Carolyn Wonderland – One Special Lady
By Matteo Bossi
We talked with Carolyn Wonderland four years ago when “Tempting Fate” came out on Alligator, produced by Dave Alvin and it was, to quote her words, “one of the happiest studio experiences”. And we happily had the chance to do it again now that she’s back with a new album, “Truth Is“, a strong, inspired follow up to that one, under the guidance, even this time, of the former founder of The Blasters and a tight group of musicians. It’s another very good record that shows her personal take on music and life. “Yes, it’s like having a continuation of a joy. It seemed impossible to top that, so why not inviting everybody back? It was just a matter of finding the time with everybody’s crazy schedule. And it worked out, we got a week. Dave and I had been passing song ideas back and forth before. Since we had so much fun on Tempting Fate on this one I came with some of my songs like bare bones, I was not married to the arrangements, some of them we changed the feel entirely…it’s alright to be willing to break a part and see it put back together, it’s really awesome, it’s difficult but so worth it. Dave is really good with that. There are a couple of tunes where he listened to them and he said “are you sure you want to start with that verse?” And I was, “oh you’re right”. He sees stuff that you miss very much. When you’re writing sometimes it’s better to have an editor, clearly, but someone who sees inside of what you’re going for it’s just amazing. He’s got a gift.
I think these last two records produced by Dave Alvin are some of the best work you’ve done so far.
Thanks, it feels like growth, I’ve always held on on the thought that the more you play the better you get at it, the less you stink at least! The best I can do is to mean it, this is what writing songs is about, you settle on the one that have a spirit…I think you can tell when people don’t mean it. People are worried and maybe calculating sometimes.
For this record you have a different rhythm section than the previous one, Giovanni Carnuccio on drums and Naj Conklin on bass, on Tempting Fate you had Bobby Perkins and Kevin Lance.
Yes, and it’s very funny Bobby is gonna come and fill in some shows for Naj…we’re all one big happy family, but often times during the off season people join other bands as well, but there’s still a lot of music to be played and made. You have to be happy to let everybody go and come back when they can.
And again some of your friends like Shelley King, Ruthie Foster, Marcia Ball and Cindy Cashdollar came to play on the album.
Oh yes, that was amazing, having Marcia and Cindy Cashdollar…every time we get together it reminds me that we need to write music for each other and make a record, it’s too fun. And Ruthie just got a Grammy, that’s so awesome. She was on a cruise, I was not on that one, but I was watching it live and she makes me cry every time, I think it’s a game, she’s amazing. She’s been nominated so many times and it was totally worthy. Jesus, I still think about “Phenomenal Woman”, it was so beautiful…
Some years ago you wrote a song, “Come Together” with Ruthie.
That’s a fun one, that song came about because we both showed up at a TV station here in Austin, years ago, I was under the impression I was going to back her up and she was under the impression she was going to back me up! So we said, we better write something…
A number like “I Should Take” would fit in a Marcia Ball record probably.
Oh thank you, that’s one we teared apart and rearrange…it reminded me of when I was younger and I was in band with Jerry Lightfoot and the rhythm section was Larry Fulcher and Frosty Smith, Larry now plays with Ruthie…this song could go any number of places, I don’t want to sound like what i would typically do, I don’t wanna fall into a regular trap…so during rehearsals for the record we took it all kind of different places and finally we settle like “OK you pick a city and and era”. I said all right, New Orleans 1960. That’s what I feel like when I think of that. That was a valuable lesson to pick from Larry and Frosty.
Some of these songs you co-wrote them with Dave Alvin.
Yes, like I said, I had these songs ideas, lyrics and guitar riffs, a skeleton and a frame, and sometimes he would change it and that made the song so much better. Or he’d say “this need a bridge here or this needs this…” Like “Whistling Past The Graveyard Again” it was more straight the way I was doing it, I had written it when my husband went to the grocery store one day, it was just fun. And Dave said “it’s cute, it’s funny, but what if…” and so we take it slow and slanky and we had more fun with it. Dave made that magic, it would have been different. The way the song ends is almost like the tempo I had the whole thing, it was nice to have that call back.
Carolyn Wonderland photo Mary Bruton
It was a different process than the Tempting Fate sessions?
Yes, for sure. I was kind of scared, I had never come into a session where songs were so naked, not ready, not polished at all. For at least six or seven of these songs where I felt this is nebulous, here’s the words, this is what I think it’s gonna do…but it was a real band experience on those. “Deepest Ocean Blue” it was one basically the whole band wrote, it was a guitar riff that would drive me crazy for a couple of years…it would just not go away. And I thought, you know this is pretty catchy I think I’m gonna do something with it, but it didn’t have words, it didn’t have a structure…The lyrics are based on my bass player proposing to his now wife, we watched it all happen on a boat, that’s why it is a song about being on a boat.
