Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing
Speaker 1: from iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: You ad suck.
Speaker 3: You just bond n face down and memory feel it
Speaker 3: all right? So who does your past belong to today?
Speaker 4: Baby?
Speaker 3: You'll say nothing when you're.
Speaker 2: Feeling this way.
Speaker 1: That's singer songwriter Roseanne Cash singing seven Year eight off
Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty one album of the same name. Cash
Speaker 1: has certainly made her mark in the musical world eleven
Speaker 1: number one country songs, twenty one top forty country singles,
Speaker 1: two Gold records, and four Grammys, and she doesn't stop
Speaker 1: at songwriting. She is also an essayist and author of
Speaker 1: several books, including her best selling memoir Composed Roseanne Cash
Speaker 1: began her career in music singing back up for one
Speaker 1: of the most important country music artists of all time,
Speaker 1: her father, Johnny Cash. Since then, Cash has enjoyed an
Speaker 1: illustrious career of her own that spans four decades. She
Speaker 1: released her first album, the self titled Roseanne Cash, in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy eight. I wanted to know what it was
Speaker 1: like for a young woman starting out in the music
Speaker 1: business at that time.
Speaker 2: You know that album I made in seventy eight I
Speaker 2: made in Germany for a European label. I think I
Speaker 2: was dipping my toe in the water to see if
Speaker 2: this was actually how I wanted to live my life.
Speaker 2: Because I thought of myself as a songwriter, I thought
Speaker 2: I would write songs for other people. I was shy,
Speaker 2: I didn't have the need for attention to be a performer,
Speaker 2: and I didn't want to invite comparisons with my dad,
Speaker 2: and so I thought being a songwriter as a nobook profession,
Speaker 2: that's what I want to do. And I was already
Speaker 2: doing it for early teens. But Ariela heard my songs
Speaker 2: and they said, you know, would you make a record
Speaker 2: for us. It took me a while to decide, but
Speaker 2: I did, and then I got signed to Columbia in
Speaker 2: the States, and then you know, here we are today.
Speaker 2: But to answer your question, the climate for women then,
Speaker 2: unfortunately has not changed that much. Really, it's still very
Speaker 2: much a boys club. Back then, the programmers radio programmers
Speaker 2: would say, oh, we can't put two women back to
Speaker 2: back on the radio. They still say that. I think
Speaker 2: maybe what has changed is they don't overtly put their
Speaker 2: hand on your ass when you walk into the really
Speaker 2: you know the radio station, but it still happens.
Speaker 1: One thing I would expect was that there was a
Speaker 1: time in the sixties and seventies when they were like,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, we want to fluff you up for
Speaker 1: this album cover. We need you to pop one more
Speaker 1: button and do this and do this, and they want
Speaker 1: just sex up everything to sell the record.
Speaker 5: Oh god, yes, So there was a lot of that
Speaker 5: back then.
Speaker 2: Okay, So I went into a marketing meeting, my first
Speaker 2: marketing meeting for my first US album, and it was
Speaker 2: all men in the meeting. I was, you know, twenty
Speaker 2: three years old, and I walked in and sat down
Speaker 2: and straight out the head of the label said, okay,
Speaker 2: so our main marketing goal is to make you fuckable
Speaker 2: in front of everybody. To me, twenty three year.
Speaker 5: Old girl, you believe that?
Speaker 2: And I was so flustered, you know, I didn't know
Speaker 2: how to push back. I was just like, but I'm
Speaker 2: not going to do that. And actually it had the
Speaker 2: reverse effect on me. I didn't show skin. I didn't
Speaker 2: like to show skin. I didn't like to play that
Speaker 2: game at all. I thought, well, I'm a good songwriter,
Speaker 2: I'm good enough without that. It was hubris then, because
Speaker 2: you know, I wasn't great then I've gotten better.
Speaker 1: Now When you write songs, I want to see how
Speaker 1: this has changed over the arc of time, because you've
Speaker 1: written many albums for many years. If the self titled
Speaker 1: album is seventy eight she remembers everything is in twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: so that's a forty year gap. And what I'm wondering
Speaker 1: is who do you show your songs too? Has that
Speaker 1: changed when you were younger, When you were a younger
Speaker 1: woman writing songs, who would you take it to and say,
Speaker 1: give me your feedback on my song?
Speaker 5: And was it your family?
Speaker 2: Sometimes my dad, Yeah, I trusted him. I was very
Speaker 2: very careful about who I played my songs to, and
Speaker 2: I didn't like playing songs to people before they were finished.
Speaker 2: I mean I was because I was really territorial, and
Speaker 2: like I said, I had some hubers about myself as
Speaker 2: a songwriter. I didn't want interference. I didn't want to
Speaker 2: get distracted by other people's opinions. But there were really
Speaker 2: good songwriters I trusted who I would play the songs
Speaker 2: to to get feedback after I had finished. And that's
Speaker 2: still the case mostly now for my husband John, who
Speaker 2: I work with a lot who's produced my records. We
Speaker 2: co write a lot. He's a tremendous musician and I
Speaker 2: trust him.
