Defending Norman Rockwell.

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: NOVEMBER 11, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 111101np.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: The Music of Buddy and Julie Miller
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:06

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

KEN TUCKER, GUEST HOST: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ken Tucker, critic at large for "Entertainment Weekly," sitting in for Terry Gross.

Buddy and Julie Miller are married musicians, but they maintain separate careers. Buddy, whose new CD is called "Cruel Moon," is a much-in-demand guitar player and songwriter who's played with Emmy Lou Harris, Linda Ronstadt, and Lucinda Williams. Julie, whose latest release is "Broken Things," has toured with Steve Earle.

The Millers' songs have been recorded by country artists like Garth Brooks, the Dixie Chicks, and Brooks & Dunn. We invited them to the WPLN studios in Nashville to sing a few songs and discuss writing tunes for big stars and for each other.

Before we talk to them, here's a bit of the opening track from Buddy's "Cruel Moon."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "CRUEL MOON")

BUDDY MILLER (singing): When I gave you my heart,
It was not what you wanted.
(inaudible) say your name
And the pictures (ph) are haunted.

Did my ring burn your finger?
Did my love weigh you down?
Was a promise to much
To keep around (ph)?

(END AUDIO CLIP)

TUCKER: Buddy and Julie met in the late '70s when Buddy auditioned for a band that Julie was in. I began by asking them what they initially thought of each other.

BUDDY MILLER: Well, I thought she was great, and she was...

JULIE MILLER: You did. Thank you. Well, actually, my first impression was, I -- this was the first band I'd really been in, and I didn't really know if someone was a good guitar player or not. So when they asked me if they -- if I thought he should be in the band, I really had no idea.

So just to be on the safe side, I said no. (laughs) But, of course, they realized then that I really had no judgment whatsoever. They hired him anyway, and we soon became real pals. We were real friends for years. We were kind of -- we ate breakfast tacos together for years before we had a romantic inclination.

TUCKER: When did the romantic inclination kick in?

BUDDY MILLER: Oh, around -- what, around 1979 or so.

JULIE MILLER: Yes. I had -- actually, I had a different boyfriend who kind of hurt my feelings one day. We were all three in the same band. And we were at a sound check, and I did something extremely stupid, which I really won't say what I did. My boyfriend...

TUCKER: Why not?

JULIE MILLER: Because it's the stupidest thing you've ever heard of. (laughs)

BUDDY MILLER: It's not that stupid.

JULIE MILLER: Oh, think about it. It's just -- OK. Since you have editing power, you want me to tell you?

TUCKER: Yes, please.

JULIE MILLER: (laughs) OK. Well, I was -- let's just (inaudible) it to say that I was an extremely insecure person, and that's just an understatement too. But I had the blues, and I wanted to sing -- I had decided I wanted to sing "Tobacco Road." So at sound check one day, I decided to get the band to work it up, see if it -- But for some reason, I was totally psyched out, and I -- for some reason -- If you're not familiar with the song, it's just kind of your typical (plays blues chord change on the guitar). Yes, (singing), Well, I was born in a (inaudible).

But the -- but for some reason, this is all I could do. OK, here we go. One -- I would only sing when the music was playing.

BUDDY MILLER: One, two, three.

JULIE MILLER (singing): Well, I was born -- (chord change)

(LAUGHTER)

JULIE MILLER: That's so -- My boyfriend looked at me, like, you know, You can't be this stupid! And for some reason I -- oh, God, (inaudible) my head, I could not sing in the spaces.

Well, so anyway, I left in tears, because I thought, I'm crazy, (inaudible). Buddy Miller came up to me about a few minutes later with an ice cream cone.

TUCKER: How nice, how ro...

BUDDY MILLER: That was my smooth...

TUCKER: ... how romantic.

BUDDY MILLER: That was my smooth move, yes.

TUCKER: Oh, very smooth.

JULIE MILLER: He hands me this ice cream cone. This was the first revelation of this that I had. I just was, like, kind of wiping tears away and eating this ice cream cone. And kind of looking over at him, and looking at the ice cream cone, and looking back at him. And suddenly realizing, I think I like this guy with the ice cream cone. (laughs)

And that's how it all began.

TUCKER: Well, since we're talking about music and we're talking about tears, I think this is a good time for you to play a song for us. It's tears in a very different context. I wonder if you could do your song "All My Tears."

