WEBVTT - Madeleine Peyroux 0:00:15.476 --> 0:00:15.956 Pushkin. 0:00:20.276 --> 0:00:23.436 Madeleine Peyroux is a jazz inspired singer songwriter who got 0:00:23.436 --> 0:00:26.316 her start singing in street bands in Paris as a teenager. 0:00:26.996 --> 0:00:30.316 In nineteen ninety six, Atlantic Records released Madeline's debut album, 0:00:30.356 --> 0:00:32.636 where she covered tunes from the thirties and forties by 0:00:32.676 --> 0:00:35.836 artists like Bessie Smith and Billie Holliday, and the later 0:00:35.916 --> 0:00:40.276 she recorded songs by Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. This year, 0:00:40.316 --> 0:00:43.356 Madeleine Peyroux released Let's Walk, her first album of all 0:00:43.396 --> 0:00:46.796 original songs, co written with her longtime touring guitar player 0:00:46.956 --> 0:00:50.956 John Harrington. On today's episode, Madeleine and John play through 0:00:50.996 --> 0:00:53.476 some songs for the new album, and Bruce Headlin talks 0:00:53.516 --> 0:00:57.516 with them about their mutual creative process. Madeleine also remembers 0:00:57.556 --> 0:01:00.156 her early days busking with a Bohemian ex pat named 0:01:00.196 --> 0:01:04.036 Dan William Fitzgerald who became her musical mentor, and she 0:01:04.116 --> 0:01:07.436 explains how doctor Cornell West became her guiding light during 0:01:07.436 --> 0:01:14.036 a recent bout of personal despair. This is broken record 0:01:14.396 --> 0:01:15.996 liner notes for the Digital Age. 0:01:16.156 --> 0:01:20.716 I'm justin Richmond. Here's Bruce Hedlm's conversation with Madeline Peru 0:01:21.036 --> 0:01:25.676 and John Harrington. You've got this new album, Let's Walk, 0:01:26.276 --> 0:01:29.676 which is very exciting. It's been what six seven years 0:01:29.716 --> 0:01:33.316 I think, yeah, since your last album. Now your last 0:01:33.356 --> 0:01:37.036 album at the time, you said the question sort of 0:01:37.116 --> 0:01:40.916 driving that album was where do you stand? What was 0:01:40.956 --> 0:01:45.356 the question going into this album? What was animating you 0:01:45.396 --> 0:01:46.836 going into the studio this time? 0:01:48.436 --> 0:01:56.036 These songs are central to my experience in the middle 0:01:56.076 --> 0:02:04.236 of COVID, facing issues, realities, or feeling the need to 0:02:04.276 --> 0:02:08.036 be able to really get personal. And you know, I've 0:02:08.076 --> 0:02:11.836 always tried to say and I thought I sounded flippant 0:02:11.876 --> 0:02:15.316 in the past when I said everything is a little 0:02:15.316 --> 0:02:20.756 bit political, and some people would say, no, not everything. 0:02:20.796 --> 0:02:22.756 We need to be able to get away from it, 0:02:22.796 --> 0:02:25.156 and I'm like, yeah, of course we do. You know, 0:02:25.596 --> 0:02:30.436 I was not ever civically engaged in my life to 0:02:30.476 --> 0:02:33.556 a degree, So I suppose I was telling myself that 0:02:33.676 --> 0:02:36.356 the act of you know, playing live music, the act 0:02:36.396 --> 0:02:43.636 of sharing space, sharing vibrations in music is at least 0:02:43.676 --> 0:02:47.036 when I was a street musician it felt political in 0:02:47.076 --> 0:02:51.076 a way. But this time in twenty twenty that I 0:02:51.556 --> 0:02:54.996 spent a lot of time forced to be alone with myself, 0:02:56.076 --> 0:02:57.716 and I would have gone mad if it hadn't been 0:02:57.756 --> 0:03:01.396 for John Harrington responding to my email saying, Okay, that's 0:03:01.396 --> 0:03:06.116 an interesting idea. How about this? And we started collaborating. 0:03:07.396 --> 0:03:09.676 I think it was twenty twenty or maybe twenty twenty 0:03:09.716 --> 0:03:14.556 one when we first started the throwing things back and forth. 