Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: I'm Aaron Nathens.
[00:00:08] Speaker C: And I'm Michael Ronstadt.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: And you're listening to the Nathan's in Roncast.
And oh, my goodness, you have tuned into a good episode because we talk to the great Vance Gilbert. I've followed Vance for at least 15 years, seen him at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival repeatedly. I know that you and your brother have opened for him. I've opened for him. He's a great member of the folk music community, a leader in the folk music community, a great teacher and just an all around good egg. Vance has been sick lately. He's been battling cancer. He just did a GoFundMe that raised, I think, more than $100,000. It's a very poignant interview. And he sings. And we talk about his struggle with cancer and his ability to continue to play through it and sing through it. And we talk a little bit about his journey as an artist and how he maybe isn't trying quite so hard these days and how it's probably made him more effective as a performer. And we talk about leaving space. Do you leave space in your.
You're all about the space?
[00:01:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:01:11] Speaker C: I mean, sometimes the space is more important than the notes you play. And I think that goes across every discipline, just life in general. I mean, you. Sometimes the silence and listening to people is more important than talking and telling your own story. And that happens in a song. Occasionally you just stay. So I really relate to his idea and the way he talks about the power of leaving space when he doesn't say the thing you think he's going to say, but he still says it louder because of that.
[00:01:40] Speaker B: Vance is funny. You know, a lot of that comes through in this. This interview. We're going to have to put an explicit label on this one because he.
[00:01:47] Speaker C: He swears repeatedly at my expense sometimes, but actually a compliment to my cello. So thank you to my cello, I guess.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Yes. All right, well, speaking about leaving space, we're going to leave space for this interview. So here's part one of our interview with Vance Gilbert.
[00:02:04] Speaker C: Enjoy.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: Well, Vance Gilbert, welcome to the Nathan's and Roncast. Someone we've wanted to have on for a long time.
[00:02:16] Speaker A: Well, thank you for making space for me. That's very cool.
[00:02:20] Speaker B: Why you.
You recently had a GoFundMe that raised more than cancer.
[00:02:30] Speaker A: I had cancer. I'll say it, yes.
[00:02:35] Speaker B: That raised more than $100,000 with 1,300 donors.
[00:02:46] Speaker A: It was really the most absurd.
I mean, I was so taken and moved by it. I was planning strategies to give it back.
Because how do I say this for real?
And to say it, I'll say it for real.
I don't think, and I didn't think I needed all that came in.
And I am old enough and, and humane enough to know that in the eyes of whatever or whoever guides this thing that we're on this journey, that paying it forward is an important thing to know to do.
That having been said, I have been convinced by people that, no, this is the way your audience and your fans have let you know that you're important.
And I am going to take said money. When the bills roll in for the treatment, I'm sure there'll be some paying off of that and the rest of it will go towards making some kind of music or another.
And also, to be vulgar about it, a car.
I mean, you can't see it out the way the cameras align. There's a minivan out there that has 175,000 miles on it. And that's.
That's a lot. So I need to take care of some business with it. And yeah, it's funny you would bring up the number because it's public, you know, you can go look.
But it certainly didn't make me rich. And the rest of it, I put it in a high yield something or other. And again, I'll, you know, at the one year mark or something or other, I'll thank a bunch of people, but no, ain't nobody getting it back. It's mine.
It's mine.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: It is. And I think, I think people were, you know, to say that you are beloved is a big understatement.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Well, that's.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: I mean, our community adores you. And part of why they adore you is not just that you put on a good show, but then you, you kind of get into the crowd and you get to know people and the fact that you know my name, even though I'm just some guy in the crowd who.
I think the only time that I've actually performed, I performed two full sets for you. One was when I opened for you at the Kennett Flash years ago. And the other was when you were on a massage table at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival. And I talk about a captive audience.
[00:05:40] Speaker A: So that was, though, funny that you remembered that.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Do you remember that? No. Well, there you go. See, I must have made an impression, but I felt like you were listening. You made a sound as if you were listening and that made me feel.
[00:05:55] Speaker A: I think that was somebody's thumb under my damn scapula. That's What? I was like, oh, yeah, that's good, that's good.
Nice use of language.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: Oh, man.
So how are you doing?
[00:06:13] Speaker A: Let me knock on some wood. I'm healing, I'm better.
I sort of use as the canary in the coal mine, my voice as an indicator of how am I doing this. And that went through some changes since the end of my treatment.
