- [James] "Shaped by Sound" combines performance and conversation to capture the depth of the North Carolina music scene.

Nnenna Freelon is a Durham-based jazz vocalist with a career spanning over 40 years.

She's performed for presidents, she's performed in some of the most prestigious venues on the planet, and she has seven Grammy nominations.

But for the first time, Nnenna Freelon is releasing an album of original songs.

Today on the "Shaped by Sound" podcast, we are in conversation with Nnenna Freelon.

Nnenna Freelon from Durham, North Carolina.

Thank you so much for being on "Shaped by Sound."

- Thank you.

"Shaped by Sound."

I like the way that sounds.

- Thank you.

So I kind of wanted to start this episode by saying thank you so much for being here, because I'm so inspired by you.

Just what you've done for our communities, just the fact that you've been doing this for so long and at such a high level and have played for presidents, you've played in the most prestigious places I can imagine, and you get to chat with us today, and I just feel so grateful, thank you.

- Thank you, thank you.

It's my pleasure.

- So you've been a performer for 40 years now, is that right?

Can you kind of talk to us sort of about the beginning of that journey for you?

- Wow.

Well, I was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but I have been in Durham for almost all my adult life.

I am an artist who was given birth to by the community.

So there is no Berkeley School of Music.

There is no conservatory that I can speak to to say, "This is how I got here."

- Yeah.

- I was loved up on stage by the people in Durham, in Chapel Hill, in Raleigh, in Alamance County on a very humble beginning.

I mean, I tell people there was a time I only knew eight songs.

So shame on me if somebody wanted an encore, because it was like, I'd have to do one of the ones I already sang.

You know?

So I grew organically.

And I don't think initially I had this grand vision of singing for presidents or performing at the Kennedy Center.

I just wanted to sing.

And when I gave myself permission to do that, I found there were people in the community who could teach me, who could mentor me.

So people like Brother Yusef and people like Bus Brown, who had sort of taken me under their wing at the very beginning and brought me along.

I think the process, like, "How did you get here?"

- Yeah.

- We don't celebrate that.

We celebrate grabbing the brass ring, but not what it took for you to do that.

- Right.

- And patience, persistence, and controlling the things you can control.

Like I can't control when my phone rings and it's like, opportunity!

But I can control what I have learned, what I have absorbed, if and when that call comes.

- I want to know why you kind of started with jazz.

Like what brought you to jazz?

I feel like it's such a interesting place for a vocalist.

- Yes.

- Right?

Can you kind of talk about that?

- So I grew up listening to a lot of different kinds of music.

I feel so blessed to have come up during the sixties and the seventies when radio played all kinds of things.

You could hear James Taylor and James Brown on the same station.

Now everything is much more siloed.

But I was exposed to everything from classical music, big band music, folk music, country music, all of that.

And I'm super grateful for that exposure, for those touches.

But the music that really was alive in me was jazz music, was improvisational music.

I considered it my father's music 'cause it was kind of old fashioned.

And I was listening to the Supremes and Marvin Gaye.

I didn't own it as mine until I began singing jazz and being curious about this music.

I found that it was alive in me.

I remember going to a jazz workshop at Durham Arts Council and it was for singers, for non-singers, for people just curious about the music and every tune I knew.

And I wasn't aware that it was alive inside me.

The singers like Ella Fitzgerald and Sarah Vaughan and all of these wonderful icons of the music, I remember them from having listened to my dad's records.

- When was that moment that you felt like it was inside of you?

Like you felt what was living inside of you was coming out?

What was the moment?

- Well, I mean, sort of the unconscious memory of, you know, why do I know all these tunes?

Like I know all these tunes.

I know the words to them and everything.

It was an uncovering of maybe subconscious having absorbed things on an unconscious level.

- Yeah.

I'm also a little curious too.

I know that 'cause you didn't start recording music until your thirties, is that right?

What was that like for you?

I feel like that must have been sort of terrifying, right?

- Not sort of terrifying, absolutely terrifying.

The first time I was in a studio was when I recorded my first record in early nineties.

George Butler, Dr. George Butler, who is also from North Carolina, from Charlotte, signed me.

This was on the heels of Natalie Cole's success.

And I had a string orchestra.

I had Grady Tate on drums, also from Durham.

Ron Carter on bass.