0:03:14.636 --> 0:03:17.476 How did you know each other before? Then? 0:03:18.156 --> 0:03:22.556 Well, we we've been playing music together. I pay him 0:03:22.596 --> 0:03:23.756 to hang out with me. 0:03:24.356 --> 0:03:28.236 I've been working for Maddie for at least fifteen years, 0:03:28.236 --> 0:03:29.676 we think maybe more like seventeen years. 0:03:29.796 --> 0:03:31.116 Okay, well that's why I thought. I was a little 0:03:31.156 --> 0:03:33.036 surprised just in her band on the road when I 0:03:33.076 --> 0:03:35.996 reached Oh okay, yeah, all right, so the relationship was 0:03:36.036 --> 0:03:37.476 a little different then, is what you are? 0:03:37.716 --> 0:03:40.636 Well, this is new for us, Yeah, to be songwriters, 0:03:41.196 --> 0:03:44.436 especially writing all ten tunes on the record. That that 0:03:44.596 --> 0:03:47.956 was new for Okay, for me with Maddie, Yeah, no, 0:03:48.036 --> 0:03:50.916 I've for a while. So I was new for Mattie too. 0:03:51.076 --> 0:03:52.996 She's she's had some you know, records where there have 0:03:53.036 --> 0:03:57.756 been other authors, but never like an exclusive writing pair 0:03:57.836 --> 0:03:58.676 for all of the tunes. 0:03:58.716 --> 0:03:59.756 I don't think that's true. 0:04:00.076 --> 0:04:02.356 Well, absolute and your producer, when he heard the song 0:04:02.436 --> 0:04:03.676 said no covers. 0:04:03.596 --> 0:04:08.316 Yes he did. We had a lunch one meeting with 0:04:08.436 --> 0:04:12.596 Elliott Shy and the three of us sat there and 0:04:12.636 --> 0:04:16.436 I had put together a list that that I thought, 0:04:16.996 --> 0:04:19.436 this will make sense, and we can revamp some older 0:04:19.476 --> 0:04:22.876 stuff and let's then we'll get this record done sooner. 0:04:23.596 --> 0:04:26.636 And Elliott he said, you know, I like the songs 0:04:26.676 --> 0:04:30.356 that you two wrote together, and so just do that. 0:04:30.556 --> 0:04:31.916 Only songs by you. 0:04:32.116 --> 0:04:34.676 He said. He said, no covers, and none of those 0:04:34.676 --> 0:04:36.396 other songs, just the ones that you wrote with John. 0:04:36.876 --> 0:04:39.036 And if there aren't enough, write some more, you. 0:04:38.956 --> 0:04:39.876 Know, Is that right? 0:04:40.036 --> 0:04:40.956 Yeah, that's what he said. 0:04:41.236 --> 0:04:45.556 I looked at John and I just went, what. 0:04:44.596 --> 0:04:45.316 What are we going to do? 0:04:45.396 --> 0:04:47.596 Yeah? Are we going to do that? Well, you've you've 0:04:47.636 --> 0:04:49.836 been writing for a long time, but you kind of 0:04:49.836 --> 0:04:54.436 made your bones as an interpreter of Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, 0:04:55.516 --> 0:04:58.676 one of my favorites, Joe Henry. So what was it 0:04:58.756 --> 0:05:01.876 like to say, Okay, I'm ripping off that band aid? 0:05:01.956 --> 0:05:02.556 There's no. 0:05:04.396 --> 0:05:07.396 I mean, I was excited to try it, but I 0:05:07.436 --> 0:05:10.876 remember thinking, oh God, you know, what have we gotten 0:05:10.876 --> 0:05:11.596 ourselves into? 0:05:11.956 --> 0:05:14.996 It felt it felt daunting and overwhelming. I think at first, 0:05:15.396 --> 0:05:18.236 looking back at it now, I mean it was. It 0:05:18.316 --> 0:05:19.396 was a brilliant idea, I. 0:05:19.356 --> 0:05:21.076 Think, and it made this record. 0:05:21.596 --> 0:05:25.796 The record coheres in spite of the sort of range 0:05:25.836 --> 0:05:29.556 of you know, sort of heavy to light, you know, 0:05:29.636 --> 0:05:33.876 sort of content, you know, and and different moods. It's 0:05:33.956 --> 0:05:37.916 somehow coheres, which which I was concerned about, but glad 0:05:37.916 --> 0:05:39.236 to find that that it does. 0:05:39.356 --> 0:05:43.556 I don't think it coheres in the traditional way at all. 0:05:44.036 --> 0:05:47.756 I don't think it really. I think it's really weird record. 0:05:47.836 --> 0:05:49.956 I remember when we were recording it, sitting in the 0:05:50.876 --> 0:05:55.476 booth going what are we doing? This stuff is crazy? 