Do you guys slate these or date these podcasts?
[00:06:39] Speaker B: I hope we'll get this thing out soon. But Today is Friday, October 24th.
[00:06:44] Speaker A: Okay, well, treatment was about eight weeks ago, had ended, but I was told that not to skip around. Yippee skippy. At the end of treatment, thinking that that was the end of everything. I was told the treatment was like a really bad sick sunburn. And I was like, what are you talking about? And he said, well, and a bad sick sunburn, you know, you have the effects later.
And I still looked at the doctor like that. And he said, with a bad sick sunburn, think of your treatment, the end of your treatment as you folding up the umbrella and leaving the beach.
So it's the waiting later, through the next batch of weeks later that the voice gets affected and your swallowing is affected and. And so many other throat things because it's a throat. It was a throat cancer I had. It was a tonsillary and I like, I'm happy to talk about it because it was HPV based, which we can actually avoid nowadays. Not by any great religious, don't have contact with people thing, but by having a normal life, but getting the vaccine.
You guys are probably too old, but if you have kids, get them to have that vaccine, the HPV vaccine, and you can alleviate a lot of this.
So there was a lot to deal with in the midst of that healing. And the voice came and went and currently it's in a state of came.
I've been singing really well the last couple weeks or so, but previously to that it was rough. I was warming up starting at 2 in the afternoon and then going to the gig and warming up at the gig, same warmup, and then getting dressed for the gig 45 minutes before I go on stage and then going for a run.
And that was the only way to have a voice.
And I'm still there with that because that seems to be working.
But I can be a little more lackadaisical with that stringent setup. But yeah, it's been.
I'm singing well.
I'd say 85% of my fatigue has been alleviated, but there's still some.
And that's. It and now I point the car and go and.
And end up somewhere and sing, which is what we do, as you know.
[00:09:42] Speaker C: So glad to hear that you feel like you're singing well. Cause that is just such a wonderful thing to hear. Cause when Petey, my brother Petey and I opened up for you, you were so warm and just welcomed us in like family.
And we're so grateful. And it just. You made an imprint on us.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: Thank you.
It was a bl. That.
That opener out there was. That show was fun. It was a reconnection with my cousin who was in the audience. I hadn't seen her in 20 years, easily maybe 30. And it was great. It was great. Cause she's now an Arizona native. But yeah, the whole. First of all, let me expound upon the point that I'm making. I would love to.
To think that I had the library of tunes enough that it didn't matter what kind of voice I had to sing them.
[00:10:43] Speaker B: So.
[00:10:46] Speaker A: It has forced me to take the guitar from time to time, particularly when I'm doing Vance's Monday Night Acoustic Pajama Party, which I've been doing since March 2020, when something was happening back then.
[00:11:02] Speaker B: Livestream.
[00:11:03] Speaker A: Yeah, my live stream.
I've been learning to move the capo around on the guitar and bring the capo down and sing kind of up to it kind of deal or vice versa. And it's a real re. Experience of.
Of singing just aging itself. You know, you think of Tom Jones and you look at. You listen to some early Tom Jones from the 60s and it's not unusual to be loved by anyone, you know. And then you listen to Tom Jones from a couple years ago or so. It's not unusual to be held by anyone. You know, it's dropped, but it's still. Still effective. And when I'm teaching performance, or even songwriting for that matter, it's just like. Just be effective. You don't have to sing high.
You're going to lose your top end.
You know, if you can keep it in tune and just be effective, then you will have all the tools you need to. To do a good songwriting thing.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: So I went to the Princeton Record Exchange and found one of your old records. I first saw you in 2007. Right. So you had an entire career before that where you were kind of a young.
The hot new thing coming through Boston.
[00:12:36] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:12:39] Speaker B: And I wanted to hear what you sounded like in those days. And it was.
You seem to be putting more emphasis on the melody. You seem to put more emphasis on the vocal Stylings, the songwriting was maybe a little bit more cryptic, but right now you just come right out and say what's on your mind. And you can, at least as of the last time I saw you, which was before you went public with the diagnosis, you could still hit some high notes and put on vocal.
You could sing really well. Pyrotechnics, I think, was the word I was looking for.
So I guess it's really two questions.
Did you know that you were making that kind of switch over the years that you were kind of settling into that sort of songwriting and performing presence that kind of moved away from that move more toward the storytelling?
