A Conversation with Amy Rigby (continued)

PM: Do we think that Signature is going to do anything different with your CD from their normal approach to marketing a record? Are they going to do ads in any different places than they would for their folk releases? I wonder.

AR: That's a good question. I guess I should be looking into that around now. [laughs] I think things have--they've already had response from publications that they might not normally get reviews in.

PM: Really? Anybody we should mention?

AR: Well, like Spin or something, magazines that have been interested in me in the past. I've been so busy, I really have not been able to exactly follow what's going on. The traveling made it really hard to keep up with what's gone on in the last weeks.

PM: Right.

AR: But there's been a lot.

PM: That's beautiful. Let's talk about the three or four distinct recording environments that went into this record. First of all, the song that sounds the most single-y to me is the opener, "Why Do I," and that was co-produced with Richard Barone [of The Bongos fame, among other things] in NYC, right?

AR: Right.

PM: How did that come about?

AR: That came about because he saw my show up in New York in the summer, and he said, "Oh, oh, I really would love to help you record that song, and why not just do it this week. You've got the band. Everybody who played the song knows it. Let's just go into a studio and record it." So that was really the start of my album, because he motivated me.

PM: Wow. So you had the band with you, or the band for that gig lived in New York?

AR: Yeah, I just rehearsed with a bunch of people. I put bands together wherever I can.

PM: Right.

AR: Wherever I am, with whomever, with people that I've used before or people that I find. So we had rehearsed and played a show in New York, and maybe we were doing another show or two in Jersey, or up North.

PM: Where were you playing up there?

AR: That show that Richard came to was at the Mercury Lounge. Yeah, so they'd worked up that song with me.

PM: I've heard a lot about him though I've never met him. What kind of a guy is Barone?

AR: [laughs] Oh, he's a handful.

PM: Oh, really?

AR: Well, he's such a live wire. He's got so much energy, it's incredible. "Handful" is probably not the right word, because he's so sweet and so supportive, but he's just got energy to burn. And he's always got his finger in so many pies, always got a lot going on. To me he's like one of those great New York characters. I mean, he's not from the City originally, but--

PM: He's a Jersey guy, right?

AR: Yeah. He grew up in Florida, but yeah, he spent a lot of time in Hoboken.

PM: Right.

AR: He's just one of those people who's had a band in New York and been on the scene for as long as I was up there.

PM: And you were up there a long time?

AR: Yeah, twenty-some years.

PM: Twenty years.

AR: He's just got a great pop sensibility.

PM: I'm flipping out, really, on a great Laura Cantrell record lately, where she covered your song "Don't Break the Heart." [see our review] Is she a New York friend?

AR: Yes. She's from Nashville, but she's been up in New York.

PM: Oh, she's from Nashville?

AR: Uh-huh, she grew up here, but she's been in New York. I first met her because she was DJ-ing at Columbia, at WKCR, Columbia college radio, who've always done a lot of country music shows. And so I first met her when I had kind of a country band up there. And then she moved on to WFMU, and had The Radio Thrift Shop there. So that's how I knew her. And then she started playing shows a couple years ago, and yeah, covered a bunch of songs from different friends from the New York scene.

PM: And that's one of the greatest songs, though, on that record, "Don't Break the Heart."

AR: Oh, thanks.

PM: It's really a swell song.

AR: Yeah, even Elvis Costello said it was a favorite.

PM: Come on!

AR: Yeah.

PM: Where did he hear it?

AR: Oh, he's a huge fan of Laura. And he actually had Laura opening for him on part of his American tour. He got the record and asked her to do the tour.

PM: Oh, that must have been an incredible feeling to have her say that Elvis loved that song.

AR: Yeah. I actually saw the email where he said it.

PM: Oh, that's hot.

[laughter]

AR: I saved it.

PM: No kidding... continue

print (pdf)      listen to clips      archives      puremusic home