Last month Paul Iwancio
and Nita Callihan intervied Tuck and Patti just before their show at the
Ramshead Tavern in Annapolis, MD. The majority of the interview is with
Patti Cathcart, as she writes most of the duo's songs. For more info on
Tuck and Patti, visit their cool website at http://www.tuckandpatti.com
- Paul Iwancio, of the Baltimore
Songwriters Association
Paul: As far as I know all of your past releases have always included
some cover songs.
Patti:
Actually they've always included „songs by other composers. As a
songwriters association I would think that you would be extremely sensitive
to that. Because as a songwriter you'd like for artists to do your songs.
And I think you'd like them to be thought of as compositions. Music that
stands on its own, rather than a cover. Which is really a pop mentality
statement. What I think has happened in our MTV age, we have the concept
of the cover tune. Whereas no one ever thinks of Ella Fitzgerald as „covering
Rodgers and Hart. And it's a good thing to think about, because it ultimately
kills the art of songwriting. Because one of the ways that you, as a songwriter,
grow is to hear someone else sing your song and see the different light
that gets cast on it. And the way that music in the oral music tradition
gets passed on continues to grow. I have a deep feeling about this.
Paul: It's obvious that you put a lot of care into the songs that
you
do choose to sing.
Patti: Yes, because I don't want anything to come out of my mouth
thatI don't believe in, that I don't love. The only reason that I do a
song is because I love it. And I have respect for the songwriter who wrote
it.
Nita: What I've noticed in the CD's that I've heard is that your
work is very spiritual without banging you over the head. You get your
message across in a non-threatening way.
Patti: I love the blues, and being able to protest through song.
To be able to say you're a dirty rat. I applaud all of it. But personally,
for us, it was a real conscious decision that we made early on that we
wanted to present uplifting music. A sort of time out for people when
they came to hear us play. It's really made a big difference for me. Because
I could be a really good actor when I sing. I can act very well. So I
can take any kind of song and get into it and think of that point of view.
But when I thought about what I wanted to spend a career, my life's work
doing, I decided to be on the upper side of things. To take the high road,
at least in my mind, that kind of feeling. Because I had experienced so
many kids listening to what you're saying. And they do look at you andwant
to be like you. I also just want people to feel good when they leave.
I want to feel good too. And to sing something I believe in helps.
Paul: Well, back to my original question. What led you to your
decision to make your latest album all your original songs?
Patti: It was an accident. It wasn't planned. I was going to write
some songs like we always do. We don't have a big plan when we start to
record. This one was going to be like a jazz standards album. So I had
all these songbooks spread out. I was listening to a lot of songs. And
starting to make the decision on songs to use. And I thought, I want to
write standards for us. Taking the Long Way Home was the first one. And
they just started coming. Before I knew it we were ten songs into it and
we had written all of them.
Nita: When I heard this album at my store I was attracted at one
level.
But then when I took it home and studied it, it spoke for me. Do you go
into it thinking...let's speak for a more common voice.
Patti: It's all our voices. I tend to write a lot in the voices
of women. Women talking. Like in the song Ain't Seen Nothing Yet she just
came straight through and that's a true story. But in singing it this
other woman showed up, I don't know who she was but in the end I thought...I'm
even singing in her voice. This is a story she's telling. Songs for me
it's definitely, me talking to myself, or like when I'm sitting around
with my friends, what you wish would happen, or what your desire or dream
is.... I try to talk about that. What I find is when you talk about your
truth, because we are all human, walking this walk, we all tend to have
the same desires and hopes and dreams and wants, so it comes out being
every person's voice.
Paul: Nita and I were having this discussion on the way down. A
woman we interviewed last year, Susan Werner, said she was going to write
standards, or this is one of her standard songs and then you talk about
writing standards. For me, not coming from a jazz background, what do
you me by I'm going to write a standard?
Patti: Yeah yeah that's it . They became a standard because everybody
does it. Here is a tune , it's in the vocabulary, we all do this song.
They became known as standards because they are in everybodys repertoire.
Paul: But what does it mean I'm going to write a standard?
Patti: It means that in a hundred years from now I hope somebody's
singing it.
Paul: Cool, cool. There was an obscure note in your liners notes
of your latest CD of a thanks to the Butterfly People. Who are the Butterfly
People?
Patti: Oh this great singer and composer from Uganda, named Samite,
he's a wonderful man and I did a session with him up in Will Ackerman's
studio in Vermont. He sings in the language of his country, which is called
Lu Ganna. Anyway there was other stuff he was saying., and I said, you
know what , I don't know what you are saying, because we don't know your
language, you know you could be saying anything. And he says well there
really is no language, this is the Butterfly People. Then we proceeded
to sing this song and I was introduced to the Butterfly People. And it
carries over into the spirit of the songs. It was a very beautiful experience.
Paul: Do you have a particular structure to your songwriting?
Patti: I usually don't because my schedule is crazy. We're on the
road all the time. So my writing usually takes place when we're home to
record. It's during that block of time it's 24/7 for a month and half,
all we do is write and record. It's the music house for that period of
time.
