Got It Made
by Zayne Reeves
  
Greg Trooper's latest album for Sugarhill Records, Make It Through This World, is as fine a slice of white soul music as you're likely to hear all year long. Produced by Dan Penn, author of such songs as “I'm Your Puppet” and “Dark End of The Street” and a man who has sat behind the boards for Irma Thomas and Solomon Burke, World boasts Trooper's strongest set of songs to date. Of course, that could all change with whatever his next album might be as Trooper's talent only seems to deepen with each new release. Songs like “Dream Away The Blues,” “Green Eyed Girl” and “Don't Let It Go To Waste” roll gently and confidently but are anything but background music for fondue night. Trooper's lyrics are sharp and crafted with breathtaking clarity and economy and his voice is a pure, clean and expressive instrument that can purr, growl and gallup all at the same time. Make It Through This World is also blessed with world class musicians such as near-legendary drummer Kenneth Blevins, Dave Jacques on upright and electric bass and Steve Fishell playing some truly tasty dobro and lap steel guitar.

Having just returned home the day before after a month long trek through Europe, Greg was gracious, witty and insightful during our telephone interview.
 
BT: So, you just wrapped up a month long tour over in Europe?
 
GREG: Yeah, I did ten shows in the Netherlands, three in Norway, two in England and one show in Spain.
 
BT: I was just curious because, particularly in the Netherlands, they have this reputation as being strong supporters of what we would call alt. country music. What was the reaction like for you there?
 
GREG: I played packed houses every night.
 
BT: Fantastic!
 
GREG: I wasn't playing theaters or anything but we filled the rooms and the crowds were great. They really responded to what we were doing.

BT: Cool. Do you have any theories on why it is they respond so well to that particular kind of music?
 
GREG: I don't know if I have any theories about it. I think it has to do with how rock and roll music, jazz music, blues and country all come from America. They were born in this country. People from Holland respond to this music and love it just as much as we do and they embrace American artists coming over and performing for them.  Now the kind of music I play, the market is a little bit different, a little more specialized and specific to certain regions. Also, I think there is a myth built into this music. Rock and roll created its own kind of mythology about America that I think people living in other countries find attractive.
 
BT: Your new album, Make It Through This World, was produced by Dan Penn. For the benefit of our readers who might not know the backstory here, how did you guys hook up?
 
GREG: Actually, I talked to Dan just the other day and we were laughing over this.  Everybody always wants to know how he got involved and the truth is I just called him up! (We both laugh) What happened was I had talked with my friend Dave Alvin about wanting to do a record that was driven by the rhythm section because I really like that particular sound. And Dave told me that I should call up Dan Penn because he's the master at making records with that kind of groove to them. And Dan's just amazing to work with. You can connect all this great soul music through him and what he's done as a writer and as a producer. “You Left The Water Running” sounds so much better to me than a lot of what came out of that same period in music.

BT: It must have been like going to school all over again, working with someone of that magnitude.

GREG: Oh, it was absolutely like going back to school. I felt like I learned something new every day that I worked with him. I don't think people realize what a towering figure he is and how much he has contributed to popular music.
 
BT: I agree. My introduction to him, I mean I knew who he was just through osmosis, was when Don't Give Up On Me came out and the title song was a Dan Penn song. And that was such an amazing song.
 
GREG: Yeah. Honestly, I mostly knew him through osmosis as well until I picked up (Dan Penn's solo album) Do Right Man. Dan's actually an incredible soul singer. Just incredible.
 
BT: Really! And it's called Do Right Man?
 
GREG: Yeah, it's called Do Right Man and it was released back in '93. I've been listening to it for ten years now and I still go back to it again and again. He did this tour with Spooner Oldham and just to see those two on stage together was like watching history.
 
BT: You mentioned him being a really great soul singer and one of the things I respond to on your albums is your singing which is understated and very soulful. I know both of you talk about how there's nothing worse than a white guy overdoing R&B and going into Blues Hammer territory. Is there a mental checklist of things you have that are histrionic and to be avoided at all costs when you sing?
 
GREG: (Laughs) I don't really have a checklist, no. I just try to sing my best when I'm out there. I've just learned over the years what works and what doesn't work with my voice.

BT: It seems like...this is your eighth album or your ninth?

GREG: It's my eighth album.

BT: It just seems like with every album, your voice gets richer, warmer and more expressive. There's a confidence to this album that is a pleasure to listen to and know that the person who made this album knows exactly where they want to take their listeners and it is such a fun journey to take.
 
GREG: Thank you. I really appreciate that and I'm glad you get that from my music. 

BT: It seems to be the consensus that you just get better and better with age. 

GREG: (Laughs) That's a lot better than if it were going in reverse.
 
BT: (Laughs....it was that kind of interview!) It beats the alternative, I'm sure! Now, one of the songs off Make It Through This World that leaped out at me was “No Higher Ground.”  Ostensibly, it's about a terrible storm that occurred in Galveston, Texas in the early 20th century.
 
