JPG: That kind of relates to the Cash Cabin Sessions but it’s the opposite of what you’re talking about. It’s your third time there. It’s familiar. Living nearby, is it a matter that recording there is convenient or is it the vibe there that you want?

TS: It started when Loretta Lynn cut the song I sang [“Don’t Tempt Me”], and I was living out here. Her and I had made up a song a year earlier and she was gonna record it there (at Cash Cabin Studio) and meet John Carter Cash. I felt like we hit it off and I started having dreams about it, which, again, at our age, anything that looks like it might be a song or something, I’m after it. So, I booked it and asked John Carter if I could record over there. I had some poems and recorded them, and started hanging out there and being friends with him and Chuck [Turner, engineer/producer].

Then, I kept having the dream and in the third or fourth version of it…it was always the same dream and the fourth time, I’m sleeping on the floor and Johnny Cash wakes me up. That’s the whole dream. The fourth time I had it, he points to the studio and says, “You’re missing it.”

The next time the Hard Working Americans were together, I was telling Dave about this story. He goes, “Dude, we have to spend the night out there and trip balls.” So, he called them and they said we could. That night I had a poem called “Just Like Over Night” and I went out into the woods and got a melody with it. Then, John Carter came down and we were all kinda spaced out and when he heard the story, I was telling him, “What do you think I’m missing in this corner?” He asked me if I thought the place seemed haunted and I said, “I don’t know about that.” He said, “Loretta said it was.” Then, he tells me the story that ends up being the song called, “The Ghost of Johnny Cash.” I made up the music part but the story he told me and then I made it into art.

Then, we recorded those two and recorded some others. I kept making up songs and going back there. I wasn’t sure if the record was gonna come out. So, I kept on having new songs and felt like I wasn’t done with that moment in time over there. Even though I liked our record, it just felt like I was adding to it ‘cause it wasn’t coming out.

So now, I have this record. Then, there’s a “Vol. 1” that’s mostly poems and then there’s a “Vol. 2” that I don’t own.

JPG: Now, why did you record without a band or as some have put it, gone back to your folk roots?

TS: A lot of that was…who am I gonna get to play drums? (slight laugh) Duane Trucks. So, I just kept working alone. The more I did it the more I felt like it’s okay, it’s time to go back and show what I learned from my band and make a folk record. Now, they’re sort of intertwined because the other record didn’t come out. My hope is that it will.

JPG: You did have some company in the studio. Jason Isbell and Amanda Shires joined you on “Like a Force of Nature.”

TS: I play everything. Alone. The only thing I added was vocals and that was Jason and Amanda. That night, Jason liked the song that came out (“Like a Force of Nature”) and just had some ideas, “Can I try some other stuff?” I said, “Yeah.” So, now there’s a third version of that that didn’t fit the album but I like it. So, I’ve got three “Like a Force of Nature”s. (slight laugh) and I’d like them all to see the light of day.

I think of my whole time at the Cash Cabin as one event, even the poem part…I’m not good at poems. And not all the songs are terrific. I’m not good at whining and there’s a couple of those, maybe, because I’m divorced. But I like the whole thing and I hope that everything that happened over there comes out.

JPG: Maybe you can put the poetry to “Metal Machine Music.”

TS: (laughs) I know! Or maybe Circles Around the Sun or something. You know, I came up with a game…well, I thought it was a game and it’s really what I thought was the rules was this really long poem that takes a half an hour to read. It was maybe going to go with “Rest in Chaos” [by Hard Working Americans]. Those poems came in that time. And I got poems now, too. Then, I never know when one poem is gonna be a song or if a song’s gonna be a poem.

JPG: Are you still writing prose? Is there another book you’re working on after I Never Met a Story I Didn’t Like: Mostly True Tall Tales?”

TS: I want there to be…man, thank you for asking me all this stuff. I forgot I’m a fucking author but, you know, really Peter Cooper is the author and if he can’t do it then he’s too busy. I’d do another but I would have to have that guy.