[00:13:44] Speaker A: I'm going to buck up against you just a bit and say, I think even then I was doing both.
But the tunes that were probably more cryptic, as you put it, were the ones where I could put my foot in the gas tank and deliver the performance. Oh, yeah, per se.
I still. There's still stuff from that, in fact, from that very early album that you speak of that I think have a story arc to them, which to me is.
How can I put this? The song I used to put my Foot in the Gas Tank. And now that aspect of said song is more, what is the story there and how do I best lift that. Lift that story and give it to the listener?
And I think the answer to that in a lot of ways and times is simply, well, you can still hit some high notes, but you don't need to hit all of them. Not in the one damn song. Get out of the way. Get out of the Way.
Is it a decent song?
I can look back at some of those albums that you may have.
There were some of those albums that I could take three of those albums and make one well written album. Cause some of the songs were. And some of the songs were telling a story, but I would say some of them were trying too hard.
And that's okay. I was nascent, you know, this was new to me.
[00:15:19] Speaker C: So.
[00:15:23] Speaker A: It's.
I feel like I'm lucky in a way, because I have and have had all the aspects of the singer songwriter thing to call on when I needed to. But, yeah, I feel like, again, the legacy I want to leave is, wow, man, that was a great song.
As opposed to.
Did you hear that note?
[00:15:53] Speaker C: Well, I loved when we opened up for you.
I have a hard time being an audience. And part of you having the whole package in your performances is that it's great melodies, great chord choices.
You're going from the American songbook type of chord changes, essentially.
To the. The whole range. To the folk finger pick styles.
[00:16:20] Speaker A: Right?
[00:16:20] Speaker C: You've got the whole range. And I just think that, you know, I. What I took away from being in the audience just watching you at the Fox Theater in Tucson was just going.
I'm like, I want to do more of. I want to do that too. You know, like. And I already do what I do, but it's one of those things. But I was inspired to write more songs. I came home, wrote more songs.
That's great. And I feel like we were talking about how.
What Aaron's mentioning about how your songs really just speak right to the point. And that was part of what I also enjoyed about your performance.
Your songs, they have a purpose. There's also more depth to them, obviously. But that initial thing. Sometimes there's like this sting to it. It kind of points something out.
Whether it's.
There were a few songs that. That just talked about racial things that needed to be said. And you just say it, and I love it. You know, like.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: Well, I'm glad. I'm glad.
I mean, part of.
There was a time in my writing, and I still think I'm in that stretch at various points in time where being cryptic was high art to me. I mean, I think in terms of somebody like Sean Colvin, the streets of my town are not what they were. They were haloed in anger, bitter and hurt. So I went out and walked. I said, what is she talking about?
And by the end of the song, I'm still saying I'm not sure what she's talking about, but I'm profoundly moved.
So how does that work?
Right? I mean, the song does not point to a specific ethos or an event even.
But you're moved.
And I have.
With various things I have attempted, I. Well, sometimes I can confuse that kind of writing with taking.
Like, I'm sure you write. Everybody writes in notes on their phone from time to time. And just taking the first, like, 10 lines and calling that a song.
Like, whatever. It was like if you wrote the Bus Went by and these scrambled eggs are yellow. And you just, like, take shit like that and line them up and turn it into a song. I was like, well, I'm gonna be really cryptic. I said, no, you can't do that, Vance. Cause people are gonna think you're an utter dumbass.
But there's, you know, there's a temptation for that.
But I guess what I'm saying is that being cryptic.
I think cryptic is an end product to a type of writing that does not absolutely hit the point. And you have to listen more broadly, it ends up being cryptic. So I'm still a fan of that type of writing, but.
But there's some things. There's some things that are just straight up direct.
I got a kick out of when I wrote this one. This was. And in fact I said to myself, ah, this is. This is so. This is so direct.
I know who you voted for.
I hear when your news comes on I see the comedy of truck you drive and that sign stuck up on.
[00:19:57] Speaker C: Your lawn.
[00:20:00] Speaker A: I ain't here about your squeaky gate or what WD40 can do I'm just sitting uninvited on your front porch with you Something waited once with nothing that's one crazy ass disease Nothing said can bring her back at least on that we both agree Nothing but these crickets and these rocking chairs and another day you just made it through I'm just sitting uninvited on your front porch with you.