GREG: Yes, it was a hurricane and it hit Galveston in 1900.

BT: It works really well as a story-song about that event but it also works as this indictment against our hubris and the indifference Galveston encountered from its neighboring cities.
 
GREG: I had read this book about the Galveston hurricane called Isaac's Storm. It's an incredible book and it talks about what that storm did to Galveston and how it killed at least eight thousand people. And yeah, it's also about the Weather Bureau which was very arrogant and wouldn't pay attention to what the Cuban meteorologists were warning them about this hurricane. That's where the "We certainly know more than the Cubans do" line came from.
 
BT: Has that song changed for you since the tsunami earlier this year?
 
GREG: No, it hasn't changed for me. What do you mean by changed?
 
BT: I mean, do you think about that now when.....it just works as an eerily prescient critique of what a lot of people saw with the U.S. government's reaction to the tsunami in many respects. So many of the people who died in the tsunami were poor and lived off the coastline and didn't have access to the same quality of information and medical care that those who lived further out and who were better off financially did.
 
GREG: Well, yeah, why is it that the poor and downtrodden have to suffer so much over and over? Isaac's Storm talked about how there was very little money given by the government to Galveston to rebuild. Practically none at all. They were expected to finance their own reconstruction which is hard when your whole city has been washed away.
 
BT: Moving to something lighter, “When I Think of You My Friends” is this infectious toast to all your buddies who are struggling to get heard themselves-
 
GREG:  -It's a salute to those who choose passion over practical.
 
BT: It's always best to do it when you're young, I guess.
 
GREG: (Laughs) Some of us aren't that young anymore!
 
BT: Oh no, I didn't mean to...regardless of...this is what you should be doing! This is your gift. I related to the song because I have a B.A. in Theatre so I certainly didn't choose practical. Is there anyone out there that you know where you're like "If this person could get any kind of exposure, they could really turn heads."
 
GREG: Gosh, I could name about twenty. R.B. Morris is someone who is fantastic. He's out there and creating great music. Eliza Gilkyson. Man, she's one of my favorites. But I don't know if there's any opportunity to turn heads with the mainstream. I dunno, R.B. Morris works about as much as I do. Eliza Gilkyson, she's up and down the road. She works as much as I do. I guess they're doing ok.
 
BT: But by all accounts those are certainly people who deserve VH1 exposure more than 90% of those getting it.

GREG: I'm not sure they could get on. VH1 has really changed. Every time I watch VH1, I feel like I need to shave. None of the guys I see on VH1 have any hair on them. Maybe if I shaved all mine off they'd let me on.

BT: Yeah, the Drive-By Truckers made a whole album (Southern Rock Opera) about how video drove all the hairy guys outta town. You've joked about “Sad, Sad Girl” being "yet another woman with a mood disorder song." I know that if I'm gonna buy a Freakwater cd, there's gonna be at least one dead baby song in there somewhere. Is this something where you think to yourself "Oh, I need my emotionally disturbed girl song to go here" or does it legitimately just occur by accident because it makes for a compelling song?
 
GREG: It legitimately occurs. No, I don't premeditate having that kind of song on every record. It's funny, my sister gives me grief about that. "You're not supposed to write the same thing over and over again!"
 
BT: (Laughs) I was kinda being facetious there because that quote struck me as a funny comment. Another thing that I really like about Make It Through This World is that you did it entirely on analog tape. Do you have a preference in terms of digital versus analog?
 
GREG: Analog, absolutely. This made me a big, big believer because the sound is so open and warm and it has real soul to it.
 
BT: You were born in Little Silver, New Jersey and you got to see things like The Concert For Bangladesh when you were growing up. You then left home for Austin, Texas where you lived for most of the 70s and then you moved back to New York in the 80s to seriously pursue your music career. You worked a lot of odd jobs during this time.  Was there one that stood at as being particularly bad or weird?
 
GREG: (Laughs) Man, I've had a lot of odd, odd jobs. That's covering some ground.  (Brief pause) Let's see, I was a bartender, I did kitchen work.....I used to deliver dog food.
 
BT: You delivered dog food?!

GREG: Actually, it wasn't just dog food. I delivered all kinds of pet food. (Laughs) I don't think my son even knew about that one.
 
BT: You'd go to people's homes and drop off pet food?

GREG: Yeah, people's apartments. It was hard work ‘cause you'd go into these tenement buildings and they'd be on the fourth or fifth floor sometimes. It wasn't too bad though. It could be fun. For some reason now that you've asked me, I'm drawing a blank on a lot of jobs that I've had.

BT: Now, when you were in Austin you also got to see some amazing people when they were sort of in their salad days.
 
GREG: Austin was incredible. I saw Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Willie Nelson, Jerry Jeff Clark. A lot of those guys are still around and still making great music, you know.