So the thing is that every band member is able to add a piece of the puzzle, you would say it is mostly a matter of trust?
Of yes, that comes from being in a band together, especially when you’re constantly touring you live with each other for six weeks at a time in a van…after a while you kind of synchronize your breathing, you’re able to anticipate what each other wants to hear and where he’s going. You got to take the chance, playing music is fun to get to be adventurous, I mean worst case scenario people laugh…when I was a kid I would absolutely embarass myself. When I was younger I would write a song and it was very precious, like this is my baby, this is exactly how this song goes…now, and maybe it’s just being older, I realize there so much more to learn from people I play with than what I offer, it’s really nice to allow songs to breathe and change form.
Maybe it’s even liberating.
Very much. It keeps music a living art form. If you’re not learning something or taking chances…I’d rather see someone possibly fall off.
When did you decide that the title would be “Truth Is”?
It just seemed to be the title…a lot of songwriting whether you like or not is like a note to yourself, your own personal truth, and I hope to find more universal truth, I think it’s like everybody tries to do in their songwriting.. This is where I’m where I think truth is at the moment. When I’m happy about things I don’t really write much about that, but when I’m angry, confused or sad there seems to be pins on every surface and emptiness ready to be filled. I used to write more sad or unrequited love songs but I’m so happy in that part of my life that I have no worries there. I’ve got a lot of fear about what’s going on around us and a lot of hope, but trying to put it into perspective and walk in other people shoes and it can be really painful sometimes as a process but again I think ultimately I think is worth it. Whether or not I’m gonna hit the mark I’m gonna keep trying. And if someone disagrees they can always write me a song back!
Is it harder to put out that kind of message in Texas, a state that leans more on the conservative side?
Oh well, there’s certainly the theory that because our politics and politicians are so awful that’s what makes our music is so great! But there’s also if you look at where people live, cities are like the blueberries floating in a tomato soup of red that is the rest of the State. You got to be able to speak at some point or you’re not gonna be allowed to. So use it or lose it. Sometimes people get angry and they use their words…that’s OK, I don’t like when they physically come after you that is bothering. But that has not stopped me yet. We have to be there to each other and accept people having a change of heart…like “oh wow, this is not what we signed up for”.
On this record you have two covers, “Wishful Thinking” and “Orange Juice Blues”.
I grew up, well I never really grew up, I would go watch Greg Wood and Horseshoe a lot and Tab Jones before and my guitar player for many years was a cool guy named Scott Daniels, he passed away, but he and Greg were partners in a lot of stuff…so between them and Eddie Hawkins they wrote a lot of good songs. And their songs were so personal as a performer I could no wear those shoes, the words didn’t fit me, I didn’t sound like a convincing person…but for “Wishful Thinking” I felt I could wear those shoes and I’ve loved this song for twenty years and I was really happy to finally get to do it. For this one too Dave had some great ideas, normally we would to this stuff live and we did it first thing in the morning and as I’m singing my voice is breaking pretty bad…and Dave said “no, no, sing it with that voice”. At the end of the day I went back to sing it again with a full voice and listening back to the tune Dave was right. The time of day when your voice is about to break is the best time to sing that song. Because that’s how it makes me feel.
And what about “Orange Juice Blues” by The Band?
That was one that Dave chose! I’m a huge Levon Helm fan and Dave knows me and Cindy are tight, that’s how we met, because of Cindy. She played in his band for a while. We have this connection with the music of The Band that we all love and having her and Shelley singing with me it was perfect, a girls night at the house! We’re going to Levon’s studio to celebrate his birthday, they’re doing a ramble there with Amy and the band, it still awe inspiring to walk in that room. I have great memories there. One time we were playing up there and he said “hey we want you to sing a song with us on the second set”. And I said, “oh wow, what song am I gonna do?”. As my husband walks by they say “Let’ Go Get Stoned”. “Oh awesome”. So Howard Johnson brought this horns chart and we went on stage and did…it was the time when Levon was not singing, so he was not supposed to do it, but about when the second chorus came around his voice was the loudest on stage! It was amazing. I hope there is a recording of that somewhere. Levon was so joyful about what he did, I think this is someone he had in common with John Mayall, they were so joyful about playing music and sharing the spotlight withe everybody, they were there to make everybody around them sound better. That’s why I think John had such a “graduate school of the blues”…everybody loved John. And I feel the same about Levon. John was like that, “do you thing, play that again, shine!”there was not a night without a bass solo or drum solo, everyone had a chance to go crazy!
And John had incredible work ethic, that was maybe something that inspired everybody who had a chance to play with him.
Oh for sure! Some of my favorite memories would be people coming to the shows and not realizing that he was there setting his CDs sales…everything that he did was meticulous. People would say “oh my God, is this John Mayall?” But he never made a spectacle of it. And at the end of the night he would have everyone in his band bring their CDs, like this is your time… and he would sat there chatting with people. He was so kind, I miss him a lot.
