Amy Rigby's Blog

Some trifle

If I were the kind of person who was interested in clicks, I think I’d start writing about particularly British things an American living in the UK notices—how subtly differently they do things here. Maybe I’ve clicked once too often on the accounts that feature that stuff, but now my Instagram feed is a torrent of don’t even need filtering fresh-faced Americans with gleaming teeth talking to the camera about rainwear and warm beer and queuing. And like a fool I’m sucked in every time because…what divides us also brings us closer together? Or some such nonsense. One guy this morning was adamant that the public drunkenness on display in London’s Soho of a weekend night was not cool, bro you’re 35 NOT 25 and the replies savaging his righteous rant reminded me why I love it here (and how it might actually be the British who love lurking around and reading this stuff).

See – I can feel it happening in subtle ways. Britishisms creeping into my speech and/or writing patterns. A tendency to employ modifiers like “proper” and “quite” without meaning to. Those aren’t even the colorful ones, but then it is November and things are definitely pretty drab in the UK at this time of year (see – I consciously avoided saying things were quite drab. I’m still an American, and say “pretty” with a d sound – I’m not full-on pretentious…yet.)

There’s so much to learn about gardening…

So here’s a list I jotted down this morning, in no particular order, of phrases and ways of talking and being that I notice being back here in England after six or seven weeks in the US. Sometime I even push myself to sound more American, it sets one apart. (You see, language is a minefield. It’s never good when you start referring to yourself in the third person, or…as “one.” Don’t move to another country people, if you want to stay pure, or sure of who you are. But then again – who wants that?)

Now, picture me pink-cheeked, bright-eyed and shrouded in mist and hardy outdoorswear, looking straight into the camera:

“If you’re living in England and order drinks in a bar or restaurant, you’re gonna have to choose WHAT SIZE WINE you want. They’re gonna offer you Medium or Large (get it – small is NOT an option). Of course you’ll choose LARGE if you want to fit in, and then, why not say “Oh go on then” which is what I notice people say when they’re throwing caution to the wind. Nice. I have yet to actually say that out loud, but I think it, every time.

Oh go on then.

When your husband accomplishes something not that impressive, like shopping at the grocery store (an entire category of its own – was it Sainsburys, or – be still my heart, Waitrose, or did he tough it out at Aldi, Morrisons or Tescos (it’s singular but say it with an s on the end) or maybe he’s executed a neat little bit of parking in one of the shockingly tight car parks, say “the boy done good” to no one, just say it out loud like you’re a character in a Guy Ritchie film.

By the same token (whose token? What exactly does that mean?!) when you’re heading out into the world for a spot of shopping, at some point when the strain is just too much, say “I could murder a coffee.” Even better, be SPECIFIC about what kind of coffee you violently want to ingest: I could murder a Costa or Kenco or an oat flat white. There is a brutality to the British that creeps in in the most charming ways.

But there’s also a sweet civility – make sure to greet the bus driver when you board and thank them when you get off the bus. Be sure especially to do this in London, if you want to feel like a total rube. I keep noticing when I do make it to London that the ways of the country in this country are markedly different from the city, even if the distance from one place to another isn’t great. You enter Port Authority in Manhattan via New Jersey, but coming into Liverpool Street in London is like you took a two hour train journey from Nebraska and stepped out into NYC. A true marker of maturity must be wearing provincial status like a badge of honor and pride.

There are certain common phrases here that transform me into a cast member in a British crime drama: “Leave it with me,” said the receptionist at the optometrist in response to my bland question for the eye doctor. Suddenly in my mind I WAS Sarah Lancashire in Happy Valley, with that hi-vis vest built to protect against assaults. “Hiya,” is another one that slips out effortlessly as a greeting by a stranger (usually female), and I’m suddenly a character in an Acorn TV series set somewhere in the north.

If you’re over a certain age in this country, a common annoyance is to be mistaken for a pensioner ie it’s assumed you are retired and at leisure at all times, and also that you’ll be deeply suspicious of any offerings on a menu or in a display case that might be challenging. It occurred to me when I was in the US last month, there IS no such thing as a pensioner in America. I mean there are people with pensions from their jobs and older people who collect Social Security as long as it still exists, but there’s no lumping together of the elderly into this comfortable leisure class who are free to live out their remaining time wearing cozy sportswear and cluttering up places like Cromer and service areas en masse. It’s all much more niche in America, the Florida brigade, senior gamblers and casino goers, leaf peepers, sporty types and culture mavens. I never heard the word “pensioner” before I came to the UK, and it scares me. It’s likely the whole idea of retirement as a way of life is heading for extinction, and maybe that should make me sad. Because I have seen a Model Train Village and it was a wondrous thing. The people who volunteer to run the steam trains are also adorable. I’m having a change of heart right now and am thinking I want to embrace the pensioners. I just don’t want younger people looking right through me like I’ve served all my earthly purpose, when it feels like there is so much left to do. One day there might be a diorama in the Natural History Museum “When Pensioners Roamed The Birchanger Services.” And younger generations will see what’s been lost.

I’m rambling now. It’s going to take years for me to hone the sharpness of wit I really need to fit in here. Just this afternoon, as Eric and I were tooling around Norwich running errands —before rushing home for a record label meeting via zoom and a rehearsal for Eric’s gig at the Lexington in London on Friday – we’re not retired for God’s sake – a mini Cooper crossed our path. Eric was driving, as I’m still working my way up to taking my British driving test and have to pace myself handling the car through roundabouts, city centres, tiny car parks and twisting one lane country lanes. I’m getting there though. It’ll be a long time before I’m queen of the road like in America. I’ve been trying to get behind the wheel more often – it’s not the driving on the opposite side thing that’s hard but the rigor and discipline needed on much smaller roads with more precise rules (right turn on red—unthinkable; the comportment the general British driving public exhibits at roundabouts is stunning especially if you’re used to driving in, say, New Jersey).

“Have you noticed how…mini-Coopers, I don’t know – kind of generalizing here but – a lot of them have this attitude, like-—they’re entitled or kind of um arrogan—

“Wankers.” Eric said. Nailed it with one word. It’s a small country and there’s not a lot of space.

I haven’t mentioned the weather, or how nobody uses umbrellas in the rain, not once.

End of tour recap

I pull a pair of pajama pants out of my suitcase. Home—I’ve been here five days now, but emptying a month and a half’s accumulation of stuff mixed together with pedals, guitar cables and some unsold tote bags is too overwhelming to deal with all at once.

“SLEEP” the pants say in gold lettering down one leg. Not the type of item I would normally choose, but desperate times etc. I’m immediately back in the Opry Mills TJ Maxx on a Sunday morning…was it only two weeks ago? Needing some clean clothes, I’d headed out from my hotel and joined the fray. It’s weird the things that can make you feel at home, and the low stakes act of pawing through racks of discounted clothing and toiletries to a soundtrack of hits of the nineties and early 2000s happens to be one of mine.

Eight days later I was on a high, driving the Mass Pike after four days of back to back shows: Hamden Connecticut, Kingston New York, Boston and Peace Dale Rhode Island. Each gig had felt special in its own way, and the drives in between full of dazzling blue skies, leaves of red and gold. I’d sold books, seen friends and fought through a cold. My plan, after the last gig at Dan and Liz’s house concert in RI, had been an earlyish start back to Hudson where our music gear and some merch lives in a storage space. I had a whole afternoon to start packing and shipping stuff out before my departure for England the next day.

But…two service areas in along the road, I had to pull over and sleep. I locked the doors over by Starbucks drivethrough, pushed back the driver’s seat and went out for a while. The kind of sleep you bolt from, wondering where you’ve been and how long you’ve been there. The kind you vow you’ll never give in to, in such a public way, that any stranger could walk by and see you, probably drooling- but we’ve all done it, haven’t we? Sometimes there’s just no choice.

I’d pulled myself together, grabbed a pumpkin spice latte (don’t judge me) and pressed on westward towards New York. Now I was in the part of Massachusetts where the temperature dips, doesn’t matter what time of year, it always seems just about to snow. Here, the branches were bare.

America is just so beautiful. So much space. So many bad drivers. After weeks, I felt a part of things again, maybe more so because I knew I was about to leave. People had been asking me what it was like living in England, was I happy there? Is it possible to be happy in England but still love what’s familiar to me, as fucked up as things might be right now? That’s how I felt my whole time in the US. I wanted to hug everything and almost everyone, even the impossible parts. Not Donald Trump and his cohort. Not the racists and nazis. Or those horrible cyber trucks. Just all the people making their way every day the best they can. There’s something so innocent about Americans—to a fault, I guess. Don’t give up, I wanted to tell them.

