Q "The Well" is the name of Jennifer Warnes' latest album. It's been a long time coming. And a visit from Jennifer has been a long time coming as well. I don't remember the last time we were together. It might have been when "The Hunter" came out.
A Yes, that's right, Jody.

Q '92, '93?
A Well, yeah, probably. And then I saw you, you know, a couple of times after that, around when I was out here doing things. But someone called me and told me you were playing my record and it was on rotation. That's like the magic word. So I wanted to thank you for that. Really cool.

Q Well, you know, I should give credit where credit is due. I had heard the record. I hadn't keyed into one song, but John Kunz at Waterloo (Records) said, "The song is The Well. That is what the record is centered around. Focus on that song." And when I did, then the whole thing opened up to me.
A Yeah, you've got to kind of be in a watery place. It's a quiet -- when you're home alone, that's the record to play. Or at nighttime. I actually wake up -- when I can't sleep, I'll wake up and go in the kitchen and play it. You know, just sit in the kitchen. And for some reason, I listen to it all the way through the end, which is a good sign.

Q Is that unusual for you to listen to one of your own albums?
A Well, the last two, "The Hunter" and "The Well," I listen all the way through, because we constructed them that way. But the rest, the other albums, it's like, oh, God, I wish I hadn't done that. So, you know, fragmented. But now I understand how to make a record that isn't -- you know, (how to make one that is) a quality 45 minutes.

Q Now, you've been making records for about 30 years. And you're saying just now you've discovered what you feel is the way to make a cohesive work?
A Well, I'm so old, when I came on the scene, they told me to shut up and sing, girly. It was a good 15, 20 years into the journey that anyone said, "What do you think, dear?" And at that point, I said, "Well, I have quite a number of ideas. Would you like to hear them?" And that was the beginning of "it."

Q Of more artistic input and control. But I want to go back to "sing this girly." The first time most of us saw you was -- you were the hippie girl on the Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour.
A Yes, sirrie, Bob.

Q We're talking late '60s?
A Uh-huh.

Q And how did that happen, because you grew up in Los Angeles, right?
A Yeah. I was playing a restaurant in Orange County. And Pat Paulsen was my co-bill. And we were just buddies. And he was the stand-up comedian for the Smothers Brothers' warm-up. And then he got swallowed into the ensemble and they needed a warm-up spot. And he said, "Oh, I've got a pal." And really, like that. And here I am 20 -- 18 years old. You know, I was just so young. And they put me in the singing spot to warm up the audience. And Tom saw me and he said, "Oh, can she do comedy?" And of course, I could do comedy, because I can't tell a joke to save my life, so I was the perfect foil for everybody. And so they put me in like these skits and stuff with Tony Randall and all these real professional people. And I kind of got costumed and got done. And they did -- you know, they did the TV thing on me. And really, I cut my teeth on TV there. And my mentors were Rob Reiner, Steve Martin and Carl Gotlieb, who wrote Jaws. And the greatest -- you know, they ended up being incredibly talented people later.

Q What a blessing.
A It was a stroke of buddy genius, in God's hands.

Q Well, it's funny how our acquaintances become legends. I mean, I knew Stevie Ray before his first record came out. And I'm sure Rob Reiner and Carl Gotlieb, they were just people that you knew. And Stevie was a guy that I knew, like many people in Austin. And now, he's a statue. And I mean that with all the love in my heart.
A I don't know if he wants to be.

Q I'm sure he'd much rather be alive than be a statute, but it's just the --
A Well, I think he is alive, but the statue thing, you know, it's like, that's odd, isn't it?

Q It's mythical. And it makes people into myths and legends.
A Austin ought to be careful about caricaturizing itself too soon. And I love that statue. I often go visit it. But you have to be careful. I've watched it happen to other cities where they capitalized on their persona to the extent that they went way past it. You ought to be careful, you know.

