A Conversation with Joy Lynn White (continued)

JLW: It was not like that when I first came to Nashville. In '82, it was not like that. It still was about the song and the singer, way more than it is now. I'm sure it was starting to evolve to what it is today, but they didn't have the technology back then. I was singing demos in 1982 here, alongside lots of people who are big stars now.

PM: Right, absolutely. We kind of touched upon it when we were talking about the Mother Maybelle role, but when did your singing actually begin in your life? Were you singing a lot as a kid?

JLW: Yeah. My dad was a guitar player, he was a singer/songwriter. He was a real good singer, and he loved to play guitar. He always jammed, and so did my Grandma White. She taught my dad how to play guitar. She played a big flattop, a Gibson guitar, my Grandma White from Arkansas. He's from Arkansas, right over West Memphis, Tennessee, right in through there. That's where the Whites come from--my Whites, anyway. So that was going on long before anybody even knew I was going to show up. [laughs] So my dad, he was real good, and he played all the time for the fun of it.

And they knew early on that something was different about me. I learned how to talk when I was ten months old. And I already knew every single hit record that was on the radio by heart and could sing it word for word in the car when I was about two years old. People used to gather around the car and watch. I was like some freak. They'd say, "Well, I want you'ns to listen that baby." They'd say, "How'd you'ns teach her to do that?" And they'd say, "She just always done it, she's special."

PM: Wow.

JLW: [laughs] So I was doing that. And so at five years old, I became the lead singer in the Singing White Family, featuring Little Lynn White.

PM: Unbelievable.

JLW: And by then we had moved up to Indiana, and so I was singing in revivals and radio shows. My brother was in the band, my sister was in the band, my uncle was in the band, a neighbor kid was in the band. My dad played lead guitar. And so they got me a record player because I couldn't read yet. And they would tell me, "Learn this song, this song and this song." You know, Connie Smith records and Dolly Parton records, and any of the gospel things that those people had. And I just memorized it, because I couldn't write the lyrics down yet. And I was the lead singer then. So I've never not done it.

PM: Classic.

JLW: So then I got into garage bands at sixteen, up in Mishawaka, Indiana. It's right by South Bend. And I started playing--the second garage band that I got in started actually playing in bars. I was busted a couple of times for underage drinking in bars. I think my dad took me to one, one time, and let me sing somewhere with these rock 'n' roller guys. It was like southern rock. Those were always the kind of bands I'd get into.

PM: Southern rock, yeah.

[laughter]

PM: So what would you be singing in those days?

JLW: What I would bring into the band was Bonnie Raitt and Heart, and Carly Simon and Linda Ronstadt, and Carol King, and maybe--

PM: Karla Bonoff.

JLW: Yeah, all of that was what I brought into the band to sing. Thank God, when I was growing up, there actually were real singers who were cutting real songs. Because back then, we all know that they really did sound like that, because there were no pitch controls, and none of that crap went on, and people were really into the real thing. That's what was so great. And that's unfortunately what we've lost. And I doubt in my time it will ever come back.

There will always be a few people still doing it for real. Paul Thorn, Arthur Godfrey. Lucinda Williams and Iris Dement, I've mentioned. And in mainstream country, people like LeAnn Womack, Alison Krauss, and Tricia Yearwood are all fantastic singers. And I'm sure those girls know exactly the records that I'm talking about. But I brought that into those bands. And I did a lot of Les Dudek, and of course, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and probably the Allman Brothers.

PM: So then how old were you when you first came to Nashville?

JLW: I was twenty years old.

PM: Wow. So you knew at that young age that you were after that.

JLW: Oh, yeah. I didn't want to get married and have kids and all that. I wanted to get the hell out of Dodge and come down to where something was going on. And what turned me on, really, was the Trio album, and all that, and the fact that maybe Nashville isn't such a hick place after all.

PM: Right.

JLW: Because I was never into stone country, never, ever.

PM: Really?