Berwyn, Chicago IL

I had to pull over at another rest area. I just felt so tired. All the weeks of traveling and playing gigs and my daughter’s wonderful wedding were jumbled up together. After L.A. where I’d had a blast with Eric and his daughter Luci, Hazel and my family and Patrick the groom’s immense and lovely family, and a whole load of Hazel and Patrick’s friends, I’d flown to Chicago for a gig at Friendly Community in Berwyn. I’d loved playing there two years ago and it was again just a wonderful warm feeling of support from the organizers and all the people who came. There are a number of places in America that feel like home to me: LA is one of those, Chicago, New York City still…maybe? Nashville was the next stop – I drove to East Nashville to pick up a box of books they’d been holding for me at the UPS store and then took a spin through downtown, wondering what I could do that evening. Jason Isbell at the Ryman was pricey, a metal band called Mudvayne at the Auditorium felt kind of enticing but my black t-shirt needed laundering…I decided to go the Grand Ole Opry! It had been twenty-five years but the bill that night was classic nineties: Connie Smith, Bill Anderson, Patty Loveless and Vince Gill.

Hazel and Patrick…my brother Riley officiated at Vista Hermosa Park L.A. A magical wedding moment, Hazzel and a Bob Baker marionette on the dance floor

The long wait to get in made me wonder if I’d made a mistake coming alone, but once the show started I felt so at home. The magic came alive, reached across the footlights and held me – it still connected, that mix of simple lyrics, humor and sincerity. Real people on stage and in the audience. I felt sure there was an audience divide across political lines—it had been the No Kings march across the US that day- a comedian named Gary Mule Deer brought everyone together with a simple non-partisan joke: “Every president should serve two terms, one in office and one in prison. “It worked, the tension broke. Then Patty and Vince made me cry.

Throughout the show, there’d been a woman right in front of me feeling every note and word, having a fabulous time. I loved her dyed black hair, her bright outfit, and her enjoyment, it was like we were riding the same wave. I found my car in the massive parking lot just as a rainstorm moved in, I remembered coming to Opry Mills with Hazel once or twice when we lived in Nashville, wondering why they’d done away with Opryland amusement park. My mom and I had stayed at the Opryland Hotel in 1988 just when I’d found out I was pregnant, it was our last girls’ trip together. I feel so many emotions when I come to Nashville— it’s a relationship of over forty years now.

I drove back to my hotel and as I was taking the elevator up to my room, the door opened and the woman who’d been sitting in front of me at the Opry got on. “You!” I said, “You sat in front of me, weren’t they all amazing? You felt every note, thank you, thank you for enjoying the show like that.” I think she was Spanish – we clutched each other’s hands, we hugged and cried and laughed – it turned out she was in the room right next to mine. I felt like my Nashville trip had been worthwhile already and I hadn’t played a note.

Maybe going to the Opry had been a way to take the pressure off the show the next afternoon at Dee’s. It’s a Country Cocktail Lounge, just a kind of casual place and I didn’t have big expectations. I don’t know how to book those kind of shows any more, except maybe an occasional City Winery show here or there. Most of my gigs are homespun affairs: house concerts, homemade venues. I suppose I should aim higher but…when a gig works, it works even if it’s for thirty people. That was Dee’s. I loved every person in the audience and the love came back to me, or maybe it was the other way around. I wanted to bring my new book—what I’d learned in writing it, the importance of this place in my life— to them, and I did.

I felt myself coming down with some illness on the way to Cleveland the next day, after a nice visit to the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum where Michael McCall took me around the Dolly Parton exhibit and RJ Smith shepherded us through the Rosanne Cash one – both inspiring. I’ve made the Nashville to Cleveland drive dozens of times but don’t think I’d ever flown – it took an hour waiting in the cold and growing colder car rental car park at Hopkins for me to finally hit paydirt, a black Chevy Malibu that almost made the wait worthwhile.

An incredible show was happening at the Beachland, Acid Mothers Temple. This Japanese psych band were mindbending. My own show the next night wasn’t easy, sound problems really threw me and though my Covid test was negative I was fighting off something. I hit a point in one of my readings where I really just about lost it, overcome with emotion—there are certain sentences in the book that make me cry, every time, it was the same with Girl To City, like it is with lines of songs I write. I had to fight to keep from breaking down when a loud bang through the monitor almost knocked me over. If I thought much about how vulnerable we make ourselves getting up on stage in front of an audience, I don’t think I could do it. You just focus on the parts you can control – set list, guitars, what key; what readings. Try to get the lighting and sound right. It’s a can of worms, or a genie’s lamp up there. People were appreciative that I’d come, though one friend said “You might not come back.” Never say never.

And then it was just damage control – trying to rest and fight through with lots of water and Vitamin C and zinc and…another awesome rental car, a Toyota Camry at JFK. Those roads in and out of NYC hold me like old friends, hateful as some of them are. The red and yellow leaves were glowing, I was back in our old neck of the woods. I’d been wanting to go home and in a way I was already there.

So now I’m taking more stuff out of my suitcase—that pretty dress I found for Hazel’s wedding; my marked-up copy of Girl To Country that’s worn in after a few weeks. Sandals to stow away until next summer, a slightly preposterous Beach Boys-striped shirt I picked up at a Marshall’s when I just needed a clean outfit and to hear She’s So High by Tal Bachman. I remember laughs with friends and strumming in living rooms and realize I didn’t break a single string. I think I did pretty good out there. I remember selling books and mailing books and shipping UPS boxes and my mantra in and out of rental cars and airports and hotels and friends’ houses and venues: “Don’t fall and don’t lose your glasses.” Job done, for now.

Thanks Mark Guarino for the pic from Friendly Music in Berwyn

Thanks everyone who hosted or came out to a show, or ordered the book. If you haven’t already, I hope you’ll pick up a copy of Girl To Country (available in the US now and UK/Europe in March, except for pre-order UK folks, those books are going out this week). Please consider ordering via Bookshop.org or directly from your local bookstore, it helps to make them aware of the book. Orders via Amazon are also appreciated, to feed the algorithm! Reviews help too. From what I’ve heard, people are loving Girl To Country—that makes me so happy, but also makes me want to help readers find the book. And as always, thanks for reading and subscribing here.

A short story from the road

Some, most or a little of this is true.

So I was lurking around the lobby of a Marriott hotel outside Kingston New York. Just, y’know, between jobs. It was evening, about ten PM. A weeknight, so not too crazy. A convention of Christian ministers were holding a meeting in town.

I see this older woman sitting at the bar. Looks like she just came from work, some kind of sales call maybe? She’s not exactly elegant, but not a total hobo either. What makes her stand out is this red leather jacket she’s wearing. I mean, this is Ulster Avenue right, not Brooklyn or even Albany.

I must’ve been looking at my phone for a while, because when I look up—she’s gone. But the red leather jacket is still there. A few minutes pass, another ten. She hasn’t come back. I notice the bartender washing glasses, cleaning the sink. Stopping up the beer taps. It’s nearly eleven now. Someone dims the hotel lobby lights.

Without really meaning to do anything, I saunter over towards the bar. The bartender’s back is to me, her blonde ponytail bobbing as she sponges the counter in front of the liquor bottles.

“Have a good night,” I say, as I lift the red leather jacket from the back of the barstool.

My heart’s beating a little faster as I stroll out the front door to the large parking lot. The lights over the Target across the road have little halos around them. It’s humid for October. I feel extra weight in the pocket of the red leather jacket: the answer to a question I hadn’t known I was asking – a key fob.

I stroll casually along the first row of parked cars, clicking the unlock button. Like the devil winking at me, lights flash from the edge of the car park. Nothing fancy, a Mazda, the equivalent of a Honda CRV. Grey in color, like seventy percent of the vehicles in most parking lots these days.

Getting in the driver’s seat, I take stock of the surroundings and detritus the red leather jacket lady has left behind. A couple Starbucks coffee containers, a bag of organic dates. Water bottles, half full and few tossed empty into the passenger seat. This lady is riding alone.

I look behind me. The back seat is filled with cardboard boxes. I reach around into an open one and pull out a paperback book: Girl To Country, it says, in hand-lettered red script. A black and white photo out of the past, a not-quite fresh-faced young woman looking off into the distance. Makes me think of Walker Evans dustbowl, almost. Halter dress, bare shoulders. A quality photo. “A Memoir” it says. By Amy Rigby.

So, I start putting two and two together. Maybe the red leather jacket broad is a publisher’s rep? Trying to foist some new titles on the bookselling and bookbuying public up here? I know of a few stores: Golden Notebook, Oblong, Spotty Dog in Hudson. Inquiring Minds, yep the Hudson Valley is a regular brain trust. She’s probably got some fiction in here too, maybe something I could read later to help myself fall asleep-

I grab another book out of a different box. Girl To Country, again. What’s going on? Is it a remainder sale? I decide I better get out of this parking lot and look into things a little further. There’s that nice Stewart’s up the road. Good coffee, ice cream. I press the ignition button and roll out of the Marriott parking lot.

