Page 34 - The NOISE November 2015

tropic of cornbread: an interview with tony norris
ifeel lucky to have grown up in Flagstaff and to have had the talented singer, songwriter and storyteller Tony Norris visit my classroom when I was but a tadpole of a girl. As a
“grown-up” I’ve had the fun of sharing the stage with Mr. Norris and we’ve had times so good teeth have been lost on stage, tears of laughter have leaked out of our eyeballs and many a practice session has taken place outside of the Campus Coffee Bean. On such an afternoon this autumn we met to talk about music, the radio, and the value of making your own musical noise. Mr. Norris has shared the stage with Stephen Stills, Doc Watson, Greg Brown and “a lot of dead people” (whilst they were still alive.) He starts by telling me about his youth in the heart of Texas.
I was born in a small log cabin that I helped my grandfather build in Parker County, Texas.
Wait ... you helped him build a cabin you were born in?
Yes, I was a small boy when I helped him build it. I’m the next youngest and best looking of eleven children. I’m the 7th son and I can cure warts and my first guitar was purchased with money that was raised by picking up wild pecans along the creek beds and selling them at 6 cents a pound at the local grocery store. My brother Sam picked up those pecans, and he picked up enough of them to buy a 13 dollar Sears and Roebuck guitar. He couldn’t figure out how to play it and I traded him out of it. That was my first guitar.
What did you trade him?
I traded him my bow, some arrows, all of my pocketknives, a bunch of marbles and I don’t know what else — probably everything I owned to get that guitar. I was about 12.
What have your different occupations been over the years?
When I was a boy there wasn’t much any ways of making money except picking up pecans or helping bale hay and load it up in trucks. Some of the jobs I’ve worked at have been grave digging —
Really?
Really... Ditch Digging —
Wait, tell me more about the grave digging!
Haha. Oh ... the first grave I dug I did not get paid for. It was for one of my little nieces that was stillborn. I dug that grave in red clay in Arkansas and I noticed as I was digging in the clay imbedded were little quartz crystals that were perfectly formed. It was like constellations in the Milky Way in that red clay as I was digging that grave ... I’ve managed a caramel corn shop, I’ve worked on the kill floor of a meat packing plant in Rapid City, South Dakota, where I waded up to my knees in clotted blood. I’ve milked cows, I’ve shod horses, I have ploughed with mules and with horses, I have waded out and picked up coal off the bed of a river and loaded it into a boat. I’ve worked in machine shops alongside paroled murders from the Kentucky penal system ... That’s just a few of the things I’ve done.
When did music begin to become more of an occupation?
Well I played music on the side as a hobby pretty much all of my adult life and somewhere in the ‘70s, I suppose, I began to do it semi-professionally. I would get paid a few bucks to play at a pizza parlor for somebody’s company picnic, for a wedding dinner — something like that. It remained a hobby until, must have been 1994 when I began doing it full time.
And your first gig was at Sechrist Elementary when I was in the 3rd grade.
You would like to think that was true. I was a seasoned performer when I walked into your classroom and there were all those shiny, little faces and I decided since it was the Halloween season to scare the piss out of all those cute little kids. And what story did I tell you?
La Llorona.
A story known to many Spanish-speaking children. You still don’t play outside when the moon is full? I once told that story in a gymnasium full of kids. They were all seated on the floor. When the show was over and they all marched out there were little yellow puddles —
No, there were not!
I swear to God! Haha!
When did you start incorporating stories into your sets?
I have always been fascinated by where songs came from. There was a song that I learned and I wanted to know more about it, why the writer came to write it and the circumstances of how I came to learn the song. Or, if it was a song I wrote, what prompted me to write it? As I began to perform songs the audience gave me feedback that helped me to understand that they enjoyed me telling them the prominence of a song. As I would perform songs over and over again, the stories that were linked to the songs became set pieces with the songs. People would ask for stories rather than songs. I realized how important story telling is to people.
What is it that keeps you playing?
Poverty ... ha!
I feel like a lot of the songs you play are older and have gone to the wayside —
Thank you for pointing that out ...
That’s not what I mean!
Can I catch a ride with you? Where you going? (wheezing laughter from everyone at our table)
What I’m trying to say is ... they’re older songs that I feel are endangered species of music —
Sort of run their course ... run out of validity or significance.
No! I mean, if people don’t keep singing them, they’ll fade away.
No sh*%!
They’re older...
Why do I choose to sing the songs I sing?
suggest that there is merit in continuing to sing some of the old songs. I do an old cowboy song, and I point out that the
interview and photo by clair anna rose
only reason that this song is still known is because there was a single instance of it being saved by a doctor in Duluth,“The Colorado Trail.”
I think it’s worth doing. There’s wonderful pearls, treasures — I think that a whole lot of what is to be heard on a whole lot of the stations today is fluff and drivel and is not worthy of being kept. The way our brains operate is if you hear something over and over again — whether it’s a good song
or is well-written is irrelevant — it’s just what you’re used to. It becomes the soundtrack for your life. And that’s the way the popular radio is operating.
Which is why I have been listening to Emmylou Harris Luxury Liner on endless reel for days ...
Part of my philosophy about music, and that includes singing and playing instruments, is that in American culture we’ve been hijacked. In our publics schools when we’re 6, 7, 8 years old, we get told often by our teachers that we can’t sing, that we can’t do art, that we can’t dance, we can’t play an instrument. We buy whole-heartedly into it and it’s reinforced by everything — the media, the industries that control music and recording — We turn over our birthright of singing and making music to a few 14 year old girls with bare midriffs and a couple of guys in straw hats and manicured mustaches in Nashville.
We let them take our birthright and they make our music for us. They sing our songs for us. They write these dreadful, dreadful songs, and they’re driven into our brain by being played over and over again, on all of the stations when every single one of us has a phenomenally unique voice that is perfectly capable of singing our own damn songs, thank you. We have hands and mouths that can play instruments and there’s no replacement.
I lobby for every man, woman and child making their own music, singing their own songs, dancing their own dances. It’s a sad state of affairs that we have gotten into and we need to rise up and take back our songs and our instruments and anything that furthers that cause I’m in favor of. So, quit saying to yourself that you can’t sing, that you can’t play, and get about the business of learning to do that.
I really feel so strongly that my role very, very often is as a facilitator, encouraging people to find their voice, and to step out and be brave and sing in front of others and perform in front of others and that’s the role I embrace.
| Clair Anna Rose and Tony Norris are taking back the airwaves this November with a new radio series showcasing local musicians and songwriters, “Tropic of Cornbread.” Tune in to Radio Free Flagstaff Koii 94.5FM to catch their show. To be a guest in the studio send Ms. Rose a barrage of emails. editor@thenoise.us
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34 • november 2015 • NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us thenoise.us • NOISE arts & news • SEPTEMBER 2015 • 27
interview