Belinda Gail Interview

Doug Burke:

Welcome to Back Story Song. I'm your host Doug Burke. And today we're here with Belinda Gail. Belinda Gail was raised on ranches in Nevada's Carson Valley and in the California Sierra Nevada foothills near Sequoia National Park. She began singing and writing Western songs from her personal experiences growing up in this foreign country. In 1996, she went on her first tour as an opening act, and she has not stopped since. Since then she has been named seven times as the female performer of the Year by the western music Association. Her endearing and high energy performances have earned her the deserved nickname as America's Western Sweetheart.

Belinda Gail:

She takes off her chefs and hangs him up each on their pets. Many men in stores just deal head on generations of life from mother render mother to this life casework Hi, another before get a smile plays on her fruity skin in southern leather. She's strong, she's smooth, supple generations of life and

Doug Burke:

One of your songs deals with the current subject. It's about a cow girl who I believe gets pregnant.

Belinda Gail:

Oh, you're talking about? She's a cowgirl. Yes, yes. Yes. That was that actually is an amalgam of many of the women that I grew up around. Actually the cowgirl that gets pregnant I just made up and just kind of just threw that in there as because it's just the resiliency I wanted to read. Be able to portray that the resiliency of the cow girls, you can throw anything at them and they'll they'll turn it into something positive. Ultimately, that's just how the nature of women who are raised on the land, whether it's a farming woman or a ranching woman, I was raised in that environment and I was always in all of these women. So I kind of took bits and pieces and especially referencing that particular woman. It was the lady that raised my father. She actually homesteaded her own ranch at the turn of the century from the 1800s to the 1900s. And she was 20 years old at the time. Women just didn't do that. You know, women didn't go out and create their own homestead ranch. She was married once her husband just like disappeared mysteriously and people you know, the rumor was that he was buried beneath her front porch of her homestead cabin, but like we didn't talk about that. That's not No it's not. It's not in the song but didn't she mirror A guy from the valley because her ranch was up in the mountains in California near Sequoia National Park.

Doug Burke:

Where you grew up?

Belinda Gail:

Where I grew up, right. And so we actually lived on that ranch for many years and took care of her in her old age so that she wouldn't be put into a home. So she married this guy from the valley. And I think he was really thinking he was like this woman with this ranch and all these cows and he was gonna be like a cattle Baron and you know, life of Riley kind of thing. Well, he should have gotten farmer, he should have gotten a clue when on their honeymoon, they moved cattle. He should have gotten a clue what was in what he was in for because she just, I guess, worked his Fanny off. And he's like, yeah, I didn't I didn't sign up for this. And he bailed. course in those days. They didn't really get divorces, you know, they just kind of just didn't live together anymore and

Doug Burke:

Stayed married?

Belinda Gail:

Stay married. Yes, yes, they stayed where she never did marry again. She's like, I'm done with men. I've you know, I'm not going to do this anymore. But she never actually had children. She raised my father but she never actually had children but she was tough as nails. I think that they're really the concept that it's all about the land. It's all about their connection to the land and to the animals. And this is a way of life that is something that has to be preserved and has to be passed on. And I really got that from her and being around her, but

Doug Burke:

Yeah, it was. I thought this was a song about deadbeat dads who knock up farmers.

Belinda Gail:

Oh, not sorry that that's what you got? No, it was actually my late singing partners idea to throw the pregnancy in there. He said that how he bailed, you know, and then she raised my late singing partner Curly. Yeah, Curly Musgrave. Yeah. So it was actually his suggestion. You know, you might want to think about incorporating that into your song. And so we thought about it and I thought yeah, that's kind of a cool thing, because it happens you know, ladies get pregnant and and so the it's just such an admirable thing to keep your child and to persevere with your baby. And I've talked to so many women that have decided to keep their children and they can imagine what their life would have been like had they not kept their children, because they just bring so much joy in life into their life. So it was something that I really wanted to portray in that song.

Doug Burke:

So this woman who raised her father, but there wasn't her child, right. So but do you consider her your grandmother?

Belinda Gail:

Yes. Yeah, we do because she raised my dad from the time he was nine years old, till he left to go into the military. So,

Doug Burke:

So in some sense, she was a single mom. She was a single mom.

Belinda Gail:

Yes, she was a single mom. Yep. She was a single mom, because she raised my dad and his mother was challenging. And we never were close to his mother. And I think she had a good heart, but she just didn't know how to be the mom. And so she just, she'd been married several times. She'd been actually married to this lady's nephew, and he actually passed away. And so when she left the mountain with her wasn't sure what she was going to do with her three children. And so she just piled on my dad's my dad spent a ton of time with her name was Aunt Cinny. He had spent a ton of time on Aunt Cinny's ranch. He loved Aunt Cinny.  He and loved going up and working on the ranch with her just hanging out with her. So she just piled all of his stuff in a box, dropped him off at two miles from her house and said, Go stay with Aunt Cinny till I come get you. And he just stayed there the rest of his life ever.

Doug Burke:

She never came back.

Belinda Gail:

She never came back.

Doug Burke:

That didn't make it into your song?

Belinda Gail:

No, I don't know why.

Doug Burke:

Your real grandma never came back.

Belinda Gail:

You know what I guess I try. I just figured there's so much negative stuff that goes on in life and people are so inundated with all this negativity, with you know, it comes to you, it just comes to you. So for me what I do, and everybody can do what they want. But for me personally, I try to shed light into people's life and I try to shed some joy and some uplifting and some inspiration and so I try to make my music more about that.

Doug Burke:

Yes, you don't write sad songs.

Belinda Gail:

No, they cannot. They can be lonesome or they can be sad, but then they have a good moral story to it or an uplifting, ending. to it, it's not not that I shy away from reality, but I try to tend to always bring it back around to something that's going to be optimistic. Yes.

