The War and Treaty

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Speaker 1: This episode is also available as video on YouTube. You can visit Nora Jones channel and be sure to subscribe while you're there. Hey, I'm Nora Jones and today I'm playing along with the War Entreaty.

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Speaker 2: I'm just playing long we.

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Speaker 1: Am just playing in lone wee. Hey, I'm Nora and with me is always at Sarah Oda.

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Speaker 3: Hello, welcome to our show. Yes, our guests today are Grammy nominated singer songwriters Michael and Tanya.

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Speaker 1: Trotter of the War Entreaty. They are a husband and wife duo.

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Speaker 3: They're blending soul, gospel country music with their incredible voices.

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Speaker 1: This was such a fun episode. I've known them through different shows over the years, and I didn't really know their story it is. It's fascinating, very fascinating. They have an incredible story. Yeah, it was really beautiful. You're gonna hear.

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Speaker 3: About how they got their start, how they started making music together, some like very inspiring stories along the way, and as always really powerful music, especially with the three of you.

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Speaker 1: It was really fine. Yeah, they're good people.

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Speaker 4: Enjoy Yeah, these looks, long.

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Speaker 5: Ells, tears well dry. You know you want what you give. We're not selling proud of you came gray. So when the howes at the moon and the cock crows at the side, bloomy Hutchland, the name comes.

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Speaker 6: Keebuck and Bernie, right.

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Speaker 5: Star, Rolly, sad Lady shine. You know, fat things to way like night turns to day. So when the wok blows at the moon and the cocks set the sign Scooby hustand.

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Speaker 6: Name come s uh, when some against cold and when the new become.

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Speaker 7: Sol you know, the fat fatally.

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Speaker 8: Turns to day.

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Speaker 6: The windows and the cock crows the sun. Booby hustle today.

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Speaker 7: Come, I went with you?

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Speaker 9: So you did, Yeah, you did this.

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Speaker 10: We go together, Yeah, phone down together. It's a good thing.

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Speaker 1: That's something that is so nice about singing with someone all the time and having that partnership where you just go wherever each other goes.

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Speaker 11: Oh yeah, it's like every night we're gonna do the same set list. Yeah, so Michael just pulls.

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Speaker 1: Out, did you write a set list?

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Speaker 11: He does, But we've been doing the same energy is off of the crowd, So you know how that changed the same set list.

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Speaker 10: Yeah, this it's been we've been together now.

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Speaker 12: We just haven't been doing eight years the entire set list. Yeah, because we get caught up. So we have this one song called love like Whiskey, and at the end it gets like this church is like a like.

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Speaker 13: It's like real churches, and it's like fuck through the fuck through the.

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Speaker 7: Then crowd of singing, and we go out to the crowd.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 7: And it takes a while to get back, kills a lot of set.

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Speaker 14: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Oh, it just takes a long time and out.

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Speaker 12: Oh yeah, I love it because it's like by the time we get back, I'm like, oh my gosh, like fifteen minutes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's great connection to Yeah, that energy is so good too. I mean, the crowd they know it if even if they don't know it, they know that you're into it.

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Speaker 7: We're teachings. I'm like, so this is part I have all guys go through the fuck yeah, and then you have all the through and then we're like, y'all sing.

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Speaker 1: That's amazing.

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Speaker 12: It was insane last night in New York, like everybody, i mean, just being together and just like hearing all those voices special.

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Speaker 11: Yeah, it really is, because it's it's that one moment you can actually connect, you know, with the fans instead of them just watching you the whole time, they're now a part of.

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Speaker 7: It, you know.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I mean it's always better when that happens. Yeah, even if they're not singing, you know, yeah, if you can feel their energy.

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Speaker 7: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:07:19
Speaker 7: So here's another cool night for you.

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Speaker 1: I'm not going to ask any questions.

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Speaker 7: I've been waiting for this moment. So you know who discovered us technically, No, I don't done.

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Speaker 1: Was really Oh, that's so special. How did that come about?

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Speaker 6: Well?

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Speaker 11: I actually okay, So Michael, of course he served. He served in the military, and when we met I didn't know that, but once we found out in three years into the marriage, I was like, he's really, really good. He's an incredible songwriter. And at the time he didn't want to tell his songs because of what he did, and I'll let him share his story in the military for the soldiers. And so we were like decided to start working together together at this time. And there was a song called Hi Ho we did and it was just Michael and piano, myself and the cello player. And I was like, we're going to record this record, and we went to a bunch of different places trying to get the right foot stumps.

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Speaker 10: I was I'm not a.

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Speaker 11: Musician, but I'm really ain't all about my foot stops.

00:08:24
Speaker 10: We need to get the right boards, you know, right hardwood floor.

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Speaker 11: So we went all the different places trying to record, and so we finally got a decent recording and I was like.

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Speaker 10: I know he doesn't want this music to come out, but I'm going to send.

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Speaker 6: It to.

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Speaker 1: You wanted to do it, but you didn't really want to release it, and he.

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Speaker 11: Didn't want to release it into the world. He was like, I don't do music for that. And I was like, in my mind, I'm like, the.

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Speaker 10: Heck you don't it.

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Speaker 1: There's a and I'm getting to the okay.

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Speaker 11: And so I sent it to and AlSi, who's a radio announcer at WDT and she's our friend as well now in Detroit, and she didn't know us from anywhere, but I.

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Speaker 10: Tweeted it to her and I was like, oh public, yeah, And I'm like, what made you tweet her? I don't know. I mean, it was like Twitter.

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Speaker 11: I don't know anything about social media, so I'm like, what people see him to follow Twitter?

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Speaker 10: So I sent it to her.

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Speaker 11: I was like, please take a listen to the woman treaty and she did and so she ended up playing it on the radio.

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Speaker 6: Oh wow.

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Speaker 11: Yeah, she ended up playing it on the radio, and Dona was just happened to be her friend and that's how he heard.

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Speaker 10: The music and she showed it to him.

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Speaker 1: That's amazing.

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Speaker 7: It was like, I want them for my concert of colors. Yeah, find them now.

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Speaker 1: He brought you into a show.

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Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, and he was going to.

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Speaker 12: Produce our first album. He literally, I mean like, this was the wildest moment. We we went nate dinner with him and he wanted me to bring all my songs and he.

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Speaker 2: Was a dinner. Oh yeah.

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Speaker 7: It was crazy because he was.

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Speaker 12: Like after where we want to go into the radio station. He's like, everybody's gone, he said, and we're going to listen to those songs and we're gonna narrow them down.

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Speaker 7: It's about like fifty songs. Fifty yeah, And he listened to every single song with notes. He was right. He was already playing next year.

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Speaker 1: That sounds like don Yeah.

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Speaker 7: It was so I mean, like it was so.

00:10:24
Speaker 12: Cool, but he got super busy, so he passed us off to this his buddy in Nashal called Buddy Miller.

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Speaker 1: Oh I know of him. Yeah, he's amazing.

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Speaker 12: His spirit is I know, Buddy, Buddy's beautiful, and Buddy produced it, but Dona's.

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Speaker 6: Like like the O g for us.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's so great. He's such a special human. Oh yes, yeah, and he's done so much. Yeah, but like just he'll give you time even if you just want to ask him a question anyone you know, like, yeah, he's so great. It's he He's that's really special. I didn't know that it's one of the last of his kind. Yeah, he's so incredible. Yeah, it's incredible.

00:11:06
Speaker 7: Well I didn't. I didn't.

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Speaker 15: You know.

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Speaker 12: I've been singing all my life. I come from a very singing family, like my mom and all her sisters singing. My granny was playing and singing, and my uncle Zelbert was playing and singing and stuff. And but I wasn't taking it serious and I actually wanted to be a rapper.

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Speaker 1: Oh really, where where did you grow up.

00:11:28
Speaker 7: In Cleveland, Ohio? Yeah?

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Speaker 12: So, but then I made some mistakes and I needed a bail out playing, and so I joined the army.

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Speaker 7: Little did I know I was joining during wartime. Maybe not in thed you're.

00:11:43
Speaker 12: Not paying attention to the news, like this wround here and so first doe station, I'm going Iraq. It's two thousand and four and.

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Speaker 7: We're on there.

00:11:58
Speaker 12: Like the helicopter is how really got That's just you're starting Kuwait. You go to Kuwait first and in process before you go to Iraq, which stupid because then you in process and Iraq as well.

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Speaker 7: The army's weird.

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Speaker 12: But it's about a twenty six hour drive from Kuwait to Iraq pretty much because the humbies can go only about forty five miles per hour and it's sand desert, you know. But I'm sitting in Kuwait and the first thing I hear is something like just like that, you know, and I'm just thinking, oh, someone's hitting the floor. And then you hear boom, like so as just slamming a door. And then you hear siren and I'm like, what.

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Speaker 6: Is going on?

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Speaker 7: Like that's the Iraq Iraqies they're firing. Oh my god, it's trying to get close. I'm like, they're firing.

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Speaker 1: What this is on your first drive in?

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Speaker 7: Yeah, that's a bomb. And the sound of a bomb I tell people.

