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My name is Nori Guthrie from the Woodson Research Center, Fond Library Rice University. I am interviewing Lynn Langham. Today is February 20th, 2017. This is where the Houston Folk Music Archive, oral History project. So, can you tell me a bit about your early life growing up

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around Houston? Well, I grew up, I, I went to junior high and high school in Freeport. Uh I went to some of my elementary years were in Lamarque and um, the rest of the time I was in East Texas, my dad was a minister and uh

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so I was the PK and nobody ever said bad words in front of me. My sister had a piano in the house that my father and grandfather had refinished for her, but she didn't really take to it all that. Well, so when I was about five

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years old, I started playing it and because I was picking songs out by ear, I started taking piano lessons when I, I guess they made me wait till I was about eight years old because my hands weren't big enough. And then I took piano lessons and

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she didn't, she kind of let go of it and she's, she's older than I am. And, uh, I have, I still have the piano, the piano is still her piano but I have custody. Right. She, uh, she, she had a lot to do actually, with me

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getting involved in music, she's, uh, she's 13 years older than I am. And when I was about 10 years old, she and her, um, husband gave me their stereo with, I think, six or seven albums. I had a, the sound of uh I had Peter Pan,

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um the music man, my fair lady, I wanted to be Audrey Hepburn. I thought that would be very cool. And uh then I had the Kingston Trio and the Brothers four and Marty Robbins, the Gunfighter ballads, which, you know, is still my favorite album and um

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an album by a Martin Denny that was real kind of probably cheesy jazz. Now, I don't know. Um It's called Exotica. Had Bird sounds and all kinds of stuff. And, and I listened to those every night before I went to bed. I had, you know, it

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was the kind of stereo that you could put a stack of, of LP S on. So I would put about five of them on and wherever I fell asleep in the, in the mix. Um I heard every night and that's really probably where I started getting

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really attached to music. Um And so when did you go ahead and start? When did you pick up the guitar. I took piano lessons until I was about 14 and I, uh, was also taking organ lessons and I was playing the organ in the church on

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Sunday nights. And I kind of got burned out on the piano because I realized one day I couldn't do anything but read music. I couldn't play by ear anymore. And that's what had started it. So I quit taking piano lessons and my mom and dad told

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me that if I would save everything I made playing the organ on Sunday nights, which was not very much money that they would match it. And on my 14th birthday first, they gave me a, they, they gave me a guitar. That was, it was a Suzuki

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guitar that I believe cost $28. And they said, if you will learn to play this guitar, then we'll talk about a better one, but not until you learn to play this one. So I learned to play it. And that's when they said, OK, if you save

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your money from playing the organ, we'll match it and you can buy a better guitar. And so I bought from H and H music in Houston, I bought a Gibson C two classical guitar, which I also still have, I save all my guitars. Um I don't

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have the $28 Suzuki anymore. And I wish I did, but that's what started it. And I quit playing the piano completely. I didn't touch a piano again for about six years. And then when I started playing the piano again, I just sat at it until I

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played and I never took any guitar lessons. I taught myself, I got, I had a Mill Bay Chord book and, uh, I just, I think there was a guy on TV, maybe that taught folk songs. And, uh, I had a book of child ballads and I

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just taught myself how to play. And it started, I got, got my first guitar when I was 14 years old and now I have a bunch of them. I also have a bunch of pianos. Um So you're saying that you were playing the organ in church?

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I was playing the organ in church and then with the guitar, I uh I just, I went and played for church camp and I can't remember, I had an a cappella song that I wrote that I remember singing in church when I was probably 16 or

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17 called The Sweet Light of Jesus. And uh actually in going through archives of mind for this, I found the lyrics to it. I had not even really thought about it in many years, but I would go and play for church groups and, and uh I

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would play, took my guitar when I go to church camp and I was on a youth council for church camp. And so I would, I was the one around the campfire leading the singing with my guitar. And then when I went to college, I started playing

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in clubs in Austin and then I started playing here and I kind of had a circuit for a while that I worked from Austin to here to Dallas and Denton. And I dropped out of college three times because I was playing music and I couldn't go

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to class in Austin if I was in Houston or Dallas. So, you know, I tried, I tried to finish college. I had five majors in college. I just wanted to play music. Bottom line was, I just wanted to play music. Were you kind of, um, were

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you hitting the, the college coffee houses or just, I was hit in college coffee houses. I was sitting, there was a, a club in Dallas called the Ruby. Um, there was a coffee house in, in Denton and I don't remember the name of it but it

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was associated with the campus and there was one at the University of Texas, but Austin also had the Saxon pub and Castle Creek and, you know, various other places around. Um, and in Houston there was theaters and Hula Hands and Cory and Anderson Fair and, you

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know, several others that, you know, I'm not sure. I remember all the names. Um, but that's, you know, I just, I finally, I used to tell people, yeah, I played eight days a week because I pretty much did. I was, I was playing every night somewhere

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and playing spaghetti lunches at Anderson Fair and at lunch time and the rest of the time I was home with my piano and guitar. I, I played a lot. Um, so were you more drawn to Anderson Fair than other clubs or? There are ones that you

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were kind of your favorite? Well, the thing about Anderson Fair was, it was always a listening room, you know, and, and the Saxon pub in Austin and Castle Creek were basically listening rooms that, um, some of the other clubs, people, people came to listen. But there

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was also like, I can remember Cory's, it was when Pina Coladas became the thing and I'd be in the middle of the slowest prettiest ballad in the Blender would go off. Um, because somebody wanted a pina Colada and, you know, they didn't make them wait. Right.

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Um So, yeah, Anderson Fair was great and it, and it was where we all communi, it was like, it was a community center almost for the musicians. You know, we didn't have any place else to go. We went to Anderson Fair and, and there was a

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Houston was a real hotbed of creative talent at that point. And we were playing essentially some of them are what I guess people would consider fern bars now. But instead of having to go in and play a lot of cover songs, we went in and played

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our own songs and, and especially played in Anderson Fair. Every time I was booked there, I wanted to have a new song, you know. So it was, uh, it really spurred you on and, and the competition was pretty fierce. There were some really good writers here.

