FACE THE MUSIC - from Hills and Hamlets

By MIMI JOHNSTON

Photograph BY ANTHONY SCARLATI

A few months ago as I sat in my friend Anne Goetze's Leiper's Fork store R Place, I heard a CD that quite literally took my breath away. It was Amy Holland's new project. Though I'd known Amy for years, I'd never heard her sing and was moved by vocals at once spare and lush, and the absolute rightness of her musicians' perfectly rendered arrangements. Amy, nominated for a Grammy for her 1980 record Amy Holland, has sung with the likes of Kenny Loggins, Joni Mitchell and Willie Nelson, as well as her husband, Michael McDonald. Amy and Michael were kind enough to meet with Anthony and me at their Leiper's Fork area home. While he made the coffee, she and I talked about music, coping with serious illness, and being the spouse of someone everyone wants to know.

Hills & Hamlets: Where did you grow up and when did you fall in love with music?

AHM: I grew up in New York State, close to the city in a little town called Palisades. It was a beautiful old town and very small. I've always loved music. My mother and father were both singers—he sang opera and she was a hillbilly singer, so they were quite a pair. My mother was from Memphis and was one of the first women DJ's there to have her own radio show. My dad came on to fill in for one of the singers one day and that's how they met.

H&H: Tell us about your musical life before you and Michael met.

AHM: Well, I met him when I was 16 and we became friends then, so I've known him a long time. When I was 16 I went to California, where I was offered a record deal by the Beach Boys. It didn't pan out because their label folded but my sister already lived out there and my mother had some contacts at A&M

Records, and one thing led to another. I worked with the Carpenters' producer and a couple of other people before my manager introduced me to a producer named Rick Gerard. Right after I'd signed to record two sides with him, he said, "You should meet this kid I just signed because I think you'd have a lot in common musically." He introduced me to Michael and I flipped when I heard his music. His wisdom and maturity, not only in his lyrics but also in his voice at that age, were mind-blowing. I'd never heard anything like it.

H&H: Neither had anyone else.

AHM: And no one has since. Anyway, they hired him to play piano on my record and we hit it off right away. When the record was finished we lost touch for

about five years, and then I saw him on the back of a Steely Dan album cover. I was working with a publisher who was helping me get some songs together for a demo and he asked me who my favorite writers were. I named a few like Daryl Hall, and then said, "There's this guy named Michael McDonald that I worked with a while ago." One day, he invited me to go with him to see the Doobie Brothers at the Forum in L.A. After the show I was so excited, acting silly as people do that I meet today, and I handed my phone number to the lighting guy and asked him to give it to Michael. About ten days later, Michael called and said he'd just gotten the message on a plane to Las Vegas. He said he'd always wondered what happened to me, so we arranged to get together and meet. I took a producer to the meeting, and they hit it off and produced a demo on me. When Capital wanted to sign me, they asked if

Michael could produce it. At this point he was at the height of his career—he had no time to do that. He would go on the road for six months at a time, so it took two or three years to do the record.

H&H: So you decided that rather than go with somebody else, you'd wait till he was free.

AHM: Yes. The musical chemistry on our original stuff was so much fun and so right. And it was obvious—who wouldn't want to work with him? It was perfect. And together with the influence of the other producer, who had a gospel background, they wrote some great songs. It was a fun time and I think it came across—it was really just a dream for me.

H&H: When did you two decide to leave L.A. and come here?

AHM: We've been here 13 years, but first we went from L.A. to Santa Barbara for 15 years. When the kids were little I wanted to have a change of seasons and have them grow up in an area where kids weren't taken to birthday parties in limousines. I just wanted them to have a nice, fun childhood with Halloween and lemonade stands and things like that. Mike says it was his idea to move here; I say it was mine, but in any case we moved and it's been great. The kids have been so happy here.

H&H: How did you find Leiper's Fork?

AHM: When we came to Tennessee, there was a drummer who had worked with Mike for a while, who'd moved out before we did. I talked to his wife one day and she said, "There's this cool area called Leiper's Fork; you should go look." We fell in love with the area and almost bought a place but it didn't work out, so we wound up moving almost out to Dickson. I developed some health problems and our farm was so far out. The kids were starting to go to Hillsboro and it was just too much driving for me, so we moved over here and it's been wonderful. We love it.

H&H: It must have been a huge culture shock for your kids to move here from Santa Barbara.

AHM: No, not really. They were young and loved it from the beginning. We'd lived on a little ranch in Santa Barbara, but here we were on a farm with ponds

and creeks, driving around on the gator and hayrides, so it was perfect for a kid.

H&H: And you decided to send them to school out here at Hillsboro.