0:05:55.836 --> 0:05:59.316 But but it is. It just wanted to let it be, 0:05:59.476 --> 0:06:02.076 I feel for me, these songs just came to us 0:06:02.196 --> 0:06:05.996 in varying degrees. We worked at chiseling away at them, 0:06:06.276 --> 0:06:10.196 but it's all a gift, and the mandate for me 0:06:10.396 --> 0:06:13.276 was to make sure that it's something that I really 0:06:13.636 --> 0:06:17.756 care about. Even the Mosquito song, Yeah, it's something I 0:06:17.836 --> 0:06:18.596 really care about. 0:06:18.756 --> 0:06:20.316 I was going to say that there are ways that 0:06:20.356 --> 0:06:22.516 it coheres from me, and that's that's the one I 0:06:22.556 --> 0:06:26.236 think that's the most critical. That these are the most 0:06:26.236 --> 0:06:29.076 personal collection of songs I think that you've ever put 0:06:29.116 --> 0:06:31.796 on a single record together. You know, and that's that's 0:06:31.796 --> 0:06:34.036 a big part of it. But I think sonically, thanks 0:06:34.036 --> 0:06:36.876 to Elliott, it coheres and thanks to the musicians being 0:06:36.876 --> 0:06:40.276 all basically the same same team, guys who'd been on 0:06:40.276 --> 0:06:42.356 the road with you and everybody who was in the 0:06:42.396 --> 0:06:45.796 studio together. That's true background vocal section that was the 0:06:45.836 --> 0:06:49.076 same on the what four or five songs that have backgrounds. Yeah, 0:06:49.636 --> 0:06:52.876 And so sonically I think it holds up that way too. 0:06:53.236 --> 0:06:56.476 And I think mostly because you weren't going to put 0:06:56.476 --> 0:06:58.836 a lyric on, you know, a word on this record 0:06:58.876 --> 0:07:02.756 that you hadn't vetted very thoroughly, and and that didn't 0:07:03.156 --> 0:07:07.116 ring true to you personally, And that's that coheres to 0:07:07.196 --> 0:07:09.596 me in spite of the range of styles, which which 0:07:09.636 --> 0:07:11.796 I understand is that's. 0:07:11.596 --> 0:07:14.916 What I'm talking about, you know, just like I don't 0:07:14.916 --> 0:07:18.436 think that that a lot of producers would have let 0:07:18.516 --> 0:07:20.756 us get away with doing it like that. I think 0:07:20.796 --> 0:07:24.076 Elliott might be one of the few people that's truly 0:07:24.236 --> 0:07:28.076 still very adventurous, beautiful thing. 0:07:28.156 --> 0:07:30.076 Yeah, I love that about him. Do you think another 0:07:30.156 --> 0:07:32.196 producer might have said, Okay, but let's put on a 0:07:32.716 --> 0:07:34.516 let's put on a letter co on, let's put on 0:07:36.116 --> 0:07:36.836 let's put on something. 0:07:37.076 --> 0:07:39.956 I think that they would have wanted to rearrange the 0:07:40.076 --> 0:07:47.716 songs to be more tame in their stylistic breadth and 0:07:48.036 --> 0:07:51.596 and say, well, let's let's try to rain this into 0:07:51.916 --> 0:07:55.196 sort of a little bit dumb down to be you know, 0:07:55.276 --> 0:07:55.556 in a. 0:07:55.516 --> 0:08:00.196 Way, maybe the songs musically are more similar than they are, 0:08:00.476 --> 0:08:03.276 you know, far arranging. But you know, the other thing 0:08:03.356 --> 0:08:06.436 is another producer, if he were functioning as a real 0:08:06.516 --> 0:08:10.676 producer and wanting the cloud and the control, I mean, 0:08:11.036 --> 0:08:14.676 we should remind ourselves that you and I and Elliott 0:08:14.716 --> 0:08:17.196 were all sharing the producer role. And and for that reason, 0:08:17.236 --> 0:08:20.156 I think Elliott was hanging back a little more than 0:08:21.316 --> 0:08:23.876 a sort of producer producer who was the only producer 0:08:23.916 --> 0:08:26.956 on the record would do. And so it was a 0:08:26.996 --> 0:08:29.516 collaborative effort that way as well. And I think you know, 0:08:29.596 --> 0:08:32.196 he liked that and wanted it that way. And he's 0:08:32.196 --> 0:08:34.876 the kind of reticent guy until it's important to speak up, 0:08:34.916 --> 0:08:38.596 and then he speaks. And that's that's that's one of the. 0:08:38.556 --> 0:08:42.116 Only things he said at that lunch was no covers, like. 0:08:42.316 --> 0:08:45.516 Yeah, no, it's he's he's got you know, strength, but 0:08:45.516 --> 0:08:47.716 but he waits a long time and He only speaks 0:08:47.796 --> 0:08:49.996 up when it when he knows it's important. 