DELTA LADY

RITA COOLIDGE talks to Spencer Leigh.
As published in Country Music People, October 2006

Everything about Rita Coolidge's records spelt quality. She chose her songs well and performed them immaculately. Her best-known album is the 1977 LP, Anytime & Anywhere, which included the hit singles, We're All Alone and (Your Love Has Lifted Me) Higher And Higher, and at the time, many critics compared her voice favourably with Linda Ronstadt's. Like Ronstadt, Coolidge has recorded in many different styles and her new CD, And So Is Love, is a jazz record including a new arrangement of We're All Alone.

The 2-CD collection, Delta Lady - The Rita Coolidge Anthology, released in the US in 2004, contains 41 tracks from 1969 to 1998 and is a neatly packaged collection of first class performances. I'd not heard her smoky late night interpretation of Am I Blue before but it augurs very well for And So Is Love. The collection includes duets with Kris Kristofferson, Glen Campbell and Rupert Holmes. She and Kristofferson were married in 1973 and divorced in 1979, and they made three albums together, Full Moon (1973), Breakaway (1974) and Natural Act (1978). Listening to them today, it is the songs about breaking up which pack the most emotion.

This October Rita Coolidge is coming to the UK for the awkwardly named Once In A Lifetime - Country Tour 2006 with Kenny Rogers and Don Williams. It's not accurately named either as both Kenny and Rita have had successes in other fields. There are six arena dates in Newcastle, Sheffield, London, Birmingham, Manchester and Nottingham.

SL:Rita, we haven't seen you in the UK for some years, so had you stopped touring?

RITA COOLIDGE:Not at all. I tour all the time -it's just that I haven't made it to England in a while. I have been touring for so long and I have never stopped for more than a month in 35 years.

SL:This is billed as a country music tour.

RITA COOLIDGE:Yes, but I'm performing my standard set. Over the years the definitions and the parameters of music have changed so much. A lot of the music that I recorded in the 70s and 80s could easily be classified as country today. Brenda Lee and the Everly Brothers are country now. On the other side, a lot of the country bands and girl singers who are recording today would have been called pop singers two decades ago. And look at Willie Nelson. Everyone calls him a country singer but he could just as easily be considered a jazz singer. His guitar playing is not normal country guitar playing.

SL:You must be one of the few people who hasn't recorded a duet with him.

RITA COOLIDGE:I probably am, and we have talked about it a million times. (Laughs) In fact, there are some songs that Willie and I are talking about right now, so I think we will be doing some duets.

SL:I believe that you have an American Indian background. How important is that to you?

RITA COOLIDGE:Very important. It is my ancestral line. My mother is Cherokee and Scots and my father is Cherokee. My mother is a direct descendant of Mary Queen of Scots and she is fascinated by the Scots side of the family. When the Scots settled in this country, they settled in Tennessee and Kentucky - the places that were most like Scotland, I suppose - and there were many inter-marriages between the Cherokees and the Scots. I'm not that unusual: you can find a lot of Cherokee/Scots people back here.

SL:What about the Cherokee music?

RITA COOLIDGE:Well, all music interests me. I love traditional music. There are so many young Indian people who are involved in making their own music and bringing traditional styles and songs into contemporary settings. I was in Fort Lauderdale two weeks ago for the Native American Music Awards and the music that many people are doing is right across the board. It is not just flute playing and traditional chanting. They are doing everything.

SL:And you have your own group with your sister and your niece.

RITA COOLIDGE:Priscilla, Laura and myself have recorded two CDs and one DVD and our group is called Walela. That is the Cherokee word for "hummingbird", which is my Indian name. We call the music Cherokee gospel rock and roll. It is very spiritual music: it touches people's hearts and it has been an amazing thing to have recorded with my family and to have done this music.

SL:And didn't you record a song called Hummingbird?

RITA COOLIDGE:No, Leon Russell wrote a song called Hummingbird and that was written with me in mind.

SL:Were the Cherokee almost wiped out?

RITA COOLIDGE:Well, the Cherokee was a vast nation. Our people were not threatened anymore than the other Indian people but millions of them died. The Cherokee knew how to go into the mountains and survive when the Trail of Tears was forced upon them in the mid-1800s. They went into the mountains and stayed there for 40 years. Many of those who were on the trail did survive and got to Oklahoma, so we have the eastern band and the western band of the Cherokee.

