Country Fried Rock 1501: Jim White, Mr Cab Driver, Flea Market Expert, Collaborator
Summary
This week’s episode from 2015 of Country Fried Rock takes a deep dive into the world of collaboration, with the talented Jim White joining us to talk about his recent partnership with the Packway Handle Band. We get into the highs and lows of working together creatively, especially when it comes to music production. Jim shares what it's like to take on the role of a “record foreman” instead of a traditional producer, giving us a fresh perspective on the creative process.
Throughout the conversation, we talk about how different musical influences blend together, particularly the mix of Bluegrass with other genres, and Jim opens up about how his sound has evolved over time. Plus, we get into the challenges and wins he’s experienced in the studio, all while emphasizing how important spontaneity and connection are to making great music.
It’s an insightful look at the art of collaboration and the exciting world of modern Southern music. Tune in and join the conversation!
Show Notes
- In the latest episode of Country Fried Rock, the hosts try out some new mobile recording tech to capture their musical conversations on the go.
- While the idea is exciting, the sound quality didn’t quite turn out as expected, and it’s a bit rough around the edges.
- Despite that, the episode is packed with engaging discussions, featuring the talented Jim White.
- Jim shares some great insights into his recent collaboration with the Packway Handle Band, giving listeners a peek into the creative process behind their work.
- This episode runs a bit longer than usual, offering plenty of time to dive deep into the artistic chemistry that comes from blending different musical backgrounds.
Here's What We Wrote Back in 2015
Jim White’s songwriting and visual art are some of the tangible fruits of his sometimes dark thoughts, but he is not the tortured Southern Gothic poet of his past. When Packway Handle Band (previously featured on Country Fried Rock), sought White’s assistance in producing their new record, they ended up collaborating in a back and forth manner, with White sharing a trove of bluegrass songs he had written with the Packway Handle guys, and Packway Handle sharing their new songs with White — hence, Jim White Vs. Packway Handle Band on this new Yep Roc release. Do not pigeonhole what you think you know about Jim White, nor of the Packway Handle Band; they all are pushing their boundaries to move into new territory musically. White does not tour the US much, but catch a show, if you can, most likely in Europe, where he is a cult figure.
Buy Take It Like A Man here.
Takeaways
- In this episode, we took a shot at mobile recording and explored some new tech along the way.
- Even with the challenges of recording on the road, we managed to have some great conversations over the course of four weeks.
- Jim White joined us to talk about his collaboration with the Packway Handle Band and the creative journey they’ve been on together.
- Their process was all about trading songs and ideas back and forth, building something truly collaborative.
- Jim shared how much he enjoys producing music—not just for himself, but in helping others bring their artistic visions to life.
- We wrapped up the episode reflecting on how connection, creativity, and a little spontaneity are at the heart of making music.
Chapters
- 00:00 - Country Fried Rock Road Trips
- 02:53 - The Musical Collaboration Begins
- 07:45 - Exploring Genre Boundaries in Music
- 11:12 - A Journey to Denmark: The Arts Festival Invitation
- 21:51 - The Journey to Connection
- 22:43 - Letting Go and Contributing
Links
- Jim White vs Packway Handle Band on Yep Roc Records
- Jim White
- Jim White on Bandcamp
- You may also enjoy this conversation with Danny Barnes
- After you buy music or see a show, we appreciate your support with a few dollars in our Tip Jar
- Sloane Spencer now hosts a Gen X sleep podcast, Sleep with Rock Stars
Mentioned in this Episode
- Country Fried Rock
- Jim White
- Packway Handle Band
- Skipper Dee's
- Bright Eyes
- YEPROC
- Luakabop
- Anchor and the Butterfly
- Drivin n Cryin
- Steve Soto and the Twisted Hearts
Recommended If You Like
country fried rock, Jim White, Packway Handle Band, bluegrass music, mobile recording podcast, country music podcast, music collaboration, Southern music scene, indie music production, music interviews, recording studio techniques, music technology, acoustic music, Americana music, music production tips, creative collaboration, road trip podcast, artist interviews, music genre fusion, live music performance
Transcript
This week on country fried rock, we decided to take the show on the road for a few weeks, testing out some new technology for mobile recording.