0:08:49.996 --> 0:08:51.996 In fact, he's sitting right here and he hasn't said 0:08:51.996 --> 0:08:52.316 a word. 0:08:52.516 --> 0:08:52.956 It's not. 0:08:54.756 --> 0:08:57.236 Well, we're waiting for that. He'll he'll finish the episode. 0:08:57.796 --> 0:08:59.676 So how did you split up the producing duties? How 0:08:59.716 --> 0:09:00.636 did that work? 0:09:01.396 --> 0:09:02.876 Well, John did most of the work. 0:09:04.916 --> 0:09:08.516 Well thing is a funny term, and there's so many 0:09:08.636 --> 0:09:11.396 there's so much overlap nowadays in the way most people 0:09:11.396 --> 0:09:15.596 put a record together. There's overlap between the songwriting, the arranging, 0:09:15.716 --> 0:09:18.396 the producing, the engineering, the recording. 0:09:18.436 --> 0:09:18.636 You know. 0:09:18.996 --> 0:09:24.756 So, John, you had made demos before we met with 0:09:24.836 --> 0:09:27.356 Elliott Shiner, and we had made demos too, and then 0:09:27.396 --> 0:09:29.596 I had added my vocals to them. But I think 0:09:29.636 --> 0:09:33.556 you pretty much were the one that made those demos. 0:09:34.196 --> 0:09:37.796 You played everything we recorded. Anything that I recorded, I 0:09:37.876 --> 0:09:40.276 came over to your place, and some. 0:09:40.276 --> 0:09:43.236 We didn't have time to really demo, but we but. 0:09:43.236 --> 0:09:46.276 Even Yeah, and then there was the one like the 0:09:46.276 --> 0:09:51.436 title track, which you made the whole song and made 0:09:51.436 --> 0:09:55.316 a demo so we could hear all these vocal parts, 0:09:55.396 --> 0:09:58.076 all the harmonies, the type of bass treatment, the type 0:09:58.116 --> 0:10:01.996 of treatment, and the energy. And some of these songs 0:10:01.996 --> 0:10:06.036 were I mean could have just been scripted. Obviously, we 0:10:06.036 --> 0:10:07.476 didn't do that to the guy who. 0:10:08.116 --> 0:10:10.236 They were pretty well thought before we got to this. 0:10:10.316 --> 0:10:12.956 That's what we wanted to be that way. 0:10:13.356 --> 0:10:16.036 The title track, A couple of tracks have it. They've 0:10:16.076 --> 0:10:18.036 got like a New Orleans feel to that. 0:10:18.036 --> 0:10:18.876 That one certainly does. 0:10:18.996 --> 0:10:21.556 Yeah, yeah, you've got that kind of New Orleans organ 0:10:21.636 --> 0:10:24.676 And a couple other songs. Was that deliberate? Was that? 0:10:24.716 --> 0:10:25.836 Did that come from something? 0:10:26.036 --> 0:10:30.996 Or I think Let's walk became a sort of the 0:10:31.116 --> 0:10:34.116 drummer was playing that kind of beat. I don't know 0:10:34.196 --> 0:10:36.756 if there was conceive of it that way really, but 0:10:37.276 --> 0:10:38.796 I think I changed it a little bit. 0:10:38.996 --> 0:10:41.396 We tried it like that in rehearsal, and we sort 0:10:41.396 --> 0:10:43.916 of liked that it felt a little more spirited and 0:10:44.036 --> 0:10:45.236 not so sort of safe. 0:10:45.516 --> 0:10:50.716 I mean, it's a march, and what is more appropriate 0:10:50.836 --> 0:10:55.516 to feeling like you're dancing while you're walking, you know, 0:10:55.636 --> 0:11:02.036 feeling music and walking that's American? What's more American? Then? Yeah? 0:11:02.036 --> 0:11:06.356 And I think the New Orleans, the New Orleans. 