Speaker 5: Where did you and he meet?
Speaker 2: My first husband introduced us and I said to myself,
Speaker 2: Oh my god, my life is getting it so complicated.
Speaker 1: And Crowell your first husband, you did a lot of
Speaker 1: recordings with him as well.
Speaker 5: He produced you as well. Correct?
Speaker 2: I did you know? There's something about working with your
Speaker 2: spouse if you find a rhythm and a groove and
Speaker 2: you can stop bringing your personal life into every interaction
Speaker 2: and fighting. There's something capital or romantic about that. Excepting
Speaker 2: and create. Yeah, being created.
Speaker 1: I always wanted to work with my wife and do
Speaker 1: some silly TV show just to work with my wife.
Speaker 5: I didn't really care about what it was. To a degree,
Speaker 5: Oh do it?
Speaker 2: Do it?
Speaker 5: I thought about it. We tried.
Speaker 1: But so Rodney Crowell your first husband, John Leventhal your
Speaker 1: current husband. How does that change over time in terms
Speaker 1: of what you rely on producers for? There was this
Speaker 1: I always wondered for me, who's a complete novice? Like
Speaker 1: does Quincy Jones walk into the studio and say to
Speaker 1: Michael Jackson sing it this way? Is there somebody who
Speaker 1: tells you what to do what they want you to.
Speaker 1: Try to do that pushes you.
Speaker 2: That would be a little blunt and probably put me off,
Speaker 2: But I know what you mean. But yet they push.
Speaker 2: I mean I think that Rodney when I was young,
Speaker 2: you know, we were working together. I think he had
Speaker 2: more confidence in my voice than I did, and he
Speaker 2: kept pushing, you know, do it this way, try it
Speaker 2: this way, you can do this. You know, what would
Speaker 2: you think about this? And even to the point of
Speaker 2: you know, method acting, like what's the spirit behind this,
Speaker 2: what's the memory behind this, what's the feeling behind this,
Speaker 2: what's the truth of this? Exactly? With John he pushes
Speaker 2: me even more and sometimes I just say, I'm not
Speaker 2: a session singer. Get someone who will obey you, because
Speaker 2: that's not me. But it's always in the service of
Speaker 2: doing something good together.
Speaker 1: Right, you talk about method acting and the truth of something.
Speaker 1: There are sections of your biography and periods of your life.
Speaker 1: Will you go to Vanderbilt? How long were you at Vanderbilt?
Speaker 2: A year? Was an incredibly lonely experienced.
Speaker 5: Oh really, and you had gone there to study what.
Speaker 2: I'm double majored in English and drama. I had a
Speaker 2: fabulous English professor Walter Sullivan, who was kind of a legendary.
Speaker 2: I learned a lot from him, but I was a
Speaker 2: little older because I had gone to a year of
Speaker 2: college elsewhere, moved to London for six months, came back.
Speaker 2: So I was twenty years old as a sophomore. And
Speaker 2: it made a difference at that age, and I didn't
Speaker 2: have any friends, and so you enjoy this. I went
Speaker 2: to the Lee Strasburg Institute and Lee was still teaching
Speaker 2: there and I audited his classes. He was so frightening,
Speaker 2: did you know, Yes.
Speaker 1: Yes, he would give a lecture when I went there.
Speaker 1: I went there seventy nine through eighty that one year
Speaker 1: through NYU. I went through NYU and he gave a
Speaker 1: lecture periodically and he was mentioning something about the manipulation
Speaker 1: of the lobes of the brain. And I walked up
Speaker 1: to him and he was grasping, and he was pretty old,
Speaker 1: and I walked up to him. And I don't know
Speaker 1: why I did this, but I walked up to him
Speaker 1: and I said, is the word you were looking for? Phrenology?
Speaker 1: And I didn't even know what I was talking about.
Speaker 1: And he looked at him and he went, no, he
Speaker 1: like bomped me. Now he snapped, and I thought, well,
Speaker 1: that's my Lee Strasburg story I'm going to tell for
Speaker 1: the rest of my career.
Speaker 2: I studied with a man named Dominic Defasio.
Speaker 5: What year, Oh, that was the year before I.
Speaker 2: Made the first record, so that was seventy seven, and
Speaker 2: I audited Lee's classes and sat at the back because
Speaker 2: he was so terrifying, and he would do these psychological
Speaker 2: games with the students. I'm sure you saw this, where
Speaker 2: he would one week spend the entire time tearing somebody's
Speaker 2: performance down and having her redo it, and then coming
Speaker 2: the next week when she came in and did it again,
Speaker 2: he would just go very nice and walk away like
Speaker 2: so that she was always off guard.