Speaker A:Yep, it sounded like a great idea, but unfortunately it doesn't sound that great.
Speaker A:We've got four weeks of fantastic conversations, though, so don't miss a minute of the country fried rock road trips on countryfridrock.org my guest today on country fried.
Speaker B:Rock is Jim White with a new record kind of collaboration we're going to ask about with the pacwag handle band.
Speaker B:Hey, Jim.
Speaker C:Hey, how you doing?
Speaker C:Great.
Speaker B:So I've listened to the record and I really enjoy it and I like how you all go back and forth.
Speaker B:How did you get together with Pack and we handle Bandit in the first place?
Speaker C:Well, we both live in the same town and long time ago, maybe six, seven years ago, somebody dragged me to one of their shows.
Speaker C:I'm really antisocial.
Speaker C:We don't go out much.
Speaker C:And I just remember watching them perform and think, I wish I had that much fun.
Speaker C:When I was performing, I never really enjoyed performing and I just stayed in my mind as people who had a real wilder weaver of their blue craft world.
Speaker C:And so over the years, I talked fast with one or another of them and said, you know, man, I sure like what you're doing.
Speaker C:And eventually I was making a record for a really talented singer songwriter group here.
Speaker C:Skipper Dee's is the name of them two twin sisters.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:I was producing the record and they wanted to do a bluegrass song.
Speaker C:And I said, well, let's get those packway guys involved.
Speaker C:And we did.
Speaker C:And it just was a lot of fun.
Speaker C:It was what music should be.
Speaker C:We got everybody in the room and just started playing.
Speaker C:So it was a very good vibe.
Speaker C:And a month later they said that they really enjoyed it and they got this new record coming up and they wanted me to produce it.
Speaker C:And I'm always interested in trying new stuff.
Speaker C:And I had this pile of bluegrass songs that I'd written that buackabop had always told me, no, no, no, no, no, Stay away from bluegrass.
Speaker C:We're sort of posturing you as the tortured ragamuffin, southern poet, lunatic jailer, bluegrass.
Speaker C:So I was just immediately thinking, how can I get to do something I want to do while I help these guys do what they want to do?
Speaker C:So we listened to songs that they had and I just mentioned, well, you know, I don't know if you're interested in this, but I have some quasi bluegrass songs, too.
Speaker C:So they were interested.
Speaker C:They were very open to the idea.
Speaker C:We decided, despite the fact that we really flung different veins in terms of Southern music, that we'd give it a try and see what happened.
Speaker C:And it's very Hegelian, you know, antithesis.
Speaker C:They're happy and upbeat and, I would say boyish.
Speaker C:And I'm gloomy and decrepit in some way.
Speaker C:In my music, I'm always, you know, like, digging through the sorrow.
Speaker C:So, you know, we tried to meet in the middle a little bit to see what would happen, and that's where the verses came from.
Speaker C:You know, they're very different than me.
Speaker C:I'm very different than them.
Speaker C:And I handed my songs over to them and said, pick songs that you like.
Speaker C:And they handed their songs over to me and said, pick songs that you like.
Speaker C:And it was sort of like a friendly handshake.
Speaker C:The musical Battle Royale began.
Speaker C:It was so much fun.
Speaker C:We recorded with Andy LeMaster, who does a lot of work with Bright Eyes and people like that.
Speaker C:We did our best to catch lightning in a bottle in a couple days in the studio, and then I took it home and did what I always do.
Speaker C:I like to turn the songs kind of inside out.
Speaker C:And I've got hundreds of weird musical instruments and pots and pans and things that I've made here.
