Missy Raines on The Seldom Scene Act Two

My guest this week is Missy Raines and we're talking about one of her all time favourite records - The Seldom Scene's Act Two

We talk about how Missy grew up listening to The Country Gentlemen and The Seldom Scene, thanks to her parents' love of bluegrass, and how the band played a formative role in her early musical life, in particular how Tom Gray influenced her to become a bass player.

We also discuss the shift that was happening in bluegrass and string band music in the early '70s and what made The Seldom Scene different, as well as the role the Washington DC area played in bluegrass becoming urban music, not just a rural tradition.

Missy also shares her experience of getting to sit in with the band and what made their live shows so special.

This was a fantastic conversation to get to be a part of.

You can hear my previous interview with Missy (Missy Raines - Standing Gently on the Shoulders of Tradition) on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and YouTube.

For more info on Missy, check out www.missyraines.com

You'll find info on The Seldom Scene at www.seldomscene.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You know, they were they were just playing what they wanted to play. And again, to me, to it speaks to the the drive that they had what they were trying to say with their music and it was true art because they weren't worried about what the outcome would be. They had started a band, they were clearly not gonna drive or get into an airplane and just go anywhere for the least amount of money. They were just gonna they were gonna do it their way. And this album to me really screams like, yeah, this is what we're doing. This is our identity, this is our art. You can take it or leave it.

Matt 0:38

Hi, this is Matt, and you're listening to Bluegrass Jamalong the podcast for anyone and everyone. Hey everybody, welcome back to Bluegrass Jamalong. This week I have an interview with Missy Rains for you. Um Missy has been on Bluegrass Jamalong before, as I'm sure lots of you know. Uh I interviewed her a couple of years ago about her wonderful record Highlander. Um, and I really enjoyed that conversation. It was one of my favourite episodes of all the 500 odd episodes of this podcast. Just a really lovely conversation and really enjoyed getting to chat to Missy, and so I thought I'd invite her back uh to let her pick a record to talk about. I really kind of find these conversations about somebody else's music really intriguing because I learned something. People talk about other people's music in a different kind of way than they do their own. And Missy has picked Seldom Seen Act 2, and there's so many reasons I enjoyed this conversation. It's a record that runs sort of through Missy's life and speaks of her upbringing and where she grew up, and but also the point in time this happened and what was going on in the stringbone world. Uh, it's a formative part of her kind of becoming a musician, but also later on she got to sit in and play with the band, and that was fascinating to talk about. Um just such an interesting time and place, kind of to look at this whole context. And something that's you know, I've listened to a lot of um music that came before this and music came after this. And this early 70s period is probably a little bit of a hazy spot for me, so it's really interesting to sort of fill in some gaps and then think about that and talk about that and listen to the music. Um, yeah, really, really enjoyed this one. Um, usual stuff. If you want more on Bluegrass Jamalong, do go to bluegrassjamalong.com. There's a full list of all the interviews there, including my earlier interview with Missy, which I'll stick a link in the show notes to to save you going wandering around if you haven't heard that one. Um but yes, it's all on the website if you need it. Lots of cool stuff on there, all the backing tracks, chord sheets, and all of that. Um but yeah, here is Missy Rains talking about Selbum Scene Act 2. Hope you enjoy this one. Missy Raines, welcome back to Bluegrass Jamalong. It is great to see you again.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Thank you. It's great to be here.

Matt 2:52

I'm looking forward to this conversation. Um there's something lovely about having a chat about somebody else's music. Uh, you get a very different kind of conversation, and I'm looking forward to this one. And can you tell us which record you've picked to talk about this week?

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Yeah, I have chosen uh the Seldom Seen Act Two.

Matt 3:09

And how did this record and this music come into your life?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

You know, my folks were already into music, particularly bluegrass, when I was, you know, when I came into this world, so I didn't really have an option there. But um uh they were taking me to see live music. They there was music being played on the stereo, and um, and of course, among them the the the sounds that were prominent um were the Country Gentlemen, uh the original Country Gentlemen, and um, and then later the Seldom Scene. Um, and those were bands that I saw regularly, and um especially the Seldom Scene, I remember the first time hearing them when they just became a band. So it was a very important band for me, um in and influenced a huge amount of of my um earliest memories of of seeing live music and all that. Of course, the band had the bass player who kind of inspired me to want to play bass, which was Tom Gray. Uh so there was a it it came very um organically into my life, I think. It was always the scene was always there, the country gentleman, which included John Duffy, um, you know, those those early sounds, thanks to Carlton Haney, um, who was the promoter of uh the festivals that we were attending at that time.