Doug Burke:

You are full of optimism.

Belinda Gail:

I am. I really am.

Doug Burke:

I love that.

Belinda Gail:

I'm definitely I a half-full glass girl. Yeah, I definitely

Doug Burke:

More like three quarters,

Belinda Gail:

Three quarters. Yeah, I really am to

Doug Burke:

You kind of overestimate it

Belinda Gail:

You know, I'd rather do that. You know, I'd rather do that and be disappointed and always be looking for the positive than have to be the one that's always looking for the negative. So yeah, because you'll find what you're looking for. Don't you think?

Doug Burke:

Yes.

Belinda Gail:

Yeah. Yeah. So Aunt Cinny, she was good with weaponry and ropes,  Anything animals anything to tell me about that. Anything to do with that? Well, I mean, she was a crack shot. She ran the ranch for the good part of her life. She'd have trophies like hunters would no No, no, no,

Doug Burke:

She doesn't care about that.

Belinda Gail:

Yeah, she didn't care about that. That mean her cabinet when we moved in with her to Take care of her because her nieces and nephews were the only family that were around at the time we were living in Nevada because I lived in the Carson Valley in Nevada from six months old to 12. And then I was 12 when we moved to the ranch to take care of Aunt Cinny, but her nieces and nephews she was having some health issues and she was starting to have some dementia issues. Her nieces and nephews, we're just going to put her in a home. And my dad said she's lived on the land her entire life that will kill her. She will she will die. She will not survive in a home. And so he moved our whole family to her ranch and we took care of her ranch for several years and her but she was just tough as nails. The ranch house was a one bedroom house. It had running water but it was gravity flow water from the river which means she was on the side of a hill and you run pipes from wherever the nozzle is that feeds the house. PVC pipes up the hill and stick it the other end in the river and that's where you get your water from the river. There was no central heating. All the heating in the house was from wood stove and fireplace. So we were constantly cutting wood because we were at about 4000 feet and we got snow and sub zero temperatures in the winter. So all of our heat was from that. There was electricity, and we did have a telephone. But in the wintertime, the storms always took out the electricity. So we were Coleman lanterns. When we lived there, they had successive years of flooding. So our water pipes would get washed out. And then we'd have to bucket the water up from the river and boil it. And you know, I'd saw I mean, we lived like old school and for us kids, we didn't think about it when you're kids, you just roll with whatever is thrown at you, my poor mother, because here she has four kids, basically a senile old elderly woman to care for. And she's living like 1800s. And you know, I was in the summer It was great. We had electricity, we had telephone, we had water, everything was good, but the winter was rough. Winter was hard. Yeah,

Doug Burke:

That's in the Sierra Foothills? Yes. And actually it's on the way to the back entrance of Sequoia National Park is where that ranch  Beautiful country?

Belinda Gail:

Gorgeous.

Doug Burke:

So many of your songs are connected to the land

Belinda Gail:

Very much so, very much so

Doug Burke:

And the animals that roam God's Earth?

Belinda Gail:

Yes, our country is so connected to the land, whether it's farming and ranching on land or appreciating all of our beautiful national parks systems. I think that when you're involved in the land, whether you're hiking it or working it or whatever, there's just this wonderful spiritual connection that happens. And I think when you're blessed enough to actually live your life on the land like I was my growing up years. You just can't get disconnected from it. Anything that's really lovely in your life is somehow connected back to the land and back to nature. And so that's just how I roll.Yeah,

Doug Burke:

All AlongThe Buffalo is a song of rooted in that.

Belinda Gail:

It is you know, and the lovely story behind that is I was actually performing in Silver Dollar City. There's a gentleman who was raised right on the Arkansas/Missouri border, along this place called the Upper Buffalo River. And when he was growing up, it was all these little homesteads, all along the river. His dad ran cattle and there was a little old lady that they used to go buy cattle from. Her name was granny. She had this cabin, kind of perched on the side of the hill that just overlooked this gorgeous valley, up in those mountains, in those Ozark Mountains. And he loved going there to get cattle because while his dad was looking at the cattle, he would sit on the porch with Granny, he was just a kid, like, you know, eight, nine years old. She'd go get him a cup of coffee. she'd give him a cup of coffee then sit on the rockers on her front porch, and she would talk to him like he was an adult. And it made him feel very he had a cup of coffee. He's being spoken to like he's an adult, he felt very important and valued and he just really loved it. Well then in the 70s and and now he's a young adult by this point, the government decided to turn that whole Upper Buffalo area back into a wilderness area because it is exquisitely gorgeous. And so they started going through there and buying out the people from all those little homesteads that had been there forever from the 1800s. And so many of the people of course, were like happy like, Yay, somebody wants to buy my place. I'm out of here, you know, and they were happy to sell and other people were very connected to the land and they didn't want to sell and granny just refused to sell. She just dug her heels in and she was like, ancient at that point, looking especially I don't know how old she actually was, but she looked ancient, kind of this really wirey little old, you know, tough lady. And so, the government agreed that she could stay on her place until she passed and then her land they had all the papers drawn up their land would then go to the government. Well, they grossly underestimated how long granny was gonna be sticking around.

Doug Burke:

How many years did she make?

Belinda Gail:

Several years and she was still going strong with no sign of letting up and so, I mean they honored their agreement to not say you have to move, but granny was self sufficient. She had her milk cow, her chickens, her garden, her cattle, her cabin with her wood burning stove, you know, but she didn't even really want to go to town. Her family would bring her in like, you know, salt, sugar, flour, that kind of stuff. But everything else she just had right there for herself. Well, they started taking all that away from her. They started saying you can't have domesticated animals on a wilderness area. So she couldn't have her chickens and her dogs or any of that. So they took that away from her and they just started telling her one by one she you can't have a garden. You can't have this. You can't do that. When they told her she could no longer burn wood in her woodstove because that was a fire hazard. She of course couldn't live there because she couldn't. All she had was a wood burning cook stove. So she couldn't cook. She couldn't heat her home. So her family moved her off the land. Unbeknownst to them, her family or the government, she had been diagnosed with cancer and she hadn't told anyone and she died like two weeks after she moved off the land. And so that was kind of a bitter sweet story. But

Doug Burke:

Really, she died of a broken heart.

