SONGWRITER NANCY MCCALLION ON TUCSON'S WORLD-CLASS TALENT

By Judy Jennings

Copyright © 2015

Nancy McCallion and the Scarlett Letterrmen
Chris Davis, Karl Hoffman, Nancy McCallion, Les Merrihew

Nancy McCallion is passionate about her new band, the Scarlett Lettermen, as well as about the quality of music that’s generally being performed in Tucson these days.  According to her, many of the players that we take for granted in the Old Pueblo, such as Heather Hardy, are actually world-class musicians.  Those of us who go out to see them would agree.  Here are Nancy’s comments about local talent, her band, and her songwriting process:

“I think we’re kind of like a little Austin in some ways, although we don’t have the same reputation, of course.  It is unbelievable to me, when I walk into a gig where Heather’s playing, or where Grahams and Krieger are playing.  That level of musicianship; you don’t see that in bars in other places. 

“Maybe in Austin you do, because there are a lot of musicians who live there, and they’ll go out and play the local club just to stay working while they’re not on tour.  So you see it in Austin, but I don’t think you see it in other places.  People (in Tucson) don’t realize that this is here. 

“I feel really lucky that I get to collaborate with the people that I do.  And now, with the Scartlett Lettermen, we definitely collaborate.  I bring in the song, the lyrics, the chord changes, and the melody, and sing it for them.  Then we hammer it out together, and everybody makes suggestions, and we try everybody’s ideas.  It’s just wonderful. 

“I love being in a band.  Even though I’m a songwriter, a front person, I still very much consider myself a band member.  Everybody makes the music.  It’s an ensemble endeavor, and that’s what’s fun about it. 

“I’m doing more bridges and using more chords than I used to.  I just finished writing a song that sounds very much like a traditional country song, and then I decided this sounds like so many things that I have written that I am going to write a bridge.  It took a long time of singing the same thing over and over again until I came up with a bridge, and the bridge has a key change in it, and it goes from kind of a country sound to more of a pop-y sound. 

“I haven’t taught it to the Scarlet Lettermen yet, but I can kind of hear the harmonies they’re going to come up with, because Chris and Karl are wonderful harmony singers.  I can hear almost a Beatlesque sort of theme on this bridge, so it’s moving along like a traditional country song and then it has this bridge that becomes a little pop-y, and then it goes back to the traditional country again.  It’s kind of fun. 

“You have to keep changing musically, or you get stuck.  I can’t keep writing Irish songs in an Irish tradition, I have to keep playing and changing. 

“I would like for people to be able to listen to my songs and feel that sense of connection with the human condition.  That’s what I would hope.  One of my favorite songwriters is Hank Williams.  The song 'I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry' means as much now as when it was written.  It addresses a certain human condition that we’ve all experienced.  That’s what I want my music to do.”

PHOTOGRAPHER LINDA GRIFFITH ON THE SECRET LIFE OF LIGHT

Griffith with Comfort and Hugger
Photo Courtesy of Tammi Isaac

My story about Tucson photographer Linda Griffith’s drive to the Arctic Ocean with her two dogs has been published in the Summer issue of The Bark Magazine!  Read more about Griffith’s spiritual migration to the North here:

CONVERSATIONS WITH LIGHT

(An excerpt from the book in progress)

By Judy Jennings

Copyright © 2015

            It’s a moonlit Tucson evening, and Linda Griffith’s very small living room has just poured twenty people out into her yard, where they appear to still be caught under the spell of what they’ve seen inside.  No one even seems to notice the full moon splayed over the Catalina Mountains, or the play of light and shadow across the yard at the edge of town.  All conversation is about what people have just seen indoors.

            After five years, professional photographer Linda Griffith has finally narrowed down the 20,000 photographs she took on her year-long drive to the Arctic Ocean to 75 for an exhibit called “The Secret Life Of Light,” also available as a book.  This is the opening of the exhibit, and to celebrate, Griffith has put together a slide show of the trip. 

            Despite research suggesting the attention span of the average human is about eight seconds (less than that of a goldfish), this crowd just sat through 750 slides and is now begging for more.  Apparently, people want to see more pictures of the bears, and Griffith promises she’ll deliver on that when she hosts the second half of the slide show next month.  Then conversation turns back to The Secret Life Of Light.  We’ve already learned that the exhibit is grouped into three sections:  Middle Ground, Vast, and Conversations.  Now someone is asking for clarification.