Any special memories about “The Sun Is Shining Down”, John’s last record?
He wrote that song in the living room while we were all there. I remember sitting there with Greg and Jay, just doing a living room jam…John went off to the kitchen, oh he’s gonna get us some tea or something. He comes back and he says sribbling something, this is a song about what we’re doing. It was so sweet. And he was really happy.
The last song of the record is dedicated to the late Gene Taylor. He and Dave Alvin go way back.
Yes, they knew each other their own lives…Gene lived back and forth between here and Belgium I think, at the end he was in Austin. Texas is ill prepared for cold. We had a hard freeze and that would be tragic in itself, but the fact is the powers that be decided to make more money off of this tragedy and decided to throttle the power and when they did the degrees went down. I’m sure they made some money but hundreds of Texans died in the freeze and Gene was one of them. I loved Gene, he was a funny super supportive a great guy. So when I told Dave I had written a song for Gene he was receptive to it and when it came time he said obviously we have to play this together and have a piano player who gets it. So Henri Herbert was living in Austin at the time, he’s from London and he’s this amazing piano player who is also a huge fan of Gene. So i knew he would be able to embody that spirit. And sure enough he did. We recorded that live in the studio it was glorious but there were a lot of tears.
Did you ever record anything with Gene?
No, unless someone has like a crappy Iphone video or something… I wish i had a chance to record with him. I’m happy about the great piano players I have on here, anytime Red Young says yes, I’m thrilled. He can come in and find this like countermelody that totally change direction. And Bukka Allen he can really set a mood, he plays a chord and the air in the room changes. I don’t know how he does that. I feel so lucky. And Marcia Ball? Are you kidding me? I love playing with her. I crash her gigs so often that we founded a band with Shelley and her, KingWonderBall, so that we can play together. I was so glad we got to do it all gain.
In the liner notes you give thanks to a lot of people like Delbert McClinton and Derek Trucks and Susan Tedeschi is there a specific reason?
Yes, one of the first shows when I was a kid in Houston is I got to open for Delbert and he was incredibly encouraging to a dumb kid that didn’t know what she was doing, I don’t know if he remembers or not. And for the last decade I got to go on the Sandy Beaches Cruise which everybody calls the Delbert Cruise, because that’s what it is. It’s all friends and family, it’s one of those where you play a set and by the second set you have a horn section, for the third set two keyboard players…everybody wants to jam and it’s really fun. With Susan and Derek, I have a new guitar now because of them! Oddly enough, we just got off the Delbert Cruise, and we were driving back on tour from Florida back to Texas, and my guitar went boom… We had just gone visit them the night before, we had a bite to eat and it was amazing that we both had a night off, it never happens so we said let’s hang out for a minute. But next day my guitar, the telly I was using, just would not stay on…so I called Susan, “do you know a quick repair guy or a good pawn shop? I got another week on this tour.” She said “I got a guitar you can borrow”. While I was driving over to the house she texts me, “actually Derek says you can have his”, she sends me a picture and it is behind glass in the studio…it’s the Susan Tedeschi model, her signature model Telecaster that Derek had bought so they have one in the studio. It plays amazingly well. She’s been my number one axe for the last couple of months. The guitar I recorded with on this record is the blueshawk, it is the one I played with Mayall, it’s so beat up I said this has got to be on the cover. I have never beat the hell out of a guitar like this one before.
Last time we talked about people like Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown and Lil’ Joe Washington. Do you have any memories about W.C. Clark who passed away last year?
W.C. was playing right until the end. He knew that people loved him so that makes me happy. He was so welcoming to everybody that would come up there. He didn’t get in his own way, he was happy to welcome newcomers, he was generous and kind to everybody. He played all the clubs in Austin. He had so much fun playing live.
And Carl Weathersby? He passed away too and he lived in Austin the last years of his life. I know he even played with Mayall a couple of times.
I didn’t get to hang out much with him, he was close friends to Jay Davenport from back in Chicago. I know there are a lot organizations here in town that loved him and did what they could to help. It was really sad to see him go. Especially hearing Jay talk about how awesome he is. I love being on the road but sometimes you miss cool things at home. But this how it is. Years ago we even started a charity with Marcia Ball, it’s called HomeAustin.org…originally we wanted to help Lavelle White, we wanted to make sure she didn’t lose her house. The hardest thing about being homeless, and I can say it as I lived in my van for a couple of years, is once you’re in that system it is really hard to get out. Being poor is expensive. So what we do is we raise money to make sure elder musicians in the Austin area don’t lose their house. It’s a labor of love. I love that about Austin, you would think with so many musicians it would be more competitive but everybody is there to support everybody. It’s a beautiful community, thank God it’s still there. We give each other dignity and this is very important.
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