You know, I don't know.

It felt unreal.

And I had to grow, honestly, as a recording artist.

I was a performing artist.

There is a distinction.

- Yeah.

- So you carry this performance background into the record- I'd rather have it that way, that performing artist learns to record as opposed to recording artist has to learn to perform.

- Mm.

- You know, because you see people on stage that you're like, "Uh, not quite ready yet."

You know, because the relating to the people, that's what I love.

I mean, I love my audience.

- Right.

- I'm curious about them.

I'm grateful that they took time to come and see me.

I don't understand people who are like, "I don't wanna sign an autograph."

Come on now.

That's a package deal.

That's a part of all of it.

- Yeah, and there's something about being in a room with folks and just tuning into each other.

- Yes.

- Right?

You can't beat that feeling.

- And I was a visiting artist for the state of North Carolina for four years.

That meant I performed in every county.

We got a hundred counties.

- That's a lot of counties.

- That's a lot of counties.

- Yeah.

- From Maggie Valley to Duck.

Small places.

Classrooms, the Ruritan Club, the Ladies Garden Club.

I mean, I'm your girl.

- You were on tour.

- I'm on tour.

On a level that humanizes why you do what you do.

In some situations, when I walked in the room, I could tell they weren't expecting me.

But the music, the music created a royal road that I could walk on, a friendly open space where people felt comfortable.

I learned so much during my years as a visiting artist from North Carolina.

- Yeah.

That's incredible.

And I mean, the patience you must have had to continue on that path even with having that music, I feel like- - I was just glad to be out there.

You know, they paid you a little salary, little salary, and you were a resource, an artistic resource for the state.

And I am grateful for those years.

I wish the program was still in play.

- There's something that you've said that inspires you, it's "bloom where you're planted."

So speaking to kind of North Carolina music, I'd like to kind of speak to that too.

What's this sort of importance for you to be a performer here in North Carolina, and also who's inspiring you from other performers or musicians that are in North Carolina?

- I'm so delighted that I never had to go anywhere else.

By the time my star rose to the point that there was some national attention, they had to come to me.

And I lived in Durham.

So that just tickles me.

They're like, oh, even now I'm on the road and they're like, "Do you live in, you're in New York, right?"

Mm-hmm.

I live in Durham.

You know, keep flying.

Come on down.

You in LA?

Mm-hmm, I live in Durham.

Oh!

You know, people are a little surprised or a little, not shocked.

Just, I mean, now less so because it used to be that there were certain places associated with this music.

- [James] Yeah.

- Nashville, New York, Atlanta to some extent, but not North Carolina.

- Yeah.

What do you feel, beyond just staying where you are, like being your own person here, what else do you feel like you're tapping into from this place?

- When you are an artist or I'll just, I don't know, I can't speak for anybody else.

I'll just say when I'm in the grocery store and somebody comes up to me and says, "You sang for my second grade classroom.

You were the jazz lady.

Weren't you?

Weren't you the jazz lady?"

And I'm looking at this person, it's like, this person's full grown.

Now I'm having a moment here.

- Yeah.

- I am still living, embedded in the culture with the people that touched me and that I touched all along this road.

That means so much.

I can't even tell you how gratifying it is to have these stories or someone who says, "I was inspired by you and I've decided to go and do my art.

You were an inspiration to me."

"I remember seeing you at Cappers" or some other little small club.

"I saw you at Center Fest," or "I saw you at Apple Crisp."

Or you know, I love those stories.

Sometimes when the person is looking full grown, like with kids of their own, it gives me pause 'cause I'm like, "Oh boy, that was a long time ago."

But yes, I'm very proud.

- Yeah.

- Very proud of that.

- So I wanna talk to you a little bit about, 'cause when we were speaking earlier, you were sort of talking about musicians that inspired you here and sort of walking on this path, maybe not behind them, but simultaneously with them.

People like Nina Simone- - Yes.

- John Coltrane.

- Yes.

- Can you kind of talk to that a little bit about what it's like to be you here and also having this other presence here of others that have kind of come before you?

- You have to look for the community that you, you have to be curious.

And honestly, at the beginning, I was not aware that not only are we talking about John Coltrane, not only are we talking about Thelonious Monk, these people also sprang from this very rich soil, this Southern place.

