A Conversation with Amy Correia (continued)

PM: The sessions for Lakeville are now a couple of years in the past, although the release is just a year in the past. Are you writing any these days? Are you working on new stuff?

AC: I am. I mean, now that the tour with Josh is over, I'm really going to kind of hole myself up for a month or so and--that sounds really awful [laughs] but I kind of need to do that. There are just things I think I'm going to do. Usually I just do everything on my own. I write the songs with a four-track or an ADAT. I don't have Protools. But whatever I have around that I can work with, and I just really try to uncover some stuff. And I know I'll do that for at least a couple of weeks, maybe longer.

I'm always writing and accumulating ideas, but now I kind of need to just finish things. I want to get a handful of things that I really feel good about. And then my idea for this album--something that I've never done on the first album or the second album--is just to put a band together, and then make an album.

I know it sounds funny, but I've never done that. Usually it's different session players or friends who come in and they just play. They either know me or don't know me, they are either familiar with the songs or not. But I really want to work with a couple of musicians and then try to take them on the road. Because mostly I've done things as a solo artist. It just kind of happened that way because of financial reasons, and maybe creative reasons, too. It's a little bit easier just to be on your own in some ways, but I'm really ready to bring in other people. And I know some incredible musicians.

PM: No doubt. Would you be bringing in people from L.A. or New York?

AC: I'm not sure. I've played with Don Heffington and Josh Grange and Brett Simons, and I love playing with them. So I can see myself going back to L.A. and doing a couple of weeks with those guys. So who knows? All of these players, too, they're touring around, and they have lots going on. I would really want to find people who would want to commit to the project. Maybe even do some co-writing, and hopefully--

PM: Really? I didn't know you did that.

AC: I never have. I never have, so those are some thoughts I'm having for the future, perhaps bringing in some other people so that I'm not totally in it on my own, and maybe being able to go on the road with them. Because I think it would be great for my audience, and I just would really enjoy being able to play music with other people, rather than always just with a guitar on stage by myself.

PM: Right. Your baritone uke is an amazing facet of your music. You make that sound incredibly cool.

AC: Oh, thanks. It's inspired some of my favorite songs that I've written. I hope to write more and more on it.

PM: When did you pick that up? Who made it?

AC: Well, it's kind of an interesting story. When I used to live in New York--well, I still live in New York. But when I was in my early twenties and I was working for an ad woman, her name is Josephine Foxworth, she's now eighty-seven--she's actually the woman in that song, "Coney Island," who turns eighty-four. She's the one who gave me that when I worked for her. And she had actually just asked me to take it home and restring it for her.

[laughter]

PM: That was the end of that.

AC: And one thing led to another, and then a couple weeks went by, and she asked about it. I told her I'd been writing a few songs, and she said, "You'd better hold on to it." That was five, six, seven years ago.

PM: And do you know made it? Is it like a factory instrument, or--

AC: It's from the 1970s. It was actually a gift to this woman, Josephine Foxworth. And I think it's from Mississippi. It's a Harmony.

PM: Wow. Your Boston came out there for a minute--"It's a Hahmony."

AC: I didn't say that, did I?

[laughter]

AC: That's good. That's good. I'm glad I still have a little of it left.  continue

print (pdf)     listen to clips      puremusic home