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This is Fresh Air.
I'm David Bianculli.
Today, we remember Brian Wilson, founder of the Beach Boys.
His death was announced Wednesday by his family.
He was 82 years old.
Brian Wilson was the creative force behind the Beach Boys, the most popular singing group of the early 1960s, until they were unseated by the Beatles.
He was the lead singer of the Beach Boys and wrote, produced and arranged their songs, which included the early number one hits I Get Around and Help Me, Rhonda.
Later, more intricate and ambitious compositions included.
Another number one hit Good Vibrations as well as God Only Knows a song Paul McCartney praised as one of the greatest songs ever written.
I may not always love you, but long as there are stars above you, you never need to doubt it.
I'll make you so sure about it.
God only knows what I'd be without you.
If you should ever leave me, Life would still go on, believe me.
The world could show nothing to me, So what good would living do me?
God Only Knows was from the 1966 album Pet Sounds, which Rolling Stone has ranked as one of the greatest rock albums ever recorded.
Other songs on that album, which Wilson crafted in the studio two years after stepping down from touring with the group, included Wouldn't It Be Nice, Sloop John B?
And a song which provided the title for a documentary made about him in 1995.
I Just Wasn't Made for These Times.
Brian Wilson was born in Inglewood, California in 1942 and raised in suburban Los Angeles.
With his brothers Carl and Dennis, cousin Mike Love and others, they formed a musical group exploring harmonies, celebrating the Southern California surfing craze and relying on Brian Wilson's catchy melodies and musical arrangements.
His father, Murray Wilson, became their manager, but also was controlling and abusive.
Brian Wilson stopped touring with the group in 1964 after suffering his first nervous breakdown.
He was hallucinating and paranoid and diagnosed with what is now called schizoaffective disorder.
Eventually he became reclusive and overweight, then resurfaced in the mid-70s after being treated by psychotherapist Eugene Landy.
Landy, however, proved just as controlling as Brian Wilson's father.
Once Brian resumed recording, Landy became not only his manager but his musical collaborator, before they parted ways in 1991 after a family intervention.
Later in life, Brian Wilson recovered sufficiently to record a few more albums and even to tour.
In 2007, he was a recipient of the Kennedy Center Honors.
But his mental illness lingered, and he struggled with dementia in the years before his death.
We're going to listen back to two of Terry's interviews with Brian Wilson.
The first was in 1988, when he was still under the care of Eugene Landy.
Brian Wilson had just released his first solo album since leaving the Beach Boys, a project for which he not only wrote and arranged the songs, but played most of the instruments and sang both lead and backup vocals.
Terry started by playing the album's opening track, Love and Mercy.
I was sitting in a crummy room Oh, the violence that occurs seems like we never win.
Love and mercy, that's what you need tonight.
So, love and mercy to you and your friends tonight.
I was lying in my room and the news came on TV.
A lot of people out there hurting and it really scares me.
Love and mercy, that's what you need tonight.
Standing in a foreign land Yeah, I do.
I hear most of them in my head as I write them.
We used to go do the whole group at once, you know, the Beachbody group.
We'd do all the voices in one thing, on one microphone, you know.
But, well, sometimes we used two and three microphones depending on how we wanted it to sound.
So we did these, but with my solo album it's like it's a venture into one-at-a-time land.
You know what I mean.
You go one at a time.
You do them one at a time.
Yeah, one at a time, yeah.
One voice at a time, yeah.
How would you teach the harmonies to the Beach Boys when you were working with them?
When I worked with the Beach Boys, I taught them one at a time also.
And then we all would rehearse as a group.
And then we'd put it on tape.
Then we'd go to the microphone and put it on tape.
So you'd sing the part to each of them?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
How do you think the Beach Boys feel about you going solo?
Do they mind?
No, I don't think so.
I don't think the Beach Boys mind at all.
No, I think they're happy.
We had a corporation meeting in Chicago three weeks ago and Al and Carl both congratulated me on the success of my album.
You've said that your early sound was influenced by the Four Freshmen.
Yeah, yeah.
Now, a lot of people would have thought of the Four Freshmen as being a really square group in their harmonies.
What did you really like about them?
What did I like?
I liked the way they blended their voices.
