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Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar. Now I'm normally a producer of Notes from America, WNYC's weekly call-in show that's on Sundays at 6:00 PM. Shout out to my NFA fan by the way. This week I'm filling in for Alison Stewart and I am so happy to be here. I'm happy to be with you right now. Thanks for hanging out. Here's what we've got on today's show. We'll speak with New Yorker cartoonist Navied Mahdavian about his new graphic memoir This Country: Searching for Home in (Very) Rural America. Canadian pop star Charlotte Cardin is here to talk to us and to share her music with us in a listening party for her latest album 99 Nights which drops this Friday. We'll speak with director Cory Finley about his new film Landscape with Invisible Hand. That's the plan. Let's get this started with Allison Russell.

[MUSIC - Allison Russell: The Returner]

That's The Returner, the lead single and title track of singer-songwriter Allison Russell's new album. Now you know Allison from her 2021 debut solo album Outside Child which was nominated for three Grammys and one Juno Award. She's also played in bands like the super group Our Native Daughters, as well as Birds of Chicago and Po' Girl. While this new album is also a "solo album", Russell put together an inspiring list of creative collaborators in the studio over a six-day recording period.

That's including a 16-member female group of musicians called the Rainbow Coalition, as well as her husband JT Nero, and his bandmate Drew Lindsay. The album also has appearances from the likes of Wendy & Lisa. Yes, that Wendy & Lisa from Prince and the Revolution, and other collaborators with Allison that include Brandi Carlile, Brandy Clark, and Hozier. The Returner is out on September 8th, followed by a nationwide tour this fall. With me now in studio for one, a preview listening party, and two, a little later on, a special performance is Allison Russell. Hey, Allison.

Allison: Hello, Kousha. So lovely to be here with you.

Kousha Navidar: It's so lovely to be here with you too five feet away, getting to talk in person. It's a real luxury.

Allison: In real life.

Kousha Navidar: In real life. We heard the title track of the album in the intro, The Returner. Do you remember the moment that song came to you?

Allison: The idea of The Returner started gestating when I was on stage with Joni Mitchell at the Surprise Joni Jam at Newport last summer. I ended up writing a poem about that experience and about her after it and in the poem I called her Our Lady Returner. It was such a mystical, transcendent moment to be part of to watch this artist returning who had been told not only that she wouldn't sing or play again but that she wouldn't walk or talk again and the kind of grit and grace and sheer will that she has overcome in the last aneurysm she experienced with. To be in circle with her in creative communion with her was so inspiring and so that notion of a returner came to me after that. I think the song started gestating then but JT and Drew and I didn't finish writing it until about, let's see, it would've been November that we finished writing it.

Kousha Navidar: Joni's had a huge impact on your career, right?

Allison: Yes. Oh, just on my humanity, on my artistry. The reason I played clarinet, that sound of the clarinet imprinted on me when I was not even three, I think I was probably not even two. I remember hiding under my mom's piano and she was playing along with Joni's record Ladies of the Canyon and on that record, there's a deeper cut, a song called For Free. At the end of the song, there's a beautiful clarinet solo. I remember the sound of the clarinet and being entranced by it. It's like it imprinted on me. To come full circle and then get to be on stage playing clarinet and singing harmonies with Joni was extraordinary. Thank you, Brandi Carlile, for all the good things you've brought into my life including that.

[laughter]

Kousha Navidar: Takes a village, right?

Allison: Experience. Yes.

Kousha Navidar: Do you feel like a lot of your music comes from influences in people or in reflections of yourself or a mixture of both?

Allison: I think it's all of it. I think it's difficult for anyone to know what is influencing them at any given moment, whether or not they're writing something about it. I think we all contain multitudes and our ears are never turned off. We're hearing all the time and we're influenced by everything we hear. I think it's really difficult to pinpoint sometimes. My friend Joe Henry, I'm going to misquote him, but he said something really beautiful about writing. He said, I never know what I'm writing about. I write to find out what it is I'm writing about. It's the exploration. I think there's a lot of truth to that and there are songs that I write or co-write and I think it's one thing and it evolves into something totally other.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, absolutely, and the people, the experiences, and the places too. For instance, you got the ideas for a majority of these songs during walks, I've learned, in Shelby Bottoms in East Nashville near where you live. Can you describe Shelby Bottoms for those of us?

