Julia Greenberg | Matt Connarton Unleashed

0:00 Speaker 1: What a voice said is Julia Greenberg. The track is called Leaves from the album Leaves, and we've got let's see let me bring that up here. We've got Julia with us via phone on the studio line. Hi Julia, Hi Ma, How you doing wonderful? And I'm relieved that we get to speak with you this morning because so I'll start off by I don't mind giving listeners a peek behind the curtains. So we had a problem with WhatsApp. All my interviews this morning on the show, we're going to be via WhatsApp, and WhatsApp has restricted my account.

0:29 Speaker 1: They are accusing me of engaging in spam activity and I don't know why, but so thank you for being flexible. So I'm glad that we get to talk to you. And I love the I love the album Leaves, and that song I can relate to that I feel every every fall. You know, here in New Hampshire where we are, we're known for our for our incredible foliage and it is pretty and everything. But I don't like it when the leaves. I want to hang on to the leaves. I don't like it when the leaves start to turn because I don't like I don't like fall, I don't like winter.

1:02 Speaker 1: I love spring and I love summer. But but I can relate to that and more of that sort of melancholy vibe too, about you know you can't you can't hold on, can't hold on to the year and all of that, uh, you know, with the passage of time. I very much relate to that song, almost almost more than i'd.

1:20 Speaker 2: Like to.

1:22 Speaker 1: In a way, you know. But but it's but it's great, The whole album is great. But is my is my interpretation of that song and what it means? Am I? Am I on the right track or is there there's something else that I'm missing?

1:35 Speaker 2: Oh, you are definitely on the right track. And I spend my summers in in the Catskill Mountains, so yeah, have the same experience, probably not as magnificent as New Hampshire. But I guess if you were missing anything at all is that the song is a little bit of an inside joke to myself with myself in that I just made myself laugh one beautiful full summer day listening to September Song, which is the brilliant song by Kurt Vile about the end. You know, it's about death and longing but using using September as the metaphor.

2:13 Speaker 2: Ye, like, why am I the person who listens to this kind of thing in the height of like, you know, rejuvenation in summer. So a line about there's nothing dumber than a girl who sings September song in summer is a little you know, poke at myself for being being having a slant towards melancholy and longing during the days that should be spent, you know, at the lake with your friends and loved ones.

2:40 Speaker 1: Right right, Absolutely, No, that makes sense, And is that kind of well, so I'm curious, I mean, is that kind of the theme of the of the album? Is there a theme of the album or or do you try to tell a different story with each song? I mean, what's what's your approach to that? Because there's certainly a co piece of sound to the album. It's a collection of songs that belongs together. That's why I'm wondering if there's some sort of overarching theme to it.

3:09 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I can I can explicate a theme after having written the songs and made the album. But they are a group of songs that I wrote over a number of years, and I think one of the reasons that they hold together so well is my producer, my co producer, Bob Perry, saw my band and I play these songs live and he was like, oh, we need to capture this live in the studio. So the entire EP is recorded live. There's no overdubs except for some percussion, and it really captures the ways in which the band and I developed these songs over a number of years.

3:54 Speaker 2: And you know, there are the years in my forties and early fifties where you start thinking about things like time passing in a different way. So there's definitely a melancholy slash live your life and laugh about it, seem to the to the record and this you know, it's called born Sentimental, which again, you know, I hope that, I hope my humor comes through in the song, but yeah, it's it's also just that song is very much like I've always from the you know, the minute I was a sentient being, I was just sort of thinking about the past and had really strong feelings, melancholy feelings about time passing.

4:37 Speaker 2: So it is that is definitely the theme.

4:40 Speaker 1: Maybe that's why I relate to it as much as I do because and why it connects with me because I'm I'm someone who and it doesn't have so much to do with age, and in my case only because I've I've lived really probably since i was a teenager, I've always lived in a perpetual state of existential dread. So yeah, maybe it's saying that may be that may be why these uh, why these songs connect with me the way that they do. But it's cool that you went in and recorded these live. And every once in a while I'll talk to an artist who approaches it that way.