You know the sound they made as they blended their voices.
I thought they were great.
I didn't see anything wrong with the four freshmen at all.
What else did you listen to when you were young?
I listened to Rosemary Clooney and the four freshmen and just different people, you know.
How did you start singing in falsetto and how did you figure out that you could have a falsetto voice?
Well, because I used to practice the freshman with the high voice and the poor freshman.
And his name was Bob Flanagan.
And I practiced along with him.
Whenever I'd hear freshman songs, I'd sing along with the high note, you know.
And I got into a habit of singing high.
And when the Beach Boys came along, I just took that habit of mine, that habit, bad or good, just a habit of singing high.
So then I started saying, hey, I sound like a girl up here.
So I got into it.
I got into it.
The first songs that you wrote and recorded were surf songs.
Now, you'd never surfed yourself, right?
What was the inspiration for writing surfing songs?
My inspiration for writing surfing songs goes back to my brother Dennis, who drowned, of course, in 1983, in December of 1983.
He asked me if I would be interested in writing a song about surfing.
Hold it.
Excuse me, I had a yawn.
And I said, sure, I'll try it.
And I tried it.
And about a month later we were on the Los Angeles charts, on the Los Angeles charts, with surfing, you know.
You were actually afraid of water yourself, right?
Oh, yeah, I have an aversion to water.
I don't know what it is.
I don't know exactly what it is.
Could be that I think I saw somebody drown in a pool once.
This guy drowned, and I saw the ambulance come get him.
It kind of scared me to death, and I think that turned me off to water.
Did you have to pretend like you were a surfer when the Beach Boys first got started?
No, not at all.
We didn't play the role of surfers.
We sang about surf and girls, but we did not, you know, whatever.
I want to play one of your early surf records.
What song is that?
This is Catch a Wave.
Catch a Wave, oh yeah.
The production on this is just terrific.
There's a harp, there's an organ, great touches on it.
Just say a little bit about how you produced this record.
Catch a Wave?
Yeah.
Yeah, that was Michael, and I wanted to do something where we would display the high voice, the medium voice and the bass voice all in one record.
You know, at different intervals.
You know what I mean?
Not all at once sometimes, but separate from each other, you know?
And it starts at...
Don't be afraid to try the greatest.
That's the bass part, right?
It was my voice.
And then he was in the middle, too.
So he sang bass and middle, and I sang high.
What about the instrumentation?
The instrumentation was just two guitars, a piano, drums, and a harp, and stuff like that.
Okay, let's hear it.
Catch a Wave.
Catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world.
Don't be afraid to try the greatest sport around.
Catch a wave, catch a wave.
Those who don't just have to put it down.
If you battle out, turn around and raise them, baby.
That's all there is to the coastline craze.
You've got to catch a wave and you're sitting on top of the world.
I don't know if you listen to your old records very much, but what goes through your mind when you hear that?
Well, a lot of stuff.
When I hear old records, it just flutters through my mind.
You mean as far as my opinion of what it sounds like or my sentimentality to it?
Both.
Well, I feel first I feel more artistically aware than sentimental.
My first reaction is usually an artistic like, oh, I think my voice flattered.
I wish I had just taken a few more minutes to get it right in the studio.
Young and impulsive, right?
Young and restless.
Want to get through.
Want to get out of here.
Want to go swimming.
Want to go to a movie.
So...
That's how it used to happen to me.
And then the sentimental value would creep in and I'd think, oh gosh, how could I have made a record that great?
That kind of thing crosses my mind, too.
So there's artistic self-criticism, and then there's sentimentality.
Those two ingredients go into that.
What about thinking back to how you felt at the time you recorded it?
Oh, well, the way I felt, you mean?
Well, it was kind of like when I was in my 20s, early 20s, I was full of energy, right?
I mean, I darted around.
I could do anything.
I could produce a record.
I could go to a movie.
I could go running.
I could do anything.
You know what I mean?
When I was in my early 20s, I was a real bombardier.
I mean, I was really a hustler, you know?
And now?
And now?
I've slowed down a little bit, but because I've been exercising so much lately, I'm getting back my, I'm getting my second wind in life.
You know what I mean.