Speaker 5: Right As a Strasburg technique, Yeah, was it?
Speaker 2: Really?
Speaker 1: When I went to Strasburg, there was one teacher who
Speaker 1: I've since become kind of friendly with.
Speaker 5: But if somebody would do a scene and it'd.
Speaker 1: Be a long pause, a very arid pause, you know,
Speaker 1: like tumbleweeds are blowing across the stage, and this guy
Speaker 1: would look at the kid and go, why'd you bother?
Speaker 5: That's all he'd say.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I mean they really hurt people's feelings.
Speaker 1: But now, when you went to Vanderbilt for a year
Speaker 1: and it only lasted the year, you said you were lonely,
Speaker 1: you just so were you running away from something? Did
Speaker 1: you say yourself, I don't want a music career. I
Speaker 1: don't want to do this anymore. Now, writing music is
Speaker 1: one thing, Loving music and being an artist is one thing,
Speaker 1: as you know, but a career and something.
Speaker 5: Is completely different.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, And did.
Speaker 5: You say you didn't want a career in that anymore?
Speaker 2: The career part was troubling me, definitely. But I had
Speaker 2: been living in London and I'd got my heart broken.
Speaker 2: I moved to London and I started seeing myself as
Speaker 2: an expatriot and I didn't want to come back and
Speaker 2: I was only twenty and my dad, after six months there,
Speaker 2: he said you have to come back now.
Speaker 5: And now why did he say that?
Speaker 2: Because I think he saw that he would lose me
Speaker 2: to the family, and he was right. I was going
Speaker 2: to just disappear.
Speaker 1: So your father was instrumental in getting you to come home,
Speaker 1: not only instrumental.
Speaker 2: It was because of him that I came home. That's
Speaker 2: when I went to Vanderbilt.
Speaker 5: But what was the impetus for you with acting.
Speaker 2: Well, I loved drama. You know, I majored in drama
Speaker 2: and English in college. I loved plays. I loved the
Speaker 2: theater so much. And I thought, well, maybe, you know,
Speaker 2: this is a way I could work out this enormously
Speaker 2: powerful urge to create in myself. Was writing songs, but
Speaker 2: I thought, well, maybe this is a forum. And then
Speaker 2: I realized very quickly I did not want to be
Speaker 2: an actor.
Speaker 1: Well acting, it's funny because when I look at your dad,
Speaker 1: I don't have a lot of I don't want to
Speaker 1: push too far into the whole well worn talk about
Speaker 1: your father, who I adored. I mean your father, I
Speaker 1: mean I was a little boy boy named Sue sixty nine.
Speaker 5: I'm eleven years old.
Speaker 1: I'm on Long Island and I'm there with my little
Speaker 1: transistor radio listening to build me up, Buttercup. I'm listening
Speaker 1: to Disraeli Gears from Cream and I'm listening to a
Speaker 1: boy named Sue from Johnny Cash, and I'm laughing my
Speaker 1: ass off. This guy is the funniest guy. And when
Speaker 1: you listen to him in that song, and of course
Speaker 1: I read that he did several films and a lot
Speaker 1: of TV. He said like a guy that was having
Speaker 1: a good time and laughing and having a ball. He
Speaker 1: was like a joyous guy, and I've seen depictions of
Speaker 1: him where that seems to be missing. He was kind
Speaker 1: of a fun loving guy. He wasn't just a tough guy,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Was he somebody you think
Speaker 1: might have had more of a career as an actor
Speaker 1: if he wanted to.
Speaker 2: You just said a lot here. That captured my attention
Speaker 2: and makes me think about my dad and how he
Speaker 2: truly was. He had a profound wound at his center.
Speaker 2: He grew up in really difficult circumstances with an abusive father,
Speaker 2: and he lost his brother who was his hero, when
Speaker 2: he was twelve years old, and that suffering created in
Speaker 2: him the most deepest empathy and compassion for those who suffer,
Speaker 2: and much of his work came out of that and
Speaker 2: from our celtic melancholy roots. At the same time, he
Speaker 2: was joyish. He loved babies, he loved playing practical jokes,
Speaker 2: He loved hanging out with kids and being a kid himself.
Speaker 2: So you know, he was the yin and yang to
Speaker 2: the extreme of both of those things.
Speaker 1: Well, you see him his looks, he's so striking. He's
Speaker 1: so powerful. I mean, I'm not talking about as a musician,
Speaker 1: which that's obvious what I'm seeing. I thought to myself,
Speaker 1: this guy could have been a great movie store if
Speaker 1: he really had just thrown himself in that direction, he
Speaker 1: could have been a great actor.
Speaker 5: You know, do you agree?
Speaker 2: Do you know what the first film we moved to California.