And they helped make a way for possibility for somebody like me.

Now, unlike me, they had to leave here in order to become who we know them to be.

Roberta Flack.

They all had to leave.

- Yeah.

- I never had to leave.

I'm grateful for that.

And also glad to be in a community of people who helped put North Carolina on the map, so to speak.

I was honored a couple years ago to be inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame.

- Congratulations, by the way.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

And to look in the museum and see all of these different people, it was such a thrill.

I was like, "This is my tribe!

I'm in this tribe!"

It's just so awesome.

- Yeah.

And deservedly so, obviously.

I wanna talk a little bit also about maybe music and the human body.

- Ooh.

- And I know that, so before you were really kind of focusing on your music career, you were working in hospitals, is that right?

- Yes, that's right.

- And now you've kind of found a way to bring both of those two things together.

Can you kind of speak to that a little bit and sort of why that's important?

- Well, first of all, music, sound, is touch.

And I think that's lost on some of us.

It's a form of touch.

In utero, an infant hears at about six months gestation.

And the doctors tell us that the last sense to leave us as we transition when we die, is the sound, is the hearing.

So before you're born and maybe after you're clinically considered to be dead, people believe you can still hear, you can still be touched.

So I have a degree in healthcare administration and that background, I've always been interested and really inspired by the healing aspect of life.

I don't see any reason why music can't be a part of that.

I believe it's a really, really important part.

So I started this program called Baby Song, where I would go into the mom's rooms a day or two postpartum and sing.

I thought I was gonna be singing to the babies, but I ended up singing to the mamas.

They were the ones who really needed a song.

- [James] Yeah.

- And then I started a little workshop where I worked with moms and other caregivers, encouraging them to use their voice to stimulate, teach, nurture, love their babies.

We're in a time now where there are lots of things you can buy, toys that make songs and Baby Mozart and all of this stuff, but nothing, nothing compares with the human voice.

And people are shy, some people are shy about using their voice.

And I say, "You know what?

Babies are not critics, at least not yet."

So get in where you fit in, you know?

- Right, yeah.

That's amazing.

I'd like to also ask you, you know, part of the show here is we like to try and understand how music makes us who we are as a community, as people.

And so I'd like to kind of know how do you believe that you are shaped by sound?

- Oh wow.

Shaped by sound.

Well, if we believe, and I do, that music is touch, there's a back and forth, sort of almost symbiotic relationship between what's coming into you, what you're being fed by.

So not just what people say, not just music, but the sound of the ocean at Holden Beach.

That's in here.

- Yeah.

- The sound of birds singing.

The sound that is unique to this place is in here and has shaped and formed and influenced me.

You have to be curious enough.

I keep coming back to curiosity because when you think you know something, you lack the curiosity to say, "Hmm, I wonder what."

So continuing to be curious about the kinds of things that are in this milieu, that are in this environment that shape you consciously or unconsciously.

The more curious you are about it, the more you can bring that up and play with it.

That's what we do in jazz.

We are improvisational humans.

So we are playing with sound, we're playing with ideas.

And that's really what draws me to this music, is the play and the interplay.

- What are some things that you're curious about now then when it comes to sound?

- Well, where I live, there are birds and there is a particular red-shouldered hawk that has a very keening kind of raucous, now I believe and I wanna say it's a she, now I believe we're friends because I'll be out in the garden and a shadow will go across the ground.

I'm like, "What?

It's her again."

They must be territorial, but she's like my spirit buddy.

- Yeah.

- You know?

And the natural world is doing somersaults to get our attention in many, many ways.

Being curious about what messages, what the messages mean, I think is something that's got my curiosity at this moment.

- Yeah.

And that's feeding into your music?

- Absolutely.

- Yeah.

- Absolutely.

The freedom of it.

The lack of predictability, you know, just being spontaneous.

- Yeah.

- All of that.

The sound.

I have a mockingbird, they're like mimics.

They'll sound like other birds.

And then you can make them crazy if you try to imitate the sounds that they're imitating and you can turn it to a real thing.

- Now that's improvisational jazz.

- Yes, that is, that is, that is.

- How cool is that?

I wanna also just say, gosh, the Freelon family is so talented.

- Thank you.

Thank you.

- It's incredible to see everything that you all have done.

I know that you and Pierce have worked on an album together.