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Speaker 12: I'm like I can hear it internally first, that's how loud it sounds like you can feel it and hear it in here, you know. And so when I got into Iraq, it was just a sad sight, it was, you know. And what made it so sad because you could see how beautiful he once was, the architecture, I mean, the homes and everything, and the people. And but then you get into the war and you start realizing you're definitely at war, and you start seeing guys drop one by one.

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Speaker 7: And so.

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Speaker 12: This captain recognized my fear and was like, yeah, he's going to be the one to get someone killed or get killed himself. We gotta find something to calm him down. And in my file, my profile says I love music. And in the palace we took over in Baghdad, Saddam had a upright black piano kind of looks like that over there, and his initials are carved in it. Because Saddam supposedly to play, yeah, pianos all over it different palaces.

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Speaker 16: Not so.

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Speaker 12: They take me down into the basement of this palace. Nor when I tell you, it was like we had to crawl over mortar and brick and stuff. I mean, this is a bombed out palace where I mean I could look straight up and see the sky.

00:14:39
Speaker 7: Just to get to where this piano is.

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Speaker 12: And my captain is like, when you find when you can't find your way home, come down here and find your way home.

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Speaker 7: I'm like, that's a great sentiment. I don't play.

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Speaker 1: What's his name?

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Speaker 12: His name is Robert, Robert Sheets, And I'm like, I don't play. He's like, well, this is a good time to learn. And that's how I so I taught myself. That was like the first song play. I taught myself to do that. But it wasn't you know, I didn't really understand the piano. I could hear harmonies, you know, I knew this was something and you know, and but Rob gets killed. Wow, and I am it's still hard, you know, like he was such a beautiful soul. And I write, like my first real song, and I asked my sergeant major if I could sing it for the funeral we want to have in the war out there. And you know, if you've ever been to a military funeral, it's very different. It's like we're all outside, especially in the war, because you're all outside information. You're standing there and what happens is the first sergeant gives a roll call, and so he was like, you know, Private Private Tyan Trotter, she's like here, it was like Private Norah Jones here, and it was like Private Michael Trotter here.

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Speaker 7: First sergeant, he's say Captain Robert Sheets, Captain Robert J. Sheets.

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Speaker 12: And then he'll say woe one time, real loud, Captain Robert Sheets. And all turn to the command and say, Captain Sheets is no longer with us. And that silence that you hear is so like loud. And so in the military you don't you can't show emotion and you have to even know you're information.

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Speaker 7: You got to be on guard because you're still in the war. And this is outside.

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Speaker 12: The time for me to perform that song is right in that moment and the soldiers, you know, soldiers don't cry and just did it. And so I started performing the song and the soldiers just break like some of the toughest guys like. And the way I write, I put like little funny things. I'm like like he I was like he was so clean, but his feet stink, you know. I would put it in the song, and so the soldiers will chuckle with you know. And when I was done, they played the taps and then when it was all over the soldier will just get talking.

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Speaker 7: Tried, I know you can sing and play back that. And so my Colonel Peter Jones was now in general. He was like, try, did you write that song?

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Speaker 12: I was like, yes, sir. He said, how long it take you? I was about five or ten minutes. He was like, great, turn in your weapon. That's your new job. You're gonna go around with me to as many memorials as we can. You're wanna learn about the falling. You're gonna turn around, write the song in the morning, and then turn around an afternoon performance. That was my job from two thousand and five to two thousand and seven in the military.

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Speaker 7: I went from being an infantry kid.

00:18:06
Speaker 12: Providing supplies on the supply route, garden and protecting, fighting for the country to being a military songwriter and writing strictly about the dead, the falling, and trying to write hope so that the guys he could raise the morale. That's what he kept saying, is like, it's boosting the morale. Not only was that happening, but when we would come off duty and patrol, we'd all be sitting outside, you know, behind the wall, and they like try to like freestyle of song for us, it's a great kusul grab his guitar and I just start singing so all the top of my head.

00:18:43
Speaker 7: And then one day we learned we.

00:18:44
Speaker 12: Realized that the Iraqi nationals, like the people were sitting outside of the wall eating lunch, just listening to me singing. But the reason I didn't want to get into the music business is because it wasn't my dream in the first place. It was one of my guys name Jose Perez. Perez was one of my boys. We write songs together, and he was killed on like the last day of our duty in Iraq, and I had a lot of moral injury. I just I didn't feel worthy.

00:19:13
Speaker 7: I was like, it was his thing.

00:19:17
Speaker 12: I don't want to and I felt guilty a little bit. And so that's when when Tyme met me, I just was really struggling with the idea of surviving and then possibly having a shot to make it.

00:19:31
Speaker 1: You know, that's not why you were doing it. So I had complicated.

00:19:36
Speaker 7: Yeah, I had a lot of trouble with that.

00:19:39
Speaker 1: Well I understand why, now that is that is quite a story.

00:19:45
Speaker 7: Yep, that's that's that's what happened to me.

00:19:49
Speaker 1: Well, thanks for your service and also I'm sorry for your loss.

00:19:55
Speaker 7: Yeah, but some good things come out.

00:19:58
Speaker 12: Like that's where hate pretty moon comes from, you know, because doing duty and you know Iraq it doesn't have much, but because there are no trees and anything, you can see the stars and the moon.

00:20:12
Speaker 7: It's always huge and beautiful. And so that's how we wrote, Hey, pretty moon, you know.

00:20:19
Speaker 1: Did you write it there?

00:20:21
Speaker 7: I started there started Yeah.

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Speaker 12: I just was like, hate pretty moon talking to the moon. You know, I just thought the moon was very I mean, like because storms and stuff. During the daytime the sun hides, but in the night time, like no matter what storm happens, the moon is always out, you know, like no cloud can cover.

00:20:41
Speaker 6: The moon spotlight.

00:20:45
Speaker 1: Well what a gift?

00:20:46
Speaker 10: Music is, right, it's the ultimate gift.

00:20:50
Speaker 1: It really is. Another example of it, very shining one. Well it's beautiful, beautiful. Yeah, hey pretty much do it? Yeah, that's crying here, but.

00:21:10
Speaker 6: We won't be able to sing and start crying.

00:21:22
Speaker 9: Mh hey, pretty moon. So Brian face, how do you haye.

00:21:38
Speaker 6: In the air of the liame free.

00:21:50
Speaker 9: Right mong.

00:21:56
Speaker 8: Mm hmmm, silver circle, gony rod.

00:22:12
Speaker 6: In the dog look at it be you. It's like you hay.

00:22:23
Speaker 5: Me free.

00:22:28
Speaker 8: From my cats.

00:22:32
Speaker 6: Sour, Yeah, I do you share while the dog shower ben under y'all love in this.

00:22:58
Speaker 8: Chanch me.

00:23:02
Speaker 6: To share the way anyway.

00:23:06
Speaker 15: You do.

00:23:09
Speaker 6: Know about the great Scott.

00:23:17
Speaker 8: Hey, pretty moose.

00:23:21
Speaker 6: My face.

00:23:26
Speaker 2: How do you do in the end longing your hay.

00:23:40
Speaker 6: Fee?

00:23:48
Speaker 17: Oh yeah, you find a way stay, find a way to stay all stand?

00:24:08
Speaker 6: Oh wow, no, the stars s far boy your side even shun some name for the show.

00:24:21
Speaker 8: You keep your clothes.

00:24:33
Speaker 6: Hey, pretty much?

00:24:37
Speaker 18: Fried fet.

00:24:42
Speaker 6: Found love like free from my Oh yeah, look like free free care. I want to take let this know. You have to go with it somewhere.

00:25:48
Speaker 2: It's so pretty you don't need me.

00:25:49
Speaker 6: But yeah, it's fun to play with you that d indeed.

00:26:03
Speaker 7: Because we do it so different, but we do. Yeah you sound?

00:26:09
Speaker 1: Oh thanks?

00:26:11
Speaker 6: What do you guys play live?

00:26:12
Speaker 1: Do you have a keyboard live?

00:26:14
Speaker 7: Yeah? Yeah? Yeah the Yamaha montage.

00:26:18
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah yeah. Do you change the sounds or you just stay stamp piano?

00:26:22
Speaker 12: I still pire because I have another guy. He's who's up on stage, but he's playing like Oregon word. He's doing all these things.

00:26:29
Speaker 1: That's fine.

00:26:30
Speaker 12: Name is Slim, He's pretty Terrence Homes Okay, Slim and he's he does all that.

00:26:37
Speaker 7: Funanya together you know and thing.

00:26:43
Speaker 10: But he's amazing. A great bunch of guys.

00:26:47
Speaker 1: How big is the band?

00:26:48
Speaker 7: It varies, like you know, we have.

00:26:54
Speaker 12: Two guitars, two keys which includes me, so me and Slim one and fiddle and two horns.

00:27:05
Speaker 1: That's a huge it's a huge band.

00:27:07
Speaker 10: Yeah, it's a lot of people.

00:27:09
Speaker 11: Yeah, but we travel with now we're traveling with five and I get really bad anxiety. Yeah, So like every show it's the biggest every time, Like I have it now, but I'm luckily I'm sitting down. But every show it's like Michael's like, calm down.

00:27:26
Speaker 10: Just just relax.