Matt 4:34

And it's a it's it's a really interesting for me it's really interesting because this is a little bit of a gap. I listen to quite a bit of kind of first generation bluegrass and I listen to a lot of late 70s stuff. But there's this a really interesting bridge in the sort of sixties and seventies between what happened and what came afterwards, and it definitely feels like country gentlemen and the seldom scene are a very big part of that. They kind of occupy really historically interesting space between kind of the Monroe's and the Stanleys and the Flattened Scrugs and the stuff that then came after that and the kind of whole jam band scene and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_00 5:08

Absolutely. I think I think I think their their role was huge in that in that uh transition, so to speak, in that they created um some really important music during that time and it was it was informed uh from a different place, like it was informed from like an urban sensibility and um which w wasn't exactly unique at the time, but it definitely was very uh specific to what they were doing.

Matt 5:39

And that's a really interesting word, urban, isn't it? Because that bit coming out of the folk revival, which was often centered around cities and around colleges, and then you think of the things that kind of went on in the San Francisco Bay Area and Nashville and some other stuff that was happening in and around New York State, uh it's it's still recognizably bluegrass and continues all of those things that you love about bluegrass, but it does, it's got a really interesting, different sensibility, as you say.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

Yeah, yeah, and I found it to be like as a I was a kid and uh I found it uh interesting and different. Uh you know, nothing nothing still affects me the same as like hearing Ralph Stanley sing, you know, Man of Constant Sorrow and all that stuff. Like that, that hits me to a core very deep within. But then also getting to hear music sort of that was being influenced and and and informed by newer folk music and that sort of thing. At the time it just became it it was just really interesting, and I just found it like I wanted to find out more about it and it and it caught my interest in a different way.

Matt 6:50

Yeah, and yeah it's easy to see how maybe a newer generation that might have dismissed Bill Monroe and and the rest of them as kind of being an old-fashioned by that point would relate really strongly to a band like Seldom Seen and bringing in songs that were outside of traditional bluegrass, and there's sort of a there's a f there's a really interesting the like the vocal blend in itself and the way they present it vocally was different and the idea of not everything was kind of like it it's quite a way through act two before you get to a traditional kind of boom chuck bluegrass groove as well. And so it's like it sounds bluegrass, it sound it has all those elements and it drives really hard when it wants to, but it's also got a kind of a much poppier, folkier sensibility as well, and it's a it's a really kind of appealing blend, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 7:40

It is. As we settled on have on doing this record and and I was like re-listening to it. Uh of course it was such a b you know a a uh soundtrack to my youth, but re-listening to it, which I have done many times through the years. Lately though, I was like really interested by how many songs are started with just the guitar, you know, like the kickoffs are are just guitar, and which gives it almost like a folk thing, but it's not what as soon as you as soon as they start playing, it's it's not folk music, but it is uh a very unique presentation of the bluegrass. And and so what's also interesting to me is I think about what what else was happening at that time in the early 70s, you know, Newgrass Revival was being born, and uh JD Crow was starting a band that that was different than the Kentucky Mountain Boys, so it was a little less traditional. So there were lots of people doing that kind of thing in their own way. And of course, Sam's Newgrass Revival had this real influence more from a blues and a rock and roll standpoint, whereas the the influences here were very different. And so I just think it was it was just a fascinating and beautiful time for music.

Matt 8:57

Yeah, and you've got people like Clarence White, who'd spent some time in the birds by that point and was clearly kind of deeply ingrained in the bluegrass world, but also kind of really instrumental in that kind of California country rock Americana, like lots of things being born out of that that would come onto and sadly Clarence didn't kind of last to see that through, but and it's wonderful kind of that influence that he had, and it uh you can only imagine where that would have gone afterwards, and that all feels like it came out of a similar time, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it was it it it was just such a a remarkable time, and you know, there were there are hotbeds across the across the US particularly that were servicing that sound, those sounds, and uh and people were learning about bluegrass on the big screen too, you know, w in movies and that sort of thing.