5:16 Speaker 1: And I've always wondered, and I've been thinking, actually, this is something I've been thinking about since I was a teenager. Why don't more artists do that? I mean, obviously it's great to be able to do, you know, all kinds of overdubs and if you're you know, if you want to be very particular, I mean, obviously, you know, most successful producers, you know, they want to go track by track. But but there is something so cool about, you know, capturing something live, that sort of spark that happens live that in some cases you can really kind of miss out on if you don't do it that way.

5:50 Speaker 1: And I've always wondered why more artists don't do it that way? Was this your first time recording in that way? Live?

5:59 Speaker 2: Ohin if you go back on your favorite dreaming platform, hopefully one of the less egregious ones. And look at my earlier records. One's called Greenland, one's called Past Your Eyes. Very you know, rock studio albums with you know, melotrons and every kind of amazing instrument. So this was not even this was not the plan. It was really my co producer Bob, who was like, we should capture the sound. I was like, yeah, let's He was wanting the but to try to get the sound in the studio because he hadn't recorded that way, and so I was like, sure, let's try.

6:43 Speaker 2: And then after six hours we had seven songs and I was like, these are great, you know. And then there was a period of mixing and really having to come face to face with the vulnerability that that's captured because now I have some distance and I love it. But you know, I can hear every catch in my voice. I can hear my guitar pick clicking against my guitar, you know, the bass upright, bass strings rattling, And I was like, oh, can we can we do that, like, can we have that? Is there a way to erase that?

7:17 Speaker 2: And and he's like, nope, it's there. Yeah, But I think in the end, if you're listening to the totality of the thing it creates, you know it's it.

7:29 Speaker 1: Is real, right, right exactly? Do you think you'll do it again? And like, like for the next album, do you think you'll approach it the same way now that you've now that you've done this, Probably not.

7:40 Speaker 2: No, I think I'll be less afraid of the natural tones that you know comes through. But you know, you always want to try something different, right, Like, Okay, I did my my quiet introspective album. Now like I want drums again. Yeah, it will be. Yeah, I'm in the middle of writing my next album, so ever emerging.

8:05 Speaker 1: Oh excellent. I'll have to go back and listen to the earlier stuff. I listened to this entire album, but I'm curious now to go back and hear some of your earlier material.

8:15 Speaker 2: Go for it.

8:16 Speaker 1: So these songs, so you mentioned too, so you'd been playing these live with your band. That that's interesting to me because a lot of artists they don't want to play anything live until they haven't recorded. You know what I mean, but it sounds like you kind of approached it the opposite way. I mean, was it always your intention to eventually record these because you mentioned your producer or co producer he heard you playing them live and then he said, well, we've got to record these. But were you going to eventually record these anyway?

8:43 Speaker 1: Or were these only meant to be live songs originally that you know that you may or may not record, But maybe you didn't have a particular plan.

8:52 Speaker 2: Right, It's a very particular set of circumstances, which yes, I mean, I really these songs are of a piece and special to me, so I had it in my mind that I wanted to record them, but I was writing them over a period where I also made my first documentary film, and anyone out there who's ever made a documentary film that there's no time for anything else. So I was really focused on this film about the great songwriter Dory Previn, who you should play on your show if you've never heard of her. And so there wasn't a plan, absolutely wasn't a plan, And everything that I was doing at film festivals and working on the film was about Dory's Preven's music and I interpret her music.

9:40 Speaker 2: So this was just like whenever I could find, you know, a little gig hearer there, I would be like, do you guys want to play? So it came out of that. It wasn't like, you know, that I had been working toward releasing an album. It just came together because of that desire to have Bob's to record live. And I had just moved to New Jersey and there's an amazingly cool record label there called Magic Door Recordings, and we all sort of talked one day and we're like, oh, we can record this live and put it out on this lable and that's how it happens.

10:15 Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, I am curious to know more about the documentary. I will confess I don't know anything about Dory Previn, but I looked it up. So the documentary is called Dori Previn on My Way to Wear And so you and you're you're an archivist for Dori Previn's estate. Is that correct?

