Sunday Coffeehouse

Valerie Adams debuts the print counterpoint to her long-running 104.7FM WNCS "The Point" radio show. This issue Val gets together for lunch with her old friend, Vermont singer-songwriter Diane Zeigler, for a warm and candid conversation about the music business and the pursuit of fame.

Welcome to the very first Sunday Coffeehouse column. A week before Andrew wrote to me and asked me to write this column I had a dream where a woman was paying me to write for her. She wanted me to write her stories and whatever else I wanted and she would pay me two hundred dollars a week. I loved this dream because I am a frustrated writer and would like nothing better than to make my living (or some part of it) writing. Then came Andrew's letter and here I am - being paid to write.

Life can be pretty wonderful when you get paid to do what you love. I have a friend who works for Ben & Jerry's. He creates new flavors and he gets paid to travel around the country and eat dessert. I swear this is true. He goes to the best restaurants and eats desserts. That's his job.

This column will be a continuation of my weekly radio show - The Sunday Coffeehouse in print. We'll talk about music and have some guests and who knows what else.

The only thing we won't have is my dog Cayce barking. Right now she is lying on the couch on her back with all paws in the air and she's snoring - loudly. I am listening to Bach, watching the snow fall, and wondering how to write a column. I've already deleted about six paragraphs just to get to this point.

I'm finding out right now that I like radio a whole lot better than writing. It's a lot easier to be spontaneous when you don't see your thoughts showing up in words in front of you.

We have a guest with us here in our first column. Many people have asked me over the last year how Diane Zeigler is doing. I'd tell them what I knew from my times of running into her at the supermarket or stationery store.

She looks great, her baby Nell is gorgeous and she seems really happy. It was nice to sit down and get the extended version. We met at her house in Montpelier while Nell was napping. Diane had just woken from a nap. I ate tofu and vegetables and tried not to drop it all over her carpet while we talked. For those of you not familiar with Diane, or Zig as she is affectionately known, she is our local girl who went off to make it in the big city and did. She was signed to every folkie's dream label - Rounder Records. She made a CD titled Sting Of The Honeybee, had a manager, was touring the country playing in the best clubs to sold out crowds until she got pregnant and for now her music career is on hold. Her daughter Nell was born on Mother's Day in 1996 and now Zig is pregnant again and due in May.

Val: How's your life? How does it feel to be on indefinite leave from music?

Zig: It feels really good and it's very hard to explain to people. It's hard to get people to understand why I would want to leave music or maybe not in such definitive terms, take an indefinite break. The premise of my reason was having a child. But it wasn't all about that.

Val: So what was it, were you unhappy?

Zig: Yeah, absolutely. I think there's a lot about the music business that is so glorified, especially the folk business. It is a hard life and there's a small percentage of people who make enough money in order to make it more comfortable and I think having continued on the path I could've maybe gotten there.

Val: You were definitely headed in that direction.

Zig: It's pathetic how little support I gave my record. I put out that record and I got pregnant immediately and fell off the planet. I didn't do any promotion.

Val: So it sounds like in a way you were relieved to get pregnant and not have to be out there.

Zig: It's funny because of the timing of it. I think people that knew me well knew I was really conflicted about whether or not I was permanently cut out for this business. I'm not saying that I don't think I have the talent, or the songwriting ability, or all those things that you need to have in order to do it, but I'm also aware of how much work it takes to be really good at what you do.

Val: What kind of work?

Zig: In order to be a successful person in folk music you have to have the intellectual ability to write an excellent song. You have to have the emotional stamina to be able to be honest enough and connect enough with your heart so that you can write an honest song, which is exhausting. You also have to be a brilliant and colorful performer which involves having a creative sense of humor on the spur of the moment which is a wonderful way to live but as a performer when you're not on stage, for me anyway, it became a source of tension. This is probably the biggest reason of why I started to grow tired of performing. This is the biggest reason people don't understand. I think most people that know me and have seen my show think that I come across as being very comfortable on stage.

Val: You make it look effortless.

Zig: Right, exactly, and I am enjoying myself. It's not an act. But if you only knew the stress that was involved in getting me to that point. Every time I would finish a show, my attitude would be, "Now I've got to top that." My attitude was always, "You're only as good as your last gig."

Val: You could never just rest in what you'd done?

Zig: No way. No resting at all for me. I used a lot of humor on the stage and I always wanted to keep it fresh. I never wanted to repeat jokes. I would get stressed out about people coming to see the same show. I would hate that and it was just ridiculous. If you talk to anybody who performs out there, Dar (Williams) or Richard (Shindell), or any of these people that are doing two shows a night, they're repeating their schtick. They're humans.

Val: But you were very spontaneous on the stage.

Zig: It's because I felt like I didn't want to be a hack and I felt like if I repeated myself I'd be a hack. It became a really big source of tension for me. I would only enjoy music when I was actually on stage doing it. Then I could actually separate myself from all that other bullshit. If I had a big gig coming up I couldn't eat for days before-hand. I was just so stressed out about it. I know that the biggest part of why I felt that way was because I felt like I had to be funny and I had to be this stand up comic. I did end up pulling that off to a degree but there was a part of me that just wanted to get up and sing and not have to do everything else that you have to do so well to be good in this business.