Matt 9:51

Yeah, and uh there's the kind of the you know, it wasn't quite an O'Brother moment, but you had the Will the Circle Be Unbroken album around that time as well, and just interest in this crossover between a newer generation and an older generation, and bluegrass and mountain music and more kind of folk revival influence stuff was sort of everywhere, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_00 10:12

Yeah, well th that's the thing, like you know, radio, which was actually l really big then and and and determined careers, um, you know, you had bands like the Eagles and and uh that were, you know, on the airwaves. So people were hearing like these, you know, folk in influenced sounds, even banjo on lots of things. Um they were hearing that on on popular radio, you know, FM radio, and um and I think that was kind of that also like softened the blow, so to speak, of you know, people hearing hearing things like Will a Circle Be Unbroken, and they were seeing that there was this whole subculture that existed um with the the marriage of of all these different sounds coming together. Yeah, so I think that I think that it it was just a really interesting time. People like Earl Scruggs, like well now we're talking like later mid-70s, uh people like Earl Scruggs, who had had left the Platinum Scruggs situation some time before that, was doing um kind of just whatever he wanted to. And what he wanted to do was play music with his sons, and they were they were absolutely not playing bluegrass, they were playing what you would call like folk rock at that time with a ban show, and of course Earl's fronting this band, but they had drums and electric guitar and and electric bass, and and they were playing, you know, originals and and covers from that folk rock era, so it was a whole different thing. And it you know.

Matt 11:49

Well, and like you sort of mentioned with the Eagles, that sort of smoother vocal blend. And you know, you've kind of got it's an interesting mix-seldom scene, because it is it's a kind of what they're delivering is feels like a song first thing, where sometimes bluegrass can feel like a song is a vehicle for instrumental breaks and hot picking, and and there's that there, but it the song comes first and the vocal blend comes first, and these this lovely sound, and yet you've still got like John Duffy in there, and you've got some bluegrass spice going on in there, but it's just a a more slightly more, I guess, refined sound than people were used to.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

I love that what you just said about you know the song first, uh the lyric, it was really p important. John Starling, and what I love about this record is that John Starling's writing comes through in a way that really shows a side of him that uh I I don't think a lot of people are aware of that, you know, he wrote several of these songs. So he was a great singer, he was a great guitar player. He did not really play leads on the guitar at all. Like again, so again, it was just like a step away from that you know, virtuosic bluegrass sort of approach that we have on on our all of our instruments. And and yeah, I think uh, you know, when I think about their stage show that which I was very fortunate to get to see many, many times, Duffy's approach to how he talked to the audience was d was unique, very unique. And he he he didn't do the the sort of traditional scripted MC work that I had been used to hearing, and many uh people hearing uh folks just talk about how glad they were to be in front of of playing in front of the audience and that this was part of the show and and it was all very kind of uh lined out in a very traditional sort of way. But but Duffy broke all those rules from the get-go, and it was clear that he was just talking to people as if he were standing in a room with you and and with, you know, you all were having coffee or something together. And he talked about events of the day, whatever's happening in the news, and he mentioned them and he made jokes about it, and uh it a lot of people didn't know quite what to think about it, but they also really loved it. And people would people were coming. I it was also the time when people were coming to see a band to see not just what how they sounded, because they could always they could always fulfill that. You know, they they at the end of the day their harmonies and their their performance like sold the show, but people were also coming to see what Duffy was gonna say, what he was gonna talk about, and how funny it was gonna be, how entertaining it was gonna be. But the entertainment wasn't ever scripted or some sort of routine that you saw every time. Like he broke that mold, he made it like no, it's just gonna be what's gonna be funny today.

Matt 14:48

And he's a really interesting figure in this band, isn't he, John Duffy? Because he'd been around for a while and from the things I've heard and things I've read, he'd sort of quit the country gentleman and decided to go off and kind of work on guitars and have a different kind of path in life. But then he get gets jamming with this bunch of younger guys and decides, no, we're gonna do this again, but we're gonna do it our way, we're gonna be the band that we want to be, because they all still largely had careers elsewhere. They weren't gonna be buying the bus and spending all their time travelling around the country, they were doing a different version of it. But he kind of, even though Country Gentlemen to Seldom Seen is like a decade, feels like an older character within all of that and a kind of elder statesman, weirdly, in it but amongst a bunch of younger people.