Belinda Gail:

She did. I think that really probably rushed it. Well, back up to I'm in Silver Dollar City, this gentleman who was raised in that area and knew all of this history, he invited us to take us on a trail ride on our days off on the Upper Buffalo River. And so as we're riding this exquisitely gorgeous trail that just topography I could not even imagine in the Midwest, and he's telling us the story and then our destination is Granny's cabin, and we're going to eat lunch there and then come back and all along the way. You see these cabins that are just falling apart, and we would stop and go in and you see like newspaper and magazine papers on the wall for insulation and you realize that  family were raised here in these one room cabins. Children were raised here.  Lives were lived here. Generations lived here. And then you get to Granny's cabin and it was fall. So, you know, that valley was just a light with all of the colors of fall. And we were actually sitting on the porch having lunch, we packed in a lunch, and it has sweet gum trees all around there. And this big gust of wind hit the trees and it looked like it was raining gold. All these brightly colored yellow leaves are falling all around us like a heavy snowstorm. It was just magical. And through these leaves, you can see the horses out grazing on her little pasture, hobbled up and it was just like so picturesque. I couldn't believe it. Well, as we were leaving the cabin, he was telling us about how granny passed and how all that he said, but then he stopped and he said, You know what, though, Belinda? As everybody was really embittered towards the government with their treatment of granny and that just how they turn this all into this wilderness area and you know, they took this land away from us kind of thing. He said but then, about five years after granny passed, the developers discovered that area and they bought up all this land around the wilderness area and turned it into ranchettes, like little five acre ranchettes. So then this is now all private land around there when they shut off all of the trails where people could really couldn't ride those areas. And he said, you know, what if they hadn't turned this into a national forest, we would not be riding this trail today. It too would be little five acre ranchettes. And so he said, so really the sacrifice that all those people make was a gift to the rest of us. And so that is what really struck a note. I mean, the whole story was like enthralling me. But that really struck a note. And by the time we got back to the horse trailers at the end of our ride, I had this song like, blocked out in my head to tell this story of that Upper Buffalo.

Doug Burke:

Exciting moment for a songwriter.  Oh, yeah.  And so what do you do?

Belinda Gail:

I mean, I'm like trying to remember that lines that are coming to me and the concepts that are coming to me and so I start grabbing in my purse for anything I can write on to start scratching these ideas down and, and my husband's trying to have a conversation with me. And I'm like, I can't talk right now because I don't want to lose all this stuff that's, you know, coming around in my head. And as soon as we got back to the room, I just went and shut myself away and started writing and writing and writing and writing and my style of writing normally as I get doing a brain dump, you know, of everything that's going on in my head, and then I go back and start organizing it and fine tuning it and making it all rhyme and doing all that. So by the time we left, I had the song and I just, I was really blessed that it was recognized and I could capture that.

Doug Burke:

Yep. What is the kind of day that fills your soul?

Belinda Gail:

Oh, the kind of day that fills my soul is the that day that we were writing it was fall. There was a little bit of crispness in the air. So there's just like this wonderful freshness about the day. And when you're writing through these sweet gum trees, the sun you keep getting these, these rays of sun that are hitting your face and just this little bit of warmth and that kind of thing. And you feel, I think when you feel so small in such an incredibly beautiful setting. I'm a believer. So just you feel like you can just feel the Lord everywhere and His Majesty and creation all around you. And it just makes you feel so blessed to be a part of what you're experiencing. So that's a day that fills my soul. Yeah,

Doug Burke:

For sure. I like the way you use Washington to totally encapsulate the federal government rights as a single word.

Belinda Gail:

Yes, yes. Yes. Well, I mean, it is the government and I mean, for like it, love it, you know, hate it, believe in it or whatever. It all emanates from there. Really? I mean, that

Doug Burke:

You say Washington in that part of the country. What does that mean?

Belinda Gail:

You mean in the Midwest?

Doug Burke:

Where this song is written about

Belinda Gail:

Where this song is written about? I think

Doug Burke:

Buffalo River.

Belinda Gail:

I think that the initial gut reaction is Washington eeeh. You know, Washington, those people in Washington they do all this stuff that makes you mad, you know, but me the eternal optimist. What I tried to pull out in the song is that yes, there's a lot of stuff that ticks us off and makes us angry or whatever, but there is good that comes out as well. They do some good things. There are some positives that that result from what they do.

Doug Burke:

One of the things I actually didn't know what a gum tree was okay, that's a look that up. Okay. Um, but I love that you never just call a tree a tree. It's either a pine a Juniper, or a gum. Yeah, no. And you really talked about did you study nature like,

Belinda Gail:

I culture? I don't, I mean, I love I love plants because I guess I grew up. My mother loved her flower garden, and we often helped her with their flower garden. We always grew our own vegetables and candidum I mean, that's was just part of the way I grew up. So to me, nurturing things. living things it's just always been fascinating to me and, and to me a tree is never just a tree and a flower is never just a flower. It's like what kind of flower is that? I do study it informally, but I don't just because I'm fascinated with it, but I've never really liked studied it. But yeah, because I mean a gum tree is very different from a Juniper tree is very different from a Sequoia, you know, tree and it's very different. So if you're trying to paint a picture, you need to tell what the people are looking at. And so you really do have to identify them. I didn't know what a cane break was. I had never seen a cane break.