Speaker C:I like to get involved in the production for after the fact.
Speaker C:Really expensive to try to drag in a bunch of stuff to a studio and experiment when you're getting core tracks.
Speaker C:So I'd bring it back here to my house and just sit for days and sometimes weeks and sometimes months, just adding the little things that make sense to me that I don't get to do in the studio.
Speaker C:They were like, yeah, do that, do that, do that, do that.
Speaker B:So you continued in the role of the producer with this collaboration?
Speaker C:Yeah, I was producer.
Speaker C:You know, it's more like foreman.
Speaker C:I don't like the term producer.
Speaker C:You're not really producing.
Speaker C:You're, you know, making sure that the record gets made in an interesting way, and you're offering your help.
Speaker C:I like to think of myself as a record foreman.
Speaker C:I like helping people get the job done.
Speaker C:They bring me in and they say, you know, skipper Views brought me in.
Speaker C:And they said, you know, we've never made a record before, and here are musical ideas.
Speaker C:And so a lot of what I told them was just practical stuff.
Speaker C:And then, you know, at a certain point, I was able to contribute some aesthetically, too.
Speaker C:But it's more foreman, less, you know, Eric von Stroheim.
Speaker A:Hey, y'.
Speaker C:All.
Speaker A:This is Sloan Spencer, the host of country fried rock.
Speaker A:We've had an incredible year with more people finding us on the radio and our podcast than we ever imagined.
Speaker A:Thank you all so much.
Speaker A:Careful what you wish for, you just might get it.
Speaker C:Hey, this is Jim White.
Speaker C:You're listening to Countryside Rock.
Speaker C:Thanks and good luck.
Speaker C:After.
Speaker B:Does that really demonstrate the philosophy you're bringing to that?
Speaker B:As I was looking over, you know, I was familiar with your work, more from just you.
Speaker B:And I had.
Speaker B:I did not realize all of the other people with whom you had worked in a variety of capacities.
Speaker B:What does that do for you creatively?
Speaker C:It's part of life, you know, I lead a very insular existence.
Speaker C:I said I don't got to show as much.
Speaker C:I have my two kids and I'm a single dad and I spend a lot of time turning barney videos on stuff, so I don't get out much.
Speaker C:So it's really lovely when I get to get in the studio with a bunch of incredibly talented people, Whether it be Steve breeze or pack away or I'm working with a guy named Thomas Kodrak right now and just help them realize their dream.
Speaker C:I spent 20 years of my career as a musician realizing my own dreams.
Speaker C:And at a certain point you say, okay, those dreams are defined enough.
Speaker C:How can I help other people?
Speaker C:So that's kind of where I am now is get into a studio and be of service to others and try to catch the genie.
Speaker C:You know, it's great.
Speaker C:I'm working with entry level musicians mostly, and it's really great because they're so open.
Speaker C:They don't have static ideas of who they are.
Speaker C:Been around for a while and they have a.
Speaker C:That they're familiar with.
Speaker C:And that was kind of liberating in a way that it didn't put so much burden on me to have to sort of reinvent the wheel.
Speaker C:Drove into bluegrass form and played with it and probably insulted it from time to time and wandered away and called our friend in the country in western world.
Speaker C:We weren't stuck.
Speaker C:A long time ago, I opened for Lori Lewis, pretty famous bluegrass lady, and we opened for her in Santa Monica.
Speaker C:We were doing soundcheck.
Speaker C:This big group of.
Speaker C:It was me and my weird band playing weird outcountry music and we were doing sound check and this huge group of people walked in with bluegrass association of Southern California on their T shirt and they sat down and my guitar player who plays for Shakira now, a crazy guitar player, he smiled at me and he said, well, they're going to last about three bars of Our set.
Speaker C:And he was right.
Speaker C:Halfway through the first song, they all got up and walked out.
Speaker C:Because it wasn't centered Bluegrass.