JPG: You toured with John Prine, and I read that you mentioned about learning from Dave Schools. So, with Prine are you still learning from him or are you able to kick back and enjoy it? 

TS: It’s both now. Before it was more just learning and this time it really felt like…I really really learned a lot on this tour, maybe more than others but it also felt calmer around John, probably from being older. I got to relax and catch up with a friend where in the years I opened for him it was just hard to relax, not for anything he was doing.

JPG: Speaking of iconic figures, after the album came out you released “The Legend of Col. Bruce Hampton, Ret.”

TS: Yeah, I’m glad you wanted to ask me about that.

JPG: Well, a lot of people might not have known about you as a solo artist, singer-songwriter, and only discovered you after Hard Working Americans. Now, that’s more of a jamband kind of group. I’ve never known you to be associated into that area before that. So, what is the connection between you and Col. Bruce Hampton? How did you know him and interact with him?

TS: It was very new. It was something I learned about in the Hard Working  Americans that  Duane and Dave taught me, the religion that is very real. In my world, I’d say the equivalent would maybe be Willie [Nelson]. He’s not just a musician. He’s a way to live.  And Col. Bruce represents that in a really profound way.

There was a poem to do before shows and a dance to do before shows that all came with the group when I joined. A lot of why I joined was wanting to understand all that ‘cause I liked it so much, being a part of it and getting to meet him, and in a sense study under him was life-changing just like everyone else says. Sometimes, he’s kind of like a Zen master is what I would describe it.

JPG: What did you learn from him or how did he inspire you?

TS: Like Zen, it feels like it’s an unspeakable thing. It’s more of a sound or a laugh, like intention and, I guess, absurdity and insanity as a starting place. To me it all led to a freeing of the spirit, very much like Jerry Jeff Walker was a similar type of a person. I liked him.

I’ve always tried to be that. At a young age, I wanted to be like Col. Bruce before I knew who he was. I don’t think there’s ever going to be another Col. Bruce but there’s a lot…Dave lives like a Zambi, Duane lives like a Zambi. I try to. That whole band, I think, adheres to that philosophy, very much. And then all the other ones do, too — CRB and Widespread Panic. 

At that last show when they got together to do the pre-show ritual I couldn’t believe who all knew it. Peter Buck knew it.  The guy from the Stones knew it. Everyone knew it. I thought it was just Dave and Duane and Derek [Trucks]. It was every Southern musician I’d ever seen. It’s like a cult but it’s a positive one.

There’s a guy named Hondo Crouch that inventedLuckenbach,Texas.  He was to the Outlaw [Country] movement what Col. Bruce is to the hippie movement, more than just music. I’m babbling now but I’m coffee-ed up and stoned.

Some musicians just do it and go home but others don’t ever want to turn off whatever that is, that you’re channeling. I feel like there is a way to access that and stay accessed to it.

JPG: What exactly is Zambi? (Later, I found this from the facebook page for the documentary “Prophet.Col Bruce Hampton, Is It The American Dream?”– ““Zambi”, a semi-spiritual philosophy created by Hampton that was is as difficult to describe as the man himself.”)

TS: I asked him personally how that started, and I believe, unless he was lying to me, which is full on…Zambi was a person that Col. Bruce went to school with and he had the highest IQ. He got the highest grade point average. He aced the SATs, and he got offered scholarships to any college he wanted to go to.  And so, what he decided he wanted to do was set the record for driving a car backwards faster than anyone ever had and he broke every bone in his body doing it. Col. Bruce would say if you can’t see the genius in that, then this church isn’t for you.

JPG: That’s wild.

TS: That’s next level.

JPG: Was it different for you because you’re more of a singer-songwriter rather than an instrumentalist?

TS: He told Dave I was the last troubadour. He came to see my solo show once and went, “I didn’t know there were still troubadours.” He was thrilled that there was someone who knew what a talkin’ blues song was. He came to my show and afterwards he was, “I know Ramblin’ Jack Elliott.” That’s my lifestyle choice, very similar.

JPG: The way that he left us is the most shocking but almost the most perfect way.

