Podcast with Tricia Walker, Big Front Porch

Hello, World!

[00:00:00] Casey Combest: [00:00:00] Welcome to the Blue Sky Studios podcast. We speak with real people in the music industry who are spending their days working their dream job. I want to introduce Tricia Walker to the show today. Tricia, thanks so much for being with me. I'm

[00:00:16] Tricia Walker: [00:00:16] so happy

[00:00:17] Casey Combest: [00:00:17] to be here, Casey. Absolutely. What Trisha is a talented lady.

[00:00:22] She's a singer songwriter whose songs are steeped in passion pain and the grace of the American South. Her music has been recorded by Faith Hill, Patty Loveless and Alison Krauss. To name a few. Trisha, I want to start in sort of a funny fashion, I guess. Can you tell us about the time where you missed your stage que at The Grand Old Opry?

[00:00:43] Tricia Walker: [00:00:43] Yes I can, uh, well, a little quick context, one of my jobs in Nashville.

[00:00:48] I was so fortunate to audition and be selected to be a member of Connie Smith's band. Connie is a long time member of the Grand Ole Opry and just one of the greatest country music voices you'll hear out there. [00:01:00] And so she, we did the Opry almost every weekend for six years. And again, I was a rookie small town, Mississippi, you know, stars in my eyes.

[00:01:09] And you know, the Opry for your listeners who may not be aware of it. The Opry is divided up into 15 or 30 minutes. Broadcast over a longer period of time on a Saturday night. And each of those segments has a sponsor and it has a host. And so this particular night, Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass was hosting the show and somebody along the way had said, Hey, you got to watch Mr.

[00:01:35] Monroe. You know, he'll introduce things really quickly. You've got to kind of be the ready backstage. And sure enough, I was backstage back in the green room area with other musicians and all of a sudden I heard Connie song starting and I was not on stage. And I went herring around in the wings and, you know, I thought, Oh my gosh, I'm going to be fired.

[00:01:56] I'm going to be fired. They had already started the song and [00:02:00] there's no real easy way to sneak on stage at the grand Ole Opry. So I just kind of had to, I sort of hung my head and walked out with my guitar and kind of jumped in where I could. And I, you know, after the song was over, after her set was over, you know, in the wings, I was just apologizing profusely.

[00:02:17] Oh, I'm so sorry. She just died laughing. She said, yeah, you got watch Mr. Monroe. He'll he'll sneak up on you now and introduce you too quick. So, I thought my career was probably over at that point, but, but she was gracious and got a big laugh out of it. And, and I do remember that moment.

[00:02:31] Casey Combest: [00:02:31] Well, That's incredible. That's a, that's a, that's one of those stories that, uh, I just can't say other people have like being able to play the grand old Opry period is amazing.

[00:02:42] So that's really cool. Well, let's rewind a little bit Tricia, and take us back to the early days of your music career. How'd you get stuck?

[00:02:48] Tricia Walker: [00:02:48] Sure. Well, I grew up in Fayette, Mississippi, which is between Natches and Vicksburg will small County seat town. And it was sort of like Mayberry growing up and we still had a [00:03:00] music teacher in school, uh, back then.

[00:03:02] And I also was able to take piano lessons from her when I was six years old. So she was a huge influence on my life and taught me how to love music. Her name was Ms. ISCA Montgomery, and she taught me, you know, regular piano lessons. And then when I was about in the fifth grade, No everybody back in my generation, we would watch the insolvent show on Sunday night.

[00:03:23] And so I remember in 1964, when the Beatles came on ed Sullivan and I thought, Oh my gosh, I want to do that. That's what I want to do. And my mom and dad bought me a, a relatively inexpensive guitar from the Western auto store in town. And I got a mail Bay chord book, and I would sit in my room until my fingers were raw, trying to play chords on that cheap guitar.

[00:03:48] Uh, but it was a start. I see it was a star and I had a, there were a couple of brothers who lived down the road and so we put together a little. Rock and roll band called the mishaps and played a little local [00:04:00] school dances. And so I just always had a love for music. I ended up majoring in music. I was, it was really on the fence between music or sports.