SPEAKER_00 15:30

Yeah, absolutely. And he definitely had a different approach. He he saw it as uh like we don't have to get into a van and beat ourselves up traveling all over the world just to bring this music to people and and honestly to like not be compensated for it in a in a way that made the difference for his family. I mean, that was his view, and you know, you kind of gotta love that.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:00

It's not how many of us have approached it for sure. But and I wonder, you know, again, knowing you know, how he grew up and his father was an opera singer at the Metropolitan Opera, I don't know, and and so he was I I only can assume that he sort of saw music as being like as art as being something that was well paid for, it was compensated for, art was something valued, and and if you really want this art, then you're going to do what you have to do to to make that happen in a in a an appropriate way. But frankly, you know, many bluegrass, but not not only bluegrass, but many art forms uh of of of you know musics that are not as popular, people don't value it the way we I think they should. You know, it people have done you you you think of this kind of music, oh I can s I can just go down to my corner and hear people jam and it's bluegrass and and I don't have to I shouldn't have to pay for that. You know, there's a little bit of that mindset. So I think that that Duffy's uh mindset was definitely he had he had witnessed people being willing to pay for for art and and place value on art. And I I think that's a pretty powerful feeling.

Matt 17:20

I think there's also something really positive as uh as like an idea that you can be a bunch of people who have other careers who also play music, but you take that seriously, and that is a career. Like the idea that you can be a musician and something else at the same time is a really valid thing. And you know that as a band they all had really involved other things going on, and some of them left to pursue those. Um and there's something something really lovely about that, and maybe that's just me because I do this podcast aside from a day job. I have two things going on at the same time, and like somehow the podcast is allowed to be more what it needs to be because it isn't the only thing that brings in the money, and I have something else going on, and yeah, and somebody that just resonates more with me. But I think one thing that was I was gonna ask you is do you how much do you feel like like location plays a part in the story? Because A, they weren't touring as much, and so their kind of gig was built around a couple of regular residencies, and and as you say, people would come back to kind of hear what Duffy was gonna say and and having your crowd and kind of having a residency and being in one place a lot is different to being on the road and playing to different people every night. And you are you can build a kind of relationship with the audience in a different sort of way, can't you?

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Absolutely. I think that's a really powerful point. And and their residency, as you say, I think you might be referring to like their sit-down gig at the Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia, every Thursday for y for years and years. And the fact that that residency is is in a huge metropolitan area, uh such as as it was, so it was covering, you know, DC and Maryland and southern Pennsylvania and northern Virginia. Yeah, there's so many people that could have fairly easy access to see them. And I think that played a huge part of it. And I remember when they did perform at festivals, uh I remember I mean they were they were the headliners on you know, and they were their show was the last show of the night and and people would just gather to see, yeah, exactly that, what is gonna happen, what's gonna what's he gonna say, what's he gonna do, what's gonna what story is gonna develop over this performance. And it was magical every single time.

Matt 19:34

And that sort of metropolitan area you just described there, like I you know, I'm not uh from the States and I might be misreading this, but it feels like just geographically that occupies a really interesting spot between kind of southern Appalachian states and some of the roots of the music and the kind of Northeast and where a lot of the folk revival happened, and it it feels like there's a really interesting geographical musical story happening in that bit of America anyway.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Absolutely, and I think it's a critical part of the story. So I can relate to this pretty well because even though I didn't grow up in a in an urban area, I grew up very rurally in West Virginia, but I I was only about a hundred and fifty miles away from this p part. It was it was a very rural, 150 miles in the mountains. But uh but still I I grew up in what I can consider in uh the mid-Atlantic area of of the country. And so it wasn't southern, it wasn't northern, it was something in between, and and that band of area of of part of West Virginia that I'm from, and western Maryland, southern Pennsylvania, northern Virginia, that part that I speak of, that went all the way over to that metrop, you know, the Washington, D.C. area. And and and it is, it's it's a it is a unique area, geographical area area that is responsible for many of uh Bluegrass's greatest in uh artists, uh folks like Dill McCurry and um the Johnson Mountain Boys and Bob Paisley and Ted Lundy and uh Buzz Busby and uh there's so many great names that that and they've those folks came from that area. What makes that area interesting too is that many of the uh many Appalachian people looking for more work, more opportunity, better schools, better lives for their children were moving out of the mountains from like where I was from and moving to more industrialized areas, and they were bringing their culture with them. And so so this is something that was happening all over, you know, clearly like in the Cleveland area, in the Detroit area, in Chicago, but also in Washington DC. So that's what I feel like ha this where a lot of this comes from. There's a there was a definite Appalachian like dump of cultures put into that area where people could actually make a decent living, finding work and creating lives for their family.