Speaker C:I'm interested in what happens when musical forms collide and dialogue and we dip into bluegrass and the other stuff that I did.
Speaker C:But it always ended up going in a different direction.
Speaker C:It was great to stay closer to the bluegrass form.
Speaker C:I grew up listening to bluegrass music.
Speaker C:It was good staying close to it but still having the freedom to say, well, I'm going to put an udo in this particular bluegrass song or I'm going to put a song drum here.
Speaker C:I'm going to put basey pedal feel here.
Speaker C:There weren't a lot of restrictions aesthetically, so that's a good outlet for me.
Speaker C:It feels like it was a good outlet for them too.
Speaker C:They had said that they felt a little sultrified and they wanted to try to be a little more experimental Musically.
Speaker C:I think they've been deemed kind of lunatic bluegrass guys.
Speaker C:We wanted to go in that direction a little more and just let them be free and not worry about jumping through the various hoops of expectation.
Speaker C:Genre specific musicians I think are limited by.
Speaker B:Well, so I've seen a few what I thought actually were quite fun videos that you all have done in various places in support of this record.
Speaker B:How did those things come around?
Speaker C:Well, when the record was done, I worked with the EPROC a lot.
Speaker C:They released my last record and they worked with Luackaboff before that.
Speaker C:And anything I do, I send off to the guy that runs yeprock.
Speaker C:And I sent them this record and they said, wow, we love this.
Speaker C:Let us work directly.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:So it's nice, you know, Pacway was looking for more national recognition and more of a conduit to a larger audience.
Speaker C:And there it was.
Speaker C:So they invited us up to Chapel Hill and they did those videos and we did those in the course of about an hour.
Speaker C:We just basically walked into a place and started playing it.
Speaker C:Well, we walked in and I redecorated it.
Speaker C:Yeah, Poor filmmaker.
Speaker C:Filmmaker had put this elaborate set together and I walked in and I have a degree in filmmaking and I know a lot about what I'm presenting as an artist.
Speaker C:And it had nothing to do with anything that we were doing.
Speaker C:So I tried very kindly to say this doesn't work and what can we do to alter this environment?
Speaker C:And he was great about it.
Speaker C:He was open minded and tried for a little while to convince me that it would work.
Speaker C:And then eventually we ended up starting to move furniture around.
Speaker C:And thankfully it's Six people in the band.
Speaker C:So the furniture moved quickly and we got a look that felt more like the music.
Speaker C:We played three songs in a short amount of time.
Speaker C:It's so great playing with them.
Speaker C:It's not like, well, gee, I could have done a better take.
Speaker C:They come out and they put the pedal to the floor and the songs work.
Speaker B:You've mentioned visual in several different ways, and I know that you also are a visual artist yourself.
Speaker B:Were you involved in the visual, in the physical look of the packaging, with what's going on with this record?
Speaker C:Well, to some extent less than the other records I've worked on.
Speaker C:I'm really good friends with the woman who did the art direction, Gail Merowitz.
Speaker C:She's won two Grammys for artwork and she offered to do this.
Speaker C:We're working on a very slim budget here.
Speaker C:She offered to do it because she and I, when we do one of my records, would spend months in sort of aesthetic coitus.
Speaker C:We were going at it and I'm sending her drawings and she's sending me drawings and sketches and we go back and forth.
Speaker C:So I just told her, here's the idea.
Speaker C:I love the idea of old wrestling posters and such, so just run with it.
Speaker C:And in short order she came up with that.
Speaker C:So I didn't have a whole lot to say about it.
Speaker C:I think that we need an extra fist on the COVID That was about it.
Speaker B:The recent work that I'm familiar with of yours is kind of found object art that's creating human or animal what I interpret as eyes and a face and that sort of thing made from found objects.
Speaker C:Simplistic animal friend.
Speaker A:I'm your host, Sloan Spencer.
Speaker A:You can keep in touch with us on Facebook.