[00:04:08] Cause I love to play sports too, but I decided to be a music major. And you know, even through all my college career, I was. At that point, I was singing cover songs in bars and restaurants. Uh, while at the same time being a youth director at a church, it was an interesting, it was an interesting time, but I guess you, and that was, I learned how to make a living doing multiples things.

[00:04:29] And so that sort of set me up before I decided to move to Nashville.

[00:04:34] Casey Combest: [00:04:34] Yeah. And I think that would be a good thing for us to revisit a little later in the interview, because I think today it's more important than ever to have multiple streams of revenue to support your, your music career. Even if some of those things aren't music necessarily.

[00:04:48] So you're, you're in Mississippi, you've decided to go the music or out and embrace it. Talk to me about that season of moving to Nashville. What went through your mind? What fears did you [00:05:00] have and how did you. Uh, ultimately overcome those to, uh, land some of the coolest jobs ever

[00:05:06] Tricia Walker: [00:05:06] again. I remember distinctly having the feeling I earned my bachelor's degree at Delta state.

[00:05:11] And then I went back to the Jackson area and earned a graduate degree from Mississippi college. So I was in Jackson. I was working at a church and singing in some restaurants and I didn't, I knew a few musicians in Nashville. I mean, in Jackson that I would consider. To have been professional musicians.

[00:05:29] You know, how, how do you go out? How do you go around finding professional musicians? But I have a few of them that I knew and I said, what do you have to do to be in the music business? And they said, well, you've either got to move to New York or Los Angeles or Nashville. And as I mentioned earlier, my hometown was 1600 people on a good day.

[00:05:47] So in my mind, New York was too big. LA was too far away. Nashville was 500 miles from my apartment to my mother's front door. And I thought, well, okay, that's, that's closer to home. I'll take a shot and go to [00:06:00] Nashville. Although I did not grow up listening to country music. And that was probably the only genre I didn't listen to growing up, but Nashville was closer to home.

[00:06:08] And I, you know, I tell people I had the distinct memory of feeling like I was more afraid of not going and trying. Then I was of going and failing and having to come back home that tension of I've got to go try this. If I don't go try this, I'll never be satisfied. So that's what got me in the truck. I didn't know anybody in Nashville pack the truck, had a friend help drive me up there.

[00:06:32] And then my mom drove my car and, uh, it was a sense of great adventure. And again, to my mom and dad's credit. They raised me to try anything, you know, they, they allowed me to experiment and try different things. You know, even though there were successes in Psalm and failures in som, they always encouraged me to, to not be afraid to try.

[00:06:53] So I credit them for giving me that sense of adventure. And that's what got me in the truck.

[00:06:59] Casey Combest: [00:06:59] That's [00:07:00] amazing. And, and how many years in all did you spend in Nashville?

[00:07:02] Tricia Walker: [00:07:02] It was up there from 1980 to 2006.

[00:07:06] Casey Combest: [00:07:06] Cool and, and walk us through, uh, some of your pit stops there. What all did you do?

[00:07:11] Tricia Walker: [00:07:11] This is sort of funny and, uh, a connection back to Jackson.

[00:07:14] One of my part-time gigs in Jackson before I went back, went to Nashville was I was a lifeguard out at the Mississippi state school for the deaf and blind and. So when I left to go Nashville, I did not have a job lined up, which is that's mistake. Number one, let me tell anybody listening, make sure you've got a job lined up, but I went and within two or three weeks though, those Tennessee state school for the blind and deaf had an opening for an assistant recreation director.

[00:07:43] So I thought, well, I can go do that. And you know, so I, it was a two in the afternoon till 10 o'clock at night job. It was what I considered my quote day job, which left me the mornings to try to begin to navigate and figure out the national music industry. And you have to remember, this is [00:08:00] way before the internet, before computers, before cell phones.

[00:08:03] You just had to go get up there and try to figure out how it's going on. So, so I got my day job and that allowed me to at least pay rent, buy groceries, and you know, the only other resource I had was, and I think I still have them in my closet is a box of magazines called Saul rider magazine, which was published out of Los Angeles back in the late seventies.