- Yes.

- It was incredible.

And he has his own career.

- Yes, he does.

- He's also the star of one of our podcasts, "Jamming on the Job," which is so cool.

♪ Jamming on the job ♪ - Your son Dean is a professor at UPenn, right?

- Yes.

- Gosh.

- Your daughter Maya is an incredible visual artist.

- Yes, yes.

- And of course, your late husband Phil, just is one of the most inspirational architects, I think, within North Carolina and also maybe the United States.

So how has your family been able to affect who you are as a musician?

- Wow.

- [James] What have they brought to you?

- That is such a potent question.

Everything that you see here was developed, honed, the creative friction of mothering and wifing.

It's all in there.

The artist that you see is influenced, shaped, created by family.

I grew up in the crucible of family.

I grew up as an artist inside this family.

So choices that I make about songs that I'm gonna sing, for example, I have to consider the lyric with the idea that my daughter is in the front row, or somebody's daughter is in the front row.

There were some things I said no to because they interfered too deeply with other things that I also valued.

My husband, Phil, is, was the most supportive partner.

I mean, not just with words, but in every way imaginable.

Encouraging, loving.

So you know, I don't know how other people are able, you know, people will say things like, "Well, how do you balance?"

I don't worry about balancing.

You do what you do in the moment that you're given, and then you move on to the next moment.

Balance seems to suggest that you can do such a thing, that you have control over such a thing and you don't.

You don't.

Trusting that everything is in divine order is what has become my mantra.

If I can't be here and here, I'll just be here, fully invested in that, and that'll have to take care of itself.

- Right.

I think one of the things I wanted to ask you too is, so beyond just maybe seeing your daughter in the front row and pulling back on some things, are there things that you're putting forward more, if you think about your family and having the support, are there things that are growing because of that?

- Well, that's an interesting question because my upcoming record is a record of original tunes.

Now, most artists, most jazz singers are mining the American Songbook, the Tin Pan Alley Tunes, not so much original music.

- [James] Right.

- And at this point in my life, having experienced loss, having experienced love, I felt ready to write my own music.

And it's a different kind of vulnerability.

You know, it's one thing if you're an interpreter of a standard, and then people kind of judge you on how well or not well you did that standard.

But when people are listening to your original tunes, they're checking out your lyric, your phrasing, and your interpretation of your tunes.

So it's a little heavier, or can be a little heavier.

I feel no fear though.

I really don't feel afraid.

I'm at an age where I've lived, I've had successes.

It is time for me to tell stories that are my own stories.

And so that's what this record "Beneath the Skin" is.

It is an interior view of the stories, the songs that I want to tell right now and I'm super excited about that.

- Yeah, and we're super excited to hear them.

Thank you for going there, by the way.

I know that was a difficult question, so thank you.

- No, no, no.

It wasn't as hard as one might think it would be.

I mean, I wanna grieve greatly.

- Right.

- I wanna live.

Inside, you know, when you've had a great love, you're gonna have a great grief.

You know, that's just the way that works.

- Yeah.

- So I don't shy away from it.

Having music as a container for some of those thoughts and feelings has been everything for me.

I don't know what people do who don't have a place to engage with their feelings of loss.

- Right.

Engage and maybe push somewhere new.

- Yes, yes!

Absolutely.

I mean, we don't talk enough in our culture or give space enough for people to grieve.

And people are grieving all kinds of things.

Not just death, but other losses, other questions in their lives they're grieving.

So it's healthy, I think, to engage, to dance with it, to inquire of it.

Yes, to be curious about it.

- [James] Yeah.

- I just think that for me, that's a healthy response.

- Yeah, for sure.

And it seems like people can really react to that too.

- I think when you give yourself permission to be your whole self, it resonates with others.

And people are like, "You mean I can feel what I feel too?"

You know, it's like permission granted to everybody.

I was actually thinking it was my own personal reality, but the personal and the universal are so closely aligned.

Everybody deals with loss, everybody deals with grief, but not everybody has a sense that it's okay.

You know, people are like, "Well, it's been five years," or "it's been five months," or "it's been," it doesn't matter how long it's been, it really doesn't matter because grief, she don't wear no watch.

- Right.

- And you have to let it flow, ebb and flow as it will.