Doug Burke:

What is the Cambridge,

Belinda Gail:

Cambridge, it's like this really thick stuff that grows and it's like all these they call a cake because it's all like straight up shirt. I don't know I've never seen sugar cane. So I don't know. It's like these stocks that are very leafy and they grow very tightly together and they call it a cane break it like a bamboo. Makes a wall. I mean a literal as it's going Going along the path that's curving along. It looks like this little green wall that's along either side of the path. So it was I was fascinated by the cane breaks.

Doug Burke:

Yeah. So anyway, well it gives all of your songwriting a real naturalistic feel authenticity.

Belinda Gail:

Oh, thank you,

Doug Burke:

I think is a part of your music. Thank you authentic

Belinda Gail:

Well, I want to take the people on a journey. Western music is about storytelling. I mean, all music tells the story to some degree, but I think that really is the essence of Western music is that 99% of it is telling a story. That's why it's more vocal driven. And the music is back a little bit because if you can't hear the words, you can't follow the story. And so from beginning to end, it's a story. So that's, that's important to be able to create those visuals rises up from the valley floor covered with rocks, and so much more.Between the Juniper mountain lion danger look back cool your show.They're like whispers in the beauty, mesmerize but don't forget those awario always creeping sometimes you are hit

Doug Burke:

Your songs have a real definition of place. Okay? Because of that, yes, yes. There's all the details you put into get new you often reveal that sense of place. Not immediately in the song. No Granite Mountain you reveal it in the title. Yes, yeah

Belinda Gail:

Granite Mountain is a special song to me because it started out as you know just oh this would be a nice song to write. We moved from California we were in the Sacramento area. And we moved to Prescott, Arizona. We had friends there also it's more central for where I'm a lot of my music happens. Beautiful area. So we moved there in the first house that we rented a house to we could decide where we wanted to land in the area. And we were right at the foot of Granite Mountain. Now we're at 5000 feet. Where we were living in granite mountains soared another thousand or so feet or more above us. I mean, it was real. I don't know how high granite drainages it's straight up and it's covered with all this granite kind of like a fault line where he's Oh man, it just bam there it is. And because it's so rocky with all these granite outcroppings, it is like the largest natural habitat for mountain lions in the country. And then of course, there's the have aleena and there's bobcats and there's I mean, all the and then there's cactus and rattlesnakes, and everything's on that mountain.

Doug Burke:

I think we call them all cougars here in Utah, cougars.

Belinda Gail:

Okay. Well, they, whatever they are, they're dangerous, and they're all on that map. But there's also like 200 miles of riding trails and hiking trails on that mountain. The weather at the bottom of the mountain can be very different from the weather at the top of the mountain. And so there's, you'd have to be mindful of the dangers because they're I mean, I tend my song but it says it can be dangerous and people don't realize that if they're not from the area, you know, people that are just tourists coming through. They Try to caution them and they're forever rescuing somebody off of that mountain because they've gotten up there in the weather or whatever. So I was fascinated with the mountain. And then as we made friends with their neighbors, they started telling us some of the lore of the mountain in Tibet, the Native Americans, the Yavapai Indians that used to hunt on it all the time. And they're actually elk at one time on that mountain. And then this one person tried to like homestead part of the mountain but it was just they just couldn't make a go of it. It was just too rough on them and they abandoned the cabin. And so I thought it'd be fun to write this story about this mountain. Sometimes. I don't know if that feather songwriters you've interviewed will say this but you get a song and it should be done. But you know, it's not, you know, you know that it needs something else and you can't put your finger on it but so you just have to kind of put it away for a while and then bring it back out again with a fresher perspective. So I did that I put it away. And I was on tour in Colorado. My husband was at home with the horses and our dogs and all this stuff. And so he was talking to me on the phone. We talk every day when I'm on the on the road. And he said, oh, by the way, babe, there's some smoke behind Granite Mountain. I think it's a controlled burn because they do a lot of those control burns. And he said, I'll let you know, well the next phone call I got I was expecting from him. It was from our neighbor and it was not a controlled burn. It was a wildfire. And the wildfire had topped Granite Mountain and was coming straight down the mountain towards our house. And the neighbor's wanted to make sure we were home they were prepared to go in and get our animals out. Because we had somebody that would come take care of our animals and we were gone. I said no, my husband's there it should be fine. So then he called I tried to call him but course couldn't get through. The lines are all jammed. The next call I got from him was he said, I don't have time to talk to you right now. Just tell me where all your guitars are. Put them in a closet and he didn't know where they were.

Doug Burke:

You have so I'm writing books too.

Belinda Gail:

I did but I never Well, he had he literally had an hour to get every whatever he whenever to get the animals loaded up and get whatever He did animals guitars, we have silver parade saddles. So he got those out and all their guns and ammunition because he thought that would not be a good thing to be in the house if it caught on fire and there's people trying to defend the house. And that's pretty much all he got out. That's all he could fit. And he didn't have time to go and come back again. And I could hear when he's talking to me, I could hear the deputy in the back saying we've got to go, we've got to go. We've got to go. So he's retired military. So he has like this very calm demeanor about stuff. So he took all these amazing pictures. While he was loading the animals. They were literally flying over dumping slurry on him and the animals in the house. And he said that these big planes are actually skimming the top of our trees. They were flying so low and just because we found out later that they had to stop it at our house or it was gonna sweep through this whole area where we live. So they had to stop it there. Well, they did. They stopped the fire and what really stopped it was a big break. The Hot Shots cut you know because they'll come in, they'll go in and out jobs that hot shots are crews that go in and the best way to stop a fire is to take away its fuel. So they will have these huge strips of land that they go in and cut all the wood out and just take everything out of that strip that could burn and unless there's sparks that jump the break, they can stop it at the break and that's what has so

Doug Burke:

He chose. The animals could talk He, They've gone in as the fire was coming and clear cut?