TS: No doubt about the fact that he set the land speed record for driving a car backwards. Just destroyed it. You know the [Hampton] Grease Band, they asked him what that meant, ‘grease’? And he said, “Grease means dying onstage, dying during the gig, dying during the song.”  And that’s the only goal he ever had. A lot of people thought that his death was a testament to the cosmic truth of what he was preaching. It was almost like a fulfillment of what he said. It could all be this fuckin’ magic insanity, if you want it to be.  

I can’t imagine…he sang, “Without a warning, you broke my heart,” and then he died. That’s genius. It was genius. And what happened to the room, I don’t think I’ll ever see anything like that again. Wasn’t all great but I’ll never see anything like that again.

JPG: I could imagine. Like I said, it was shocking, sad and in a way perfect.

TS: It was so strange. Right before he passed, they said it was his turn to go back out onstage, and he said, “Not yet. It’s not my time.” He waited another minute and then he said, “Okay, now.” And Derek was like, “He never says anything like that.” Is this a magic person who might have known? I just adored him.

And then when I was going to make up a song, I thought that he reminded me of a Zen Master. There was this whole Zen story about a Zen student who says to the master, “Isn’t this a beautiful day? Doesn’t the river run, exit perfectly and hug the mountain…?” And the other guy says, “Yeah. It’s just a shame you had to say so.” (slight laugh)

So, I thought, I don’t know if words are going to do it. Then, I started thinking, but if I did an instrumental and made it sound for one split second like, maybe, I was about to sing and I could get Duane Trucks into thinking I was about to sing, that was sort of the whole goal. So, I played a little harp like it was an intro and then I stopped, then I started playing harp again and I thought, “Duane will understand it.” (laughs) And he did! He loved it! I was so happy. I said, “I hope you found out that it was an instrumental by listening to it.” And he said, “Yes.” So, I was, “Okay, Thank God.” ‘Cause it would have spoiled it if someone said, “Here’s this new song that I did about Col. Bruce, it’s an instrumental.” And so, I got away with it. That was my whole point. (laughs) And Dave, too.

Dave is a Zambi master and so are all those Widespread dudes. Another way of saying it is certifiably insane. (laughs)

JPG: I saw a YoutTube video of you sitting in a living room singing to a friend…

TS: Oh yeah! My friend’s ears!!

JPG: Yes. You sang to Anita Webb who just got cochlear ear implants.

TS: That’s one of the closest friends I have in the world.  I have a song called “Moondawg’s Tavern.” It was about her brother. He was Michael “Moondawg” Webb. We’ve just always been like family, her and me.  And her passion in life has always been music. Then, about seven years ago, eight, probably even longer, she lost her hearing but she would still come to the shows and sit with me and she could read lips a little. In a weird way it was a little bit like losing a friend because she couldn’t hear you anymore and our conversations got slowed down and all that.  

To make a short story long, she got those implants. She got ‘em in Nashville. So, she came over. We had been saying for a couple of years that for the test we would do that song because that’s the song she likes.  And so we were testing to see if she could hear music.

JPG: What was that song?

TS: “Better Than Ever Blues Part 2.” It’s from the second record. She was in my life way before I made records and stuff. I think there’s a “Part 1.”In fact, I know there is. In those days, I guess, I thought that they would all end up on albums. It wasn’t that happening. I don’t think I’d sing it now.  In those days, I used to think it was so good.  Now, these days I hear it and it doesn’t sound like it’s about anything.

JPG: Have you seen the video of you and Anita?

TS: Yeah, oh yeah, made me cry the first time I saw it.

JPG:  It was so damn cute. You were happy. She was happy.

TS: I was about to cry right there ‘cause I could tell as soon as I started singing it, she could hear me.  We just hadn’t had a conversation in so long.  We had so much catching up to do. It wasn’t that bad. We just had to talk so much slower. Say so much less. We couldn’t talk like you and I are.

She’s just one of the sweetest women ever.  She always supported me. Her brother had like a speakeasy in his backyard that Col. Bruce would have loved.

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