10:33 Speaker 2: I mean, informally, okay, I am. I became an archivist for her estate because I discovered her music, was gobsmacked that more people didn't know about it, got to performing it and meeting her and her husband. And when you all watch the documentary on PBS dot org, where it is currently streaming, will you will see that she had an amazing career. She's written songs that you undoubtedly know, but she was kind of sublimated under the very famous story of her husband Andre Previn, who very famously left story for me as Pharaoh.

11:16 Speaker 2: So there's a ducy gossip, Hollywood gossip piece of the film too. But yes, because I became close with her and I knew that there were these precious documents, you know, lead sheets, music recordings in her office in a beautiful farmhouse in the Berkshires. I would just occasionally go there and help organize it. And as I would just like write to my friends, like you wouldn't believe there's a letter from Fred Astaire. Here, there's a letter from Jack Lemon. I found these recordings and my friend Diana Dilworth, who I wound up co directing the film with, said this sounds like a documentary and I said, well, I don't make ducks like you do.

11:59 Speaker 2: Now let's go. So yeah, that's that's the story of the film.

12:03 Speaker 1: How long did it take?

12:06 Speaker 2: It actually didn't. It took three years, which is not so long for documentary, but I didn't have the contact. You know, I knew, I knew her story so well and really knew how I wanted to tell it. And then it just turned out that there was just unbelievable archival footage beyond what was in her archives. She actually strangely did a lot of television. She was she was really famous for a moment and for the listeners out there. She wrote for Hollywood films and then became a singer songwriter, and so she wrote the lyrics to the theme from Valley of the Dolls, you know, the great Warwick track.

12:44 Speaker 2: Wow. She Yeah, and then she made seven albums in the seven years that are some of the greatest seventies confessional singer songwriter stuff that I happened upon totally randomly, and then Wow, strangely changed my life.

13:01 Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, what so that's that's a commitment. But like you said, I mean, documentaries take a long time to make. Was there I mean, during the course of that three years, did you ever was there ever a point where you felt like, I don't know if I can finish this or this is uh, you know, this is a lot more to take on than I ever thought, because I tend to think of and this this might be a failing on my part, but I tend to think of I tend to think about things creatively in terms of how long how long is this going to take?

13:31 Speaker 2: You know?

13:31 Speaker 1: And obviously you know when you record an album it takes a while to record an album, but but not not too too long, right, But or or if you're just releasing singles, it's even quicker. Or in my case, I do a radio show, which is instant gratification. I come in and do the show live, which suits my personality. But but but that's a commitment making a documentary. Was there ever any a point where you thought, Wow, I'm really uh, I don't know, I don't know if I can finish this.

13:58 Speaker 2: Yeah, actually no, I mean, first of all, we started in the timeless COVID period, so time didn't really have much texture or many parameters, right, But there's that. But no, it was a it was like blessed by Dory from wherever she was blessing us though. It was just it was a magical confluence of like, we got incredible Diana Dilworth, my co director, who's made some great films. She made a film about the melotron, which is amazing. Amy Hobby, the producer, like made the Academy Award nominated me to Simone documentary.

14:37 Speaker 2: People were People knew that we had a story and that it that we had the tools and the assets to tell it, which I don't think a lot of people know when they start a documentary. So yeah, it went fast and it premiered itself by Southwest and the only time I thought it would never you know, we were in film festival all over the world. But the only time I felt steyyed was we tell the story through her music, because she told her life through her songs, and all of her music is on Universal Music Group label, So the process of figuring out how to legally show a film with Universal Music assets was the biggest challenge, which we haven't fully overcome.

15:28 Speaker 2: We are so honored and delighted that it's on PBS where they have a license agreement with Universal, so we can absolutely can show it, but there isn't a and it's PBS, Like I'm so everybody should be supporting publicly funded arts these days, so that it was a great home. But there was a while where I was like we can't. We can't afford the songs, so we're not going to be able to put it out beyond film Festival. So that was the big hurdle which we were able to cross with the help of PBS.

15:58 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, excellent. Uh is she still alive Dory Preven?

16:03 Speaker 2: He's not. She died in twenty twelve.