Belinda Gail:

A clear stretch spread this big stretch of area behind our house with nothing was on it for a few months the hatia at burned right up to that break and then it didn't burn past so they stopped the fire at that break. That's a dangerous job. Oh, incredibly dangerous job. So then we I came home like three days later, we still couldn't get in because they didn't have the fire contained well enough but they escorted us into our home because I had to get more CDs. I had to get some stuff because I was headed out to Texas for my next leg of my performing and so when we pulled up all these hot shots were sitting on our porch, having lunch. And so we had this amazing experience where we got to actually thank them for saving our home, shake their hand, get what I needed and get back out again. And we were when we were leaving, I told my husband, I said, they're so young. I mean, they look like high school kids, they look so young. And it goes well, to do the work they have to do they have to be incredibly fit, as you said, I can see why they would have to be young men doing this job, except for a couple of the supervisors that were older, probably maybe 30s. You know, most of these guys are probably early 20s. So then I was went to Texas, I was doing my gig, like 10 days later, and my husband calls me. He said, I know I don't watch the news, because the news I think is really depressing. And my husband tells me about what I need to know my husband tells me you know, kind of thing. And so we're on the same page. So he says, I know you don't watch the news, he said so I know you haven't heard this but you know all those guys that we met on our porch I said, Jason, they were just killed in the Arnelle fire there, the Granite Mountain Hotshots. I don't know if you remember that episodes. All those young men that we had Matt had died in that fire. And I mean, I just had a meltdown. I couldn't believe it. And it was so devastating. But in the wake of what me just trying to process that just trying to wrap my head around the fact that these vibrant, smiling young men with promising lives ahead of them were just gone. I remembered my song, Granite Mountain. So I went back and I looked at it, I thought, How can I incorporate a tribute to these? I mean, it's Granite Mountain near the song is heroes, how can I How can I honor them with this song? So I actually added a bridge in the song and it's just simple. It just talks about how devastating a fire can be and how these risked their lives to save our homes and our land. Just really to honor them and I dedicated the album, to them. The song, of course, to them. And as long as I draw breath, I'll be singing this song and making sure that they're not forgotten. And we actually incorporated a couple of pictures that my husband took in the album. It's in the album underneath the CD of the fire. So we actually put those shots in the album artwork. Yep. And it's dedicated to them.

Doug Burke:

On the recorded version, you have fiddle and some really beautiful guitar, talk about the production of this.

Belinda Gail:

You know what I used a producer who is an incredible musician. He did all the guitar work. And he loved it because he could pull out his baritone guitar. That's what he used.

Doug Burke:

I was wondering what kind of guitar. Baritone guitar.

Belinda Gail:

And it just has this sound that is so unique and so definitive, and it just really captured the drama at that point in this song. But his name is Rich O'Brien he's out of Fort Worth, Texas. And he is like the go to guitar player for like Red Steagall and these major people. He's on a lot of people's recording season amazing producer. He's very definitive about what he's wanting, but he also gives you room to be creative. And he plays all of the guitar work on there.  It's a guitar and he brought in a fiddle player that I was not familiar with. And he I can't remember his name now. I'm sorry. But he had never worked with him before either. But he was highly recommended to him. So he said, "Belinda, but I haven't worked with him before. What would you mind?" and I said, "If you feel good about it, I trust you. And let's go for it." And he did a superb job, a superb job. And then the engineer on that was another young man that was just amazing. His name is Aaron Metar. I guess I don't even know how you spell it but, and he's at an Burleson that's where the studio is in Burleson, Texas. It was so funny because when I got to do the vocal production, Rich said "I'm just going to turn you over to Aaron. I'm not even going to be there that day." and I went, "Okay." I highly respected Aaron as an engineer, I just saw the magic that he could work.  I'm kind of finicky about the sound. I don't want it to be too perfect on the recording, because I don't want people to hear one thing on my album and then hear something different. When they come to my live show. I want it to be very close. I mean, you add more instrumentation because they just have their ears on you know, they're not they don't have the visual they're just listening. Whereas when they're at a live show, and you have the visual so you can get by with less instrumentation because you have more entertainment factor going on because if your visuals but I don't want it to be perfect. I don't want it to you know, every note to just be like, exactly perfectly on because I don't sing like that. Who sings like that? Nobody sings like that. So I just I want it to be more organic, I guess. And so I was very admired him as an engineer, but I was like, Okay, okay. But he turned out to be an amazing vocal producer. And so I had a ball with him as a vocal producer as well. A lot of times when producers when you're in the studio and you're trying to capture whatever, they'll say, "Did you do it again, I think you have a better one in, you know," and you're like, "Okay," or you'll say, "I think I have a better one. Let me try again." He would actually give you some pointers, like, "How do you try this? Or have you thought about putting this kind of a slant on that particular note?" And so he could, like, Oh, I haven't thought of that. I'll try that. And so it was very fun. It was very fun. And I think it really brought the whole album together, but specifically the songs that are so important to me.

Doug Burke:

You end the song on whoo hoos and I call it Who, Whos, you know, because that's the lyric you write. Right? And you go demonstrate the power and beauty of your voice.

Belinda Gail:

Oh, in the head, okay?

Doug Burke:

I still don't know what you mean by the end of the song. Think about the end of the song. Yeah, it's not yodeling.

Belinda Gail:

Oh, it's just oo’s. Okay,

Doug Burke:

Yes. We caught the who. Actually, we've a friend and his, his wife goes to these downtown music events with us and he's on board of Mountaintown Music, which is one of the music charities around here and she screams who, whoo like when she cheers. So her nickname is woohoo.

Belinda Gail:

Okay, cute drive. You're like what is the lyric?

Doug Burke:

-that you wrote that you were singing there?