00:27:28
Speaker 1: You guys have such an interesting dynamic.

00:27:31
Speaker 11: I mean every show it's crazy, Like every award show. You just don't understand the hysteria that goes on backstage. It's either I'm leaving stuff at the hotel. That's anxiety. It's it does something for me to see everybody else go into anxiety, so something will happen. And I just like to see everybody else wrestled like me. And when Michael's sitting there the pot right and Michael is there, he has PTSD, so oh god, what are the lyrics?

00:28:00
Speaker 1: Screened?

00:28:00
Speaker 10: The curtains about to open.

00:28:01
Speaker 11: Now you're forgetting lyrics since I've been practicing for weeks.

00:28:04
Speaker 10: And Mike was like, please, you're giving me anxiety.

00:28:08
Speaker 1: So you give him the anxiety.

00:28:10
Speaker 12: It's like yeah, and she's strong, like my hands have yet to recover. Yeah, performance on TVs, I know.

00:28:19
Speaker 10: I was like it was so bad. My hands was sweating so bad. Yes, sweating on the.

00:28:27
Speaker 7: ACMs.

00:28:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so many.

00:28:30
Speaker 7: It was that one and we were standing and I was like, I was like hey, I said.

00:28:38
Speaker 19: She was like.

00:28:40
Speaker 11: Yeah, and then if you watch us, like on one of what show were we rehearsed that I'm going to take the high note? But my anxiety was like no, no, I would take you would take the high note, right, but you wanted me to take the high note. You can do it because this particular moment you want me to do it. And I was all like, yes, I can do it. Until I got on stage. I know, and I realized that I couldn't know. It was I on the red dress on that one, the other one I had on the gold dress. We were sitting in the chair because we.

00:29:10
Speaker 12: Were standing when you held my hand and I was like ouch, and we were standing in the center of the stage and I had on that black suit with the flames.

00:29:20
Speaker 10: That's one yeah. The other one was.

00:29:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, and you're the one who wanted to get in this business.

00:29:32
Speaker 10: I always have had anxiety, really, so I think a lot of it.

00:29:36
Speaker 11: When I was younger, it would like choke me where I couldn't sing while I was like, it's not your horse, it's all psychological, you know, So I had to work. Yeah, Like you literally can psychologically put yourself and you can into a point where you know you can hit these notes, but you're so psychologically like, you know, restrained, that you can't do it.

00:29:56
Speaker 1: This is interesting because I think of you guys as just being out there all the time. You're on the road all the time. I see you everywhere and oh yeah, everything.

00:30:07
Speaker 10: Isn't that every perform it's an anxiety thing.

00:30:11
Speaker 1: Wow. So where did you grow up in Washington, DC? And did you grow up singing?

00:30:17
Speaker 7: Yeah?

00:30:17
Speaker 10: I grew up. I was very shy though you know, my music teacher say that I I wanted.

00:30:23
Speaker 11: I started singing when I saw my brother like really tear up a Baptist church one Sunday morning.

00:30:28
Speaker 10: I was like, I can see doing this.

00:30:30
Speaker 1: I'm like I could do that.

00:30:31
Speaker 7: I was like, not realizing that I couldn't.

00:30:33
Speaker 11: I'm like, whatever he's doing to make these people feel like that, I want to do it because I was more so like a feeler when I was little, so I would see people sad and want to, you know, make them happy, or animals and bring them home all the time.

00:30:45
Speaker 6: I was that kid.

00:30:47
Speaker 11: And so I saw him one Sunday morning just like rip up a church and I went home and I was like, mom, this is what I want.

00:30:52
Speaker 10: To do for the rest of my life.

00:30:55
Speaker 1: That's amazing how it was a lot.

00:30:56
Speaker 11: I was like seven and a half eight years old, and my brother was like, that's not what you want to do for the rest of your life. He was like, if you want to do this for the rest of your life, then you're going to have to learn how to sing like this. So he bought me a Houston record and learn how to sing like this, and it was dream Girls with General Jennifer Holiday and so those were the voices that he was like, if you can halfway get there, then maybe.

00:31:19
Speaker 10: You can do this in a career.

00:31:20
Speaker 11: I'm like, this is like a lot a lot. So I started like, you know, we had the little vinyl, the big vinyl you call stereos back in the day, old vintage ones. And I'll put the records on vinyl and go downstairs and yell at the top of my lungs.

00:31:40
Speaker 10: And then my mom was like, that's not singing. He was a classical singer.

00:31:46
Speaker 1: Well really, okay, so that's a whole other thing.

00:31:48
Speaker 11: That's a whole And I went and ended up going to high going to college on a classical music.

00:31:52
Speaker 1: Scholar singing opera. Wow. No, I want to hear it. That's amazing. Wow. So that's where the power also must come from.

00:32:05
Speaker 11: Yeah, and then Michael taught me how to growl and do all the stuff that the teachers say damage you.

00:32:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, that they would not be Oh no, they were.

00:32:12
Speaker 10: They I couldn't send gospel music for like a year when I went to school. They were like your fo all cards.

00:32:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know it so crazy? Did you grow up in the church singing? Yeah?

00:32:23
Speaker 9: Church?

00:32:23
Speaker 10: And then I went on to do R and B music, and then I you know, stopped doing music for a while.

00:32:28
Speaker 1: You did after the Holy Reef meeting in the that record released a record nineteen ninety four.

00:32:37
Speaker 10: Yeah, I did sister right too before they.

00:32:39
Speaker 1: Ye, So I wanted to ask him about that. How were you in that?

00:32:42
Speaker 11: I was I just turned seventeen and you were into acting? Not really, No, I kind of fell into it. I didn't realize that I was one of those kids. You know, I was an actor at home because I was very shy. So I would take my mother's gowns and where I'm in the school and get sent home school.

00:32:57
Speaker 10: You know, I was that kid, but I was still shy.

00:33:01
Speaker 11: This was like my little world where I hid and no one else. I didn't want anybody else to be a part of it. So they had this audition for this movie and it wasn't called I don't know what it was called at the time. They were going to call it something else. And I came to New York and auditioned and ended up slipping up, ending up in the top three. It No, it's called something else, really, Yeah, And they didn't even write me in. It wasn't like Lauryn Hill's part. Wasn't Laura Hill's part.

00:33:30
Speaker 10: The part that I was in. We ended up.

00:33:32
Speaker 11: Writing that as I got the part at Goldberg's house, So none of it was planned.

00:33:38
Speaker 10: You know, this was all like I'm slipping into this, so it was great.

00:33:43
Speaker 11: You know, that's so cool, And that's how I kind of got into acting, and you know, liked it, but didn't so much because it takes a little.

00:33:51
Speaker 10: Bit longer than it's hard music. You know, your own sets not as months.

00:33:56
Speaker 1: You can't be as creative, yeah, spontaneously, it's not as satisfying in the moment.

00:34:02
Speaker 11: Exactly, and so that's not something I pursued long term. And then so I completely kind of just walked away from it. Wow, because again I was doing R and B, and then I had done gospel in my church.

00:34:15
Speaker 10: But I just knew I wanted to.

00:34:17
Speaker 11: Do other stuff because I was I went to school for classical music, but at that time, there was no like, there was no genre for what I wanted to do.

00:34:28
Speaker 10: Now we have what we call Americana.

00:34:30
Speaker 1: He felt.

00:34:32
Speaker 11: Very early on because I loved all kinds of music. My mom was from Panama, so I was growing up listening to Calypso music in the house and marenguey and dancing and you know, doing all that kind of stuff jazz. So I'm like, why is everything so separate? I want to be able to listen to somebody that does all this at the same time. And so I stopped for a long time after I released that record, and years later I met Michael What did you do?

00:35:00
Speaker 1: And you stop?

00:35:00
Speaker 11: I was a worship leader, I did worship music, I wrote books, I did, you know, a lot of community service kind of stuff, stage plays, behind the scenes kind of stuff.

00:35:12
Speaker 10: So I was doing more writing. Oh yeah, but you know, that was an introvert part of me.

00:35:19
Speaker 11: And I learned through that time that a lot of me is an introvert in a mom and mom you know, all those things, and that normalized for me, you know, not realizing that. I don't think I had the role models to show me how you can kind of balance it both.

00:35:37
Speaker 1: Well, it's impossible, yeah, but mostly.

00:35:42
Speaker 10: And that's what I had to learn. You know, it's like, you can't balance this, well.

00:35:46
Speaker 1: No, you can balance it all. It's just something will always suffer, and it's usually you.

00:35:50
Speaker 7: Yes, that is exactly. That's a great way.

00:35:56
Speaker 10: That is so true.

00:35:57
Speaker 11: And something will something will suffer, you know, And so you know, a lot did and a lot of my mental health suffer. So I took that time off to kind of just fix the cracks within myself, and when I met Michael, it was the cracks were not all fixed.

00:36:12
Speaker 10: I'm still wacky sometimes, but you know, but.

00:36:18
Speaker 12: I'm a perfect wife.

00:36:21
Speaker 7: Thank you, buddy.

00:36:22
Speaker 1: I don't know, well, it sure seems like you guys have this great partnership that it has become so special. And you know, when did you? How did how did you meet?