- When I watch you perform, I feel like there's things that you're just like channeling and you can just like feel them.

- Thank you.

- I want to kind of know what it's like to go there.

What is that like for you?

- I embody the music.

It's in me.

It's in my bones, it's in my tissues.

And I can't not move.

I mean, I have tried to stand still and sing and it doesn't work for me.

I feel it in a visceral way.

And it feels like dance to me, it feels like poetry to me.

To be able to be a vessel, open yourself up wide enough to let it through is what my prayer always is.

Whatever I thought I was gonna do, whatever's on that set list, let me be open enough to let that little extra that I didn't expect, that I didn't plan, come through.

- Yeah, and do you feel with jazz, that kind of emphasizes that each time you do something it can be different and you can take it where it wants to go?

- Absolutely.

A lot of it has to do with being open to the moment, though.

Because the more you know what's gonna happen, the more closed down you are.

You know, you're just kind of like, "I'm gonna do it this way."

And there are some instances where it's not earth shatteringly different, where it's not playing over your head, but that's okay too.

You know, it doesn't have to be, I mean, 'cause I think some jazz artists can get into this trap of like, "I gotta do it so different."

But that's another box you jump into.

- Right.

- You know?

It's gotta be so, so, so, so different from last night.

And if you just open, whatever needs to come through in that river's gonna come through.

- That sounds awesome.

And I'm curious too, because it seems like the way that you approach music and the way that you approach performance, it seems like there's parallels to the way that you can approach life.

Do you feel like there is?

- Absolutely.

I consider myself an improvisational human, and we all are.

- [James] Yeah.

- What we decided to eat for breakfast or not eat, what we decided to wear or not wear, you know, the route we took to get here is all improvisational.

And I think the world might signal different messages than that, but you absolutely owe it to yourself to be an improvisational human.

You know, to react to the situations in the way that seem best.

And it doesn't mean make it up, anything goes.

That's not what I'm saying.

You take in what you are receiving through the eyes, through the ears, through the heart, and then you play with that.

You're engaged.

- So it's almost like an open-mindedness?

- Yes.

- Yeah.

- Yes.

Yes.

- That's great.

And wondering, in what ways do you feel like that benefits you?

That open-mindedness, that engagement, like on a day-to-day level?

- More fully alive.

More fully alive.

More fully awake, More humor can come through, more coinkydink.

[laughs] Just you know, the loveliness of life.

And then things if you're open to not knowing exactly or not thinking you know, things happen that you don't anticipate and they are delights.

- Right.

Some beautiful happy accidents.

- Beautiful happy accidents.

Beautiful happy accidents.

It keeps you from being so judgy.

I meant to do this, but it came out like that.

Well, you know, James Moody said you're only a halftone from something hipper, [laughs] so.

- So I wanted to talk a little bit about your latest record, "Beneath The Skin."

- "Beneath the Skin."

- The 14th?

- Yes.

- And gosh, first of all, let's not fly past that, 14.

- Let's not, let's not.

- Holy smokes.

- That's like, you know, teenage years.

- Yeah.

Well, it's an incredible achievement- - Thank you.

- Is what it is.

- And there's something that you said about this record, I wanted to touch on this just a little bit.

You said that "'Beneath the Skin' has me looking inward, curious about what songs and stories live in close proximity to my heart."

- Yes, yes.

- Can you maybe speak on that a little bit?

- Well, singers have relationships with songs.

You know, there's their repertoire, but then there's their interpretation.

So I am familiar with many songs, but they are not songs that I have written.

So it's kind of like a road or a house that's been built that you then open the door and maybe you rearrange the furniture, maybe you paint the outside, maybe you add a deck.

I'm building the house with this record.

I'm choosing the architectural plans.

I'm deciding how many bedrooms and whether or not there's a dining room and if there's a balcony.

It's more of a structural responsibility and joy.

I get to choose what I sing about, what's important to me.

And it did have me looking inside.

If you were to have a bullhorn that could broadcast to the world, what would it be?

You know?

That's the kind of childlike excitement I had in figuring out, because there's lots of ideas, certainly, lots of different ways you could go.

I've done concept records before.

I did a tribute to Stevie Wonder, I did a tribute to Billie Holiday.

This is different.

This is a concept record, but the concept is what lies beneath the surface.

What is on the interior?