Speaker 2: I was born in Memphis. We moved to California because
Speaker 2: he when I was three years old, because he got
Speaker 2: offered a film and he thought, you know, as a manager,
Speaker 2: is like, this would be a great opportunity for you
Speaker 2: to go to this direction. The film was called Door
Speaker 2: to Door Maniac.
Speaker 5: Oh great, and he played the title role. That's enough
Speaker 5: to cure you about debt.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 2: Then he did a gunfight with Kirk Douglas and he
Speaker 2: did several things and he really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you get the call you're working with your dad?
Speaker 1: When does the moment come when you were invited to
Speaker 1: come and sing back up?
Speaker 5: And then you're going to do it? So who brings
Speaker 5: that information to you? Who tells you?
Speaker 2: Dad?
Speaker 5: He does?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he said, why don't you girls? I was out
Speaker 2: with my stepsister or June's daughter. Why don't you girls
Speaker 2: just come out on the last song and just sing
Speaker 2: back up on you know, willis Circle being broken or whatever?
Speaker 2: It was, Okay, we go out, we're terrified and shaking.
Speaker 2: And then I was writing songs, you know, and then
Speaker 2: he said, well, why don't you come out and do
Speaker 2: one of your songs, And that's how it started. I
Speaker 2: remember doing this in Prague when it was still behind
Speaker 2: the Iron Curtain, played twenty thousand people. I remember going
Speaker 2: out and singing a couple of songs in that show.
Speaker 2: That was an experience.
Speaker 1: Is it fair to say at all that because it's
Speaker 1: easy when you have a father who's your father to
Speaker 1: overlook the contributions of your mother in terms of your
Speaker 1: career as well.
Speaker 5: Was your mother influential in the work you did.
Speaker 2: That's a really good question, and not many people ask it.
Speaker 2: My mother was so private and it hated the glare
Speaker 2: of fame. Hated it was always afraid we kids were
Speaker 2: going to be kidnapped because dad was so famous, you know.
Speaker 2: She was a little tortured by it. And when I
Speaker 2: went started writing songs and performing, oh my god, she
Speaker 2: was terrified, you know, because her template was you get famous,
Speaker 2: and then you get divorced and you get on drugs
Speaker 2: and it's a horrible life. And also she taught me discipline.
Speaker 2: You know, the discipline I have as a writer and
Speaker 2: as a mother in my house is because of her.
Speaker 1: Now, when your father gets remarried and you talked about
Speaker 1: you and your stepsister getting into the biz, June's daughter
Speaker 1: was June someone who had any kind of influence on you,
Speaker 1: was she a kind and nurturing woman.
Speaker 2: She had a tremendous influence on me. She was basically crazy, right,
Speaker 2: And she had been on stage virtually her entire life
Speaker 2: since early child. So being on stage there was no
Speaker 2: glamour to it. It was just a job. It was
Speaker 2: just part of life, like you know, anything like having breakfast.
Speaker 2: She could be having a conversation with you standing in
Speaker 2: the wings. Hear her cue walk on stage as she's
Speaker 2: still talking over her shoulder. Do her gig come off,
Speaker 2: pick up the conversation right where she left it, you know,
Speaker 2: and her bag of her shoes and her bag of
Speaker 2: girdles and her bag of makeup in the dressing room
Speaker 2: and then just gossip, gossip, gossip with their sisters and
Speaker 2: then go out and do the show. It was. There
Speaker 2: was no separation between performance and life for her. But
Speaker 2: what I learned from her is just the assumption of
Speaker 2: a certain kind of power and authenticity when you were performing.
Speaker 2: She told me the greatest story. She was on one
Speaker 2: of those package tours in the South back then in
Speaker 2: the fifties and sixties, they had package stores of a
Speaker 2: lot of country acts, and you would they would travel
Speaker 2: around together and do these shows, multi artist shows. Well,
Speaker 2: they're in one place in West Virginia or someplace, and
Speaker 2: the banjo player for the band that was supposed to
Speaker 2: go on before her, before the Carter family didn't show up.
Speaker 2: So the lead singer in the band is freaking out.
Speaker 2: He's going does anybody play the banjo? Does anybody play
Speaker 2: the banjo? And June says, I play the banjo, and
Speaker 2: she walks out and she does the show with them,
Speaker 2: plays the banjo through it. And she told me the story,
Speaker 2: and she said, in Honey, I had never played the
Speaker 2: banjo in my life.
Speaker 5: My god, the nerve.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I said, how did you do that? She said, well, Honey,
Speaker 2: when I walked on stage, I knew how to play
Speaker 2: the banjo. That has stayed with me. My whole life's
Speaker 2: so fun. When you walk on stage, you'll.
Speaker 1: Know Roseanne Cash. If you enjoy conversations with brilliant female
Speaker 1: singer songwriters, check on my episode with Carly Simon. A
Speaker 1: little over fifty years ago, a show at the Troubadour
Speaker 1: changed her life.
