{"id":517,"date":"2011-05-23T05:22:53","date_gmt":"2011-05-23T10:22:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=517"},"modified":"2011-05-23T05:22:53","modified_gmt":"2011-05-23T10:22:53","slug":"the-tracy-nelson-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2011\/05\/23\/the-tracy-nelson-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"The Tracy Nelson Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tracy Nelson first came to prominence with a highly regarded debut album <\/span><\/em>Deep Are the Roots in 1965. Even then this white teenager from <\/em><\/span>Wisconsin<\/span><\/em> was covering Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. \u00a0<\/span>Her subsequent recordings with Mother Earth and her solo albums presaged the country-blues-Americana movement by several years. These days her style leans even more toward the blues. Her latest album <\/span><\/em>Victim of the Blues almost didn\u2019t come out. But it did, and I got a few moments to speak with <\/em><\/span>Tracy<\/span><\/em> about the making of that record.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Bill Kopp:<\/span><\/strong> On these songs I can almost smell the sawdust on the floor. The problem I have with a lot of contemporary blues albums is that they’re too often very sterile-sounding, as if it’s a front person backed by sessioners sight-reading charts. How did you get an organic feel on these songs?<\/span><\/p>\n

Tracy Nelson:<\/strong> The people who played on it, and the words I sang on it. I had the primo slide guitar player in the world, Mike Henderson<\/strong>, on the album. And Jimmy Pugh<\/strong> — who plays with Robert Cray<\/strong> \u2013 is just amazing. He\u2019s not imitating Otis Spann<\/strong>, but he plays like that. John Gardner<\/strong> on drums. And Byron House<\/strong> plays bass on most of it. They love that kind of music. They are<\/em> major session guys, but actually they don\u2019t play this kind of stuff very much. I\u2019ve used them in one form or another on my last few records.<\/p>\n

And I had Reba Russell<\/strong>, who\u2019s one of the greatest singers on the earth, singing backup. I used the people who I knew would bring it. And they did.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Was the record performed live in the studio or was it layered? <\/span><\/p>\n

TN:<\/strong> No. It wasn\u2019t layered; you can\u2019t get what we\u2019re talking about that way. We tracked in Nashville, and then did most of the vocal overdubbing out here. I don\u2019t believe we did more than two takes on any song. This is blues; everybody in there knew exactly what they were going to play, and just did<\/em>. You can\u2019t really make a mistake.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> If you would, tell me the story of the fire and how it affected this record.<\/span><\/p>\n

TN:<\/strong> There was an electrical fire in our hundred-year-old house. The computer in which all of the files for the record were was in the studio, which is the formal dining room of the house. The firemen were wonderful; they got the computer out, but there had been a lot of smoke and so forth. We really didn\u2019t know whether it was going to be salvageable or not.<\/p>\n

So we backed everything up again; it had been backed up already, but that was in the room with all the smoke too.\u00a0 <\/span>We had done some backups of mixes on discs, but mastering from that wouldn\u2019t have been very satisfactory. So initially we didn\u2019t know if we still had a record.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> I hear all sorts of subgenres on this record. “I Know it’s a Sin” has a gospel flavor, and there are dollops of honkytonk, <\/span>Chicago<\/span> electric blues, <\/span>New Orleans<\/span> styles, etc. Do you view each of these as their own styles, or does it all sort of blur together for you?<\/span><\/p>\n

TN:<\/strong> It\u2019s my take on all those styles, those songs. I didn\u2019t try to match the originals in any way; if I could, I might! But really, there\u2019s no point in that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a Sin\u201d I\u2019ve always loved; it\u2019s a Jimmy Reed<\/strong> tune, so we did it quite a bit more rushed than he did it.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> I don’t think I’ve ever heard a banjolin before\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n

TN:<\/strong> Me either!<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> \u2026you’ve got one on the title track. It has a peculiar sound, sort of plucky and totally lacking in sustain. Where did the idea come from to use that?<\/span><\/p>\n

TN:<\/strong> When I listened to the original of [Ma Rainey<\/strong>\u2019s] \u201cVictim of the Blues,\u201d it has banjo on it. So I called Mike Henderson before the session. I know he plays some bluegrass, so I assumed he\u2019d have a banjo. So I asked him, and he said no. I thought, \u201cNow, where am I gonna get a banjo?\u201d<\/p>\n