0:11:05.076 --> 0:11:07.796 It's a natural part of all of these musicians, you know, 0:11:07.916 --> 0:11:10.636 sort of repertoire, you know, in terms of styles, you know, 0:11:10.636 --> 0:11:13.196 because it's music. We always we've all loved so much 0:11:13.196 --> 0:11:13.516 for so. 0:11:13.556 --> 0:11:16.476 Long, you know, and it's at the heart of what 0:11:16.516 --> 0:11:23.236 do you think, because like to me, I have decided 0:11:23.276 --> 0:11:29.316 that American music is one of the main important things 0:11:29.396 --> 0:11:32.876 that we have to offer the world, and we don't 0:11:32.876 --> 0:11:36.716 even know what we have. We don't necessarily recognize it 0:11:36.836 --> 0:11:42.716 very well. We don't understand stylistically how much crossover there is, 0:11:42.836 --> 0:11:46.916 how much like how blurry that is, and yet how 0:11:46.996 --> 0:11:53.956 also steeped really in different like cultures that are identities. 0:11:55.076 --> 0:11:56.916 It is. At the same time, you don't think to 0:11:57.076 --> 0:11:59.596 say I'm more country and I'm more bluegrass and I'm 0:11:59.636 --> 0:12:03.116 more People still do that, which is so odd because 0:12:03.156 --> 0:12:06.556 there is no those things were never separate. 0:12:07.996 --> 0:12:11.276 And musically well, you know, anytime money gets involved, you know, 0:12:11.596 --> 0:12:14.716 the categorizations help sell it. 0:12:14.876 --> 0:12:18.756 So that's why they're yeah, but I'm trying to I'm 0:12:18.796 --> 0:12:20.676 trying to step even further back. You know. 0:12:21.636 --> 0:12:24.636 Now most people, of course think you're French right, you 0:12:24.716 --> 0:12:27.836 are American right, But you did live in France and 0:12:27.876 --> 0:12:31.756 that was your kind of musical education. Do you think 0:12:31.876 --> 0:12:36.356 you have got that kind of outsider's view of American culture? 0:12:36.356 --> 0:12:36.996 Does that help? 0:12:37.876 --> 0:12:42.956 It helps immensely There's several things about it. There's being 0:12:43.356 --> 0:12:47.836 American in another country and realizing and listening to people 0:12:47.916 --> 0:12:54.996 talk about del Vandos and you know, Kulan Zogong and 0:12:55.076 --> 0:12:58.676 like who's cool and Zagong and who are Zabita's Who's 0:12:58.716 --> 0:13:00.876 what is that? I've never heard of that band before? 0:13:00.956 --> 0:13:04.476 Oh the Beatles? Oh okay okay. So like just like 0:13:04.716 --> 0:13:08.916 realizing what people talk about, how people talk about America 0:13:09.276 --> 0:13:11.036 that were my age at the time, when I was twelve, 0:13:11.116 --> 0:13:14.556 thirteen or older, you know. And then secondly, what happened 0:13:14.556 --> 0:13:17.876 when I became a teenagers I met American ex patriots 0:13:18.236 --> 0:13:21.596 who I would have never met. That's something that Dan 0:13:21.796 --> 0:13:26.196 Fitzgerald said. He was from Kingston, New York, so upstate 0:13:26.236 --> 0:13:28.556 New York, but he used to hang out in the 0:13:28.636 --> 0:13:30.676 Bowery and I used to take the train over to 0:13:30.756 --> 0:13:34.276 Canal Street over and Broadway. I would have been in 0:13:34.316 --> 0:13:36.276 New York City at the same time as him, but 0:13:36.356 --> 0:13:41.396 I was a young, like maybe adolescent or teenage white 0:13:41.476 --> 0:13:46.236 girl from South Brooklyn and he would have been a 0:13:46.356 --> 0:13:51.316 middle aged black man from Kingston. We would have never 0:13:51.396 --> 0:13:54.916 spoken to each other, even though we might have had 0:13:54.956 --> 0:13:59.116 all of these cultural affinities. That were hard to find. 0:13:59.196 --> 0:14:03.196 But because we saw each other in Paris, we became, 0:14:03.516 --> 0:14:07.796 you know, like family eventually, and of course it changed 0:14:07.876 --> 0:14:10.076 my life to be there because of that. So it 0:14:10.156 --> 0:14:12.996 was interesting. It's one thing to try. It's very hard 0:14:13.036 --> 0:14:16.036 to try to understand another culture. I mean, you know, 0:14:16.076 --> 0:14:19.796 I lived in France for a long time. My mother 0:14:20.676 --> 0:14:23.756 has lived there ever since nineteen eighty seven. She's still 0:14:23.916 --> 0:14:28.716 learning and we're still talking about attitudes and different types 0:14:28.756 --> 0:14:33.236 of like sayings that you might have to describe something. 