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So it was, and every, and everybody was real supportive of each other, which is not always the case in a music center because sometimes there's a lot of jealousy, you know. II, I moved to Los Angeles later and when I was living in Los Angeles, you'd

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meet someone else that was a songwriter. And they'd say, well, I'm a songwriter. They go, oh, you know, whereas here it was like, hey, that's great. And Nashville is like, hey, let's write, you know, we didn't cori very much. Um, there were, I think maybe some

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people that were in bands together that wrote together but those of us that were individual writers mostly wrote individual, you know, our individual songs would, we didn't, you know, it's like some people say Van Gogh didn't co paint, you know, we didn't co write very much,

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but we were very supportive of each other. If I had a new song, I had friends, the first thing I did was go play it for them, you know, hey, I got a new song or they'd say, hey, I got a new song and, or even

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if we were working on something, but we didn't actually write it together, you know, it was that kind of just the kind of feeding off of each other. It was, it was, you know, when you have people that are that creative, it just, it just spurs

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you on to do better work, you know. And, and there was a lot of really good music that came out of here. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Um, going back to being in Houston there were not very many women that are flying in the scene. What was

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that like? I mean, you know, how are you treated? I didn't really think that much about it when I was in Houston and I thought about it more when I lived in Nashville. Oh, ok. Because here we were just all songwriters and, and I never really

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thought about anybody caring, you know, um, the whole, the whole time, I mean, you know, I hung with the guys and I had other friends that were women that, that played and, and it really wasn't, it wasn't something I ever really thought about, but in Nashville

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it's really a good old boy network. Ok. And there are women who break through, you know, one of the first things that hit me when I got there was, I always wanted to be an artist. I didn't want to be a songwriter. I wrote songs because

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I wanted something to sing. That was mine. You know, I wasn't thinking about writing songs to have anybody else record them. I still don't you know, if somebody records one of my songs, it's probably a fluke, you know, it's great. And then, you know, my publishers

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probably would have didn't want to hear me say that. But, but they knew it too. They knew that that was what I wanted, but they liked what I wrote. Um So to me it, I was an artist, you know, like Joni Mitchell was an artist. You

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know, James Taylor is an artist. Paul Simon was an artist. I got to Nashville and I found out that you were either an artist which means that you were the singer or you were a songwriter and you weren't supposed to be both and there wasn't a

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whole lot of that going on at the time. Um And that kind of, you know, was kind of like what, you know, and I had other songwriters who wanted to be artists that would say no, you know, you're either a songwriter or you're an artist, which

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do you wanna be? You know, and that kind of took me back and then I was at a demo session with someone, we had written a song together and for a publishing company that was, they were really good old boys. There's really no way the other

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way to put it. They were great and they, they had some great writers, but they were, you know, like, they wouldn't pitch songs to Mary Chapin Carpenter because she wasn't country. I mean, even though, she was having number one singles with the guy that I wrote

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for Don Schlitz was cow writing with her and having number one songs out of his company. But they wouldn't pitch my songs to Mary and Carpenter and, and, uh, we're in this demo session and we just cut this song and it's pretty country. And this guy

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saddles up to me and, and I know them all, you know, they're good buddies and he saddles up to me and he puts his arm around me and he says, you know, you're the only girl songwriter I know I don't have to put a girl in

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front of and I was like, thank you. I think so. Yeah, that's the difference then that, that put it real clear, you know. Um, and I can assure you that there are a lot more men writing songs there than there are women, but that's not to

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say that there aren't women and they aren't there. Some of them are very successful, but the ratio is, um, definitely male heavy. Um, the one point there, the attitude was that, you know, women don't sell records because women buy records and they buy them to take

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them home to their husbands and they don't want to take a pretty face home to their husband. So they buy a man's record. Go figure, you know, these are things that have been said to me by business people. But, you know, I just I don't know.

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I do what I do. I'll go where I go and that's what, that's what's gonna happen. I, I, maybe if I had, had, had more of a specific I'm going here, I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that and I'm gonna do that. Maybe my

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life would be different. But I don't have any complaints. I'm pretty happy. I still get to do what I do and, and, uh, and I can still go to the grocery store and nobody bothers me either. So, um, early on, yeah, I can't think it's around

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76. Um You contributed songs to Through the Dark Nightly. What was that experience like? Oh, it was amazing. It was the first time I'd ever been in the studio and nobody had ever recorded me before. Um, and I was, you know, thrilled. I was really, really

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felt honored to be on that album and in that company. And, uh, you were asking me about the songs Walter Spinks who helped, you know, make that happen, lives in Nashville now and he comes to hear me play when I play in Nashville and he's been

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bugging me. He's like, ok, I want you to learn this one. I want you to learn this one and I want you to learn this one because I wanna hear them again. So the last time I played in Nashville, Walter was there and I played it.

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I played, living in the music for Walter. Um, so, yeah, it's, it's, uh, it was a real honor to be part of that. It was, it was really special. Do you wanna play? Can play one of those songs I will try to play, living in the

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music. We'll see what happens. Uh, I actually played on the piano now rather than the guitar. But, uh, I played it the other night at Anderson Fair and, uh, Linda Lowe was there and she said you wrote that on guitar and I was like, well, you

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know, I changed it and I don't often do that. Usually if I write something on guitar, it lives on guitar forever. And if I write it on the piano, it lives on the piano forever. But this one actually goes both ways. But I will try it.

