Photo credit: Rory Doyle
Tell us about your tour vehicle. Any notable breakdown stories?
I am a pretty loyal Toyota Sienna minivan fan. Currently my husband and I have two of them. One is a 2006 base model with around 280,000 miles and is featured in my new video single “Getaway Blues.” The other is a 2018 XLE touring model which recently rolled over 100,000 miles and that we finished paying off last year.
Of course I have a deeper connection with the older model because it has taken me more places. We’ve driven many places non-stop overnight from Mississippi to Chicago or New York City. We’ve been pretty lucky over the years with very little trouble. We’ve suffered a few flat tires but have always managed to make it where we were going on time. My husband Bob broke a lug nut while changing a flat on the way to the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, but we made it to the show driving on the donut spare minus one lug nut! With proper maintenance, Toyotas last a long time and are very dependable!
How do you eat cheaply and/or healthy while on tour?
One of the joys of touring is finding the local dining spots. I recall finding some great places like Frank & Lilian’s in Nashville where we ate melt-in-your-mouth fried chicken with mashed potatoes and green beans. One New Year’s Eve we were served falling-off-the-bone pig tails in gravy at Teddy’s Juke Joint in Zachary, Louisiana, which is one of my favorite places in the whole world to play or visit. Teddy’s has a big kitchen where those pig tails were cooking all day and has a band crash pad just beyond the bar and Teddy’s DJ booth. We also look for Indian cuisine on the road because that is a culinary treat that my husband and bassist Bob misses ever since he moved to Mississippi from London.
How many strings do you break in a typical year? How much does it cost to replace them?
Breaking a string on the piano is rare. Years ago I was performing at the British Embassy in Washington, D.C. and broke a string on the white, ornate grand piano in the ballroom during sound check just a couple of hours before my show. I was horrified! Ambassador Christopher Myer took it in absolute stride and called the piano tuner back out to repair it.
On another occasion we were scheduled to play the Chicago Blues Festival and Buddy Guy’s Legends and were appearing live on WGN television. My husband Bob broke the G string on his bass shortly before we went on the air and had to play the short set with only three of the four bass strings! He looked really bluesy with only three strings and the machine head taped down with black gaffer tape to keep it from vibrating! After the show we drove straight over to Chicago Music Exchange to get another set of bass strings. That brought back memories of the Blues Brothers movie and the fictional “Ray’s Music Exchange” scene with Ray Charles. Now we always carry an extra set of bass strings, but again, breaking piano and bass strings is really rare!
Where do you rehearse?
Most of our rehearsals are in our living room where we have an Ampeg flip-top bass amp and a Peavy Bandit guitar amp. Bob’s trombone is there on a stand when we are at home, and there are a couple of music stands. The living room is also large enough for our 6’10” Schimmel grand piano. Sitting at the piano is where I do most of my writing and where I, in fact, wrote the piano lick to “Getaway Blues” from our new album and where I wrote the bridge to “Watch the World Go By.”
We set up the piano that I travel with, a Yamaha CP50, to rehearse for the new album before we went to London to record it because we planned on recording a couple of tunes on Rhodes and Wurlitzer electric pianos. We’ve had a lot of jam sessions in there over the last 30 years that I’ve been living in the house. I remember the police knocking on the door a couple of times during one particularly lively evening jam session! The cops merely asked us to keep it down which must have been hard to do since the police had to return to remind us the second time!
What was the title and a sample lyric from the first song that you wrote?
My mother wrote songs, and my brother and both of my sisters write songs. My father is an avid music fan and remembers all sorts of lyrics and songs. Dad taught all of the children a few chords on the guitar. I offer this background to explain that I began writing songs elementary school, but I cannot remember many of the songs I wrote back in grade school. I remember writing a song when I was about 10 about a boy from school who was moving away. I don’t remember the name of the song, but the bass line is a descending chromatic scale and it is in C minor, and the first lyric is “William, where are you going? Will you be gone for very long?” It is comical to me now that I was so dramatic at such a young age! I must’ve been destined to sing the blues!