SL:I've read that your father was a minister.

RITA COOLIDGE:Yes, he just retired this past year. (Laughs) He was 88 and he finished in January. He had been trying to retire for 10 or 15 years, bless his heart. He is a beautiful visual artist and he wanted to sit in his studio and paint and just have a non-demanding life. Every time he retired, the church would beg him to come back and being a man of God, he would always return. When he couldnt walk, he said, "I can't do it anymore." He is painting now but he still preaches every now and then.

SL:Do you paint as well?

RITA COOLIDGE:Yes, but not as much as my dad and not nearly as well. My daughter is also a painter and I also have two nieces who are visual artists.

SL:Do you exhibit your work at all?

RITA COOLIDGE:Only in my house. (Laughs)

SL:And most preachers are good singers.

RITA COOLIDGE:Yes, Daddy is a good singer but both my parents are. I think everybody in my family has been very willing to sing at any time, except for my brother who is tone deaf. We grew up singing in church and I sang with the family at home and I was in a trio with my two sisters. I also had a duet act with Priscilla when I was in Memphis - we would both sing solo but we also had these silver and gold lam� dresses that we would wear together. Words was one of the songs that we sang together.

SL:I did an interview with Madeline Bell a few months ago and she said, "I never have to do vocal exercises because I was trained as a gospel singer."

RITA COOLIDGE:I know Madeline and that's absolutely right. You just open your mouth and sing. I was with friends yesterday and they asked me I practised. I said, "Not really. I sing because the songs are in my heart but I don't do vocal exercises." I remember Joe Cocker laughing when they asked him if he did warm-up exercises. He said, "No, I just bloody sing." (Laughs) He was born with such a gift so how could he do anything else but sing? (Laughs)

SL:In 1972, you recorded a lovely, sultry version of Fever. Is Peggy Lee one of your favourite singers?

RITA COOLIDGE:Absolutely. I adore Peggy Lee. She has been a woman whom I admire for her singing and for her courage in jumping the boundaries and doing all styles of music, and she has conquered them all. She had many pop hits; she did Latin music; she was a great songwriter and she made one of the best jazz albums ever recorded with Black Coffee. She has also designed clothing and done some amazing acting. She could do everything. Music is my favourite thing so I'm always of a mind to experiment with it myself. With the years, I have dodged some bullets and jumped around just as Peggy did.

SL:She didn't have a great vocal range but she knew what to do with what she'd got.

RITA COOLIDGE:No, Peggy had a greater range than people realise. She was so subtle with her movements. She would stand completely still or just move a little bit and snap her fingers and that was her power because people concentrated on the voice. She chose her notes very carefully. She didn't do vocal gymnastics and she could have. She chose the notes that would break someone's heart or get the attention of the audience. If you are singing with Benny Goodman's band, you have to be good to stand out, and she was.

SL:Have you taken quite a few songs from her repertoire?

RITA COOLIDGE:Not enough as I would love to do a Peggy Lee CD sometime. On the new CD, I did Don't Smoke In Bed and I Don't Know Enough About You. There is a great story about Don't Smoke In Bed. Peggy Lee and her husband Dave Barbour had a friend Willard Robison and they thought he was on his deathbed. They had talked about writing this song with him and now they finished the song and gave it to him as a legacy for his children. He was suffering from severe alcoholism but he lived another 20 years. They had given him the complete writer's credit and he collected all the royalties. (Laughs)

SL:Had you always wanted to be a professional singer?

RITA COOLIDGE:I did some student teaching when I was at Florida State and I was offered a post in the art department. I said that I had to have a year to try the music business but I was sure I would be back and if the post was still open, I would continue with my masters. After a year, I was completely bitten by the music bug and I went back to Florida State and said that I was going to pursue music.

SL:So what happened?