0:14:33.356 --> 0:14:36.236 And like just today she said, there's a French saying. 0:14:36.956 --> 0:14:40.436 Women talk about French men, they say, you know, they're 0:14:40.436 --> 0:14:46.436 only interested until they have killed the beast. That's the 0:14:46.916 --> 0:14:52.276 literal translation of they catch you a woman is the 0:14:52.316 --> 0:14:54.836 wildness has to be beaten out of you. You have 0:14:54.876 --> 0:14:57.436 to be tamed, I think, is what it's kind of saying. 0:14:57.476 --> 0:15:00.636 And then then they're interested and they'll move on to 0:15:00.676 --> 0:15:01.156 other things. 0:15:02.076 --> 0:15:04.276 But I'll try I'll try that on my wife. 0:15:04.756 --> 0:15:07.676 I don't suggest it, you see American. 0:15:09.596 --> 0:15:11.596 I'm not an American. She is an American, and don't 0:15:11.956 --> 0:15:14.316 I don't think I would survive that conversation. I think 0:15:14.356 --> 0:15:17.036 there would be some killing. But it wouldn't be her. 0:15:18.716 --> 0:15:21.676 So but we should back up because we haven't talked 0:15:21.676 --> 0:15:24.796 about Dan. There's a song about him on this record. 0:15:24.796 --> 0:15:27.316 Can you just back up and explain how you met 0:15:27.356 --> 0:15:30.116 him in Paris and who he is. 0:15:30.956 --> 0:15:34.796 Daniel William Fitzgerald was born in nineteen thirty three in Kingston, 0:15:34.836 --> 0:15:39.116 New York. Dan went to ministry school, he went to 0:15:39.756 --> 0:15:45.156 law school. He became disillusioned by both of those things. 0:15:45.396 --> 0:15:47.356 Joined the army in the fifties and that's what brought 0:15:47.436 --> 0:15:51.436 him over to Europe. And then he just started going 0:15:51.476 --> 0:15:55.436 back and forth and creating his life. And apparently in 0:15:55.476 --> 0:15:58.116 nineteen seventy eight he was hanging out with some friends, 0:15:58.116 --> 0:16:00.996 some American friends he had met ex patriots in Paris 0:16:01.236 --> 0:16:04.036 find each other right, and he said, I want to 0:16:04.036 --> 0:16:09.596 go to JazzFest this year in New Orleans, and let's 0:16:09.636 --> 0:16:13.156 start a band in order to go down there. Somehow 0:16:13.196 --> 0:16:15.676 he knew all these old Bessie Smith and My Rainey songs, 0:16:15.716 --> 0:16:17.676 he knew them by heart. And there's a Ma Rainey 0:16:17.756 --> 0:16:20.236 song called The Loss and Wandering Blues. And he started 0:16:20.236 --> 0:16:23.396 a band called the Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band. 0:16:24.196 --> 0:16:27.316 He made a washtub, he turned it into a washtub base. 0:16:27.516 --> 0:16:31.476 He painted it and he started this band. They went 0:16:31.636 --> 0:16:34.516 around from that time on. They went to Europe, and 0:16:34.596 --> 0:16:38.996 if there was an American who was going to wander 0:16:39.036 --> 0:16:41.636 around Paris and they bumped into him, they would bump 0:16:41.636 --> 0:16:43.716 into him on the street and they'd recognize him, and 0:16:43.756 --> 0:16:47.316 then he'd make friends and we'd stay at somebody's house 0:16:47.356 --> 0:16:49.956 that night. We'd go play near a restaurant. The restaurant 0:16:49.956 --> 0:16:52.036 would come out and say, come inside and have a meal. 0:16:52.156 --> 0:16:56.196 You can hang out with us. And it was a 0:16:56.196 --> 0:16:59.676 lifestyle that he created. I come along to Paris and 0:17:00.156 --> 0:17:06.036 about twenty years later, eighty nine ninety, I was about fifteen, 0:17:09.196 --> 0:17:11.556 joined a different street band that was in the same scene. 