JULIE MILLER: Sure.

BUDDY MILLER: I'll tune up for it. It won't take me long, I promise.

I do like that "Tobacco Road."

JULIE MILLER: Oh, gosh!

BUDDY MILLER: It was something. It went (plays blues chord change), and the whole band would stop, and there'd be nothing there for the longest time.

JULIE MILLER: (laughs)

BUDDY MILLER: Everybody's just looking at her.

JULIE MILLER: You know, for the sake of others' humor and entertainment, I will humble myself down into the dirt.

BUDDY MILLER: We played with "Cry, Cry, Cry" the other night, and when we came onstage, they were planning on doing "Tobacco Road" in your honor.

JULIE MILLER: (laughs) Oh, Buddy.

(singing): (inaudible) for me,
In my Father's arms I'll be.
(inaudible) my soul,
(inaudible).

BUDDY MILLER AND JULIE MILLER (singing): Sun and moon will be
replaced
With the light Jesus makes.
And I will not be ashamed
For my Savior knows my name.

It don't matter where you bury me,
I'll be home and I'll be free.
It don't matter (inaudible).
All my tears be washed away.

Hey, hey, uh-huh.

Oh, this (inaudible) blind the eye
Temporary (inaudible) light.
Come and meet (inaudible),
Come and drink and thirst no more.

(inaudible) me, my friend,
When my (inaudible).
For my life belongs to Him,
Who will raise the dead again.

It don't matter where you bury me,
I'll be home and I'll be free.
It don't matter where I (inaudible),
All my tears be washed away.

Hey, hey.

TUCKER: Thank you. That's Buddy and Julie Miller. Buddy's new CD is called "Cruel Moon," Julie's latest is "Broken Things."

If I could go back to this kind of chronology of your career, around 1980, Buddy, you were on the verge of a record deal, and you moved from Texas to New Jersey.

BUDDY MILLER: Well, moved -- yes, right outside of New York City. We wanted to move to New York City, but we thought, It's too dangerous there. So we were in Union City, where we got robbed, I don't know, a couple of times, a couple of nights in a row. We were right in between the Lincoln Tunnel and the Holland Tunnel. It was great.

TUCKER: Truly great, or kind of scary great?

BUDDY MILLER: A little bit of both. It was great.

TUCKER: Julie, I've read that you -- this was kind of a difficult time for you. You were kind of depressed at this point. What were you going through around this time?

JULIE MILLER: Yes, I was just going through a time of basically wondering what everything is, what is -- you know, who I was, what's the point? I'm sort of -- tend to be -- fall into melancholia rather easily. And...

TUCKER: I read that you said once, "All my life, even when I was, like, 12 years old, I was depressed."

JULIE MILLER: Yes, yes. I remember when I was 8 or 9 years old, saying, "I wish I was dead." So I felt that I really needed to find a reason to live, or it was just too much trouble, and it just didn't seem worth the pain. And I, being from the South, had grown up with Christianity that for me seemed more like kind of like a little club.

And I pretty much decided that I wanted to find the truth, and that was definitely not the truth. So I was pretty much open to anything but Christianity. And I watched some friends of mine die, and I would just sit and I would think, you know, I'm here right now, and I'm going to be -- but I'm not going to be here at some point, you know.

And somewhere along the way, got ahold of a book called "Tortured for His Faith," about this -- it was written by this man who was tortured for being a Christian behind the Iron Curtain for 13 years. And he just loved the people that tortured him and everything, and he -- it was, like, he was a real Christian.

And somehow, reading that man's story, it -- that was, like, wow, he -- well, he's, like, a real -- you know, a real Christian, like the people in the Bible were. And then at the same time, the -- Bob Dylan had come out with his second gospel record. And the combination of reading that book and hearing those songs just brought to me -- just feeling -- hearing from God.

And a lot of things happened. Buddy came in with the new Emmy Lou Harris record. He put it on, and she was singing "Green Pastures," and there was a line in there, "Those who have strayed were sought by the Master. He once gave His life for the sheep. Out on the mountain still He is searching, bringing them in forever to keep."

And, you know, Buddy just was enjoying how beautiful it sounded with Ricky Skaggs and Dolly Parton singing along with Emmy Lou. Well, I just started crying and weeping, you know, and I could just feel the -- I could just feel the -- this is the compassion of God for me. And so all the...