Speaker 6: Three of us rehearsed in New York for three days,
Speaker 6: and then we went out to LA And by that
Speaker 6: time I had opened for Cats Team open for katste
Speaker 6: something in the sixth nineteen seventy one.
Speaker 5: April sixth, Yes, and that changed things for you.
Speaker 6: That was That was a convincing night. We played two
Speaker 6: shows every night and four shows on the weekend. I
Speaker 6: met all kinds of people. It was like the lights
Speaker 6: you were shining on me.
Speaker 5: I'll you're it.
Speaker 6: I couldn't say no at that point. And I and
Speaker 6: even though I was suffering tremendus stage fright, I had
Speaker 6: various things that tricked me out of being afraid.
Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Carly Simon go
Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot Org. After the break, Roseanne
Speaker 1: Cash tells us about the Broadway Bound musical that she
Speaker 1: spent years writing and what that work means.
Speaker 5: To her I'm Alec Baldwin, and you're listening to Here's
Speaker 5: the Thing and lou.
Speaker 3: And the Frame in all Songs and Louie And.
Speaker 1: That is the newly remastered version of The Wheel, the
Speaker 1: title track from Roseanne Cash's nineteen ninety three album. I
Speaker 1: wanted to know what led Cash to re release the landmark.
Speaker 2: Recording, so my album, The Wheel. It's the thirtieth anniversary.
Speaker 2: I just got my master's back from Sony after thirty years.
Speaker 2: There was a thirty year reversion claw us, and I
Speaker 2: didn't expect how that would feel to own my master
Speaker 2: to this album, and it was like a spiritual experience, like, Wow,
Speaker 2: this is mine. It's not part of a multinational corporation anymore.
Speaker 2: And it had never been released on vinyl. In ninety three,
Speaker 2: nobody was pressing vinyl, and so John and I started
Speaker 2: a record label, Rumble Strip Records, and the first release
Speaker 2: is going to be this remastered thirtieth anniversary edition of
Speaker 2: The Wheel. I wrote new liner notes for it, double
Speaker 2: vinyl with a live performance from ninety three. And I
Speaker 2: don't generally like looking back at my old work. You know,
Speaker 2: I'm still really excited about what's coming up. But I
Speaker 2: feel like this was a watershed moment in my life.
Speaker 2: It's the first album John and I made together. We
Speaker 2: fell in love making that record, ended up getting married.
Speaker 2: And the songs are intense. They're about transformation and I'm
Speaker 2: proud of it. And some of it sounds dated. Some
Speaker 2: might go, oh my god, I wish I had sung
Speaker 2: that better, and yet it captured a real moment and time,
Speaker 2: like you said, the truth, and I'm proud to be
Speaker 2: re releasing it for people.
Speaker 1: Who don't know. One assumes that a lot of that
Speaker 1: is on a technical side. They're going to sweeten the
Speaker 1: sound and they're going to get computers in there to
Speaker 1: make it sound even better than ever. Is that what
Speaker 1: you do? Do you other than the liner notes and
Speaker 1: so forth? Do you really hand this over to somebody
Speaker 1: to enhance the sound technically and there's not much else
Speaker 1: for you to do.
Speaker 2: No, I wouldn't say enhance as much as just in remastering.
Speaker 2: You know, they might modernize it in some way, like
Speaker 2: there might be too much highs on one track that
Speaker 2: they just bring down slightly. So it's not so much
Speaker 2: enhancement as just kind of bringing it to the future
Speaker 2: to the present rather right.
Speaker 5: When you record and you sing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't mean to sound weirdly technically here,
Speaker 1: but do you sit on a steward?
Speaker 5: Do you feel you have to stand in order to sing?
Speaker 2: I like weirdly technical questions. By the way, no I
Speaker 2: stand what I'm singing. I don't like disquish my diaphragm.
Speaker 5: You don't. And who did you have any training as
Speaker 5: a singer? Do you have any train you?
Speaker 2: I did. I studied with a few people. And do
Speaker 2: you know technical stuff? Breath control, vibrato, you know, preserving energy,
Speaker 2: opening your chest, placement in the either the palette or
Speaker 2: the back of the throat for different tones, you know,
Speaker 2: really technical.
Speaker 5: Stuff in New York, La London? Where New York? In
Speaker 5: New York, m H. I took singing lessons.
Speaker 1: Once I was at a party and Cameron McIntosh was there,
Speaker 1: and Cameron McIntosh said to me, mister Baldwin, I'm producing
Speaker 1: a Broadway musical based on the Witches of Eastwick, and
Speaker 1: I would like you to come in and meet with
Speaker 1: my producers and my designers and so forth, and my
Speaker 1: vocal people. And have you considered playing the role of
Speaker 1: the lead that Jack Nicholson assayed in the film. We're
Speaker 1: in front of all these people at this big event,
Speaker 1: and I said, I'm really sorry.
Speaker 5: I don't sing.