            “What do you mean by Conversations?” comes the question.  “What kind of conversations?”

            In response, Griffith looks up at the moon and lets the light fall over her for a moment before saying anything.  Then she begins talking about what it felt like to be above the 66^th parallel.

“It’s as if the earth is aware that you’re there.  The sense I had in that place was that this was not just about me looking at the land, but that the land and the light were looking at me, too.  There was a feeling of  ‘We’re glad you’re here, look at this!’  There’s an interaction that goes on between the clouds and the earth.  It feels very conscious. 

“I think at one point most of the globe was like that, and because of all the changes we’ve made, we’ve lost this.  Everywhere, I think, was like the Arctic initially.  Everywhere spoke.  The woods had consciousness.  Native Americans knew that.  They talked about it as family and understood it as family.

 “Sure, that seemed goofy to Europeans who had already developed and destroyed their land to make cities, because they’d never experienced it before.  Then they were so busy developing this land that I don’t think they ever listened, and so here we are. I think that’s part of why we’re so careless, we have no idea what we’ve done.

“I’m hoping the photographs can communicate some of what that is.  I tried to keep the emphasis on what IS there, and what it speaks to, and not so much about what we’ve done, because we’ve done it, and we’re not going to turn that around."

Somehow Griffith makes this sound like an affirmation, rather than a statement of defeat, and continues with quiet certainty.

“Everything in its own way contributes to sustaining life, even though it may not appear that way at the time.  Invariably the turn things take is life-affirming.  Even dying is life-affirming.  I like to say when people are resisting a situation to just throw yourself into the unknown part of it.  Whatever it is, just make it more, and you’ll come out the other side.”   

AMBER NORGAARD, HEATHER HARDY, AND SABRA FAULK:

HOW THESE MUSICIANS VIEW EACH OTHER

By Judy Jennings Copyright © 2015

Sabra Faulk, Amber Norgaard, and Heather Hardy

Amber Norgaard, Heather Hardy and Sabra Faulk not only drew a standing-room-only crowd for their show on June 13, but according to the good folks over at Monterey Court, they broke the record for the most reservations in the history of the venue.

One of the questions I ask when I interview someone for the story I’m working on about what it takes to make a living as a musician, from a woman’s perspective, is “How would you describe the music scene in Tucson?”  As it turned out, all three women referred to the other two in their responses to that question. 

Here’s what Amber, Heather, and Sabra had to say about each other:

AMBER:  “What I’ve found about the Tucson music scene is that it has always been welcoming.  When I started out, in those first five years or so, I had people who helped me out and took me under their wing.  Sabra helped me in the singer/songwriter setting, and the guys in my band, Doug Floyd and Jay Trapp, they’ve been with me since ’04.  Everybody’s always very welcoming and open.  Tucson’s kind in that way, and I’m grateful I landed here to start my music career.

Sabra and Heather have influenced me. I’m really picky with what I listen to.  I don’t like moody music, it has to keep me in a good mood, and it has to be insightful for me to listen to it.  I mean, there’s a time for moodiness, but I’m kind of beyond that in my life right now, the darkness. 

Who do I listen to?  Sabra and Heather.”

HEATHER: “It’s a very generous thing we gave going on, where we allow each other freedom.  I take great care to know that, until I can pay my musicians’ rent full-time, that they’re going to need to play with other people.  And they’re going to have their own dreams.  And they do that for me, so there’s that feeling in town where we all move around, and have great loyalty for our bands, but nobody’s in prison.  It’s not like, well, now I can’t work with Sabra Faulk because now Sabra and Amber work together, and that’s the end of that.”

SABRA:  “I think there’s a couple of really hard working women in this town--Heather Hardy is one of them, Amber Norgaard is another--people who work super hard and gig a lot.  If you really work hard at it and you market yourself properly, it’s easy to make a great living.  But you have to be on top of it all the time.

Amber has this amazing influence on people and on other musicians, because all of her music has a spiritual purpose, and the way she performs it heals people.

(Heather) is probably one of the most influential musicians in town.  She plays in every band, and everybody wants her on their CD’s.  They want her, they just want her, want her, want her.  Heather Hardy!”