TUCKER: And so -- Buddy, what was your reaction to all this at the time?

BUDDY MILLER: Well, I was just watching it for a while. I mean, I thought you were listening to that Bob Dylan record because you liked the cowbell.

JULIE MILLER: Yes, I was at first. Klidey King's (ph) background vocals, really.

BUDDY MILLER: We were both listening for Klidey King. And I kind of want -- Julie was the wildest person I knew. I mean, she was just wild. So I'd watch. And when she left, there was just such a big change that I couldn't help but take notice and see what was going on.

TUCKER: Buddy and Julie Miller, they write songs for themselves and some major country stars. We'll be back after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TUCKER: (audio interrupt) Julie and Buddy Miller. Buddy has a new CD out called "Cruel Moon."

I know, Julie, that you don't consider yourself as much of a country performer as Buddy might, but do you like Hank Williams' "Luke the Drifter" songs? They're so much about faith and despair and redemption.

JULIE MILLER: Oh, oh, totally, the -- yes. His songs are like the foundation of songwriting. I don't see any songwriter could go on without starting there, you know.

TUCKER: Yes. Seems like a lot of the songs you both write are about relationships that are on the verge of breaking up, or are at least being, you know, very severely tested. There aren't too many, "Gee, ain't we a happy couple" songs.

BUDDY MILLER: I know...

JULIE MILLER: Well, you just -- (laughs) I think you have to blame that, like, on the Luven (ph) Brothers and Hank Williams and people like that. It's, like, I think that we got founded in sad songs before we started writing, and then we got all happy, but it was too late for the songs. They still have to be sad. (laughs)

BUDDY MILLER: There was a review I liked that they said, "the seemingly happy couple."

JULIE MILLER: And, you know, sometimes I'll write some happy lyrics, and the songs just are terrible. I don't know what it is. I feel really bad. (laughs)

TUCKER: So you try to write happy songs, they just come out.

JULIE MILLER: Exactly, exactly.

TUCKER: Well, I'd like you to perform one of those sadder songs, "Broken Things."

JULIE MILLER: OK.

TUCKER: Thanks.

JULIE MILLER (singing): You can have my heart,
But it isn't new.
It's been used and broken.
(inaudible).

It's been down a long road,
It got dirty on the way.
If I give it to you,
Will you make it clean
And wash the shame away?

You can have my heart
If you don't mind broken things.
You can have my life
If you don't mind these tears.

I heard that you make all things new,
So I give these pieces all to you.
If you want it, you can have
My heart.

(inaudible),
Nothing I could do.
Tried to fix it myself,
But it was only worse
When I got through.

And you walked right into my darkness,
And you speak words so sweet,
Told me that (inaudible)
To my frozen tears fall on your feet.

You can have my heart
If you don't mind broken things.
You can have my life
If you don't mind these tears.

I heard that you make all things new,
So I give these pieces all to you.
If you want it, you can have
My heart.

TUCKER: That's Julie and Buddy Miller with the title song from Julie's CD, "Broken Things."

We'll hear more from the Millers in the second half of the show.

I'm Ken Tucker, and this is FRESH AIR.

Let's hear the Dixie Chicks' covering Buddy's song "Hole in My Head" from their new album, "Fly."

(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP, "HOLE IN MY HEAD," THE DIXIE CHICKS)

DIXIE CHICKS (singing): Hole in my head, hole in my head.
I need a boy like you like a hole in my head.
I need a boy like you like a hole in my head.
Let's just say we will and then don't instead.

Wild goose chase, wild goose chase.
You gonna take me for on a wild goose chase.
You gonna take me for on a wild goose chase,
You better find somebody to take my place.

You took my imagination
And stomped it in the ground.
Now I can only think about you
Chasing the tracks that you left around.

Hole in my head, hole in my head.
Oh, I need a boy like you like a hole in my head.
I need a boy like you like a hole in my head.
You make me feel so bad that I wish I was dead.

(inaudible), oh, yeah.
(inaudible).

(END AUDIO CLIP)

(BREAK)

TUCKER: Coming up, we talk with art critic Dave Hickey, who's written a defense of one of America's most beloved but critically underrated artists, Norman Rockwell.