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It's called living in the music. Sometimes you get so feel love and your dreams. Sometimes fire will burn. I lost my free will long have a music swallow me home. The five hate it for some time. Music. So sweet feel. I

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sometimes kill me. Make you feel found his street. But sometimes she gets so alone. No place to go. Sometimes, you know, the club will hang low. You feel love show. I lost my free will. Long time. The on the bench, I live in music. You swallow

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me home. And if I, and for some time, oh, it's like rotting walking birds. Win fly is starving. It's better. And circa trap. But sometimes she get so long, tired, worn out, said Chelsea. And sometimes, you know, fire will burn. You feel love and your dream

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lost my free will. A long time. Oh, never. That's on the music. Swallow me home. And if I'd done a, oh, I live and the music it's swallow me home and it falls down. Hey, so, so around the time that you did the recording, then you

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went off to New York. Uh Can you talk about that experience? Why did you end up moving? Well, I was, um, I, I guess I just kind of felt like I wanted to see what the big wide world was all about. Not that Houston wasn't the

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big wide world, but I, I really wanted to go to a music business center and, and I actually was planning to move to California. I had a friend who had moved to Los Angeles and was working in a recording studio there and, and he was like,

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you gotta come to L A, you gotta do this. But I had a friend who lived in New York City at the time and she said, if you're gonna move to Los Angeles, you have to go to New York first because once you get out there,

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you'll never come back here. And so you come and see me in New York and then you can move to Los Angeles. I said, OK, so I moved out of my apartment, I marked all my boxes. California. I put them in my brother's attic and I

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went to New York and while I was there, um, Mara took me to the other end, which was also the bitter end. But at that point, because of tax reasons, they were calling it the other end. It's the bitter end again now. And we were sitting

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in there eating lunch and there was a guy sitting in the corner in a corner booth and she says that's Paul Colby. He owns the place. You need to go talk to him. And I was like, ok, and she, she pretty much pushed me out of

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my chair because it's not my nature to go throw myself into those situations. So I went up to him and I said, hi. Um I know you own this place and, and my name is Lynn Langham and I'm here from Texas. And I was wondering if,

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you know, like I could audition up for you. And he looked at me kind of funny and he said, do you know how many people want to play music for me? He says, why would I listen to you? And I said, totally out of, out of

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my nature. I said, because you might miss something if you don't. And he stopped and looked at me. He said, the last person who said that to me was Jerry Jeff Walker, be here tomorrow at one o'clock and I'll listen to you. I said, ok, so

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I came in at one o'clock the next day and I played for him and he said, ok, I, like you, he said, the other end of bitter end has two sides. One side is a listening room and one side was a, uh, restaurant bar area. But

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they had music in both sides and they had music every night on a corner stage in the bar. And he said, if you wanna move to New York, he said, first, he said I have an opening next week. You want it. And I was like, I'm

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supposed to leave and he said, well, it's up to you, you can have it if you want. It pays 100 bucks. I was like, ok, so I, uh, changed my plans. I stayed for another week. I played the bar for a week and when I was

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done, he said, ok, if you wanna move to New York City, I'll make sure that you have a spot in here every month. And I'll put you in the main room as an opening act every chance I can. And I went ok. So I moved to

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New York. It was as simple as that and he was true to his word. He actually was kind of acted as a manager for a while and, uh, I got to open up. It was, it was funny because I was kind of on the run from

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country music. So, you know, I'm a Texan from in New York City. So they booked me with Larry Gatlin and asleep at the wheel and they booked me with all the country acts. But it was ok. I had a really good time there and he treated

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me really well. And while I was there, I, I played a lot of other clubs. I played, it was a place called Tramps and there was a clam bar and there was a place called, um, um, the back was it Kinney's back? I can't even tell

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you the back fence, I think maybe was the name of it. And there was Folk City. And, uh, I played all around the village and then I played several clubs that were uptown and I learned a lot. You know, what did you, what did you take

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away from the experience? Well, I, I got a whole feel of jazz in the music that I had never really encountered, you know, it was folky or country here or, you know, your top 40 but there was a lot of jazz in New York. And, and

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I, um, I picked it up. It was, it was really kind of interesting because when, when, uh, I left New York, I moved to Los Angeles and I started talking to publishers and, you know, I moved from Texas to New York City where they booked me

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with country acts. Not entirely but somewhat. I left New York. I went to Los Angeles and they said, I don't know, this is too jazzy. You, you think you have something with a hook and a beat, you need to work on a hook and a beat.

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So I started working on a hook and a beat and then from Los Angeles, I moved to Nashville and they said, you know, I don't know, you got too much hook and a beat in your songs. Can you, like, write some story songs? And I was

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like, so, you know, I guess I've learned it all. I don't, I don't know, I just always thought I was just doing what I liked and some, somebody else was putting names on it and that's still what I do. So, what did, um, what was it

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like being in L A? Um, what did you end up doing there? Oddly enough, I didn't feel as safe in L A as I did in New York. In New York. I used to walk up and down the streets carrying $2000 worth of guitars under my

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arms. You know, I had two guitars. I was headed down the street with both of them. First time I tried to go to a club alone in Los Angeles. I pulled into a parking place and the guy pulled in next to me so I couldn't get

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out and wanted me to get in his car, you know. So I just blasted my horn and he drove on. But that was, that was my entrance to L A, uh, later on if you want, I'll tell you my entrance to New York, which, aside from

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the other end, the actual driving in, it was pretty interesting but, um, L A was not as, um, it wasn't as warm and friendly and, you know, it was, it was, or it didn't feel that way to me it was, it felt more competitive as in,

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um, you do what I do. But so I don't wanna know you, whereas in Houston it was just totally, oh, you do what? I do? Great. Let's, let's hang, you know, and in Nashville it's like, well, let's write, you know, um, L A was a little

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more distant than that and, and then ultimately I got married and I got pregnant and I had, um, two kids and I put the guitars, my guitars were in a closet that was in a closet. Um, for about six years, I had a whole circle of

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friends who didn't know that I played music. They knew that I was Heather's mom and Nathan's mom. They didn't, didn't know anything about what I really did. You know, I mean, they are what I really did, I suppose, but not to belittle being a mother, I

