as if!). One exception: my version of ‘The Humpback Whale’ is not derived from the original by Harry Robertson, but from the astonishing Nic Jones version.
Can you tell us about some particular songs on South of Delia?
‘Born in the USA’- a much misunderstood song that I thought needed to see the light of day again.
‘Deportee’ – I had wanted to cover this one ever since I heard Hoyt Axton’s version of the song a million years ago. Also, it was (in part) the inspiration for one of my own songs, ‘Fishing’.
‘The Humpback Whale’ – I’m a huge Nic Jones fan, who sang the definitive version back in 1980. This is as much homage to Nic as anything else. But it’s a beautiful song about a barbaric practice.
‘Mercy Street’ – Written about [poet] Anne Sexton. This has always been my favorite Peter Gabriel song (along with ‘Here Comes the Flood’, which I’d still like to attempt some day).
In recording South of Delia, did part of you fear that it might result in people no longer wanting to hear you perform your own songs?
No, I would not have done this if I didn’t think that my songs can take care of themselves, bless their little hearts. Besides, I think most of my fans were horrified by the idea of a record of covers!
In hindsight, what you think you achieved with South of Delia?
If I have done justice to a collection of wonderful songs, if I succeeded in making a case for them being included together on one disc, then I think I have achieved something worthwhile.
Do you have any plans to release another album of songs written by other people?
It’s not out of the question. But if I do it will not be for a while. I don’t want to confuse the audience – or in the parlance of modern capitalism, “dilute the brand”.
Can you tell us about your music collection and how it is organised?
I’m ashamed to say that my collection is organized alphabetically. With children in the house, I’m afraid there’s no other way to maintain order. As for compilation tapes (or “playlists” as they’re called now), many a night I’ve gone way deep into the wee hours trying to get that order just right, trying to find the perfect segue, the unexpected segue, the hilarious segue, the segue that will dispel all doubt, if there ever was any, that this is true love.
What’s been happening in your world in recent times?
Well, I just took a break in order to help my daughter learn how to play ‘Desperado’ on the piano. That pretty much sums up my world in recent times.
And what are your plans for the remainder of 2009?
Lots of touring. I have a new record out (Not Far Now, mostly originals) which I’ll be touring in support of. Tomorrow I’m off to Florida. Later in May I go to the Netherlands, France, Italy, and the UK. Then more touring in the US. I’m also working on the next batch of songs. It never ends.
CYNDI BOSTE (www.cyndiboste.com.au)
Cyndi Boste is an Australian singer-songwriter, who grew up in the foothills of Melbourne’s Dandenong Ranges (with bush, cows, paddocks, bikes and Tarzan swings). Cyndi’s CD, Scrambled Eggs (2004), consists of songs written by Australian songwriters, including Cyndi (three tracks), Dave Steel (‘Oh My Country’), Barb Waters (‘My Brother’s First Girlfriend’), Tonchi McIntosh (‘Bridges’) and Vikki Simpson (‘Company’). The recording includes support from Mia Dyson (Lap steel/electric guitar/vocals), Jodi Moore (electric violin/vocals), Kerryn Tolhurst (dobro) and Tiffany Eckhardt, Kerri Simpson and Linda and Vika Bull (vocals).
When and how did you begin writing songs?
I started writing songs when I picked up the guitar at 12 or 13 years of age. I’m self taught on guitar – and it was easier for me to make up my own songs than sit by the record player and try to work out what James Taylor was doing. They were pretty awful songs!
When and how did you begin performing your own songs?
For years and years and years, I worked as a full-time covers singer. I always dreamt about being a songwriter – but I didn’t think I was very good at it. I would throw the occasional original song in, but it wasn’t really a big part of my life until the 1990s when I joined my brother Rory’s band, Steve Boyd and the Preachers (and they were doing nothing but original music). Then I discovered that I could write songs and that they were pretty good too. Maybe I just had to wait long enough to grow up inside or something. When I sat down to write my first album, Home Truths, those songs just came.
Do the things that are going on in your life, or more broadly in the world, feed into your songwriting?
Yes – although things usually take some time to be processed before coming out in a song. With my songwriting, I think that everything is connected, nothing is in isolation. It’s all connected to some sort of experience.
I’ve just moved from Melbourne [to country Victoria] and I have no idea how the Victorian bushfires [February 2009] will impact on my songs down the road. It was certainly a terrifying experience – living on that sort of alert for weeks, then having to run, very quickly.
