A Musical Friendship
The Making of Adieu False Heart
The album "Adieu False Heart" started with the dear and firm friendship between Linda Ronstadt and myself, a friendship begun at a boucherie near Eunice, Louisiana, at the old Savoy homestead. Maybe I should say it started with two friendships because Linda was brought into my life by the founder of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Quint Davis. It was he that brought her to our house to show her Cajun country, then he brought her back out to Eunice for a crawfish étouffée. Linda and I immediately bonded over our similar aesthetics in beauty, music, home decor, fabrics, colors, clothing.
Shortly after our Eunice visits I visited her at her house in San Francisco, a stunning mansion she had bought with her then fiancé, George Lucas. The house was wall papered in Bradbury and Bradbury wallpaper, Tiffany windows and skylights graced walls and ceilings.Visitors such as Emmy Lou Harris and Dolly Parton would pop in and practice upcoming album material. Linda was always a gracious hostess, sometimes holding court from her white princess bed, all vintage linens and femininity.
I was offered to produce some albums for the Vanguard label and came up with the idea “Rock Stars sing Cajun music”. Immediately I thought of Linda doing some songs on the project because she was so interested in Louisiana and its musics. The two songs we settled on were “O, ma chère ‘tite fille”, a traditional Cajun song about a mother missing her daughter, and the second a song written by my husband Marc and arranged by me, “La Fille de Quatorze Ans”, a song about a young girl abandoned by her lover after having a baby.
Much to my amazement Linda insisted that I sing the songs with her. I never would have dreamed I would have the opportunity to share vocals with one of the top female vocalists in history. We were so happy with how our voices went together. The first song was accompanied by a stellar Cajun band track recorded in Louisiana, and the second song was recorded in Tucson with English rock guitarist Richard Thompson on lead guitar and me on rhythm guitar.This track was taken back to Louisiana where Dirk Powell added a fiddle track.This project, called Evangeline Made”, was very well received and critics often singled out our tracks as standouts on the album.
Linda invited me to play with her at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival to promote our tracks on Evangeline Made. We performed our songs with Sam Bush’s band and had a ball hanging out with Emmy Lou Harris, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Andrea Zonn, and Nanci Griffith. We all sang “To Know You Is To Love You” as an Allstar girl band.
We decided we wanted to sit around and sing more together so I would visit Linda in Tucson, sitting in Linda’s gorgeous courtyard, guitars in our hands, singing through all kinds of songs we both loved. I started recording these practice sessions on my little Sony cassette player or mini disk as references to our ideas. Sometimes we would sit by a roaring fire, talking and singing the hours away. This actually went on for a couple of years, sometimes Linda would come to New Orleans and I would go meet her, sometimes she would stay with me in Eunice.
Never in my life would I have ever dreamed that this wonderful singer, mega star would give me the time of day musically. When I realized how comfortable she was to be around, how accepting of me, how responsive to song ideas I brought to her, and how natural it was just sitting around with her in her houses singing and playing guitars, I was totally engrossed by singing with her and sharing ideas.
At some point Linda and I decided to record a demo of our musical ideas and we recorded some of them at my son Joel’s Savoy Faire Studio, next door to my house outside of Eunice. We asked my friends, the wonderful band The Red Stick Ramblers, to be our band (Kevin Wimmer, Joel Savoy, Chas Justus, Glenn Fields, Eric Frey) and we began to arrange some of the numbers we had chosen and recorded them. These recording were then sent to my good friend from Richmond, Virginia, acclaimed record producer Steve Buckingham, who was enthusiastic about them he suggested that we make an album for Vanguard Records.
Naturally we asked him to produce our album. Steve had worked with Linda several times in the past and he and I had taught guitars at the same studio in Richmond when I was in high school.The plan was made that we would begin the recording tracks with scratch vocals at Cyprus House Studio, Dirk Powell’s studio in Parks, Louisiana. Steve brought his engineer Gary Paczosa with him. Gary is an award winning engineer who engineers most of Allison Krauss’ recordings, Dolly Parton, etc. We rented a charming guesthouse in Breaux Bridge were we stayed during the recording of the basic tracks. I brought my antique bluebird dish collection to the house and filled the cabinets with organic food. More Louisiana musicians were brought onboard, Dirk Powell and Sam Broussard to name two, and we started recording. My son Wilson made a film about these sessions and the film is a beautiful little cameo of those moments out in Parks along the bayou, local chefs cooking for us outside, jamming together under the oaks.
Phase two of the project involved me flying to Nashville where we continued to fine tune our vocals and where top musicians were added to record some of the tracks, those musicians being Buddy Miller on acoustic guitar, Bryan Sutton on acoustic guitar, Sam Bush on mandolin, Bryon House on upright bass, Tim Lauer on accordion, David Schnaufer on dulcimer, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, John Catchings on cello, Andrea Zonn on resophonic viola ,viola and violin, and Kristin Wilkinson on viola and string arrangements. We shared beautiful music moments thinking about the string arrangements, the tones of the songs, every detail. The Nashville pro musicians were all so humble and serious about making everything perfect.
