Interview by Polly Coufos

Is there any sense of frustration there's been so long between albums?

It would've been nice to have more records out, to have been able to get stuff on tape. And to tell the truth after my Rumble Doll record came out I was six months pregnant. I had three little babies basically. You know all my kids at that point were all under three years old. I had them back to back so I had my hands full for a little while. Then [I was] working with Bruce's band. We did a bunch of tours and then I made a record that I spent a while on. Then made it, mixed it, then I didn't like it then asked if I could not hand it in. I asked if I could not release it, I just wasn't happy with it.
I had to go back, regroup and start again. I think that kind of process... like I finished a record I thought was coming. Right after I realised I wasn't going to release it then I was off on a tour with Bruce, the reunion tour which was a year and a half tour. So just raising a family and trying to cover all those bases meant not having a good working situation. I got that organised when I hooked up with Steve Jordan and found a really great support system of musicians, engineers and stuff. And then it was like okay now I can work, I have my own group of people here.

23rd Street Lullaby is a lot more immediate than Rumble Doll...

I thought it was too. That just happened, it wasn't a conscious effort really, but I think just by the nature of having more characters in it. Where Rumble Doll was very specific, was about a relationship and was just so intimate, there's only about two three people in that whole record that you're talking to basically; this record's just a little more expansive. More characters, more people.

I'm sure it's not the case, because there was a lot of hard work gone in, but it sounds like it was easier...

This record was so hard to make that it was so strange to listen to it when it was finally done. I handed in this record and then three months before our tour ended, before the Rising Tour ended, which was good because it gives you time to think and I'm listening to it and I'm saying to my husband, I'm going, "you know what? I handed in this record but it's not done to me. I said I don't have a title to it. It's really missing a broad title to it." So I went back and wrote 23rd Street Lullaby. Put the record back, opened it up, wrote that song, put it in, took out a couple of things that were on there, put in City Boys because I just wanted a fun little rockabilly tune. So it really came together right in the end and then sequencing it's oh, you know what? This is sounding effortless now. But it was, you know...

That's the message that comes across anyway.

Good. I'm glad. Well it should because that's what you want it to. You're looking for ultimately, a celebration of an idea. Even if it's sad or troubled or complicated or, you're still looking for some celebration of that idea. So I was pleased, I was pleased when I was done. It didn't sound like I'd worked at it. It just came together in the right way basically.

Much of it is biographical, if not autobiographical. Was it the idea to write about that time in your life or were you just writing about it and the theme emerged?

It's interesting. I had some of those tunes lying around and I'd recorded them before on the other record that I was trying to make. Then when I got the good recordings of the songs and they started coming together, I thought 'oh gosh' it was such a great time period maybe if I think about making a record I do like to have a theme that pulls itself through the whole record and gives it continuity. It just started falling together that way by itself and then I thought I'm going to make it about my time when I lived in the city. Even though I had songs that I had just recently written, I still wanted to lean on that journey when you first leave your home and find yourself reflected back to you in some reasonable way. How do you find that, where do you find it, where do you look for it? Do you look for it internally, externally? So that's what I was trying to do in that record.

Soozie Tyrell's voice blends well with yours. You go back a ways don't you?

Soozie and I have known each other since we were in our early 20s. Teenagers.

That would be from the time these songs were set, right?

Yeah. We used to sing on the streets together. She's the one I used to busk with. We used to sing on the streets together when I had a band where I'd sing all my original music in and she'd play in it and then she'd have a band like a country swing band and I'd play in her band and we'd tour together with the (Southside Johnny And The Asbury) Jukes and sing on other people's records. So we always worked together.

And now you've been on a huge tour together with Bruce as well.

That was fun.

To have another girl in the band?

Yeah, it was great. And my dear friend. She's like a sister.

Was she included because she's your friend or was it also because she was in these stories as well?

On my record? Well, first of all she's a great musician. She just tears it up. I mean Soozie plays the violin in a way that is very raw, very immediate. You never hear a calculated note which is beautiful. And we've made so much music together, I always would love to have her playing with me. When I think of making music, I always think of making it with her. It's like your great friend, a great musician you share all that history with. It's powerful.