00:36:36
Speaker 10: And I love fest.

00:36:42
Speaker 7: So weird?

00:36:46
Speaker 2: Yeah it was.

00:36:47
Speaker 11: I was the communities and so this was a community event where we were giving backpacks and stuff out and Michael was on the gospel kind of Christian hip hop scene and Maryland and he was it was he was, I mean amazing.

00:37:03
Speaker 10: So he came and performed.

00:37:04
Speaker 11: The lady I was working with had him as one of the artists and I didn't know at this time that he was.

00:37:10
Speaker 10: Going to be there performing. And he got on that stage and I was like, who is this guy?

00:37:15
Speaker 11: Like everything that I loved about music, you know that thing you have to have to like want to go in the studio and do music again, he had that thing. And I was like a little spark, Yeah it did. And I was like, this is the feeling I had when I was eight years old. So my brother like on stage performing. I'm like this guy he has it. And so I darted across the field to meet him. And I wasn't shot. I'm shot in some areas.

00:37:43
Speaker 2: In the area. This story.

00:37:46
Speaker 11: Yeah, So we met and he was he was with a friend, and we exchanged I mean, see's his girlfriend.

00:37:55
Speaker 10: But anyway, we exchanged number.

00:38:00
Speaker 7: She was not my girlfriend. Yesterday you said she was. I didn't.

00:38:03
Speaker 10: I never said in an interview SAIDs us girl.

00:38:08
Speaker 1: No, my girl a friend girl. He just said girl who was a friend. Yeah, and.

00:38:17
Speaker 10: Leave it alone. But anyway, we exchanged phone numbers Michael, and I.

00:38:24
Speaker 11: Was like, you you wrote all these songs and he's like yeah, like my brother and I are working on the project cause my brother is a singer too, and I was just doing music for him and Michael start writing songs like in three days, he wrote like twelve songs for this project.

00:38:39
Speaker 9: Oh wow.

00:38:40
Speaker 11: And I was like, this is weird because not just songs. They were like you know, you write songs, you come back to him. They were like complete compositions, you know. And I'm like, I just gave this guy twenty four hours.

00:38:52
Speaker 10: How do he do that? I don't have help.

00:38:54
Speaker 1: He's inspired by you. Yes, wait had you heard her sing yet?

00:38:58
Speaker 6: Oh?

00:38:59
Speaker 1: No, listen because did you sing at the thing?

00:39:04
Speaker 12: I was a fan from Sister too, So okay, I was nine when that movie came out, Gotcha, and I told when she came on the screen, I told my parents.

00:39:14
Speaker 7: I said, oh, that's my wife and my mam and dad laughed and they looked at me and I wasn't laughing.

00:39:22
Speaker 1: I was like, you just felt a connection.

00:39:25
Speaker 7: She was so beautiful to me. I was like whoa at nine.

00:39:31
Speaker 12: So when we finally met, I woke my parents up like at like three am.

00:39:37
Speaker 7: And my dad was like, what do you want. I was like, let me in the house and I tell you something. He's like, boy, it's three am. My mother's in the backroom. Who is it?

00:39:49
Speaker 18: Is it?

00:39:49
Speaker 6: Mikey?

00:39:50
Speaker 12: Let him in, mama, boy? And so I'm like, dad, Ma, guess what? And my Dad's like, boy, this better be good. I gotta go to work in the morning.

00:40:00
Speaker 7: I was like, I found her. I found that.

00:40:04
Speaker 1: It's crazy and my mother.

00:40:05
Speaker 7: I mean, neither one of them believed.

00:40:07
Speaker 1: They did it, but they remembered that moment.

00:40:09
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, oh yeah, like they just didn't.

00:40:13
Speaker 12: It's still a pinch me moment for a lot of my family members, like you know, and Tanya is just the She's really an angel, honestly, Like I mean, like I don't good guys, good husbands say that about their wives.

00:40:30
Speaker 7: Just to get a point. But I really do believe.

00:40:34
Speaker 12: You know, she got some weird spiritual stuff going on too, like she's she's deep.

00:40:39
Speaker 7: But I just believe that Tanya is just an angel. I do believe it.

00:40:44
Speaker 10: That's so sweet.

00:40:46
Speaker 7: She's a healer.

00:40:47
Speaker 12: She's truly a healer, like her presence, her energy, her touch. I mean, like I I didn't know what I needed at the time in twenty ten, but once I met her, I definitely sure as hell knew from that point on what I was gonna want forever and need forever.

00:41:05
Speaker 7: And that was it.

00:41:06
Speaker 11: Yeah, we found each other at a great at perfect time, the right time. Yeah, you had stuff to do before then, oh yeah, like we had to know that, you know. And then you know, yeah we had a son, and I had an older son, but I couldn't have kids, like fourteen years after my oldest doctors like you can't have kids, And I met him and boom, you wanted to and well my body was like yes, you're doing this.

00:41:32
Speaker 10: You couldn't do it before him.

00:41:33
Speaker 12: And I wasn't going to argue. Yeah yeah, And I have two daughters from my previous.

00:41:39
Speaker 1: Okay, so how many kids total?

00:41:42
Speaker 2: For wow?

00:41:44
Speaker 7: My two my two baby girls. I mean they're not girls.

00:41:48
Speaker 10: He wants them to be.

00:41:49
Speaker 7: They always will be my baby girls. I mean, my my baby daughter. Who's here. She's walking around her little boyfriend right now.

00:41:58
Speaker 1: Driving me nuts like you there, Yeah, okay, and.

00:42:02
Speaker 7: He works for us.

00:42:03
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:42:03
Speaker 12: It was weird because he's like our sound engineer. That's so great and I really love him, but I hate his goods too.

00:42:14
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter how cool he is, it's still your baby girl.

00:42:18
Speaker 11: I have to hold his hand every time he's yeah, touching, I'm like, she's an adult.

00:42:24
Speaker 7: He's like bye, Mike. I'm like, oh bye boy.

00:42:28
Speaker 10: They were they were sleeping and before we got here, it was sleeping on the couch. We were, you know, at at another event. And they're just sleeping away. It's so cute. And he looks over. He says, it's time for them to get up and go to the other room.

00:42:40
Speaker 1: I'm sleep here room.

00:42:44
Speaker 7: While you're waking them up.

00:42:45
Speaker 11: They're sleep They can go in the other room, my baby, that's too funny. Oh, he couldn't handle it.

00:42:51
Speaker 1: Oh that's great, that is sweet. So so your youngest is thirteen, Yeah, okay, he's.

00:42:57
Speaker 6: The boss, that one.

00:42:58
Speaker 10: That boy, he's almost Michael's height.

00:43:01
Speaker 1: We named him a legend amazing.

00:43:04
Speaker 11: Help Yeah, yeah, help, yeah, don't name your son legendever, you do.

00:43:11
Speaker 7: He he he doesn't think we're real about our music. Yeah, because it's not hip hop or anything that.

00:43:17
Speaker 1: He's like, he's into other things.

00:43:19
Speaker 7: You don't want to make no real money, mom and dad, playing.

00:43:24
Speaker 6: Boy, do you know?

00:43:26
Speaker 10: And then if he asked for something, your boys are probably not. They're not.

00:43:31
Speaker 1: They're not there yet.

00:43:32
Speaker 10: Well, when he wants something, he's.

00:43:33
Speaker 11: Gotten to this point now where he understands he can google stuff, so he googles. You know, nothing is real in Wikipedia, nothing's really how much we he thinks we make?

00:43:44
Speaker 1: Oh, and then he tells you he shots it and.

00:43:46
Speaker 10: He sends to me, you can't get me.

00:43:53
Speaker 11: He's like, Mom, what do you mean you can't afford two hundred dollars worth of roadblock?

00:43:56
Speaker 12: Oh?

00:43:56
Speaker 10: Yeah, Like it's not you don't have a job.

00:43:59
Speaker 7: You have, you don't have to work.

00:44:02
Speaker 6: Oh, my god.

00:44:04
Speaker 12: We he his favorite sty like it's so interesting because we have another side of us that's more like what jazz, like classic jazz, And both him and the youngest daughter, they're like, if it ain't that, we don't want to hear it.

00:44:25
Speaker 7: It's so weird.

00:44:27
Speaker 12: Like he wants the horns, he wants the strings. He's like Frank Sinatra or King.

00:44:34
Speaker 20: You know.

00:44:34
Speaker 10: He's like, I can't.

00:44:38
Speaker 1: Well some day you can't force them right now, you know. So, yeah, I have the kids all been on the road at various times, and just kind of he.

00:44:45
Speaker 7: Was on the road forever because we homeschooled.

00:44:48
Speaker 1: Him when he was little, so you could go on the road till he was twelve.

00:44:51
Speaker 12: Actually the first year, this first year, he's doing so good. I'm so proud.

00:44:58
Speaker 11: He set us down with like, we don't I don't to do this anymore. I don't want to be around a bunch of old people.

00:45:03
Speaker 1: Well that's a good age to like just make a switch. But how cool that he'll be happy he did it.

00:45:09
Speaker 10: Yeah, he's very happy his friends.

00:45:13
Speaker 7: I don't think we're that old.