It's not like being 22 again or 24, but it's still a... It's odd.
You know, you go through these trips in your life where when you're... How old are you?
37.
37?
I always have to think.
Gosh, can you remember what it's like to be 22?
A little bit, yeah.
You can sort of remember, but when you get a little older you sort of slow down a little bit right.
And that's the one thing I don't want to do is slow down because I don't want to die.
So I'm going to keep going real fast.
When you were writing songs like Fun, Fun, Fun, did you think of yourself as having a lot of fun?
Well, Mike came up with those words.
But yes, I did think of myself as having fun, fun, fun.
But he mostly, because he wrote those lyrics, he wrote that part of the lyrics.
Okay.
Now, you also wrote a lot of really melancholy songs.
Yes.
And on Pet Sounds, for instance, you have a wonderful song, I Wasn't Made for These Times.
Oh, yeah.
When you wrote I Just Wasn't Made for These Times, was that how you were feeling?
When I wrote that, it was like I really was feeling that way.
Yes, I was because I felt that I was being rejected by some of my friends.
For what?
Who knows?
I just felt a rejection from the public.
I can't explain it anymore.
It was a very super personal thing.
It was a personal thing that I cannot really go into because it's too deep.
I want to play some of that song.
This is from your 1966 album Pet Sounds, which is really one of the legendary albums in the history of rock and roll.
Do you want to say anything else about what you were feeling when you wrote this?
Sure.
I felt I had prayer sessions with my brother Carl.
We both prayed for people's safety and well-being.
We made this album with the fact that love was going to be the predominant theme in the album with, of course, artistic and entertaining kind of music going on at the same time.
But the love came from the voices that we did.
And we got into a little trip where we were going to bring some spiritual love to the world.
And we really did.
We actually did because we wanted to in our souls.
We both felt the calling.
So why not pray for this album and nurture it along and pray and have prayer sessions?
It was a religious experience.
Some people think that psychedelic drugs are a religious experience.
And that's how I felt about Pet Sounds.
Okay, so from Pet Sounds, this is Brian Wilson's I Just Wasn't Made for These Times.
I keep looking for a place to fit in, where I can speak my mind, And I've been trying hard to find the people that I won't leave behind.
They say I got brains, but they ain't doing me no good.
I wish they could.
Each time things start to happen again, I think I got something good going for myself.
But what goes around?
When you were recording the record that we just heard an excerpt of Pet Sounds, I think that was during a period when you were doing a lot of drugs.
Yes, I was. the drugs affect your music, both in the good ways and the bad ways?
Well, the bad ways, there's no way drugs can influence music in a bad way.
That's a misnomer.
No way drugs can influence music in a bad way?
No, no.
Music I don't understand, unless you feel that somebody would make unless you call heavy metal a very negative statement, you know, a very unartistic or let's say destructive kind of a music statement.
You can go on drugs and make music.
Yes, on drugs, you know, but you're much better to make music off of drugs because you can see the overall picture better.
When you make music on drugs, you're too concerned with this line or that line or that voice or this, and that you know, other than just being behind it, all the way behind it and putting together music from a higher standpoint than drugs can take you.
So are you saying that you'd use drugs for inspiration?
But when you actually record it, you try to not be high.
Oh, no, no high in the studio, no.
Uh-huh.
Okay.
You went through a period of time where you barely left the house and didn't do much recording or producing at all.
What did you do during that time?
What was life like for you?
I took a lot of drugs.
I kept taking more and more drugs to get away from the rattly-bang, nerve-wracking aspects of life you know.
I kept telling myself, turn it down, somebody, turn it down.
You know, that's like a way of saying, hey, cool it, you know.
It's like, turn it down.
It's too loud.
And I went through some of that.
And, you know, like everybody does.
Everybody goes through that turn it down thing.
You know where they want it down lower, not quite so loud.
Maybe down here, you know, a little lower.
Besides drugs and stuff, what gave you pleasure?
Well, what gave me pleasure?
Well, when I heard a first Phil Spector record on the radio, I said you know, Phil knows exactly what to put out there.
He knows the formula, the secret, you know, of rock and roll.
And I used to look up to the guy.
And then I said to myself, you know, you can't all your life walk around idolizing somebody.