Belinda Gail:

Oh, I didn't write any lyric I just just. Yeah, just just, I guess is my yodeling background I don't know. You just you just start putting a pretty tone out there and when you want to create an emotion without a lyric really attached to it, because at that point in the song, I wanted to just let it rest in people's hearts where it was. And so I didn't want to clutter it up with lyric to try to take their mind to someplace else. So if you just have these beautiful tones going on, that are just kind of soaring and just kind of there that people can just let that emotion be whatever it is for them without you trying to dictate to them what they should be feeling.

Doug Burke:

So that's where so are you feeling an emotion that you're trying to communicate and the whoos?

Belinda Gail:

Else probably just, ah, you know, are at the beautiful place I was singing about and all about the willingness of these men to put their lives on the line, like they did and obviously two very catastrophic result but also I think, I think when I was writing it and singing that particular part I was thinking about not only them but all of our first responders, our police officers, our military, I think we forget that when they go to work every day, they're actually putting their life on the line. I mean, the worst thing we think about when we're going to work I mean music musician is a sound guy going to be good you know, I hope I don't screw up the lyric I hope I don't forget this. Are people going to businesses, you know, they have some thanks. With one of their employers or employees or what I mean, whatever, we don't have to think about, are we going to come home alive from our job? So I think we forget about that. So I think that's something I really wanted to honor and kind of capture in that song as well. Yeah.

Doug Burke:

So I asked a lot of songwriters, how do you know when a song is done? And you know, in theory, they can get reworked. I bring up Layla by Eric Clapton. He reworked that and became a hit again later as a totally different song. Wow. You know, but that's rare, right? Usually, you write a song and how do you know when it's done?

Belinda Gail:

You know?

Doug Burke:

No, this one you didn't, you knew it wasn't done

Belinda Gail:

That wasn't done. And I mean, I waited for something else to come to come to me yet. But I think I don't think any song is ever entirely completely done. You just have to get to a point where you're like, I need to go launch this baby. I can fuss over it for months or years. So you start playing it live. I start doing it live and sometimes it will often it will continue to evolve as I sing it live because I will sing it differently or something will occur to me. So I'll change a lyric or I'll add something or take something away. And I think even after you record it, it still evolves. And then you're like, oh, man, I wish I could go back and record this over and add this really cool thing I just put in there. So I think as a songwriter, I don't think you ever quit, you just decide at some point, I need to start singing this. I mean, I need to get it off the page and out of the rehearsal room and onto the stage and see where it goes. So -

Doug Burke:

and so the audience reacts and do you look for that and change the song space though

Belinda Gail:

Sometimes. Yeah, I can't give you a for instance, but there's songs that I think this is a pretty good song and I get like it gets like nothing from the audience. So that goes back in the box and just stays there until I can figure out what the heck was wrong with it. So I mean, stuff happens and if you're not getting the kind of reactions you think you should be getting at points in the song, you need to go back and look at it and when do I, how can I say it? Often it's more succinctly, maybe there's too much in there you need to pare it down and make it more simple, where it can just be conveyed more directly and more simply, so there's just a lot you can do to the songs to rework them but I think probably every songwriter their songs are never entirely done. I don't think not in the Western world. Anyway, I talked to other songwriters about this because I thought there was something wrong with the way I was writing because I'm like, I think it's ready for stage. But then I still keep tweaking it and everyone I've talked to that, "Oh, yeah, we do the same thing." So it's not unique to me. I don't know about Nashville Songwriters. But But we continue to tweak it as we as we sing it and and just add and take away.

Doug Burke:

so if you like the "Whoo whoos" was the ending and you know, that helped you close that song in some way. Did you do that in one take in the recording studio, or did he have you try to stretch out a lot?

Belinda Gail:

I don't remember.

Doug Burke:

I really love that part of the song.

Belinda Gail:

Oh, no. Thank you. Thank you. I fortunately off, get things down in one or two takes, if it works, and the producers are happy with it in one or two takes and I feel good about it. I try to leave it at that because I feel again back to that I don't want my stage performance to be too far away from my recording. I figured if I get it in that first take or two, that's probably very close to what I'm going to be doing live. And so I try to keep it again, as you said, authentic. And I think that's something that's really important in what we do in our music is that it's deeply authentic because our audiences, they don't care if you never were a cowboy and you just love the cowboy way of life. And that's what you sing about. Or if you're a real deal cowboy and you're singing from experience. They just want you to be real. They want you to be honest about where you're from and what you're doing and they want you to be authentic and they have very little patience for people who throw up facades or try to be something they're not and are trying to portray themselves as something they're not. They really don't last in this genre. They don't care where you're from. They just want you to love the West. Love what you're doing and to love on them. And as long as you do all of that you're good.

Doug Burke:

I love the way you give your love on the audience. It's just you exude as on your website someone said, "Cutesy."

Belinda Gail:

I can't get away from that.

Doug Burke:

I don't know if you like that or not.

Belinda Gail:

I first I used it when I mean, as a kid you don't you know, you're like, Okay, but as a woman you're like, "Cutesy" really? You know, but you know, it's meant in the sweetest sense of the word. Nobody means it as a derogatory thing, or if they do, I don't pick up on that. So they're being sweet and kind. So I just accept it for what it is, you know, women want to be elegant and all of that kind of stuff. And but I'm really not. I'm really cutesy really is. I'm cute. I'm you know, that's okay. I'll take it.

Doug Burke:

I love your guitar work.

Belinda Gail:

Really?

Doug Burke:

Yes. It's, oh, why not?