Q I think you do. And at the same time, as you say, the statue is meaningful to you. So it serves such a purpose.
A Well, Stevie, he's just very much alive, as far as I see it. But I didn't know him personally. Roscoe knew him. And Roscoe introduced me to him. So it was through Roscoe that I got to understand what he was doing. And then he came and played on my record. And we had some really nice musical moments together that was just another one of those, you know, God said, "Here, you want this?" And I had the sense to say, "Yes, of course."

Q Well, we should back up a little bit. Roscoe Beck was your partner and a musician you played in the group Passenger, when you were with Leonard Cohen. And the album we're referring to that Stevie played on was an album of Jennifer's called "Famous Blue Raincoat." And Stevie played on First We Take Manhattan.
A That's right.

Q And well, we mentioned Roscoe. I was going to ask you how someone from California wound up with such strong Texas ties. And he's the reason, part of it.
A Well, Henry Lewy had been using Weather Report with Joni Mitchell. And then they went out on their own tour and she was making a record. And the next best thing to Weather Report was Passenger. And at that time, they heard of this band in Texas that would tour and probably work for one-tenth of what Weather Report was working for, who knows? And so they flew Passenger out and put them up in a hotel in Hollywood and recorded them with Joni Mitchell. Did you know that?

Q No.
A Yeah, they were -- they started out as Joni Mitchell's next band. And Leonard Cohen was also being produced by Henry Lewy, heard about this band and said, "Well, can I use them, too?" And so that's how "Various Positions" -- "Recent Songs," let's say, in one of those albums was born.

Q One of Leonard's albums with Passenger as the band?
A Yeah, I think it's -- it's "Recent Songs."

Q Yeah, "Recent Songs" was first.
A Yeah. So they are the band of "Recent Songs." And I slipped in and, you know, like observed a little bit. And then he went out on that tour. And that was the year that Arista Records put an injunction on me and said I couldn't sing for anyone ever. And I had three years before my contract ran out. And I was looking at a three-year silence. And it was hurting me so much. And I called Leonard, who was my buddy and friend for so many years now and I said, "I've got to get out. I've got to sing. And the only way I can do it is as a background singer. Will you just snug me into that band some way and I'll play like I'm dumb and I'll just do a real good job. I can be on a bus and I can write songs and no one will know." And he said, "Okay." He said, "But be careful about the bass player."

Q Now, who thought that your three-year silence would have so many blessings and things that would -- I mean, that was your entrée to working with Leonard, to meeting Roscoe and then also to coming to Texas.
A Yes. And then after that tour, we all went back -- I came back and I learned about jazz from them. And was introduced to Stevie and all kinds of things.

Q What year are we talking about?
A Oh, I can't remember. Probably '79.

Q Let's hear the title track of this album, The Well, and then we can talk more about how it's influenced by Texas and how so many years later you came to the well. This song co-written by our guest, Jennifer Warnes and Doyle Bramhall and features Doyle Bramhall II on acoustic lead guitar.
A On Denny Freeman's borrowed acoustic guitar…

The Well

Q That was the title track to Jennifer Warnes' new album is "The Well." Co-written by Jennifer and Doyle Bramhall. And on acoustic lead guitar playing one of Denny Freeman's funky acoustic guitars, Doyle Bramhall II. You don't hear Doyle the 2nd playing acoustic guitar very often.
A No, he was coming off Roger Waters' tour and all his equipment was in Texas in a truck somewhere. And he said, "I don't have an instrument." And so Denny Freeman said, "Here, use mine."

Q That Texas hospitality.
A Yes.

Q We mentioned that you first came to Texas toward the end of the '70s, after making friends with Roscoe Beck, who was in the band Passenger, and you were all playing with Leonard Cohen. But you stayed here for a while, into the early '80s. And then throughout the years, you would sort of revisit. You would turn back up, you would get an apartment for a while. What kept drawing you back to Texas?
A I wish I could tell you that. Just this last trip, I brought all these like packages of vitamins and stuff to help me get through the day. You know, nothing -- no drugs, just remedies. And I haven't used them once since I've been here. And I was remarking to Doyle Bramhall today that my body wants to be here. You know, it's like, there's something about my psyche and my body that just loves being here. And I don't know, I've lived in five different apartments around town for various times in my life, various reasons. And sometimes I just come here to sleep. I just come here to absorb -- you know, listen to the grackles and not do anything and recover from my life, you know. So I don't know exactly what it is. I just think that something's calling me. And I have history here. My great-granddad came through and was married in Texas and then they went on to Phoenix. So there's some familial history here, too.