Next step in the making of the album was recording more vocals near San Francisco at the famous studio The Plant. Linda and I would drive over to the studio, with her driving under the speed limit, across the bridge to Sausalito. The Plant was famed for being home to many of the most famous recordings of all times, artists such as Prince / Sly Stone / Fleetwood Mac / Rick James / Santana / Van Morrison / Stevie Wonder / Whitney Houston / Metallica / Bob Marley / Grateful Dead / Jefferson Starship / John Fogerty / Mariah Carey / Grateful Dead / Heart / Three Dog Night / Boz Scaggs / Randy Newman / Dave Matthews Band. The studio was dark and cozy and Linda would light candles in the recording booths to make a nice atmosphere.
The next part of the artistic creation of the album was promotional photos and cover design. For that Linda and I tapped into our moody, dark sides and wanted the cover to project the dark side of love, the sad side. We both prefer sad songs and one of our goals on this project was to sing songs from a woman’s heart, in a gentle manner, wringing the emotion from the numbers with our vocal harmonies. We decided to base the artwork on a photo in Linda’s house by the photographer Rocky Schenck, an LA based photographer. The photo was presented as a photo on the cover of an old brown stamped leather photo album.
When the album came out in 2006 Linda and I did some promotional appearances like Prairie Home Companion, Amazon Fishbowl with Bill Maher, and Tavis Smiley talk show. We did a radio show for Delta Airlines, etc.We also took a brief tour to Canada where we played in Winnipeg and Edmunton.The album received rave reviews and was nominated for two Grammys. It peaked at #146 on the Billboard album chart.
Then, due to an illness, Linda had to cancel promotional appearances in the US: The View, The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, The Merle Fest, a photo shoot for Harper’s Bazaar. This was disheartening after all of our hard work to not be able to bring the music out into the world more. Such is life.
The album still lives on as a work of art and beauty, a testament to our happy hours spent together, creating, sharing, forging a friendship that continues to enrich our lives.
The Songs
Adieu False Heart-This song, written by Arthur Smith, had really honest, tough words that we related to and it originally had a happy, unusual melody. We thought the words deserved a more somber melody so we changed the melody to a minor key. We loved the woman in the song telling her false hearted lover that his cocky charm no longer appealed to her, neither did his arrogance and faithlessness.
I Can’t Get Over You-The inimitable songwriter Julie Miller wrote this and we heard Buddy Miller sing it. People always say “You’ll get over this heartbreak” but in fact the pain can linger on in your depths forever. We love the poetry with which Julie expressed this.
Mari Mouri-While Linda and I were working on our album I heard an album by Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys and this song was on it. David Greely, the fiddler in that band, had put a minor melody to a poem composed by an African slave. The French is Creole French. The singer asks a little bird (zozo) how it can still sing now that Mari is dead. It tells the grass it no longer needs to be soft to make a bed for Mari and him, and all joy is killed.
King of Bohemia-One of Linda’s and my favorite subjects of conversation is our children, their ups and downs, their problems…We heard Richard Thompson sing this song which he had composed for his daughter who at the time was having some personal struggles. He wants to protect her from harm. She is wealthy and beautiful, she has everything, but she is waning away.
Plus tu tourné-Here is our one Cajun songs on the album. Dance, sing, turn, Creole baby, the more you do these things more I love you! The lyrics and melody to this song came from a Creole song in a historic book of Louisiana songs. The song was called "Tourne, tourne chicka fine” and was probably originally a children’s song. An excellent French musician, Michel Hindenoch, turned it into this charming, fun song.
Go Away From My Window-Linda remembered singing this song with her brothers and sisters when she was growing up in Tucson. Her soprano vocal soars in the beautiful melody here.
Burn’s Supper-The lyrics here were cloaked in mystery until I asked Richard about some of the Scottish imagery in the verses. The words are about his father who had a hard time showing his feelings except through repeating Robert Burns poetry at Burn’s Suppers or after a pint of black and tan ale. His emotions are locked in his heart..I particularly love the chorus:”Well, I close my eyes, close my eyes, to the cold flame of the northern light, Well, I close my eyes, close my eyes,And I see you there in the shuttered light.”
The One I love Is gone-Bill Monroe wrote this song, and I learned it from the musical artist Alice Gerrard when she was visiting my house long ago.We loved the mountain imagery, the bird high on a lonesome mountainside, the Appalachian holler feel of the melody.
Rattle My Cage-Our good friend Chas Justus wrote here about his despondence and feeling of being trapped in his life. Again, a bird image is present. His imagery, the leaves falling from the trees, the weather turning cold like his spirit, the caged bird..all appealed to our love of stark imagery.
Parlez-Moi D’amour-A hit song in France in 1930 when it was recorded by Lucienne Boyer, the lyrics say to speak about love because even if one doesn’t totally believe the words one's lover says they take the edge of of sorrow. Sorrow is appeased, and a lover is consoled by a little kiss.
Too Old To Die Young-Moe Brandy wrote this beautiful song as an upbeat number but I had always heard it in my mind more as a hymn. The guitarist for this session, Bryon Sutton, immediately understood the hymn feel we were going for and came up with a beautiful guitar part.The lyrics express the longing to live long enough to see who our children turn into, to live long enough to not die young.
Walk Away Renée-When I was young in Richmond, Virginia, I had a 45rpm of this song by the Left Bank. I was playing it on my guitar for Linda and she said she had had that record, too, and loved it as a young girl. Besides the killer melody, the urban poetry really got to us. Initials carved on a tree beside a wall, traffic signs, empty lots.