What about with Clifford [Carter, keyboards] then. I know he played on Rumble Doll, but he's a friend from the period as well isn't he?

He is! See, this is funny because Cliff lived in Chelsea and so did Steve Jordan. Cliff introduced me to Steve Jordan when I was about 21. And I used to play my own original music in New York City with Cliff. And that's how I met Sooz. So, yeah, Cliff and I go way back. We went to music school together in Miami. We went to jazz school together and played six nights a week in Coconut Grove, singing with a jazz trio, doing standards and stuff. It was great.

Another friend is Emmylou Harris. She's not on your album but you and Bruce sang on her Red Dirt Girl album.

That was great of her. First of all, besides being an unbelievable artist, she's just a very lovely woman and a very, she's just pro-women, you know when you meet her. And I was just very honoured when she asked me to sing on the record and she's just lovely. She recorded a song of mine, Valerie, with Linda Ronstadt. I know her a little bit and I'll see her here and there but she's just given me so much. She's just given me a lot of, a funny way, and she probably doesn't know it. She'll get in your corner and say "no, no you're doing great, just hang in there and make your music," and so she's just very good that way.

Have you needed that during the time between albums?

Sure you do. Sure you do. Everybody needs it. Bruce's experience is a very large experience and to step aside from that and get into your own individual space and then to have an artist besides people that you know very well, someone like Emmy comes out and says, "I love your record, I love your writing, just keep at it," that does mean a lot. I think its a big gift when people give that to you. It's very generous. She's always very generous.

Do you fear that any public appearances and performances will be hijacked by Bruce fans coming for the wrong reasons?

I did Letterman before for my Rumble Doll. I think if people do, they do, and that's okay. But Bruce doesn't do any television with me, he wouldn't do that.

And what about live shows?

Well you know, that's going to happen and we'll just have to slap them around a bit, if they start hooting for him. (laughs) Only kidding, only kidding.

How do you now look on the period between albums? 11 years is a long time...

Well, it's frustrating because of my own internal self. It has nothing to do with anything else. Just frustrating because I was having a hard time getting it on tape. But that's a luxury in itself too because really, I had my record contract and they could've said, "no you've just got to put this record out whether you like it or not." And they didn't. So I think really, you can only blame yourself. I'm sure I have a lot of my own ambivalence about how much I want it, When you say frustrating it makes me think like there's an external thing to blame and I don't blame any external thing. I just blame myself. That's much easier.(laughs) Easier on the people around you.

Did you record it at home?

We have a house next door.

That's Thrill Hill?

No, no I mean Thrill Hill is just a name that a lot of stuff goes under. But we have a house next door to our house that we basically bought for privacy and my dad actually lives there. He has Alzheimer's. He lives there with some caretakers so that's nice so he can be right there but we also have a studio inside the house. So it's nice, so we can just go over there and record and my dad lives there.
It's easy because then I can take my kids to school in the morning, go to work, pick them up, go back to work and still cover some of the bases because you've got to raise your kids. You can't forget about that.

Do you enjoy this part of it, promotion? I imagine a lot of time in your work with the E Street Band you don't get spoken to...

To tell you the truth, I can become very intimidated by this part of it. I can become very like, oh what's the right word, like a hermit. And not because just out of - it's a weird thing to make a living going out and playing -it's not because of any dislike or anything of it. I can just become intimidated with the whole stage about just even handing my record in. You know? Say it's like, as a painter you can just paint and then go out and it's done. That whole stage of taking it where it's just yours and then passing it on. I have a lot of ambivalence from that part of it. I have to say it's probably stopped me from having more work out.

Does it seem curious to you that that's what you wanted all you life that at some point you...

Definitely. I was trying to get a contract since I was 19.

You are wanting to share it but still afraid of giving too much away?

Yeah I don't know what that stuff is. Do you know? I'm sure when people have less of it they have more work out. I'm a little more reticent about that stuff. I like to hide. (laughs) I'd rather drink a bottle of wine and sit home.