RITA COOLIDGE:I went to Memphis because my parents were living there and I got to know Pepper Tanner, who owned Pepper Records and did 75% of the radio spots in the US and Canada. I was singing the call letters but there were so many stations that they had a lot of work. They started a record label and I recorded my first record with them which was Turn Around And Love You in 1969. Delaney and Bonnie Bramlett were in Memphis finishing up their Stax Record, Home, and they invited me to California to work on their Elektra Record, Accept No Substitute. By the time I got to California, I had a regional hit with Turn Around And Love Me and so I was better known there than Delaney and Bonnie. I ended up doing the TV shows that they wanted to do. (Laughs)

SL:That single was written by Donna Weiss and she has written several songs for you over the years.

RITA COOLIDGE:I love and adore Donna but I have lost touch with her. We were in Memphis at the same time and she wrote a lot of songs that I recorded. Then she moved to New York. She is a great songwriter and I recorded Bette Davis Eyes first but it was not released. When you make an album, you record two or three extra songs and sometimes their style or content doesn't fit in. That song might have stood out from the others on a conceptual record. I don't remember but I know I recorded it.

SL:Delaney and Bonnie is an intriguing band as they had so many guest artists.

RITA COOLIDGE:Yes, they were a magnet to other musicians. The first band was all Southerners who had relocated in California: Carl Radle and Jim Keltner were from Oklahoma, and Jim Gordon the drummer was the only Californian. We hung out in California and then Eric Clapton heard the music and begged to be in the band. We did tours in England and we played the Royal Albert Hall and George Harrison asked if he could come on the bus and tour with us. We would be on the bus all day and do the show and then we would go back to the hotel and sing all night. We were all kids with this great gift of music and we couldn't get enough of each other. When we played the Royal Albert Hall, we had Dave Mason, George Harrison and Eric Clapton and Delaney Bramlett all playing guitar, and Bonnie, being a spectacular singer and a drop dead gorgeous blonde, wore snakeskin boots which came up over her knees. She yanked her dress up and started flipping the mike back, and the next morning, one of the papers said, "Mae West hits the Royal Albert Hall." (Laughs)

SL:Did George Harrison enjoy being on a tour bus again?

RITA COOLIDGE:Oh, he was wonderful. He stuck right in there and he was just the most wonderful human being, the sweetest man. Every morning I would get on the bus and he would sing "Lovely Rita, meter maid". (Laughs) I loved George's music and what an elegant man he was. In the 70s I was at the premiere of a film and afterwards there was a star-studded party and Elton John asked me to dance. While we were dancing, he said, "If it weren't for Delaney and Bonnie and the record that they made, I probably wouldn't be here today." He said that he had been so heavily influenced by their gospel kind of music. I loved hearing that as Elton's the best. I love Elton John.

SL:Did you meet Joe Cocker in England?

RITA COOLIDGE:No, I met him at Leon Russell's house in California. He had come over to record and he recorded Delta Lady which was a song that Leon had written for me. When he came over to tour, he hadn't given much thought to rehearsals and he said, "I think I'll cancel," and his manger Dee Anthony said, "You can't cancel this." Denny Cordell and Leon Russell started calling people and saying, "We need you in this band and can you show up at A&M's rehearsal hall tomorrow. We've got two and a half days and we are going to be gone for six weeks." Everybody who was asked participated in the tour. It was Mad Dogs And Englishmen and it was rock'n'roll history.

SL:And it was a film too.

RITA COOLIDGE:Yes, but I have panic attacks if I see it now. (Laughs) That was a hard tour for me. I had led a pretty sheltered Baptist preacher's daughter's life, and I was thrown into this scene with 55 people and their children and their dogs and just about everything that was going in the early 70s. It was sex, drugs and rock'n'roll, and I didn't have a clue really.

SL:When you say Delta Lady was written for you, do you mean that Leon Russell wrote it about you?

RITA COOLIDGE:Yes, he did write it about me and it is a fabulous song, but I never stood "wet and naked in the garden". (Laughs) Leon wrote a lot of songs for me in his desperate attempt to get me back after I left him. We had a romantic relationship for about eight months and he wrote A Song For You for me, which is one of the most beautiful songs ever written. It almost worked! (Laughs)

SL:Did Leon Russell also write Superstar for you?