Allison: It's a beautiful nature preserve in the heart of the city of Nashville. It's a many-miles-long green belt with a lot of different ecological systems, a lot of native plant life being preserved. It is just a really beautiful place. You feel like you've stepped into another time and another world even in the midst of the city. We have a rescue pup named Millie The Moocher. I've been taking her when I'm home, which is not often these days in the last two years since Outside Child was released. When I'm home, I will take Millie for miles-long walks through the forest and there's a paved path, but you can go on trails all throughout the woods.

We leave the paved path and we go onto the trails and commune with the mycelial network and the trees and the birds and the deer and bugs. It's joyful. Yes, a lot of the album as we were feverishly finishing the songs in a three-month period because we had to record it three months earlier than originally planned due to all the vinyl delays that are occurring worldwide. We wanted to have vinyl in time for the release. Our wonderful label, Stephanie Hops who's here with me today, let us know if we wanted a record by September, we would have to deliver a master before the end of 2022. We moved everything up by three months.

It ended up being the most serendipitous, beautiful thing because we were able to have this conjunction of these 16 incredible artists, Elenna Canlas, Chauntee Ross, Elizabeth Pupo-Walker, Ganessa James, Joy Clark, Kerenza Peacock, Larissa Maestro, Lisa Coleman, Mandy Fer, Megan Coleman, Meg McCormick, Monique Ross, Wendy Melvoin, and Wiktoria Bialic, who all joined me. We had six days where we could all align our stars and spheres and schedules, and we got to record at the old A&M Studios which is now Jim Henson Studios presided over by Kermit the Frog. Joni recorded Blue there, Joni recorded Court and Spark there. Carole King recorded Tapestry there. They did Tina Turner, blew up We Are The World there. All of it happened there and we got to make this record and we did it over the salts. It was so witchy without us realizing it. It was over the solstice of December 2022. Our last final day of tracking was December 22nd, 2022.

Kousha Navidar: I got to ask, are you a Jim Henson fan?

Allison: A huge Jim Henson fan. The reason I play banjo was [unintelligible 00:08:24]

Kousha Navidar: It's because of Kermit the Frog.

Allison: A thousand before I knew anything about my own African diaspora and heritage and the banjo being America's African instrument before I met Rhiannon and learned all about that, I played banjo and I love the banjo because of Kermit the Frog.

Kousha Navidar: Oh wow. Was it The Rainbow Connection? What was it?

Allison: Yes, of course.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, I remember the first time.

Allison: The greatest songs of all time.

Kousha Navidar: Ever. There you are for six days in that studio getting into it.

Allison: Yes. It was incredible. Every day Kermit greeted us because he sits atop the archway as you drive in.

Kousha Navidar: Did you feel like that was the next big musical challenge for you as an artist was containing that timeframe and condensing everything or was it something different?

Allison: Do you want to know something funny, Kousha? That's the longest time we ever had in the studio. Six days. We made Outside Child in four days, so this was we had an extra two days and we had a day of pre-production. It felt quite indulgent.

Kousha Navidar: Oh my gosh. I'm talking to Allison Russell who is so wonderful to come here and almost serenade us in a little bit. Before we get to that, I'd also like to listen to the song Stay Right Here, which is another single from this upcoming album. Can you set the song up for us?

Allison: Absolutely. It's an anthem for the power of women and the way that we push forward equality versus inequality globally.

Kousha Navidar: Got it. Let's take a listen to that.

[MUSIC - Allison Russell: Stay Right Here]

Kousha Navidar: For the first time on top of being a co-writer on a song, you are now also a co-producer.

Allison: On the record.

Kousha Navidar: You co-produced every song on this new album with your husband JT Nero and Drew Lindsay. How did you find the production experience and what did you learn about the process?

Allison: I loved it. My main role, it was wonderful to have Dimstar. JT and Drew's project together is called Dimstar, and Drew is our brother, full disclosure. It was really, really wonderful because I think we each play to each other's strengths, and because, of course, I was also the recording artist, as well as the co-producer, it was really key to have their outside ears involved. When you're too close to it, it's really difficult to call it. Did we get that take? Did we not? We did the Neil Young crazy horse approach where you record each song three times. If you don't get it in three tries, you move on. We generally took the second take.

That was the one where everyone usually felt like it had coalesced, but we weren't over-anticipating anything yet, and where the conversation was just so. Because really, that's what recording is to me, is a musical conversation that you capture, and then it's made into an archive and preserved for all time but it's a real conversation in real-time when it's going down. My role as a producer, I think, was more in casting the room. Over the last two years, the circle of incredible artists that I have been so privileged to tour with, play with, commune with, grow with, become chosen family with, and they're all on this record.

