Speaker 1: This podcast episode is sponsored by the amazing people at
Speaker 1: your Local Area y m c A. When communities are strong,
Speaker 1: our country is strong, and I'm so glad there's a
Speaker 1: place where everyone comes together, where folks find common ground
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Speaker 1: to your Local Why at y m C a dot
Speaker 1: net slash give. I am calling Why Nona. You know
Speaker 1: it's cool is when you're so famous you don't need
Speaker 1: a last name. Just Why Nona. She's got a new
Speaker 1: album and a new song out and I can't wait
Speaker 1: to talk to her, and she just a love well. Well, well,
Speaker 1: hey girlfriend, So I just watched uh your new videos.
Speaker 1: Damn you look good from the neck up. I'm doing
Speaker 1: pretty good, sister. I thought you looked good from the
Speaker 1: top of your head to the tip of your toes. Well,
Speaker 1: I feel good, you know. You know, as girls, you know,
Speaker 1: we go back and forth lock to with us. Yeah,
Speaker 1: mine's mostly going forth, not going back so much, you
Speaker 1: know what. I'm on a new program called give Yourself
Speaker 1: a Break. There you go. Yeah, that's the program we
Speaker 1: all need to be on. Back to you, back to
Speaker 1: your music, Back to this new song that we're playing.
Speaker 1: Keeps me alive. I love it. I love the the hunting, soulful,
Speaker 1: just love that pours out that well. I'm trying this
Speaker 1: new thing called vulnerability. Sideline Winona is tender headline. You know,
Speaker 1: get get this. I well, last time I saw you,
Speaker 1: we're trying to be well, we're out. We're already alpha females.
Speaker 1: You know, we're running our own business. We're doing things
Speaker 1: our way because we somehow got the message that we
Speaker 1: could do what we wanted to do our way. And
Speaker 1: then all of a sudden, one day, my kids left
Speaker 1: home and I found myself crying uncontrollably for hours at
Speaker 1: a time, thinking what is going on with me? Is
Speaker 1: it hormonal? Is it? And then and I took a
Speaker 1: walk in the woods, and Delilah, it just hit me,
Speaker 1: Oh my god, this is life. This is this is
Speaker 1: part of the circle of life, and the give and
Speaker 1: the take and then let go and the embrace and
Speaker 1: the ebb and the flow and all that. And I
Speaker 1: got myself caught up in all of it, and I
Speaker 1: started to write and record songs that come very close
Speaker 1: to my situation in life, as we are autobiographical and
Speaker 1: as an artist. I don't know, I just let it fly.
Speaker 1: I guess I just started singing from a different place.
Speaker 1: This is the deal. You know. The heart has all
Speaker 1: these different chambers, Well so does I think my my diaphragm.
Speaker 1: I have this angst time in my life where I
Speaker 1: remember singing from my toe nails from a place of pain.
Speaker 1: I had, you know, years where I was flying high
Speaker 1: and money was flowing in and I was successful in
Speaker 1: number one's and awards, and that was that right. So
Speaker 1: now the chamber I'm singing from is just this vulnerable
Speaker 1: place of just wanting to be that eighteen year old
Speaker 1: girl with a guitar and feeling life again, you know,
Speaker 1: and sometimes it's up and sometimes it's down, and I
Speaker 1: think people will relate to that. So last time we talked,
Speaker 1: you had just gone through probably the darkest days of
Speaker 1: your life, and there was a glimmer in your eye
Speaker 1: that I hadn't seen in a long time, and uh,
Speaker 1: a lightness to your spirit. I guess that's the best
Speaker 1: way to like, like light was just pouring in and
Speaker 1: pouring out simultaneously. Huh. And I remember thinking, oh my god,
Speaker 1: something's going on with you. But we didn't have a
Speaker 1: long time to talk or share. So is that light
Speaker 1: still still pouring? Is it Is it time to talk
Speaker 1: about it? I think I think more so now than ever,
Speaker 1: my dear. Yes, we haven't talked in a while, and
Speaker 1: when we do, we tend to go straight to the Okay,
Speaker 1: it's the bottom line here, um, I mean, it's it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Girls don't sit around and talk about you know, what
Speaker 1: do you make after taxes? And hey, you know, how's
Speaker 1: your golf score? We know you and I go right
Speaker 1: to Okay, which one of your kids in trouble now?
Speaker 1: Or are you happy? Are you happy? Um? Are you
Speaker 1: in love? Do you have joy in your life? And
Speaker 1: so I look, I just went through a really, really
Speaker 1: tough here, probably one of the toughest in my adult life.
