The name Pegi Young is hardly new. As President of the Bridge School, Pegi has helped raise millions for children with cerebral palsy. The Northern Californian school is now world renowned.
As a singer, Pegi has been seen and heard for years as a back-up singer in her husband Neil's band.Now in her mid 50s, Pegi is doing something else different; she is releasing her debut album.
Taking 35 years to make an album makes Axl Rose sound prolific. For Pegi it is more about documenting her creative works than the physical release.
The biggest question raised by the release of this album is, "Why has it taken so long?". Her lyrics are pure poetry, her band is crackerjack. Let's face it, with the people this lady knows, you would think that it would only take a few phone calls from her personal phone book and that would nail down the players. But that wasn't the case, Pegi tells us that the caliber of players added to the stress of making her record.
As the album roles out around the world, Pegi told the story to Paul Cashmere.
Paul Cashmere: It is fabulous to see somebody taking so much time to put out a debut album. 'Pegi Young' was 35 years in the making.
Pegi Young: Yeah 35 years, just about (laughs). We spent 35 years in the room wondering if this is the thing to do or just keep writing my stuff and keeping it to myself. I was a little shy about bringing out some of my songs. I started off thinking about doing covers of other peoples stuff. They were songs I felt resonated with; I could get inside them and feel them. Then it just sort of happened; I had played a few of my songs for my producer Elliott Mazer. The guitarist in our band Anthony Crawford had sort of got wind of this, I guess. He said, "Heck when are we going to break out some of your stuff". On about the third day in we started recording a bit of my stuff.
Paul Cashmere: What fascinates me about some of these songs, "White Line In The Sun" and "Key To Love", is that they date back so many years. You wrote these songs about 35 years ago; 'Key To Love' was written when you were about 20 years old. How were these songs stored where you were able, from time to time, bring them out and play? Tell us how songs like these can stay around for 35 years and go unreleased and unrecorded?
Pegi Young: I think it is kind of amazing actually, when I think about that myself. I was a big purger. I would periodically go through some of my poems or writings and I would burn stuff that I thought was useless. The fact that some of these stayed around was good fortune for me. Getting to hear Ben Keith play peddle steel on 'Key To Love' was a dream come true. Never when I wrote that song did I imagine that I would be able to have his beautiful playing on it. I have this little brown suitcase that was my mothers. Somehow that little suitcase just stored important things to me. I moved around a lot between the ages of 17 until I moved here to the ranch when I was 25. There was a period there where many things could have been lost. There were things that were lost but somehow these things stayed with me. From time to time I would go in and look at my words and lyrics. Even though I had written 'White Line In The Sun' as a song I never forgot how to play it. It was just one of those things. I would go years without playing it. I always remembered how it went. 'Key To Love' was a poem so I had to find some music for that. That was a more recent endeavor on my part to put that to music. Naturally, how it went, they just someone like magic stayed with me. So when I went in to do this project I just went back through some of my lyrics. I always knew I wanted to do 'White Line In The Sun'. I always knew if I ever got into the studio that I wanted to do that song. It is not the first song that I wrote. It is just a very near and dear to my heart song that tells the story of a big journey that I took. I just love that song.
Paul Cashmere: Funny you should mention 'Key To Love' as a poem. I was about to ask you if it was a poem that you later wrote music too?
Pegi Young: Yes I sure did. I really did write it as a poem. I lived alone in this teepee with my dog and cat. I did used to spend a lot of time writing. It was a period of my life where when you are young and have all these ... well, passions isn't quite the right word because I don't feel like the passion has waned much. You just feel things so deeply when you are young and you are experiencing all these things.
Paul Cashmere: And you have pictures of the teepee on the CD sleeve.
Pegi Young: (laughs). Yes, I actually found some in my archives. I couldn't believe it. I had some others on the inside of my teepee and my niece was doing a report on hippies or something, on alternative lifestyle people. This was years ago. I was able to land my hands on these instantly and I had left them out in the living room of my house and when I woke up in the morning my puppy had shredded them. They were completely gone. The ones that are on the inside of this package are the only ones that I am in possession of. I don't think there are any more out there.
Paul Cashmere: I love the imagery of the lyrics of the song. " Drive without your glasses/to the moonlit path at night/ find the empty canvas shell/no-one is in sight". I hear that lyric and it reminds me of Jim Morrison and the sort of lyrics he was writing.
Pegi Young: That's a huge compliment. I am dumbfounded by the comparison because I just admire his writing so much. His delivery too. What a tortured soul but a genius.
Paul Cashmere: Let's move from that to "naughty" Pegi Young and the song 'Heterosexual Masses'.
Pegi Young: (laughs)
Paul Cashmere: "Who wants to be a part of the heterosexual masses / when we can have so much fun telling lies and pinching asses".
Pegi Young: Yes, that was one that also started out as a poem so finding music to it was very interesting because it is kind of a mouthful. That harkens back to my bar-tending days, watching people do the dance of the singles night after night. It was kind of tongue planted firmly in cheek. I am quite happy to be a part of the heterosexual masses (laughs).
Paul Cashmere: Well it is my favorite track on the album.