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loved being a mother, but I just put it away and part of the reason I put it away was because I was so used to feeling really on top of my game and I didn't have time to, to practice as much and, and work as much

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and I would go sit down to play and I would hear mistakes and, you know, just little discrepancies that bothered me and it was easier to not play than it was to not play well. So I stopped and I was married to a recording engineer who

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gave my tapes to someone. And I had, um, I ended up getting a couple of single song publishing deals out there and, and he gave a tape to, to George Wilkins who was a songwriter and musician who he wrote um, a lot of music for Epcot

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singer and for Teddy Ruxin talking teddy bear. Um, and George went to Palm Springs and put the cassette. Yes, it was a cassette in his car and he came back and he looked at me differently and he literally just about took me by the collar and

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took me to the studio and he's hired a band, fronted the money for the whole thing, put me in his studio. Um It was studios in Hollywood and we recorded five songs and then he turned Brad had built him a, um, 48 track studio in his

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garage basically. And he turned that studio over to us. He actually babysat for my daughter while some of the time while I was working in his studio and told us to finish it and really never asked you know, said if I ever got rich and famous

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I could pay him back. And so far I haven't and I haven't and I do still know Georgia and someday I'll pay you back, George, I promise. Um, but he, uh, he, he gave me, he got me back into it. And it was really interesting because

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when I started playing again, I had lost a lot of bad habits and I had a whole new reason why I was writing. But I think my writing went way up just from not doing it for a while, you know, and, and, and it meant more.

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It was, it wasn't, it was, it's not that it didn't mean something before, but I had been deprived, you know, or deprived myself of it. And when I went back to it, it had a whole new intensity and I think I wrote a lot better than

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I had written. And this is when you were still in L A, correct? Ok. When did you end up going into Nash, going to Nashville? Um, it was in 1989 like almost 1990. It was in December of 1989 that, uh, we moved to Nashville and part

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of it was because the work that Brad was doing in LA, a lot of the people he was working with had moved to Nashville and, you know, I had two kids and L A is a pretty weird place to raise your Children. And he had worked

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for a company um for a while called Worlds of Wonder. That were the creators of Teddy Ruxpin. And I was actually the voice of Fuzz Fob who was a character in the Teddy Ruxpin series. And that had, that had gone bankrupt. They had some things had

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happened and that had folded up and it was just time to make a change and we didn't want to move kids to New York or Chicago, but we had to go to a movie, uh a music center and Nashville just seemed like the logical choice. So

00:31:59.630 - 00:32:19.739

we moved to Nashville and um it was good. So how did you, how did you kind of settle in? Did you, did you immediately start kind of reaching out to, uh I guess when I moved to Nashville, um Brad had done an, an album in L

00:32:19.750 - 00:32:36.119

A but it was out of Nashville MC A had done an album on, on a guitar player named Albert Lee who was a great, wonderful guitar player. And Brad had produced an album with him called Speechless. And it was funded by MC A in Nashville. So

00:32:36.130 - 00:32:51.729

he had liaisons, you know, we were still living in L A but they had like liaisons people he was dealing with. And um when we moved there, he took some, some of my music to a guy named Buzz Stone and said, you know, this is, I

00:32:51.739 - 00:33:08.680

know this, this is my wife, but listen to her anyway. And in the course of that, um, and, and our realtor, oddly enough, our realtor when we were looking for a house was engaged to the head of BM I, and she took some tapes and played

00:33:08.689 - 00:33:22.420

them for Charlie Feldman and she came back the next day to take us to look at my house and she says I played your tapes for Charlie and he liked them. Charlie doesn't ever like anything. I play him. So he set me up with a meeting

00:33:22.430 - 00:33:37.719

with, with Jodie Williams and Jody. I mean, this is like when I first got there and, and Jody took me out to lunch and asked me who I wanted to go see. And I had, you know, I'm coming off the six years of being a mom

00:33:38.069 - 00:33:53.530

and not performing at all and, and I said, you know what, I think I just need to stay home for a while and practice. And when I'm feel like I can do what's on those tapes live, you know, then I'll go see people. So he ended

00:33:53.540 - 00:34:11.099

up sending me to um several publishers and I ended up signing with Hay Street Music with a lady named Pat Helper. Um It was a company it was owned by her and uh business manager, Chuck Flood and songwriter Don Schlitz who um his first claim, his

00:34:11.108 - 00:34:27.039

first, he had many claims to fame. His first was the gambler. And um, and I wrote for them for eight years and Buzz Stone ended up going to Capitol Records. He had, he was working at MC A when I met him and uh he actually got

00:34:27.049 - 00:34:42.898

me an artist deal on Capitol. But they thought they were having a, an alternative department and I was in the alternative department. And then as things progressed, they decided they weren't going to have an alternative department. So after devoting two years of my life to that

00:34:42.908 - 00:35:01.489

and making an album, which, you know, I was pretty proud of and I think they liked it. Um, they folded that whole department. So the album never came out because if I, I read recently, so there's the, there was, I can't remember what it was called

00:35:01.928 - 00:35:17.189

and that like kind of late eighties period in Nashville when La Lovett, Nancy Griffith and all those people were coming up. There's a, the credibility scare or something I think that it, that was called and then there was that shit with Garth Brooks and I was

00:35:17.199 - 00:35:34.239

on Garth Brooks Label. Ok? I, I was being, um, produced by Jimmy Bowen who was the head of Capital Records, which he had, had become Liberty Records because he didn't want Capitol Records in Nashville to be associated with the other, it was, it was still Capitol

00:35:34.250 - 00:35:50.300

Records, but he had to change the name to Liberty. Um, and its capital again. Now, I think, uh, once he was gone, they, they went back to, to Capitol but he produced it and, yeah, in the course of the time when we made the album, um,

00:35:50.919 - 00:36:11.530

they had kind of lost their interest in, um, the credibility aspect and Garth Brooks was coming in and selling like, hot cakes and there was like, uh, I think Todd Snyder and me, and there was a band from San Francisco that were all in the alternative

00:36:11.540 - 00:36:32.399

division and they just kind of dumped the whole thing. And, uh, yeah. Yeah. It's really strange how everything kind of just shifts and changes and, and, um, the publishing company Hay Street, they were actually really great about it. You know, they just, they've been in the

00:36:32.409 - 00:36:47.110

business a long time. They've seen a lot of stuff go down and they just said, you know, what, all you can control is what you write. That's the only thing you have control of. So go to your room and write. They gave me about six weeks

00:36:47.120 - 00:37:02.159

to whine about it, you know, and cry and then it was like, ok, you know, we're paying you to write songs, so write songs and they, and they wanted me to write what I loved, you know, they signed me because they liked what I did naturally.