00:45:17
Speaker 1: Later he'll be happy that you did that, that you homeschooled women took him out and we're together striving.

00:45:23
Speaker 7: He doesn't have any social issues like he's he's just he's really cool.

00:45:28
Speaker 1: That's great.

00:45:29
Speaker 10: All about kids are great. They make it easy, you know, because it could be you.

00:45:33
Speaker 1: Know, no, I don't know at all. What are you talking about?

00:45:43
Speaker 10: You know, just you just pray that you get the kids.

00:45:45
Speaker 11: That's like, I understand, you're working, understand, it's okay. And we've just been fortunate enough to our kids aren't making us pay.

00:45:53
Speaker 6: Yeah.

00:45:53
Speaker 7: Only one that was not like that is Legend.

00:45:57
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:45:58
Speaker 12: Well, I mean when he was a baby boy, like I'm talking about like two or three, and we were taking places, he'd heckled us in a real.

00:46:07
Speaker 1: Way, like listen, heckled you.

00:46:10
Speaker 12: We had we weren't like we were on the circuit of really trying our hearts be discovered. And our first show in Nashville was at this brewery called Tennessee Brewers and it was just Tyan. I like, no guitar, no, not just keys and Tyana and no babysitter. Can not find anyone. So we had to bring this three year old boy into this brewery and they let us do it because I was like, he's gonna sit right here, where we could see him.

00:46:39
Speaker 1: On the side of the stage.

00:46:40
Speaker 7: No, he just sat in front the table.

00:46:44
Speaker 1: That's amazing.

00:46:45
Speaker 7: And I put his toys. We set them up.

00:46:48
Speaker 12: I was like, yeah, son, I thought I did the right thing. I was like, you have to be a good boy. Okay, we'll get your milkshake.

00:46:55
Speaker 7: After he's like, yeah, you know, and I thought that, Yeah, I meant okay, I got it.

00:47:01
Speaker 15: Yeah.

00:47:02
Speaker 7: No, we start singing. It was a three hour set, one of those.

00:47:09
Speaker 6: Norah.

00:47:10
Speaker 12: We get through the first song by the skin of our teeth. Oh my gosh, because he's like, boom, this is the sucks.

00:47:20
Speaker 6: You're terrible.

00:47:21
Speaker 7: Oh god, my ears are bleeding now. And then he's like, look at me, I'm letting TV.

00:47:25
Speaker 12: He's standing up, running across the tables, and then he takes the salt and pepper shaker.

00:47:30
Speaker 7: He's like, come daddy, Oh my god.

00:47:33
Speaker 1: He looks like it was like a scene in a.

00:47:35
Speaker 7: Movie's laughing while meantime is like trying.

00:47:39
Speaker 6: To the action right back.

00:47:43
Speaker 7: Both took him to the bathroom.

00:47:45
Speaker 1: Oh my god, sit down you David's I was like, what is you.

00:47:52
Speaker 7: Because I won't do it again, daddy. Oh Dan, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry, daddy, I won't do it again. Good boy. I was, okay, we should go back out and we started next song. He's like, oh boy, where is this over?

00:48:09
Speaker 1: Your impression of him is like, Elmo, I love it.

00:48:14
Speaker 7: I'm going to show you when we're doing this. And I look over at the guy who had us.

00:48:19
Speaker 6: I said, he was like he did two.

00:48:25
Speaker 7: We don't worry about We got our control all the way back where we came. And he was quiet the whole time.

00:48:33
Speaker 1: Like he knew.

00:48:35
Speaker 10: Yeah, he knew, you know. And we were we were in that was like the toughest time of our lives.

00:48:41
Speaker 1: That's a hard time to be touring with a kid.

00:48:43
Speaker 18: Yeah.

00:48:43
Speaker 11: And we were homeless too, like we were Yeah, we we lived prior to hitting the road, like twenty different places.

00:48:50
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:48:51
Speaker 10: And and we ended up stumbling into Maryland.

00:48:55
Speaker 11: At a service and a guy was like, I see you guys have this at this time he was like four, maybe Legend was four.

00:49:01
Speaker 7: And that's Chattanooga talking about him. That's Chattanooga.

00:49:07
Speaker 10: And we just roughed it out, you know. But we used to have to take him everywhere, you know.

00:49:12
Speaker 11: Have Care dot Com was our friend, remember that we get people like come to venues and watch your kid in the dressing room.

00:49:20
Speaker 7: It was like every babysitter we would get.

00:49:22
Speaker 10: Yeah, it was crazy.

00:49:24
Speaker 12: Really, he was not bad, he was he's just difficult, very experienced and being difficult.

00:49:32
Speaker 10: Yeah, he knew how to get rid of him.

00:49:33
Speaker 1: Oh he did it on purpose. Oh my, Well that's the whole intense thing.

00:49:38
Speaker 6: That's a whole yeah.

00:49:40
Speaker 20: But what not to do.

00:49:43
Speaker 10: With your kid on the road.

00:49:46
Speaker 1: You're just on the on the road constantly. So you didn't have a home, and you just lived on the road.

00:49:52
Speaker 7: We've lived out in the R and V. We lived out of our vans.

00:49:55
Speaker 12: We've we've we had Because when I met Tanya, I was already a homeless veteran. I had a hard time really Yeah, after my first divorce, like my divorce with my children's mom, I couldn't get it together. I was stuck and just I didn't have help. But also the military didn't know that I was a homeless bat, you know. And what just happens in this country a lot like the Army or Marine or Navy, whatever, they don't necessarily once you become a veteran, you're no longer their responsibility. It's the VA's responsibility, but the VA, you have to go to it in order for the VA to know what your situation is.

00:50:41
Speaker 1: Not everybody knows how to ask for home.

00:50:43
Speaker 7: And most of those guys are like me.

00:50:45
Speaker 12: They come out of war, they don't really trust it, they're afraid, and they go back. And I was going through a lot of that, and I couldn't get a job. Our country was going through a period where the incentive was to hire an ex con first, and so I'd be an interviews with an ex con and I'm like, you're going to get this child over because the incentive.

00:51:07
Speaker 1: Is to do that, you know, and that's crazy.

00:51:10
Speaker 7: But one day, just to term I mean, the don was was actually.

00:51:15
Speaker 20: In for us.

00:51:17
Speaker 11: And you know how you meet artists, I mean you have probably come across lots of artists and you look at that person and you're like, this person really deserves somebody to just tarry with them a little longer, you know, hang in there so that they can be discovered. And for me, that was Michael, Like I'd never met anybody that deserved it more, you know, from his experience, his writing, his heart and then you know, on top of me being in love with him, I was just like he's such a giving person, you know, and how he loved people and how he served people, not just in the army, but his family. We would go to churches and different things like that, how people responded to him, and so for me it was like we were like, well, you could have went out and got a job and did different. It was more so of just trying to make sure that his dream happened, you know, and I was I mean, once we started saying together, then it became.

00:52:11
Speaker 7: I didn't know what I mean.

00:52:14
Speaker 12: When I met Tanya, and I was writing songs and in hopes that well, maybe this can do something. You know, I've been hearing about songwriting, but I was more so focused on trying to figure out where I was going to take my daughter's when I.

00:52:33
Speaker 7: Picked them up.

00:52:34
Speaker 1: It's like you were dealing yeaheah, I'm in it.

00:52:37
Speaker 12: And but you know, at the same time, Tyan was in her own recovery journey, you know, and so we cleave to another. But I told her I'll never forget because I knew she was. I was like, hey, I since she's starting to have feelings for me, because our conversations are getting longer, you know, all the things.

00:52:57
Speaker 1: So it started with just the songs.

00:52:59
Speaker 12: Yeah, and there's snowballs. And I told her, I was like, hey, I am I'm not a catch. I was like, don't don't fall from me.

00:53:09
Speaker 7: I'm not a catch.

00:53:10
Speaker 1: I was like, you're being protective definitely.

00:53:14
Speaker 12: Of her, because I was like, you know what, I'm not going to be another story for another female. You know, I had a lot of letdowns, you know, and then with my my daughter's moms, we were children when we got together, so you know, I didn't really count that, you know, and so and I just knew that I didn't want to be the cause of another heartbreak or whatever. So I said, hey, I'm not a catch. I'm not established. I don't have any money. I don't have a car, I don't have a job, I don't have a house. I was like, I am what they call that song scrub.

00:54:01
Speaker 7: Yeah, that's me. I was like, I said, but.

00:54:06
Speaker 12: I know I'm supposed to be something in life. I just don't know what it is. But I do know how to love. I said that that's the one thing I know how to do. And I said, but I don't know how to get to whatever it is. And we were sitting at her in her friend's house where Tiny was staying time with staying with her friend.

00:54:25
Speaker 7: We were sitting at her friend's house.

00:54:27
Speaker 12: She had this bar downstairs, and I'm telling her that and then she goes, well, okay, I'm going to tell you what I see. And she just pats my knee like that, and I'm like, what do you see? She's like, I see it, King, you just need the right kind of queen in your life. And I just started, like, I was like.

00:54:48
Speaker 1: It's not very shy.

00:54:53
Speaker 6: I was way I was.

