From This Moment On (33 page)

You know what else kind of caught me off guard initially? The very American propensity to happily share personal information with a perfect stranger. A store clerk might say to me, “Well, hello there,
how can I help you today? My name is Jennifer if you need anything, honey.” Responding in an equally laid-back, uninhibited manner sometimes got me bombarded with personal questions as well as intimate secrets on the other side, whether I asked for it or not, and sometimes the information just kept coming, like, “You know, I tried that shirt on when it first came in, but my husband told me I was too fat to wear bright colors, so I decided to just stick to black instead. I think your color is red. You’re a bright-color person, I can tell. Are you married? Does your husband like color or does he prefer more subtle tones? Sometimes I think we worry too much about what men think, don’t you agree?” I was taken by this friendliness, and it made me feel welcome.

In addition to this warm, personal charm, among the many other things that I would grow to love about the South was its food, primarily since I was still a carnivore back then. “Meat ’n’ threes,” a local staple, became a regular thing for me because it was not only cheap but also home cooked. The components vary, but as the name suggests, you get one serving of a meat dish plus three sides. I fell in love with corn bread, which I’d never tasted before, and iced tea was new to me, too. In Ontario, when you ask for tea, you get hot tea. In the South, if you don’t specify “hot,” you automatically get iced tea.

Since I was from the North, living in the South took a serious cultural adjustment. When I saw chicken-fried steak on a menu for the first time, I was perplexed; I just could not imagine what on earth that could be. Didn’t really matter: I was never able to wrap my head around the idea of eating steak coated in batter and deep-fried like Kentucky Fried Chicken, so I avoided it. I shamelessly became a pig for barbecue, though. Seeing this on a menu, I asked the waitress, “Barbecued
what
?” Was it steak? Chicken? She patiently explained that
barbecue
was just the way of cooking but referred specifically to pork meat smoked slowly on the barbecue, with a spicy sauce that was to die for. Thinking about my porking out on this Southern delight now makes me feel guilty, as it was not only very fattening, it was an animal, after all, something I wouldn’t take any pleasure in
eating now. One might wonder why, if I enjoyed these meat dishes so much, I would stop eating them. I became a vegetarian after reading a book called
Diet for a New America
by John Robbins, which Mutt gave me not long after my arrival in Nashville, nearing twenty years ago now. I’m sure my heart and waistline are now better off, too. My carnivorous days are over, and I say that with great conviction.

If only my adjustment to the music business had been as easy as my transition to my new home.

PolyGram’s decision for me to record other people’s songs and not my own was disappointing but not surprising. I understood when I got to Nashville that I would have to prove myself and that it was not all just going to fall in my lap overnight. I viewed my situation as a good start and continued to write constantly in my apartment. I fully believed that if I were patient and persevered, I would get my chance to shine as a songwriter in the not-too-distant future.

But I have to say, most of the music pitched to me for that first album was formulaic, cookie-cutter stuff. One thing, however, that did impress me of the countless listening sessions was the sonic quality of the recordings. They were only demos, but the musicianship and arrangements sounded
so good;
I couldn’t wait to hear what my actual, finished CD would sound like when it was all recorded and mixed. But the songs just weren’t there. Part of the reason for that had to do with my place in the Nashville artist hierarchy. In short, I was not part of it! I was this newcomer from another country and somewhat against the grain in every way. Artists are always looking for hit songs to record, and that includes country music stars, who typically got the pick of the choicest material. Hey, if you’re a songwriter or the song’s publisher, it stands to reason that you would give your strumming hand to have your pride and joy adopted by a megastar with platinum record sales. I was at the bottom of the first picks.

Likewise, I agreed with PolyGram’s suggestion that I try collaborating with other songwriters in town. These writing sessions were booked like doctors’ appointments: you sat in an office at a publishing
company and had three hours or so to be artistically productive while the clock ticked down. I found it difficult to write anything worthwhile in such a setting and under time pressure. It’s just not conducive to creativity. I did manage to place one song of mine on the first album, “God Ain’t Gonna Getcha for That,” but I think it was accepted only because I’d cowritten the tune with a proven hit maker named Kent Robbins, a future member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. Our song was not a hit, but it was a pleasant experience writing with Kent, and I remember him fondly as being easy to get along with and kind to me as a newcomer. Tragically, he died in a car accident at only fifty years old.

Timed sessions booked by appointment were how I was experiencing the recording scene in Nashville. It harked back to the compartmentalization that existed in popular music prior to the early 1960s. Musicians played instruments, singers sang, and songwriters wrote songs, as if each were a specialist. Today many singers don’t rely on songwriters for their hits; that is not unique to any period of music history. Some artists are performers only and others are on the other end of the creative process as writers, arrangers, producers, and vocalists as well. There were the exceptions, of course, those who were multitalented, such as Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Johnny Cash, just three examples of stars who wrote their own material as well as performed it. But the Beatles, probably more than any other musical act, advanced the idea that a group could be a self-contained unit and record its own songs rather than rely on outside writers—much to the dismay of veteran tunesmiths and lyricists. However, on Nashville’s Music Row, song-penning factories similar to Manhattan’s old Brill Building still flourished.

Even the recording of the album itself fell short of what I had envisioned. I’d expected that the sessions would be crackling with energy and ideas, like what I’d seen in documentary clips of Elvis Presley. He would jam with his band in the studio for days on end, going over and over the same tune until everything felt just right, then cut the track. Same thing with the Beatles. Some of what they
went into the studio with were songs they were regularly playing live already, but much was also worked out in the studio, experimenting with blends, sounds, grooves; many classic ideas were discovered by the live jamming itself, allowing room for the magic to unfold in its own time. This was what my perception of making a record was.