Speaker 1: He said, nonsense, mister Boldwin. He said, you can be
Speaker 1: trained to sing. He said, anyone can sing with the
Speaker 1: proper training. He said, I want you to come and
Speaker 1: meet my man, John Lyons. I want you to come
Speaker 1: and speak to John, and he's going to work with you.
Speaker 1: I said, you don't understand, man. I mean, I really
Speaker 1: can't sing. I'd love to have the soul of a singer,
Speaker 1: but my voice is just in shreds. It's like sandpaper.
Speaker 1: He said, Visa Bowen please. He was almost looking at
Speaker 1: me like, I'm Cameron Macintosh, you idiot. I wouldn't waste
Speaker 1: my time or yours with this suggestion of I don't
Speaker 1: think it was possible. And he said, please go see John.
Speaker 5: Thank you. So I go. We go somewhere near the
Speaker 5: Antsnia you.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of dance classes and rehearsal studios, and
Speaker 1: I go to this guy's apartment. He's got the piano
Speaker 1: there and we sing. He goes, I want you to
Speaker 1: prepare two songs, something up tempo and something like a ballad,
Speaker 1: and ira I sing, Come fly with me the Frank
Speaker 1: sit outter, So come fly with me. And I said,
Speaker 1: come fly with me, but and I sing this song
Speaker 1: and he goes, let's talk now. I want you to
Speaker 1: do this and try to try to do this. And I,
Speaker 1: after like my fourth or fifth round of doing singing
Speaker 1: the song, he stops. He goes, mister Bolwen, you're correct.
Speaker 1: You can't sing. Look my god, it said. That was
Speaker 1: like they shot me and wrapped me in plastic like
Speaker 1: in the Sopranos and threw me.
Speaker 5: In the ocean. Like my career was over, was dead.
Speaker 5: It was dead dead.
Speaker 2: I'm impressed you to try it. One one singing teacher
Speaker 2: I had or one voice. He was actually a voice
Speaker 2: vocal therapist because I had polyps a couple of times
Speaker 2: and lost my voice and had to go on vocal
Speaker 2: rest for months and steroids and blah blah blah, and
Speaker 2: at the end, you know, your voice has kind of
Speaker 2: fallen apart at the end of having polyps and has
Speaker 2: to be literally rebuilt. And so Bill Riley, who's a
Speaker 2: big guy in town. He he helped me rebuild my voice.
Speaker 2: And Shirley Tennyson also helped me rebuild my voice. And
Speaker 2: he told me that he could tell if someone could
Speaker 2: sing by looking at their facial structure. Really, yeah, I
Speaker 2: think he meant something about where the cheekbones are sitting
Speaker 2: or anchored.
Speaker 5: Like are the baffles and the chambers always? Are they there?
Speaker 5: Are they in there?
Speaker 2: Maybe? But it's also about looking at the well of
Speaker 2: the larynx too. He told me that Pavarotti had a
Speaker 2: larynx like the well inside where his vocal cords are
Speaker 2: looked like no one else's that had ever been, you know,
Speaker 2: whatever they put down there to look at him.
Speaker 5: Now, I'm told you're working on a musical.
Speaker 2: A musical.
Speaker 5: Yeah, whose idea was that?
Speaker 2: It was John Widman who wrote Assassins. He wrote the
Speaker 2: book for Assassins.
Speaker 1: Rather my God, I worship John Widman, so do I
Speaker 1: I think Assassins is. I mean, Assassins is something I
Speaker 1: can never stop listening to, just for the lyrics.
Speaker 2: John is so special. Yeah. Well Sondheim's so special too,
Speaker 2: a bit.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the two of them together are special.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no kidding. So he wrote the book for the
Speaker 2: musical I'm doing, which is Norma Ray. So I'm the lyricist.
Speaker 2: John Lebenthal's the composer. John Wibman's the book writer, and
Speaker 2: we've been working on it about six years. We've had
Speaker 2: two workshops and some rewrites, and we have a theater interested.
Speaker 2: So I'm hoping fall twenty twenty four. I hope we'll
Speaker 2: get it staged.
Speaker 1: Why did that material appeal to you? I mean, it
Speaker 1: was a hit movie, but why beyond that?
Speaker 2: Well, several levels. It's set in North Carolina, So the
Speaker 2: idea of bringing this kind of genre bending Appellationian Sondheimish
Speaker 2: musical hybrid together was a fascinating idea. And I got
Speaker 2: to say John lebenthalt Man, he knocked it out of
Speaker 2: the park. It's the music is so great, and also
Speaker 2: for me as lyricist writing and the voice of other
Speaker 2: characters that was such a thrill, such a challenge. And
Speaker 2: also the story. You know, it's like a union organizing,
Speaker 2: which is so timely, but also at the center of
Speaker 2: this this woman's transformation through helping her community, also so timely.