And more country-rock music from Buddy and Julie Miller with conversations about the strains and comfort of touring together as a married couple, and about writing songs for other artists.

(BREAK)

TUCKER: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Ken Tucker.

We're continuing our talk with Buddy and Julie Miller, musicians whose songs have been covered by many country stars.

I know, Buddy and Julie Miller, that you've been out touring together. I myself recently caught one of your shows in which Julie provided percussion by hitting a hotel plastic garbage pail with a stick.

Does it cause any strain on the marriage to be, you know, together all day, and then you go out and night and you perform together?

BUDDY MILLER: No, I don't think there's a strain. Sometimes I'm concerned that something might fly out of her little trash can and hit someone in the audience. But we're doing OK.

TUCKER: Well, that's good, because...

JULIE MILLER: Well, we should mention there's a few other objects in it. There's some tambourines and such things.

TUCKER: Yes, there are real instruments.

JULIE MILLER: Inside.

TUCKER: It's not a completely improvised performance.

Well, you two seem, to outward appearances, to have one of the more successful close marriages in the music world. Is it, you know, singing all day around the Miller household?

(LAUGHTER)

BUDDY MILLER: Yes, we're just singing all day long.

TUCKER: That's what I figured, yes. Well, are there songs that either of you have written where the person who wrote it says, Oh, that's no good, and wants to scrap it, but the other person says, No, wait, that's good, you've got to develop that?

BUDDY MILLER: Well, that happens all the time. Well, sort of all the time. It happens -- it sort of happened actually with one of Julie's songs that I just found that would have probably gotten thrown out, that I just -- I was looking for songs for a record of mine, not the new one but the one before, and was going through some old cassettes, and found this little snippet of her singing this "Don't Tell Me to Stop Loving You," that -- just beautiful country song that I don't think she even remembered -- you sang, probably.

And just heard it and loved it, and we finished it.

TUCKER: And worked it up into a finished song.

BUDDY MILLER: Yes.

TUCKER: Yes. And does it work the other way around too? Can you be brutally honest with each other and hear each other's music and say, Honey, that song ain't cutting it, I'm sorry?

BUDDY MILLER: I think so, I think that happens every day around this house.

TUCKER: It does?

JULIE MILLER: Buddy's way more diplomatic. (laughs)

TUCKER: Really?

BUDDY MILLER: If she doesn't like something I'm playing, mostly on her record.

JULIE MILLER: Oh, dear, oh, dear!

TUCKER: And so are those bad songs, or are those the ones you offer the Dixie Chicks?

BUDDY MILLER: No. That song -- and, you know, that song "Don't Tell Me," that ended up -- Lee Ann Womack cut it and did a beautiful version of it.

TUCKER: Is that right?

BUDDY MILLER: That would have just ended up in a trash can, and we never would have known about it.

JULIE MILLER: Yes, that song the Dixie Chicks did, I knew that was a hit from the very beginning.

TUCKER: Did you?

JULIE MILLER: Yes, yes.

TUCKER: You're talking about the song "Hole in My Head" that appears on the new Dixie Chicks...

JULIE MILLER: Yes.

TUCKER: ... album.

JULIE MILLER: Yes, that was one of Buddy's first songs and first lyrical attempts as well. And I was so blown away. "You make me feel so bad I wish I was dead," that, to me, don't get any better than that. (inaudible).

TUCKER: Can you play a few bars of that?

BUDDY MILLER: Sure, sure.

BUDDY MILLER AND JULIE MILLER (singing): Hole in my head,
hole in my head.
I need a girl boy like you like a hole in my head.
I need a girl boy like you like a hole in my head.
Let's just say we will and then don't instead.

BUDDY MILLER: That's a little bit of that one.

TUCKER: Why do you think other artists are able to cover your songs and get them played on the radio, but your own versions of the same songs can't crack country or pop or rock radio?

JULIE MILLER: They can't? (laughs)

TUCKER: It's news to you, huh? Gee, I didn't mean it to sound so -- it sounded so blunt after that dead silence.

JULIE MILLER: No, no. Actually, what I was thinking was, well, we're just surprised that anyone's getting them played. (laughs) It never entered our minds, when we wrote them and recorded them, that somebody else would take them anywhere. So that's kind of (inaudible)...

TUCKER: But you've had an awfully good track record. I mean, you know, there are albums where the majority of the songs on one or the other of your CDs have been covered by other artists.