00:37:02.169 - 00:37:15.570

I was never in one of those situations where they said, ok, you've got to write a song for Tanya Tucker this week, you know, Tanya is cutting, so go write a song for the it's like something Tanya. And I was, they never did that to me,

00:37:16.080 - 00:37:32.320

they, they were known for having stuff that was a little different and that's what they, they encouraged. They, all they wanted was the best song I knew how to write whatever it was. And then it was their job to figure out what to do with it.

00:37:33.120 - 00:37:49.949

And, uh, some of them, they found something to do with and some of them they didn't, but more of them they didn't. But that's, that's, that's par for the course, you know, it was, you have to, you have to really learn to accept. No. Right. When

00:37:49.959 - 00:38:07.600

you're a songwriter, if you're trying to write for a market, you know. So what were some of the ones that ended up getting picked up during that period? Um, well, they, they all, they owned all of them, um, about one on a Judd, um, recorded one

00:38:07.610 - 00:38:26.320

on her first solo album called All That Love from Here. I think that album sold, I think it's 5 million plus. So that was pretty cool. Um There's some others that were recorded. Holly Dunn recorded one. that was, that's actually the first one that got recorded.

00:38:26.330 - 00:38:44.040

Um, it's called, I Can't hear it. I, I don't wanna hear it if your heart can't do the talking. And to be honest, I never liked it very much but she did. So that's good. Um, and I had some others that were recorded that, uh, didn't

00:38:44.360 - 00:38:58.090

ended up not being on the albums, you know, when it came down to the last, in these, the case of these songs, literally the last 12 songs and they're only putting 10 on. Um One of them was Trisha Yearwood recorded a song called Magnolia Time that's

00:38:58.100 - 00:39:16.520

still in the, still in the vaults at MC A. Maybe it'll show up someday. Her, um, recorded one. Um I'll tell you the name of it later. I can't even think of it right now. Um That's what love deserves is what it was called. And it

00:39:16.530 - 00:39:37.330

was also uh recorded for by um a lady named Stephanie Bentley who never her, her deal never really, really materialized at that point. And, um, you know, that's, that's just, that's, that's just the way it rolls there. Um Rodney Crowell produced an album for his wife

00:39:37.340 - 00:39:56.689

Claudia Church and he recorded one called The Streets of Nashville. And uh the most recent one that happened is um Amy Lou Harris and Rodney recorded Deal La Moon for their um duet album which was released in 20 I guess the album was released in 2013

00:39:57.199 - 00:40:18.149

and it won the Americana album of the year uh for the Americana Music Association in 2013. And then in 2014, it actually won a Grammy for Americana album of the Year, which is like, sometimes you just say thank you. You know, thanks. What, what was that

00:40:18.159 - 00:40:34.439

like? Were, were you there for the air? Ok. No, I didn't go, I watched it on TV. You know, I was, like, dumbfounded when I actually, you know, heard him call it out. It was, it was, uh, it was, uh, I'm trying to remember how I

00:40:34.449 - 00:40:55.419

saw it because it wasn't on the main, the main show, you know, I did hear it then and, and, uh, but I, I did see a clip of, uh, Rodney going up and getting the Grammy. It was, it was very cool, you know. Um, let's, I

00:40:55.429 - 00:41:12.469

can actually, and I, I mean, I, I keep thinking I'm going to do this because I haven't done it. Um, I can get a certificate with the Gold Grammy on it. I don't actually get the Grammy. Um, they don't give those out to everybody involved but

00:41:13.050 - 00:41:26.870

everybody involved becomes a Grammy winner. Some, oddly enough I was, I was kind of like, I'm kind of on the edge of a Grammy but then C A, I'm, I'm a writer for C A and C A put in their big nationwide magazine, the list of

00:41:26.879 - 00:41:39.060

Grammy winners and they put my name on there. So I, by golly, I'll take it, you know, I mean, I think that's a pretty impressive thing to be able to add to your name. Yeah, it's, it's raised my real estate a little bit. People like to

00:41:39.070 - 00:41:56.800

know that. Um, do you wanna play or? I don't know if any of those were written specifically just for the piano. But are any of those ones that were written for the, they are all on the piano all on one of them? Um, I'll try to,

00:41:56.810 - 00:42:14.810

I mean, you're gonna edit this. I will try to play old gentlemen on guitar. I don't play it as well. I'll play it like Amy plays it. It was, it was kind of a, I mean, there's an interesting story to this. Uh I had known Emmy,

00:42:14.820 - 00:42:34.949

but I'd never pitched songs to Amy. Um, because my husband worked for her and I just didn't cross that line and she was aware of me. She knew who I was. I worked in her studio. So, yeah, and I was in Florida and I get this

00:42:34.959 - 00:42:56.260

phone call from her, her ex-husband who had been her producer, Brian. And, uh, you know, I know Brian pretty well, but I talk to him about once every 10 years, Brian. I answer the phone. He says, hi Lynn. It's B A and I'm sitting at my

00:42:56.270 - 00:43:10.080

dining room table with Emmy and Rodney. And Emmy remembers a song that you wrote about a moon that you pitched to her a long time ago. But she can't remember the name, you know what she's talking about. And I honestly didn't because I didn't pitch the

