Preview: Chastity Brown and Tig Notaro on Record Bin Radio with Kelly McCartney
In the wake of releasing her stunning new album Sing To The Walls, Twin Cities’ songstress Chastity Brown visited the studios of Record Bin Radio to chat with Kelly McCartney. The episode airs later today, June 26, and will be archived immediately afterward for anyone that misses show time. Revered comic Tig Notaro is also featured this week, briefly talking about her love for music.
Here are some key moments in the show…
Chastity Brown on growing up in Union City, Tennessee
There were markers throughout my childhood there that I didn’t have the language for, but I would be like… For example, fifth grade, Kayla Barnes is trying to get me to date Perry Carr. And I was a little jerk and I said something like, “I don’t think he’s cute.” And she said, “but all black guys look the same” in my little brain. I went, “huh?” And I didn’t have any language for that. I played basketball and Anise, this gal who played with us, her mom had her cover up the emblems on our jerseys. And I was like, “why does Anise do that? She’s like the only black player who does that.” And I didn’t realize until years later that our school flag is the Confederate flag and her Black mother was saying, you’re not gonna have that on your Jersey. So this was information that I was taking in, but again had no language for and gayness was like the most insult that you could give someone, is to call them gay in that town.
Chastity Brown on growing up with Southern gospel roots
But at the same time, I grew up on old school gospel music where five part harmonies, always. So I was like, oh, everyone knows how to sing this way. I’m always amazed when people don’t sing harmony because it’s just so, so a part of Southern culture.
Chastity Brown on Bobby McFerrin
I watched a documentary, a PBS documentary with Yo-Yo Ma and Bobby McFerrin in relationship with these four neurologists. And so I got really into Bobby McFerrin as a composer of sound. And I was just like baffled how emotional it was or provocative. But there were no lyrics.
Chastity Brown on how she was moved by Zora Neale Hurston’s book Their Eyes Were Watching God
Ani [DiFranco] gave me Their Eyes Were Watching God. I mean, I’ve never read a love story like that. And then when you read Alice Walker’s comments about how Langston Hughes and W.E.B. Du Bois treated her, because she wrote a love story that didn’t center oppression. And I just was like, “I wanna do that.”
Tig Notaro on Elton John’s “Benny & The Jets” being her first favorite song as a kid
Elton John, “Benny and The Jets.” That was the first memory of having a favorite song as a kid. And… pretty scary. The way the piano creeped in and I just, I think it’s a magical song. And so that was, I think the first one that really got me.
Tig Notaro on the Indigo Girls’ “The Wood Song”
To be honest, I don’t even know what “The Wood Song” is about, but man, do I love it. And I feel like whatever kind of thought or mood that I can apply to it, it feels like it can make sense to me. I feel like ‘The Wood Song” these days, man, do I love it song, but man, do I love, I love them so much.
Tune in and listen to the episode in-full today, Sunday (June 26) at 12pm PT / 2pm CT / 3pm ET or anytime on-demand at apple.co/_RecordBinRadio.