Matt 22:14

That's a really interesting point. And it feels like a similar thing happened with kind of rural blues for similar reasons. And suddenly you've got a bunch of displaced southerners in an industrial northern city looking for a bit of home, but also a huge kind of audience beyond that who suddenly have all this music they can go and hear and see. And yeah, yeah, it's a really interesting kind of and it feels like that happened a couple of times, like in the twenties and thirties, there were big migrations towards cities, but again after the Second World War as well. And by that point, like radio and gramophone and all these things are really established, and the country starts to feel smaller because of communications, and then suddenly there are bigger markets for kind of what was originally rural music, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

Absolutely. Yeah. And so it it it was uh it was always interesting to me, like on Act Two, where uh the the Sodom scene redid uh Paradise, which of course uh the John Prime song. Now, Jim and Jesse had recorded that song before this, like I don't know, maybe a decade or two before that. And in fact, the Sodom Scene's version is very similar to Jim and Jesse's like there was a pulsing kind of dun dun d-da, like kind of thing. And um but I just I and Jim and Jesse of course were from Southwest Virginia, so they're I don't know, I just I just find that interesting that that was a song that they ch that the Seldom scene chose to do. Um and um I've I've I found I always found it to be uh very it felt natural for them to to do that, even though it was a c basically a coal mining song.

SPEAKER_01 23:57

Hmm.

Matt 23:57

Well, and just the range of stuff, like I'm just looking at the list of the songs on here, and you've got like some Norman Blake, you've got some John Prime, you've got like Hello Mary Lou, you've got Lara's theme from Dr. Chivago, and like but it and like you can read where all these things came from, but as you listen through it all hangs together beautifully as a record, and it all feels like them.

SPEAKER_00 24:21

Absolutely, yes. And that's that is the the the beauty of it, uh the way that it that theme runs through. And that's that is so hard to do. It's hard to do that with music that when you're grabbing it from all these different genres and you're pulling it into your little playpen and how to make it sound like it's not a different band every single time, that's really hard to do.

Matt 24:48

And a really interesting point you made before about the guitar introductions, because just listening to because last train from Paul Valley, the Norman Blokes track that opens it, is a very folky, strummed kind of guitar thing, and it doesn't scream bluegrass at you straight away. And then as you sell out, I hadn't sort of connected with just how many songs start like that. But you've also got this really interesting texture of you've still got banjo in, which is a really strong kind of bluegrassy flavour, but there's no fiddle, and you've got a dobro instead, which is a you know, and A, this must have been one of the first real bands to push that as a role, you know. But also it's a really interesting mix, isn't it? Because banjo and fiddle are the most bluegrassy kind of combination of things out there, and when you take one of those two things out of the mix, and often people take the banjo out to have a focus sound, but it's not here. The banjo is still very much there. But you've got a door, and it just gives it a different kind of quality.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Yeah, it does. And you know, they what I I loved about what they did with these songs was that they well, the just the fact that this was uh I don't know what, the second album that they recorded as a and and they were brand new on the scene, again, it's uh it also speaks to they weren't thinking of like, oh, we have to do something, we have to this is our sophomore album, we have to follow it up with some sort of big hit. They weren't thinking that way at all. It's clear because it it I mean honestly, if you if you just like go down through the each song and listen to just a few seconds of each one, th they're they're the tempos are all similar for for the most part. The tempos are similar. It's not till you get into it that you start to hear the differences. In other words, they weren't they weren't trying to blow anyone's face off. You know, they were they were just playing what they wanted to play. And again, so that speaks to the the to me to it speaks to the the drive that they had, the their uh what they were trying to say with their music. It was true art because they weren't worried about what the outcome would be. They had they had started a band, they were clearly not gonna drive and or get into an airplane and just go anywhere for any for the least amount of money. They were just gonna they were gonna do it their way. And this album to me really screams like, yeah, this is what we're doing. This is our identity, this is our art. You can take it or leave it.

Matt 27:14

And it it sounds from things that I've read that that very much extended to the live shows as well, in that they'd have a song or two to start, but there wouldn't be a set list. It was like, what do we want to play today? And they'd end up just discussing it on stage and somebody goes, Should we do this? And you know, you wouldn't just get the show.