BUDDY MILLER: It's the strangest thing. And it's not like we make our records with that in mind at all. We just kind of -- Gosh, I hope we finish the songs in time to get the record done. It's more along those lines. We're working under such pressure at home.

JULIE MILLER: That's you. Buddy -- I take forever, I have to say, but Buddy's so incredible, he's a riot. He does everything so fast, he, like, writes his songs driving to the studio. He literally writes them in the car. (laughs) He'll be, Oh, let's see, I need a song, you know, so...

TUCKER: What songs have you written...

JULIE MILLER: ... he's very bad (ph).

TUCKER: ... have you written in the car that fast?

BUDDY MILLER: Well, that "Hole in My Head" got started that way. Most of it got done, and Jim Lauderdale wrote that with me. But that got started in the car.

TUCKER: What's been the extent of your contact with the major labels? Do they ever come around interested, but at some point it breaks down because you're not going to make the kind of album they want you to make? It seems like to me that Nashville has a certain kind of album they want country acts to make, and it's probably not the kind of record you want to make. Is that true?

BUDDY MILLER: Well, I don't know, because they've never really asked. And, you know, we're actually -- at least I'm really happy where we're at with -- we're both on the same label. It's a little label in the Bay Area called High Tone. And they like what we do, and they give us complete freedom to do what we like to do.

JULIE MILLER: Yes. It's really great. It's -- to try to be moldable for someone is just -- I'm just -- I don't think either one of us could ever -- it would be kind of like trying to mold a little moth into a butterfly, just, you know, you got to take the moth or leave it, you know, like...

TUCKER: Right.

JULIE MILLER: ... you start trying to mold it, it's just going to crumble, and so -- yes, it's just great to be able to creatively not have outside voices in your head when you're doing stuff.

BUDDY MILLER: When they say, We'd like a record from you, and if you can turn it in around this time -- and that's the extent of their involvement in the creative process. And we record in our house, we just set up in the living room-dining room areas and make them there, and they're happy with that.

TUCKER: Is the finished product that we hear stuff that's recorded in your house?

BUDDY MILLER: Oh, yes. I don't know if I'd call it a finished product, but -- (laughs)

TUCKER: Well, the stuff that gets released is made in...

JULIE MILLER: Yes.

TUCKER: ... is genuinely home-made.

BUDDY MILLER: Yes.

JULIE MILLER: Totally.

TUCKER: Why have you never recorded a Julie and Buddy Miller album, an official kind of duet album?

BUDDY MILLER: She wouldn't let me.

JULIE MILLER: (laughs)

BUDDY MILLER: But I think we're going to do that next year.

JULIE MILLER: No, that's not true.

TUCKER: And why is that?

BUDDY MILLER: (inaudible)...

TUCKER: Why would she not...

BUDDY MILLER: We're planning...

JULIE MILLER: That's not true. Well, he -- you know, his vision for me is a little more strictly country than (laughs) than I feel I would like to be. But actually, we -- I've gotten a little bit of this other music out of my system, and I think we're going to do this duet record, and I've let Buddy make it -- he's going to make it as country as he wants to. It's just going to be last stop to Hicksville. (laughs)

TUCKER: And Buddy, do you think you'll ever have a rock and roll album in you to put out?

BUDDY MILLER: Well, the more I'm working with Julie, the more that crazy rock stuff gets on my records, I think, or her influence. Yes, I -- no, I don't -- but I don't think so.

TUCKER: I'm wondering if you could sing us another song, perhaps "Somewhere Trouble Don't Go."

BUDDY MILLER: Sure, we'd love to. It's -- this one Julie played drums on the record along with the drummer, Brian Owings. Julie was set up on the floor with -- she didn't have the trash can at that point in time, but she had a lot of tambourines. I think she might have broken two or three during the recording of that song.

I looked in the other room, and the drummer was looking in there, and you could just see him flying in the air. So she's going to try to recreate that magic on her hotel trash can.

JULIE MILLER: This is -- yes.

TUCKER: We'll think about that as...

JULIE MILLER: We want to thank that...

TUCKER: ... as we listen.

JULIE MILLER: Yes. (laughs)

BUDDY MILLER: One, two, three, four.

(singing): (inaudible)
Took me to deep water.
I took him with a kiss (ph).