I recall how she got mad when you cussed me across the fence you said that I was some kind of so and so.
Hell, that seemed like it was yesterday Hell, that seemed so long ago.
Sam, Lightning bugs is all around us I know you call them fireflies either way they twinkle in the black Trying to imitate a starry sky I know you appreciate this gesture but they just bugs, that's what they do.
Ain't no need of saying nothing I'm just sitting on your front porch uninvited with you.
I'm just sitting uninvited on your front porch with you.
[00:22:33] Speaker C: I like the porch swing that's got it. That's, you know, on the show.
[00:22:37] Speaker A: Is that what you heard?
[00:22:37] Speaker C: Yeah, I'd heard a porch swing.
[00:22:39] Speaker A: That's what you heard Because I was.
I was trying to do crickets. Maybe it needs to be.
Maybe I shouldn't do it at all. The song speaks for itself. Maybe I need to leave that.
[00:22:49] Speaker C: It's good crickets too. I've got a porch swing sound on my cello that I like to get my students to laugh. So I thought I just imagine you just swinging on porch swing. You're going, hey, what's up?
[00:23:00] Speaker A: That's. I mean, that's a win. That's a win for me, you know, because it.
Yeah, that's.
Talk about a creaky voice, too.
I definitely have the creakies this morning. But that suits that song.
That song is like this and that voice is like that.
[00:23:20] Speaker B: So when did you write that?
[00:23:24] Speaker A: Uninvited was written the top of last year.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: Okay, so this was before the problem started.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.
[00:23:35] Speaker C: We're gonna take a little break to talk about our social media side.
We are Aaron Nathans and Michael G. Ronstadt. We're so thankful you're here listening. We are podcast creators and interviewers, but we are also musicians first and so we have a lot of music at Nathans and Ronstadt.com, spotify, all that good stuff. We also have a YouTube channel which has tons of live performances as well as our album.
And I've been posting a ton of live performances from house concerts to big stages to our album release in 2023. If you want to hear some of your favorite songs, please go check it out. Like it. Subscribe and be informed. Please be fanatical. We want you as our fan. Thank you so much for being a part of our journey and we look forward to hearing from you.
[00:24:24] Speaker B: To our interview with Vance Gilhool.
[00:24:28] Speaker A: Well, you know, when the problem started, I was singing fine.
Right on. You know, I was like, what's this bump?
And I went in to my doctor and the doctor said, it's probably a clogged salivary gland or something of that ilk.
However, just in case, as soon as you hear Justin Case, you go like, oh, geez.
He sent me into a specialist surgeon to see, and that guy was the absolute opposite of my doctor. He looked at the bump and then took a tongue depressor and looked at a tonsil. He says, you've got tonsil cancer.
I was like, well, you didn't take a, you know, you didn't swab anything or take a sample or anything. He says, oh, no.
He says, I've, I've. Yeah, you have tons of cancer. And then when they looked like officially, and indeed that's what it was. I mean, he's just this Dr. Descher in Boston.
It was absolutely what he thought it was because he's seen it so many times.
And yeah, the problem didn't start until a third of the way through radiation when they are actually, you know, getting your.
You're getting everything to glow. You know, like putting the glow, like turning me into spider man. I said, man, I wish a spider or something would bite me so I could have some super.
Probably my luck it'd be like a grasshopper.
[00:26:03] Speaker B: I'm going to ask you something really, really personal.
I'm going to ask you something really personal.
Tell me if you don't want to answer. Did you have health insurance?
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Oh, yeah.
[00:26:13] Speaker B: You do.
[00:26:15] Speaker A: You have to have health insurance in this country, right? I mean, To. Well, in theory, to do various things.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: So thank goodness for that, right?
[00:26:23] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, that's.
[00:26:25] Speaker B: Yes, because a lot of musicians might choose to forego that expense.
[00:26:32] Speaker A: No, no, I definitely.
Whatever that was, to pony up each month.
A lot of musicians need to remember that on your taxes, which I also pay, you can write your health insurance off.
So that's a different check than I write for. While it's not health insurance for me anymore, it's Medicare.
You know, I'm older than dirt. What.
What am I doing here? Who are you white boys? What the hell?
But, but, yeah, so, yeah, I was.
You know, it's funny, I take a certain amount of pride in. In. In. I know it sounds goofy in paying bills.
And I pay.
I pay all my bills with paper.