00:43:10.090 - 00:43:22.989

song. But I figured it out pretty quick because I wrote it with Hank Devito who also used to work with me and Hank had pitched it. So I, you know, I had to, just by making the association, I figured out that was what it was. And

00:43:24.679 - 00:43:37.239

so when they got ready to record it, um, Amy told me, she said, well, we're not having any guests on this album. We're gonna try to do a hot band album. But if we have any guests, um, would you play that piano part? Because all I

00:43:37.250 - 00:43:51.649

had was a piano vocal on it. And, uh, I was like, sure. So I ended up playing piano on it. So if you ever hear her track, I'm playing piano. That's me. And, uh that was, that was really special. And then I was in Florida again

00:43:51.659 - 00:44:27.620

when I got another phone call saying, well, it looks like you've got the title cut of the album. So that was really special, you know, to know that I actually had the title cut. So anyway, it's called The Little Yellow Moon. You? Oh

00:44:33.979 - 00:46:19.820

Yellow. I don't, I'm an no heads up. So it, yeah, hour oh, way across the sky. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

00:46:21.709 - 00:47:45.560

Yeah. So on. About heart again. No, then it, we are county. Yeah, way across the No. Ok. Thank you. I don't play that on the guitar very often. Well,

00:47:45.570 - 00:48:10.790

II, I can't say that. Um, so can you tell me about, um, kind of your current songwriting process how that works right now? Wow. Uh It works about like it always did. I I, unless I'm sitting in a room with a cow writer where we got

00:48:10.800 - 00:48:24.860

to come up with, you know, we don't have to, but we try to come up with something. Um, sometimes I do, sometimes they do, sometimes it says to get, sometimes, you know, you go have coffee and one of you says something and you go, oh, let's

00:48:24.870 - 00:48:43.620

write about that, you know. And so that's what we'll do beyond that. It's mostly most of my songs start, I'm driving and I, you know, now it's my phone, I hit record on my phone and, uh, sometimes it'll be over a beat of something that's on

00:48:43.629 - 00:48:58.060

the radio. But I just sort of sing, pretend like that, you know, just take the part I want singing over it or, um, have a song I wrote not too long ago, um, called One of the Texas Planes. I was driving home from Texas and I

00:48:58.070 - 00:49:19.449

just started singing, you know, and I just, and, you know, it was probably two years later that I actually finished the song, um, actually wrote it with someone. But, um, the, the easiest way I write is to sit and play and as music comes out, words

00:49:19.459 - 00:49:36.879

tend to fall into place. And I'm not a fast writer. Generally iiii I kind of slave over him, you know. And I, and I try not to push them. I look at it. I've always kind of looked at writing is like when I was in kindergarten,

00:49:37.629 - 00:49:51.929

they would give us a piece of Manilla paper and we would color it with real bright colors and then we would paint black tier paint over the whole thing. And then we would take our scissors and we would scratch out whatever we wanted. I kind of

00:49:51.939 - 00:50:11.189

look at songwriting that way because the whole song is there. It's just waiting for me to discover it and I just pull things away until it's there and, and, and I write slowly most of the time. But if I'm writing by myself, especially, I'm, I'm, I'm

00:50:11.199 - 00:50:30.350

pretty slow. Uh, just, you know, I have a song that's an a cappella song called White Bird, Blackbird. And, and this is how a lot of them start, they start real fast and then they don't, you know, then they stall. Um, my daughter was probably six

00:50:30.360 - 00:50:44.729

years old and I was going to buy her art supplies. She's mad artist. And I was, I pulled into a parking place. I was living in Los Angeles. I pulled into a parking place and there were two pigeons in the sky, a black one and a

00:50:44.739 - 00:50:59.790

white one. you know, kind of doing this up in the sky and it just started really fast. It was a white bird and the black bird did fly up so high, soaring and a sail and all through the sky. And I stood below them and watched

00:50:59.800 - 00:51:20.989

as they flew and I wished it was me up there flying with you and it came that fast. I just sang it 10 years later, one line at a time in order in my car, that song finally finished itself. Um, I finished it, taking, taking my

00:51:21.000 - 00:51:38.229

Children back and forth to school in Tennessee. I had about a 78 minute drive through the country to get them to their, their school and I would drop them off and then I would start singing that song and whatever I got to, if there wasn't a

00:51:38.239 - 00:52:01.750

next line, I stopped, started at the beginning again and one by one, the lines came and now it's a finished song and, and a lot of my songs happen that way. I, I don't, if I don't know what comes next, I wait and, because if I

00:52:01.760 - 00:52:18.879

try to write it, if I try to assert my will over it, it won't be as good. You know, my brain is not as good as the cosmos. I think they're out there and, and I just have to uncover them and that's, that's really pretty much

00:52:18.889 - 00:52:33.290

my writing process. Um, it's not to say that I, you know, I have a, the, I have a thesaurus. I don't even know how you say it. See, that's how much I use it. Um, I have a rhyming dictionary. I can pull it up on my

00:52:33.300 - 00:52:49.179

computer. I do write on my computer more than I used to only write you know, with a pen and paper and I still do that, but especially if I'm in a cow writing situation, it's just faster to do it with the computer and, and I, you

00:52:49.189 - 00:53:05.649

know, whatever I'm really sure about goes at the top and then underneath it or all the ideas and the things that we're not using. But, but I store everything. If I'm writing on paper, I write on, I open a, out a notebook that the left side

00:53:05.659 - 00:53:22.610

is the ideas and it doesn't go on the right page, right side page until it's what I want. Interesting. Uh, these are my processes for whatever they're worth. No, I think it's a really interesting way to go about it. Um, but I, I'm, I don't, you

00:53:22.620 - 00:53:33.429

know, there's some people who they won't write unless they've got the title a lot of times I don't know what the title is till I get to the end of the song. Um, you know, maybe that's why I don't have more hit songs. You know, all