Said, Pay now, honey,
(inaudible) money,
I said, I ain't got time for this.

Take me, take me somewhere trouble don't go.
Make me, make me someone trouble don't know.

Hey.

BUDDY MILLER AND JULIE MILLER (singing): She said, babe, come inside.
I said, Sorry, I got to ride,
Sorry, but I got to ride.

You know you could end up dead,
Sleeping in the devil's bed,
Sleeping in the devil's bed.

Take me, take me somewhere trouble don't go.
Make me, make me someone trouble don't know.

Hey.

(inaudible) wants to try my car (ph),
But she wants to go too far.
But she wants to go too far.

First comes love, it's so fine,
Here comes heartache right behind,
Here comes heartache right behind.

My baby used to be so sweet,
Now she won't come down my street,
Now she won't come down my street.

Hey.

All my friends (inaudible),
She likes to put my heart in hell (ph).
She likes to put my heart in hell.

Take me, take me somewhere trouble don't go.
Make me, make me someone trouble don't know.

Hey.

TUCKER: That's Buddy and Julie Miller.

Thank you very much indeed. I really appreciate your talking with us.

BUDDY MILLER: Oh, thank you.

JULIE MILLER: Yes, it's great to talk to you too.

TUCKER: Buddy Miller's new CD is "Cruel Moon," Julie's is "Broken Things."

Coming up, a reassessment of Norman Rockwell.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Ken Tucker, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Buddy Miller; Julie Miller
High: The songs of singer/songwriters Buddy and Julie Miller have been recorded by everyone from the Dixie Chicks to Little Jimmy Scott. Each has a new album: "Broken Things" by Julie Miller, and "Cruel Moon" by Buddy Miller.
Spec: Music Industry; Entertainment; Buddy Miller; Julie Miller

Please note, this is not the final feed of record

Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: The Music of Buddy and Julie Miller

Show: FRESH AIR
Date: NOVEMBER 11, 1999
Time: 12:00
Tran: 111102NP.217
Type: FEATURE
Head: Dave Hickey on Norman Rockwell
Sect: Entertainment
Time: 12:40

This is a rush transcript. This copy may not
be in its final form and may be updated.

TUCKER: My guest, Dave Hickey, is one of those rare art critics whose essays and reviews can be understood and enjoyed by readers who don't have a degree in art history or deconstructionism.

His most recent book is entitled "Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy," which also offers assessments of Hank Williams, Donald Duck, and Perry Mason.

Hickey teaches art criticism at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, and he recently wrote an eloquent defense for "The Saturday Evening Post" illustrator Norman Rockwell as an archetypal American painter. The essay appears in the catalog for an exhibition that's touring the country called "Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People," which can currently be seen at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia.

I asked Hickey to remind us of who Rockwell was.

DAVID HICKEY, ART CRITIC: Well, Norman Rockwell was a commercial illustrator who worked (inaudible) for most American magazines, but principally for "The Saturday Evening Post" for most of this century, beginning the early part of this century up until the early '70s.

Actually, one of the peculiar things about Rockwell is that people do know who he is. I ask my students all the time if they know who he is, and somehow they've found out, I'm not exactly sure why or how.

TUCKER: In your essay, you quote John Updike as saying that Rockwell "always gave a little more than the occasion strictly demands." How would you characterize Rockwell's most typical art beyond that?

HICKEY: Well, I was spinning Updike, of course. Updike is just being prissy and puritanical. I'm just saying he actually is a very -- he's a very generous artist and a very devoted artist to making well-designed images. And he always does more than is required just to get printed in a commercial -- on a -- you know, in a commercial publication.

TUCKER: In your essay, you discuss a particular painting which is entitled "After the Prom." Could you describe what's going on in that picture and why you like it?

HICKEY: Well, I can describe what's going on in the picture, which is that you have a couple of teenagers after the prom sitting at the -- sitting at a soda fountain. There's a working guy sitting to their left, and behind the counter is a soda jerk, who appears to be the brother of the young man in the image.

The young lady is lifting her corsage, her gardenia corsage, to be sniffed by the soda jerk behind the counter, and the young man is looking on happily, as is the working guy, who is also obviously a veteran.

TUCKER: The time period is about what, in the '50s, you would say?