I send in checks because there is that. I put on like a bad movie. I'll put on the Bourne Identity or something and sit down and write my bills out rather than pay them online because I'm so proud to be able to pay them.
Doing it with money that I made from this career that I've carved out singing and playing guitar.
Great pride in that.
[00:27:52] Speaker B: I remember seeing there was a book called how to make it in the New Music Business. And the guy talks about how you've made it if you can pay your bills doing what you love.
[00:28:08] Speaker A: I totally agree. I mean, there wasn't.
Except for a couple of cousins that sang in choirs and such, I didn't have music in my family like you guys did.
End of music in the family, like where I was, you know.
And, you know, when I went to college, I mean, I always entertained myself as a kid. I was.
My brother is 10 years older than I am, so I was just the two. It's just the two of us. And that made me a semi only child pretty much. And I had to imitate. I had to imitate myself. Well, yeah, it's a certain amount of trauma as a kid will make it so that you end up having to imitate yourself too. I made it funny that that's a misnomer that I just threw out there, but it was a violent house. It was an alcoholic house.
So when I got out, I didn't owe anybody anything. And during college, where was that? Connecticut College in New London. Connecticut. That was my most stable time between September and May, because I was homeless. I was homeless for four years.
And I was on couches and.
[00:29:32] Speaker C: Back.
[00:29:33] Speaker A: Of a car for a while and people were taking me in. Yeah, you know.
[00:29:38] Speaker B: Were you an artist at that point?
[00:29:40] Speaker A: No, I was Just trying to get through college.
All I had to do was I had to make, like, $1,000 for the summer to match whatever scholarship or loans. I had loans for college. And I guess I could have dropped out anytime. But I felt, well, if I could keep the loans up and I could stay in college, that was seven or eight months that I could be somewhere.
Parents had split and the house had gone up for sheriff sale.
[00:30:12] Speaker B: Where in Philadelphia?
[00:30:14] Speaker A: Willingboro, New Jersey, right outside of Philly.
It was a little rancher. And I came home. I knew what had happened. But I came home at Christmas, and no one was there, of course. And it was.
The heat wasn't on, so I left the oven door open, and it was electric, and I turned that on to heat the place. And I stayed there that night and trying to figure out what my. Cause my keys still work.
And some friends had dropped me off all the way from Connecticut. They dropped me off in New Jersey and dropped me off there. And then there's a knock on the door, and it's my best friend from across town in that same town.
And he had an overcoat on, and he crawled in next to me, and we were sharing the bed, and he rolled over. At some point, he said, look, bro, I'm here tonight with you, but my mom says you gotta come stay with us.
She would not allow you.
Neighbors and friends weren't gonna allow me to live in this house that was up for share of sale anyway.
So I ended up in people's houses for that part of the year and for the next four years until I found an apartment in Boston. And I was underage, too. Cause I went to college at 16, so I wasn't an adult yet.
[00:31:40] Speaker B: So you were in school this whole time that you were homeless?
[00:31:42] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I call it homeless now. It didn't. It felt like I just.
They didn't have language for a lot of shit back then. They didn't have language for autism. They didn't have language for ADD things that we toss around now. After you talk to somebody for 15 minutes, you go like, they're on the spectrum. And, you know you're not talking about a streaming service.
So, yeah, to make a long story even stupider, that's why I like paying my bills in paper, because it's very tactile. And it reminds me that.
It reminds me that I did this.
I made this fricking career.
I pulled this off. I went to the open mics.
I bought the Volkswagen Beetle that I put many miles on driving from Place to place.
And that can't be taken from me.
[00:32:48] Speaker C: Excuse my forgetfulness, but I forget where you live, what part of the country you live in now.
[00:32:55] Speaker A: Just outside of Boston.
[00:32:56] Speaker C: Just outside of Boston. Okay. Yeah, yeah.
[00:32:57] Speaker A: Arlington, Massachusetts.
[00:32:59] Speaker C: So.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:33:00] Speaker C: Yeah, I remember.
I remember as a. As a musician who toured and tours. I say I'm a failing touring musician, but sometimes that's because my day job is teaching all my students. But I still make a living with music.
[00:33:18] Speaker A: Hell, yeah.
[00:33:19] Speaker C: And I still do like 250, 300 shows a year. But it's like, it's kind of one of those things where when I was trying to do it without teaching, there was an uncertainty about can I get from here to there? Because I don't have any money left in my account. This gig better pay enough X. X.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: It needs to pay X. Yeah.