Speaker 2: So it kind of checked all the boxes. In the
Speaker 2: first two years I said, I'm never doing this again.
Speaker 2: I hate this, And in the last the last four years,
Speaker 2: I said, I absolutely love it.
Speaker 5: What was daunting for you?
Speaker 2: Well, writing in the voice of characters who I didn't
Speaker 2: have any experience with, who I didn't know. You know,
Speaker 2: an older man working in a textile mill in North
Speaker 2: Carolina in the seventies. How do I find his voice
Speaker 2: and his sense of poetry? It's not mine, you know?
Speaker 2: But who is he that? And that ended up being
Speaker 2: really I don't know. It touches your empathy going from
Speaker 2: there into their sense of poetry and their experience. It's
Speaker 2: been uplifting for me.
Speaker 1: How familiar were we with the film? Did you have
Speaker 1: to go back and watch the film or did you
Speaker 1: not want to watch the film?
Speaker 5: Norma Ray?
Speaker 2: Yes, No, I was familiar with the film already, but yes,
Speaker 2: I went back and watched it again. Not only that,
Speaker 2: I did some research about textile mills in the South
Speaker 2: and what happened to them, and race relations in the
Speaker 2: South in the mills and union organizing, and it was fascinating.
Speaker 2: I have a friend in Alabama who took over an
Speaker 2: abandoned textile mill to create her own bespoke factory of
Speaker 2: handmade items of handmade clothing and hired all of these
Speaker 2: women who had worked at the textile mills and lost
Speaker 2: their jobs after NAFTA, and so her mission was kind
Speaker 2: of in my mind thinking about all of this, and
Speaker 2: you know, and the sadness of the guy coming down
Speaker 2: from New York to help me organize the union and
Speaker 2: it happening, and then the textile mills all close later on.
Speaker 1: Well when you see this is my opinion, but when
Speaker 1: you see dramas or musicals, whatever, let's stick to dramas
Speaker 1: that are on stage that are adapted to film, whether
Speaker 1: it's a cat or hut and roof or streetcar or
Speaker 1: things like that.
Speaker 5: That seems less dicey.
Speaker 1: You know, you're going to go open it up, and
Speaker 1: you're going to put the camera where you want to,
Speaker 1: when you're going to bring all the cinematics that you
Speaker 1: want to bring to it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I think that in general, it's better when
Speaker 2: it goes with stage discreen than the reverse and on
Speaker 2: Broadway a lot now or you know, are these disneyfications
Speaker 2: of films and stuff, which is, you know, it's like
Speaker 2: a ride at an amusement park or something. And I
Speaker 2: get the appeal of that, but I like something that's
Speaker 2: taken seriously. I don't know why I was thinking about
Speaker 2: the dresser when you were talking about that. God, oh
Speaker 2: my god, and they kept it as if it's a
Speaker 2: stage play, you know, with Anthony Hopkins and Ian mccollins.
Speaker 2: It was so wonderful.
Speaker 5: I can't believe you mentioned that, because I just did
Speaker 5: a reading of that play the other day.
Speaker 2: Did you really are you going to do it?
Speaker 1: Well, A group of us were on Long Island, some
Speaker 1: friends of mine who live out there out east, and
Speaker 1: we decided we just wanted to read a play, and
Speaker 1: we had a couple of ideas and this was one
Speaker 1: of them. So we did a reading a bunch of
Speaker 1: us and it was really a thrill, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not much different from the movie, but there's another
Speaker 1: situation where, I mean, I'm somebody who's.
Speaker 5: Not immune to being overwhelmed by other people's work.
Speaker 1: Me too, And I must say that there are a
Speaker 1: few things in cinema that I find more powerful and
Speaker 1: more overwhelming than Finny in that movie. But when you
Speaker 1: do something it's like, I'm sure you're the same way
Speaker 1: with Norma Ray. You got to realize you're doing it
Speaker 1: for yourself.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, But it's that way for everything every record I make.
Speaker 2: If I get out of myself and try to go
Speaker 2: what will please people, it's death. You know, it just
Speaker 2: destroyed and takes all the life out of it if
Speaker 2: you try to copy the marketplace or try to please
Speaker 2: too much. I think Dylan said that once that people
Speaker 2: pleasing was death to an artist, and I believe it.
Speaker 5: Self consciousness is death to an artist death.
Speaker 2: I believe yes, self consciousness. That's even a better way
Speaker 2: to see it.
Speaker 1: Singer songwriter Roseanne Cash, if you're enjoying this episode, don't
Speaker 1: keep it to yourself. Tell a friend and be sure
Speaker 1: to follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. When we return, Roseanne Cash
Speaker 1: shares how writing her memoir helped reclaim her family story
Speaker 1: and her own.
Speaker 3: See yes stands.
Speaker 2: True Even when.
Speaker 1: I'm Alec Baldwin and this is here's the thing in.