00:54:55
Speaker 11: And it took us actually three years to actually sing together. Got married and didn't sing to me years. Most people would think like, oh, they just, you know, got married.

00:55:05
Speaker 10: For the music.

00:55:06
Speaker 1: So he wrote songs for you and your brother, But you did you guys?

00:55:09
Speaker 18: Did you know?

00:55:10
Speaker 10: You didn't start singing?

00:55:11
Speaker 7: Yeah, and her and her brother never matrid, never.

00:55:13
Speaker 12: But what happened within those three years was Tanya pretty much started studying me. You know, I would get jobs and not be able to keep them. After a while, the only job I could get was playing for church, and that was like horrible. I mean that paid me like one hundred and twenty five dollars a Sunday.

00:55:30
Speaker 7: And you can't.

00:55:31
Speaker 1: That's just one so weak.

00:55:33
Speaker 15: Yeah.

00:55:33
Speaker 12: And then I had I had kids, you know, And but it was the fourth of July in Detroit to where Detroit got some things out there that kind of sound like the fourth July. And I was like, dog and I'm calling commands and I'm diving under stuff. And that's when she's like, WHOA, what's going on here? And so I'm like, WHOA, I'm good.

00:55:56
Speaker 7: I'm good.

00:55:56
Speaker 12: And then the next fourth of July it happens again. Sometimes like we have to talk, you know, the kids are crying and everyone's scared and doesn't really know what it is.

00:56:06
Speaker 7: And I'm like, uh, I'm a war veteran.

00:56:09
Speaker 1: You didn't know this.

00:56:10
Speaker 10: No, you never never shared this with her, no one.

00:56:14
Speaker 12: Because when I came home, So I served under President Bush. Yeah, and when I came home it was two thousand and seven Baltimore.

00:56:24
Speaker 19: It was not.

00:56:27
Speaker 7: I quickly understood that my country was against my uniform.

00:56:31
Speaker 1: This is so deep.

00:56:33
Speaker 7: Yeah. So I was like, oh, in order for me to.

00:56:35
Speaker 12: Survive my country now and the war my country is in, it's best I don't tell anyone that I was a soldier. Wow. Because then questions began, then you gotta tell you know, And so I just thought and it wasn't serving me. I couldn't get a job on them because they would rather hire an next con because the x kan is more afraid to mess up or to flip out than a war veteran because he can blame it.

00:56:58
Speaker 7: On the war.

00:57:00
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm getting this. It's really really incredible.

00:57:05
Speaker 7: But Tanya found within the three years. Tanya, after I.

00:57:12
Speaker 1: Told her, you've been married about three years?

00:57:14
Speaker 10: Yeah, we're married for three years.

00:57:16
Speaker 12: After I tell her, she then goes into the study on the VA and the process, and so she contacts our senator and tells our senator about me and what was going on. And our senator was like, well, we'll look into it. And when they looked into my military file and they contented the VA and the VA was like, oh, he's well, he's actually highly decorated. It's not like he was a problem or anything like that.

00:57:43
Speaker 18: And so.

00:57:45
Speaker 7: This is so crazy.

00:57:46
Speaker 12: We got a letter from the Senator like, hey, they're working on his claim, but until then, here's a check for five thousand dollars just to hold over because they're working some things up. When they got done. The military owed me backpack for injuries.

00:58:08
Speaker 1: And gave me pension, but you hadn't been collecting, and so.

00:58:14
Speaker 7: Now everything changed.

00:58:15
Speaker 12: And so what happens is now the military is paying me monthly even now, even my stipend and everything. It helped us get on our feet and chase that dream and still have a place to come home to.

00:58:29
Speaker 7: I mean, like things just so, and that's that's her.

00:58:35
Speaker 1: This is incredible. Your story is incredible, both of you and then together and.

00:58:41
Speaker 16: Then yeah yeah, music and love say yeah, well, well my goodness, it's gonna listen.

00:59:00
Speaker 6: To che No mm hmm. Why you have to go a far day above? Until you I.

00:59:36
Speaker 7: I was in the douggle.

00:59:52
Speaker 6: Why you have to go it? Filf?

00:59:54
Speaker 7: A minu.

01:00:04
Speaker 6: An by the wall? No, I've dismissed a four in the light in the hall, A long line. You lost someone a hard I want to come running.

01:00:32
Speaker 2: Both out.

01:00:37
Speaker 18: The night brown long along and you walk You lost someone a hoard?

01:00:44
Speaker 6: Someone ah, come running?

01:01:00
Speaker 2: Let you?

01:01:03
Speaker 6: Why do you have to go and play with me?

01:01:10
Speaker 18: Didn't you know I'm a flog talking?

01:01:27
Speaker 6: Yeah? Yeah, where did they go and play with me? Yeah? You're not the one. Oh no, you're mister in the nine. Then you are you someone o? Someone ready in that mon night in the now a new one? You want someone else?

01:02:27
Speaker 18: Someone money? Really moday night turns it today?

01:02:42
Speaker 6: Well it's not for me to stand say you old d in the.

01:02:58
Speaker 14: You want so on an, you want so one of.

01:03:38
Speaker 1: Oh guys a power, Oh god, you queen, try to get it there. I love it.

01:03:50
Speaker 10: It's big and it just came down. It's so cool. I love it. We have to do one, like like we gotta do one train one together.

01:03:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, it would be so fun. Yeah.

01:04:01
Speaker 12: I had so many thoughts, you know, so I didn't have confidence on the piano. You sure do now, well I have listen in the fandom. I'm not fanding in twenty fourteen, Yeah, I was. I used to set Tanya up. She would sing at churches and I'll let the church music just play for Yeah.

01:04:24
Speaker 11: She's like, Michael, you need to play the spar was like I would get up there and it's nothing like playing with the piano.

01:04:32
Speaker 1: Player that outplays you or also knows you.

01:04:36
Speaker 7: Well.

01:04:36
Speaker 11: I mean what I would get with these piano players and they would outplay the song.

01:04:41
Speaker 1: They would be too much, And I'm like, that's what you're talking and.

01:04:45
Speaker 11: I'm not like, you know, I don't do all the riffs and trills, and well, they're not listening. Yes, they're listening to themselves. And she so listening to like Michael's playing and you're playing. You all are sensitive to the voice and the song and the intimacy of the song. So we would go to these churches and I'm like, they're wearing me out on this piano.

01:05:07
Speaker 1: So I can't keep up, and you can't you can't sing over it.

01:05:11
Speaker 11: No, you can't kill yourself trying to do. And Michael just has just touch in the same Well.

01:05:17
Speaker 12: I didn't believe it because you know, growing up in the church, the flashier you were, it's like the more the spirit moves or something.

01:05:26
Speaker 9: So it treats you.

01:05:27
Speaker 7: It's not real because you got in real world and you're like, where's the song?

01:05:34
Speaker 6: You know.

01:05:36
Speaker 1: But there's a balance.

01:05:38
Speaker 12: Yes, So before we moved to Michigan, we were living in Townson, Maryland, and you know, we're through a period where it's still like that, like the guitar is like a thing thing, like everyone wanted to play the guitar. No one really was doing keys like that, and so I was like I can't play the guitar. I'm so, but someone freed me. I watched a concert of Norah j It's true, yes, and it was just you in a piano and I was like, tell you look at and I swear to God because it was like I watched this over and over and over again because I was like, how does she like?

01:06:27
Speaker 7: Okay?

01:06:28
Speaker 12: And you would play and sing and your playing complimented your vocal so perfectly, you know, and the only person like you know, I mean, Nina some moment does it wonderfully, you know, Ray Charles, But nobody in our day and age, for me, was doing it. And then I saw that concert and then it caused me going deep dive and I saw you with another configuration where I want to say it was the Blade brother Brian Blade, Yeah, Brian Blade and and uh it was an upright Bassis and I was like, oh my God, like listen to this sound. And then I saw you in all these different configurations, and so it gave me the confidence I needed to be able to just trust me and trust me you know where I want to jump out at, you know, because you can see like.

01:07:27
Speaker 7: You know, you get amazing grace. How sweet.

01:07:34
Speaker 6: The shach like mean.

01:07:42
Speaker 2: I was, but now out.

01:07:51
Speaker 6: Blood blood.

01:08:10
Speaker 7: I created that off of you.

01:08:13
Speaker 11: No, yeah, like the pacing like you are this Generations one of the best vocal pacers I've ever heard.

01:08:23
Speaker 10: In my So you make the music wait for you.

01:08:26
Speaker 11: I mean, I think a lot of artists are afraid of the silence spaces and.

01:08:31
Speaker 10: Places, you know, And what you do is you allow.

01:08:37
Speaker 11: The music to people to get into you and then like here I comes, she does.

01:08:46
Speaker 7: She lets it. She just let me touch you. And she's just I mean, like I saw her the first time. Maybe when was that time?

01:08:57
Speaker 12: That was three four weeks ago, March nineteenth. I will never ever forget this moment at ground Opery. She's on the stage and it's her and her configuration, and she's got her you know, her fiddle, and.

01:09:12
Speaker 7: She's just singing. And I knew she was staring at me while she's singing. But then this person thinks she's staring at I'm like, how in the world is this happening?