SPEAKER_00 27:29

Absolutely. Yeah, you you just never knew what was gonna happen. And and they would they would often open a set with like three-part harmony just singing over, you know, like walk through this world with me, you know, like they might, you know, a complete slow tearjerker, beautiful harmony, but still, like, I don't know, there if if there was some sort of of a textbook as to how to to run a show up to that point, the first page might say, well, start with a big, you know, something fast and be. You know, kick off with the banjo, get them going, and then and then do your thing. I mean, you know, that might be part of what a textbook might say, but they didn't they didn't they broke all those rules. And uh and I think people are breaking those rules a lot now, but back then people weren't breaking those rules like that.

Matt 28:28

Yeah, well it is really interesting. So much of the music we've talked about and that that sort of period, people were taking an existing thing and treating it with love and reverence, but also going, like, what does the picking it up and moving it around and looking at it from other angles and going, what does this mean to me? What do I want to do with this? And I talked to David Greer a while ago about Clarence White, and he said that was very much what he loved about it, is it didn't feel like your parents' bluegrass, like it felt like your own thing. And ironically, in your kind of experience, it was also your parents' bluegrass. But I totally I totally get that that idea of it feeling like a a new look at an existing thing.

SPEAKER_00 29:05

Absolutely. And I love that. That's that's really that's really hits hits it on the on the on the head. I and yeah, I my parents my parents were pretty cool. They were they they were pretty ahead of their time. But but yeah, no, I and I never thought of it as like you know, trying to do something that my parents didn't like um that but but yeah absolutely that this was a new thing. This was something different. It was clearly breaking molds and and and I sure was ready for it. I was I was just at the right age when I was like, oh yeah, this is what I want.

Matt 29:46

And you mentioned earlier on that Tom Gray was a big influence on you wanting to like pick up a bass in the first place. And and you and later on you got to play with the band, didn't you? I'd love to hear a little bit of your kind of personal journey with that as well, from being a a little girl going to see them through to getting to play with them.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

Oh my gosh. Yeah, that was an amazing experience. And John Duffy was incredible. Um he to me, like he was so supportive, but yet at the same time, kind of like I mean, he he definitely didn't coddle. Like he wasn't like I I was only gosh, how old was I? I was probably 20 20 or something, I don't know. And but I felt very young. Like I just like, I mean, that is young, but I felt even younger. And he wasn't he didn't coddle me at all. Like he didn't kind of like, it's gonna be great, or he never said anything like that. He just kind of was like, So you're here, you're gonna play this gig. This is what we're doing. Whereas the others, like I remember Mike Aldridge being particularly like this extra friendly and smiling and trying to, you know, make me feel comfortable. And Duffy, he did not make me feel uncomfortable, but he absolutely didn't go out of his way to make me like try to like cushion it for me, which I found also really great because it made me feel like he saw me as uh like a like I was for real, like I wasn't just a girl coming in and and that he had to, you know, kid glove me. I I didn't feel like that at all. And that was great because I was I I really wanted to be treated like an equal, even though I didn't for a minute perceive myself as being equal to any of those guys at that moment. But I did want to be taken seriously and he took me seriously. Now, I will say he introduced me again. So this is where like things like like that he said and did would would not maybe pass the muster these days. Um but he's he introduced me as and and now and here on base, you know, we have all I can tell you folks is Tom, what did he say? Tom went to Sweden for an operation and it was a success. I mean, something like that. I don't think he I don't know if he actually said the word operation, but Tom went to Sweden and it was a success or something like that. So I mean, clearly, this is not something that would go over today, and and nor would he have chosen to say it today. But this was 1985 or something, you know. This was this was uh a long time ago. But yeah, and it was it was great. I'll never forget it. They uh they were all just so so incredibly supportive and and I felt I felt accepted as an e as an equal, you know, as at least for as a base for hire for the moment.

Matt 32:43

I remember when we talked talked last time about your record and you were talking really passionately about this idea of standing on the shoulders of tradition, and it sounds it's really lovely to hear you talk about this record as being part of that kind of journey and a record that, you know, is so deeply woven into your life. It's not just here's a record I really like, it's like here's a record that is part of my story as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

Yeah. Yeah. I I I I think that that's that music uh definitely was deeply embedded and is deeply embedded in my in my uh makeup and uh has affected many of the things that I've done, and I'm grateful that I got to experience it firsthand.

Matt 33:26

And I'm grateful that you spent a bit of time talking to me about it. I really, really enjoyed this conversation, Missy.

SPEAKER_00 33:31

Thank you. This has been wonderful. It's nice to revisit this music again.