What do you think your music means to other people?
My songs seem to mean different things to different people and I think that songs can mean whatever someone needs them to mean. The various interpretations kind of blow me away. People’s questioning about my songs can be intrusive and one person even challenged me over what a song was about!
If people ask for a particular song, that’s the biggest payoff, the best thing in the world for me. It means that someone knows my work, knows it by name and has a connection to it.
For someone to say, “I buried my father the other day and we played ‘Holy Waters’ because it was his favorite song”, that’s really significant. That lasts forever.
Why did you decide to record an album of songs mainly written by other people and how did it come to be a collection of songs written by Australian songwriters?
At the time, I didn’t have enough new material for an original album, but I wanted to keep producing. I was always raving about the depth of songwriting talent in Melbourne, so I thought I’d promote my mates’ songs. It took off as a concept. I also decided to mix and match the musicians – experimental, really.
How do you go about learning/performing someone else’s song?
The only way it works for me is if there is immediately something in the song that I relate to (either the tune or the lyrics). I listen to a song once (to get the lyrics), then I don’t listen to it again. I just make up my own version of the song. I’ve always done that. I’ve done that with all the covers I’ve ever done. Sometimes I later hear the original and realise that I really did change it.
As a performer, it’s much easier to tell someone else’s story – you’re not so personally attached to it. My emotional vulnerability is far less when I’m singing someone else’s song than when I’m singing one of my own songs – for sure, FOR sure. It doesn’t mean than someone else’s song can’t move me, but it’s not coming FROM me, I’m just sort of passing it on.
With songs, it can be a bit “use it or lose it” at times. Although with one of my own songs, as long as I’m feeling really comfortable and I’ve gone into my zone, it’s all there, regardless of how long it is since I’ve performed it.
How did you come to select the songs on Scrambled Eggs?
I dug out my CDs of the people who I thought I might record, then went through them track by track until something jumped out at me. I was very lucky with Scrambled Eggs – I just happened to pick the right songs – they seemed to work very well for me. They could have been my songs.
How did you come up with the album title, Scrambled Eggs?
We were recording in the kitchen. So it was a kitchen thing, really. So many artists contributed – it was a bit scrambled. So a bunch of scrambled eggs. And I eat scrambled eggs. Any kind of eggs.
In recording Scrambled Eggs, did part of you fear that it might result in people no longer wanting to hear you perform your own songs?
Not really – but it was a bit strange as a songwriter not to be recording my own songs.
Do you have any plans to release another album of songs written by other people?
Not at the moment – although I do like concepts.
I’m actually hoping to put out a new album of my own songs early next year (2010). I also want to do a live DVD and, at some stage, an acoustic album. I’d also like to write some songs for other performers.
In hindsight, what you think you achieved with Scrambled Eggs?
I think it showed versatility and that I’m not too precious about other people’s songs. It was a very nice way to cement my place in our community too. I think it showed some respect. And I think it worked really well for all of us.
Can you tell us about your music collection and how it is organised?
My music collection is not very well organised – it’s all over the house! I don’t LISTEN to a lot of music – but it’s in my head all the time. I find it gets too busy if I listen all the time. And whenever I’m in writing mode, I don’t listen to anything – I don’t want to be contaminated or influenced in any way. I just want whatever is trying to get out of me to come out in its own way.
When I listen to music, it’s usually old stuff – Neil Young, Bob Dylan, Pink Floyd, Leonard Cohen. I like the familiarity of music. Lucinda Williams is probably the most modern artist that I’ve let into my world.
Every now and again, I’ll put on my old recordings in the car to have a listen. And I still hear things I haven’t heard before – a line, a note. I quite enjoy listening to my old stuff. One of the local pubs seems to play my music all the time. Sometimes when I go in for a drink or for dinner, I realise, after half an hour or so, that it’s me they are playing!
SUE BARRETT is an Australian music writer, with a special interest in women in music. She owns an autographed copy of Nick Hornby’s High Fidelity and tries to keep her record collection arranged alphabetically. Whenever Sue listens to the Ronnie Gilbert/June Taber/Totally Gourdgeous tape, she remembers seeing those song sung by their writers – Judy Small (‘Mothers, Daughters, Wives’), Alistair Hulett (‘He Fades Away’) and Kath Tait (‘Strangers and Foreigners’).
© 2009