You got to do your own thing, you know.
It's really a thrill to hear a new record from you and also to have the opportunity to sit across the table from you and interview you.
And I was wondering how you feel about being back in the public eye like this again.
It's really been a long time since you've done interviews and appeared before the public.
It's just been so long that it has so much impact on me.
I haven't done this kind of a promotional tour ever since the early Beach Boy days.
Yeah, it's a long time ago.
It really is.
It was like 25 years ago, I guess, we were into that.
I'm telling you, it was something.
How are you pacing yourself?
Well, I'm not smoking cigarettes and I'm not doing things like that for crutches.
You know, people sit and have a cigarette break every ten minutes, right?
Well, I don't do that anymore.
I don't smoke cigarettes because cigarettes are bad for me.
They give you cancer.
Who in the world would want to smoke cigarettes knowing that they give you cancer?
You know what I mean?
I would like to end with another selection from your new album.
And I want to play one for the boys, which is an homage to the Beach Boys, where you do all the voices.
Yeah.
Tell us a little bit about what you're doing here.
On the voices?
On that song, One for the Boys?
It was all sort of a little song in tribute to the Beach Boys.
And it has no instruments on it, just voices.
It had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10 different vocal tracks going.
I put them on all one at a time.
And it was done with the four freshmen in mind.
It's a tribute to the four freshmen and the Beach Boys both.
And I was most proud to make that song because it sounds so pretty.
And I hope people like it.
And you do all the voices on it.
Yes, I do.
I did all the voices on it.
Thank you so much for joining us.
And I wish you the best.
Thank you.
One, two.
Brian Wilson spoke with Terry Gross in 1988.
After a break, we'll listen to another of their conversations from ten years later.
And Ken Tucker reviews two albums by artists influenced by country and folk music, one from newcomer Ken Pomeroy, the other from veteran composer and performer Willie Nelson.
I'm David Bianculli, and this is Fresh Air.
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Let's continue our remembrance of Beach Boys founder, Brian Wilson, whose death was announced this week by his family.
He was 82 years old.
Terry Gross spoke with Brian Wilson again ten years later in 1998.
In the interim he had parted ways with his former therapist manager remarried, adopted two babies and just released his first album of new songs in a decade.
It was called Imagination and featured some 90 vocal tracks, all of which were sung by Brian Wilson.
Terry began by playing a song from the album titled This Is Your Imaginations.
Another car running fast, another song on the beat.
I take a trip through the past, one song is way out of beat.
Another walk in the park, when I need something to do.
And when I feel all alone, sometimes I think about you.
Take my hand, smile and say, you'll understand when I look in your eyes.
And see what you feel And then realize That nothing's for real, Cause you know, it's just Your imagination.
Running running running, running Your imagination.
Brian Wilson, welcome back to Fresh Air.
It's a great pleasure to have you here.
Hi, how are you?
This is your first CD of new songs in 10 years.
Why now?
Well, because I was a little bit hurt because the first one didn't sell very well.
So I kind of felt hurt about that, so I laid off for quite a long time.
But in the interim, I wrote a lot of songs with my friends.
I have about 45 songs that I've written that we didn't put on the new album.
When you say that you were hurt, that the other record didn't do so well, I mean, how exactly did it affect you?
Well, I expected it to be a very big album, because it was a good album and it didn't sell very much at all.
So I felt kind of hurt by that.
Now, on your new CD, you've recorded all the vocal parts yourself.
You do all the voices on it.
Right.
What's your technique for doing that?
Well, the technique is many things.
One technique is we do one track and then we do it over again and again and again four times the same track, reinforcing each note stronger and stronger.
So you're not singing harmony yet, you're singing the same note on each of these tracks?
Well, no, we sing harmony, but each note of the harmony has four on the same.
Yeah, why is that?
Just to make it kind of bigger?
To make it bigger and fatter and a nicer sound, yeah.
So it makes it sound almost like a whole curtain of voices, like a whole background of voices, instead of just a couple of people singing harmony.
Yeah, right, exactly.
Exactly.
I want to play another track from the new CD, and this is a song called Happy Days.
And I understand this is a song you started many years ago.
Yeah.
When did you start it?