But he said, \u201cBut I have a banjolin,\u201d which is a combination of a banjo and a mandolin. So I said, \u201cCool. Bring it.\u201d I had never heard or seen anything like it.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> I have a few of your vinyl albums from way back: Come See About Me<\/em>, and a pair of Mother Earth<\/strong> albums — Satisfied<\/em> and the self-titled one. What’s remarkable to me is that even though those go back in some cases more than forty years, your voice doesn’t sound all that different. Do you practice to keep your vocal instrument in shape? <\/span><\/p>\n

TN:<\/strong> [hearty laughter] When I listen to those old records, it sounds to me like it\u2019s somebody else. I had a much purer, higher tone. But I\u2019m not unhappy with the way I sound now; my voice has just matured. But those records, it sounds to me like some little girl. I like the way I sound now, but I hear a huge<\/em> difference.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m very protective of my throat. Partly because I\u2019m lazy: because I know I could hurt my voice, I don\u2019t push it very hard. I don\u2019t work clubs where I have to do two sets a night. When I\u2019m singing, I know — from fifty years\u2019 experience — what\u2019s gonna hurt my throat. I\u2019ve never had polyps or any of those problems. I do have to warm up now before I sing, but otherwise, no, I don\u2019t practice.<\/p>\n

Cyndi Lauper<\/strong> has been beating me up for months to get some vocal lessons so I could get the high notes back; I had told her I lost some of them. And she told me, \u201cOf course you can get them back.\u201d And she\u2019s right. I should do some work to get back to where I\u2019d like to be.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> All eleven songs are covers; some are quite old standards, some are contemporary. They’re written by a variety of people. But I hear a common thread throughout them. I imagine you do, too. Can you comment on that?<\/span><\/p>\n

TN:<\/strong> When you asked that, I thought to myself, \u201cOh, what is it?\u201d<\/p>\n

The Earl Thomas<\/strong> song [\u201cLead a Horse to Water\u201d] and the Joe <\/strong>Tex<\/strong> song [\u201cThe Love You Save (May Be Your Own)\u201d] and \u201cWithout Love (There is Nothing)\u201d [originally by Irma Thomas<\/strong>], those three are all in an early r&b feel. The rest of them, to me, are Chicago blues songs.<\/p>\n

When I listen to what Jimmy Pugh did on the record, it\u2019s like a different keyboard player on every song. There\u2019s some B3, some piano, some Wurlitzer [EP200 electric piano].<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> I love the texture of the Wurlitzer. It always reminds me of Ray Charles<\/strong>.<\/span><\/p>\n

TN:<\/strong> \u201cWhat I\u2019d Say\u201d is the first song I learned on piano. I mean, I\u2019d studied classical piano, but it did me absolutely no good. But the first song I ever sat down and learned to play, in a rock\u2019n\u2019roll or blues style, was that. But it has<\/em> to be on Wurlitzer.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> How did the arrangements for the song come together: did you get together and rehearse the songs or was everything charted up for everyone?<\/span><\/p>\n

TN:<\/strong> I went in and played them the [original] tracks. They pretty much knew most of the songs anyway. I know that they will play the song and do something wonderful with it. I never try to arrange for them; occasionally I might have an idea \u2013 one little thing here or there \u2013 but for the most part, that\u2019s how we always do it.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how to do it: use the great engineer, the great producer, the great players. I just sit back and sing my songs.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> I very much like the fact that the liner notes on Victim of the Blues<\/em> give context and explanation for each of the tracks. Do you think that that background adds to listeners’ understanding and appreciation of the music?<\/span><\/p>\n

No.<\/p>\n

BK:<\/span><\/strong> Really?<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

TN:<\/strong> I did that because I was asked to. I don\u2019t know\u2026maybe it does [add to it] but that\u2019s not why I did it.<\/p>\n

We did this whole project ourselves. We cut the tracks without the aegis of a label. We presented them with the final \u201ceverything.\u201d Including the artwork. So Mindy<\/strong> [Giles<\/strong>], my manager, asked me to write blurbs on the songs. So I did. [laughs] I always<\/em> do what I\u2019m told.<\/p>\n

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Tracy Nelson first came to prominence with a highly regarded debut album Deep Are the Roots in 1965. Even then this white teenager from Wisconsin was covering Ma Rainey and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-interview","cat-41-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}