BT: Was that scene really like how it was portrayed in the documentary Heartworn Highways? It seems like it would have been a really heady time to have been there.

GREG: It was heady.  Yeah, I'd say that movie really captured what was going on and the spirit of it. Now, I was a little younger at that time and a really wild kid. I thought I had gone down there to be serious about music but I was really just wild then.

BT: Steve Earle, one of the guys on that scene, who is about your age covered one of your songs, “Little Sister,” and wrote the liner notes for Floating. I've noticed he always talks you up whenever the chance arises.
 
GREG: Steve has been a really great friend to me and my music.

BT: Really cool people have covered your stuff; Billy Bragg, Robert Earl Keen, Maura O'Connell. Outside of Earle's “Little Sister,” is there one that you're particularly proud of?
 
GREG:  You know, I'd say all of them. Every time someone covers a song I wrote, I'm just blown away by it. The people you mentioned are all tremendous artists.
 
BT: Right, no one iffy has approached your songs yet.
 
GREG: I could probably use someone iffy doing my songs.
 
BT: (Laugh) Get the Maroon 5 cover.. someone less hairy to give it the VH1 treatment. Now, you've actually co-written songs with Steve Earle and Robert Earl Keen. Is that something you're able to enjoy? Because, and I'm not trying to drop names here, but I interviewed Steve Forbert and I know that he really doesn't enjoy the whole co-writing process.
 
GREG: It can be tough. It can be really tough. A lot of it depends on who you are writing with. I wouldn't say it's something that you enjoy but you can learn from it and it helps to have someone who understands the process as well as you do and what it takes to get the song out.
 
BT: Elvis Costello got some ink recently for talking about how the music industry needs to adapt or die. The internet has completely changed the rules of the game and I was wondering if you see it as something positive or negative. Has it gotten harder for you to sell records?
 
GREG: Well, I'd say it's gotten easier for me. Now, I'm someone who is under the commercial radar so a lot of that doesn't affect me as directly but, if anything, I'm doing a little bit better than I was before in terms of sales.

BT: I wanted to ask you about your radio exposure. I first discovered you through a really cool radio station in East Tennessee called WDVX. This was a couple of years ago and they played a lot of stuff off Floating and Straight Down Rain. I know that when The Gavin Report came out with the Americana chart, it knocked a lot of acts that had been simply AAA acts off that playlist and into this smaller niche market. Are enough radio stations playing people like you, Buddy Miller, Dave Alvin and Iris Dement? Obviously there aren't enough but has it gotten any better?
 
GREG: There are a number of radio stations that play our music and that have remained devoted to us. I'm not sure to what degree it drives sales or a greater awareness of our music to mass audiences but they do it anyway because they love the music. And I will always love them for doing that.
 
BT: You moved to Nashville in the early 90s and you still live there today. It's great that relocating there seems to have worked so well for you but a lot of artists move there and they have the most bitter experiences imaginable with that city. What do you attribute your good luck with not turning sour in Nashville to?
 
GREG: A lot of it had to do with my expectations going into it. I had been in New York and struggling on that scene so I didn't go into Nashville with too many unrealistic ideas. And this town can absolutely make someone bitter because of how it chews up people who come here to create music. So much of the music that comes out of here, I guess it's called "country" but it is the worst crap and nobody cares. Take someone like Garth Brooks. What's he doing now? Who's talking about him these days? He made more money than God but who cares? That kind of fame is very fleeting next to someone like John Prine. John Prine is an artist and the music he makes is always going to be relevant. People are always going to respect what he's done. That's a real career.

BT: People will be enjoying an album like Bruised Orange for generations to come.
 
GREG: There's a lot that people can learn from that record. I don't know what they can learn from a Garth Brooks record.
 
BT: They can learn the wrong way to do it!
 
GREG: And I'm not trying to go after Garth Brooks. I don't know the guy. I think he's just someone who worked very hard and found something that was successful and he stayed with it. But I do know that that kind of celebrity....it doesn't last.
 
BT: I just have one last question and it's about one of your co-writing experiences in Nashville. You actually co-wrote a song with one of the Waltons, right?
 
GREG: (Laughs) Yeah, I like to tell that story at my shows. Jon Walmsley, who played Jason, and I wrote a song together and I always joke on stage that it made me worry about what kind of shape my career was in.
 
BT: Any good Will Geer stories?
 
GREG: Well, one I always tell that I sorta embellish a little is that Will would make marijuana brownies and serve them before taping. So I tell people at my shows that whenever they watch The Waltons, keep in mind that Grandpa was stoned the whole time.
 
BT: (Laughs) Oh my gosh! Well that's just a hoot. I know you've gotta go and thank you for taking so much time out of your day. I really appreciate it.

GREG: No problem. I enjoyed it.

Check out Greg Trooper's website, www.gregtrooper.com, for more information on Greg, his new album and to order merchandise.