Lee Quick

Being There August 2004

A few moments with New Orleans singer/songwriter Lee Quick

Interviewer: Are you a New Orleans native? How do you think living in another city would have shaped your career? What is it about this place, anyway?

Lee: Born in Lake Charles (Louisiana) then moved to Texas (6 years), Lake Charles, New York City (1 year), Lake Charles, Los Angeles (4 months), Lake Charles, New Orleans, Texas again, Lake Charles...do you see a pattern here? Lucinda Williams wrote a song about a guy who wanted to go back to Lake Charles. I should write a song about how I need to stay the hell away from it.

I moved to New Orleans in 1992 to get a music degree: I knew nothing about it then; now I'm beginning to pick up some of the richness and complexity of all the cultures, the attitudes, the talent, the despair, the potential of it. The distance between Lake Charles and New Orleans is incomprehensibly huge; in almost every way...it's like a whole other country. I could go on... but I won't.

New Orleans is a wonderful fabric of music history, heritage, you know the story; but for some reason, folk/country/Americana - whatever you call it - is not embraced here. I should be in Austin or Nashville, technically, to make a career in my "genre,” but I am here. Not sure why. It's all uphill, especially if you are a folky white female in New Orleans - I am a freak in this city.

‘If I Apologize’ was written by your late grandmother, and I must say it’s absolutely beautiful. How did her influence shape your life and career?

Ann Whitman Dudoit was born in Missouri and ended up in Lake Charles; she described herself as a hillbilly, and I think she was tickled to be one! She played fiddle in a string band as a young woman, wrote poetry, played piano, was a successful business owner, a painting teacher, a faithful churchgoer...it seems like half the city came to her funeral, and they didn't just show up, they were all devastated! She had made everyone feel good, she was always smiling, laughing... and after having a lot of pain in her life. I can't really describe how she affected me; lots of people say their grandma was wonderful, saintly, you know; but everyone who ever knew Ann couldn't say a single bad word about her. Not one. So maybe she really was a saint? :)

When she died at age 59, she left a few reel-to-reel tapes of her singing some of her tunes. No accompaniment, just her voice. I finally listened to it in 2002, and "If I Apologize" really stood out. I put chords to it, which wasn't difficult, but the hard part was adapting the melody to a rhythm that made sense, cause it was kind of free, like a folk song. I may not have put down exactly what was in her head, and I changed a few of the words, so I feel like it's a real collaboration. I think she'd be tickled by it.

Do you collaborate with other musicians? If so, what have you done and where can we find it?

The twelve songs on my CD are pretty much the first twelve songs I have written or co-written. Which is ridiculous, really, cause no one should ever record and release their first twelve songs, period. It's like serving the first twelve dishes you ever cooked at a nice restaurant. But I've been around a bit, and I've been writing one thing or another since I was ten, and I figured it was time to get some of it out there.

Two of the songs were started by my husband, James, and finished by me. James can get really inspired, and I'm a great editor, so those worked out well. So far, that's it for collaboration. Any good writers out there? Call me, I'm open to ideas, especially if they make me look brilliant.

I've played in a few cover bands over the years, but never played original songs until I went to play at a songwriters night in January 2001. I only had two songs, so I had to write another one the night before, so I'd have three. I played 'em, and the host was impressed. She asked me to play another one, and I didn't have another one! I wrote a few more songs, and they didn't suck, so I kept doing it. I guess I keep doing it as long as they don't suck.

I personally have never sucked the head off a crayfish. I get the feeling you may have this down to an art. And what’s with the bassoon?

Yes, I was an orchestral bassoonist, as well as a bassoon player in the US Army (Fort Hood, 1st Cavalry Division). Makes perfect sense for a smart-ass country folkie, doesn't it? Plus I played oboe... I used to have the strongest cheek muscles south of the Mason-Dixon line.

And speaking of sucking, you have the wrong idea here. You don't suck the head OFF, you suck all the good juicy stuff OUT. Don't you know any better?

Lee Quick’s album, Do You Think?, is available at Amazon (US), as well as her official website http://www.leequick.com