Belinda Gail:

Oh, my word. I mean, I didn't. Wow, because I didn't even start playing the guitar until I was 42. Okay. And when I first started in this music, I had a band because I couldn't play. But we figured out really quickly because it is a small niche genre, there's not the money there to sustain a band for the most part. And I really wanted to go full time in the music. And he said, "Babe, if you're going to do this full time, you're going to have to learn how to play the guitar, and you're going to have to be willing to go out by yourself. Otherwise, it will be a part time side gig your whole life, it will not be full time." So I started learning to play. And I had three chords down pretty badly at that point, and he booked a gig six months out for me alone. So I had six months to bring enough music up to speed that I could step on stage by myself, I mean that we'll talk about some woodshedding Oh my gosh, I was like working 24/7 every minute. It wasn't great, but it was okay, it passed. And I thought at my age trying to learn an instrument that if I could just get basic chords down and enough to accompany myself that that was, as you know, that's what all I could really expect. Because, I mean, I'm starting really late in life to learn this thing. So then I was on my own for a couple of years and then I hooked up with Curly and that was just a whole different story. We don't have time for today, but Curly was a phenomenal guitar player. He taught guitar. He was just a natural with beautiful work. We were partners for about six months with me just playing rhythm, you know, basic rhythm and him doing what he did. We were having a practice session at his house where he and his wife lived in up in Crestline in California, and he played this pretty little thing and he and I said, "Oh, that's beautiful throw were part of a song." he goes he's, "I'm glad you liked it because that's what you're going to play." And I was like, "I don't think so. I think you you got that all wrong." And he said, "No, really because blend I've been watching I didn't want to give you more than you can handle because but I've been watching your guitar playing and observing for I wanted to really get a feel for. What I thought you were capable of."  He was, "And you're capable of a lot more than what you're doing right now." So he taught that to me and I actually was able to learn it and do it and you know, and pull it off on stage. And so then I just, if he told me I could do it, I just tackled it and tried it and learned it. And so I still feel like my strength is much more my vocals than my guitar work and my guitar work is just kind of there to give me a platform to sing on. So I'm just in off anybody complements me my guitar work because I don't think I'm that good.

Doug Burke:

-complements your voice and your your performance. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. I like watching the YouTube videos where you're just noodling while you're talking. Oh, forgetting that you're playing.  And I think she's playing a song here does she know that?

Belinda Gail:

There's just talking gets boring so I noodle with it, and then it kind of just flows unique and just kind of flow into A song which you just, it's like, it's nothing. It's not anything. Sometimes I can, you know, pull off kind of some riffs from the song but mostly it's just kind of doodling Yeah. sprinklings of wild

Doug Burke:

So I want to talk about these four specific songs in relation to Curly which ones was he involved with?

Belinda Gail:

Actually the only song Curly was involved in was "She Is A Cowgirl" because he had already passed away when I did "Granite Mountain" and "All Along The Buffalo" and "Horse Carrol Meadow" was prior to me even meeting him. That's my very first album. I wrote it for my late husband's aunt and uncle who have a piece of land that's a kind of between Kings and Sequoia National Park. It's private land that they've run cattle on since the 1800s, and there was felt like they were kind of being threatened by the Park Service that kept surveying and squeezing in the boundaries of their private land. And they were fearful that the park was going to come in and do eminent domain and take over their ranch up there for a perfect park ranger station. So she was kind of worried about that happening and was really perturbed and she was a cowgirl too so she didn't take any guff off anybody and you know that they kept moving the boundaries in and in and she's like the boundaries of the boundaries, how can they keep moving them in like that? So we had this conversation with her and after she left we thought at just how sad it was if that would go away. Because not only did young cowboys come up there and work on their ranch during the summer, but they created a campground area for family and friends to go and get out of that. If you're in the Central Valley of California in the summertime it it is not a pleasant place to be hot, hot, hot, ridiculously hot. And so you can literally feel at this one turn, I mean, very specific turn in the road up that mountain it changes from hot to pleasant. And then you're in nice cool, lovely weather and the ranch was up above that area so people would come up there during the summer just to get out of that horrible heat. And so we wrote this song more as a gift to his Aunt and Uncle just to thank them for creating this place for us to come up with our children and enjoy and just the life that they created up there. And just really everything in the song is true every image, every reference is absolutely the truth. It's none of it is made up something that we've experienced. So like when I said the horses thundering by when they first go up at the very beginning of the season. They take all the fences down in the winter because the heavy snow would break the fences if they left all the lines up. So they have a way of putting the fences up that you could put them all the wires back up. They drop them all figured out every year back up again. So when they go in the spring, the first thing they do is put up the initial fences around the cabin. Then that encompasses one of the meadows. There's like a three fingered meadow, they bring their horses up and turn them loose and then they are on that metal but then they have free roam of the where the campground is. And the houses are, I mean, they roam all around in there. Well, when we first go up and camp, the horses are still roaming. And they would be up, like, by the house, and then all of a sudden they've run down this road that goes right by the camp area down to the meadow. I mean, it's like 10 or 12 horses, and they go running by and thunder, you hear it? So, so every image and that song, that the cool thing is, is she was like in her 80s. She was almost 100 when she passed away, but at the time she was in her early 80s. And so she decided she wasn't going to wait around to see what the forestry service was going to do. She got collected all of the original homestead papers, went marching into the Division of Forestry and read them the riot act about what they were doing with the boundaries. So they photocopied all of her paperwork and gave it back to her. And then within a couple of weeks, there was a new surveying crew that came out and they put all the boundaries back to where their original spot and that's where they've stayed. So, I like to say from stage that apparently an 80 something year old woman armed with legal papers is a very scary thing. So we'd love to honor them. They of course, both passed now and her grandson is now ranching and running cattle on that land. He's there and has the land and is still it's still going on the horse corral met horse girl meadow and I had some fans that literally I told him, I said, if you're going to be in that area at all go by and say his name is Justin. I said, go by and see Justin and tell him that, you know, you know me. And she said,

Doug Burke:

Imagine he'll give you a warm gracious.

