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Helen Slater on the creative freedom of songwriting “I think I saw composing as a hobby, even though I was doing it all through my twenties and thirties, it felt more private. "Then when I took a songwriting class at UCLA I kind of saw the whole world open up and thought there are artists out there who are making music that is authentic and really really good. ...

"I think about the kind of music I love, acoustic, melodic, and I guess it kind of took a bit of courage on my part to think I could be one of those songwriters.... "With acting I am being led by the script, other actors, the director, etc. But with songwriting I feel it is much more self reliant and allows me to be in the creative experience without being as dependent on others." Helen Slater  [musicaldiscoveries.com interview 2004; photo from helenslater.com] > related page:  courage / confidence

We were talking about a lot of bad things happening in the world and our responsibility as artists, and we agreed that it would be a powerful thing to do some music again. We have responsibilities to make positive energies and a dialogue in which people can speak. ...

There were a lot of people crying in the audience [at shows in Europe]. I was surprised by it, the power the music was having over people, and it really made me think we seriously need to reflect and look very deep and very well at ourselves. musician Lisa Gerrard [LA Times Sep 22 2005] - about the reunion concerts and upcoming album of Dead Can Dance with Brendan Perry > one of her albums: Whale Rider (Soundtrack)

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"I hit the highway, caught me a truck/ Nineteen and seventeen/ When the winter was tough/ I didn't know no better/ In my girlish days". > lyrics from "In My Girlish Days" by Memphis Minnie (1897 - 1973). In 1917, Minnie would have been 20 years old; probably around the time she left home for good to travel the country as a musician. She was a passionate artist, a colorful personality, and one of the most influential and historically significant blues figures in American history. [from profile on A Prairie Home Companion site]

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Music is your own experience, your own thoughts, your wisdom. If you don't live it, it won't come out of your horn. They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art. Charlie Parker / photo from cmgww.com/music/parker/

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I've been challenging myself more than ever with [political] writing, and finding myself more and more determined to say very specific political things in my songs, or pursue very pointed political opinions. I'm recognizing that political writing is not as automatic as love songs.

Simply to use certain language that is not inherently musical sets up a much more difficult writing proposition. It's easy to sing the word "love." It's hard to sing the word "patriarchy" and get away with it. Ani DiFranco / Los Angeles Times, Feb 6 2005

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"With all due respect, the bar is set fairly low in terms of actors making seminal records, especially singer-songwriters," Minnie Driver says. "Mainly it seems to be a bid for more money and fame instead of a truly creative endeavor." For Driver, the project started as a way to exorcise some demons. "The idea of making a record came only after I had written six songs," she says. Producer Marc "Doc" Dauer "had far more faith than I did that it was a record. I was just working out some personal stuff. He was like, 'C'mon, honey, you have to profit off your pain!"'  The result is the low-key, mellow "Everything I've Got in My Pocket." Driver, who has been playing live for several months, will open 18 dates for the Finn Brothers in the United Kingdom starting Oct. 15.

.. .. Her band includes Dauer and the Wallflowers' Rami Jaffe. "It's really important that I put it across live," she says. "I know that's the only way people are going to buy me as a musical artist." from Minnie in the Driver's Seat on First Album - by Melinda Newman [Billboard / Reuters Oct 4 2004] / photo by Dimitrios Kambouris/WireImage

 

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What some people might not know is that I have what they might call an "unusual passion" for playing the cello -- which I've been playing since I was 5 years old. It really is a part of the fabric of my being... I think when I really feel connected to my spirit and my essence is when I'm making music. It is my great escape. Paula Zahn  - on The Oprah Show oprah.com

 

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.. .. Country music tends to be so sentimental and homespun it's easy to stumble into self-parody, but Merle Haggard has brought a freshness to the themes that places him alongside Hank Williams and Willie Nelson as one of the greatest country music writers. "There are lots of people who have written hits, but most songs don't stick with us because you know and I know and the songwriter knows he's just telling us about something that never really happened.  "But then you listen to Hank Williams' 'I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love With You),' and everybody knows this ol' boy had his heart stepped on more than a few times. That's what I've always wanted people to feel when they hear my songs." Haggard estimates he has written 10,000 songs, but finds only a fraction of them worth recording. Most of the great ones didn't start flowing until he got a tip from one of his musical heroes, Johnny Cash.