Recording my debut felt more like knocking out commercial jingles than record making. Given the limited budget, we zipped in and out of Harold Shedd’s Music Mill studio in a few three-hour sessions, and that was it. Game over. The recording process was fast and efficient. The session musicians, to their credit, were quick to learn their parts, professional and slick, but they were booked tight, and so everyone’s eyes were on the clock, with no time to play around. There was little room to experiment with musical parts or arrangements, as that would have interfered with the assembly-line approach.

As for me, I was afforded little artistic input. During playbacks, the engineers would ask me, “You happy, Eilleen?” “How d’ya like it?” and I’d just nod, because it seemed pretty clear my opinion wouldn’t change anything had I been candid and said that I wanted to try something different or even that I liked it but wanted to work on it some more. The budget drove the limit on our time in the studio, and the engineer’s and producer’s jobs were to stay within budget. It was pretty much like a waiter asking if you’re finished with your meal after he’s already cleared the plates. Still hungry or not, you’re done as far as he’s concerned. Overall, my fantasy of what the recording process would be was not to be. Nevertheless, we were recording in the Music Mill, where countless gold and platinum records had been recorded over the years and that, along with the friendly, warm studio gang of engineers and technicians, kept some of the magic alive for me.

When I arrived in Nashville, I was firm and bold about my creative ideas and career vision. It didn’t take long, however, before I was warned that I’d better learn to keep such thoughts to myself. I have never been a complainer, but as my frustration grew throughout the recording process, I began to share my discontent over some of
the material and explained that I was feeling trapped and disheartened by the rigid system of recording. I missed jamming with other musicians and just playing music. I felt that I was being treated like I was just some silly but decent-looking girl from the North who could sing pretty well, and here they were giving me my shot, and therefore I needed to shut up and do what I was told. I was disillusioned in thinking that I, as the artist, was supposed to be part of making the record, not just doing the vocals. I wanted to be involved, not only come in, sing my part, and leave the rest to the producers and engineers.

I was passionate about music but also pragmatic. When you are starting out, you usually don’t have much choice. I wisely tempered my attitude to avoid being viewed as a troublemaker and being dropped from the label before my record even came out in the spring of 1993. My attitude was to view this as the first step of a long journey. If I played my cards right, I’d get another opportunity to make a record that was more artistically satisfying to me. So for as long as I could without getting myself in trouble, I kept my disappointment, and my opinions, to myself.

With the frustration of having to bite my tongue rather often during the onset of my recording career, I had to talk myself out of losing my cool (
Keep your shirt on, Eilleen
), all the while trying to contend with guys trying to take my shirt off. My pants, too, for that matter. Cripes! I’ll give you an example:

I came across a songwriter who seemed to share my feelings about writing when inspiration struck as opposed to punching a time clock. He’d enjoyed some success placing a few of his compositions with country artists, and with a decent publishing deal, too, and I thought it was cool of him to agree to work with a newcomer like me.
For privacy’s sake, let’s refer to him as Dick. (I really did choose that name arbitrarily just now. Honest.)

The two of us had been working on songs together all day at his home outside of Nashville. Since it was very late and a long drive for me, we’d agreed that I would stay over. His wife had already gone to bed. I went off to my room and wasn’t long under the sheets when Dick came creeping in. Bending down over me, he whispered, “Are you awake? Can I join you?” I guess he thought he’d just hop right on in and help himself. My reaction was sharp and abrupt. I reprimanded him as you would a pesky child, asking him what the hell he thought he was doing. I let him know that, firstly, I was surprised by his indecent proposal and, secondly, I was
soooo
not interested.

I wondered what in the world gave Dick the idea that I was attracted to him, but then I felt a dirty chill come over me when it dawned on me: that was just it, he didn’t actually care if I was attracted to him or not. He saw me as a struggling singer-songwriter, far from home, new in town, vulnerable—and therefore available. I guessed his thinking was that if I gave him what he wanted, I’d fall for the trap of believing that he’d help me out professionally somehow in return. Yeah, right! I was so disgusted and discouraged about human nature at that moment. Weary, too. It seemed like a woman performer just could not avoid these humiliating encounters. Dick acted resentful and cold to me the next morning. I have never seen him since. Gross!

In those first few years of my adult career, I began to recognize a trend that I hadn’t experienced as a child artist. The suggestion that a young, attractive girl gets to the top only by sleeping her way there was becoming annoyingly recurrent. Jealous women who create rumors that you’ve slept your way up and disrespectful men who attempt to make reality of it. I was quickly becoming fed up with this childish, spiteful attitude, but just as quickly, I had to learn to let it roll off my back and not allow such negative distractions to affect me too personally.

Another sweaty-palms experience involved an older gentleman
who, again for privacy reasons, we will call Henry. He was handsome, popular, and very well respected in the entire country music industry. Henry spoke softly in a soothing Southern drawl that exuded kindliness. I liked Henry. He was polite and fun, and he invited me to events and social gatherings as a way to help me get settled in the area. While enthusiastic about my talent, he advised me strongly to keep a tighter lid on my dissatisfaction. I appreciated his support and friendship.

One night Henry invited me to a party at his home. As with the previous events he’d asked me to attend, I expected it to be full of people from the music industry. However, I arrived to find only a few people there, and they would soon be leaving.