{"id":16331,"date":"2019-07-01T11:36:09","date_gmt":"2019-07-01T17:36:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1808656"},"modified":"2019-07-01T11:36:09","modified_gmt":"2019-07-01T17:36:09","slug":"how-brandi-carlile-made-her-way-to-the-grammys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/krky\/music-news\/how-brandi-carlile-made-her-way-to-the-grammys\/","title":{"rendered":"How Brandi Carlile Made Her Way to the Grammys"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Alison Bonaguro<\/a><\/span> 18m ago<\/span><\/span> <\/p>\n

When you listen to Brandi Carlile\u2019s music, especially when it\u2019s live, it is very obvious that that\u2019s what won her those three Grammy Awards in February.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more to her success story than just the songs. In fact, it\u2019s what you hear between the songs that gives you a sense of the time she\u2019s put in.<\/p>\n

On Saturday night (June 29), when Carlile played Chicago\u2019s Huntington Bank Pavilion on a peninsula on Lake Michigan, I listened to everything she said about her path to fame. And how, in her words, her life changed overnight.<\/p>\n

But first let\u2019s go back to Duke\u2019s Clam Chowder House.<\/p>\n

Early in her show, Carlile painted a picture of what the Seattle music scene was like when she first got together with longtime creative partners, brothers Tim and Phil Hanseroth, about 20 years ago. \u201cI don\u2019t know if you remember what was going on in the late 90s, but it was a lot of rock and roll, and a lot of revolutionary grunge and shit. But I can tell you what wasn\u2019t<\/em> going on: our sort of Peter, Paul and Mary attempt at folk music from inside the walls of my rental house in Ravensdale.<\/p>\n

\u201cBack then, we were playing a lot of chowder houses. We played every Duke\u2019s Clam Chowder House from Green Lake to Alki. And we played a place called Bill Medin\u2019s Ravioli Station, every Friday night. It was a gas station refurbished into a ravioli restaurant,\u201d Carlile said.<\/p>\n

In other words, those Grammy wins that changed everything for Carlile in 2019 took years of dues paying. And the rewards for all of it include the said Grammy trophies themselves \u2014 for best Americana album, best American roots performance and best American roots song \u2014 but also the doors that open once you\u2019re declared a winner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this job \u2014 and it is the greatest job in the world \u2014 for such a long time. But overnight, my life changed. The craziest shit that happened is that the night after the Grammys, we got to go out to dinner with Joni Mitchell. She made us all drink Pinot Grigio and ordered all our food for us,\u201d Carlile explained. \u201cShe\u2019d had an aneurysm about six years ago, and she was unconscious in her kitchen for two days before they found her. And she was already a polio survivor, and has had to learn to walk and talk again twice in her life. But she\u2019d sworn off music.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt end of the night, she said to me, \u2018The only thing that bothers me is I\u2019ve got all these instruments in my house. Maybe you\u2019d want to put together a group of young people and come and play.\u2019 I didn\u2019t tell her I\u2019m like the world\u2019s shittiest guitar player,\u201d she laughed.<\/p>\n

As the story goes, Carlile brought Hozier with her to Mitchell\u2019s house the next week. They drank more wine and ate enchiladas. Carlile and Hozier played for Mitchell for a while. And then, in walked Chaka Kahn and then Herbie Hancock.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur hearts were in our throats. And we were just terrified, but the vibes were good on that magical night. Herbie\u2019s hands started gliding around the piano while we\u2019re all introducing ourselves. And then from the middle of the room, we hear this voice sing, \u2018Summertime, and the living is easy.\u2019 And it\u2019s (expletive) Joni Mitchell. She opened her mouth and she sang again, and she didn\u2019t stop singing for an hour. I don\u2019t think I\u2019ve been so inspired in my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a way, the chowder house tour and the night at Mitchell\u2019s house kind of bookend Carlile\u2019s career so far. But she also opened up about what was going on behind the music scene, at home, for her and her wife Catherine, and their daughters Evangeline and Elijah.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been married for about seven years. And it means so much to me to stand up here in front of you in a great city like Chicago, and talk to you about my family and our right to exist in this country. But it was such a strange thing when my daughter Evangeline was born. I was so unprepared for it. All these people were telling me how I was going to feel. It was mostly straight people. Straight people try to recruit other people to have kids. They\u2019re like, \u2018You don\u2019t know who you are until you have children. You don\u2019t exist,\u2019\u201d she said. \u201cThere\u2019s some truth to it, but it\u2019s complicated. You\u2019re never really alone again. You\u2019re always occupied with this other life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say it\u2019s like letting your heart run around outside your body. It is like that,\u201d she admitted, adding that for a few months after Evangeline was born, she wasn\u2019t sure how she felt about motherhood. \u201cI feel like this song has universal appeal for anybody that\u2019s a mom or a dad. This song applies to you. Because the truth is, we all fall in love with our children in our own time,\u201d she said to introduce her song \u201cThe Mother.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the last stories Carlile shared before the concert was over was how far gay families have come. She missed Chicago\u2019s Pride Parade by about a week, but the crowd still applauded Carlile\u2019s support for the movement.<\/p>\n

Before the movement, she told the crowd, it was a time when gay couples couldn\u2019t live together, were getting detained at airports, and had to pretend they were just friends. \u201cThat\u2019s a story that I\u2019ll always tell my daughters, so that they remember that progress doesn\u2019t just move in one direction. We have to be so careful. We\u2019re witnessing a generation of people gain access in this country to a basic civil right.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it\u2019s complicated. Because now there\u2019s a lot of pressure on us to make our marriages work,\u201d she laughed as she started her in on her \u201cParty of One.\u201d<\/p>\n

Embedded from www.youtube.com<\/a>.