[00:33:44] Speaker C: And I remember the feeling every night when I get enough to cover gas and maybe a meal to go from point A to point B. And if you were really lucky, if you got some money for a hotel or someone offer their couch. But knowing that in a small way, much respect to you for doing that through college and doing your education, that's amazing, Michael.
[00:34:13] Speaker A: I just interview with Michael. So, Michael, what do you. You tour and sing and play?
What do you. What. What's your music like? And cello, bitches.
Cello?
[00:34:29] Speaker B: Is that what it is?
[00:34:30] Speaker C: That's what.
[00:34:31] Speaker A: It's a big ass guitar. It's a cello.
And you gotta have the face, too. Like cello.
[00:34:38] Speaker C: It's like, well, well, without cursing. Sometimes I have some friends who say I have a New Jersey alter ego, Michael Effin Ronstadt, with the actual curse word.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: We're gonna get to put an E on this thing.
Thank you, Vince.
[00:34:54] Speaker A: Oh, my goodness. I just said the B word.
[00:34:57] Speaker B: It's not close enough. It always sounds better when you put the E in.
[00:35:02] Speaker C: Okay, so since we're doing that, I wrote a song called Assholes with Augers, and I got to put an E on one of my tracks.
[00:35:08] Speaker B: I have to put two of them on there.
[00:35:11] Speaker C: So I felt very excited. I was like, yes, I have a parental warning, you know?
[00:35:16] Speaker A: Well, you know, I actually seldom use the B word because it's.
For many women that might be listening. It's offensive. It's offensive.
You know, if I use the. If I'm being comedic and I believe in free speech, comedy, blah, blah, blah, so on and so forth, but not around the house. Because if I use the B word and my partner, with whom I own this house, she'll come up and say, so how about if I just publicly call you? The N word.
Do you understand? I was like, she's a white woman, but she can't help that. I was like, okay, I get it. I get it. Damn. You didn't have to pull out the big gun so early.
But there's something about, I don't know. Cello bitch. I said just like.
There's just something really enigmatic about that.
Exactly.
[00:36:17] Speaker C: You know what I need? An ad campaign. That's all I'd say. Get me more gigs. I'm just joking.
[00:36:22] Speaker B: I think you just gave us our new elevator pitch. Enigmatic folk.
[00:36:27] Speaker A: Enigmatic folk. Yeah, sure.
Oh, lordy.
[00:36:31] Speaker B: So one of my most potent Vance Gilbert moments over the last.
Over this year. You weren't there.
[00:36:39] Speaker A: That. Okay, I'm going to stop you. That sounds scary. You want to talk about a nasty rating? That sounds wrong right there.
It's just done. Potent Vance Gilbert moment is like, did somebody got something to wipe this off?
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Have you had off with my pet.
[00:36:56] Speaker A: Sloth here or what?
[00:37:00] Speaker B: I was just going about my business one afternoon at a group group gig in someone's backyard when Lisa. Jeanette got up and she started performing. And.
Oh, my God. I mean, I've been following Lisa for a couple of years and whatever lessons.
You've been working with her, and she's following him. That was an amazing performance.
[00:37:30] Speaker A: She's a beast.
She came to the fold as a beast.
She came to this, you know, as a double professional double bassist who happens to play pretty fair guitar and piano.
It's like, shut up.
And there's some. You know, there were some.
There were just some songwriting things with Lisa Jeanette that were.
That were. That were way on point that I. I want. I wanted to see her be a little more. To be a little more cryptic somewhere. I. You know, when I'm. When I'm coaching songwriting, I'll ask people. I was like, drop those words or why would I drop those. I'll say what that says in the song. What the thing is about. I said, exactly.
Let the audience figure that out. Let the audience hear that. Cause you've already said it with your poetry.
You don't have to put the cap on that jar.
There's no need.
And I think there's often people who are just about there don't have the.
What's the word I'm looking for? They don't have the confidence to realize that they have told the story in so many words. In so many words. That's where in so many words comes from. That's where that phrase saying comes from, you take the words and you tell the story.
And then you don't have to say everybody was in love so much that they died. It's like, no, you don't. Don't say it. You said it here already. And I did a fair amount of that with her. I also had her pull back in some places. I had her not sing so prettily in some places. I had her not sing in some places. Get out of the way.