He first saw Cash when the Man in Black played San Quentin prison in the late '50s while Haggard was a prisoner there. .... The young singer told Cash his greatest fear was that some tabloid would reveal his prison background and kill his career. Write a song about those days yourself, Cash told him, and fans will love your honesty. That led to "Mama Tried," which spent four weeks at No. 1 on the country charts in 1968 and remains a signature song. It's a salute to his mother and a lament about how he, as a restless teenager, refused to follow her advice. /// Even if the country music world doesn't seem to be waiting for new Haggard songs the way it once did, he is still driven to express himself. "It gets harder the longer you write to find something fresh to say. When you finish a song, you don't just ask yourself if you like it but if it is something you haven't said before. "The thing that keeps you going is that you think your next song may be your 'Stardust.' People ask me how are you going to top 'Mama Tried' or 'House of Memories'? Well, that's the challenge, isn't it?" from article : Hard times, truth and inspiration -  by Robert Hilburn, LA Times Jun 20 2004 photo from album Haggard Like Never Before

related pages: *the shadow self.......writing

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.. .. Leave it to a bicultural, multilingual Mexican American, raised in Oaxaca and Minnesota, to create one of the most original and progressive works of Mexican music, rooted in folklore but oriented to the future. At a time when Mexico's rich native styles are being shamefully shunned as old-fashioned or irrelevant, Lila Downs offers a fresh and modern document that joyfully reveals the rich well of inspiration. In her fourth album (in stores Tuesday), Downs moves far beyond her devotion to indigenous traditions, achieving a stunning breadth of styles. By borrowing instruments and musicians from various countries, Downs blasts through musical borders as she does through octaves with her husky, opera-trained voice.

.. .. Like Mexico itself, her music now blossoms with a vibrant fusion of the ancient and the modern, seamlessly weaving elements of jazz and rap into a fabric of folkloric melodies and verses, like one of the colorful Indian tunics (huipil) she wears on stage. /// At every turn, Downs demonstrates how much richness remains to be mined from the grass-roots music of our vast continent.  And she shows us that Mexico can lead the way in creating an adventurous Pan-American pop music, if only its artists valued the prime material in their own backyard. from article Drawing life from folk roots -  By Agustin Gurza, LA Times June 13 2004 Lila Downs site liladowns.com ....One Blood: Una Sangre

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.. .. On Gretchen Wilson's white-hot debut single "Redneck Woman" .. the Illinois native boasts, "I ain't no high class broad/I'm just a product of my raisin'/I say 'Hey y'all' and 'Yee haw' " before letting rip the song's rowdy sing-along chorus of "Hell, yeah!" Unlike most women in country in recent years, Wilson doesn't look like she just stepped off the cover of Cosmo, doesn't sing to soccer moms and doesn't pine for champagne and roses.  In Wilson's world, a cold beer will do just fine. /// "It's a song about me and the women I grew up around," Wilson, 30, says of "Redneck Woman" a few minutes before making an promotional appearance at a Wal-Mart store in Tampa, Fla.

"I sat down with [songwriting partner] John Rich to write a song one day, and we were sitting there and CMT [Country Music Television] was on. "We watched videos by two or three different females and I said, 'John, I don't know if I'm going to be able to do that. Look at them -- they're all so slick. That's not who I am.'  "And he asked me, 'Who are you? And I said, 'I guess I'm just a redneck woman.' And that's what inspired it." Exactly what does being a redneck mean to her? "It's just being real, being yourself," she says. "A redneck woman doesn't have to have the fad clothing, she doesn't worry about getting her fingernails done and having pedicures in the top salon.  "A redneck woman is hard-working, she's raising a family and holding down a job at the same time and is proud of who she is, no matter what." from article High class - She'll pass. Beer - Set it right here. By Randy Lewis, LA Times May 22 2004 ....Here for the Party ~ by Gretchen Wilson

 
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.. .. I have done a great deal of work on myself to develop as a musician and as a person in the past five years, and certainly this has had an effect on my music. ....  Personally, as my social life has blossomed and I have gotten better at building community with others...  I think this has taught me (as a performer) how to better connect with people on an emotional level through music. Relationships are often are about balancing your own needs with the needs of others.  Having a successful live performance is also built on that concept. The performance is for the audience... not just for yourself. Every great performer knows this. /// The five element philosophy of Chinese medicine has had a huge impact on my work, as well as the poems of Rainer Maria Rilke and the way he looked that the world.