What are those private moments that maybe you want to sing about?

- Yeah.

And so what were you finding as you were kind of doing this self discovery?

- Wow.

Family again.

Family came bubbling right back up.

It's not surprising that grief also bubbled up, dancing with the notion of loss is on this record.

But there's a lot of joy on this record too.

- Yeah, it feels like there's a lot of freedom.

- Yes, yes.

- And you sort of shouting that out a bit, you kind of just pushing that out, but also gratitude and joy.

- So much gratitude.

And there are certain records that you can only do when you're ready to do them.

You might think, "Oh, I wanna do whatever."

But you have to also be spiritually, your heart has to be ready too.

I don't think I could have done this record before now.

- Yeah.

Well, I'm really glad that you're in this place and you're sharing this with everyone 'cause we're so excited by it.

And I'd like to maybe touch on some of the songs that you'll play for us today.

- Okay.

- And if we could, I'd love to know a little bit more about sort of where they came from.

- Okay.

- So you have a song, "Dark and Lovely."

You've said that this song is for your granddaughters, Stella, Nova and Zora.

- Yes.

So I have three dark and lovely granddaughters.

They each run the show in their own houses.

There are lots of songs out there in the world that celebrate beauty and loveliness.

In some instances, these songs celebrate alabaster skin or blonde hair or blue eyes.

And there's nothing wrong with that.

But I am adding something to the repertoire about my dark and lovely chocolate granddaughters.

And they are fantastic.

I want them to grow up in a world where they see beauty reflected in their own personal mirror.

And so it's a love song.

- [James] Yeah.

- Pure and simple.

It's a love song to joy, to happiness, to freedom.

And I wrote it for my granddaughters, but every time I perform this thing live, somebody has come up to me and said, "Girl, tell me when that's coming out.

I'm getting that record for my little niece or my little daughter."

- Or maybe even for themselves.

- Maybe even, because the little girl inside of us that never saw their own beauty needs this.

I don't care how old they are, they could be in their sixties or seventies.

They still need to feel that.

- Yeah.

That's amazing.

I wanna talk about "Black Iris."

In the song you talk about connecting to the flowering of difference.

Can you speak to that a little bit?

- So "Black Iris," Alan Pasqua, who I'm so blessed to be able to play with on this show, is playing the piano.

And he wrote the music and it's an ode to Ellington.

And again, coming full circle, Ellington, Billy Strayhorn, another North Carolina name that we should be celebrating.

He shared this music with me and I was like, "Does this song have a lyric?"

And in my head I'm saying, "No, say it doesn't, say it doesn't so I can write one!"

So black iris is a rare flower.

There really is such a thing as a black iris.

And I love flowers.

It's not exactly black.

It's kind of like the darkest purple you could imagine.

And I did what a lot of people do.

I Googled black iris.

- [James] Yeah, we Googled it too.

- You know, to try to find out like, oh, okay, so it's native to the Middle East and Egypt.

And all of a sudden, a persona of the flower appeared to me.

You know, beautiful irises with those draped, I don't know what they call them, but- - [James] Like draped petals.

- Yes.

Like draped petals.

- Yeah.

- And so I learned a little bit about when it grows, when it seeds, and the whole lyric poured out in one chunk, which is super rare.

A lot of times you get like one word and then you labor for the rest of it.

You know, you pray for a rhyme scheme and then you get like half of it.

But this came and I give a lot of the credit to Alan because he wrote in such a lyrical fashion that it was ease to lay these words once I stumbled on black iris.

And as I look back at the lyric now, it has a double meaning.

Is it a flower?

Is it a woman?

We don't know.

- Yeah.

Is the kind of ambiguity there something that you really love to kind of put into your lyricism?

- I love things to be on more than one level.

I think we don't give our audiences enough credit a lot of times, we make things so on the nose that it can't be anything else.

And I trust my audience to take from the music what they will and leave anything that doesn't resonate with them.

You know, I trust them.

- Yeah.

That's art, right?

- Well, I mean, one would think, but there's a lot of stuff out here masquerading as art, which is so like two dimensional.

It's like, what else is there for me to imagine?

I mean, I felt like when music videos started, I was like, "Oh man, that's the end of music."

Because I had my own imagination rolling before the music video.

I want my own thoughts.

- Right.