JLW: That was forced down my throat from my mom and dad, and I thought that it was really square back then. I will just admit to that, I did.

PM: But you sing stone country so well.

JLW: Well, it's in my blood. I mean, I was born in Arkansas, I come from that.

PM: But you were never really into it.

JLW: I was never into it at a young age. I was into rock and I was into Motown. I mean, being up there, we got a lot of really good radio stations out of Chicago, WLS, listened to all the time.

PM: Detroit, even, too, yeah.

JLW: Detroit, and those. So I've got the influences of all that. My dad would sing Johnny Cash. I know the Carter family, and Jimmie Rodgers and stuff. That stuff is imbedded in me because I heard it my whole life--all the time, him playing it. But no, I was not into any of that when I could pick out the records I liked. But as I've gotten older, I do like the stone country stuff, and I dig hearing it.

PM: Right.

JLW: I don't know very many kids who really dug what their mom and dad were listening to.

PM: Right, right. It's natural to rebel.

JLW: I mean, I thought they were squares.

PM: Right. Well, they were.

[laughter]

PM: That's just how that is.

JLW: But see, I just freaked out over Linda Ronstadt. I heard "Silver Threads and Golden Needles" on the country radio station that my mom was listening to, and I said, "Now, that's the only one who got on there that's cool." And I asked, "Who is that?" And so then I went to K-Mart at the time--because I was a record store loiterer. I was always hanging out in a record store. My mom would drop me off, give me twenty bucks, leave me for two hours, and I would just stay down there. I was a geek.

PM: Listen to records.

JLW: Yeah. Well, just looking at the covers--remember how they were, like albums everywhere. And they were burning incense, and selling paraphernalia, and it was the coolest place to be, man. My store growing up was called Just For the Record in Mishawaka, Indiana. And it was a cool place. They had these huge logs with these chains, and it was down in the cellar.

PM: Posters and black lights.

JLW: Yeah, and lava lamps. So I'd pick out two albums a week. My mom was cool enough to let me do that. And it was harmless. That was what I liked to do. I'd go by myself. I hung out with my girlfriends and stuff, but that was the thing I did by myself was go and explore. I turned myself on to people like Bonnie Raitt and stuff by looking at who had played on Linda Rondstadt's record. And I went, "Well, look at this chick, man, they're using the same people. Well, I'm going to get this." And it'd be like, "God, this is great!"

[laughter]

PM: Now, when you came here in '82, who were your friends? Who did you find and hang out with, anybody that--

JLW: Yeah, a lot of people. Like I met--jeez--

PM: Some people that are still playing today?

JLW: Susie Ragsdale was one of the first. I had a job working waiting tables, and she did, too.

PM: Ray Stevens' daughter.

JLW: Yeah, yeah. And since then she sang on about every single one of my records. We've toured over in Europe. We're still very good friends to this day.

But I remember meeting John Lomax III, and a lot of people right away thought, "This chick really can sing." I remember Townes Van Zandt telling me at a party to straighten myself up. He said, "I hear you're about the best thing to hit this town in years," at a party.

PM: Townes said that?

JLW: Yeah. And I didn't know who he was. And I thought, "Is this some guy with a big buzz?" [laughs] And he told me to straighten myself up. And I thought, "Yeah, you go tell someone else straighten yourself up. I'm having a good time, man."

PM: An interesting person to tell somebody to straighten themselves up.

JLW: That's what he did. He told me that. And I didn't know who he was. But I'm trying to think of--I remember my first job singing demos was for Kent Lavoy, who was Lobo. Remember "Me and You and a Dog Named Boo"?

PM: Yeah, right.

JLW: Well, that was him. And he had a publishing company here. And I sang for all those writers over there. It was like Alan Ray and Don Goodman. And then pretty soon, as the years would go by, I'm doing stuff for like Bud Lee and all those people that were writing "Friends in Low Places." But within eight months I was doing demos in this town.  continue

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