Speaker 1: And it has nothing to do with the music business.
Speaker 1: But what has happened is, you know, everything from the
Speaker 1: word to reading Burnet Brown. She sent me her book
Speaker 1: and I started reading and it's called Daring Greatly and
Speaker 1: it talks about um. And for me, what I did
Speaker 1: was I applied it to daring to be authentic and
Speaker 1: daring to be myself, which is really scary because you
Speaker 1: think am I enough? You know, you go through all
Speaker 1: these things where you think am I worthy enough? Because
Speaker 1: I don't know. Growing up, I always wondered am I
Speaker 1: good enough? Am I smart enough? Am I pretty enough?
Speaker 1: Because I always had Mom and Ashley and they were
Speaker 1: always um thin and popular, and I was always kind
Speaker 1: of the misfit it and free spirited. And you know what, though, Delilah,
Speaker 1: it's actually turned out to be that being free spirit,
Speaker 1: it gives me permission to be unique, to be myself,
Speaker 1: to follow my heart, to not have to conform. And
Speaker 1: I'll tell you what something's going on. You're right, You're right,
Speaker 1: something is going on the light even in the darkness,
Speaker 1: the light is still there. And I think it's the
Speaker 1: hope and the faith that I got from my Mamma
Speaker 1: when it was really down and dark and oh my gosh,
Speaker 1: I could complain and be the victim. I thought a
Speaker 1: lot about you know, all my heroes, you know, from
Speaker 1: my Angelo to all these women I've met along the way,
Speaker 1: you being part of that. I know that you're a survivor.
Speaker 1: You're not a victim. I know you. I know that
Speaker 1: you're not one to sit around and complain. You might
Speaker 1: have a bad day, but it's not a bad life,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I have such a blessed
Speaker 1: life and all those things that you're you're talking about
Speaker 1: is I'm going through my list in my head, you know, abuse,
Speaker 1: and my folks loved me fiercely, and I'm at the
Speaker 1: place of my life where I can say, I can
Speaker 1: honestly say they did the best that they could with
Speaker 1: the information and the tools that they absolutely, absolutely, absolutely,
Speaker 1: but that doesn't negate the fact that there was incredible
Speaker 1: craziness going on, you know, inside those four walls and
Speaker 1: outside those four walls, and a lot of just real
Speaker 1: sick dysfunction and function. I think, I think you're right
Speaker 1: with that word. I grew up in country music in
Speaker 1: the eighties. If we go back to that, I remember
Speaker 1: going from literally, um, the Appalachian way of life, welfare, Uh,
Speaker 1: single parent, Um, we had one car that broke down,
Speaker 1: you know, depending on the the day, you know, did
Speaker 1: it run well, did we get where we were needing
Speaker 1: to go, or did we stay home? Um? I went
Speaker 1: from that to opening for the Legends of country music,
Speaker 1: and that's weird, and I don't know that I can
Speaker 1: ever really explain what it's like to go from having
Speaker 1: a knockdown drag out with my mom over the fact
Speaker 1: that she thinks I have on too much makeup to
Speaker 1: walking in and saying Hello, Johnny Cash and you know
Speaker 1: it's the c m A. And I'm hey, Dolly, Hey Loretta.
Speaker 1: And you know that's just weird, Delilah, that's just a
Speaker 1: weird because I'm eighteen years old. You know, I was
Speaker 1: supposed to be talking to my mom about boys, or hey,
Speaker 1: can I have fifty dollars to help with my rent
Speaker 1: this month? Or whatever? But instead we're on the road.
Speaker 1: We're waking up in Vegas. Um our names are in
Speaker 1: the headlines. You know, our records are going number one,
Speaker 1: And you're right, it's a strange, uh life to try
Speaker 1: to figure out I'm eighteen years old. When you're eighteen,
Speaker 1: your brain is not formed. You're going through all your
Speaker 1: angst and all your stuff with boys. I remember breaking
Speaker 1: up with my boy friend that I had had um
Speaker 1: after high school for years, when Mama, He's Crazy was
Speaker 1: going number one on the charts. Now you explain those
Speaker 1: two things happening happening simultaneously. Yeah, there's just no way
Speaker 1: to wrap your head around. Now, you just walked through it.
Speaker 1: And what you do is you walk through it, you
Speaker 1: hold your head up high. And I remember hearing this once,
Speaker 1: act as if and that doesn't mean live a fake life.