Q And you came back -- the song "The Well," which we just heard, tell me a bit about that, because that's about Jacob's Well in Wimberley, Texas?
A Yes.

Q I don't know too much about it.
A It's a cave in the middle of a river. It's the Cypress Creek in Wimberley. And there's the hole in the middle of Cypress Creek. And the water goes down the hole and then really far below that is the Colorado River, which is quite strong current. And so divers have been known to go down not knowing there's a river down there. And so, you know, quite a number of divers have been lost over the years. So it's both scary and powerful and beautiful. And it's a power spot. It's like of like Ayres Rock. You know, it has that convergence of a lot of different energies there. So Doyle showed it to me. And it was at a time when we were both in transition in our lives. And so we were talking about, you know, what to do. And we were doing that talking right there over the hole.

Q And it really is a metaphor for the record. Because the record has a lot of nature on it and healing and things like that.
A Yeah. You know, I want to back up for a second. You asked why I came to Austin. My mother just recently passed away and I'm working with a healer here, who's just astonishing. And I'm doing grief work with her. And I do come here to re-acquaint myself with the balance between my spirit and my life. And so "The Well" is really -- it's one of those little spots where you can do some of that work. And I think when you're young, you're so busy being physical and you're so enraptured with the world that you can see and you're so busy displaying yourself to the world as a visual item here, tangible thing that you do, that when you go through crisis and -- however you go through that, all those battles and all those challenges and all those great things that your destiny calls you to do suddenly shift and they go into the invisible world. And suddenly, you find yourself in a battle that no one can see. And you get dressed in the morning. You go to work and you talk to everybody. You look like the same person, but the truth is, either in dreams or in pain or in tears or in fantasy, you're battling in ways that can't be seen. And I think that that happens to everyone. It's just not very well discussed. It's not often discussed. So I come here to work in that way.

Q And you not only lost your mom last year, but you lost your dog, who had been a companion of yours for a very long time.
A Yeah, he's on -- his picture is on "The Well."

Q So it wasn't -- 2001 probably wasn't your favorite year?
A Oh, well, you know, when bad things happen to you, it doesn't mean it's a bad year. It just means that -- that means the year you go through certain doorways. I'm sorry I lost Cooper and I lost Mom, but you know, I'm going out the same way someday. So I wanted to learn about it.