Up at Stewart’s, I park at the pump. Get out of the Mazda and open the hatchback. More boxes of books. The same title, again and again. Mailing envelopes. A hardy metal road case. I open that, hoping maybe…cash? What kind of idiot leaves all their shit in the car? Maybe the same kind who leaves their jacket on the back of a barstool. We all have our lapses. The metal case is full of records. LPs, CDs. Five or six different titles. Amy Rigby, again and again. And another book, this one with a dark-eyed punkette holding a beer can. Girl To City. By Amy Rigby. Shit lady, you’ve been busy. Maybe that explains how you pull a dumb move like leaving your stuff laying around hotel lobbies?

There’s a duffel bag back here too. I unzip it. I could probably use a clean shirt—wait, does the world really need any more tote bags? Cute though, nice sentiment. “I Love You, You’re Perfect, Don’t Ever Change” – sweet. I’m kind of liking this lady. Seems in addition to glugging wine in hotel bars, and being absent-minded, she’s out there trying to bring a little light and joy to this sometimes-miserable world. I could use a touch of that.

Wait, is that a guitar case? Surely she wouldn’t just leave that sitting around a car park outside Kingston, overnight?

Unless. Maybe she’s so tired she just wants to let it all go. Maybe this is all a set up? She planned the whole thing, I’m her mark. She’s taken an Uber to the airport to take a flight back to England or wherever she lives, to putter around a garden, walk by the seaside and paint landscapes. Roast a chicken on Sunday; wear hats.

There’s an iPhone in the cupholder, and I can read the text: Soundcheck 5:30 PM tomorrow. The address of a club in Baltimore. I calculate. That’s about five, five and a half hours from here. Just the thought of the drive makes me tired: NY State Thruway, Route 17, NJ Turnpike, I-95. Kinda brutal. Wonder who’ll show up in Baltimore? Probably a couple hundred people, right? Otherwise, would it even be worth it?

But, the books. The tote bags, the records. No matter the numbers, it must all add up to something.

“I Love You, You’re Perfect, Don’t Ever Change.”

I want to know what it feels like, to believe in people. I go to sleep for a little while, and when the sun comes up I start driving. I’ve always wanted to see Baltimore.

Girl To Country out now and on tour

I’m sitting on a plane, wearing a mask for the first time in a couple of years. I ended up in a seat way back by the toilets on this Alaska Airlines flight from San Francisco airport to the east coast, where I start my tour on Tuesday in Rochester, NY. All these strangers in such close proximity, we do what we can to protect ourselves.

San Francisco Airport is a marvel—silent, well-designed— I saw a coffee kiosk where a robot arm crafted espressos and breves. What really struck me though, arriving from England a few days ago, via a brief stop in New Jersey to drop off my guitar and great big suitcase full of tote bags I screenprinted back in the Norfolk countryside, was the diversity of my fellow travelers. No matter how messed up the current situation, I still love America and what it can mean, please don’t let that beautiful idea die.

I’ve had an intense few weeks finishing, formatting and uploading the files for my new book. Last time, six years ago, when Girl To City came out, I was a little cagey about revealing my self-publishing journey. I felt (maybe correctly) that it created the impression of more legitimacy if people believed a third party had invested/believed in me enough to do the heavy lifting of releasing my work. I never lied about it, just wasn’t super-transparent. I kept the focus on the book.

It’s a different time now. And I’m in a different phase of my life. I feel proud of the huge amount of work and commitment I’ve invested with support only from my husband, friends, family and…you—the people who read my writing or listen to my music. I don’t want the fact I did it all myself to be the main story, I just want people to know how much it means to me to reach this part of the process: publication. I feel a huge sense of relief to have gotten this far with a second book, to have Girl To Country come out in the US this Tuesday September 23 (I had to push the UK edition release to March, one lady can only do so much and I was really losing my grip trying to book UK tour dates for November while revising/editing a 100,000 word manuscript with great help from my editor Paul Slanksy). I feel like I’ve practically chiseled the words out of stone or etched them into printing plates, that’s how many times I’ve gone over them, first to feel like I’d told a story the best I could, and then to format them as well as possible. I’m not great at time management and would happily have paid someone else to do the work in InDesign BUT I was really editing and revising up to the last minute, and even after pressing “send” immediately found one misplaced comma all the way at the end of the book at the front of the Acknowledgements section (I’m sure more will reveal themselves), and also thought of people I should’ve thanked and didn’t. Thank god for our friend Karen Hall in Norfolk who kept dropping everything to drive over to our house and ease me through the tricky aspects of InDesign only an experienced design maven knows- thank you so much Karen!

First copy arrived, an emotional moment holding your actual book in your hands

Add to the drama of book publishing my quest to find a dress to wear as Mother Of The Bride at my daughter’s wedding in Los Angeles next month. I kind of love the dichotomy —preparing for these two epic stages at once. It’s easy to let the pressure for perfection overshadow the occasion: my daughter has found a wonderful partner with a gorgeous family I just spent a fun weekend with on their turf, the beautiful Bay Area. And I wrote a second book. I want my clothing choice for Hazel’s big day to convey my delight at this new step of her life. I’m going to stop piggybacking one on the other here. Hazel’s day is HER day and I’m just…her mom. It’s her story to tell and my part is mostly just the letting go.

I stood in a bookstore the other day looking at the music book/biographies and memoirs section and it struck me that not many artists write a second memoir. There’s Tracey Thorn’s several books –she’s a fabulous writer; Viv Albertine did two, Patti Smith is in a category of her own. She’s always been a poet first. The dearth of second books made me wonder why I thought it was something I needed to do—wasn’t one memoir enough? Remember, no publisher, no one asking me to put myself out there again. As my father said when I was working on Girl To City : “Wait, music isn’t hard enough—now you want to write a book?”

But I think back to when I really got going with writing outside of songwriting, in the mid 2000s. Eric and I had recently gotten together and he hipped me to the memoirs of Dirk Bogarde. Now we all (hopefully) remember Mr. Bogarde as a devastating actor (first as film idol, then in complex roles in sophisticated, challenging films like Death In Venice and The Night Porter), but I was stunned to learn what a fine writer he was. He’d escaped to the French countryside, kind of like Eric and I did, only years before Peter Mayle wrote A Year In Provence, back when not many Brits/ex-pats even imagined the possibility—I believe Eric discovered his writing and found it a comfort when he was making his way in rural France in the nineties. Anyway, Bogarde’s books are so vivid and readable and they didn’t try to tell his whole story all at once, just focus on certain arcs of his life. They beautifully capture their times and places. Maybe they’re lacking in some self-reflection (he completely avoids discussing his sexuality, but that was his choice—you’re the writer and you get to choose), but the man knew how to tell a story.

As I’ve pushed myself to finish my second one I’ve come to understand why people don’t want to write a second memoir. You can only really come of age one time, when you’re young and green and everything is new, right? All your youthful failings are totally excusable – hey you were just getting started and how would you know any better? But heading into middle age and still struggling to get it right? It’s not so easy to talk about. Or you have to find a different lens or a new journey to share. It’s goddamn hard and I’ve wondered what was compelling me to go through some shameful midlife episodes. Three or four years in, I thought “well if I don’t finish I will have wasted that time I spent trying to tell this other story.” I needed to finish, it became a quest almost. “I said I was going to do this, and now I have to see it through.” When it comes down to it, I love to write. People often quote Joan Didion: “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means.” I love Joan Didion less the more I read about her but her brilliance is undeniable. That quote is so perfect, but I don’t think it applies to memoir writing, as much as I’d like it to. She speaks in the present tense—her writing more a kind of reportage than the painful (not harder! Just—pain revisited is double the pain, like watching your kid go through a difficult experience is worse than going through the same difficult experience yourself, I think the same holds true for looking back at your younger self) the particularly fraught work of picking through the past. It’s a different kind of work, excavation (archeology?) rather than forensics.

D’oh I didn’t mean this to be a refutation or examination of anything Joan said or did. I was going to talk about Amazon vs Ingram, ebooks vs print, how I still need to do an audio version, and is it advisable to fulfill orders yourself vs paying someone else to do it for you? All the mechanics, but mostly I just want you to know I have written a second memoir, it’s different from the first. I hope I can write a third, at the same time I don’t know if I have it left in me to go through the process again. It’s too soon to know—I’m in the pre-mourning period, the space right before the book lands. It probably makes sense that I’m on a plane right now. Life is suspended up here in the air, I’m wearing a mask to protect myself, like I’m writing this post to protect my heart from what happens when we (the book) land(s). Worst case: nobody reads, nobody cares. Medium case: a few people read, people respond negatively. Best case: more people read, people relate.

It’ll likely be a combination of all the above. No mask for that. I’m lucky, I always have my songs to fall back on!