In 1970 I wrote two verses and we recorded it by the Beach Boys and we shelved it.
We junked it because it wasn't appropriate music for us.
What was inappropriate about it?
Well, it just didn't sound right.
It had the wrong kind of sound for the Beach Boys.
It was too much of a departure.
Was it too sad?
Yeah, it was too sad.
It really was.
Would you recite one of the verses for us from the early part of the song that you thought was too sad for the Beach Boys?
I once was so far from life, no one could help me, not even my wife.
Sad lyrics.
Yeah, I once felt so far from life.
You don't feel that way anymore?
No, no, and I feel much a part of life, yeah.
Why don't I play the song, and then we can talk about how you've produced it.
And as our listeners will hear, it has an unusually discordant beginning.
Here it is.
Dark days were playing, Never ending sorrow.
Only the past was uncertain too.
I used to be so far.
That's Happy Days from Brian Wilson's new CD Imagination.
The beginning is so discordant.
It's such a different kind of sound for you, both in terms of the vocal harmonies and the music behind the voices.
Tell me about why you wanted that sound on this.
I wanted it to sound like something I was going through.
I wanted it to depict the mood of my life at that time.
And then it did.
It depicted it.
In the record it almost sounds like there's a newscast or a radio broadcast mixed into the background.
That was meant to depict the confusion in my life.
That was the confusion part of it.
So as if you were picking up different signals that didn't belong?
Right, exactly.
Is that what you were feeling then?
That you were hearing things that you shouldn't have been hearing?
Yeah, absolutely.
What kind of things were you hearing?
All voices in my head, auditory hallucinations and stuff like that.
Did that interfere with your music?
No.
I was able to isolate the music from the voices.
Tell me more about producing Happy Days and what else was in your thinking about how it should sound.
Well, I wanted it to sound mellow with a little bit of love but not too much love.
And I wanted to depict the mood of my life.
You know, as my life got happier, the voices got happier.
How has your life changed in the past few years?
Well, it's changed quite dramatically with my new wife and my new babies.
I have a whole new lease on life now.
It's wonderful.
I think you got married in 1995.
Yeah.
And you've adopted two children since then.
Right, right.
What's it like for you being a father the second time around?
Your daughters are grown now and are famous in their own right.
Right.
Well, I wasn't a very good dad to my original daughters.
I wasn't really a good dad to them.
But I'm a lot closer to my new babies now than I ever was.
It's like a brand new world has opened up.
Now also, another thing that's changed in your life is that you're no longer in therapy with Eugene Landy.
Right.
And I'm wondering how that relationship ended up splitting up.
Well, he was forced to leave because he had controlled my life for like nine and a half years.
And that was a long time to go.
His relationship with you is very controversial.
Several people in your family thought that he was taking advantage of you financially and controlling you psychologically, and they even sued him because of that.
So how has it changed your life to no longer be in therapy with him?
Well, it's made it a little bit easier for me not quite as hard to live day by day, you know, day to day.
But I miss him, you know, in some ways too.
What do you miss about him?
His personality.
Are you still in any form of therapy now?
No, no.
I have a doctor.
I see a psychiatrist.
Yeah, I do.
Brian Wilson speaking to Terry Gross in 1998.
More after a break.
This is Fresh Air.
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You're seen so differently now than you were when the Beach Boys got started.
In the 60s, I think a lot of people saw the Beach Boys as great performers, but they were a teenage act that sang about surfing.
And now, of course, you're seen as one of the great geniuses of rock and roll, both as a songwriter, as a performer and as a producer.
And I'm wondering how that change in how you're seen has affected you and how you see yourself.
I see myself as primarily a singer, and after that maybe a producer and a writer, songwriter.
But my main forte in life is singing, of course.
Now, why do you see yourself primarily as a singer?
I mean, you've written so many great songs.
I know, I know, but I feel the need to sing more than I do anything else.
You know, it's kind of like that, right?
So when you're not working on a new record, when you're not in the studio, are you still singing a lot?
Oh, yeah, I sing every day at the piano.
I go to my piano at least once a day and sing.
And do you always sing your own songs?
Do you ever sing songs by other people?
I sing all kinds of songs.
I sing songs from Phil Spector, from myself, and other people.