Paul: For you personally, do melody or lyrics come first?
Patti: Sometimes for me I tend to hear in orchestra, and big bands
or
gospel choirs or ensemble stuff. And because Tuck plays an orchestral
style of guitar-multi-part. I think as the years have gone by, almost
naturally, as I'm hearing these parts, part of me is thinking about the
things he'll be able to do and bring to it. On a song like This Life This
Life to me, there it was an incredible orchestra piece which I got in
my head and it got condensed into the textures of how it came out on the
CD.
Nita: Do you actually chart the songs?
Patti: No, because it's just the two of us we get to be lazy and
not make up a chart. And Tuck acts like my human sequencer. I'm at home
around the keyboard or with one of those Yamaha things that plays a chord
when you push a button So I can get a lot of good ideas that way. But
we've played together so long I can arpeggiate any chord I want to hear.
I tend to hear a lot in not just the chords and melody lines, but I also
hear the texture I want.
Paul: Are you hearing the melody or lyrics first?
Patti: Sometimes the lyrics don't come til later. Sometimes it's
a poem and then the melody comes. It comes a lot of different ways.
Paul: You've been with Windham Hill for quite a few years.
Patti: Yes, most of our career except for one record with Epic.
Paul: How did that relationship first come about?
Patti: The label started as Will Ackerman and his friends and then
they started Windham Hill Jazz. Early on they had a lot of serious jazz
artists. We were the first new artist that they signed to that label.
We all lived in the same town and assumed that at some point we would
perform with them. But we weren't interested in a record deal for the
first 8 years we were together. And then when we decided we were ready
to record, we first built a studio and as we were getting ready to shop
it they called. It was one of those good timing moments that worked out.
It's really Windham Hill in name only. Will sold it many years ago and
BMG owns it. Last year everyone was fired from Windham Hill and now RCA
takes care of Windham Hill. It's in the narrowing down effect of turning
into 4 record companies in the world.
Nita: It sounds like the two of your were able to record being
true to yourselves. But I hear of so many people have difficulty with
labels.
Patti: Oh totally, everyone does. It's not that we haven't had
to fight for it. But we always had our own recording studio, we always
took care of our own business, we have always have been in control of
it. A lot of people have A&R people or the producers who take the
tapes and disappear with them. Well, we're the people who have the tapes.
We recorded them, Tuck is engineer, I'm producer. We've kept it very close
to us. And as a result we wound up having much more freedom. It's not
that we didn't have to fight for it at times. Normally the typical story
would be for us to finish the record and mix it. But we always had an
open door policy (to the record company)-of course come over any time,
we're here recording.
Nita: A few months ago I met John Pisano and his wife Jeanne. I
had known John's name but I had never heard of Jeanne, and she's a marvelous
jazz singer. So I asked why I hadn't heard of her. And she said because
when John's career was on the rise he lost control over what he was allowed
to do. So they decided to cut back and record with smaller independent
labels that allowed them to do what they wanted to do.
Paul: That's a good way to go to keep the control.
Patti: Well as long you can. And especially in the arena that we
all find ourselves now. It costs $300,000 to get a song played on the
radio, to budget for one single if you really wanted to try to hit it.
And if you want to be on the listening station at the record store, cough
up $20,000 a month. So you look at that situation where the costs have
gone so insane, and if youre not in a video then you're not in the game.
A cheap video is $600,000. And then you can see why bands that only sell
a million copies get dropped.
Paul: You guys have a lovely website. Who did it?
Patti: The design is by another guy but the primary content is
Tuck and me.
Paul: It's impressive and I'm amazed by your attitude to help other
guitarist and fielding questions.
Tuck: It's real valuable to both of us. Just to share what we've
got. It always annoyed us when we see people saying „it's mine and
I've got to guard it. We're going to make money from what we do. And helping
other people doesn't take away from our opportunity to make a living.
It just improves the art. And if we're really lucky and someone takes
some of the stuff we suggest, takes it to heart, and really goes somewhere
with it and comes back, we're grateful we're not threatened.
Patti: The students are always supposed to surpass the teacher.
And if your students don't surpass you then ultimately you're not doing
a good job.
Tuck: Right.
Nita: I've seen in the jazz world a lot of this generosity of spirit.
You help people perpetuate the genre.
Tuck: We all got it from somewhere.
Patti: The same with the blues greats who were very sharing. It
used to move me to tears that I worked with people like T-Bone Walker
before his death. Even in those sort of sad days for him at the end of
his career, he would invite a kid to sit in and play. And perhaps they
weren't quite ready for that level, but he would invite them up on stage.
Then T-Bone would always play with them in such a way that they looked
good. If there was only one note that they could play or one thing, he
would lead them to the place that they could do well and shine in it.
I never saw him have anyone walk off stage who wasn't glowing because
they thought they had done really well. It was the most incredible generous
thing to watch.
Paul: Just one more question. Is there any advice you can give
our songwriters?
Patti: I think the same advice I give to musicians and everyone:
Do it from your heart, do what you love. Do it relentlessly, do it every
day. Do it all the time, do it as much as you can.
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