HICKEY: I'd say '54, I think, thereabouts. And what I like about the picture is almost impossible to explain on radio. It is an extremely elegantly designed picture. And it -- just in the traditional European sense.

As far as its narrative qualities, it's typical of a great many of Rockwell's pictures, in that they don't really teach us what to do, they -- it sort of purports to show us how people should react to what people do. A lot of Rockwell's paintings are simply about the responses of citizens to the behavior of other citizens.

And that is the general tenor of a great many of his paintings, simply has to do with the nature of the response. And it is, to a certain extent, always a benign and idealized and tolerant response.

TUCKER: Why did you title the essay with an allusion to The Who, "The Kids Are All Right"?

HICKEY: Well, because I -- and I firmly believe this, that Rockwell was one of the few creatures in American popular culture in the '50s who actually privileged kids and their disobedient and willful disagreeableness and tendency to break rules. And I think that he really sort of -- I don't know if we'd have had a lot of the '60s without the sort of benign permission of Rockwell's images.

As I say, I always like to imagine these kids in Rockwell's paintings growing up, since I grew up pretty much contemporaneously with them, you know, I imagine those kids at the soda fountain sitting around in some commune in New Mexico trying to recapture that moment. (laughs)

And there's a wonderful painting of a girl with a black eye sitting outside the principal's office, having gotten in a fight and obviously won, and it's not hard to imagine her a few years later burning her bra, and...

TUCKER: Yes, I -- that -- I saw that picture, and she looks absolutely delighted. She has this big shiner, and she's sitting there with this huge grin on her face, like she's really pleased that she punched somebody out, probably.

HICKEY: Exactly. And that sort of attitude is kind of pervasive in Rockwell. I mean, that sort of tolerance for sort of -- for the disobedience of youth. And I know when I was a kid, I always found it extremely empowering, as we say these days.

TUCKER: In the title essay of "Air Guitar," you write something that I think is very -- is true, but that few critics are willing to admit, namely, that people -- and I'm going to quote you here -- "despise critics because people despise weakness, and criticism is the weakest thing you can do in writing. It's the written equivalent of air guitar, flurries of silent, sympathetic gestures with nothing at their heart but the memory of the music. It neither saves the things we love nor ruins the things we hate."

So I guess my question is, why then be a critic?

HICKEY: Well, for the same reason that you do anything in culture. You want your views to prevail. You want to win. That is, you have a view of culture that is -- with which you are comfortable. You imagine a world in which you would be happy, and you're always, I think, arguing in favor of a world that is more like that.

And you want to win. I mean, that is, if I see an artist whose work I believe in, I want everyone to believe in it. This is the occasion to write a -- with as much strength and persuasiveness as you can, always presuming that, you know, the influence of art criticism is roughly that of second-hand smoke. You know, it's very difficult to document.

TUCKER: You've done things...

HICKEY: And probably just as toxic. (laughs)

TUCKER: Are you -- I had read that you had studied literature and linguistics. Are you also trained in art history, or in art in any way?

HICKEY: No, I don't make visual art. Yes, my background is in literature and linguistics.

TUCKER: And so how did you come to want to teach about art, as opposed to pursuing those subjects?

HICKEY: Well, all of my -- one is that when you're -- it's my view of writers that there's almost -- there's no situation that needs more than two, you know. (laughs) And I didn't -- I was never -- not very comfortable in what you would call academic literary culture, and most literary culture in America is academic in one way or another.

All of my friends were artists. I tend to be interested in the incarnate aspects of writing, in the phonotext and what it sounds like, about how it feels, and the sort of physical cadences. I'm interested in the language as a physical thing and not as a disembodied sign system.

And that aligns -- there -- as a consequence, there was a point in my life when it's -- I figured out that from my point of view, Edward Rochet (ph) and Jasper Johns knew more about the language in the way that I wanted to know than Norman Mailer did. In other words, I was just a lot more comfortable in an art culture.

TUCKER: My guest is art critic Dave Hickey. More after a break.

This is FRESH AIR.

(BREAK)

TUCKER: Dave Hickey is my guest. His most recent book is "Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy."

Well, you were also a rock critic for a time, writing...

HICKEY: Yes, and I...

TUCKER: ... writing in what I guess we can now start considering almost the golden age of rock criticism, when people like Lester Banks (ph) and Richard Melzer (ph) and people like yourself could write long, very strongly opinionated pieces about music that was -- you know, at the time, widely considered ephemeral when it wasn't considered actively harmful to the culture, I think.