Speaker 1: It just means act as if because the bottom line
Speaker 1: is you're fundamentally okay. I remember my mama one time
Speaker 1: I was flailing around having a tantrum. I probably was
Speaker 1: three or four, and she picked me up and she
Speaker 1: kissed me and she said, you're okay, and she placed
Speaker 1: me down on the ground and I just it just
Speaker 1: stopped right there. And I remember that, and I've taken
Speaker 1: that with me all through my success. You're okay, You're
Speaker 1: everything else sucks. Maybe everything sucks, but you know what,
Speaker 1: I'm here and I'm not going to complain. Life is
Speaker 1: a blessing when you look. You have to look for
Speaker 1: it sometimes, in my opinion, I told Jennie the other day, said,
Speaker 1: sometimes I have to wake up and maybe I can
Speaker 1: only pick one thing that I'm grateful for, but that
Speaker 1: one thing will get me to the next thing, and
Speaker 1: then that next thing will get me to the next thing. Look,
Speaker 1: it's your choice, man, you gotta decide whether you're um,
Speaker 1: you know, the glass is half full or half empty,
Speaker 1: and it's your choice. It is our choice, and for
Speaker 1: you and I, it doesn't matter if the glasses half
Speaker 1: are half empty because we have like a bazillion people
Speaker 1: counting on us, and so it doesn't matter how bad
Speaker 1: our day is or what we're going through, we still
Speaker 1: have to pick ourselves up, put our lipstick on, rat
Speaker 1: our hair, and and smiled because we don't have a choice.
Speaker 1: I mean, if if you crumble and you fall down,
Speaker 1: or I crumble and I fall down, how many people
Speaker 1: have we wrapped our arms around that we're taking care
Speaker 1: of because you're a mama bear. I'm a mama bear,
Speaker 1: not just to our bonus kids, but to our employees
Speaker 1: and our staff and our band. Speaking of band, tell
Speaker 1: me about Big Noise. The Big Noise just became the
Speaker 1: band name just because it was It made sense because
Speaker 1: these four I'm down to four. I used to have eleven.
Speaker 1: And you know what less is more, sister, it's it's amazing.
Speaker 1: These four guys make it sound so amazing. I don't
Speaker 1: need all that, and so it's like simplified, simplified, simplified.
Speaker 1: I don't know about you, but I'm getting so tired
Speaker 1: of having to bigger, better, faster, more is the American way,
Speaker 1: it seems, and I'm just tired, and so I just said,
Speaker 1: you know what, honey, let's get down to where we're
Speaker 1: having fun and we don't have to worry about the
Speaker 1: numbers part right, because I know you get it. I
Speaker 1: know you understand it's much more simpler with less people.
Speaker 1: I love this band. I mean, they literally are my family.
Speaker 1: I spend more time with them than I do my relatives.
Speaker 1: And we're a tribe and we go around and we
Speaker 1: make as much noise as we can. We played in
Speaker 1: a valley. It was nuts, it was crazy, it was
Speaker 1: a festival. It was life, it was messy, it was people.
Speaker 1: Um look, we weren't in a nice theater with air conditioning.
Speaker 1: Let's just put it that way. And I had more
Speaker 1: fun with these people because they're real and they are
Speaker 1: the kind of people I come from. First of all,
Speaker 1: these mountain people. They reminded me of that, and I
Speaker 1: had all fulme playing there than I would Carnegie Hall.
Speaker 1: I love Carnegie Hall. I've been there, done that. But
Speaker 1: what I'm loving right now, Delilah, is all these festivals
Speaker 1: are playing now that we're considered to be in the
Speaker 1: Americana world. Um, we're being accepted and welcomed into that,
Speaker 1: you know the world of of uh. It's a little
Speaker 1: bit more folksy and outdoor theaters and blah blah blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. I'm just you know what, I'm grateful, man,
Speaker 1: I've been doing this thirty five years. I have a
Speaker 1: place to belong and you just said that it's it's
Speaker 1: it's belonging and having a purpose for me. And I'll
Speaker 1: go anywhere. I mean today, Um, we're inside, next day,
Speaker 1: we're outside. One day, we're at a county fair. The
Speaker 1: next day. You know, we're playing uh for the military.
Speaker 1: It just doesn't matter, man, I'll set up anywhere. I
Speaker 1: don't care. You just want to bless people and love
Speaker 1: people and share your music. I do. I do. That's
Speaker 1: That's what I've I've promised God is that I would
Speaker 1: quit well, try to quit complaining. And every time I
Speaker 1: want to come, I'm supposed to say the word hallelujah.
Speaker 1: Based on my husband, Um a lot, Oh God, I
Speaker 1: love you. I love you too. Dwilah, slow down and
Speaker 1: live some more. Where you live