I just feel so grateful and we don't all get to be together all the time. Larissa Maestro is touring full-time in Hozier's band now. They're incredible. Everyone should go see them. Sista Strings are touring with Brandy and Pink right now. They're doing stadium tours. They're incredible. Everyone should go see them. Mandy's got her own band, Sway Wild. We don't all get to be together all the time, and it was just such a beautiful point of conjunction and a time of deep creative communion.

Kousha Navidar: You talk about how you get three takes, and it's a musical conversation of being in the same place. We're in the same place right now. Maybe could we hear you talk to us through music?

Allison: Absolutely. The songs have to be able to live in their most naked, elemental form. The bones have to be good enough for me to present it to the incredible circle of artists that I get to inhabit these songs with. This is a bare-bones version of Eve Was Black.

Kousha Navidar: The essence.

Allison: Just me and the banjo, how it started. You'll have to get the record to hear it fully fleshed.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, nice.

Allison: It's nice to get back to basics. This is an open letter in the form of a song to my adoptive father, who was my primary abuser in childhood, who was raised in a Sundown town, ex-pat American who came up to Montreal and wreaked havoc because of the abuse that he had suffered. I consider ideological abuse to be one of the worst forms of abuse. There are a lot of people suffering from the disease of the false ideology of white supremacy. This is an invitation to rethink and to rejoin the circle of equal humanity and understand that the most powerful thing any human can ever do is say, I'm sorry, I was wrong. Eve Was Black.

[MUSIC - Allison: Eve Was Black]

Kousha Navidar: Wow, we're listening to Allison Russell. The Returner is out on September 8th, followed by a nationwide tour this fall. Allison, I'm shook, I guess is the right word for that right now. Thank you so much for playing that, I just want to say, first of all.

Allison: It's an honor. It's an honor to be here and to get to play and to get to be in conversation and community in real life, in real-time, in person.

Kousha Navidar: The word conversation was just in the front of my mind the whole time you were playing that because it felt like you were talking to me, both with what you were singing, but also through the movement. For those of you who aren't here, obviously, besides me and Allison, there's almost like a dance that you get into while you're playing that. Every verse, there's a little bit more swaying. I noticed another physical element to the song are the pictures that you have right in front of you on the floor. Can you talk that through a little bit? Where are those pictures of?

Kousha Navidar: When I go on stage, I bring a little altar of inspiration. I have a picture of Mavis Staples, of Joni Mitchell, and of Prince, and I'm missing Sinead O'Connor and Tracy Chapman. I need to find pictures of them to add to my altar. It just helps remind me of whose footsteps we're following in and whose shoulders we're standing on and what inspires me and what I want to bring forward and the kind of circle work, deep circle work that I want to do and just to be inspired. These are artists whose music and whose, not just their music, but whose activism has also inspired me.

Kousha Navidar: Can we talk about your banjo too a little bit?

Allison: Sure.

Kousha Navidar: It's a beautiful banjo. It looks like it's seen a lot of love.

Allison: It has. It's a company that's a US-based company in San Diego called Deering Banjos and it's their Good Time Americana model, but I messed with it. I altered it to try and make it sound as much like a fretless minstrel banjo as I can but then I also further mess with it by running it through an amp and tremolo and pedals because really, I want it to sound like pop staples guitar. That's really all I want.

[laughter]

I altered it a little bit where I put a Fiberskyn head that's closer to a goatskin, which would have been the original, you know what a banjo head was made from. Then I use these strings that are Nylgut. They're like a synthetic imitation of a gut string what originally would have had gut strings. It's a little bit closer to [unintelligible 00:20:46] ancestors than to say a steel string resonator back banjo. I'm trying to get as close back to Africa as I can, but with materials that will withstand all the temperature changes that we go through when we go on tour. The Aquila Nylgut strings are fantastic because they're really responsive and warm and they give you that illusion of playing gut, but they're also really temperature resistant.

Kousha Navidar: You go from the clarinet to the banjo, from a reed to a string, right? What was the most delightful surprise for you as a musician going from one instrument to the next like that?

Allison: I guess I started with piano a little bit and guitar before I played clarinet. I think each instrument as a writer, what I find is that they all have a different-- I come at songs from different angles with each instrument. Lately, the banjo is my primary conduit for songwriting but the clarinet is a close second. I think that so many of these instruments, tonal things, books, stories, different conversations, they just open pathways to our subconscious and that's where the songs come from and the stories and there's always that element of mystery for any creative person where the inspiration comes from.