Speaker A:But I really like Twitter, where we are at Country Fried rock, ending with R O K. And if you want to see pictures of my shoes, my dog and my lunch, stop by Instagram.
Speaker A:But whatever way you like to hang out, stop by and say, hey, hi.
Speaker C:This is Jim White.
Speaker C:And you can get Take it like a man.
Speaker C:Jim White vs Pacquia Handle Dance New records at any reliable independent record store or through yeprock or through the website of the artist, which actually puts money in the artist's pocket.
Speaker C:Thank you for supporting us.
Speaker B:You posted something about pillow design.
Speaker C:Danish.
Speaker C:Yeah, I was a Danish Pillow design.
Speaker C:Three years ago, the Danish Arts Festival contacted me and wanted me to arrange a meeting with Southern Preachers to talk about the future of the world.
Speaker C:5 minute live satellite broadcast to Denmark during a festival.
Speaker C:And I thought, well, these people are crazy.
Speaker C:And this won't work.
Speaker C:I found him a satellite truck, which $20,000 to rent for the day.
Speaker C:I found my satellite truck.
Speaker C:They rented it.
Speaker C:We met in the panhandle of Florida and it turns out no preachers would talk to me because my reputation apparently now precedes me.
Speaker C:Preachers in the town all boycotted it.
Speaker C:And I ended up.
Speaker C:It was really fantastic.
Speaker C:I ended up putting out a Facebook post the day before the broadcast saying, I need to talk to Southern religious people and nobody in this town is going to talk to me because they're afraid they're going to get punked, which is really a shame because I wasn't going to do that.
Speaker C:The good works that the churches in the south do, because there is a lot of good that they do.
Speaker C:No one would talk to me, including.
Speaker C:I don't want to give you too much information.
Speaker C:But this is a bizarre coincidence that is typical of my life.
Speaker C:When they contacted me, I thought, wow, I need to get my childhood friend Johnny Foote, who has a prophecy ministry called Tongues of Fire.
Speaker C:I need to get Johnny Foote involved in this because he's a real super slow talking and he would satisfy their hunger for a real oracle of Southern thought.
Speaker C:I hadn't talked to Johnny in 20 years.
Speaker C:I just knew that he went one way and I went the other.
Speaker C:I went to Heritage Route.
Speaker C:He went to diving into the ministry.
Speaker C:So I called his wife, you know, searched him out, called friends, finally got his wife's name is Georgette.
Speaker C:She's just as southern as she can be.
Speaker C:So I said, georgette, do you remember me?
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:How do you feel it?
Speaker C:15 years.
Speaker C:I said, well, Johnny around?
Speaker C:I need to talk to him about something I'm working on.
Speaker C:And she said, oh, well, he's gone right now.
Speaker C:Can you call back later?
Speaker C:And I said, sure, how much later?
Speaker C:And she said, call back in three days.
Speaker C:I said, never leave.
Speaker C:Where'd he go?
Speaker C:She said, oh, he went to Denmark.
Speaker B:What?
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:And I sat there and said, what?
Speaker C:Just the same intonation and everything.
Speaker C:And I said, what's he doing there?
Speaker C:She said, oh, he's preaching to Turkish people.
Speaker C:There's a Turkish subculture there who's anxious for the gospel.
Speaker C:And Johnny went there.
Speaker C:So I thought, well, this is clearly a sign from God that this all needs to happen.
Speaker C:So he came back and I told him and he said, well, I'll leave the talk to my pastor about it because he's got a pastor over him.
Speaker C:And, you know, I tried to explain to them that this was there was not Going to be any hijinks.
Speaker C:This wasn't a setup that I was really interested in what people had to say.
Speaker C:And the people in Denmark were interested.
Speaker C:It would be a great opportunity to connect.
Speaker C:And they ran me back and forth and back and forth.