What are some of the songs that you particularly love right now by other people that we might be surprised that you like?
Oh, I like Burt Bacharach's Walk on By.
I like Phil Spector's Walking in the Rain.
Records like that, really cool records.
Did you feel like you learned things from Burt Bacharach's production too?
Yeah, actually I did.
I learned about chord changes and melodic thought.
Chuck Berry, of course, was probably the biggest influence on my melody writing.
The Beach Boys, without you being part of them, have managed to continue their career by singing their old songs in performance.
You never made yourself into an oldies act.
No.
No.
And I'm wondering you know, on the one hand it's easy to do that, you know to kind of get by on work.
You've already done songs, you've already written.
On the other hand, you always have new songs that are going through your head, new songs that you want to write and record.
Do you ever wish that you were the kind of person who could be happy playing the old songs?
Yeah, all the time.
I think about that all the time.
I'm wondering why I can't be happy with those old songs.
It's just a strange feeling.
I mean, it's like a nostalgia thing, you know?
It's just I need those old songs a lot.
I really do.
What is your current favorite of your old songs?
I like California Girls the most, I think.
I'm partial to California Girls.
Why is that?
I don't know.
I think the sound of the record, the way the record starts out, the choruses in the record I thought were really good.
Why don't I give that a spin?
But before I do, would you tell us a little bit about producing that record?
Yeah, I was 23 years old.
And I went in the studio and I said, I'm going to cut a number one record.
So before I went in the studio, I went to my piano.
And I said, I want to cut a shuffle beat.
Like that.
And I kept working and working until I got a bass line.
And all of a sudden, the song just fell together like magic.
It fell together.
Did you write the lyric for it?
Mike Love and I did, yeah.
Uh-huh.
And were you going through a period of girl-watching, so to speak?
Not really going through a period.
We've always been that way.
Mike and I have always been girl-watchers.
Uh-huh.
You know, so it made it easy to write those lyrics.
Right.
Okay, well, let's hear it.
California Girls.
Well, East Coast girls are hip, I really dig those styles they wear.
And the southern girls with the way they talk, they knock me out when I'm down there.
The Midwest farmer's daughters really make you feel all right.
And the northern girls with the way they kiss, they keep their boyfriends warm at night.
I wish they all could be Californians.
I wish they all could be Californians.
I wish they all could be Californians.
That's the Beach Boys, and my guest is Brian Wilson.
You had a chance to remix some of your old music with Pet Sounds.
Yeah, because there was a new CD box of that that included a remixed mono version, a new stereo mix as well as outtakes.
What was it like for you to rework old music of yours?
It was like a big nostalgia trip, a sentimental trip that really took a lot out of me to go through that.
It was probably the best album I ever produced, so I was very into it.
What were you going through in your life while you were producing Pet Sounds?
I was going through a happy time.
It was a very happy time in my life.
What was happy about it?
Well, I was very happy about the Beach Boys' success.
And I was very much in tune with the competitive aspect of life and the business.
And just from there, I rambled on, you know.
What were the new techniques that you tried in the studio for Pet Sounds?
I tried to mix different instruments together to make a third sound, like an organ and a piano mixed together to make a third sound.
I did a lot of mixing of instruments together, and I used Echo very well.
Is there a track that you think is your favorite from the record?
Yeah, I like Caroline Ngo the best.
That's a great song, too.
Yeah.
Brian Wilson, I want to thank you very much for talking with us.
Thank you very much.
Where did your long hair go?
Where is the girl I used to know?
How could you lose that happy glow?
Took that.
Look away.
I remember how you used to say You'd never change.
But that's not true.
Oh Caroline, you Break my heart.
I don't wanna go and cry.
It's so sad to watch a sweet thing die.
Oh, Caroline, could I ever find you again?
Brian Wilson speaking to Terry Gross in 1998.
The founder of the Beach Boys and composer of their most memorable music has died at age 82.
Mike Love noted his cousin's passing on the Beach Boys account on Instagram by writing Brian Wilson wasn't just the heart of the Beach Boys.
He was the soul of our sound.
Coming up rock critic, Ken Tucker, reviews two new albums from artists steeped in country and folk music.