01:09:26
Speaker 10: And we all were like, and she never went here when she just our entire band was trying to get here to see you. They all think you're singing to them.

01:09:38
Speaker 7: She's not singing to you.

01:09:39
Speaker 1: Guys, it's not just that.

01:09:43
Speaker 7: Can Cold. This happens to that can Cold. Everybody talks about his boys.

01:09:50
Speaker 12: But unless you understand this and this like his vocabulary on the keys, like shaking up and fly.

01:10:00
Speaker 1: Right package deal.

01:10:01
Speaker 7: Yeah, it's beautiful when it's done the right way.

01:10:05
Speaker 12: And yeah, you know, so I just I wanted to tell you that, you know, I wanted to say that, Ohannah, we saw you at O Hannah.

01:10:12
Speaker 1: Yeah, time was that the first time we met.

01:10:17
Speaker 10: We met at John John.

01:10:22
Speaker 1: We've seen No, Well, now I see you at everything.

01:10:26
Speaker 6: Grate was so.

01:10:33
Speaker 12: O man and then John prying. Oh I never forget that, you know, you coming to dressing room. So that wasn't our first time.

01:10:42
Speaker 1: No, no, well that's really sweet of you to say. I appreciate it. I think that being yourself is the most important thing, so you playing for yourself is only going to be the thing that you are the most.

01:10:59
Speaker 7: Does that.

01:11:01
Speaker 1: Collaborating is great, but like you guys, have a thing. Don't leave her hanging next time?

01:11:07
Speaker 7: So fast, I have was gonna meet me at the church up there.

01:11:15
Speaker 6: Yeah.

01:11:16
Speaker 10: Oh he was so scared. And we used to play.

01:11:18
Speaker 11: We had so many keyboard nightmares that I'm surprised that he still playing well.

01:11:22
Speaker 1: Piano on the road is hard keyboard since it can be uninspiring to.

01:11:27
Speaker 7: Yeah, well, we had a cassio starting. I used to plug up.

01:11:30
Speaker 10: I used to put batteries in the casioh my god.

01:11:32
Speaker 1: You didn't have a play you just had a training little cassio.

01:11:37
Speaker 10: I would take him out on the streets in Richmond and put him on the street like.

01:11:40
Speaker 7: He was busky.

01:11:41
Speaker 12: Our first tour, we were playing in this cloth and Columbus called George's and we're doing great.

01:11:49
Speaker 7: It's just me tying the cel player and I'm I'm holding it down. I was worried.

01:11:53
Speaker 12: I'm like, how am I gonna hold guitar? A guitar player can hold down an entire show with the rhythm everything.

01:11:59
Speaker 1: I'm like, it's tricky with piano.

01:12:01
Speaker 6: I'm like, you you got good at rhythm.

01:12:03
Speaker 7: My goodness, you're good at it. I was drenched. The club was so hot.

01:12:12
Speaker 10: At three piece suit in a bar.

01:12:14
Speaker 7: Wait a minute, I go playing this song. It's like was boppy, yeah, people clapping.

01:12:25
Speaker 20: No.

01:12:26
Speaker 7: I went to go hit this chord here and every key on the piano plad and oh no, I was like, I know what it's like.

01:12:36
Speaker 6: I was looking.

01:12:36
Speaker 7: I was like, what is happening? Was like, was just like cont down.

01:12:43
Speaker 12: Persons, like he's real classic tras, like hey man, I ain't going here to mess up. Man was broke, and I was like his sweat it was so much water, and that he bore that we had to stop once again.

01:12:57
Speaker 7: I gotta look at the guy.

01:12:58
Speaker 1: I was like, that's why I was up, because because.

01:13:05
Speaker 10: Man, Yeah, it was terrible. We're done, bro, Yeah, we're two songs in it.

01:13:11
Speaker 7: You got to go back there music shop.

01:13:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the worst. So many stories, I'm sure, it's so crazy.

01:13:23
Speaker 10: This journey has been wild.

01:13:24
Speaker 1: It's wild. I loved hearing about it. I love it. I could listen to your stories forever. Let's just hang out somewhere.

01:13:34
Speaker 2: Let's do that.

01:13:35
Speaker 1: I've been pretty lucky. I only had one keyboards, neaphoo, and it was on live TV. But oh, I don't know if anybody noticed it, but I was, I was playing.

01:13:45
Speaker 3: I was.

01:13:45
Speaker 1: It was Willie Nelson and Paul Simon and they were trading songs. So it was maybe the country music Wars or something. I don't think I saw this. Yeah, and and and Paul Simon did Crazy, and then Willie did Still after all these years, and he asked me to play World. You know, play the World's under him, and you know, they everything's backstage and they hook it up and then it's like a it's like a forty five second part and I'm doing it and the pedal sticks and so everything is sustained and runs together and I can't do anything about it.

01:14:19
Speaker 12: That is a whole nother Okay, So let me ask you this as a pan player, because I have to know because I I lived and died by the pedal for a long time. Yeah, because I didn't understand how to connect.

01:14:34
Speaker 6: Yeah, so it was going like it was going yeah, yeah, yeah, but.

01:14:40
Speaker 7: I have to have and a keyboard.

01:14:42
Speaker 12: I have to have the sustained pedal plug then, because you know, it gives you know, you know. So I tell my guys all the time, hey man, make sure the pedal is.

01:14:53
Speaker 1: Oh, because it's easy for them to forget. And it's just kind of this random piece, right, there's nothing worse.

01:15:00
Speaker 7: And you go to play a sustained let it go and you're like, and I'm looking at it.

01:15:07
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not working Yeah, well I think I would have rather that than it just be working and then you're playing. And also that song has goes through many different key centers, so it's not like just one.

01:15:21
Speaker 7: Switched on you.

01:15:22
Speaker 6: Yeah.

01:15:22
Speaker 12: Have you ever had that happen where you you hold it down and it does sustain, and then you lift it up and it's sustained.

01:15:30
Speaker 7: It reversed.

01:15:31
Speaker 1: That is a real mind Yeah, circus of the mind. Let no go, bro, that's so funny.

01:15:40
Speaker 19: It's not you.

01:15:41
Speaker 1: Technology is tricky, electronics. We can make it through.

01:15:45
Speaker 6: Yes, y'all do do it well?

01:15:48
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for joining than so special, Thanks for sharing all your stories.

01:15:56
Speaker 10: Really beautiful listening to us.

01:15:58
Speaker 1: Thank you.

01:16:00
Speaker 7: Drink.

01:16:00
Speaker 12: I'm so happy and I'm so glad we got a chance to tell you how we feel about you.

01:16:05
Speaker 1: I appreciate it.

01:16:05
Speaker 12: Think you know or a Tank said something to us one time, Tryana. We went out to eat and we were just talking about you know, like we were talking about when times, about the inspiration and stuff. And Tanya was like, I don't know what happened to us as a people, Like what and like what's going on? And Tank said, we don't impress each other anymore. She's like nobody's impressed by anyone, you know, and why.

01:16:32
Speaker 1: Is that on the internet.

01:16:36
Speaker 11: I tell you what, I am forever impressed by you. Thank you for the last twenty was it twenty?

01:16:43
Speaker 1: I'm impressed by you, I really am.

01:16:45
Speaker 11: And I'm so grateful that you know, when you did what you did with the music, you stuck to it and you've been consistent with it and given so many people like you said just be yourself to tell young people to be themselves like now you know, Yeah, it's so powerful and for you to be that example, never changing and every time you see you all the time like.

01:17:10
Speaker 12: You are every time, it's more pieces of you that it's just like, yeah, like did you see that?

01:17:16
Speaker 17: Yeah?

01:17:17
Speaker 11: Just watching you unfold and become this beautiful woman, I mean you're just this No, seriously, you just became like you you were.

01:17:25
Speaker 10: A woman at what were you like twenty twenty one?

01:17:28
Speaker 7: So child? I was like this, who is this woman?

01:17:33
Speaker 1: I was so grown up?

01:17:34
Speaker 11: You were I was, but you made so many of us want to grow up. Like listening to these songs and this music, it was like, oh, this is how twenty one and twenty two is supposed to look.

01:17:46
Speaker 10: You were like I'm a grown woman.

01:17:47
Speaker 1: Well I had an old lady music taste, like, yeah, we.

01:17:53
Speaker 12: Will never like I wish I could have been in the clubs sitting down watching Ella Fitzer sing Mac the Knife, or like can you imagine being in the room when Billie Holliday came first saying.

01:18:09
Speaker 7: Strange fruit Like, I'm like, how privileged were they?

01:18:13
Speaker 12: I mean, YouTube is as closest we can get because we're not We're not we aren't creating artists like that anymore, you know. I mean, Samara is doing a wonderful job, but you know, like there's something about being able to be in the presence of that and for me, you know, and Tanya your Ohanna said, you know, I'll never forget that.

01:18:41
Speaker 7: Like me and my guys and time we were just sitting there and you know.

01:18:45
Speaker 12: It's outside, and I was like, I wonder what what set, what what Nora is gonna do because it's outside.

01:18:54
Speaker 7: Gonna said they're skunk drunk, you know, and I'm like, oh, I'm very interested.