Yeah.

- I didn't see that guy.

What's he doing in there with the one glove?

What, what?

[both chuckling] - I want to also talk to you about "Widow Song."

I know that's a personal question for you.

And when it comes to to loss, you said that you have two lovers, patience and time.

And you ask in the song if your heart must be a widow or labeled as a widow.

Do you feel like you've found that space to become open to new love and to new things?

And are you kind of expressing that in this song?

- I think at this point it's just a question.

Do I have to do this?

- Yeah.

- Do I have to call myself?

Because it's interesting.

If you lose your brother, let's say your brother dies, you're still the sister, your name doesn't change.

- Right.

- If you lose your mate, your name is actually changed.

And that's what I'm sort of feeling like I'm pushing against.

It's like, must I be this thing, Social Security office?

Must I be considered this legal definition of difference?

I still wear my wedding ring.

Phil passed in 2019, and I'm gonna wear this ring until the day I decide I don't need to wear it anymore.

So in my heart, I'm asking a question that I think many widows and widowers are asking themselves, must my heart a widow be?

And there's no answer.

I don't think I answer it.

- Yeah.

- The whole song is a question.

And I think it's a question worth asking.

We don't have to just say, "I am this."

We can say, "Do I have to be this?"

- Right, and that's okay.

That's the point.

- That's the point.

- Yeah.

And you're always gonna be finding out new answers to that question, right?

- Yes.

Yes.

- And that seems like it's part of it, that's part of that journey.

- Indeed.

Again, it's curiosity.

- Yeah.

- About this construct that people say you are.

Really, do I have to be that?

- Yeah.

I want to talk about "Here's Your Hat."

We'll segue into "Here's Your Hat."

- Here's your hat.

What's your hurry?

- Yeah.

- It's so Southern.

- Yeah, it is.

- It's so Southern.

- And also we need to bring back people wearing hats.

- Yes, we do.

I mean, there was a time when a man did not go out without a hat.

- Yeah.

I wear hats often.

I have to take it off for this podcast, which is unfortunate.

But if I had a good one, I'd be wearing it.

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I love it.

I love it.

But here's your hat, what's your hurry?

That's a Southern saying.

It's tongue in cheek.

It's funny.

It's a goodbye song, but with a little twist.

And so just having fun, and again, I am a Black woman, I am a Southern Black woman, I am of a certain age.

I can get away with saying stuff like that that maybe when I was in my thirties, I couldn't really get away with it, so.

- Yeah.

And it feels like within this record, it feels like, again, the more playful side.

- Yes.

- Where we get to have fun and it's okay to say, "You know what?

I don't really need you anymore."

- Yeah, that's right.

- [James] It doesn't matter who that is.

- There's a line in there that says, "I can't miss you till you're gone."

- Yeah.

- So get to stepping.

- Yeah.

[laughs] And it also feels like it's sort of a place to give yourself grace.

- Yes.

- Right?

I don't really need this anymore and there's nothing wrong with you, but maybe not for me right now.

- Right.

- So.

- Right, right, right.

And I think we make a lot out of goodbyes.

Every goodbye is not like, sometimes a person says goodbye, they're going down to the corner to get I don't know, a gallon of milk.

They're coming back.

- Right.

- Other times, the back of their head, that's the last you're gonna see of them.

So there's a whole genre of goodbye songs like blues tunes and other tunes that are like, you know, you have to get inside the lyric to know, is he coming back?

Is he just going to the store or is he like, gone gone?

- Yeah.

"Oh!

Susanna."

Now this is something, you've talked about a non-standard approach to a standard.

Do you feel like that happens within "Oh!

Susanna"?

- "Oh!

Susanna" is the only song on the record that I did not write or co-write.

It is a song that was written in the 1840s by Stephen Foster.

It is probably the most popular in that genre of folk music.

We all know "Oh!

Susanna" from campfire songs.

And one might ask, "Why in the world would you cover a tune like that?"

"Oh!

Susanna" was written during the time of minstrelsy.

So when it was performed, it was performed, you know, in Blackface.

- Right.

- There's a whole bevy of lyric that people don't sing that is highly racist, highly offensive.

The melody has no fault there.

The melody is pristine.

So that's what I grabbed.

- Yeah.

- I grabbed "Oh!