I know that it's a muscle that we have to keep exercised. JT is very disciplined about writing, and I've learned from him to write something every day no matter what. Having these different voices to play with instrumentally is really helpful. It just helps open the conduits and keep the neurosynapses firing between the hemispheres of the brain. Instruments are so good for you whether you ever play them publicly or not. It's just so fun to play around. So many people come up to us after shows and say, "I wish I could play. Oh, I'm no good." This notion of music as competition is really damaging and I think it stops a lot of people from exploring instruments and singing for their own pleasure and their own health.

I would encourage anyone listening just if you have a hankering to play something, just do it.

Kousha Navidar: Absolutely. I can tell you for me, I went from trumpet to piano.

Allison: Oh, I love that.

Kousha Navidar: It was really interesting because then it wasn't just about the melody. It was about the bass. That gave me a real appreciation.

Allison: You hear differently and I'm sure you approach them differently. I love the trumpet too. Another B flat instrument.

Kousha Navidar: Yes. Shout out to all the B flats out there. Concert B flats what's up. You talk about that with music. Each one is a different tool, different neural pathway. I think language is similar too and in that last song the outro here's some [French language].

Allison: [French language] I grew up [French language] I grew up in Montreal. I'm excited you're going to have [unintelligible 00:23:43] because she's a superhero from Quebec. Yes, I grew up speaking both languages. My biological mother and my adoptive father are Anglophone or English speakers, but I was in foster care for over three years. My [French language] my foster family were Francophone, so I learned both languages and then I went to all French immersion schools up until all through high school.

Kousha Navidar: Tell me a little bit about those lyrics for listeners who might not speak French. What were you saying at the end of the song?

Allison: [French language] from Africa to the Americas one family. [French language] from Europe to Australia, one family. [French language] from the Indies to Asia, one family. We are all one family, only one family. Basically, the ideas after this song, it's a little hopeful addendum of just reaffirming our intrinsic indelible, indivisible, and forever equality.

Kousha Navidar: When you think about all of the community and the group of people that it took to make this new endeavor when people are listening, what do you hope they take from this new project that you've made for them?

Allison: I hope they hear the joy of being in the creative circle work. I hope they feel welcomed into that circle. I hope they feel like it's for them. I hope that they feel less alone when they hear it.

Kousha Navidar: Do you write songs for people who feel alone?

Allison: It's an interesting thing. We put songs out into the world for other people to hear, but the writing process, is an entirely-- you can't worry about who you're writing for or at least that's been my experience. There's a paralysis that comes from too much self-consciousness. For me, when I'm in the creative flow, I just have to follow the muse and follow my instincts and follow the compulsive behavior. Writing and playing music is extremely compulsive.

[laughter]

[unintelligible 00:25:58] It's my own neuroses--

Kousha Navidar: I think you're not alone in that.

Allison: -I choose what I decide to put the songs out into the world. At that point, I'm letting them go and I'm understanding that through the magical alchemy of when we share art, they become something different for every listener who chooses to take them into their heart. That's all valid. Live shows are such a different thing. Each component of it is so different. Writing is such for me a solitary, even when I'm co-writing, it's very rare that we'll sit in a room and write everything together. It's more one of us will send something to another, work on it. It's a very solitary other than Millie, walking with Millie.

Kousha Navidar: The Moocher.

Allison: Millie the Moocher and the mycelial network in Shelby Bottoms. It's solitary. It's an evisceration almost. It's like peeling back the layers of your own subconsciousness to get at the root of whatever it is that's begging to come through and be on the page or be recorded, whatever it is. It's so different the writing compared to performing. Concerts are very special because live shows, and I think we understood during the lockdown how much we miss them, how vital they are, to have those points of joyful assembly in real life, in real-time.

All art is incredibly important for humanity to, I believe, reach our highest form of ourselves, to build empathy, to build connection, to reduce fear, to fight against bigotry and fascism. Art just does that, naturally. Music has another layer which is that when we are listening to music together, sharing music together, playing music together, actually our limbic systems sync up, it boosts our serotonin, boosts the oxytocin in our brains. There is a physiological effect to joining together at a live concert that's incredibly beneficial.

Kousha Navidar: Sitting here at the conversation we are in, I feel that and I encourage everyone to check this out. The Returner is out on September 8th, followed by a nationwide tour this fall. With us playing beautifully speaking beautifully, Allison Russell. We're going to go out now on the latest single from Allison Russell's new album. It's called Snake Life. Thanks, Allison.

Allison: Thank you so much.

[MUSIC - Allison Russell: Snake Life]

 

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