[00:08:25] And it would have articles in there about how to make a demo tape, how to call and make an appointment to play your songs. It was the only source of information I had. So I used that to, to try to learn how to be in the music business. And even before I went to Nashville, I had, uh, you'll appreciate this being a, being a studio guy.

[00:08:45] Uh, right before I left to go to Nashville, the task cam company, which is a manufacturing company of audio manufacturing company, they introduced the first multitrack cassette recorder. Oh my gosh. It just blew everybody game [00:09:00] changer, game changer. Now I remember I was, uh, I was just, as soon as she, my graduate degree, I didn't have two nickels to rub together.

[00:09:07] And back in the day, what they were asking for that original unit was pretty steep. But I jumped in with both feet and bought one, and that also began to introduce me to recording. So I was able to actually, you know, play a track and then sing a background track with it and then bounce it over and sing another track.

[00:09:24] And it was great. And that's how I made my first little attempted demo tapes, which when I went to Nashville, I would make appointments. And I had my, I remember these were the days of cassette tapes. I would make appointments. I would type out my lyrics. I would wrap the lyric around the cassette tape with a rubber band and call these people and make appointments.

[00:09:43] And I remember an early appointment. It was with a gentleman at the ACOF Rose publishing company. And I went in, he graciously gave me some time. And the one thing I loved about Nashville and I hope Nashville never loses this. Was that sense of Southern hospitality. They weren't [00:10:00] mean to you. You know, they, you know, I was the rookie, I was green as I can be, but he gave me some time and I came in and he took my cassette tape and he played it and he read my lyrics and he was straight with me.

[00:10:12] He said, well, he said, that's not bad. He said, but if you're going to be in this business, it's going to have to be. As good as, or better than this. And he took the current number one 45 single record, which was at the time Barbara mandrill. So a song called years after you, which was written by a man. I became friends with named Tom Skyler, one of the great Nashville songwriters, and he put it on and he played it and he said, now, if you're going to really get into this, it's gotta be as good as this song or better because that's what you're competing against.

[00:10:42] That was a huge lesson. You know, again, he wasn't made about it. He wasn't harsh about it. But he, he cast a light and said, here's your competition now? And I thanked him and I went back to my little apartment and I got back to work.

[00:10:56] Casey Combest: [00:10:56] That would be certainly a catalyst for pushing [00:11:00] yourself and trying to get better at this craft.

[00:11:02] So that next season would, you know, to kind of relate that to where everybody is. We're we should constantly, uh, want to improve our skillset. So when you were in that season and Trisha, what were some of the things you did to, uh, I guess just continue to get better at songwriting.

[00:11:19] Tricia Walker: [00:11:19] I was fortunate to be in Nashville during the years when the Bluebird cafe was actually started, you know, it, it began in 1982.

[00:11:27] So I actually got there two years before the Bluebird started. But as it became that songwriter Haven, you know, within those first four or five years, like anything else, the music business is a relationship business. You meet people and you continue to meet people and you build your network and you find the people that you job with and the people that you don't job with.

[00:11:47] And so I began to find like-minded songwriters and, um, you know, began to work together. I was talking about songwriting. You know, co-writing, Nashville's a big co-writing town. You, you ride a lot with other people and [00:12:00] that's a lot like going on a blind date. You know, some of them work, some of them don't, you know, no harm, no foul, but you find the people that you're compatible with.

[00:12:08] And so as the Bluebird cafe community began to kind of grow, I was fortunate to be there at that time. And began to go to the blue bird a lot and then begin to play at the Bluebird. And that was really the graduate school for songwriters, because you could go hear unbelievable songs every night of the week.

[00:12:27] And one of two things you'd either go home feeling discouraged thinking I'll never be that good, or you go home being challenged going, Oh man, that was awesome. I want to write something like that. And truthfully, over the course of my career, I had several nights of both.

[00:12:42] Casey Combest: [00:12:42] And, uh, recently, and I think how we met was through Delta state.