Belinda Gail:

He did. She said, they stopped by and he came out and he said, Can I help you? And they said, We know Belinda. And he said, "We have coffee go in" and they came in and he told him, took them around and showed him and he said they just like the songs just like the songs. Yeah, he's keeping the tradition alive. He doesn't make the pies. She was famous for her pies. She always had four or five freshly baked pies on her counter that she would share with anybody who stopped by.

Doug Burke:

What were your favorite flavors.

Belinda Gail:

Oh my gosh. Oh, that's hard because she had some incredible berry pies that she would make chocolate pies, apple pies, cream anything anything you can think of.

Doug Burke:

What was the berry in that area?

Belinda Gail:

She just use whatever she's good at the market. Yeah, she'd go to the market and get whatever she wanted. Yeah,

Doug Burke:

They didn't have like raspberries.

Belinda Gail:

Not Not Not fresh. Don't always follow berries. There's always like she might have had that. But yeah, there were there was no garden it was the love It was so high to grow that it was really too high desert. She had you know, the wild flowers were incredible in the spring just incredible because you see these big splashes of yellow and orange over here and purple over there and these lovely orchid looking things that grew along right where the springs were and it was just to walk around in the Yarrow and just things that almost look like snap drag. Against they weren't but they were it was just amazing. Just a plethora of of incredible flowers.

Doug Burke:

See in the sun with whoo whoos?

Belinda Gail:

Yes, I do. Me and my whoo whoos.

Doug Burke:

This is different.

Belinda Gail:

Yeah, it is a little different. Yeah, it was more a more of a happy, uplifting celebratory, "whoo whoos" I guess you would you would call it and my late husband had the idea that to do those the "whoo, whoos." And then kind of interject some names of some people that were famous on the mountain, because my late husband's grandfather was actually one of the first park rangers in Sequoia National Park and one of the Don Cecil trail is a trail you can hike in Sequoia National Park is his grandfather. Oh, wow. So they have a deep heritage there. So we scrapped that idea because it was just going to clutter the song up too much. So we decided to not do that. So that was the original idea. With those. I call them "whoo whoos" okay. I just oh just oh just a long string of those and then you just and then you go oh go with it. You just I just go with what feels right with the song. I mean I don't

Doug Burke:

so I always feel like you're capturing an invisible feeling I try when you do that one feeling in this song are you trying joy?

Belinda Gail:

Just joy from the area and just you know and you know I'm sure you're up here in this you know, Park City and this breathtaking Heber Valley. Yes, just breathtaking area up here. And I think when you get into that kind of landscape and typography, you just have such a wow, you know, such a lift to your your spirit. And so that's really what I was trying to convey in that and just the beauty of that area and how gorgeous it is.

Doug Burke:

And that's when you knew you were done with the song

Belinda Gail:

Yeah. Good Question. Is it ever really then? Yeah, yeah. And I, and again, I had no intention of recording it. I just recorded me in my guitar initially on a little tape with a copy of the lyrics and then gave it to his Aunt and Uncle. And I said, "You know, I don't know what's going to happen up here. But this is how I feel about this place and how you know, your nephew feels about this place. And I just want to give this to you." And so she framed the lyrics and put them on the wall of the little cabin. And she loved it. But then people that loved them, and came there all the time and should play that little, no tape for them. She was so proud of it. They wanted a copy of it. And so when I went to record my very first Western album, I thought, well, why not? You know, I'll go ahead and throw this song on there. And then that way people can have a copy of it. I mean, it became one of my most requested songs when I perform live and people that love the story and love the song and so, yeah, so it was.

Doug Burke:

Tell me about the recording. Who was involved?

Belinda Gail:

Oh, it was, that was my band. I still wasn't playing then my first album I could not play. So my band was involved in my lead guitar player. He made some suggestions about some chords because I mean, at that point, I don't play guitar, right. So this melodies just in my head, and I'm just singing it because the melodies there but I have no clue how to make that happen. Dennis Mack is his name. And he really pulled together the arrangement of it and plugged in the chords and then ultimately taught me how to play well. Thank you.

Doug Burke:

Did you give your late husband a songwriting credit?

Belinda Gail:

I did. Okay. Yeah, I did. Yeah, he helped. He didn't really write anything, but he definitely gave me ideas for it. And I'm a firm believer in giving credit where credit is due and I don't I don't get all hung up with songwriting credits and stuff. In fact, I have one song on one I didn't write this song was a song that summer and a friend sent to me and, and her husband wrote it and she was going to record it. She promised her husband if he would stay. He did like the computer work out on the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico. And she said if he would stay a little longer on the rigs and get them a little more money into their retirement that she would shop his songs for other people to sing so they could get some royalties. So she sent it to me, but in that song, it was just verse, verse, verse, verse, you know, verse, verse, verse, verse, chorus, verse, verse, verse, chorus, no break. No, there was no break. There was no bridge, and I heard a bridge in my head. And so I called him and said, Can I turn this verse into a bridge? And he's like, Well, what do you have in mind kind of cautiously and so I sang him what I had in mind. He liked it, but he was still cautious. He says, "So are you gonna want songwriting credit on this?" I said, "No, I'm good. I don't care." I don't care. I just, "This is the way I feel that I want to sing this song." And so he, you know, agreed, of course. And then I noticed later when his wife did record it, she recorded my version of it. She did not record his version of it. So I felt very validated by that. But yeah, I don't get hung up with that stuff. I think it all comes around how it's supposed to, and I don't worry about it.

Doug Burke:

Great. Well, you've been amazing.

Belinda Gail:

Oh, thank you.

Doug Burke:

Thank you. Thank you for coming.

Belinda Gail:

Absolutely. I'm happy to be I'm very honored to be part of this.

Doug Burke:

It's an honor to have you share the heart and soul of your music with us. Thank you. Thank you.