0:17:12.476 --> 0:17:15.876 At this point, you played ukulele or guitar or what 0:17:15.916 --> 0:17:17.596 did you I had. 0:17:17.356 --> 0:17:21.876 A guitar, but I couldn't play any of the songs 0:17:22.716 --> 0:17:27.116 that we were singing. You know. People said, oh, what 0:17:27.236 --> 0:17:29.756 songs do you want to sing? I said, well, first 0:17:29.756 --> 0:17:32.116 I was passing the hat for somebody, and then I 0:17:32.156 --> 0:17:33.676 heard these guys singing and I said, you know, I 0:17:33.676 --> 0:17:37.436 could probably do better than them. So I volunteered myself 0:17:37.676 --> 0:17:39.236 as singing and they were like, oh, she wants to 0:17:39.236 --> 0:17:41.836 sing a song. Okay, sure, what do you know? And 0:17:41.996 --> 0:17:47.156 so it was Georgia in Summertime and that's it. And 0:17:47.196 --> 0:17:49.756 then I thought, well, I know all these other songs, but. 0:17:49.676 --> 0:17:52.436 I your mother taught you songs? Is that? 0:17:52.836 --> 0:17:59.756 Yeah? We used to play ukuleles together, and she sang 0:17:59.796 --> 0:18:03.636 all the time. She sang every morning, she sang all 0:18:03.676 --> 0:18:06.556 over the house. And it was really the only time 0:18:06.596 --> 0:18:11.676 that my father was not being kind of tyrant was 0:18:11.756 --> 0:18:13.436 when we would sit down, the two of us and 0:18:13.436 --> 0:18:16.436 sing together. He would just stop and be quiet and 0:18:16.516 --> 0:18:19.836 listen and say, oh, I guess I can't. I can't 0:18:19.876 --> 0:18:22.596 do anything better than that. But the rest of the 0:18:22.636 --> 0:18:24.076 time he was telling us what to do. 0:18:24.756 --> 0:18:26.676 But he was gone by the time you were in Paris. 0:18:27.516 --> 0:18:30.636 Yeah, we moved to Paris. Right after they divorced. He 0:18:30.676 --> 0:18:33.676 moved out. He was living somewhere in the city for 0:18:33.716 --> 0:18:36.276 the rest of his life, somewhere in New York. Eventually 0:18:36.316 --> 0:18:41.076 he moved out to Corona, Queens in the end, Yeah, what. 0:18:41.396 --> 0:18:42.556 Made you want to start busting? 0:18:43.476 --> 0:18:46.876 The first thing that I remember was that I was 0:18:47.876 --> 0:18:49.916 because I was in France and I couldn't speak the language, 0:18:49.916 --> 0:18:52.116 and I wanted to make friends. I would go around 0:18:52.236 --> 0:18:54.916 I would wander around the neighborhood with my guitar and 0:18:55.076 --> 0:18:57.756 just sit around and play while other people were talking 0:18:57.796 --> 0:19:01.676 to each other kids. And one day somebody threw some 0:19:01.756 --> 0:19:05.876 money in the case and I remember going, wait, what 0:19:06.116 --> 0:19:09.036 just happened here? So that was the revelation for me. 0:19:09.316 --> 0:19:11.276 It was like, oh, hey, you think I could actually 0:19:11.276 --> 0:19:13.956 make money doing this? This would be amazing. And then 0:19:13.996 --> 0:19:17.396 I did wander into Paris, I saw street I somehow 0:19:17.436 --> 0:19:20.356 we saw street musicians at one point, and I remember thinking, 0:19:20.756 --> 0:19:23.436 I've got to go back here to find these people, 0:19:24.116 --> 0:19:26.996 and I did. I did a like a trek through 0:19:27.036 --> 0:19:31.556 the city trying to find them, and that's when I 0:19:31.556 --> 0:19:34.676 saw Danny's band. And I didn't speak to him that day, 0:19:35.436 --> 0:19:39.716 but it was absolutely memorable because they all had hats on, 0:19:39.876 --> 0:19:43.716 they had microphones and amps, and it was so weird. 