16:05 Speaker 1: Oh okay, gotcha, gotcha? Yeah, that's uh yeah, I'm curious. So that's on. So people can watch that on the on PBS dot org.

16:17 Speaker 2: Yeah, on the app, like if you have it on your rope to TV or whatever, or you can watch it on your you can just literally if you just search up Dory Preven and okay, maybe you'll find it.

16:27 Speaker 1: Okay, okay, very cool, very cool. So yeah, I mean outside of music. So obviously you're a filmmaker and you've you've done is this You're also it says here you're a health justice advocate.

16:40 Speaker 2: Yeah. I want to know about that, and I try and present my whole self.

16:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, the day I want to know more about this because because uh so is uh so is my partner Jenny. So I'm really curious about this.

16:56 Speaker 2: Yes, In fact, when when you both reached out I was able, Like, I was just like, what is this radio station? And who are these people? And I think there's some confluence of passions there. Yeah. I mean, I am a New York City girl who grew up during the AIDS crisis and saw what it means when governments neglect people's health needs because of their identities or the color of their skin, and so very early started volunteering working with people living with HIV at the time, and then it as I was pursuing music, the jobs that I got tended to be around access to healthcare human rights for people living with HIV at the time, but it's become broader.

17:48 Speaker 2: So I have had a career what I've been in and out of institutions and consulting very specifically on social justice and health. Like right now, my work is very focused on the fact that our healthcare system in the US is broken, and one of the reasons that it's broken is that financial the financial sector sees the healthcare sector as a place from where from which it can extract a ton a ton of wealth because so much of our taxpayer money goes into Medicaid and Medicare, and so there's lots of private equity, venture capital support investments in healthcare, which tend to then degrade the system so that they could extract as much profit out of the system as they possibly can.

18:36 Speaker 2: So my work now is really trying to rain that in and help build the case for a universal healthcare system in this country.

18:44 Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. I commend you for that. I'm glad you're you know you're yeah, absolutely, absolutely, No, that's excellent. I mean, does that you know, the things that you that you do that, I'll be so you're you know, that's something that you're passionate about, and rightly so does that in any way sort of inform your music? Do you think or do you kind of compartmentalize that or how does how does that work?

19:12 Speaker 2: It's a question that I've been thinking a lot about lately because it seemed like this is the moment where the idea of the protest song and the idea that music actually has been instrumental to social justice movements is very much on my mind given the state of our country. So uh, it has not informed. There has been an some compartmentalization, But if I go through my albums and look at the songs, there's absolutely there's they're there, but they're not overt. Okay, my experiences and my political positions and my feelings about the healthcare system.

19:55 Speaker 2: But like I have a song called Carton City on my last album which is very much about being in Kenya and just seeing the you know, the broken health system and the ways in which it was affecting people's lives. So there's it comes out, but it's not I don't start.

20:11 Speaker 1: With it, gotcha, gotcha? Yeah, And you know, I think a lot of a lot of artists approach it that way. You know, there's there's messaging that's not overt, but it's there if you, you know, if you care to look for it or you notice it. You went to by the way, So you went to Kenya.

20:29 Speaker 2: Yeah. So I did a lot of global health work in the earlier part of my career, so I traveled pretty extensively. Good for you, Wow, I'm very lucky.

20:41 Speaker 1: So Kenya, Kenya's healthcare system is pretty broken.

20:46 Speaker 2: I mean, in some ways it's not. It's just ours is just as broken. And what I was looking at, you know, there's a lot of poverty there, and a lot of the poverty and a lot of the ideas about the health system have actually been exported from the US. So I was really looking at sort of how this sort of ideology about how markets and capitalism automatically lead to the best possible health care systems, how that's been exported around the world. So in a lot of countries around the world, there was just they treat healthcare as a public good and they the government funds it and everybody gets it, and and the US is actually doing a lot to try and subverth that.

21:33 Speaker 2: So right, looking at that issue in Kenya, right, I mean, it's there's there's our We are the richest country in the world, and we have the worst outcomes, right like for all developed country. So I would never ever say that Kenya's health system is worse than ours.

21:49 Speaker 1: Gotcha understood? Yeah, No, that makes sense.

