sweating , I was so nervous . I went in , and I sang , “ Swing Low ,” and he didn ' t wake up . He just rolled over and he said , “ Mmmm . I believe I hear the sound of an angel . Let ' s have another one , Joan .”
What a beautiful story . Isn ’ t that lovely ?
You performed in the Berkshires with the Indigo Girls in 2013 at Tanglewood . It was one of the best concerts I attended . Tell me more about your emotions during your farewell tour , five years later . One of the interesting things is that when we decided to make the film , we decided to make it whether or not we knew for sure that it was my last tour . Because people say this is my last tour , and then they stop , then they go back . So I thought , well , I don ' t think I ' m going to be going back , but I can ' t predict what I ' ll feel like in four years or something . I was going from one concert to the next , one public to the next , knowing somewhere in there that it was going to end . I was kind of relishing the shows , because audiences , as you know , are all lovely . It was low-key . My concerts had been low-key anyway .
Do you miss it ? No . I don ' t miss it . I sang the other night at Jack Elliott ’ s 90th birthday party at The Masonic in San Francisco . That ’ s the second time I ' ve appeared in public in the last four years . It was an interesting test , because I had 48 hours to see whether I could play a guitar . ( Laughs ) My guitar hangs on the wall , literally . When they say , “ She went home and hung up the guitar ,” I did . And it looks really pretty up there . And I don ' t have any inkling of interest to play it . But then I ' ll say “ yes ” to something , because I love Jack Elliott and those cowboys . I said , “ okay ,” and then there ’ s this bizarre challenge . What notes do I have ? I don ' t have time to rehearse . I have no interest in rehearsing . What notes do I have that are secure that I like ? And what can I manage to get my fingers to do ? And so I discovered everything was enough in shape to go out and sing a couple of songs . And that was fun .
What did you end up playing or singing ? I sang “ Don ' t Think Twice ,” which has changed a lot . And then , because it was Jack and because he is nuts , I sang a song I wrote called “ Coconuts .”
I ’ ve got to look that one up . I don ' t know where you ’ d find it , but you ’ ll find it somewhere . “ Coconuts sitting in my hand , remindin ’ me of my island man , and my island man sitting in his hut , dreamin ’ about my coconuts .” ( Laughs ) It ’ s off-color , and it was wonderful . The band all played , and we all got crazy . I really enjoyed that . I would not say , “ Okay , let ' s get on the bus and go do this again .” That ' s not gonna happen .
You ' re part of the folklore here in the Berkshires . You passed through again in 1975 and went to Mama Maria Frasca ’ s Dream Away Lodge in Becket during the Rolling Thunder Revue tour . Oh , my God . Yeah .
I recently met with Arlo Guthrie . He talked about that time . And he also hung up his guitar . That time period is still brought up in conversations here in the Berkshires — the musicians and the Dream Away , Alice Brock and Alice ’ s Restaurant . People just love those stories . Yeah , of course they do .
Your artwork reminds me of Alice ' s artwork . How did your artistry start ? When I was five , literally . I just started drawing . I loved my plain sheets of paper and pencils , and I was happy . I could copy stuff . I could make somebody look like themselves by the time I was 13 . I was a copy artist . That ' s what I had the most fun doing . And then 15 years ago , I wanted to do some quasi-disciplined approach . I didn ' t take lessons , but I had some friends show me stuff , to do the acrylic , to do the portraits . I got into that for 10 years . For the moment , I haven ' t been back in the studio for a year and a half . I did the upside-down drawing book , and I have a poetry book being released in April .
Oh , wonderful . We can let our readers know . Please do . And just today , they said they wanted me to read it for Audible , which I would love to do , but I don ' t know if I can do that particularly well . I ' ll see how it goes . I ' m gonna give myself a couple of days to see whether that works . I hope I can do it with enough ease so it ’ s not a chore . So , my week ' s work is in front of me to see whether I can come up with anything I like , of my own reading of it . And then I ' ll be doing some live poetry readings , which , same thing . I don ' t know how well I ’ ll do at it , but it seems like a fun idea .
What do you hope audiences will take away from I Am a Noise ? The nice thing is we didn ' t set out to do a film that would help people through one thing or another , but what ' s happened is that my willingness to confront a trauma publicly and be honest about it and not try to prove anything , I think is part of the recipe for what ' s moved people so deeply , especially women . Everybody has something we ' ve either hidden or been ashamed of , or has shadowed our lives . We don ' t want to think about it or believe it . But this seems to have given a lot of women permission to feel those feelings and talk about them . I couldn ' t really ask for much more than that .
The documentary uses a wealth of personal artifacts — your home movies , the diaries , the therapy tapes . How did revisiting those items affect you ? It ' s sometimes emotionally challenging . There are maybe certain things that I wish were different . I wish they ' d put in more silliness . It has me looking always so exhausted and grumbling about the bus , and the fact is that we had parties , and we danced night after night after night and got crazy . So there are some things they didn ' t have time to get in there . There ' s occasionally a facet of me which I think has been missed . On the other hand , who knows what would have happened , trying to change anything ? Because this film has been so powerful as it is . I think it ’ s extraordinary .
The film delves into some of the challenges and emotional struggles that you went through . How did you navigate yourself through all that ? I just sort of went from one bump on the road to the next with my guitar in hand . People around me had spiritual training in nonviolence and meditation , and a lot of those things have held me together and still do .
Many artists cite you as an inspiration . How do you hope your journey and activism influence future musicians and activists ? I just hope that gives them the strength to act on their better instincts and mix that with the music . n
16 // BERKSHIRE MAGAZINE Spring 2024