INTERVIEW WITH HEATHER HARDY

"I'M KIND OF LIKE THE SALT"

By Judy Jennings

Copyright © 2015

You started playing piano at the age of six, and violin at nine.  Have you always wanted to make your living as a musician?

I always loved it more than anything on the planet.  I never thought I’d do anything else. Music has saved my life from day one.  It’s always been that healer.  What is the thing that gives you authenticity within yourself?  The thing is music, for me.  It’s what I do.

I still play piano every day, and I write on it, but I’m not a jammer.  I play a lot of Debussey, and Bach and Beethoven.  It’s hard to write songs to sing on the violin.

Do you feel like you have a chance to collaborate with other musicians as much as you’d like?

Every single night of the week!  I wish I had more time, there are more musicians I’d like to work with.  I mean that genuinely.

I love playing other people’s music.  If I didn’t get to have my own project, then I would not be happy just playing everybody else’s stuff all the time, but I do have a moment to do what I’m feeling, what I’m hearing.  Then playing with all these other people keeps me fresh and keeps me growing.

I’m kind of like the salt, I’m the person you add when there’s enough money to add Heather.  But you can do the gig without the violin.  The core of the band is bass, drums and guitar in a songwriter kind of band.  So that’s why you’ll see me in these large bands. 

It’s a very generous thing we have going on (in Tucson), where we allow each other freedom.  I take great care to know that, until I can pay my musicians’ rent full-time, they’re going to need to play with other people.  And they’re going to have their own dreams, and they do that for me.  There’s that feeling in town where we all move around, and have great loyalty for our bands, but nobody’s in prison.

How do you think the music scene in Tucson has changed over the past decade?

Twenty years ago, it was hopping, and then it really died off, (but) I would say in the last decade it’s had a resurgence.  There’s a lot more people working than there were ten years ago, without a doubt.

Here’s the other thing:  We all pitch our music love to the scene that we’re in.  We say “Oh, there’s not enough music!”  Well, maybe that’s the blues people speaking.  But downtown, there’s a bunch of stuff going on that I don’t necessarily go to, because I’m not a college student, but I know it’s there.  As long as there’s live music, the circle covers everybody, eventually.  As long as there’s not just DJ’s and karaoke.

What kinds of challenges are you facing now as a musician?

Well, my son just graduated.  I made a choice to be a mom, I made that choice consciously.  The only thing I could do to raise him was to stay a musician, that would never change.  But my whole thing about playing music has been about making enough money to live, and still getting to play music and do my thing.  So now my challenge is to branch out farther than the gigs than I’m doing. 

I want to travel, I was traveling a lot when I was a pre-mom.  So now, that would be my challenge, how can I create that again, because now I have the freedom to do that.  I want more.  I have big dreams.

This is a big transition, and I don’t want to be sad about it, either.  You know, single mom, empty nest, yeah I could go there.  It would be easy to be that sad, and I’ve even gone to the place where I’ve thought maybe I’ll start fostering children.  I need to fill this thing, but I need to fill it with just me.  I need to remember that.  I think that I’m the only one doing what I do, and I think there’s a niche that I’d love to fill. 

What effect would you like to see your music have on the world?

That it makes people feel good, and wakes them up out of the computer place, or the work place.  That’s what I love, it’s a beautiful thing, making music,  If I watch people be happy and dance and have a great time, I am receiving so much, because I could play at home.  I could sit around the studio.  It’s a whole other experience to see that joy, and that emotion makes you play different, it makes you engaged in a different way. 

And to open the possibilities for the violin itself, because that’s certainly happening now.  People never used to see violin doing anything but classical music, and had never heard of electric violin.  That’s blown wide open, and I like that, I want that to keep going on.  Violin belongs in the blues, it’s been playing the blues as long as the guitar’s been playing the blues.  Being part of that would be great.

INTERVIEW WITH SINGER/SONGWRITER SABRA FAULK

"IT'S A FEVER"

By Judy Jennings

Copyright © 2015

Very few of Tucson’s talented musicians can lay claim to the term “home-grown” as thoroughly as Sabra Faulk.  These days the gal from Wilcox can most often be found in the band box at Gaslight Theater, but back in the ‘80’s, Faulk made a living as the first woman to play in a house band at the country-western bar, The Maverick.  Here, she comments over coffee on how the music scene in Tucson has changed--or not—over the years.