Girl To Country: A Memoir in stores and on the road

Tue Sept 23 Rochester NY Bop ShopWed Sept 24 Catskill NY Left Bank CiderThu Sept 25 Hoboken NJ 503 Social ClubFri Sept 26 Rye NY Watershed Literary FestivalSat Sept 27 Minerva NY Barn ConcertSun Sept 28 North Adams MA TouristsWed Oct 1 Kingston NY Oldster EventThu Oct 2 Baltimore MD An Die MusikFri Oct 3 Hightstown NJ Randy Now’s Man CaveSat Oct 4 Fleetwood PA Karen’s HouseFri Oct 17 Berwyn IL Friendly Community CtrSun Oct 19 Nashville TN Dee’s 4 PMTue Oct 21 Cleveland OH TreelawnThu Oct 23 Hamden CT Best VideoFri Oct 24 Kingston NY Chromatic StudiosSat Oct 25 Boston MA Acoustic DenSun Oct 26 Peacedale RI Roots Hoot 4 PM

Is it okay to think about Billy Joel?

I should probably be talking about my upcoming tour, the Girl To Country book release, and thanking folks who pre-ordered for the support, and telling you how much it means to me (thank you!) Or how the mother of the bride dress search continues, along with attempts to grow my eyelashes, try to tackle that pesky acne scarring I struggle with and get ready to be away from home for a month and a half. But I guess it can all wait for another time, maybe when the results of all these endeavors are in.

Or I could give you a recap of the gigs with Eric, and my own festival turn in Norfolk the other day, where a toddler seemed poised to rush the stage, but then just turned and…toddled off (I’ll simply post a photo of that).

Suffield fest pic courtesy of Big Steve

Instead, I really want to talk about Billy Joel. That is a sentence I never imagined myself saying, which is why I must say it—life will keep surprising us if we allow it and hopefully not all of the surprises will be bad ones. This was one I never saw coming.

People kept raving about this Billy Joel documentary on HBO and there was something enough to compel me to watch the six hour story of an artist I’ve never cared for or about, would probably sometimes go out of my way to avoid or deny.

So why am I crying over a Billy Joel song this morning?

Because my eyes have been opened.

It really doesn’t matter if I never listen to a note of Billy Joel’s music – no artist or art is for everyone and he certainly hasn’t needed me to appreciate him, the man has done just fine without my love. Over one hundred sold out shows at Madison Square Garden over the last ten years. Many many millions of records sold. His popularity through the decades has been so huge as to almost repel me.

Also there was only one piano man for me, and that was Elton John. Nobody asks you to choose but that’s just how it’s been. Billy’s playing was too flowery, his melodies too showy; style too referential; his persona too arrogant and New York, kind of like the New York Post used to be for me—fine for a little color, but not the New York I’d come to The City to get away from Pittsburgh for. When Elton and BJ spent years touring together, I kind of pushed it to the back of my mind.

I won’t lay out the story told by the documentary, just suggest that you watch it yourself. It might drag a little here and there but the details make it a compelling watch: humble upbringing, absent father with a backstory and followthrough you couldn’t begin to imagine. The lean, striving years—deep depression, humiliation, betrayal. Love, band loyalty—more betrayal. I just thought he was a simple guy from Long Island!

Maybe I started softening my “No Billy J, Billy J no way” stance last month when I read Christie Brinkley’s memoir. She’s so charming on Instagram – a gorgeous supermodel you wish you could hate cause she’s so perfect but she’s just total sunshine. I thought it would be a fun read and it was more than that—I found myself rooting for her. Her romance with Billy Joel was authentic and cute, reminding me of Eric and me— not like we’re both super-famous, and fabulously wealthy like they were—but their little comedy routines and in-jokes she depicts so sweetly. Christie’s affection for Billy started softening my resolve.

Then I read Wayne Robins’ great Substack post about being the “Billy Joel beat” reporter circa 1975-85 in his role as arts editor for years at Newsday, Long Island’s paper. Wayne was editor of Creem magazine before that, his writing about the experience makes those rock and roll days come alive again, “ah so this was it was like!” to someone who pored over my older brother’s copies of the mag in wonderment. Wayne’s post brought Billy Joel to life, or made me interested, in a way I hadn’t been before. It was all creating a perfect storm for my—I won’t say conversion. Billy is the opposite of a god, though his musical gifts come from somewhere not of this earth, and in the end that’s partly what begins to win me over: the montage of this guy over the years driving a procession from humble to stately boats across Long Island Sound (at least I think that’s where it is—the geography of Long Island is too complex to even begin to understand even staring at a map) after a lifetime of questing and falling short, usually in his own eyes; maybe I’m that shallow because I’m partial now to boating (I promise a budding interest in golf partly thanks to Happy Gilmore 1 & 2 and Stick with Owen Wilson won’t make me soften towards Donald Trump!) but I’m appreciating that this simple guy from Long Island is so much more complex than all the jokes and Post headlines—like everybody, his story is deep, you never really escape your childhood, just try to find ways to cope though most of us don’t sell out Madison Square Garden one hundred times.

I felt my heart going out to the Billy in this story and every American (maybe not the hateful ones) as I sit here in another country, looking back towards America and all that makes it up. As I watched footage of his hands flying over the keyboard, heard his blunt lyrics achieving poetry, saw the shining, exultant faces of his audience – noticing how white they are, thinking of the Levittown color barrier where he grew up and how that could include Jews like his family—how in America there’s white (privileged white or just stupid white) and black but then there’s every other kind of person who came by boat or plane or foot to America either by choice or often not—that defiant expectation alternating with innocent hope “there’s something for me here”— it all reinforces how precious and maybe also doomed the whole experiment of the US is. Isn’t music miraculous, that it can make a little harmonic order of the chaos and mayhem, even for just three minutes. You couldn’t blame anyone for being a Billy Joel fan, for wanting that solace and sense of belonging.

I’m sitting here listening to a Billy Joel song this morning after finally getting it (it’s not something I’ll ever get all the way—he’s endorsing Andrew Cuomo in NYC’s mayoral race). He has plenty of fans and doesn’t need me, but there’s some comfort in taking tentative steps towards a hugely popular, prolific artist, especially far from home where the feeling of dislocation makes me appreciate what I left behind, at least the good, human parts.

trying it on…

I’m having some stage fright, not about playing gigs but, for one, knowing I have new readers to this thing I’ve been writing for so many years. Thank you for following and subscribing! Also, putting out a new book (pre-orders start this Friday Aug 22) I’ve worked so long and hard on. And really the most exciting and unprecedented, coming up in less than two months, my daughter’s wedding. What a singular day, and I get to be mother of the bride.

We think we know ourselves by the time we reach a certain age. Not entirely—there’s always room for growth and reinvention, but that’s versions of the we that already exists. By the time you reach…say your late sixties, there are precious few events that challenge our perception of who we are and how we present in the world. Moments where you need to be a different kind of best. A new job somewhere. Volunteering, opening a shop. Winning a prize of some kind, a Grammy maybe?

My daughter’s getting married – there was a surprise right there, I just never expected it! She’s not exactly traditional, and I don’t think of myself as normal. But she fell in love with a great guy and it’s wonderful, I’m so happy for them. Weddings brings out the expectations and a responsibility to show up in a way that will honor and enhance, not take away from the special day. The pressure is on! Delightful, once in a lifetime pressure.

Isn’t it great when we get to do something for another person? I need to find a dress to wear to Hazel’s wedding and so I made a sacrifice: I went shopping, in a store.

I think back to long ago when it was almost unthinkable for me to cross the threshold of a clothing establishment that wasn’t a thrift shop, secondhand, resale, charity shop. That was the best shopping, when clothes called out from the racks, not because they were the latest or best but because luck had put them there just for me: the tapestry coat, the bandana print dress, the red leather jacket all discarded by someone else to be scooped up by the right person at the right moment.

It’s been years since I had much luck thrift shopping. I guess you could say I lost my mojo. But also, most of the stuff on the racks is pretty run of the mill these days—in the US it seems to mostly come from Target and in the UK from Tesco. Also, size-wise, vintage stuff was made when people were generally super-skinny and whatever good old vintage is still in circulation can’t fit over my forearm let alone shoulders, bust and hips.

Back in the US I was having pretty good success with The Real Real—when Eric’s daughter’s wedding approached a few years back I scored a silk dress for under $100 and have even been able to rewear it a few times.

But that was more of a lark! I wasn’t one of the key players, more key player-adjacent. When I went into London the other day, to meet up with a friend at the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition and do whatever else felt right (I ended up seeing a George Bernard Shaw play, Mrs. Warren’s Profession starring Imelda Staunton – perfect) I wrote down a few shops and brands I’d been eyeing on the internet. Wouldn’t it be great to actually try some possibilities on in a store?