21:51 Speaker 2: Yeah.

21:51 Speaker 1: But by the way, for listeners who are thinking, Matt, you really wandered into the weeds here, I know. But but it's but but this is but these are important things. I won't I won't under any further into the weeds.

22:01 Speaker 2: But no, but I'm always happy to talk about it.

22:04 Speaker 1: Absolutely. No, I'm really glad that you're doing that work. That's awesome. I am. I am curious getting back to the to the EP, I'm curious about your influences. I'm trying. I'm trying. You remind me your voice reminds me of someone and I but I can't put my finger on who. But maybe if you, if you talk to us about some of your influences, I'll make the connection in my mind. But there's there's someone that I feel that you're evocative of, and I can't quite I can't quite get there. But who are who are some of your influences?

22:35 Speaker 2: Oh, that's so frustrating. I'm dying to now well my influences. And I also think this the CP captures this. I have like a major sort of rock alt country Americana side of myself and then very much like American standards early musical theater side of myself. A lot of these songs were about bringing those sides together, and I'm happy to see that a lot of the critical response to the record really sees that. But who are my influences? Well, like, my my deepest core love is Luciender Williams, and you know, and Dorey Previn, who I've talked about a lot of people think I sound like and I did love her, and she's not really making music that I know these days that I sound like, you know, Sam Phillips, not the Sam Phillips of Sun Records, but the Sam Phillips of the nineties.

23:32 Speaker 2: That's it. I'm a huge like Elvis Costello clash, Billy Bragg fan. I'm going to see Billy Bragg tomorrow night. As a matter of fact.

23:42 Speaker 1: Oh very cool.

23:45 Speaker 2: Uh so yeah, those are I mean, I would say sort of early influences like Amy Man, Elvis Costello for their literary powis uh yeah, what else, there's a lot of great I went and saw sg Goodman last night in at levon Helm's Barn, Like there's so many amazing, oh wow writers out there. So I'm happily being influenced by people like her, Leale neil A, Linda Segura from her for the riff raft. They're all kind of in swirling around.

24:20 Speaker 1: Yeah, no doubt.

24:21 Speaker 2: That did that capture? You figure out who it was?

24:24 Speaker 1: No, it'll it'll come back.

24:27 Speaker 2: You'll have to tell me.

24:27 Speaker 1: It'll come to me later and I'll email you. Yeah, it'll it'll. It'll just suddenly occur to me when I'm not thinking about it, which is what usually happens. It's interesting you mentioned Lucinda Williams. I saw, uh Lucinda Williams at a show. Oh wow, this would have been more than twenty years ago, maybe twenty five years ago, a long time. She was playing Conquer New Hampshire at a place called the Capitol Theater and she it was it was for the Uh. She opened with car Wheels on a Gravel Road. That was the song she opened with.

24:54 Speaker 1: And she did something I'd never seen anyone do before. She played it twice. She opened with it.

25:00 Speaker 2: She played it literally getting the chills.

25:02 Speaker 1: Yeah, she played it and then she said, she said, there was something that wasn't right about the sound. I don't know if her monitor what I don't remember, if it was her monitor wasn't working or something. But she said, so she she tells the crowd, she says, I'm not happy with the way that sounded. Something was wrong. Uh, the mix wasn't right or something. So we're gonna play it again. And she played it again, and just I'd never seen anyone do that before, just kind of a kind of a do over. But I thought it was cool.

25:34 Speaker 1: I mean to me, I thought it sounded great. The first time, but but she wasn't happy with it, so she so she said, we're gonna play it again, and she played it again. You know, nobody minded. You know, it sounded great, So it was a great, great song.

25:44 Speaker 2: It's a perfect song. So why not?

25:46 Speaker 1: Absolutely? Absolutely one hundred. So what's up now? Uh? We were before we run out of time too, So what's the current live situation? Like are you are you playing a lot of shows currently with your band or do you and do you do any do you do any solo acoustic?