RITA COOLIDGE:No, that's a song that I began writing and I had the idea about a young girl who goes to a concert and the guitarplayer that I had in mind was Eric Clapton. I was looking at the audience and seeing these young girls looking up at Eric with so many fantasies in their eyes, and they would be hoping that he would be choosing them. In the song, they have a meaningful one-nighter and then he goes away. I began writing the song with Bonnie Bramlett, and Leon and Delaney heard us writing it. They took what we had written and went in the next room and finished it. When the record came out, my name was not on it, but I was a writer on that song and really it was more mine than anybody else's. In recent years, they have acknowledged that it was my song and when Usher recorded Superstar, my name was among the writers.

SL:So you're getting your royalties at last.

RITA COOLIDGE:No, I'm getting my credit. It was a huge hit for the Carpenters and also Luther Vandross did it so well. It has survived the test of time and that satisfies me.

SL:Was your sister, Priscilla, making records around the same time as you?

RITA COOLIDGE:She married Booker T and she did some duets with him and also a solo album for Capricorn. Booker and I got involved in recording after they had split up: they were in the process of a divorce. We remained friends and toured together and we will be forever. I had met Booker in Memphis when my parents were there and I was doing sessions and I introduced him to my sister. It was regarded as an inter-racial marriage. Even though we were Indians, it didn't matter. People wanted to burn crosses in our yard and the Klan was trying to intimidate my family so we moved to California. It was especially hard for my parents as I was living there first and then Priscilla and Booker came out, but my parents were in Memphis and there would be nights when Daddy would be away and Mother would wake up with a cross burning in the front yard. It was very frightening. We didn't know if they were after the Indians or the black people, but we knew we were in trouble if we stayed.

SL:Do you remember meeting Kris Kristofferson?

RITA COOLIDGE:I was on a plane and I met him at the ticket counter. My manager knew him and he introduced us at the ticket counter. When Kris saw my manager, Ron Rainey coming towards him, he tried to disappear because he didn't want to talk to anybody that morning. Then he met me and we still argue about who saved whom a seat. I say that he saved me a seat on the plane and he was on his way to Nashville to do a Look magazine story. I was going to Memphis to rehearse with my band, following the release of my first album. We sat together and we fell madly in love on that plane. When we got to Memphis, Kris got off the plane and went to Nashville the next day. We got married and we toured together and we have a beautiful daughter and two grand-daughters. You know, I love him with all my heart.

SL:You made some duet albums and even though Kris is a great writer, no one would say he has the best voice in the world, so was it difficult working in harmony with him.

RITA COOLIDGE:Not really, because I loved him so much and I knew what we would be doing when we went to the studio. I knew that Frank Sinatra wasn't going to appear. It was more frustrating for Kris and he said to me, "It's like working with Aretha Franklin. We don't have the same talent." He had so much emotion in his voice that I think that we complemented each other. Loving Arms and Please Don't Tell Me How The Story Ends are two of my favourites. I learnt so much from Kris about writing music and it was really a great time - and a hard time.

SL:I saw him in Manchester and he knows when he can't reach the notes and makes a joke of it.

RITA COOLIDGE:Yeah, he's a cute one. Today is Kris' birthday, his 70th birthday, so I need to give him a call. He is one of those people who would say, "If I'd known I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself." (Laughs) He is in fabulous shape now as he runs every day and he is as alert as he has ever been. He has always been a bit likely to stumble but that is part of his charm. He is a great father and a great grandfather, I can't say enough about what a great man he is. It's just that he was a shitty husband. (Laughs)

SL:And a wonderful songwriter.

RITA COOLIDGE:The best - and he turned into a fine actor as well. I love ballads and I love songs that have some real content, poetry if possible, and Kris is so great at that. The song has to speak to my heart or it's got to be a great rocker.

SL:Did some of your personal life come out in his songs?

RITA COOLIDGE:Yes, but it was more after we split up. He wrote a lot about both of his lost loves. (Laughs) Kris wasn't used to someone walking away from him and I only did it for self-survival as I felt I could raise my daughter in a better way. He was a very toxic human being with his drinking and his womanising. I couldn't keep him at home.

SL:I loved the lovey-dovey way you sang Help Me Make It Through The Night on The Old Grey Whistle Test.

RITA COOLIDGE:I wish I had a copy of that.

SL:It's on the DVD of the Whistle Test.

RITA COOLIDGE:My goodness! I would love to know about that. My daughter has never seen that and certainly our granddaughters would get a kick out of it.