Speaker C:And finally I went to another church in the area, poorest area in Florida, went to another church and they were running an outreach for prison inmates with this community garden that anybody could come and get through summer.
Speaker C:I was so excited and the guy was excited.
Speaker C:And then the next day he called and said, I don't really think that we're right for this project.
Speaker C:Clearly somebody got to him and called him and said, somebody called him.
Speaker C:Somebody said, talk to Father Nathan Monk, who is a Russian Orthodox priest who looks like Sam Beam from Iron and Wine.
Speaker C:He's young.
Speaker C:He was an actor.
Speaker C:He renounced his secular lifestyle and took a vow of poverty and lived in the forest section of Pensacola and was a tireless advocate for homeless lesbian and gay people and has taken on the powers that be in a conservative southern town to try to shake them up and get them to live more by the Christian standards that they claim.
Speaker C:We got to have the broadcast from his church.
Speaker C:Really great things about corporate manipulation and how the conservative ruling class was killing poor people.
Speaker C:And it was fantastic.
Speaker C:We had a great, great broadcast as a hurricane was spraying down on Pensacola.
Speaker C:So that was my first experience with these Danish people.
Speaker C:And then they invited me back last year to direct a film.
Speaker C:They said, the only rule is that you have to make it in one day.
Speaker C:And so I made a film with the most famous Danish actor who was phenomenal.
Speaker C:And we shot a film in a day and then edited it.
Speaker C:And then this year they invited me back to make art out of garbage.
Speaker C:And they said, we'd like you to design a poster for the festival as well.
Speaker C:And so the pillow is part of the poster that I designed for this bunch of Danish lunatics.
Speaker C:The festival is funded by the Queen of Denmark and they revere the arts there.
Speaker C:And their budget is 10 times what most commercial festivals are.
Speaker C:And they don't really care if they sell a million tickets.
Speaker C:What they care about is if they break ground and leave some sort of aesthetic charge.
Speaker C:It's really mind bogglingly beautiful.
Speaker C:They sent me the link to the pillow.
Speaker C:They made a pillow.
Speaker C:They made coffee mugs too, with my poster design on it.
Speaker C:And it just makes me so happy.
Speaker C:That's all stuff that I wow.
Speaker C:Here in Georgia, the absolute notion of redemption.
Speaker C:Georgia garbage is now high art in Denmark.
Speaker C:It's Beautiful.
Speaker C:I have a compulsion to collect things, and I need to do something with them.
Speaker C:And so I call it an aesthetic outburst.
Speaker C:It's just you take the limited tools that you have and you make it into something.
Speaker C:And there's a big tradition of that in southern culture.
Speaker C:I felt guilty about it when I was a kid.
Speaker C:You know, I'd walk like, garbage piles, desperately want to grab this stuff and make something out of it.
Speaker C:And then, you know, garbage is dirty and stuff like that.
Speaker C:But then, thankfully, I lived in New York for 15 years and supplied not only my apartment, but five or six other friends apartments with furniture and art that I made and things like that.
Speaker C:And it's really just therapeutic making those things.
Speaker C:I do now sell them, which is great.
Speaker C:Not only do I make some money from what is close to a borderline personality disorder obsession, but I also get to get junk out of my house, which is now.
Speaker B:Do you find yourself attached to them or can you let them go?
Speaker C:Oh, I'm thrilled to see them fly away.
Speaker C:Yeah.
Speaker C:Oh, yeah.
Speaker C:No, I want an open system.
Speaker C:I don't want a closed system.
Speaker C:I need an open system.
Speaker C:I need to be a dirty sample to my kids, you know, who.
Speaker C:Who should not grow up in a holder's household.
Speaker C:My.
Speaker C:My teenage daughter is already eyeing one of my harder rooms and saying, my drum set would sure look good in there.
Speaker A:Hey, y'.
Speaker C:All.
Speaker A:This is Sloan Spencer, the host of Country Fried Rock.