Pegi Young: It was a lot of fun. You know, I recorded nearly 30 songs so I had to narrow them down and work out which ones went together, which ones were the best to tell a story and what was that story. They all have sort of a common theme running through them. There are different ways of looking at relationships. That one was off the record for a long time and then all of a sudden came back on and it was the perfect common relief I think. We've been doing that one live. We just did three tiny little shows. That one is a fun one to do live.
Paul Cashmere: I would think that 'The Party Life' would be the other fun one to do live.
Pegi Young: You would really think so. For some reason we never got to that one on rehearsal. That's not one of mine. It is a Will Jennings tune. I don't have it in my membrane like I do mine. I can pretty much conjure them up instantly.
Paul Cashmere: You've used Will on a number of occasions on the record. There's 'Hold On' and 'When The Wildlife Betrays Me' which is Will and Jimmy Buffett.
Pegi Young: That's right. My producer brought me Will's tunes and those three, there were more, particularly 'Hold On', I thought "wow, what is that. That is incredible". He is a wonderfully talented songwriter. I am happy to be doing his songs. I don't know him. I've emailed him. I hope he likes my versions of his tunes.
Paul Cashmere: Well, he'll definitely like the royalty check if nothing else.
Pegi Young: (laughs) Honest to God, yes.
Paul Cashmere: There is some killer guitar work from Neil Young on 'Hold On'.
Pegi Young: Yeah, beautiful, beautiful guitar. This band, every single one of them is so incredibly talented. I felt so lucky and fortunate to have known all of these guys for years. The fact that they would want to take a chance and play on my stuff was very cool. What they kept coming back with was even cooler. We had a lot of fun.
Paul Cashmere: It must have been very comfortable for you going into the studio with your husband and friends that you had known for many years.
Pegi Young: Well, really on the contrary I was terrified. I had known them all for many years. I have known them in many capacities but never as a singer/songwriter. I have known them as a wife and a mother and a friend and a background singer. Then to take on a different role was quite terrifying. I was having a lot of trauma the first day. I could barely get out from out of the covers in my bed. I thought, "Oh boy, be careful what you wish for".
Paul Cashmere: When you went into the studio to record this record did you treat it like work and if it were work when you came home was that something that you and Neil would put aside and not talk about?
Pegi Young: I definitely treated it like, I don't know if work is the right word, I treated it very seriously. I wanted to do a good job, be productive and we were. That is the magic in recording. You can't predict what is going to happen. I always engineered it to happen around the full moon which is something I had clearly gotten from Neil. It worked so well for him I thought "why not". Sometimes when we would come home we would talk about things but not much. We would leave the studio and come back here. The family is here and we would go into our other mode. I definitely did not take this frivolously. I felt committed to doing the best job that I could do. With those musicians I just wanted to get close to deliver my part as good as they could do there's.
Paul Cashmere: Tell me about getting The Jordinaires to come in and sing on the record. Was that a simple matter of making a phone call?
Pegi Young: It is unbelievable that The Jordinaires are in the phone book in Nashville, Tennessee. You just think this really is music city, this is incredible. We cut that track in LA. That is the one song that has a different drummer on it. Each time between the engineers who heard it, the two that I worked closely though the project, each one of them said, "Wow, I so hear the Jordinaires on that". So when we were in Nashville, I called them up. They were doing a gig but came in a day or two later. They came in and put on those harmonies. Oh my gosh, your skin crawls. You think, "Wow, there is that familiar sound". It was unbelievable to have them on there.
Paul Cashmere: What are the live plans? There have already been some small shows, but are there worldwide plans?
Pegi Young: Nothing worldwide yet. That's a big area. We just did our mini tour around California and we are going to New York. We are going to be on the Late Night With Conan O'Brien show. We are going to play a club back there. We are just taking it bit by bit.
Paul Cashmere: What is happening with The Bridge School? You've done some marvelous work with that over 30 years. Does it slow down when you are not there?
Pegi Young: This was part of the progression for me in terms of being able to carve out time, not just minutes. There are chunks of time where I need to focus on my music while there are other times when I focus on other things in my life. The Bridge School is a big part of that. Now the Bridge School has a fantastic executive director. She is running things extremely well on a day to day basis. I continue to be President of the Board. There is a chunk of time at the end of May and beginning of June which required a lot of my attention as President of the Board. Once that is done I am free to take my head out of the Bridge School on a day to day basis and free it up for music. It has to be that way. You just can't weave music into a couple of minutes here or there. You have got to be able to have time. I am grateful to have a wonderful person and wonderful staff doing the work so beautifully with such devotion and care. It is so humbling.
Paul Cashmere: You've done some remarkable fund-raising concerts over the years to the point where the Bridge School concerts are now world famous. Do you recall a favorite performance?
Pegi Young: I think for my particular favorite performance, it is not from one particular performer or band, it is the moment when the band and the kids and their families really connect. It is a connection that happens when there is a paradigm shift. You look at our studios at the Bridge School and you think "I wonder what is going on in there". They are severely physically evolved and they don't speak. It is hard to know what can break the ice and make contact and what you will find when you do break the ice. What people find over and over again is that there is so much going on that might meet the eye on the surface. Those are my favorite moments when someone will come up and say, "Wow, I had no idea that these kids or young adults had so much going on". I love that. That means that the next time they walk down the street and see someone who might resemble are Bridge kids that they are not going to think about them the same way. They are going to see a person there. I love that."
Pegi Young's self-titled debut album is out now