Q Well, what about striking up a songwriting partnership with Doyle Bramhall? The only other person we know of Doyle writing with over the years was Stevie Ray Vaughan. And they wrote some classic songs. So being that Doyle didn't ever have another writing partner, I'd imagine it was a little -- maybe I'm wrong -- daunting on both ends for you to come together and write together and how did this partnership come about?
A Well, I think Doyle has written with other people, but not as fruitfully as he worked with Stevie. Dan Forte (a music journalist) called me and said, "If you want to see Doyle, he's playing at Jack's Sugar Shack in Hollywood." And I went down to see Doyle. And I had one of those thunderstruck moments. I think musicians have that a lot. It's like, oh, my God, there's somebody with a piece of the language that I need to know. It's like if the musical language were an alphabet, he had the H. You know, it's like, I've never had the H. I've got to have the H. And so he had the H, or whatever it is, and I wanted it so bad. And I was raised -- I had really, really been conversant in the other letters, but I didn't have that one.
And I just kind of -- I went back the second night. And his road manager said, "Hey, you know, Doyle saw that you were here and would like to meet you." And he said, "I love the theme from Norma Rae." Now, when a guy from the Blues world says he likes the theme from Norma Rae, it just makes you go, huh? Like, what's that? And so out of that strangeness, we struck up a friendship, which ended up, well, do you want to write? And so he told me about the Dancing Waters End, which incidentally, is having a big waterfest on April 27th, down there in Wimberley.
And so I went down there. And I thought, okay, I'm going to write a song, I hope. I hope I'm going to write a song. And we walked down to the well and talked about Stevie and talked about midlife and talked about letting the past go away and talked about, is there hope after 50? And we talked about what are we going to tell the young? That there's nothing here? What are we going to tell our friends? That there's nothing here? Of course, there's tons here. It's just of a different nature, these challenges. Is it possible to even write about that stuff? And that was the nature of the conversations.
And then that turned out away from words and into music. And we played music for one another for a couple of days. What do you like? We played What Do You Like? I know you can play that really well. I don't play it with you, yet. But What Do You Like is a great game. And then he came back one day and said, "Hey, this is how it goes. It goes, We can make it, I know we can. Only time will tell. Let's take a walk down to the water. Let's go to the well. Which is the way every great song starts, in absolutely the simplest, most child-like start.
So he recorded that track for me and then I took it home to my kitchen that Christmas and finished the lyric. And incidentally, that's how Song of Bernadette began. I said, "Leonard, I've got this song I've got to write. How shall I start it?" And he said, "Well, just begin at the beginning. Just say, There was a child named Bernadette. I heard the story long ago. She saw the Queen of Heaven once and kept the vision in her soul. Start there."

Q I'm sorry. You know, people like Leonard Cohen and Doyle Bramhall telling us how easy it is. It may come easier to them, but those are good tips. Start at the beginning.
I know what I wanted to ask you: You said Doyle had a missing piece that was not in your vocabulary musically. Now, you've won a couple of Grammys. You've performed three Oscar-winning songs. So your vocabulary is pretty broad. I'm imagining it was the blues -- the gruff blues thing that you, perhaps, didn't feel you had a handle on?
A Well, have you heard his voice?

Q Oh, yeah. He's -- I won't even go there. But yeah.
A Okay. Well, not only is it the sound of his voice, there's something in his voice. There's something in his voice. Now, I can only say that from a singer's position. If you hear people who have voices that go way in, it's not just like a horn. He's not making a blat. You know, he's not making a honk, a sound like some singers do. They're just making a -- they're noisemakers. But Doyle's voice goes way, way in. And it's kind of like he is on drums. His groove is just a little bit dug in. It's a little bit deeper than everybody else's. It's a little bit farther behind, but just exactly right on. And I had never heard that before. I heard Stevie and that's just about as spot-on and deep, deep in as you can go with a guitar. But I had never heard a voice like that. I know I heard Ray Charles and Fats Domino. I knew what that thing was, but -- so I had never really heard that. Not to mention we're in opposite ends of the zoo. You know, if we were creatures, they would not put Doyle and I in the same section of the zoo. I'm like over there in the aviary somewhere. And he's in the mud. And you wouldn't put us together. And it was that very distance that excited me. It was that very strangeness that made me think, "If I could possibly find what aspect that's in him that is in me, that I would be able to birth that. And that's why we're all attracted to him. That's why you love music, because you love that which is already in you, not yet born. And so, you know, that's what magnetic attractions are all about.

Q And we want to realize it.
A Yeah.

Q Well, okay. So then you have this knowledge. And we talk about Doyle being dug-in. There's a songwriter who's pretty dug-in himself. His name is Tom Waits. But Jennifer Warnes is never going to come out singing sounding like Doyle or Stevie or Tom Waits, because opposite ends --
A I wish I could. It's just not this lifetime, you know.

Q So how do you approach -- on your new album, I want to play your version of Tom Waits' Invitation to the Blues. How do you approach that?
A The third day I couldn't sing. We'd done three days of tracking with Abraham and Denny. And I was so torqued, I was so exhausted. And I came and I said, "Gosh, guys, I'm sorry. I cannot sing another note." And they said, "Don't worry about it. We'll do the track anyway, you can do the vocal later. And just whisper along." And that's the vocal you're going to hear right now.