Did you just say that you and Bunny Kirby were the first two women ever to play at the Maverick?

         We weren’t the first, Tammy Wynette played there, but we were the first two women in a house band back then.  I was the first, as bass player with Gary Rust.  Then we moved on, and I went back with my own band for a while on Monday nights.

         Then Bunny and I got into the house band Desert Rain.  We were in that band for a couple of years, playing at The Maverick five nights a week.  I’ve made my living for many years as a bass player in Tucson, and played at all the different (country-western) clubs around. 

Then I went on to doing solo and duo stuff with Heather Hardy, because it was easier to make money on a smaller level.  Back when I started it was five and six-piece bands, but now duos and trios are a lot easier to get paid.

It’s been hard at times.  That’s when I had to go get the day jobs.  If you really work at it and market yourself properly, it’s easy to make a great living.  But you have to be on top of it all the time.  (The pay) has been the same for forty years.  I can go to a gig, and they’ll say the gig pays $50 a man, and they were paying $50 a man in 1982.

Why are you living this life?

It’s a fever.  It’s a fire.  I live my life this way because this is what I chose.  I just can’t not play.  If I’m playing my music with the right intention and there’s no ego involved, then it’s all about bringing joy to people.  There’s nothing better for me. 

I feel like my success can’t be measured in money or 401K’s, it’s measured in what I’ve been given and what I’ve given back.

What would you be doing right now if you weren’t a musician?

I’d probably be on a John Deere tractor, when I wasn’t building my chicken coops, taking care of my cows, or riding my horses.  I’ve always wanted to be a cowgirl.  Or a superhero with the power to stop war.

For more info, visit:  SabraFaulk.com

INTERVIEW WITH SINGER/SONGWRITER AMBER NORGAARD

Amber Talks About The Musician’s Life

By Judy Jennings

Copyright © 2015

Photo Courtesy of Nancy Herndon

Amber Norgaard is in a state of creative immersion these days.  She is working on her upcoming album “Possibility”, due out in August, and has just come from a recording session at Saint Cecelia Studios when we sit down to talk. 

Amber begins with a confession.  “I’m not very grounded after I’ve been playing music, and I’m sort of up here,” she says, stretching one arm up towards the sky to demonstrate, then she proceeds to answer my questions thoughtfully for the next hour, digging out her words slowly and from somewhere deep, like she is pulling root vegetables up from the ground.

Here are a few of her comments about living the musician’s life:

When you first started out, how did you imagine the life of a musician?  Has it turned out that way?

"Did I think my life would be like this?  I don’t know if I had a real vision, honestly.  I just wanted to make music and make a living, and now I have more of a vision of it being a healing art.  I didn’t really put it together back then, I was sort of morphing into that.

I was thinking that my goal was to make a living at music.  Then a few years ago, I figured out I was making a living, but it wasn’t very comfortable.  That’s when I decided I needed to change my vision. 

I think I’d gone into the starving artist idea for a while.  In the past few years I’ve shifted that to envision a different way of going about things.  Eleven years ago I felt I had to fit into a certain genre and sector, and maybe even the starving artist mindset.  But none of that’s true.

What I’m finding out is that if I integrate my whole self into what I do, it works.  The universe provides then.  I think trying to fit in makes it a lot harder.  I’m much more comfortable now with what I do; I have a niche with songwriting for organizations, and I’m also finding a fan base that appreciates my music.  Now I’m more focused on what would best represent the message I’m trying to get across.

I’m understanding now that I treat my music like art, and I’m trying to treat my life like art, all of it, and have expression that is joyful and mindful, as opposed to just easy.

In the world we live in now, we create so much with our thoughts and our words.  I really believe that the word is a powerful, powerful thing.  That’s why I do music, that’s why I sing, and that’s why I’m careful about the messages I put out.  I think there’s more to this thing that we do here than we see and understand."

For more info. visit http://www.ambernorgaard.com/index.php

Amber's song "Raise Me Up" was written for a film about the Equine Voices Rescue and Sanctuary near Tubac.  The horses are unexpectedly appreciative when Amber plays for them inside their corral.  

ttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwJ1jWa73MQ