AHM: They went to a Montessori school for a year or two in Nashville, which went really well. But we looked at some other private schools and the kids didn't want to go. Scarlett did go to Harpeth Academy for kindergarten, but they begged us to let them go to public school. They went to Hillsboro because of Kids On Stage. Working with Rick Wheeler was wonderful for Dylan. Rick is such a gifted teacher. I miss Kids On Stage; it really changed Dylan's life.

H&H: Speaking of Dylans, your Dylan is a good friend of Dylan Morrison, the young bass player who played on your CD. Do they still work together?

AHM:They do from time to time. Dylan Morrison is doing all kinds of stuff. He's so talented. And my Dylan is doing other things—he just sang a song in a movie that may be coming out on Disney. I'm so proud of him.

H&H: How old are your kids?

AHM: Dylan's 20; he'll be 21 in a month or two. Scarlett is 17 and is home schooling now.

H&H: You've been dealing with some really tough health issues. Last month I interviewed Bee Spears and talked with him about what Julia had to go through with hepatitis C. It must be so hard for you to handle life being seriously ill while your husband is out on the road.

AHM: Yeah. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer, Mike, who has never missed a day of work in his life, took a month off and was by my side. We went from horror to numb and back. The kids were scared. But he was there for me. He'd just started a record but he stopped and we went through it together. As far as him being on the road, the hardest thing was where we lived at the time. I went through an experimental treatment that was shut down after a while because a lot of people died from it. It was really high doses of chemo, more than the usual amount that people get. I did that and also did a stem cell transplant— I was my own donor. And I also did five weeks of radiation. The treatment took a real toll on me, to be honest with you. I've had a lot of health issues as a result of the chemo, from not being able to sleep, to having both hips replaced. But I'm here. Some days are easy and some aren't but I just keep remembering that I'm here, life is good, and I've been able to watch my kids grow up. It's all good and I'm really blessed.

H&H: Let's talk about your CD.

AHM: This took us almost 10 years, because of my illness and because right after my treatment Mike's career took off again. And Bernie Chiaravelle, who produced the record, plays guitar for Mike and they were on the road all of the sudden and have been gone ever since. Between their schedule and the dips in my health, it just took a while. I guess I started writing about a year after my treatments were over. I really hadn't written a lot in my life, a little here and there, but I was so lucky to work with Bernie. He just got what I wanted to do. We started writing some things together and I brought in a lot of ideas, musically and lyrically. Then we hooked up with John Goodwin, who is the most gifted lyricist I've ever heard besides my husband. That combination made it all worthwhile—the thrill of my lifetime was to write with these two guys. And Jon Vezner, who's also a very talented writer and good friend. All the other

people who were involved—it was a real labor of love. It was a long time coming but toward the end we built up speed. I didn't have a record company coming after me, telling me I needed to write a hit, so it was great. We could do what we wanted to.

H&H: I loved reading through the lyrics; it's hard not to get a sense that some of this, at least, is fairly autobiographical.

AHM: Some of it, yeah. Again, I didn't write all the lyrics and some of the ideas were written with other people, but I'd say half of it is, yeah.

H&H: I'm thinking now of the song "Everybody Wants to Be Your Friend." It must be kind of bemusing at times, being married to an American icon.

AHM: It's my life—I've been doing it almost 30 years with him. I'm used to it but you know, I had to write about it. It was obviously something that bugged me but I also realized that it was really my issue, not his, which is what the song's about.

H&H: What are your plans now? Are you going to go out and tour to support the project?

AHM: That's a good question. I don't have plans right now. I don't have a record company involved—we started our own record company, Mike and I; it's called Chonin Records. I'd love to do some of these things live and I'll certainly be open to doing little things here and there, but I'm not planning to tour just yet.

H&H: What drives you?

AHM: You know, I really fought to stay alive and I want it all. I want to wake up and hear the rain. I want it to snow. I love to remodel houses—that's a real passion for me. We invest in property, then we sell it and I start another project. I love that. I'm really over travel. We've invested in places that we like to be, so we go between here and Hawaii and we're thinking of investing somewhere else. I'm a gypsy; I really love change. Michael does not but he goes along with it and then he loves it. But this is our home.

H&H: You have a really good support network here—wonderful friends in the community who love you. And in the church.

AHM: I do, I really do. It's wonderful to have found women who hang together and support each other. Which is the way it should be, because everybody holds their own gift. I'm blessed. I really am.

Mimi Johnston lives in the Leiper's Fork area with her husband and two daughters. She is the director of Kids On Stage Summer Academy and can be reached at mimi@mi2productions.com.