Well..not really. Remember when it was so intimidating to go in a fancy store? The employees watched your every move, breathed down your neck, circled, and either forced you out by looking at you like they knew you were going to steal or soil their goods, or used their wiles to flatter and cajole you into making a purchase.

The few times I’ve shopped in person anywhere in the last few years, it feels like people who work in stores actually hide from having to interact with customers. They’ll duck behind computer screens, suddenly be overcome by the urge to fold and stack items, take important customer calls on phones that are probably not even connected to anything. Who can blame them?

Or maybe it’s just being older. When I finally want to buy some of their clothing, they don’t really want to sell it to me. It might not be good for the brand, to have someone my age walk out with one of their garments in a bag. Levi’s is the absolute worst. Weird right? We, the Pepsi generation or whatever we were, created you!

I don’t know. The good thing is, the lack of customer service actually makes it a lot easier to take the plunge. I’ve loved the Liberty Department store for years but mostly in a nose pressed against the glass kind of way, a sad Dickens figure approaching the corner on Regent Street in London, walking back and forth a few times and maybe letting myself be swept in one of the worn wooden doors with a crowd of tourists. I think I bought a lipgloss on the ground floor once.

But the other day, reminding myself “It’s for my daughter! She’s counting on me!” I sashayed in and rode the elevator in shabby grandeur (the elevator, not me) up to the third floor for Women’s Clothing. There were a few things I’d been eyeing online and why not try them on?

Only —it was a really hot day. London is not air-conditioned. The Royal Academy had been glorious but my face was as red as cadmium, my hair gone limp.

It looks polyester but was actually silk!

The clothing floor was pretty, low-beamed, old wood with casement windows. The sales women hid behind computer screens but motioned me to a dressing room when I asked. The shirts and printed dress I’d coveted enveloped me in a Liberty dream that only made me wish I were wan and lithe with big spiky eyelashes like a girl in a Biba ad from the late 60s. I was so hot and sweaty, I felt like Shelley Winters in The Poseidon Adventure only she’d been wet because, you know-the boat was sinking.

I sighed and hung the items on their hangers, and walked out into the balcony section of the floor. They had other brands out there, it was like encountering a bunch of supporting actors in one of your favorite TV series: Reformation, Rixo. Then I saw it— a crisp red poplin dress.

It was a brand I’d never heard of. The fabric felt so good, perfect for October in Los Angeles. They had a size L! I went back to the dressing room, after noting the saleswoman still didn’t care. This is great, I thought —like playing dress up. It’s actually a dream come true, no one hovering. You could try on clothes all day!

The dress was perfect. Like it had been made for me. Except…I couldn’t get it zipped up. I breathed in, I twisted. I thought of leaning out the door and asking for help but just couldn’t do it.

Maybe…an XL? I could always hem it. I put my own clothes back on and walked over to the rack. The only other size was XS. “Excuse me,” I asked another girl hunched over her computer. “Do you have other sizes in stock?” She politely told me “Try looking online.”

I looked up the brand, took a photo of the dress I liked, and did some more browsing. I even wandered through the famous fabric floor, marveling at all the patterns I’d admired online over the years, right there in the…not flesh – in the thread. Here things were more tightly controlled than in clothing, the bolts sort of needed to be checked out like library books – you could look, but touch, not so much.

I felt sure I had found a dress. So I was free to just spend the rest of my time in London enjoying myself, since the pressure was off. I stopped at the makeup counter on the way out of Liberty and asked about a particular mascara whose brand they carry. “Try online!” the salesperson told me sweetly.

When I got back home I found the dress on the designer’s website and ordered it, the price a third cheaper. BUT they only had the same size I’d tried in the store. Here’s where magical thinking entered in: I’d been bloated and sweaty or else that zipper would’ve flown right up my side. If only I’d had help, things could’ve been arranged to squeeze it all in so the zipper would contain me. A bodysuit with a little contol could tame whatever was in the way of the too tight part.

The dress came in a day, that’s a beautiful thing about living in the UK. You could say mail works quicker because it’s a much smaller place but they are just more efficient than in the US. Sometime in New York it felt like I could’ve walked to New Jersey and back in the time it took for packages to reach me from there, one state a hundred miles away.

I waited til yesterday when the weekend’s gig was over. I wanted to be clean, dry, and calm. I’d told Eric about my plans to wear this dress and how it might involve not eating so much bread. I’d already denied myself a pastry with coffee and was feeling smug. Cut down on alcohol. Losing five or ten pounds would be easy, and beneficial for all kinds of reasons.

The dress floated over my head. The color was even better than in the store. I’d googled whether it was okay to wear a red dress to your daughter’s wedding —that was my one worry, that it might be too much a cry for attention, and the kind of stuffy sites who give advice on this sort of thing did say it was, while not as inappropriate as white, acceptable only if the hue wasn’t too vibrant and trashy. These are probably the people who say you can’t wear white shoes after Labor Day too. Here’s where you wonder who sets these rules and why do weddings suddenly make us care?! I’d sent my daughter a pic and she’d loved the dress. It was all cool except—

In reality the zipper was a good five inches away from zipping up. No amount of dieting would make this work. I’d have to lose a rib. It had all seemed too easy, one of the first dresses I tried on being the one.

Eric had to excavate me from the dress.

Anyway, the red started to look too red. The cotton poplin lovely but not special enough. The dress is going back, the search kicks into high gear.

Good news is I don’t have to lose ten pounds. I need to work with where I’m at and find the right thing. Maybe not red? I owe it to my daughter.

Sense memories past and present

I was sweeping the kitchen floor last night and I had a sudden flash of sense memory—all those nights closing up at Spotty Dog bookstore/bar in Hudson. There was always something so satisfying about a clean floor at Spotty—I swept way more often there than I ever did in my own home.

The memory gave me a little pang: “God I miss it.” At the same time I felt like I didn’t miss it at all, that there was no need to—that somehow the me who tended bar and sold books in that small town in upstate New York was still at it and would be forever. Like a ghost, only I’m still alive.

Maybe that’s another part of moving to a new place, that you keep waiting for life to resume—the old life you knew. In this instance it’s those summers upstate: sweating, Spotty, an iced coffee at Stewart’s or Supernatural; yoga down at the point, some gigs, maybe a dip in a local swimming hole or trip to the beach; trying to have a lobster roll at least once; struggling to sleep with a window unit air conditioner sputtering and then blasting to life next to my head…the giant pickup trucks gliding by at the other end of our yard at 7:30 AM, or the sound of Denise our old neighbor hunkered down talking on the cellphone on her front porch before her family daycare came to life each morning, how her voice carried through the neighborhood like the caw of a crow. Swatting away mosquitoes, checking for ticks. Stars through the moonroof of my Subaru…

It was often a battle against nature in our old backyard! I loved it though… Saturday morning in Norfolk

The me who lived there is still sweeping and sweating, only so is the me over here in England. This me wakes up early and makes coffee in the kitchen, using wicked double cream as half and half doesn’t exist here (or if it does I don’t know what it’s called!) and anyway double cream in coffee is delicious. I stumble out of the kitchen door with my notebook and make my way down the stone garden path to a chair near the little summer house—for some reason this spot called to me as my morning place, it kind of faces the sun rising over the houses but has the shade of a pretty tree that looks Japanese. I write in my new notebook, also Japanese, a departure from my Leuchtturm dependence. I miss my 30 percent discount at Spotty Dog that made Leuchtturms almost affordable! After a while I go back in the house, make breakfast, maybe bring Eric a cup of tea.

Yesterday Eric’s daughter and two of her kids were here and we all got up early and went to a boatyard at the Norfolk Broads to go out on a dayboat for four hours. I finally got to use the picnic set I’d found in a charity shop a year or was it two years ago? We moved here a year ago last week but had been spending a lot of time in Norfolk since before the pandemic, so a lot of those times blur together. I was pretty disorganized with my picnic packing, just threw in some bread, cheese and a butter-like spread called Lurpak. Dark chocolate covered almonds. A bottle of Champagne they gave Eric when he played some songs with the cast of a play about Wilko Johnson that we’d traveled down to London for last week. London’s West End had been thronging, I was kind of relieved to get in and get out. When it comes to summer I think I’m countryfolk now. Puttering along on the water with just the kids and some geese, ducks and swans for company is pretty perfect.

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The summer weeks are starting to blur together. Maybe the Wilko play was the week before? Last weekend we also rehearsed for Eric’s set at the Latitude Festival that happened this past Saturday. It was Eric, his art college friend Graham Beck on keyboards, Morris Windsor on drums and I played guitar and sang harmony. We rehearsed in a village hall just down the road, smaller than the one I used back in November but still pretty cavernous as I gather is the norm. This one had two ping pong tables which I found very exciting, and that led to Graham revealing he’d been Great Yarmouth table tennis champion as a teenager. Morris had also been a keen table tennis player in his youth. I consider myself pretty good but was suddenly less eager to play, being in the presence of champions and only having recently recovered from nagging tennis elbow.