Speaker 5: The shadows, link and burn away the lasts.
Speaker 4: They will fly me live and jel to a place
Speaker 4: where I can risk when this begins, I'll let you.
Speaker 5: September.
Speaker 1: This is Roseanne Cash duetting with her father, Johnny Cash
Speaker 1: on September when it comes off her two thousand and
Speaker 1: three album Rules of Travel.
Speaker 5: Music.
Speaker 1: Talent seems to be passed down among the Cashes. Roseanne
Speaker 1: Cash has five children, three with her first husband, one
Speaker 1: with her second, and a stepchild. Some have even followed
Speaker 1: her into the family business. I wanted to know how
Speaker 1: Cash managed going on the road when she was raising
Speaker 1: her children.
Speaker 2: It was less important than raising the babies. I have
Speaker 2: to say, I toured less than everyone else around me,
Speaker 2: and it was a constant source of, you know, angst
Speaker 2: for my manager, because I just I have a really
Speaker 2: healthy alarm system about what's too much and what's not enough,
Speaker 2: you know, as far as kids, as far as my
Speaker 2: private life and being home. And I have no illusions
Speaker 2: about the glamor of the life I lead to know.
Speaker 2: I mean, I saw that first hand with my dad.
Speaker 2: It's like, it's hard work, it's not glamorous. And I
Speaker 2: wanted to be there for the parent teacher meetings and
Speaker 2: the play.
Speaker 1: So I made sure I was now two more things
Speaker 1: in the time we have left. So you've written a
Speaker 1: memoir correct, yes? And what was that process like for
Speaker 1: you As a creative person.
Speaker 2: I love writing, or, as Lillian Hellman said, I love
Speaker 2: having written. My family story and my own story had
Speaker 2: been co opted by the public in such perverse and
Speaker 2: diverse ways over so many decades that I finally thought,
Speaker 2: if I don't tell my story, at least plant my
Speaker 2: flag and tell my story, then it will just keep
Speaker 2: getting co opted. And even if it is, at least
Speaker 2: I've said it. So that's why I wrote a memoir.
Speaker 2: I thought I was too young to write a memoir
Speaker 2: in twenty ten, but you know, I could write a
Speaker 2: second volume. And I constructed it in a way like
Speaker 2: Bob Dylan's Chronicles in that it wasn't completely chronological. That
Speaker 2: it was about reappearing patterns of my life and how
Speaker 2: songs were attached to them and anchored those different eras
Speaker 2: and patterns in my life. And you know, it was
Speaker 2: a self organizing principle too. I realized many things about
Speaker 2: my life that I hadn't by writing about it.
Speaker 5: Do you listen to much contemporary music right now? I
Speaker 5: do you do.
Speaker 2: I got obsessed with this Billie Eilish song she wrote
Speaker 2: for Barbie. Oh my God, one of the most beautiful
Speaker 2: songs I've heard this year.
Speaker 5: Oh wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2: And my son is a record producer. He's almost twenty five.
Speaker 2: He produces a lot of indie bands and indie artists.
Speaker 2: You know, he's in Brooklyn, and so I hear some
Speaker 2: of the people that he's producing, and I'm interested in them.
Speaker 2: And I love kids, I do. I love young people
Speaker 2: me too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know my sense of your career, of your work.
Speaker 1: You're writing this Normal Ray thing, and you talk about
Speaker 1: possibly another volume of something by I mean, I'm saying
Speaker 1: this because I truly believe this, you know. I mean,
Speaker 1: I always find I was blown away when Springsteen went
Speaker 1: on Broadway.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I loved that show, loved.
Speaker 1: It, and one was something you could do, that kind
Speaker 1: of show. And we'll keep our eyes peeled for Normal Ray.
Speaker 1: That sounds thrilling to me. Thank you, and how lucky
Speaker 1: they are to have you.
Speaker 2: Thanks Alec. It's so good to speak to you finally,
Speaker 2: because I have admired you for so long that it
Speaker 2: was such a joy to get to speak with you.
Speaker 5: Thank you you too.
Speaker 1: My thanks to Roseanne Cash. Catcher at City Winery in
Speaker 1: New York City on November twenty eighth and twenty ninth,
Speaker 1: touring in support of the thirtieth anniversary of The Wheel.
Speaker 1: You can find additional tour dates at Roseannecash dot com.
Speaker 1: I'll leave you with Roseanne Cash's Blue Moon with Heartache
Speaker 1: from the nineteen eighty one album seven year ag I'm
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin. Here's the thing is brought to you by
Speaker 1: my Heart Radio. What would I.
Speaker 5: To be a time and in your eyes again? What
Speaker 5: would I to bring back those old child? What did
Speaker 5: I say.
Speaker 3: Make your glass turn off this way? Maybe I'll school
Speaker 3: awaits today.
Speaker 5: Baby, On to school away, baby,