No one needs to hear you right there. You don't need to be heard there. That's. Get out the way.
And the combination of all those things makes for next level for all of us, I think.
[00:39:48] Speaker B: What is it that you think gives you the ability to see? I mean, I've seen you do it dozens of times with people, make them better artists. By.
I mean, where. Where do you find those?
Is that just through raw experience or did somebody teach you this? Or.
[00:40:06] Speaker A: I. Aaron, I think it is experience. I think it. I think it's.
I think it's. When taking a closer look. I mean, I don't spend a gazillion hours on YouTube looking at performances and I don't go out a lot either because I'm busy doing my own thing, you know.
But when I see effective performance, I think a little differently maybe than some other listeners. The first thing I'll look at and see, like, look at what they're not doing and that.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: What are they not doing? Usually.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: They'Re not singing as much. They're out of the way. They're.
They're just.
They're making all the sounds that they. They're making space.
There's great space in some of the greater performance performing people that I can think of.
Yeah, all of them. People making space, huh?
Richard Thompson makes great space.
Like Sean Colvin again, makes great use of space.
Early videos of Glenn Campbell singing Wichita Alignment. That song needs space because it's stuck. There's shit going by in that song that's like, what is that?
And when you think about how that song is sung and how out of the way he is of that lyric, it's mind boggling. And it really is.
And he just nails the melody. And each time you see it differently. Different. I have pulled that song up on the web and looked at it. Singing him singing a solo on Johnny Carson and then somewhere else with the band and it's what he's not doing that's just like, wow.
[00:42:17] Speaker C: Just.
Yeah. I mean, in my classical training, you know, it's sometimes especially, you Know from that through the improv, they're like I once had at a jazz jam when I was in my master's degree. I was going to this Blue Wisp jazz club in Cincinnati and the guy who played bass and also owned the place shortly before, I think the Blue Wisp had had some ups and downs, but he leaned over next to me right after I played a solo and said, don't try to play everything, you know, at once and so loud, like everyone could hear it. I'm like thinking, I'm like, ugh.
But I remember taking that in a difficult way and going, this is a lesson to be had. It was taught in the wrong way, but it was taught in the way I needed to hear it. I guess, you know, so well whether.
[00:43:14] Speaker A: You needed to hear it that way or not, you heard it. And that's what. Absolutely. I mean, and I would take this in another.
In from another venue. You think of, there's a lot of R and B soul singing there. A lot of notes. It's like, oh, my God.
Like when an R and B soul based singer, white or black, sings a national anthem. We've all seen that gif or meme where the sheet music is like the notes.
[00:43:43] Speaker C: It's a Melismatic wonderland.
[00:43:45] Speaker A: Exactly, exactly.
But if you look back at somebody like Marvin Gaye could do anything that anybody wanted to do today.
Tons of space.
Luther Vandross, actually.
But a chair is not a chair and a house is not a home.
[00:44:04] Speaker C: Whoa.
[00:44:05] Speaker A: He'll go up to that note and do that.
But when he's done, he's done.
He's done singing and he'll go back. He'll wait until it's just like, he knows where to muzzle Isma, you know, And a lot of people don't. And it's just.
I'm concentrating on it that way. But people don't. You ask the average listener. They're not going to talk about space. They're going to talk about, well, that sounded great.
They're not going to say why. I don't think they will. Anyway.
[00:44:40] Speaker B: When and how did you learn to give space?
[00:44:43] Speaker A: Thursday.
Last Thursday. I figured it out.
Cello bitches.
[00:44:53] Speaker B: I mean, you know, I was listening to Shock Pants.
[00:44:56] Speaker C: It's about time.
[00:44:57] Speaker B: Listening to Shaking Off Gravity. I mean, you were. I don't. I wasn't thinking about space, but I know that you were bringing the power there.
Is there more restraint in your stagecraft now?
Is it a conscious decision to add space to it?
[00:45:17] Speaker A: Conscious decision to add space. That's a great question. I'm hoping not.
I'm hoping that the evolution of what I do at this point has space on its own because of the fact that I was conscious of it, but not consciously adding.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: And that is simply part one of this wonderful energy. Interview with Vance Gilbert. We will play the rest for you in our next episode, but we're gonna say goodbye for now. Goodbye.
[00:45:55] Speaker A: Bye.
[00:45:55] Speaker B: Peace.