[00:12:46] And so, uh, after Nashville, uh, what was that journey like coming back to Mississippi?

[00:12:52] Tricia Walker: [00:12:52] No, I think it was divinely inspired had been up there a long time. The business was changing. I had started [00:13:00] writing a, I wouldn't really call it a theater show, but I put together a series of songs. Around a particular song that I wrote called the heart of Dixie, which has to do with a lot of Southern themes and race and reconciliation.

[00:13:14] Uh, and it had begun to get a little traction, not on commercial radio or anything like that, but just in a different circle of folks. And that really seemed to become a voice of part of what I wanted to sing about and write about. And about that time, Katrina. Hit the coast and just broke everybody's heart and are the little, still small voice in my ear saying, you know, it's time to go back home.

[00:13:37] I didn't know what I was going to do. Uh, but it felt right. It felt like it was time for me to come back to Mississippi. And about that time, once I sort of settled into that in my spirit, I got a phone call from Delta state university saying, Hey, we're starting this entertainment industry program. And we'd really like for you to come interview for the position of director.

[00:13:59] It was a great [00:14:00] blessing. I came back, uh, was hired to, to develop this program. And so from 2006, till 2019, uh, everything that I had used in Nashville, I wanted to come back, bring that back to young people and try to develop a program. That they could begin to understand a lot more about the music business before they went out and got involved in it.

[00:14:23] And so that's what I did. I came back and for those 13 years built a program at the Delta music Institute. Very proud of what we did. And I just retired from that position. Um, last, a year ago, last

[00:14:34] Casey Combest: [00:14:34] summer. And thanks for your service and doing that to Trisha. I knew, I wish I was about four years younger because that would have been incredibly helpful when I was first starting.

[00:14:45] I graduated high school in Oh two. And so I felt like most of what I did learning to be a producer, uh, was kind of learning it the hard way. And so I'm so thankful for what you guys are doing, uh, for future producers, engineers, and songwriters coming out of the [00:15:00] state of Mississippi. You've had a lot of really cool experiences over the years, Tricia, uh, take us back to when you.

[00:15:05] Your favorite moments as a songwriter?

[00:15:07] Tricia Walker: [00:15:07] Oh goodness. My natural years are back home. You, you call it well, gosh, you know another thing, this is a song, you know, songs have a life of their own. Once you ride them and you sort of let them go, they take on a life of their own heart of Dixie was certainly one of those that began to develop its own life.

[00:15:25] There's another song I wrote called what a wonderful day, which was written at the request of a friend of mine for a breast cancer survivor event back in Nashville. And it began to be used in a lot of cancer survivor events, like relay for life and race for the cure. And I would go and perform it at a good many of these events back in the nineties.

[00:15:46] And I remember being in Fort worth, Texas, and at the end of the race, you know, everybody gathered, they had an entertainment stage and I would sing the song. And then all these ladies knew this song like 10,000 people singing. [00:16:00] Your incredible is pretty cool. And it's, it's cool. You know, I mean, commercial success is great.

[00:16:06] But something like that, for me, a song that has deep meaning that people can latch on to whether it's a survivor that needs some hope, whether it's a song that gets you through a challenging time, there's a time and place, certainly for commercial songs to have success and just have fun and lighten the mood.

[00:16:26] And then there, there are times when songs have a little bit heavier message to them. So the moments like that, I had an opportunity to sing. We did an in the round songwriter thing at Sundance for Robert Redford's Christmas party one year. So I was sitting in front of Robert Redford, singing a Christmas song, thinking how in the world did I get here?

[00:16:45] You know, and music, you know, music can take you places that you might never have had the chance to go. So I've been very, very blessed.

[00:16:53] Casey Combest: [00:16:53] Yeah. And let's talk a little bit more about songwriting, your area of expertise. So I think it's always [00:17:00] tempting when you're on one side of doing something for a living to kind of glorified and make it look like something that it's not.

[00:17:08] I know for me, when I thought about man, I want to one day just make records or just produce a, it looked completely different when I was doing that each day, you know? And so T take a moment for our listeners and talk to them about what does that job of songwriting really look like?