Speaker A:Those of y' all who listen on our podcasts, it's a quick hit of just the conversation.
Speaker A:If you want the full radio program with all the songs that we talk about, ask for it on your local radio station, joining 20 other stations across the country.
Speaker A:Get the goods@countryfriderock.org hey, this is Jim White.
Speaker C:If you want to get our new record, go to Jim White V S T H d dot com.
Speaker C:You can order it there.
Speaker C:Direct from yeprock, who made the record happen.
Speaker C:Thank you.
Speaker B:With both the visual and tackle of that, do you have to find yourself, you know, like, music gets one compartment in your creative capacity and the visual gets another, or are those things that are always happening?
Speaker C:I'm an assemblage maker.
Speaker C:I make assemblages physically and metaphorically.
Speaker C:I cobble things together, whether it's through writing or music or visual arts.
Speaker C:I feel this need to reconcile fragments in an aesthetic way.
Speaker C:It's not a need, it's a compulsion.
Speaker C:You asked previously about what's it like to be in a studio with other people.
Speaker C:It's really wonderful to not have the burden of my identity attached to organizing and reconciling the fragments that I'm presented by other people.
Speaker C:At a certain point, I'm 57.
Speaker C:At a certain point, as you get older, it feels better and better to be relieved of the burden of self.
Speaker C:So when the things go, or when I'm hired as a producer and I'm working with somebody else, every step of the process feels like an incremental release of self.
Speaker C:And it's a positive dissipation, not a negative one.
Speaker C:At a certain point, you refine self to the point where you don't need to refine it anymore.
Speaker C:And at that point, it's really great to start letting go of it and develop back into the world of connection and others.
Speaker C:I find that the loneliest people I know are artists who have fallen in love with the notion of except for itself.
Speaker C:Happiest people I know are the artists who have fallen in love with the notion of a connected self connected to the larger world.
Speaker C:So anyway, I'm happy to see the art go.
Speaker C:Well.
Speaker C:Everybody's got a different threshold where they're free from the burden.
Speaker C:You have to go until you feel the weight released.
Speaker C:You have to be smart enough to say, oh, the weight has been released with me.
Speaker C:As I started putting my music out in the world 15 years ago, I noticed, well, every single song is about me.
Speaker C:And it was bad, but it was good because I was like, holy, I am really self involved.
Speaker C:And then I thought, well, let me write was on Bill Holt.
Speaker C:I thought, let me write a song about my 15 year old, now 15 year old daughter was just born to write a song about how much I love her.
Speaker C:And I may have told this story when I was playing when you were there, but the song was all about junkies and old hotels and poverty.
Speaker C:There was nothing about love or connection.
Speaker C:And I realized I'm like an eskimo.
Speaker C:I have 2,000 words for poverty, but I have no words for banana because I only know what I've thought out.
Speaker C:So at that point I started writing songs.
Speaker C:I started trying to write songs about connecting and promptly released my least successful record of all time, which clearly informs that.
Speaker C:I was in my infancy as a thinker.
Speaker C:So it was a really good wake up call, you know, it's like, okay, you need to think more about connecting and more about the value of others and more about general human conditions and stuff.
Speaker C:Thinking so much about your own personal.
Speaker C:Because my personal dilemma kind of came and went.
Speaker C:I'm now connected to so many people.
Speaker C:I have two kids that are Beautiful.
Speaker C:I have a lovely girlfriend.
Speaker C:I have a huge group of friends and fans.
Speaker C:There's no need for me to be miserable anymore.
Speaker C:I was miserable.
Speaker C:I was alone and desperate to feel like I belonged for 30 years.
Speaker C:There's no need for that feeling anymore.
Speaker C:And I'm not going to be like the people who have their limbs cut off and and have the phantom limb syndrome.
Speaker C:I don't miss the limb that got cut off when I got connected to people.
Speaker C:It was my third arm and good.