Also, painting has had a huge impact in my musical process and how I go about creating songs. I am still painting... just through music. /// I love breaking the myth of the starving artist. That is such a lie that people tell artists from the day they are born, and it's so sad that so many artists psych themselves out with this myth.  There is always a way to make a great living from music or any art form if you are willing to use your creativity to the business aspect.  People think that creativity should only be in art and the business should be in business. But the most successful business people use their intuition and creativity to problem solve and figure out how to make things work.  It's important to work from both ends using your creativity. I also would like to break through the glass ceiling for Asian Americans in the American music industry. People don't think it can be done right now, but I know it can and it should happen soon!  Magdalen Hsu-Li -  from MusicDish interview by Steven Digman 2003-07-14  artist site magdalenhsuli.com photo from her album Fire

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Music.. should have no other end and aim than the glory of God and the recreation of the soul; where this is not kept in mind there is no true music, but only an infernal clamor and ranting.  Johann Sebastian Bach quoted in The Writer's Almanac writersalmanac.org

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The addition of bass and drums is not the only new thing about Soul Journey. The songs are nakedly autobiographical, a huge departure for Gillian Welch, who's tended to distance herself with songs about seemingly made-up characters. "With story songs you're one step removed," says Welch. "That's always been really safe for me." In "No One Knows My Name," Welch speaks openly about being adopted and not knowing who her birth father is. "It's a wonder that I'm in this world at all / And I have a life to claim / Though I really don't know my name / It's a wonder that I'm in this world at all." "I was somebody's love child and I don't know who," she explains. Her birth mother was a 17-year-old freshman at Columbia who took up with a visiting musician. "All I know is my dad was a musician, so he could have been anyone who was passing through New York City in 1967," says Welch, adding, "He could have been Keith Richards, he could have been Bill Monroe. Who do you think I look like?" At first, she notes, she wrote the songs for herself with no intention of releasing them. But once she decided to do so, the effect was freeing.  "It was like I took the clamps off what I was willing to say."  Welch talked it over with her mother and father before deciding to record the songs. "I'm okay with putting that out in the world now," Welch says, "but before I was not."

.. .. And now that we're on the subject, Welch confesses, many of the older songs weren't so far removed from her own life either.  "It's all me," she says, ticking off songs like "Orphan Girl" and "My First Lover" from her earlier records. "People who knew me intimately always knew that." Gillian Welch - from interview by Melanie Haiken,  pastemagazine.com 2003-07-23 Gillian Welch site albums include Soul Journey O Brother, Where Art Thou?  [soundtrack]

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After stints on the New York City lounge circuit and as a back-up singer for David Bowie, Holly Palmer took a break from music and enrolled in an acting class. There, she says, she began to discover how better to put her feelings into words.  The experience gave way to her latest album, I Confess (Warner Bros.), an inventive hip-hop-inflected collection of songs about loss and betrayal on which Palmer pulls no punches.  "If I write about what's going on in my life, there's no need to apologize," she says. "It's like what Charles Bukowski said: 'What matters most is how well you walk through the fire,' because in hell there's going to be lots of it."  [from profile by Jarret McNeill, Interview, Oct 2003] site: hollypalmer.com     //   Charles Bukowski books

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It is a sad commentary on today's increasingly play-it-safe recording and radio industries that some of the most talented female artists remain so culturally marginalized that events like Estrojam are necessary. "The reason why a lot of women create or become musicians is because they don't like what they have access to," said [Estrojam founder Tammy] Cresswell, an independent filmmaker.  "They have something to say, and they don't feel like they fit into the categories the mainstream offers. Those people need to have something to identify with too." from article: "A place where a woman can find her voice -  For four days, artists, musicians and others gathered at  Chicago's Estrojam to share the female experience." By Susan Carpenter, [LA Times, Aug 11 2003] Estrojam [Chicage, August 7-10, 2003]site