One's a 22-year-old newcomer, Ken Pomeroy.
The other is a 92-year-old old-timer, Willie Nelson.
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Our rock critic, Ken Tucker, has been listening to new music, looking for something that's not just entertainment.
He thinks he's found it in albums by two musicians, both of whom are influenced by country and folk music, but who otherwise couldn't be more different.
One is a relative newcomer, 22-year-old Ken Pomeroy.
The other is a relatively old pro, 92-year-old Willie Nelson.
Here are Ken's reviews of Nelson's Oh, What a Beautiful World, an album of covers of songs by Rodney Crowell and of Pomeroy's Cruel Joke.
He starts with Ken Pomeroy.
Gray skies, birds that don't fly, Hoping for a better life, you're stealing grass.
It's easy to adopt the attitude that pop music is primarily entertainment, a pleasant distraction from whatever's going on in your life or in the world around you.
Sometimes, however, you come across songs and performers who offer more than entertainment.
They provide comfort, nourishment, reassurance.
One of these artists is Ken Pomeroy, the 22-year-old woman whose voice began this review.
Pomeroy has just released an album called Cruel Joke.
She's from Oklahoma, a Cherokee Native American, and her songs about farms and cowboys, sung with an acoustic country twang, mark her as one smart high plains drifter.
Broke you, like a mirror, into pieces, A few of me staring back in disbelief.
Honey, I swear I didn't mean to.
Never love someone like I loved you.
Playing old cowboy, put your hand in mine.
I'd get lost for days and you're gone.
In that song, Flannel Cowboy Pomeroy seeks forgiveness from someone she wronged in no small part because she believes they were meant to be together.
It's typical of her approach on this album, which is full of complex emotions and urgent desires.
Her narrators don't want to become isolated.
They're not loners.
They hope to quell fears through relationships that only strengthen during difficult times.
You're talking too loud, they can hear you way up in the sky.
With the days getting darker, coyotes are not.
Drags on and there's nothing new to say.
My mother keeps lying, saying there's no other way.
I like the way Pomeroy's plain-spoken verses open up dialogues with the listener.
The conversational tone is something Willie Nelson perfected decades ago.
It's what's made him perhaps the most intimate pop music interpreter since Frank Sinatra.
These days.
Age has shortened his breath and thinned out the timbre of his voice, but it's still a quiet miracle that draws you in close, as on his version of Rodney Crowell's song What Kind of Love.
I'll give you the best I can give you, baby.
That's all I can give, And we'll live it the best.
We can live it baby, As long as we live.
What kind of love never turns you down?
What kind of love lifts you off the ground?
Turns your life around?
What kind of love makes you go out in the wind and the driving rain?
What kind of love runs through your heart With a pleasure so close to hand?
What kind of love Only this love I have.
In the past, Nelson has recorded other album-long salutes to some of his favorite songwriters and singers, such as Ray Price and Roger Miller and Lefty Frizzell.
This one feels a little different.
The best moments here are when he takes hold of some of Rodney Crowe's more recent songs, not the hits.
These are reflective, contemplative compositions.
Like Ken Pomeroy's work, it's about appreciating people and rekindling connections.
Sometimes I think about leaving, As if I had some place to go.
I might even crank up the engine And roll down the street just for show.
Nobody said it was easy.
I don't want nobody else with me When it comes time to call it a night.
So far I've kept every promise, And this I'll continue to do.
I'll love you like nobody's business, And I wouldn't be me without you.
There's a 70-year age difference between Ken Pomeroy and Willie Nelson, but I hear a similarity in their goals.
To resist despair, to get us to look up from our phones and look into someone's eyes.
They're both making beautiful music for tumultuous times.
Ken Tucker reviewed Oh, What a Beautiful World by Willie Nelson and Cruel Joke by Ken Pomeroy.
On Monday's show, journalist Elizabeth Bruning joins us to talk about her haunting new Atlantic cover story about serving as a witness to state-sanctioned executions.
We'll talk about what she saw, what it means and how covering the death penalty has shaped her faith.
I hope you can join us.
Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham, with additional engineering support by Joyce Lieberman and Julian Hertzville.
For Terry Gross and Tanya Mosley, I'm David Bianculli.
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