Invitation to the Blues

Q That's Jennifer Warnes with a version Tom Waits' Invitation to the Blues. And you'll find that on Jennifer's latest album "The Well."

Q You wrote or co-wrote four songs on this record. But you're also noted for covering other people's material, most notably, Leonard Cohen and the "Famous Blue Raincoat" record and noted for singing duets, too. So collaboration is really important to you as an artist?
A Music is a collaborative art. It's really -- it's one of those things that -- I was mentioning this to someone the other day that you don't set a canvas against your wall and invite your friends over and ask them each to bring a color paint and come on over and let's paint the painting. That would be disastrous, because you couldn't get ten people to paint the same painting. It would be really hard. But that's actually what we're doing as musicians. It's a collaborative art. And so you not only have to learn how to be a great painter or a great musician, but you have to know how to pay attention to the stroke that that person did and whether they're using the right color or, you know, how to support that. So it's a really graceful, social, collaborative art. And I like that. I enjoy that.

Q Well, here's a few of the people Jennifer Warnes has collaborated with over the years: From Bob Dylan to Harry Belafonte. From Jackson Browne to Alejandro Escovedo. From Eric Johnson and Stevie Ray Vaughan, to Warren Zevon and John Prine and Leonard Cohen. You like to play with the big boys and girls. And that's good.
But I think you're most famous collaborative efforts have been with Leonard, whether he was present, or, you know, like on the "Famous Blue Raincoat" album. He's not present for most of it, literally.
A Right.

Q Or on your tours with him or on his records. Such a fruitful collaboration. And you told us earlier how it came about, but looking back on it now, what do you feel? What do you feel about that relationship? I know you could write a book about it, but --
A I think it was meant to be. I think I was supposed to -- I liked his music before I met him. My friend, Rick Kuna, the Hawaiian guitar player, introduced me to him in a hotel lobby in Hartford, Connecticut. He was playing the Opera House and I was playing the college. And we met at that time. And then I went on a tour with him and we made a film together. And then I helped him with his records and we would -- we were, at that time, trying to bring in ethnicity into his music. So I understood arrangements through working with him and then became an arranger of a kind for him. And then went out on tour again. Through all of that, a friendship developed that remains beautiful, really, really beautiful.

Q I just see that passing of the torch (a drawing) on the cover of ("Famous Blue Raincoat", also known as) Jenny sings Lenny…
A Yeah, he came to my gig at McCabe's last year and sat in his Armani suit in one of the metal chairs. And it was just like a doting, you know, cousin or -- you know, really there for me. And his timing is really impeccable. When I -- I was in a hospital in an operation and I woke up and he was sitting in the chair. I mean, he has this incredible timing. And I called him when my mother died. The day that my mother died, I said, "Was that strange?" And he said, "What?" And I said, "Well, that I -- the love of my life was my mother. Was that odd?" And he had the most beautiful response, which is, he said, "We don't choose where love comes from. Where it comes from, it comes from. And if you are riveted to that meal that you're eating there and you have no desire to leave, that is your story. And so that was where your story was." And he said, "In fact, everybody wants to have that kind of love with their mother." So he said, "You had so much."

Q Yeah, most of us struggle with either trying to realize it or refine it or make it pure. And it's there. It's underneath a bunch of stuff for some of us. So if you had that relationship --
A Yeah, but I love that line, "Don't question where love comes from." It can come from a dog, you know. It can come from anywhere. But if that's where it comes, it's yours. And I almost cancelled a concert a week after that because I was so grief-stricken and I didn't feel I could sing. And I called him again and I said, "I can't do it." And he said, "Jenny, everybody's got a mom."
He said, "Go and sing and let your grief inform your throat. And whatever is true, will be song and will be music." Isn't that great?

Q Yeah. And that's Leonard. I mean, he's -- he talks like he writes.
A Yeah, and he doesn't chicken out. He doesn't back out of life. Well, in some ways, maybe, but most ways not.