I recall performing original tunes for talent shows in middle and high school. When I got to college I was so naïve that I thought that I could study composition in the music department based on my songwriting skills! The composition teacher looked at me and explained I would need to provide a music score to the songs. I wound up studying jazz for three years and graduating with a Bachelor of Music Theory from the University of North Texas. And, in the process, I learned how to notate my songs on staff paper!
Describe your first gig.
I played lots of talent shows and community festivals over the years, and I used to perform for the March of Dimes telethon hosted by the local television station. But my first paying gig was in 1986 at the C&G Restaurant and Lounge in Greenville, Mississippi. By then I was taking lessons with the local piano legend, Abie “Boogaloo” Ames during vacations from University of North Texas Music School. Boogaloo played happy hours at the C&G, but that summer he took another gig in our state capital of Jackson so would be living down there for a month or so. The owner of the C&G knew that I was studying with Boogaloo and learning his style, and he hired me for about half of Boogaloo’s regular wages. It came to about $30 each evening that I played. The old piano sat against the lounge’s brick wall and was one of those very heavy uprights that was in slight disrepair. I recall that Boogaloo made it sound a whole lot better than I seemed to! That experience was such great practice, and over the years I had a lot of on-the-job training at the C&G and other local establishments.
What was your last day job? What was your favorite day job?
When I turned 16 I started working at Camelot Music, our local record store in the mall. I loved that job! I got 40% off of the records I bought there, and that is where I started my fairly extensive album collection. While I was employed there the industry began phasing out vinyl records as cassettes became the common format. Compact discs were not yet in the mainstream. I was able to add quite a number of classic vinyl albums to my collection that I grabbed from the cutout section, a process in which the distributor cuts a groove into the album sleeve identifying the album as a reduced price item not eligible for return.
Later on, in my early 20’s, I was a commodities broker in-training, learning to trade commodities like soybean bushels and pork bellies. That was an interesting job but only lasted about three months for a few reasons. Firstly, I didn’t understand the concept of one purchasing 138,000 pounds of pork bellies of which he never plans to take delivery. Secondly, I couldn’t really relate to the idea that one can sell short—or sell 138,000 pounds of pork bellies that one does not have in his possession! Over the years I’ve come to understand these trades better, but I am not interested in initiating the transactions! Lastly, during this employment I was subjected to sexual harassment before I had ever heard that term. I quit the job because my boss made me feel so uncomfortable with his regular inappropriate comments about my attractive appearance. I went back to music full time afterward, and I never looked back. It was the best decision I ever made.
How has your music-related income changed over the past 5-10 years? What do you expect it to look like 5-10 years from now?
Gig money goes up and down, but performing has always been my aspiration. I love that I am able to travel and meet lots of people and see new places. These are trips that I probably could not otherwise afford, so it is definitely a perk of being a traveling musician to visit different parts of the country and the world. I am also very lucky that my fans are pretty loyal buyers of my CD’s. I’m very excited that this new release, “Getaway Blues” is the first vinyl album that I have ever released. I have always managed to make a living with my music whatever the climate of the music industry. I expect that to continue. I am imagining that in the next ten years I will probably be nominated for and win more awards, probably even a Grammy! But that won’t change the joy I derive from playing music live. That is my first love.
What one thing do you know now that you had wished you knew when you started your career in music?
Back when I started, I wish I knew how much work was involved as a musician. I thought I was going to play for a living! I also wish I had a better understanding of the music business. I got an excellent education in the art of music from college and from my apprenticeship with Boogaloo. However, my business acumen I’ve learned on the job. These days the business model is changing very rapidly with streaming services taking the place of album ownership. I suppose I should have been prepared for this industry change since I was witness to the phasing out of vinyl at my record store job in the 1980’s. On the whole, I wish I had known the work required to facilitate playing for a living. I admit, the hard work is definitely worth it, and I look forward to each show! Hope to see you real soon!