26:03 Speaker 2: Yeah? I do do solo acoustic. We are right now trying to line up some dates. There was like a pause for you know, all the reasons or personal reasons of band members who did a record release at this great new music and arts space in Hobook and New Jersey playing in the Berkshires later in the summer, and we're going to see about a tour, you know, like there's the first record where I feel like I can potentially break into like the folk circuit because my other stuff was much more rock. So I'm trying to explore the bookers and the and the venues in that vein because it's yeah, it's not because I can play a solo acoustic, which sometimes you need to do because, like we're playing, music is expensive in a world that doesn't support it.

26:53 Speaker 2: So yeah, stuff will be.

26:55 Speaker 1: Coming up, outstanding, outstanding. Where's the best place, Julia? Where the best place for people to go to keep up with everything that Julia Greenberg is doing? And feel free to mention more than one place because you've got the music, but you've got other things that you're doing too, and you've got the documentary and all of it. So so mentioned more than one location if you want to. But I just want to make sure our listeners know where to find you.

27:18 Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean definitely. I would say the most consistently active as my Instagram page and you'll find it just Julia Greenberg music. The Dory Documentary has doryprevindoc dot com, a website with all the news and you can watch it on PBS dot org. And my band camp page is also another place where I'll be putting up you know, new music. I'm this is a very active writing phase for me and not necessarily wed to the idea that I always have to put out a album and before the songs appear. So I would say those.

27:58 Speaker 1: Three right, excellent excellent, and I'm glad you're on band camp too, because I uh, I encourage everyone. Band Camp of course, as you know, very artist friendly and also too if you if you get music on band Camp, you get a much higher quality file than say if you're just screaming on YouTube or something. So I'm a big fan of band Camp. I think every I think every artist camp. Yeah, absolutely absolute. I'm always surprised when I encounter an artists who's not on band Camp. It's like, you know, why not, what are you doing?

28:29 Speaker 2: And you'll sign me on the Magic Door. My album is on the Magic Door recording platform on band Camp, so you can also check out a bunch of really cool artists that they put out, Oh Fantastical City and so Megan Riley, there's a lot of great people on the label.

28:50 Speaker 1: Oh outstanding, outstanding. So Julia to uh. To close out our conversation, I'm going to play another track after we let you go uh from the album, but not to put you on the spot, but I'm gonna let you pick this one. We opened with Leaves, what should we close with?

29:07 Speaker 2: Maybe close with bourn Sentimental as it's the title track.

29:10 Speaker 1: And yeah, born Sentimental, Okay, wonderful. Oh that which I just realized. I think I misspoke earlier too. I think I referred to the UH at the beginning of our conversation. I think I inadvertently referred to the album as Leaves. But the album is called Born Sentimental. The track that we played was Leaves. I always catalog my mistakes in the back of my mind so I can correct them ten minutes or fifteen minutes later.

29:35 Speaker 2: Did a great job.

29:36 Speaker 1: Thank you, Thank you. So we're going to hit that track in a second, but Julia, we will let you go. Thank you, Thank you for joining us, and again, thank you for being flexible about you know, because WhatsApp didn't work out, so we got you on the phone line. So we appreciate that. And we'll definitely do this again in the future as certainly as you're releasing new music. Sounds like you got good stuff coming up, so we'll well, we'd love to have you back sooner rather than later. But thank you so much for joining us today.

30:00 Speaker 2: Thank you, Matt. I was delighted to be able to talk.

30:04 Speaker 1: Wonderful. Thanks Julia. I take care all right, bye bye bye. All right. That is Julia Greenberg and of course the album is called Born Sentimental. Earlier we played Leaves, one of the tracks from it. Now we're gonna play the title track from the album, Born Sentimental. Let's give this a spin, and if you are listening live on Saturday, stick around. We've got plenty more to come, although a little bit of a little bit of an adventure today because I'm not sure. We have two guests coming up in the third hour.

30:30 Speaker 1: They were both supposed to be with us via WhatsApp, but WhatsApp has suspended my account, so I don't know what's gonna happen. We'll see. Julia was very gracious and flexible with us. Let's see how the other guests react to my emails, my frantic emails saying I cannot use WhatsApp to interview you. But all right, here's this track. This is Born Sentimental from Julia Greenberg.