00:53:33.439 - 00:53:48.370

some people say I do have hit songs, just nobody knows them. So I don't know. You can look at that however you want to. You know, I just, music is just something that I can't get rid of. You know, I probably should have been a lawyer

00:53:48.379 - 00:54:02.800

or a doctor or something. I don't know. But I'm not, I never could keep focused on anything like that long enough to do. It, it was like, I was always going, no, I gotta go play music for a while. Well, then that's what you should have

00:54:02.810 - 00:54:19.449

done. But you did? Yeah. And, and I'm, and I'm an artist too. Um, I was, I was an art major in college. That was the final major that I had and, and I still still do, do things. And so it's so what do you, what do

00:54:19.459 - 00:54:39.330

you work with, Um Do you paint or? Yeah. Yeah. Mostly painting. Uh I don't do it as much as I used to. I, I actually, um when Napster hit the publishing deals dried up, um people were, the publishers were scared they weren't gonna make any money

00:54:39.340 - 00:54:56.729

anymore and they were actually right. And uh one by one, every songwriter I knew lost their publishing deal. Um And it didn't matter whether you'd had a lot of hits or not. Everybody, when our contracts went up, the publishers pretty much backed off of, you know,

00:54:56.739 - 00:55:12.169

I would say 80% of the songwriters. Wow, lost their publishing deals and it's not really, you know, it really hasn't come back. They, you know, I mean, I, I can't speak for New York or L A but now they're saying that about 80% of the songwriters

00:55:12.179 - 00:55:27.620

in Nashville are gone, they're doing something else. Um because it's just that hard to make a living doing it and, and I started doing uh decorative painting and I just taught myself how that I could, I could make your walls look like anything you'd like, you

00:55:27.629 - 00:55:42.639

know, or your furniture. Um, but, uh, you know, I would say at this point that's mostly what I do with it. But I do it from a real creativity. You know, if I'm a piece of furniture, I just look at it till it tells me what

00:55:42.649 - 00:56:01.370

it wants. Just like I write songs. You know, it's, it's the same thing. And, um, I have a daughter who's, uh, really, um, really accomplished artist who has a master's in art and she is, that's what she does. Now, she teaches art and, and she gives

00:56:01.379 - 00:56:14.439

me art supplies and I fool around with them and, but not as much as she would like me to probably, and not as much as I would like to, but I keep going back to this, you know, it's like I keep going back to this pianos

00:56:14.449 - 00:56:38.239

and guitars. And so if the, um, if the, if the publishing deals kind of went or went away, then how, what do you do now? How is it? I travel. You travel? Yeah. Yeah, I would, um, you know, like I, I played here this weekend and

00:56:38.250 - 00:56:53.879

I'm in Dallas in Belton next weekend and then I go home to Nashville and I'm there for a couple of weeks and then we're going to, um, California and we have gigs in Joshua Tree and Los Angeles and several, several places around ST Louis and, and

00:56:53.889 - 00:57:11.929

then maybe Albuquerque on the way home and, you know, then I have some gigs in Nashville and then I'll be in Florida and, you know, it's, and the most lucrative is, is house concerts, house concerts are great and it's a fun way to play. You know,

00:57:11.939 - 00:57:29.340

I wish more people, you know, more, more people are becoming aware of them, but a lot of people who are into acoustic music, they don't want to go to a bar to hear, you know, loud music and, and a lot of acoustic music doesn't really require

00:57:29.350 - 00:57:46.179

a sound system, or at least not a big one. I mean, I have one we carry around with us. Um, but it's an intimate way to sit and share your stories and your songs with people and, and it's ca casual enough. If somebody wants to ask

00:57:46.189 - 00:57:59.139

you a question, they can ask you a question and, you know, or they'll have a dinner early and they get to meet you and talk to you and you can talk to them and, and, uh, you know, by the end of the night you're all good

00:57:59.149 - 00:58:18.780

friends and, you know, hopefully they remember you and take you home with them. Yeah. To me that's what music is about. I, I am not, uh, I've never been a real rocker and, and, you know, I loved top 40 music when I was growing up just

00:58:18.790 - 00:58:38.179

like everybody else. Did. But the songs that, to me it's like, you know, they come, they, they stick before they go on, you know, and that, as opposed to just, you know, air candy, not ear candy but air candy, you know, I mean, it's things that

00:58:38.189 - 00:58:51.000

just, they go by because they just fill up a space out there and that's not what I try to do. I try to write things that make a difference, You know, it, even if it's just to one person, you know, even if it's just, to me,

00:58:51.330 - 00:59:13.570

it's like there's a reason for that song to stop in your heart before it carries on. So, since you are touring and you had toured in the seventies and eighties or mainly in the seventies, how has that changed now? Like the venues, the, the clubs that

00:59:13.580 - 00:59:29.919

you used to play in compared to what they are now? Um, well, a lot of the, the ones I used to play in aren't here anymore. Right. You know, except for Anderson Fair. Um, we do more, more house concerts, more, you know, smaller venues, uh, writers,

00:59:29.929 - 00:59:49.129

songwriter shows as opposed to, um, you know, like the things that we, that, um, I travel with someone with Doug Gill and, and, uh, when, uh, when we go to California, several of the things that we're playing are actually writer shows where there will be several

00:59:49.139 - 01:00:03.399

people who will come just as to play, they bring their guitars and they wanna play, but we're the featured act. We're the ones we're hired to be there. Um, it's, it's, I don't know, I, this sounds kind of egot. It's like, well, this is how it's

01:00:03.409 - 01:00:17.120

supposed to be done, you know, that's silly but that is kind of how it's presented, you know, is, is, um, we're the, we're the featured act and, and, uh, we're the ones that get paid and everybody else comes and plays a couple songs, but we actually