We got through the set a few times. At one point a village local wandered in, I’d say he was an old timer but he was actually probably younger than all of us. He asked if we minded if he sat and listened and he told us he really enjoyed it and wondered what type of music we were playing, and that we seemed quite accomplished. There are moments here in the English countryside where I feel calmed and soothed and think most people are really sweet and just doing the best they can—why do the bad ones take up so much space?

It was pretty daunting to get up onstage in front of a great crowd at Latitude and realize “oh shit, we’ve never all played together before.” I also realized as we were playing that I’d seen Eric do most of the songs solo a number of times and it was like suddenly being in the TV with a show you love, and not wanting to knock over the sets or step on the lead actor’s lines. In the end I think we did okay, it was all over so soon and I would’ve loved to stay for Fat Boy Slim’s set but being at a festival of this scale in the forest in the rain requires a level of commitment to fun and spangly festival wear I don’t possess, it was fine to stand around for a little while chatting and then head back home. As Eric drove us back into our not dazzling but lovable small town— the one that last year made absolutely no sense to me—I said “You know what, I really love living here” —it just felt so cozy with people’s lights coming on in the Saturday evening, imagining them all trying to enjoy their summer weekend after a rainy day.

Rocking at the Trailer Park stage Latitude, photo by Sue Butler

Yesterday, along with boating on the Broads which was delightful, we fired up the grill the previous owner of this house had left behind, just as Eric and I left our old Weber back in New York. Luci, Eric’s daughter, did a great job of bringing the briquet package to life and grilling the sausages while I made salad. I realized right around the time I was sweeping the floor, after the sausages were eaten and the sun was setting over the garden— this is it, my first full-on English summer: played Latitude, went boating, had a barbq. Read a lot of books, finished writing my second one. There’s still August and a few more of Eric’s gigs to play and then some of my own. I wondered when I started writing this if I really had enough to report. It’s not a lot of excitement but it feels like home.

Solo dates coming up, tickets/info available here

Sat 30 Aug 30 Norfolk UK Suffield FiestaTue 23 Sept Rochester NY Bop ShopWed 24 Sept Catskill NY Left Bank CiderThu 25 Sept Hoboken NJ 503 Social ClubSat 27 Sept Minerva NY Barn ConcertSun 28 Sept North Adams MA TouristsFri 3 Oct Hightstown NJ Randy Now’s Man CaveSat 4 Oct 4 Fleetwood PA Karen’s HouseFri 17 Oct 17 Berwyn IL Friendly Community CtrSun 19 Oct Nashville TN Dee’s 4 PMTue 21 Oct Cleveland OH TreelawnThu 23 Oct Hamden CT Best VideoFri 24 Oct 24 Kingston NY Chromatic StudiosSat 25 Oct 25 Boston MA Acoustic DenSun 26 Oct 26 Peacedale RI Roots Hoot 4 PM

Good things about growing old(er)

Sitting in the garden the other morning, I wondered “is this what it’s like to grow…old(er)?” Just being still and watching birds and butterflies cavorting, thinking “ooh I’d love a stone birdbath there, or another gazing ball…maybe I should shape that tree a bit.”

I’ve booked a bunch of shows for the fall and they aren’t bids for glory but cozy living rooms, a barn, small community spaces…a field. It’s not a giving up so much as a letting go, accepting this is how it is and it ain’t bad.

I’m waiting for a skirt/sewing pattern to arrive in the mail. Trying to come to grips with metric vs…what do they call the way they do it in the US? I’ve got fahrenheit vs celsius figured out (times celcius temp times 2, add 30 to get fahrenheit – did I already tell you that?) but I cannot get my head around metric and how kilometers is actually more than meters – argh it should make sense but it doesn’t! Anyway, I’ve decided sewing IS the way to go and will be desperately trying to convert fabric requirements from a US pattern to metres. Expecting a Spinal Tap Stonehenge situation where what’s supposed to be a skirt for me ends up being a Barbie outfit – we’ll see.

So this is getting older – seeing a display of donut peaches in the Norwich Marks & Spencer Food Hall and getting the kind of excited I used to get checking in to Bleecker Bob’s when the new crop of singles from the UK came in…or when a Village Voice or New York Times with a listing for one of MY gigs hit the stands – now it’s peaches: they’re here, they’re here…oh wait, they’re from Spain not England. Do the English grow peaches? They have the best word for the little box they come in — a punnet. Is getting older being disproportionately pleased with things like peaches and words like punnet? Probably. A punnet of peaches.

Still, I just sent my book off to the copy editor. I haven’t retired for god’s sake. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to afford to do that. Every new activity I try I see as a potential possible future income stream. That doesn’t make these experiments any less pleasurable.

My daughter’s getting married in the fall and I have to figure out what to wear. “Mother of the bride” – a role I never knew I was born to play! Every person I tell here in England says “ooh you’ll need a hat.” I always loved hats but the idea of hiking one over to the US, wearing it in possibly steaming Los Angeles weather, we’ll see. But the dress, the dress. And Eric and I have to coordinate our outfits somehow, and strike a balance between dress to impress and not embarrassing ourselves and everyone else. Is this getting older? If we’re lucky it is. I am so happy and excited for this wedding. And Hazel has her dress, that’s what really matters.

Getting older is sitting around a table at dinner with friends and realizing every person in the group has dealt with cancer or other life-threatening illness (cue that annoying Covid/vaccine-denying guy who even showed up to comment on my Brian Wilson post, you’re blocked asshole so go away and preach to your followers). “Everyone at the table except me” I said, but Eric reminded me I’ve had skin cancer surgery on both sides of my nose, it wasn’t life-threatening but scary and definitely debilitating. But we are here and survival is a gift and not to be taken for granted.

Getting older is barely making it through two episodes of Lena Dunham’s new series Too Much, gasping “I’m so glad I’m not young anymore!” while deciding somewhere in the middle of the second episode that this. stops. here. I’m no Lena-basher, we loved and of course sometimes hated Girls in this house (well, in our last house) and I squeal with delight anytime Too Much actor Megan Stalter is on screen in Hacks. But this show just lies there. I was so bored, and I can be happy watching pretty much anything.

Maybe part of it is jealousy: “Why can’t I make a series about my big move to England, and cast…I don’t know – Linda Cardellini to play a younger, cuter me? Eric could be played by…let’s see —Daniel Craig, in his first (?) comedic role!” Yes I guess this is getting older too, seeing someone do a thing and saying “God if you’d just let me at it, I would do it better!” When, if ever, does that feeling go away?

I met a woman at a concert the other night. The show was held at the beautiful stately home our friend Simon owns. He’s a rare book dealer and also a writer and he had Eric accompany him for a forty minute set of autobiographical material that is sort of like poetry, very compelling. He’s just a magical figure, as is his house, Voewood. The woman I met had bought one of my framed prints and it made me feel so proud, I know I’ve printed loads of tea towels, shirts and totes but this was framed to hang on the wall and it really touched me to think she wanted to look at it every day. I know I’m an artist but I feel a need for it to all be applied art, to serve some purpose (shirt, towel, song, book) so this felt like an elevation – art for art’s sake. It’s an idea to work towards. The important thing is one doesn’t have to nullify the other. You can do both. I long to visit Charleston, the home of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant who were painters, artists, designers and bohemian in every sense of the word- the high and the low; the useful and the gratuitously lovely.

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Also at Voewood, after Simon did his set, there was a performance by an accomplished poet and comedian Luke Wright – he made us all laugh and think, was so open and endearing with his poems, and inspiring. The next night Eric and I went to our local new tavern The Peasants to see one of the owners play a set of covers—not expecting much as there’s a lot of that around here – well Adam the owner was just so good. He played his Martin really well and sang great. I want to play in this local pub, just to have a gig where we live. Nobody around here knows anything about me, that I’ve been writing songs and making records, touring for nearly forty years. They think of me as Eric’s wife. He’s an icon, a legend in this country and rightly so. It’s humbling to be at square one around here, even though I’ve been in all the UK music mags and newspapers over the years, played weekly on Marc Riley and Gideon Coe’s BBC 6 Music show last year! (I list my achievements not to dazzle you so much as to remind myself I have a few fans and supporters in this country) But I really just want to play in the local pub and connect with my neighbors somehow, and do a good enough job that I can hold my head up shopping at the supermarket the next day.

So imagining myself there in the pub, playing my songs and maybe a cover or two, I thought it would be good to have a poem about …being in this place. It’s a start anyways. There are always new things to learn and try— maybe I’m not really ready to “get older” all the way, yet.

But I do have my eye on this terra cotta gazing ball…

Here’s the poem I’m working on A Yank In North Walsham:

Yank In North Walsham

My husband said we can live near the sea

That sounded pretty good to me

They got Waitrose and a Sainsbury

I’m a Yank in North Walsham

Black Swan, White Swan, choose your poison

Chubby Panda, duck with hoisin

We have QD, what’s Roy’s all about then?