.. .. image from site for Coup d’état -- directed and produced by Tammy Cresswell -- "based on some of the same concepts and was filmed partially during Ladyfest Midwest Chicago -- an independant documentary focusing on the lives of those who are redefining the roles of women in both the underground and mainstream culture... musicians, performance artists, and filmmakers on the cutting edge of artistic expression.

related page: *filmmaking

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My parents always told me I could be anything I wanted to be. They never would put limitations on me. When I had these crazy dreams of being in a band, they didn't wash them. They bought me a guitar.  That was good. I didn't have to worry about the parent thing. It was other people's attitudes.  Women could play violins and cellos, they could play Beethoven, but they couldn't play rock 'n' roll. It goes back to the sexuality thing. Rock 'n' roll guys just kind of swing to the music - there's sexuality that I find in [all of it], from punk to old Stones. And I think that's what people have trouble with.  Joan Jett.....[Bust, Winter 2002]  //  Joan Jett and the Blackhearts Official Site ...albums by Joan Jett & The Blackhearts:  Fetish   //  I Love Rock N' Roll

related page: *sexuality

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In 1964, pianist Terry Riley excited -- and horrified -- music lovers with his Seminal In C, a structured improvisation full of repetition and tonal permutations that one critic described as "music like none other on earth."  The piece launched the minimalist movement, paving the way for composers such as Philip Glass and Steve Reich. But Riley continued to evolve, devoting himself to the study of classical raga vocals of north India.  "The highest point of music for me is to become in a place where there is no desire, no craving, wanting to do anything else," Riley has said. "It is the best place you have ever been, and yet there is nothing there."  [AARP The Magazine March-April 2003]  / portrait by Betty Freeman from terryriley.com **Four Musical Minimalists : La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass by Keith Potter

related page: *Buddhism

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Aeone

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The key message of this album is "connection" .. with your deep self and through that a connection to your God and realizing that whatever we do or wherever we go, we are all connected with each other and to nature.  In a way, the themes of the songs are also simply about existence and the journey through life itself, the art of just "being" - the things that we deeply feel and sometimes are unable to express because they are too painful, and also the wonder of it all. ... What I did try to do with the writing process was be absolutely free with myself creatively and allow many different ideas in and not edit anything until I felt that I was done. It made for a very inspirational and sometimes rather scary process as there were often moments when I really didn't know what I was doing, or where I was going with a piece of music - almost until it was finished and then I would think, "Oh I see how that works..!" So in a way, there was much growth for me creatively and a whole new way of working too. ... I love words, the sound and quality and ring of them. I read a tremendous amount and am totally inspired by reading. I can be inspired by anything though in terms of lyrics, it can be one simple emotion that sets me off on a track. I love films and am inspired by films in terms of lyrics as well. In a way, anything that triggers my imagination can be the initial spark. ... [About album photography by Sonia Keshishian:]  I wanted to create a theme of imagery that matched the music. ... I chose to do a 20-page full colour booklet this time... I love Sonia K's work on this project and she has a wonderful way of getting the real energy of a person into a shot. She is very good with women and has a way of finding their true beauty - the inner and the outer - which is a gift. Alana Coghlan at Random Designs (www.randomdesigns.com) did the amazing artwork for the cd. She melded and blended the shots, overlaying textures and images with embossed celtic symbols and it created this incredible journey in pictures that completely and utterly depicts the music and certainly makes you want to listen to it. ~ ~ Aeone ['ay-own'] - about her album Point Of Faith [cover image above] - from musicaldiscoveries.com interview additional work by Aeone includes music for films "The Messenger" and "The Mists of Avalon" ***more on her site: aeone.com****<< additional interviews with Aeone and Sonia Keshishian

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.. .. "I go [to the convent] and sing with them at vespers every night at 5:30.. The nuns are fabulous.."  [What benefit do you get out of singing with the nuns?] "I think it's biological. I think it naturally tunes you into some hemisphere in your brain.... I'm a real believer in private music. For me, the public music is a tiny piece of what my music is, and not what necessarily even represents me most authentically.  And the rest of the stuff's been conducted in my living room.. or somebody's living room. Or just singing in the bathtub or singing with my hands in the dishwater. That's really important music for me. It's kind of what binds my life together."  Linda Ronstadt [Entertainment Weekly Online, August 20, 1999]