SL:You also had a supporting role in Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid, which is now regarded as one of the best westerns.

RITA COOLIDGE:Yeah, but that is more due to Sam Peckinpah than Kris or Jim Coburn. The fact that Dylan was in it didn't hurt. I think it was one of Sam Peckinpah's wonderful works. Sam Peckinpah had a trouble with alcohol and sometimes he would be going out to shoot and have no idea about what scene they were shooting. The words that came out of his mouth more often than "Cut" and "Roll" were "More vodka" and "More blood". (Laughs) It was a great film and what an experience to be in Mexico with all those people and to be befriending Bob Dylan and his wife and kids. Every night before Bob went home from the set, he would go to the wardrobe truck and grab a couple of hats. By the time the film had finished shooting, his front closet was full of hats. (Laughs)

SL:In 1977 you made Anytime&Anywhere; and had a huge hit with Higher And Higher.

RITA COOLIDGE:Jackie Wilson did that first and Booker had recorded it on an album he'd done for Epic, which they decided not to release. Priscilla and I had sung background on it and we had loved Booker's arrangement. When it came time for me to do a new album, I asked Booker to co-produce and I said, "Can we revisit your arrangement of Higher And Higher?" and that was my first big hit.

SL:And also on that album was We're All Alone.

RITA COOLIDGE:When I was with A&M Records, it was like a family. I would visit Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss, and it was a very open, communicative group of people. One day I was in Jerry Moss' office and he said that the Boz Scaggs album Silk Degrees was in a million homes and there was a song on it that was perfect for a woman to sing. He said, "It's called We're All Alone and as he's not doing it as a single, I think you ought to record it." Both David Anderle's production and the mixing were amazing. A lot of people have fallen in love to that record and a lot of couples say, "It is our song." Whenever I sing it, I see people snuggle up to their partners and reminisce. It continues to be sung at weddings and I have sung it at weddings myself.

SL:You made an album in the 70s, Out Of The Blues, which wasn't released until a couple of years ago. That must have been very frustrating at the time.

RITA COOLIDGE:Barbara Carroll, who is a jazz pianist, still plays in New York and still has the most talented, liquid fingers. She played with Billie Holiday and Peggy Lee. She was married to Kris' manager and we became friends. The first time we met, we sat down at the piano at her house in Connecticut and I sang songs that I didn't even remember learning. She would start playing and I would start singing. They came from somewhere deep in the history of my gene pool or something. About seven hours later we got up and vowed to make a record together. A&M agreed to let us record an album but not necessarily to release it. They said, "Until you are established as a mainstream artist and firmly embedded in the pop music scene, we can't allow you to turn right and do jazz." It was released in Japan as the Good Old Days at the time and did really well. We got the masters back about eight years ago and released it.

SL:It was like a Stardust, wasn't it.

RITA COOLIDGE:After Barbara and I had recorded it, Willie Nelson and his wife Connie were at our house in Malibu and Booker was there too, and we all had dinner and I said, "I want to play you this music that I recorded with Barbara Carroll" and I played the record and I said, "I love it so very much but the record company won't release it." Willie said, "I love it too, so if your record company won't let you do it, I'm going to do it." He asked Booker to produce it and that was the birth of Stardust.

SL:One of my favourite records of all-time is your version of I'd Rather Leave While I'm In Love.

RITA COOLIDGE:I love that song as well and my memory of recording it is so vivid. Peter Allen had written the song and sent it over, and at that time if Peter Allen had written a song for you, it was a great gift. The song was beautiful but when we recorded the song, I remember Booker saying, "I don't know what this song means. Why would you leave if you're in love?" I said, "Well, I guess that's the magic of the song." Then about six months later, I walked through the door and left my husband and at the same time Priscilla and Booker split up and I remember seeing Booker the first time after that and I said, "We know what it means now, don't we, Booker?" and he said, "Yes."

SL:You also did a duet with Glen Campbell, Somethin' 'Bout You Baby I Like. Had you known him for a long time?

RITA COOLIDGE:No, but I was a big fan of his. I love the way he sang and he was so energetic, still is. He asked me to make this record with him and it was so much fun. It was just a one-off as I didn't want another duet partner.

SL:You also did an Allen Toussaint song, Basic Lady, on Heartbreak Radio.