[00:17:23] Tricia Walker: [00:17:23] You know, it's a very solitary profession, even with co-writers it takes an enormous, I think to be really good.

[00:17:31] It takes vulnerability. You've got to be willing to be really vulnerable and put things on paper. Or on tape or on disk whenever you got to really be honest. And sometimes that's a real struggle, you know, because I think every songwriter, of course, every songwriter brings his or her a world perspective to the game.

[00:17:53] And that's the struggle, you know, you can learn the craft of songwriting. Anybody can learn the craft. I can teach [00:18:00] anybody the craft of songwriting. But to begin to understand what it takes to be open, to catch an idea and to hold that idea and to let that idea grow just like a seed and then be willing to put the hard work into, um, using sort of plant analogies to that, I guess, because it's spring, but you know, you, you let something start to grow.

[00:18:27] But then you have to prune it. You have to cut it back. You have to, you have to fertilize it. You know, you have to work with it. It's not just going to come out of the ground fully formed without some sort of care. That's just, it's a thing I see young songwriters and students usually do, uh, for a song asylum and they'll turn in something and they think that first draft is the final draft.

[00:18:46] The first draft is easy. That's just sort of, kind of going blind, you know, throwing it out there on the paper. And the hard work is rewriting rewriting rewriting, and to know when to stop and when to let it go. And that, that comes [00:19:00] those sorts of decisions. I think, come with time and experience, you know, that that's something that more mature songwriters begin to have a better sense about than, than young songwriters.

[00:19:10] Casey Combest: [00:19:10] And, and to kind of add to that, uh, with a question, how do you know when a song's done?

[00:19:17] Tricia Walker: [00:19:17] Well, some song writers don't they keep, they keep poking at it and picking at it and they don't. I think it's just, you know, again, you do it long enough, even if it is not completely finished, even if you think there are things that you could still go back and take apart, you just have to trust your intuition.

[00:19:33] With time and experienced to go that one's just that's as done as I can get. There may be a line that I could, if there's some I'm trying to fix, it's like, don't try to force something in where it's not going to work. Save that for another song again. I think that that idea of when are you done when you, when you do have a good song, when you feel like you've got a great song and I've, I've had a few where I've walked away.

[00:19:58] And it really feels like a [00:20:00] sacred thing. You walk away and you go, wow, that was just me holding the pencil. I really, I really didn't have a lot to do with that. Other than I was holding the pencil. And you know, when that one's done, it's like walk away because a lot of times my friend Beth Nielsen, Chapman, great songwriter or Grammy award winner, she always used to say, you know, you have to write through the garbage to get to the good stuff.

[00:20:22] So a lot of, a lot of the songs you write are just. They're not going to be great. They're going to be pretty good. And they're going to, they're going to have value in that. It continues to allow you to hone your craft, but every song you write is not going to be great. And you have to, I think, as a young songwriter and I had to, you have to come to grips with that going, you know what?

[00:20:42] That's not as great as I thought it was, but it helped me progress to the next on to help make me a better songwriter.

[00:20:49] Casey Combest: [00:20:49] And for someone who's thinking, wow, I want to be a songwriter. I want to do what Trisha got to do every day. Uh, what advice would you give them? Well,

[00:20:57] Tricia Walker: [00:20:57] I would try to write every day and [00:21:00] again, it's tough.

[00:21:02] And the way that the business has changed, the business model has changed even over the last 10 years. When things going to streaming, it's very difficult for songwriters to earn a great deal of revenue, unless you're one of those really top. Half percent, you know, mega stars, but that's no reason to stop writing the world needs great songs and great music.

[00:21:26] So if you want to be a solo writer, write songs, find other songwriters. There's some great songwriting festivals. We have one here in Mississippi, down on the coast, the Mississippi songwriter festival. She usually in the fall go hang out with other songwriters because I think what'll happen. What happens is.

[00:21:44] I know it does for me sometimes because the actual work is very solitary. You kind of get that too far inside yourself and you need to go find some, some like-minded companions and hear the struggles that they're going through. And then you realize, Oh, you're going through the same thing. I am, [00:22:00] I've hit a writer's block or I've got a dress spill.

