055: Martha Redbone
[Photo by Christine Jean Chambers]
Good Morning! This is Play It Like It’s Music. I’m Trevor, thanks for listening.
On Wednesday, September 9th of 2020 Music Is Not Content. It’s connection.
It’s summertime and love is in the air.
Actually, love is always in the air if you know where to smell. (Whomp whomp. )
But for real, you may have been noticing a pattern with my episodes so far this year: there have been several couples in the lineup lately. It’s a thing, definitely. I am fascinated by couples who create music together professionally. I’m fascinated by the dynamics, and I am fascinated by the amazing music they make both together and independently of each other.
We are about to continue this trend, and I’m happy to lean into it for this moment while we’re all in quarantine, getting cozy, weathering the storm… sometimes maybe getting a little too close for comfort or perhaps blowing the occasional gasket. Because believe me, there is nobody more intense than musicians. In general and especially in relationship. (That’s a claim you may be able to fact check yourself. I’ll leave it right here in the open.)
We have heard from several artists who are also in couples: you can check out our episodes with Katya and Chris from Break Out The Crazy, Celia and Simon from PettyChavez, more recently we had Mark Marshall and Abby Ahmad… and I’m still working on getting some others done with Kieran O’Hare who works and lives with Liz Knowles, Dwight Richter from Dwight and Nicole and a few others we’ve had in the lineup.
[photo by Molly Magnusson]
Today we’re going to hear from the one and only Martha Redbone, and next week we will hear from the one and only Aaron Whitby. Both of them are stellar musicians: she’s a legit superstar and he’s an incredible pianist, artist and bandleader who also happens to be Martha’s M.D.
(That’s M.D. in the musical - not medical - sense. Musical Director. Martha and Aaron create everything together, and when they’re not taking care of business they can be found raising their family in Brooklyn.)
[Martha Redbone at the Met Museum Cherokee Day, photo by Don Pollard]
But let me take a stab at why I find musical couples so fascinating, because they are.
I’m going to hit you with a quote from Peter Thiel*:
“The best thing I did as a manager at PayPal was to make every person in the company responsible for doing just one thing…. Most fights inside a company happen when colleagues compete for the same responsibilities.”
That’s from his book, Zero To One.
*Now don’t bite my head off because I get it, people hate Peter Thiel. They hate him for being a Trump guy, they hate him for pulling the strings all over big tech, spying on everybody, they hate him specifically for taking out Gawker and in general for being a notably cutthroat capitalist. That’s fine, but he’s also pretty interesting and he’s so good at debating that he can usually elucidate his opponent’s point of view better than they can. Anyway, I’m talking about Love and Music, so let’s stick with that.
The point is that music is a hustler’s game.
Finding love is hard, you all know that. There are a lot of moving parts and a lot of scary choices to make. Finding success in music, I’ll submit, might be even harder. More moving parts! Scarier choices!
And many, many “similar responsibilities” for people in close quarters to compete over: you have writing, producing, booking, PR, art direction, day-to-day management… all kinds of stuff, 24-7 that can turn loyal bandmates into a simmering cauldron of discontent.
All of that, with no PayPal fortune to fight over either.
So the fact that there are people in this world who do both things at once, Love and Music, together is just flat-out amazing to me. I love sharing these moments with members of couples who work in music. One thing that sticks out is how good they are at both supporting each other and staying out of each other’s way.
So take that, Peter Thiel.
Thanks for letting me get that off my chest, now let’s talk about Martha Redbone.
[photo by Ebru Yildiz]
Martha Redbone is a Native & African-American vocalist/songwriter/composer/educator. She is known for her unique gumbo of folk, blues and gospel from her childhood in Harlan County, Kentucky infused with the eclectic grit of pre-gentrified Brooklyn. Inheriting the powerful vocal range of her gospel-singing African American father and the resilient spirit of her mother’s Cherokee/Shawnee/Choctaw culture, she broadens the boundaries of American Roots music. With songs and storytelling that share her life experience as a Native and Black woman and mother in the new millennium, Martha gives voice to issues of social justice, bridging traditions from past to present, connecting cultures, and celebrating the human spirit.
“The Garden of Love” is her most recent album. It’s an absolutely stunning project that puts the poetry of William Blake to music.
She just won a Drama Desk award for Outstanding Music in a Play (beating out the legendary Steve Earle) with an original score in the revival of “for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf” at the Public Theater, NYC.
She and Aaron have also just been announced as part of this season’s Artistic Instigators series, to develop new original work at the NY Theater Workshop.
And in case that’s not enough, Martha Redbone is currently in development with her own new work “Black Mountain Women” at The Public Theater. It is a timely musical about the ongoing environmental destruction of her ancestral homeland in Appalachia told through the lives of 4 generations of women in her matriarchal Cherokee family.
I find Martha’s music and performances to be just incredible. I’ve been a fan since the first album and check in on their show as regularly as I can. Her voice is huge and her stage presence is both classy and energetic. She’s powerful in that way where you just feel lucky to be walking on the same planet.
Today she’s sharing an amazing and sensitive story about the first time she was ever called upon to sing in a studio, it’s the literal beginning of her career and I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Check it out:
Press PLAY above to hear my convo with Martha Redbone.
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[Photo by Michael Weintrob]
Thanks for listening to Play It Like It’s Music. Thanks so much to Martha Redbone for spending some very generous time with us. You can find her at Martha Redbone Roots Dot Com, follow her on IG @martharedbone and definitely pick up her albums on Bandcamp.
Come back next week and we will hang with the amazing Aaron Whitby.
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We're all contending with a mutating professional landscape, jacked revenue streams, a catastrophic global pandemic and plenty of other noise out in the culture.
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As always, thank you for listening and remember to play it like its music.
You can check out my music on bandcamp and other places. It’s all at my website, trevorexter.com. Sign the mailing list on substack to get this show sent right to you the very moment it comes out. Consider hiring me to score your piece, do some cello, teach you lessons, produce your show or back you up onstage.
Music is a beautiful thing and it makes the world go round.
Big love to your ears.
Trevor
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