RITA COOLIDGE:Well, I was spending a lot of time in New Orleans and I had befriended the Neville Brothers and Allen Toussaint and a lot of people down there. There were some songs that I recorded that were even more New Orleans than that but once again, the record company was keeping me on the straight and narrow. (Laughs)

SL:And what could be more straight and narrow than a James Bond theme, Octopussy?

RITA COOLIDGE:Cubby Broccoli's daughter was a fan and she wanted me to sing the theme song for Octopussy and she started playing my records around the house, and Cubby said one day, "Who is that? That's the voice I want for the movie." I met John Barry and had a lovely dinner at his house but I didn't meet Tim Rice until the next day in the studio. Tim was still finishing the song. We were waiting for the lyrics as the track had already been done. It is a wonderful song and I am very proud to be a part of that family.

SL:Did you stop recording in the mid-1980s?

RITA COOLIDGE:It was getting harder to make albums but now I look back on it as a gift. I felt that I was under the gun to get an album done every year and then go on the road to promote it. I hadn't perfected the art of performing as the songs that I did were dictated by the album I had just released. I was in New York at a fund raiser that Dionne Warwick and Liza Minnelli had organised with Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. I was sitting next to Sammy Davis Jr and I said that I had left A&M and I didn't know about recording anymore. He said, "You don't have to make records to be a singer. You have to look at yourself as a singer, not a recording artist, as there is a big difference. There are people who sing on records who can't sing live and can't perform or don't enjoy it. You need to get out there and hone in your craft of being a singer and an entertainer." I didn't learn that until then and I learnt about communicating with audiences.

SL:Can you do that on a stadium tour?

RITA COOLIDGE:I do prefer something more intimate as I like to perform for an audience and draw people into the experience. It is harder when you can't see the people, much less their eyes. I'm sure it will be fine though, and I am looking forward to it. In a way, it's another great learning experience for me.

SL:Still it's small fry compared to singing at the 2002 Winter Olympics.

RITA COOLIDGE:Being on the ice at the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics was one of the greatest experiences of my life but it is not because it was the largest audience, multi-millions of people watching all over the world. It's because there were 1,000 native people on the ice with me. It was a rainbow of colour and my heart was so full of the spirit of native America. Robbie Robertson and I stood by the side before we went up to perform and we had tears in our eyes. We were also freezing by the way, but it was an overwhelming spiritual time.

SL:The tour is with Kenny Rogers and Don Williams. Do you know them well?

RITA COOLIDGE:I've never met Don but I feel like I've known Kenny forever. One night Kris and I were having dinner with Kenny and his wife and he took me out to his car and he played me the duet he had just recorded with Dottie West of Every Time Two Fools Collide. I went nuts as it was terrific. I have always loved Kenny's voice: he is like Ray Charles to me -he has that same kind of raspy timbre, and such emotion too. He was a pop singer and a lot of his records crossed over and that is why I think that Kenny and I are compatible and we have worked together a lot. I have never worked with Don: he is country, and that really puts the country stamp on the show.

SL:Do you ever work with Kris Kristofferson now?

RITA COOLIDGE:Not recently as he is focused on being an actor, but I'm not against it. He has started touring again because This Old Road has had such great reviews. People are appreciating him as an elder and he is enjoying that. He often found that there was a lot of stress in touring because he felt he was a bad singer. To be honest, I think he was envious of my music career having taken off. He wanted to be a music star more than having a huge acting career. He has written some great, great songs of course, but he hasn't had a string of hits. This Old Road is a marvellous record. I cried my eyes out when I first heard it as I thought it was so beautiful.

SL:And what about your own life now. I can hear a dog in the next room.

RITA COOLIDGE:That's a 150 pound Rottweiler. (Laughs) I remarried two years ago and we have just had our second wedding anniversary. I married a Japanese man who is a professor here at the University of California, Irvine. He is a physicist and not a musician, which to me is great news. We have a great deal in common but he is not competing with me in the music business, which is great. (Laughs)

SL:Thanks very much for talking to us and good luck with the tour.

RITA COOLIDGE:It's been lovely. I am looking forward so much to coming back to England. I'm now going to wish Kris a happy birthday and get one of those Whistle Test DVDs.