01:19:00
Speaker 1: To see this because it was light out still, but it was so.

01:19:06
Speaker 7: The move like you came out and Brian was on there and you had an upright base.

01:19:11
Speaker 1: I forget well that was Chris Thomas.

01:19:12
Speaker 12: Okay, yeah, and you played and we all were just like, well, this is what I mean by the presence. We get to experience one of our legends do her thing.

01:19:26
Speaker 7: You know. I hate that. I never got a chance to see Ray Charles. I never got a chance to see Nina. So did you get a chance.

01:19:34
Speaker 1: I never saw Nina? And I kicked myself because when I moved to New York, she played every year at Carnie Hall, and I just you know, I didn't maybe have the money or I thought, oh, I'll see your next year. And yeah, but I saw Ray play in high school. Oh wow, and it was great, but it was very like you know, Short and Medley.

01:19:56
Speaker 7: I mean, it was great, but you wanted more.

01:20:00
Speaker 2: I don't know.

01:20:00
Speaker 1: I think I wanted more, or maybe my mom wanted more. And I'm just remembering that she saw him play when she was in high school in a high school gymnasium. Oh wow, sixties, that's that's the I know. I was like, that's what she's expected.

01:20:16
Speaker 7: Was your first concert?

01:20:18
Speaker 1: My first concert ever was Empty Hammer?

01:20:20
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, you got to see that.

01:20:24
Speaker 1: In Alaska at a stadium.

01:20:26
Speaker 19: Oh, she has so many people on that stage. Yeah, so good, honey, yours was Wayne Houston. That's amazed that was your first thought, No, Saravon.

01:20:38
Speaker 10: I saw was right when I was thirteen. Blues Alley.

01:20:41
Speaker 1: Amazing.

01:20:42
Speaker 11: Yeah, at Blues Alley and my friend took us there and I was all dressed that they had to dress me up to make me look older so.

01:20:48
Speaker 1: You could get in. And I was like, oh, that is incredible.

01:20:52
Speaker 13: Is that amazing?

01:20:53
Speaker 10: It was Oscar Peterson was on key.

01:20:57
Speaker 6: Yeah, no, no way.

01:21:00
Speaker 11: Because my friend was a piano player and he was like obsessed. He was like, this guy's playing. You got to see him, this guy.

01:21:05
Speaker 7: Yeah, like I'm thirteen.

01:21:07
Speaker 10: And then he was like, do you know who's playing?

01:21:09
Speaker 11: And I am like no, because I was listening to the jazz stuff at school. My you know, my teacher was like a band teacher, so he was like the voice that you need to listen to.

01:21:17
Speaker 6: A mimic.

01:21:20
Speaker 10: She was in incredible. She's fun too, she really is.

01:21:24
Speaker 1: She really will stretch you up and down.

01:21:27
Speaker 10: Oh yeah, and she was down here yeah, and she go up here and.

01:21:32
Speaker 6: Yeah she was old and this.

01:21:35
Speaker 11: Richness she was older. She had on this like this long kind of kimono kind of it was like a brown with like the shiny stuff on it.

01:21:47
Speaker 7: And I was thirty.

01:21:48
Speaker 1: That is incredible.

01:21:51
Speaker 7: How were you when you saw I.

01:21:53
Speaker 1: Was probably eleven or twelve.

01:21:55
Speaker 7: Okay, yeah, I was ten on my first come.

01:21:58
Speaker 10: I saw Whitney at seventeen.

01:21:59
Speaker 7: That's my second seventeen. I hate telling people who mine as well.

01:22:03
Speaker 12: It was the best and worst experience of my life, and for the same exact reason. I mean, it was weird because it was the best because it was so amazing, and it was the worst because it was so amazing. But I was blindfolded Cleveland, Ohio at the Cleveland Coliseum back in the day. I was ten years old and my godmother took me into the coliseum and then unfolded me. It was pitch black and then this music with po and out of the center of the stage pops out Michael Jackson.

01:22:37
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, and she surprised you.

01:22:40
Speaker 12: Yeah, And I was like, And it was the worst because Michael stood there for fifteen minutes literally because they had to cart people out from passing over.

01:22:50
Speaker 6: Serious, Yes, I'm crazy.

01:22:52
Speaker 12: It was insane and it was this what happened throughout the entire concert, People.

01:22:59
Speaker 7: Just drop I mean, but he was. I would you don't want that to be your.

01:23:05
Speaker 1: First because it's too high bar.

01:23:08
Speaker 7: It's too high bar.

01:23:09
Speaker 12: Like everything about him, like standing there for fifteen minutes, you don't even realize it's fifteen until you look over because there's a ticker.

01:23:17
Speaker 7: Yeah, and because everything.

01:23:18
Speaker 12: He does was like precise, and then how he emotionally just took everybody like he's doing all the jamming, He's doing everything, and he does through her. But this was the moment in his career where he was ending all of his shows with She's out of my life, and he would like cry in the middle of it, you.

01:23:41
Speaker 2: Know, but.

01:23:47
Speaker 6: It's just the keys Lie shout my life.

01:23:54
Speaker 7: And I was like perfect, perfect big. I was like, this is ridiculous. I don't ever know this my first ruin he was.

01:24:06
Speaker 12: It was, I mean, not many people get I mean people have seen them, but not many people get a chance to say like that was.

01:24:12
Speaker 7: Their first time.

01:24:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was my first.

01:24:15
Speaker 7: Incredible Michael Jackson.

01:24:17
Speaker 1: Well when you were young, so not many people your age got to see that.

01:24:20
Speaker 7: No, No, I mean we I walked away with the hat and the glove.

01:24:24
Speaker 6: It was.

01:24:26
Speaker 7: Had a glove, right, Yeah, I got in so much trouble.

01:24:30
Speaker 12: Like the next day I cut all my pants, my white saw and then all of a sudden, high waters became a.

01:24:38
Speaker 10: Thing like high water my mother's communion gloves.

01:24:43
Speaker 6: School.

01:24:46
Speaker 7: I can't think about gloves for community.

01:24:50
Speaker 9: I can't get it.

01:24:51
Speaker 7: This Sunday, Well, I'm so.

01:24:55
Speaker 20: Glad that you.

01:25:00
Speaker 7: This is pretty cool.

01:25:01
Speaker 1: You guys are special. Well, we'll hang out again.

01:25:03
Speaker 3: I know it.

01:25:04
Speaker 1: Yes, let's go out on a song that's good. This do leads me home.

01:25:08
Speaker 10: Let's do it hip journey.

01:25:29
Speaker 15: By getting bye until you get to the bye bye and me your Maybe you're up being big house.

01:25:43
Speaker 13: Some guy.

01:25:51
Speaker 6: Has travel.

01:25:54
Speaker 18: To and fro.

01:25:57
Speaker 7: Sometimes you get along trying to go.

01:26:03
Speaker 12: Back to a familiar places where you straight where from.

01:26:15
Speaker 6: Leave me on the other side of the railroad, where the mountain teas, the crystal sheeps to the lands flow.

01:26:30
Speaker 20: Hid fa strada of those country roads, you.

01:26:41
Speaker 2: Will ways be.

01:26:45
Speaker 6: The water leads me home.

01:27:00
Speaker 10: I haven't been by.

01:27:03
Speaker 8: The hard times.

01:27:06
Speaker 5: When you found me, I had lost my mind. Begin where I was going, Patty where I came from, me.

01:27:25
Speaker 2: Me on the other side of the railroad.

01:27:31
Speaker 5: Where the mountain based crystal streets through the lads.

01:27:36
Speaker 20: Flow in yards of Final Shade Narrow on the Country Falls, you will alwate me, the one that.

01:27:56
Speaker 6: Least Me Home. It is a ready.

01:28:44
Speaker 7: You cha, Yes it happened.

01:28:51
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Thank you, thanks for listening.

01:28:55
Speaker 10: That was so fun.

01:28:55
Speaker 1: It was amazing. I can't believe that story. Yeah, that was believable. Play learning how to play and sing and Sadam Yeah, busted out palace no big deal. Now, Oh my god, that's so intense. It was a very, very touching story. I'm really so glad that I get to be with them. This was nice. If you want to know what songs we played in this episode, the first song was Hustling from their album Heartstown, released in twenty twenty. The second song was Hey, Pretty Moon from Heartstown also, and the third song was Mister Fun from the album Plus One released in twenty twenty five. The fourth song we did was leads Me Home, also from Plus One released in twenty twenty five. Special thanks to the Warren Treaty for joining us today, Michael and Tania and We'll be back next week with Josh Grobin. Nora Jones Is Playing Along is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Follow Nora Jones is Playing Along and start listening on the free iHeartRadio app. Today, I'm your host, Nora Jones. This episode was recorded by Matt Marinelli, mixed by j Ammy Landry. Audio post production and mastering by Greg Tobler. Artwork by Eliza Frye. Photography by Shervin Linez. Produced by Nora Jones and Sarah Oda Hey. That's Us Gay. Executive Producers Aaron wan Kaufman and Jordan Rentagg, Marketing Lead Queen and Nanke. Thanks again, see you next week. Bye bye, Smelly later