I’m a Yank in North Walsham

Coasthopper me, down the road to Mundesley

Out on the beach, to catch some sun

We …are nobody here without a dog, hon

Just a man and his Yank in North Walsham

Work in the yard, oops sorry—garden

Neighbors say they beg our pardon

Silver chard gives us all a hard-on

Yank in North Walsham

My husband declares “I’ve ordered a third shed”

A man’s wealth is measured in sheds, he said

I’m a shed widow, and he ain’t even dead

I’m a Yank in North Walsham

Sipping tea at Shambles, or at Peasants Real Ale

Hear a retiree tell a long, sad tale

About his wife’s IBS and all that entails

I’m a Yank in North Walsham

American friends ask to reserve

Now they have the leader even they don’t deserve

We got sheds out the ass, and we’re here to serve

Send those Yanks to North Walsham

Coffeesmith, Boots, PACT clothing drop

England’s premier thatched kebab shop

Lonely Travel Hub where the buses stop

I’m a Yank in North Walsham

“Where are you in Norfolk?” posh people say

We tell them North Walsham and they kinda look away

Say “Hmm I’ve never been” well, let’s keep it that way

I’m A Yank in North Walsham

If I look like some fish out of water

I’m no different than you — just a wife, mother, daughter

Sister, songwriter, cook, bottle scrubber,

Driver, dancer, dreamer, lover,

I did it all before and I’ll do it again,

Right here where the A149 Bypass ends

I’ve seen a lot, but there’s nothing like glimpsin’

The sun setting low over the car park Timpson

If they don’t have it at Sainsbury’s I probably don’t need it

It’s only life and right here I’m gonna lead it

A Yank in North Walsham

Summertime, and the living is

Hi there, I wanted to write a carefully-shaped piece for you about summer in England: the heat wave that unleashes something in the national character, unaccustomed as they are to exposing so much of their flesh.

I wanted to tell you that we saw an incredible concert by Pulp, how Jarvis Cocker is one of the greatest performers I’ve ever seen and I can’t get their new song Spike Island out of my head.

Waiting for Pulp in Birmingham

Maybe I was going to describe to you the delights of our English garden, how I can spend hours out there without being attacked by mosquitoes, wasps, hornets, deer ticks or poison ivy. This, this is why the English have such beautiful gardens! They’re not fighting nature all the time, the UK really is a garden spot, not a swamp or desert or a combination of the two like back in the US.

Imagine sitting outside at dusk without mosquitoes! I do miss the fireflies though…

I could go into detail about my quest to dress – it’s not even the heat, which is nothing too much really, it’s just being in a new season (summer) in a new land (England) in a new part of my life which is just being a little bit (a lot?) heavier than I’ve always been, sick of wearing black all the time, not onstage much this summer so not sure who I am, and being surrounded here in the UK by ubiquitous brands and stores that make a clear divide between older lady (Boden, Sea Salt, Joules) and younger (Fat Face, White Stuff, Next) and rich lady (Toast, Barbour, Liberty) and the rest of us (Mountain Warehouse, Cotton Traders, T.K.Maxx, charity shops Cancer Research, Sue Ryder, British Heart Foundation). I know my next goal is to sew some clothes of my own BUT

Everything has been on hold. As I had to finish my book. One last (dear god please let it be the last, it has to be the last as I’m getting this thing out in the fall) revision. I was all set to breeze through it in a week.

Then I made the mistake of reading Keith McNally’s book, I Regret Almost Everything. Now why did I even choose this memoir/autobiography? I have never eaten in one of his restaurants (Odeon, Balthazar, Pastis) though I probably stood with my nose pressed up against the glass of Odeon a few times when I lived in NYC and could never afford to eat there. For some reason I started seeing his posts in my Instagram feed and started following him and being delighted. Who was this character? He’s been touting his book and I’d just finished Molly Jong-Fast’s and needed another read, fast- I’d spent Molly’s book whipsawing between terror (I AM Erica, I am a selfish monster selling out my family and friends in my writing) and anger at Molly (you ungrateful TWAT, plus I TOTALLY UNDERSTAND) – see that’s another thing I could tell you , how my thoughts have started running with British phrases, I would never be so pretentious as to USE them out loud but started calling people wankers and worse in my head, saying “lovely” a lot and even told Eric “the boy done good” when he’d executed an excellent bit of parking. See how it all creeps in?

Anyway, Keith’s book – well, the whole way through I kept thinking and even saying out loud “this is one of the best books I’ve ever read” – it was just so honest and delightful and sad and funny. But one thing that hit me, or dawned on me, crept up on me as I was reading and while finishing my own book everything I read relates back to that –

I HAD to rewrite my entire book in past tense. Why had a put it in present tense a year or two ago? I’d started in past, “I walked…we met…I fucked up” etc but parts I was having trouble getting through I’d hit on the idea of writing as if it was all happening right then. That approach had allowed me to finish a draft, and I’d revised a draft that way BUT reading Keith McNally’s excellent, devastating memoir, where he never lets himself off the hook for anything, I realized past is the only way to not throttle yourself for your behavior. Past is the only way to have some kindness for yourself and choices you made.

So I went back and rewrote the entire 98,000 words and I like to think it was the right thing. Healing even. The character I found myself disliking quite a lot (myself) came off at least a little better through the filter of retrospect.

We’ll see. I just typed The End. Again. At last.

Coming out this fall

Let the wind blow…

I was going to talk to you about summer in England: the bouquets I’ve been putting together with flowers out of our beautiful garden; the lampshade-making class I took deep in the Norfolk countryside; the glorious purple-sprouting broccoli Eric’s managed to grow. I was going to share about my hopefully just-about-finished book (am I on draft five or six and do I even have the heart and nerve to publish this thing?). I was all set to start moaning about the quest to yet again accept and even enjoy my relationship with eyeglasses.

Flowers picked and that handmade lampshade – maybe we can get to these next time

But Brian Wilson died yesterday and it’s hard to think about anything else, even the alarming state of things in the US and the world. Worrying has to take a backseat to thinking about Brian – his music means so much to me—to many of us— that to gloss over his passing just doesn’t feel right.

Everybody has their Beach Boys, some of my friends and peers knew Brian and have personal stories. I hope my reflections are a jumping off point for your own experience of one of the undeniable musical geniuses of our time. (I don’t want to give the impression I didn’t feel great sadness and deep appreciation for Sly Stone’s music after his passing just a few days ago – but for me with Brian it’s personal, though the Shams my female trio did attempt a cover of Sly’s Everybody Is A Star which thankfully never left the kitchen table rehearsal!)

First there was fandom and that started for me as a kid – I’m a fickle appreciator and things tend to ebb and flow, but I loved the Beach Boys hits in the sixties. I feel sure that along with the Mamas and Papas, Cowsills and Peter Paul and Mary they helped create my intense love of harmony singing. Brian, Carl and Dennis were brothers and since I had four of my own, I think that appealed to me too.

While they were reinventing themselves as something much cooler and more cosmic, early Beach Boys had a resurgence in the 70s when their Greatest Hits Endless Summer was released and in my high school they were huge with the jock set or “cakes” a holdover term from an earlier era where kids wore white socks with penny loafers. Every beer bash/keg party seemed to peak with a singalong to one of their hits. This is from an early draft of Girl To City, my first memoir:

“I discovered that alcohol wasn’t just for babysitting when I got drunk at a party. After a few Budweisers, I danced like mad to Help Me Ronda and other Beach Boy classics, then staggered outside to throw up behind a bush and was suddenly considered fun and crazy.”

Beach Boys at the Civic Arena 1975 – I wanted to believe Brian was there, hidden behind a grand piano, but I don’t think he would’ve been. Saw them again at Three Rivers Stadium with Gary Wright and Peter Frampton the next summer – it was a party atmosphere with beach balls bouncing around the crowd on the field in front of the stage. They definitely did the business.

The band receded for me during the punk days, but when I got together with Will Rigby, a whole new world opened up. He made me a cassette I keep to this day. This is from Girl To City:

“I was inspired by all the records from his LP collection Will played for me: Gram Parsons and Doug Sahm, Merle Haggard and George Jones, Bill Monroe, The Delmore Brothers. He made me a multi-cassette, pre-Biograph career-spanning collection of Dylan, and did the same with the Beach Boys who were his absolute favorite group. I’d grown up loving their harmonies but had only known the sunny, striped-shirt side of the band. I didn’t know about Brian Wilson’s tortured soul and the sadness that was behind every shimmering melody, though I’d always gotten a general wistful feeling listening to them. The day he played me a bootleg copy of Smile, I felt like the few times I’d taken LSD, or the first day I’d tasted pastrami back at University Deli my freshman year of college. With one bite – with one listen – the world was suddenly a more complex and interesting place.”