What's your take on rock criticism?

HICKEY: Well, I -- that is -- the -- it's institutionalization, and sort of the -- it's -- infection with the rhetoric of Frankfurt school, cultural studies, idioms, has not really perked it up very much, in my view. I regard rock criticism, and really everything I write, as I do now, as basically a form of Victorian reportage. In other words, what I'm doing is not any different from what Robert Louis Stevenson did, or DeQuincy did, or Ruskin did. I'm just talking about the stuff that's happening in front of my eyes.

I loved rock criticism -- that is, the upside of it was that it didn't make any difference. You can actually, as a critic, harm an artist's career. We used to say, you know, if you knock an art show, you can hurt somebody's life. If you knock a rock record, it just makes this funny vinyl noise.

And so that was the nice thing about it. I mean, you were absolutely -- it was free discourse. You know, it was -- you weren't so much criticizing rock as improvising on the occasion of a record. And that was an enormous permission. It was a great deal of fun.

And I can remember, you know, standing out in the street in front of CBGB's with, oh, Lester and Duncan and a bunch of us, watching the people coming out with their ears bleeding. And...

TUCKER: We're talking about the Lower East Side club in New York that was kind of the fount of New York punk rock.

HICKEY: Right, exactly. It actually -- only the Dictators, handsome Dick Manitoba (ph), could actually make people's ears bleed, in my experience. And -- but I think this was a -- Dick being the precursor of Jesse Ventura, I would suppose, the inventor of wrestling rock.

But no, that was a -- I really loved the idea of making it up as you go along. I mean, this -- all of the things that went on at CBGB's were weird stuff that people made up out in Brooklyn, you know, in Long Island, in...

TUCKER: Acts like the Ramones and Talking Heads and Television and Patty Smith and people like that.

HICKEY: Yes, exactly, exactly, Milk and Cookies and Dead Boys, my favorites. And it's always amazing to see what people will do left to their own devices. And it's always my effort as a critic with regard to the sort of governance of culture to try as much as possible to see that people are left to their own devices.

I'm a Darwinian in culture, in terms of cultural production, and the difficulty there is that the artistic discourse is the last refuge of Creationism in Western culture, it's totally obsessed with creationism of one sort or another, with the ah-tist and what the ah-tist wants and what the ah-tist does.

I'm really interested in the consequences of the works of art themselves.

TUCKER: How did you come to live in Las Vegas? This seems like an odd spot in America to find an art critic. Or am I being naive about the art scene in Las Vegas?

HICKEY: Well, a little naive. I mean, there's -- there are -- this is a wonderful -- this is a visible place. This is a visual place. People will tell you that Las Vegas is the future. It may be, but from my point of view, Las Vegas is the '70s with valet parking. You know, it's a big, permissive, libertarian gambling-smoking-drinking-stay up late-scungilli at 3 in the morning town. That's the kind of environment in which I'm very comfortable.

TUCKER: Well, Dave Hickey, thank you very much for talking with me.

HICKEY: It is my pleasure.

TUCKER: Dave Hickey's most recent book is "Air Guitar: Essays on Art and Democracy." He has an essay about Norman Rockwell in a catalog that accompanies a nationwide tour of Rockwell's art.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our engineer is Chris Fraley (ph). Dorothy Farabee (ph) is our administrative assistant. Our researcher is Helen Wang (ph). Roberta Shorrock directs the show.

For Terry Gross, I'm Ken Tucker.

TO PURCHASE AN AUDIOTAPE OF THIS PIECE, PLEASE CALL 877-21FRESH
Dateline: Ken Tucker, Philadelphia, PA
Guest: Dave Hickey
High: A discussion about the exhibition "Norman Rockwell: Pictures for the American People" with art critic Dave Hickey, associate professer of art criticism and theory at the University of Nevada.
Spec: Entertainment; Art; Norman Rockwell

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Copy: Content and programming copyright 1999 WHYY, Inc. All rights reserved. Transcribed by FDCH, Inc. under license from WHYY, Inc. Formatting copyright 1999 FDCH, Inc. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to WHYY, Inc. This transcript may not be reproduced in whole or in part without prior written permission.
End-Story: Dave Hickey on Norman Rockwell
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