[00:22:02] Um, you know, how did you get through it? So it's important to, to find your tribe, you know, and the beautiful thing about songwriting is that it's. You know, age and gender don't really matter. You know, you can have an 18 year old young person that has an old soul that's riding with, uh, you know, 50, 60 year old songwriter.

[00:22:22] And it doesn't matter, you know, if they've got a great idea they're working on, but find your tribe, find people that want to do the thing you want to do, you know, write songs for your local venues. Write for the local church, write for local advertising agencies. You know, it doesn't have to be. Does it have to be national?

[00:22:40] I think, I think it was Rachel Charles. He said, you know, I never wanted to be famous. I just wanted to be great. So make sure you're writing to be a great songwriter and not a famous songwriter,

[00:22:50] Casey Combest: [00:22:50] solid coy. Wow. And transitioning a little bit to the broader music industry. Uh, what's something you wish you would have known at 18,

[00:22:58] Tricia Walker: [00:22:58] you know, I think [00:23:00] you have to be prepared and this is an ongoing.

[00:23:04] Struggle to find the balance between art and commerce. I think that's, that's an ongoing struggle with most creative people. Is that at some point you have to realize if you're going to do it for part of your living, that it is a business and that didn't have to be a bad thing. I think I would, would have told myself, you know, don't struggle so much with the fact that it's a business.

[00:23:27] You know, your music can be so helpful to so many people and it can entertain people and it can, it can make people cry. It can make people laugh, but if people reject you and they will on a daily basis, they'll reject your songs. Don't take it too personally in some business. And that was something, you know, again, you saw writers and creative people there.

[00:23:48] They live in dreams. They live in that right side of their brain. So that's a harsh thing to try to balance is that hard left brain business side, but you have to find a way to balance that [00:24:00] out. Somewhat.

[00:24:01] Casey Combest: [00:24:01] I feel like, uh, are either at the character traits or the mindsets that separate successful artists and bands from those who walk away from the music industry or they just fail artists or songwriters

[00:24:14] Tricia Walker: [00:24:14] or both, let's go with songwriters.

[00:24:16] You know, songwriters, I think, like I said earlier, you have to be vulnerable. You have to be willing to be vulnerable. So that's a trait. I think you have to be willing and search deeply, to be honest and kind, because. You can put words and melody, you can put that on paper or tape, but if it's not true and honest, there's I call it that third dimension.

[00:24:41] If it's not true or honest or real audiences will pick up on that, audiences are not dumb. They know when somebody is being honest. I think that's why I'll just use John Prine is a great example. You know, he is so honest in his songwriting that you can't. Realize that to be anything other than the truth.

[00:24:58] That's why it resonates so [00:25:00] much an honest song, even with flaws, even with technical flaws, an honest heartfelt song will still connect with an audience. So I think you have to have vulnerability honesty. You need to be conned. This is a tough business. So be kind, you have to have resilience. And you have to have passion for it.

[00:25:18] You know, the truth be told, uh, we'd also be making music if we never made another dime for it because we love it so much. So you have to have a passion and

[00:25:26] Casey Combest: [00:25:26] Tricia, I'm so grateful for your time today. And I want listeners, if they need to reach out to you, your want to work with you on something to be able to, uh, connect, uh, what's the best way they can do that.

[00:25:37] Tricia Walker: [00:25:37] Absolutely best way is through my website, which is big front porch.com. There's a way you can connect me through the website, big front porch.com. I grew up in a big old house in the country. I learned a lot of things about life on that big front porch. So that's where I took the name, big front porch.com.

[00:25:56] Casey Combest: [00:25:56] I love

[00:25:56] that. Well, Trisha, thank you so much for your time today.

[00:25:58] Tricia Walker: [00:25:58] You're so welcome. Thanks for [00:26:00] having me on.

[00:26:01] Casey Combest: [00:26:01] Absolutely. And thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of the blue sky studios podcast. Have a great day,

[00:26:06] Tricia Walker: [00:26:06] everyone.