Q I want them to play (Cohen's) Take This Waltz at my funeral. A long, long ways away.
A "And I'll dance with you in Vienna."

Q We're talking about collaborations with Jennifer Warnes and her new album "The Well" and so many other things. There's a duet on the record I wanted to play now, You Don't Know Me. You want to set it up for us?
A No, it speaks for itself. It's just -- it's a song that Doyle brought to me that Ray Charles made famous. We all know the song. And we recorded it in his key. And I used to sing it in the kitchen to it. And I came up with the alternative line and opened it up in the wrong key. So you can hear that.

Q Doyle Bramhall with Jennifer Warnes from "The Well" on KGSR.

You Don't Know Me

Q Two singers with a direct line to the heart, Jennifer Warnes with Doyle Bramhall. You Don't Know Me is on Jennifer's latest album "The Well."
We were talking earlier about Doyle, perhaps, informing your blues singing in some way. But listening to that, I feel like Doyle's informed by you as well.
A I don't know how much. It sounds like 30-weight oil and lavender honey to me.

Q No, it's closer than that. I mean, he was the one who came up to you and said he was familiar with your work. So, you know, it goes both ways.
A Well, we couldn't sing together if we didn't have something understood in the heart. Absolutely true. But I like the fact that we're -- the integrity of our individualities remains. This is not an Everly Brothers' cut.

Q You mentioned that you were on the road last year. And you don't go on the road that often, do you?
A No, but here I am.

Q Well, you're here. Where are all the musicians? I don't see them.
A No, you know, there's financial realities with going on the road, as you well know. And to take seven or eight people on the road costs a lot of money. So I'm waiting for "The Well" to be -- you know, to warrant that.

Q Did you go out with the Chieftains or did that ever come to pass?
A I got a request to go to Italy with the Chieftains and then apparently they had something go wrong with their Italian promoter and they cancelled Italy. So I didn't go out with them

Q That would have been a nice teaming.
A Yeah.

Q There was a night here, it must be, I don't know, it's quite some time ago. You tipped me off that you were going to be sitting in at the Elephant Room. Must have been --
A Oh, yeah, long time ago.

Q Long time ago. And I got to watch you sing. I think you were in your stocking feet. And you sang Famous Blue Raincoat, amongst other things. I sure hope that the financial realities do allow you to come around and sing for us, because no one sings like you, Jennifer.
A Oh, thank you so much. You know, I went back to the stage last -- to the concert stage last February and March and did about six or eight dates in and around California. And I worked with a really fabulous band. And I had a wonderful time. It was really great. So it's not like I can't. We're just waiting for the -- you know, for the world to be in place in a way that we can do it.

Q And if you went out there, would you sing some of the songs that you sang that won Oscars? I mean, your catalogue is so --
A No, I wouldn't. And I'll tell you why. Those are all duets. And I really don't want to sing Up Where We Belong with anyone else. It's weird singing it with your bass player or whatever. Well, that's so silly. I don't get it. And I also think that those popular hits are really popular hits and they're -- they stand -- the cheese stands alone. You know, that's with Dirty Dancing and that's with -- so no, I don't. I actually just do the music that I do normally with a band.

Q Would you do selections from "Famous Blue Raincoat?"
A We have done a couple, yeah. But I refrain from doing First We Take Manhattan. I don't want to do -- I don't want to touch that with another guitar player (besides Stevie Ray Vaughan). And so, you know, it's tricky. I just like to be truthful with my audience. I want them to feel like I -- it's not a fancy trick of any kind. I don't like that.

Q All you have to do is show up and sing and I think everything will be fine, as you well know. Jennifer Warnes has been our guest this afternoon. And I can't tell you what a pleasure it's been to talk to you, because I learned stuff about myself along the way. And that's good.
A Well, it's nice to see you again.

Q And I think we should come full circle here with the reprise of The Well.
Thanks, Jennifer.
A Thank you, Jody.

(end of interview)