{"id":1318269,"date":"2020-02-16T10:53:02","date_gmt":"2020-02-16T17:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.cmt.com\/news\/?p=1817908"},"modified":"2020-02-16T10:53:02","modified_gmt":"2020-02-16T17:53:02","slug":"brandy-clark-a-long-way-from-the-blueberry-bus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/music-news\/brandy-clark-a-long-way-from-the-blueberry-bus\/","title":{"rendered":"Brandy Clark: A Long Way from the Blueberry Bus"},"content":{"rendered":"
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by Alison Bonaguro<\/a><\/span>
\n17m ago<\/span>
\n<\/span> <\/p>\n

A few dates into her CMT Next Women of Country<\/em> tour with Tanya Tucker, Brandy Clark shared with me the secret for always appreciating the job she has now: a past full of hard labor. <\/p>\n

\u201cMy very first job, in Washington state, was a blueberry picker. I was paid by the pound. The blueberry bus would come pick you up in the morning, just like a school bus, and take you out to the blueberry farms and you\u2019d pick all day. I had a lot of hard labor jobs like that before I came to Nashville,\u201d Clark told me. \u201cAnd that taught me how fortunate I am for this job I have right now.\u201d <\/p>\n

This job, of course, is being an artist. But Clark said that she looks at that one job as three jobs: songwriter, singer, and live entertainer. Three jobs that she is equally and uniquely good at. <\/p>\n

CMT.com: How do you balance those three jobs, without giving up any of the momentum you\u2019ve had in each one? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Clark: I try to keep them separate. So I took last year to write songs and make my record, and that meant I didn\u2019t play a lot of shows. You just get into a different rhythm. It\u2019s hard, though, when you\u2019re writing and only do shows sporadically. But I love them all equally, and I try to not do all three jobs at once. If I am on tour, I might not be writing full songs, but I do kind of mine for ideas so that when I\u2019m back in town writing, I have a well I can draw from. <\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always thought of you as a singer-songwriter who makes songwriting look so effortless. But it\u2019s not the case in real life, right? <\/strong><\/p>\n

Well, it is a job. It\u2019s about going in and grinding it out. If anyone tells you differently, they probably haven\u2019t been doing it for a very long time. Before I made 12 Stories<\/em> (in 2013), I was a staff songwriter for a decade. Writing every day, staying inspired, and doing what you needed to do to stay in tip top shape as a writer. The hard part is, it can burn you out. I\u2019ve written a lot by myself, and you worry that you\u2019ll run out of ideas. For me, when I\u2019m writing alone, I write two kinds of songs: really sad or really funny. There\u2019s not a lot of in between with me. So if you want different songs, you\u2019re gonna have to bring in other painters to help you paint the picture. And you learn so much from other songwriters, because most songwriters are very smart. <\/p>\n

How do you prepare for a writing session when you\u2019re in your songwriter mode?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I get my ideas in order, and I also try to learn a little bit about who I\u2019m writing with. If it\u2019s a lyricist, I know I need to bring the music that day. Or if I\u2019m writing with someone who carries it musically, then I need to come in with an idea that I have for a bit of a lyric. <\/p>\n

And once you were ready to actually record the songs for the new record, Jay Joyce was your producer for the second time in a row. How much does that influence \u2014 or not influence \u2014 the music?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I always think of the producer as the last writer of the songs. Meaning, they weren\u2019t involved in the writing process, so then when they hear the song for the first time, it\u2019s their job to take it someplace I wouldn\u2019t. And even though I\u2019ve made two records with Jay now, I feel like I\u2019ve made two very different records. And he is one of the few people who can do that, and we both agreed we didn\u2019t want to make the same album twice. So I told him it might be great to cut it all acoustic. He was super excited about that, and we did it with just four of us. That was our sonic concept. I usually have more of a theme with an album lyrically, but with this one, we just knew sonically where we wanted to land. It became a break-up record, but I didn\u2019t even think about that as we were picking songs. It\u2019s just what bubbled up. <\/p>\n

This is your third full studio album. So you\u2019ve been at this recording artist job now for seven years. But country radio isn\u2019t exactly giving the music a chance. How do you come to terms with that?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I grew up with so many women I loved on country radio \u2014 Tanya Tucker, Patty Loveless, Pam Tillis, Trisha Yearwood, Suzy Bogguss \u2014 so that was the dream. That\u2019s where I thought my music should live. I worked hard for \u201cGirl Next Door\u201d at radio, and it was heartbreaking to me that some stations were playing it, but overall, the support just wasn\u2019t enough to get it higher than the top 40.<\/p>\n

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