0:19:44.316 --> 0:19:46.836 It was a weird type of hybrid of American music, 0:19:46.956 --> 0:19:48.676 like it bring kind of full circle to what we 0:19:48.676 --> 0:19:52.676 were talking about, because he had this sort of Black 0:19:52.996 --> 0:19:57.196 American musical culture that I had never heard. I had 0:19:57.236 --> 0:20:00.836 heard some early blues from my parents' records, but it 0:20:00.876 --> 0:20:05.396 was mostly like stuff that had gone into universities, like 0:20:05.716 --> 0:20:10.196 Robert Johnson, Like there was a certain group of black 0:20:10.316 --> 0:20:14.756 artists that were part of the folk movement, but then 0:20:14.796 --> 0:20:21.276 there were all these other blues jazz artists that I 0:20:21.276 --> 0:20:23.796 don't know, Like that wasn't my experience. I didn't hear 0:20:23.836 --> 0:20:27.556 some of that stuff. I knew fat Swaller, I'd heard 0:20:27.556 --> 0:20:31.116 a lot of Fat Swaller, a lot of some Louis Armstrong. 0:20:32.396 --> 0:20:36.996 So but Danny was playing early early stuff, early jazz 0:20:37.196 --> 0:20:41.076 almost like rag time stuff, or if you listen to 0:20:42.276 --> 0:20:48.476 Bessie Smith records, it's right in the middle. It's after ragtime, 0:20:48.476 --> 0:20:50.716 because I think ragtime, I think of ragtime is like 0:20:50.756 --> 0:20:55.076 Scott Joplin, So that's eighteen nineties basically. And then if 0:20:55.116 --> 0:20:58.916 you think of swing, I think of the nineteen thirties, 0:20:58.916 --> 0:21:02.716 it's post depression. But then like there's this period in 0:21:02.756 --> 0:21:07.116 the through the twenties where even the rhythm is like 0:21:07.316 --> 0:21:11.876 not absolutely sort of the approach to how the shuffle 0:21:12.076 --> 0:21:16.356 feels is sort of like still in between those two spaces. 0:21:16.636 --> 0:21:20.036 It's not completely laid back yet, but you kind of 0:21:20.036 --> 0:21:25.076 feel it's starting to lay back. But Billie Holliday's first recording, 0:21:25.156 --> 0:21:30.516 when she was sixteen, was in the thirties and you 0:21:30.516 --> 0:21:33.876 can hear that the bands, the dance bands are now 0:21:33.956 --> 0:21:38.236 starting to do that thing where I suppose the Great 0:21:38.276 --> 0:21:43.316 Migration is influencing that too, right, because you have country 0:21:43.316 --> 0:21:46.556 blues becoming urbanized. And if you listen to Bessie Smith, 0:21:46.996 --> 0:21:50.196 like Ma Rainy is really country, you don't have a 0:21:50.236 --> 0:21:56.396 lot of harmonic changes. Really is sort of the in 0:21:56.436 --> 0:22:00.916 a folky world. It's a folk thing. But with Bessie 0:22:00.996 --> 0:22:05.036 you've got piano players and guitar players and they're playing 0:22:05.076 --> 0:22:08.036 all these passing chords and there's like diminished chords, and 0:22:08.796 --> 0:22:12.716 we're like little changes in tempo and these verses that 0:22:12.796 --> 0:22:15.276 never repeat or these sections that never repeat that are 0:22:15.356 --> 0:22:19.516 quite complicated. And I believe that that's more of like 0:22:19.636 --> 0:22:23.476 because of the urban influence where they go to the 0:22:23.516 --> 0:22:25.556 cities and you're hearing a lot of a lot more 0:22:25.596 --> 0:22:26.676 different kinds of music. 0:22:26.956 --> 0:22:29.196 What grabbed you about that music. 0:22:29.876 --> 0:22:35.516 Well, it's harmonically accessible to me, Like it's a pop, 0:22:36.396 --> 0:22:41.916 you know, dance type of music with some more complexity 0:22:41.956 --> 0:22:44.636 to it, but not to the point where it's ethereal 0:22:44.716 --> 0:22:50.116 and atonal. Yet it hasn't really gone over crossed over. 0:22:50.236 --> 0:22:53.556 So for me to learn music, to learn chords because 0:22:53.596 --> 0:22:57.116 I was so fascinated by hearing like, you know, some 0:22:57.356 --> 0:23:00.556 cool song like across the Universe from the Beatles. Like 0:23:00.596 --> 0:23:04.316 I remember thinking like, how are you supposed to play 0:23:04.316 --> 0:23:07.996 that on a ukulele? This is really hard. That was 0:23:08.036 --> 0:23:11.436 my biggest problem, was like, well, where's the harmony coming from? 0:23:11.796 --> 0:23:12.996 I just don't get it. 0:23:13.156 --> 0:23:14.756