Susanna's" melodic flow and rearranged it so that it resonated with who I am as a Black woman.

Of course, I did not sing those crazy lyrics.

I added some of my own.

And to me it's a song of loss.

It's a song of longing.

It's a song of lament.

And when I came up with the idea to sing it and began singing it in my live shows, it was around the time of Katrina.

And I was thinking about all of those people who were looking for lost loved ones, who weren't sure if they had made it on through the flood.

The waters were rising, they weren't sure.

And that can be worse than knowing that someone is gone.

And then it led me to think of around the time Stephen Foster wrote this tune, some years later during Reconstruction, there were whole families en route, en masse moving from place to place, trying to find lost family members.

So that also resonated with me.

So I feel like I've taken a liberty with "Oh!

Susanna" to reframe her, to reimagine her, and to love her.

- Right.

And bring her back to our attention.

- Yes.

Yes.

- That seems incredible and like also just a journey for you, right?

A historic journey, but just also a personal one.

- And a Southern, it's a Southern journey.

You know, they're talking about banjos and Alabama.

I may switch Alamance County.

Maybe, I don't know.

I don't know.

But I could.

[laughs] - So I wanna talk about "Beneath The Skin" too.

You've said that love lies underneath the joy and pain.

Can you speak to that joy and pain a little bit, and how that's kind of created a foundation in your life that you need to breakthrough or does it peel away or maybe just sit with?

- I think it's sit with, it's peel away, sometimes it's breakthrough, sometimes it's sit on the surface of it because you don't have the energy to go to the depths.

But there's always more.

You know, that commercial that says, "But wait, there's more"?

There's always more.

- Yeah.

- Ever refined, subtle permutations of experience.

And so beauty as in a flower or a baby or anything that we would call beautiful, it says something to our spirits.

It says come closer.

And we don't always know why we find something beautiful, but there's the surface beauty, and then there's the call that is always more potent and interesting and deep and strong than the outside thing that initially catches your attention.

So that's what "Beneath The Skin" is, I say love waits for you beneath the skin.

Whenever you see something that is [exhales], makes your heart, that's love.

That's love calling your name.

- Right.

And is it sort of like, beyond just that call for love, is it sort of also like a call for complexity?

Like there are things underneath here that are going to be difficult or beautiful and that's something that you need to search for as well?

- I mean, I think for grief, I'll just speak for myself.

For grief, seems on the surface it's hard.

Just it'll get better over time, you'll be fine.

And those things may be true, but why are they true?

Your engagement with grief and your engagement with the pain are ways in which you excavate.

And I think the brain is not able to handle but so much.

So bit by bit, drop by drop, you're able to dig a little bit deeper, or not.

- [James] Yeah.

- You can also turn your back and walk in the other direction as fast as you can.

That's also an option.

And I'm not judging that.

- Yeah.

- Sometimes you need to, I mean, I've had to give my grief a good talking to more than once.

You know, it's like, "Not today, sister, not today."

- Yeah.

- You know, just because it can feel too heavy.

It can feel like too much.

- Yeah.

- So any, all ways are the right way.

There is no perfect good way to do you.

- [James] Right.

- And giving yourself permission to dance in the way that seems to make sense for you.

One thing I know, you can't do it wrong.

It's yours.

You can't mess it up.

- That's great.

Thank you so much, Nnenna.

I would like to leave this with is there anything else that you would like to say?

- I just wanna say how grateful I am to be involved.

I'm just grateful to be at this point in my career, having you ask me these questions.

"Shaped by Sound" is an opportunity for us to learn more about our community of musicians, about the wonders, the treasures of North Carolina and beyond.

You know, this is the thing, it's yes, it's NC, and it's also beyond.

I think it's gonna open up doors for a lot of people who've never considered North Carolina to be a center of excellence, to rethink that.

And it's just such an awesome opportunity.

I'm grateful.

- Well, thank you so much.

And you are a wonder and a treasure, Nnenna, thank you.

We are grateful to have you.

- Thank you.

- So thank you so much.

- Thank you.

- [James] Thanks for joining us on the "Shaped by Sound" podcast.

If you'd like to hear some of the songs we discussed today, you can find them on our website at pbsnc.org/ShapedbySound, or find us on the PBS North Carolina YouTube page.

Thanks for listening.