A Conversation with Pierce Pettis (continued)

PM: Have your songs landed in movies or TV?

PP: I had a song I wrote called "Legacy," years ago, and when Roots was re-edited for television in Europe, there was an interview with Alex Haley, and they ran the song under the interview, for some reason.

PM: How about that...

PP: [laughs] I think that might have been my first credit. And let's see, there's an instrumental I wrote called "Flannery's Georgia" that was used in a PBS documentary about the real story behind, oh, the racehorse movie that was out last year...

PM: Seabiscuit.

PP: Seabiscuit, right. Well, they did a documentary about Seabiscuit, and they used that song through it.

PM: How did they find your instrumental, do you know?

PP: I think they just found it. I think somebody just had it. Nobody ever pitched it. I know that's true. Oh, I had one cool thing happen. There's a song I wrote with Buddy Mondlock and Art Garfunkel that was used in the show Felicity.

PM: Ah, yes.

PP: That was a great little show. And what was cool is that the big climactic final episode of the year had the song in the soundtrack.

PM: Wow. I know Buddy some, but I've never met Art. What was he like to write with?

PP: Well, I didn't actually--the way that worked was, Art had some poems. He had a collection of poems he had written a few years ago, and he always thought they'd make good songs. And he handed them to Buddy and said, "Can you do anything with these?" And Buddy was coming over to write with me anyway, and he said, "I've got all these poems that Art wants us to see what we can do with them." And I said, "Okay." And we sat down, and the first one we looked at was called "The Perfect Moment." And we really liked it, and so we basically just modified it. A lot of the lines were just directly from this poem, and we just created a song. And then I came up with this music. Buddy pretty much came up with the music on the verses. It was one of these things where everything just sort of came together, and we wrote that song in like an hour or something.

PM: Wow. [laughs]

PP: And then Buddy played it for Art, and Art just flipped, loved it. Later on, I met Art a couple times. He's a really nice guy, just extremely nice.

PM: Any cool covers of your songs lately of which you're aware?

PP: Well, let's see. There have been a couple. I'll tell you a cover a really love, I don't know if anybody listens to it, but there's an artist named Jill Phillips, she did "God Believes In You." I love what she did with that.

PM: Jill Phillips. We'll check her out.

PP: And Tom Kimmel covered that same song--no, no, Tom covered the one I wrote with Jonell, "You Did That For Me," did a nice job on that. Let's see, I know there's some stuff recently, but I can't remember. [laughs] Usually I find out about this stuff from other people. They'll go, "Hey, man, I heard your song on the radio," or whatever.

PM: [laughs]

PP: The publishing companies, I don't know, maybe it's different for other people, but they never tell you anything. In fact, a lot of times I don't think they even know.

PM: Yeah, that's the scary part. They didn't even know.

PP: I know. As far as my catalog at Universal goes, I have no idea what's going on. But then every now and then it'll turn up in a royalty statement, or something.

PM: Hopefully.

PP: That's nice.

PM: Speaking of covers, I really loved the actual CD cover of Great Big World. And I dropped the artist a note. I really like Terry Cannon's work, wow.

PP: He's awesome. Terry is amazing. In fact, Terry did the coolest thing. There was another painting he did that I really loved, it was just two crows. Well, first of all, Terry's works are almost like a mosaic--his art is all layered, it's three dimensional, really. He has a studio in Chattanooga and he goes out and puts his work on top of cars and stuff so they can bake in the parking lot. Terry's incredible. And he's also a big, big fan of Howard Finster, and he's very influenced by him. [Howard Finster is another artist whose work has graced a Pierce Prettis cover, for the 2001 release State of Grace.]

But at any rate, Terry came out to hear me play in Chattanooga not long ago, and he surprised me. He had framed this really nice work, which is the cover. But then--this is what killed me--then he said, "Oh, there's one more thing." He said, "I got one more thing for you." And then these two guys brought in this huge, huge painting of the two crows that I liked. And I mean, this thing is maybe five-by-five feet. We have it up on our wall. It's a gigantic thing that he gave it to me.

PM: Wow.

PP: It was amazing--I mean, his work sells for lots of money. He's getting a national reputation now. And he's had one-man shows and all this stuff. So for him to just come and give me a work like that, it was really something.

PM: Unbelievable. So he's become a friend.

PP: Yeah. And I think we're sort of mutual fans. We both like each other's work a lot.

PM: Wow. Yeah, if he entertains the idea on the e-mail, I want to go down to Chattanooga and meet him and see his studio.

PP: You should do it. He's a really nice guy. I mean, he's like the most easygoing nice guy you'll ever meet. It's like if Dennis Weaver was artist.

PM: [laughs]

PP: I don't know, maybe I shouldn't say it that way--but I mean he's got that kind of an easygoing nature. And man, just amazing work. In fact, get him to show you the whole series of things he's done about these two crows. I know it sounds funny, but he has them in all these different settings. Get him to show you that.

PM: Yeah, I even saw on his website there was one or two paintings that featured the two crows motif, great stuff.

PP: That's kind of a recurring theme for him.

[When I asked Terry Cannon about the work of Pierce Pettis, he said, "I'll put one of Pierce's CDs on in my studio and listen to it over and over again while I paint. His music calms the soul and connects me with what is grand and honest about life. Pierce's music is like opening a dusty old book...full of themes and truths that feel timeless."]     continue

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