Linda Ronstadt is perfectly content to live a relaxed existence in Tucson, away from the buses and wake-up calls of the touring life. Besides, she did that already, she says, and there is much she does not miss.  "It's so strange. You're trapped in motels and airports ... and your powers of observation are taken away," she says of the "metal tubes" she practically lived in.  "You're treated like zoo animals -- people stared at us a lot. ... At some point, it's not any fun."  So what is fun for Ronstadt now? Raising her children, for one. And singing what she likes. She'd like to take on more choral singing -- "old, old stuff. Twelfth century," she says.  She also likes the idea of living-room concerts, which have become a small trend in the business. "That way you get a more direct response. Music needs to exist as part of the whole," she says. "It's the camaraderie." ... [CNN.com Oct 15, 2002] /  CD: The Very Best of Linda Ronstadt

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"I think, no matter what, if you're honest, you're always wanting to be pretty, wanting to be loved, wanting to be respected, well thought of--that kind of success.  But at some point you even have to give that up. You have to overcome that to be brave and to really make your own mark."     Singer-songwriter Sam Phillips   [LA Times, July 15, 2001]

 
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"Through music you can communicate ideas that can create discussion over issues that affect us all. While a song does not pretend to create a final answer, it does create the questions that will perhaps develop into answers...  I am now feeling very optimistic that I'm leaving behind a more complete blueprint as a point of reference for other musicians that are to come and that will continue this exploration."  Rubén Blades referring to his album "Tiempos"    [Miami Herald, May 14, 1999]

 
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"Every time it's a different bunch of people that are in the band and in the audience,
it makes the songs different. It brings different things out of the songs every time,
otherwise I could never still be doing 'Dreams' and 'Gold Dust Woman,' and (be)
totally enjoying it."

Stevie Nicks - on performing her old Fleetwood Mac hits (quote from Reuters 04-02-01)

*CD: *Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

 

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"The music is key. It has the power to transport you. I go from being a slightly insecure,
shy kind of a person offstage, to this super-confident, motivated, entity onstage. I don't know
who he is. I just let him kind of happen. But it's the music that takes me there every time.
I'm not that good an actor.

[Q: Is that why you prefer live performance to screen acting?]

A: Acting is a specific discipline. Just because you can sing doesn't mean you have the sensitivities
of being an actor. I've spent my whole life trying to find out who I am, so I could express that through the music.

Not who somebody else is, not how somebody else thinks. I couldn't care less. I'm trying to find the truth
in myself. To play somebody else doesn't interest me."

   Neil Diamond [LA Times Feb.10.01]

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"It's something that I've always wanted to do, to bring that certain spiritual energy
out of the Pueblo, right from the res' where I grew up, into a more technologically
advanced world that we live in. ... It's like putting a string quartet in one of these
Mesa Verde kivas and letting them do what they do without any kind of rehearsal,
any kind of amplification, nothing.

One of the things that I said to the cello player [Michael Kott] was, 'tap into that place.
Imagine yourself in the Chaco Canyon, it's an ancient Anasazi ruin. And you're in that place.
What do you feel? What do you see?' And so I wanted to create a certain sense of smokiness,
dirtiness, but come out of this with a classical instrument. It is reservation chamber music."
    Robert Mirabal - about his album Taos Tales ///

"I'm usually a loner - I like to go off into the hills when I'm
composing, so doing this rock band and the big productions,
is a real challenge. When you're a solo artist, you only have to be
responsible for yourself and your mistakes don't impact a whole
bunch of other people.

With these shows, I have to be more aware and the consequences
are much larger. I'm more like a beaver building a dam, making
water where there was none, water that can spread out and nurture
many things-plants, trees, animals and humans.

Or, I'm like a farmer, creating and planting. You have to
nurture the seedlings and deal with things like draught, insects and weeds."

"In my personal life, I try to keep things as simple as I can, but I
can see things getting bigger, so I'm preparing myself. Luckily, I'm
blessed with a loving and supportive family, so I'll just take things
one step at a time."      Robert Mirabal    [quotes from his site]

***CD:**Taos Tales

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