For a few years in the 1980s East Village of Manhattan, I sang Christmas carols with Sue Garner and Amanda Uprichard who were part of the original Last Roundup. Later as a trio we became the Shams. Caroling was a chance to wear festive thrift shop outfits and try out any backup, harmony or cheesy pop arrangement idea we could think of, as long as it was portable, as we traveled around the neighborhood on foot surprising friends in their tenement walk-up apartments. One year, with an old bandmate of Sue’s from Atlanta named Stan Satin, we attempted the Beach Boys’ Little Saint Nick – God it was hard. The chord changes came so fast, and the melody tested even our young twenty-something lungs. But finishing it each time felt like we’d (almost) scaled Mount Olympus.

My first marriage, to fellow musician Will Rigby took place at Old St Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan’s Little Italy, 1985. This is from a draft of Girl To City:

“I trusted Will when it came to music. So when he suggested a Beach Boys song to be played on the big Italian pipe organ by New Jersey musician and long-time dB’s friend Fran Kowalski, I thought that sounded great. I’d loved the band since childhood and Will had woo’ed me with cassettes that deepened my appreciation.

It made sense on the surface. We were going for a traditional wedding, with traditional vows. “Until death do us part.” I was raised Catholic, where marriage was forever. So the title and refrain of the song “Til I Die” seemed beautifully poetic.

But the lyrics were a hymn to loneliness:

I’m a cork on the ocean

Floating over a raging sea

How deep is the ocean

I’m a rock in a landslide

Rolling over the mountainside

How deep is the valley?

It kills my soul, hey hey hey

I’m a leaf on a windy day

Pretty soon I’ll be blown away

How long does the wind blow?

These things I’ll be until I die

These things I’ll be until I die

I was too in love to call into question the basic premise of the lyric, echoed in the poignant melody and chords, that said we are all essentially alone.”

It’s odd, seeing so many people post this track, one of Brian Wilson’s greatest compositions and a rare one where he didn’t collaborate with a lyricist (like Burt Bacharach we often don’t think to credit his co-writers) when I think: “that was my wedding song.”

The Shams learned The Farmers Daughter off of Will’s copy of a Fleetwood Mac 45 – that band covering the Beach Boys during sessions for Tusk. We worked it up to play live, maybe even considered recording it, but Yo La Tengo performed it with us at a Chicago show we opened for them and beat us to it, as an outtake of their May I Sing With Me album.

At Joe McGinty’s Loser’s Lounge tribute to Brian Wilson I gamely attempted This Whole World, finding a way in through the Spring album (Spring was Marilyn Wilson and her sister Diane), the hippie girl group singing more approachable than the Beach Boys unassailable version. Like with Little Saint Nick, probably an instance of my reach exceeding my grasp – or is it the other way around? The subtle chord changes come so fast and the melody scales heights most mortals can only wave at.

Recording Diary Of A Mod Housewife in Los Angeles, 1996 (from Girl To City):

“We’d finished at Messenger’s and moved on to Mark Linett’s studio in Glendale. Mark had a homey basement studio – if home happened to feature a graceful swimming pool, lush landscaping, a trio of Scottish terriers straight off a forties holiday card and the original recording console from Western Studios. He had recently sat with Brian Wilson at this very desk mixing Pet Sounds in stereo for the first time and still had the master tapes and a note from Brian scrawled on a chalkboard next to the dartboard and studio clock. Mark was a sweet, quiet man with endless patience and focus, and a sly sense of humor that came out around Elliot – they had a brotherly, almost competitive relationship.”

Brian cohort and Love & Mercy producer/co-writer Andy Paley came in to sing on my album opener Time For Me To Come Down. His backing vocals with Elliot (Easton of the Cars, who produced my album and had also played on Brian’s album) were magic and I felt like I’d been dusted with whatever people come to L.A. to partake of—pretty near close to perfect.

I got to see Brian play in 1999 at the Beacon Theatre courtesy of my friend music journalist Scott Schinder. The first-ever solo tour, with the wonderful Wondermints backing and Jeffrey Foskett filling in when Brian’s falsetto faltered – it had the feeling of living history even as it was going on, like “this may not ever happen again and we’re witnessing it.” But it was only the beginning of those Pet Sounds-focused shows. Amazing. I wish Scott were still alive, I know there’s a funny story about when Brian came out after for his birthday cake. It’s been two years since Scott died and any time one of our heroes dies, I think I’ll hear from him and then remember. This time with Brian Wilson maybe more than anyone else. You have these friends that are connected to enjoyment and appreciation of certain artists, Scott holds that place for a lot of greats in my mind.

I also associate Scott with me and my husband Eric getting together, though that’s a story you’ll need to read in my soon to be second memoir Girl To Country. But it leads me to Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby’s Two Way Family Favourites, the second album Eric and I made as a duo when we were living in the French countryside. In My Room is one of my top five favorite songs of all time (Brian Wilson and Gary Usher) and when Eric and I were choosing the covers for this album, it felt like a huge pressure to tackle it. Again – we could only do our human best and even further appreciate the level of not just genius but exacting standards that created the Beach Boys version. Enough to drive a person mad. I don’t think we ever attempted to play it live, it was just too hard, but I felt like we captured the spirit in this cover.

https://wrecklessericamyrigby.bandcamp.com/track/in-my-room

Like Elton John, I think Brian’s superhuman abilities make it nearly impossible to blithely jump into their shoes, where as Bob Dylan, as peerless as he is, invites you to come on in and slouch or stalk around.

When we moved to upstate New York in 2011 and I started working at The Spotty Dog bookstore/bar, it gave me a great opportunity to not only meet the locals and become part of the Hudson community, which I miss dearly, but also TIME TO LISTEN TO MUSIC while I worked. I brought in many CDs as streaming was new to me (to everyone? We’d kind of fallen behind with things living in France) and nothing felt worse than when the wifi signal crapped out and total silence fell over the bar. CDs were perfect to keep a continuous flow going and I wore out Friends/20/20 as it seemed to fit the bill for just about any time of the day or evening. True I would sometimes dive over a co-worker to fast forward past Cottonfields, but it’s still pretty amazing, just the mid teens I felt more aware of cultural appropriation, and that track felt wrong somehow. When the Friends/20/20 disc started skipping, I moved on to Sunflower. I left a lot of CDs there in the pile at Spotty, and feel sure that in ten or twenty years time, behind a pile of bar rags and craft brewery coasters, they’ll still be there, their plastic cases sticky and scratched, the artwork as nostalgic as tintype photos.

In 2017 I did my first solo touring in over a decade, playing a few gigs in Texas. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever go back to play in Texas again—but when I think about time I’ve spent down there I do have some really happy memories. At the end of this short run, Scott (Schinder again) who’d moved from Queens to Austin some years before, offered to take me to see Brian Wilson at the new ACL venue downtown. It was the Pet Sounds Final Performances tour, the first set a whole array of hits and deep cuts, the second the entire Pet Sounds album. I admit I was worried it wouldn’t equal the Beacon show…had it really been almost twenty years since? There’d been touring and so much love for Pet Sounds since then. But every note felt perfect, Brian sat twenty feet in front of us, facing the audience behind a piano, it didn’t matter he needed help with the words, because the love from the musicians, from the audience and the man who created this world flowed from the stage out and back and lit up Brian’s face, how often do you get to say thank you, thank you for making my life better, for setting a standard, for daring to dream and try and fail and do it all again, whatever the cost? Scott wasn’t the sunniest guy but he was glowing. I can’t not cry when I think about that night. It was perfect.

Most beautiful painting of Brian Wilson I only just learned is by David Anderle

So back in April I was in Los Angeles, and played a Wild Honey Backyard Concert with the cool sixties painting of Brian Wilson looking out at the audience from the back of the stage. They’d done an Andy Paley tribute the night before and I hadn’t been there but the warmth of Paul Rock and David Jenkins and all the Wild Honey folks recounting what sounded like a beautiful night made me feel like I was part of this whole family and it all swirls around music and LA and the Beach Boys the patron saints, and when someone said Brian wasn’t well enough to attend, it made me want to hear Love and Mercy, the song, and I asked Siri to play it in my rental vehicle. You know how it’ll repeat if you don’t tell it to play something else – well Love and Mercy repeated as I left Eagle Rock to drive over to Glendale. It played again and again as I drove back over to Hollywood or wherever I went. I couldn’t turn it off. I wanted it to play forever, it is that flawless a record. I remembered the exact moment Will Rigby brought the album home and dropped the needle on this opener, the title track, back in 1988 before our daughter was born. It was the sound of hope and sunshine. I’m glad she lives in Los Angeles now. Brian’s gone but thank god for him and all he did. We have his music to listen to, but I still feel so sad that he’s not here anymore in this world he elevated.