A Conversation with the Be Good Tanyas (continued)
PM: Could you turn us on to him. I don't know that man's work.
TK: Okay. He did an album called In the World: from Natchez to New York, which is a collection of songs where he does beautiful guitar playing, kind of a mixture of Afro, Caribbean, Delta blues, and old fashioned country blues style guitar playing, but his main instrument is the cornet and the trumpet. And he's played with numerous musicians as a sideman, a trumpet and cornet sideman, since probably the late 50s. He's in his early sixties now. I'm not sure all the people he played with, I think Art Blakey, I think Herbie Hancock--but I'm not sure. He's played with numerous people. And then he put out his own album called In the World, where he's singing, and he's playing guitar, and you can hear the Caribbean, you can hear the African, you can hear the blues, you can hear the Delta, you can hear the Cajun. There are a lot of different influences in his guitar playing. And his singing--his voice is awesome. Really warm, rich singing. He sounds kind of like Taj Mahal, or Leadbelly, or something. Beautiful. And he plays the cornet as well! This album is called In the World, and you should get it. It's one of the best albums ever, I think.
PM: Do you know the label?
TK: No, I don't, but you can look it up on the internet.
PM: Yeah, we'll be finding that and covering him.
TK: He's great, and we all love the album. So that's where we got Danny Kopleson. And then Danny ended up calling Olu Dara and asking him to do some recording for us. That was really like a dream come true.
PM: Wow, isn't that something?
TK: Yeah, it was just basically the highlight of my life so far, [laughs] my experience of having Olu Dara come and play on our record.
PM: I just noticed a couple of minutes ago that you did the cover art for the debut. That's a lovely cover.
TK: Thank you.
PM: Is Chinatown your art as well?
TK: No, no. Chinatown was taken from an old Tetley tea can from the 1930s. It was photographed, and then the graphics were taken from that, and then we added some text, changed it a little bit to fit within the area of the cover. And then also some of the elements of it were incorporated into the inside layout. It's actually a Tetley tea can and we had to get the copyrights from them.
PM: I've got to ask Bernadette [at Nettwork Records] to send me a copy of Chinatown so we can review it.
TK: Oh, yeah, you probably haven't seen the actual cover.
PM: All I've seen is what's on the website. There's a picture of it there.
TK: Oh, that's right.
PM: So, are you guys having a good time, or is it hard out there?
TK: It's been pretty good. We're having a really mellow tour, this tour. Lots of space, doing more of these promotional shows and stuff. It's a very nicely paced tour. Right now we're in L.A., and it's lovely weather and everything, so it's nice.
PM: Yeah. It's going down to 10 degrees tonight in Nashville.
TK: Did you want to speak with Frazey?
PM: Sure. Trish, it's nice to talk to you.
TK: Nice to talk to you. And I'll see you next time we're in Nashville. Here's Frazey.
Frazey Ford: Hello.
PM: Hello, Frazey, it's Frank, from Nashville. How are you doing?
FF: Oh, hey, how're you doing?
PM: Very good.
FF: Good. I'm sorry, I only have about ten minutes, and then we have to go. Is that going to be all right?
PM: Certainly. We got to talk a lot to Trish.
FF: Okay.
PM: You're with child, correct?
FF: Yes.
PM: How long into your pregnancy will you continue to tour?
FF: Up until about seven months.
PM: Wow.
FF: Yeah, I know. We were just discussing it. The very last thing that we're doing is a tour of the West Coast. And I was like, "Seven months, I don't know how well I'll be sitting," so we're going to be flying a little bit.
PM: This is your first child?
FF: Yeah.
PM: Yeah, so how's one to know how you're going to feel, right?
FF: Exactly.
PM: I asked Trish what she was reading, as we often do. And she said, "I think that Frazey is reading her motherhood book, because he's pregnant." Is that right?
FF: It's true. It's a collection of short stories and poems by female authors, and it's all about pregnancies. This woman [Bonni Goldberg] put together a literary collection of people writing about their pregnancy. It's really good, actually. Some of my favorite writers are in it.
PM: What's the book called?
FF: It's called The Spirit of Pregnancy: Your Journey to Motherhood. I don't like the title, but...
PM: But what's inside is good.
FF: What's inside is great. continue
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