01:00:17.129 - 01:00:42.610

do a show. Um And some of those are in clubs and some of them are um in people's homes. OK? And wineries, wineries are oh, great wineries. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. There's one place that we play that's, it's called Scalp and the whole place is a

01:00:42.620 - 01:01:03.040

sculpture garden and I mean, big sculptures, not just life size, like things that are like two stories, three stories tall, really big um sculptures that they have out there. And it's like we play on a, the, the stage is a, a raised area with a live

01:01:03.050 - 01:01:19.179

oak tree that grows up out of the center of it with a wall around it with rose bushes and you stand on that stage and you look out and all you can see as far as you can see is vineyards and close to you are these

01:01:19.189 - 01:01:33.899

amazing sculptures and in the middle of it, our tables with umbrellas and you know, people go to the, the wineries off to the left and they have a tasting room and people go in there and they get their bottles of wine or their glasses of wine

01:01:33.909 - 01:01:49.580

and they come out and sit around outside and listen to music all afternoon in the southern California or northern. I guess it's middle California in that place. It's not, you're not really in northern California yet, uh, out in the sun and it's just beautiful. You know,

01:01:49.590 - 01:02:00.429

it's like I would go there and play for free. It's like I get to stand here and look at all this and play songs great and the sound is gonna be good and you're gonna listen and you're gonna love it and you're gonna buy my C

01:02:00.439 - 01:02:17.949

DS and tell me I'm wonderful. What's not to like, you know, it's, it's a lovely place to be. Wow. That, that's the first time that I've heard about that. Yeah, there's, there's a pretty good circuit of, of wineries that have, um, you know, it's, it kind

01:02:17.959 - 01:02:34.310

of works both ways, you know, it, it's a see each other. It's like they come to come to hear music along with having some wine. It helps people come to the winery, but it also helps the musicians too. It's, and it's a lovely way to play.

01:02:36.229 - 01:02:56.600

I would. Yeah, I mean, it sounds just like ideal. Yeah, it's pretty sweet. Um So I guess kind of kind of looking over it all in a sense. Um Can you talk about maybe how, um, your music has changed over the years that you kind of

01:02:56.610 - 01:03:10.550

kept the same songwriting process. But are there different themes that you focused on or, you know, you've talked about maybe how you shifted a little bit more from guitar to piano. Yeah. I mean, I would say when I, when I was living in Houston, I would

01:03:10.560 - 01:03:23.760

probably 80% of what I did was on the guitar and maybe 20% on the piano because I had just kind of started pulling the piano back in. Now, it's flipped, you know, I play a lot more songs on the piano than I do on the guitar.

01:03:24.469 - 01:03:43.959

Um And I, and I think it's more sophisticated and, and it's more adult. It's, you know, I still write a lot of love songs. I think people like love songs. I like love songs. Um I don't, I'm not very political. Um I write some life songs,

01:03:43.969 - 01:03:56.709

right? Um You know, White Bird, White Bird is a life song. It's not, not really a love song and people have come up to me and proven that to me by telling me what it meant to them in their lives, um which were not at all

01:03:56.719 - 01:04:12.340

the things that I thought that I was writing about. You know, but to me that's when the song is working, it's best is you sing it and people, it's almost, even though it's not abstract, it's like an abstract painting people take what they want from it,

01:04:12.580 - 01:04:25.629

you know what, sometimes people take things from it that you didn't know were in the song until they come back and tell you that that's what they got from the song and then you go. Oh, well, yeah, I guess I could see how you would get

01:04:25.639 - 01:04:42.020

that but you don't plan that when you're, you know, when you're writing it. But there's songs that I wrote years ago that I'm pretty embarrassed about now. I would never play them for you or anyone else, you know? Right. Um, there's some things that, you know,

01:04:42.030 - 01:04:59.330

were really downright silly but, you know, I guess, I guess it's more sophisticated and I have more, uh, you might not know it from the things that I've played on the guitar here today because these are songs that are actually on the piano. But, um, I'm

01:04:59.340 - 01:05:19.340

a better guitar player and I'm a better piano player and, um, I don't, I don't think as much about what other people might think if that makes sense. You know? And I think that's maybe some of that's just part of something you grow into as you

01:05:19.350 - 01:05:38.770

get older that you, you start to realize that, you know, I have a voice and it's not anybody else's voice but mine and I shouldn't let anybody else rule it. You know, it's my voice and I, and I think that's, that, that might be the most

01:05:38.780 - 01:05:54.500

thing is that I write what I really feel. Um, although there are times when you're in a co writing situation where you just, you're on the train and that's where you're going. So you go, but I don't learn those songs, you know, I write them and

01:05:54.580 - 01:06:13.969

we turn them into whoever gets and they're kind of, they go behind me. But there are songs that I, there are songs that, um, I can't really say that there's anything from the time that I was living in Houston that I still play on a regular

01:06:13.979 - 01:06:28.770

basis. I have pulled living in the music out again because people have been nagging me to do that. So, you know, you win. I, I, I'll play it again. I, I do still love the song. I just think I'm a better writer than that now, but

01:06:28.780 - 01:06:49.060

maybe I'm wrong, you know, what do I know? Um, but I just try to, I just try to write what I feel what I believe and, um, hope that somebody else feels it and believes it too when I play it. It's, I think I probably right.

01:06:52.239 - 01:07:10.260

I still write slow ballads but I write more mid to up tempo stuff. Not more than ballads, but more than I used to. You know, you could come see me play in Houston and, and, uh, you know, I'm, I'm scraping to find an up tempo song,

01:07:10.270 - 01:07:24.750

you know, to, to keep the set lively. I think I have more of that. Now, you know, I could actually probably do a set that moves pretty good if I wanted to do a whole set that way. But, you know, my heart is still with the

01:07:24.760 - 01:07:49.830

balance. I, I like you're, you're really good at the ballad. Thank you. I wanna thank you so much for coming in and talking. You're very welcome. Thank you for having me. This has been really great. Thank you so much. It's the raw me, right.