Speaker C:I still feel its presence.
Speaker C:It's still asking me to be the lonely, sad, depressed human being.
Speaker C:But I'm not interested in that.
Speaker C:It's not interesting.
Speaker C:And thankfully I have a really wonderful, beautiful girlfriend who is extremely conversant on these issues and is helping me get ready for the next part of my life, which is letting go of self and being a contributor to others.
Speaker C:So with that, maybe we can go back to the collaboration of directors.
Speaker B:It ties right back in because you had said that you're not interested in going out so much, but that, you know, you're very connected to your family in the circle that is there and deepening those connections with those with whom you care about and who care about you.
Speaker B:Where does other people's music fit into that for you right now?
Speaker C:There's so much amazing music coming from every corner of our culture, our worldwide culture.
Speaker C:Music comes to me.
Speaker C:I don't go looking for it.
Speaker C:If by chance I'm playing a festival and I walk into the next room and hear the low anthem playing, then I know.
Speaker C:Oh, okay.
Speaker C:I was very fascinated by them.
Speaker C:I don't know if you know their work.
Speaker C:I watch them play, they switch instruments.
Speaker C:They are all superlative musicians, but they're also deeply sonic poets.
Speaker C:And there's this whole new movement of sonic poets wherever you go.
Speaker C:It's really beautiful and uplifting.
Speaker C:I posted.
Speaker C:A few weeks ago, someone sent me a CD from Australia of a completely unknown band called Anchor and the Butterfly.
Speaker C:I try to listen to everything that people.
Speaker C:And he sent me three CDs and two of them were.
Speaker C:I could listen to them, but it was difficult.
Speaker C:By chance put Anchor on the Butterfly last and was ready to grit my teeth and get through it so that I could talk to this kind person who sent me these things and thank them.
Speaker C:And here's what I would recommend for these artists.
Speaker C:I listened to the record twice through and didn't think ever.
Speaker C:Huh.
Speaker C:If I was producing this, that would do this different.
Speaker C:What can I learn from this?
Speaker C:What can I learn from these really beautiful tone poem that's so consistent throughout.
Speaker C:So the music comes to me.
Speaker C:I don't look for it being in the position I am.
Speaker C:Skippity sought me out.
Speaker C:Taqua Handel sought me out.
Speaker C:And I've listened to enough music in my life that I don't need to talk through any appetite for more.
Speaker C:I drove a cab in New York for 15 years and listened to music 12, 14 hours a day.
Speaker C:I was friends with Arabic cab drivers who gave me Arabic Sufi music.
Speaker C:I was friends with Polish cab drivers who gave me Polish rock and roll.
Speaker C:I was friends with African Americans who taught me about Southern blues.
Speaker C:I grew up in the South.
Speaker C:I never listened to Southern blues and so I listened to music non stop for 15 years in New York City and everybody that got in the cab had something to say about it.
Speaker C:Oh, if you like that, go like this.
Speaker C:And I would go and listen.
Speaker C:It's funny, I listened to a lot of the terminal New York indie radio shows and eventually I got to end up performing on most of them.
Speaker C:Pretty cool.
Speaker C:Wow.
Speaker C:Anything can happen in the straight country of ours.
Speaker C:So at this point, things come to me and I'm so grateful to have the chance.
Speaker C:I don't always intrude on the production like I did with Packway.
Speaker C:I just have always wanted to work on a bluegrass record and put these songs out somewhere in the world and they were generous enough to agree to do it.
Speaker B:Jim, I really appreciate your time in making this happen.
Speaker B:Very grateful to you.
Speaker C:Likewise.
Speaker C:Thanks for helping us get the word out, man.
Speaker C:I'm dead to you.
Speaker C:Come say hello.
Speaker B:That'd be great.
Speaker B:Take care.
Speaker B:Thanks so much.
Speaker C:All right.
Speaker C:Likewise.
Speaker C:Bye bye.
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