I sat there at a point where I felt that things could improve in the music business. My life could become better but I'm also aware that in order to get to that point I'd really have to hunker down. I'd have to really go on tour. I had a record company behind me, I had a manager, I had people working for me. I started to feel like I wasn't in control of my own life anymore. We could talk about this for hours, about it being my baggage, or fear of success. I think that's a really simplistic way of analyzing it. I would be lying if I said there isn't some dynamic like that going on, there has to be, absolutely. I'm willing to admit that, but it's much more complex than that. I really wanted to have a child.

I think if I wanted it bad enough I would hunker down and do it. I definitely could have overcome my demons. I could have overcome my doubts about my ability to maintain a fresh show and enjoy doing the same thing night after night and all of that. I know I could have overcome all of that, because I have already to get to here. I can't tell you the mountains I've had to climb. The question is, "How much do you want it?" I felt like I was looking out at the rest of my life and saying, "What do you want your life to be like? What kind of mother do you want to be? What kind of family life do you want to create?" When I try to explain this to people you can almost see the disappointment in their faces.

Val: It's just, I don't want to say sad, it's not really sad because you're happy, but you came into people's lives and people were rooting for you and loved you and were like, "Let's go Zig!" and then you just sort of went, "All right, I've had enough." We miss you. I feel like I can speak not just as the interviewer or the radio host but as one of your fans. I miss seeing you play and hearing new songs. That's who you were or that's who we knew, but absolutely your personal fulfillment has to come first, but maybe you don't really understand the impact you've had on people's lives.

Zig: I think that's definitely true. Just yesterday I got a fan letter in the mail. This lady was saying how moved she was by my CD and how every song hit her in a different way. Whenever I get one of these I just say, "Wow." I'm stunned when I see that people are that moved by it. It's wonderful, it's great, especially now that I'm not out there. I'm a conflicted person about this. I definitely like to hear that people remember me. It's nice to hear that people are moved by what I did. I am by no means sitting here saying, "I'm never going out there again. I can't imagine that. My whole adult life has been framed by music. From the minute I turned eighteen just about, I was out there. It's really hard for me to imagine myself never performing again. I'm still writing.

Val: So the songs are still coming?

Zig: Absolutely. Now I'm at a point where just the practicality of trying to do music and having a child makes it incredibly difficult. There are ways around it if it's important enough to you. It just isn't to me. I feel like I've had so much satisfaction from having people give me positive reinforcement for what I do, applauding on the stage, etc. I don't feel hungry for that kind of attention at all. I just want privacy and a quiet life for awhile. And I've had it for a year and half now and I keep being surprised how it's not enough yet. I've thought to myself, "When am I going to start feeling the itch?" And I do feel it periodically. This spring I went through this weird two week period where I was like, "Oh my God, Oh my God, I'm not going to be in the studio again? Wait a minute."

I'm mostly writing music. I'm not writing a lot of lyrics. I write music very very easily. That's not stressful for me. Lyrics are harder. I have to get into that head. I have to get into that whole head. I've always written this way. I'm a very melodic person. Music comes really quickly.

Then I hone down the guitar part and make the guitar part interesting and then if those two things are in place, if I have a melody that's cool and a guitar part that's good, then and maybe then I will sit down and make myself write lyrics and that process can take anywhere from two hours to two years. For me to feel really satisfied with a song.

Val: Right, because you can't just write a casual song.

Zig: No, that's part of the problem. The gig has to be totally fresh and I have to be hilarious and....

Val: And you have to drag the song out from the depth of your soul.

Zig: Right and everyone has to think I'm great and if there's one person in the front row who's picking their nose while I'm singing, I'm devestated. Even though the whole place is buying all of my CD's and tapes.

Val: I understand how that goes with the radio show. A hundred people can call and say they love they love the show, then one person calls and tells me to shutup and not talk about my dreams or the show used to be better or whatever and I'm ready to quit. I heard Rosie O'Donnell talking about the same thing on her show that she has the same problem. If one person is unhappy with anything she's doing she gets obsessed with it.

Zig: Some people ask me why I'm so all or nothing about this. About why I either have to be out there doing it and going for it or I can't play at all. They say, "You won't even play at First Night in your local community." What that's about is I've done the local thing. I don't want to get any attention from the community that I live in and I'm a part of as a normal person if that's not what I'm projecting or trying to achieve. I know that sounds kind of arrogant like I don't want to share my music unless I'm going for it professionally but it's not that. It's just that being in front of people is too loaded right now. I've done it for too long. I can't just go and play once and enjoy that.

Val: I can see talking to you now what it a journey it must be as a performer to get to the place where you're comfortable. There are so many demons you have to fight before you can get to a place where you can just play and share your music because that's what's inside of you and lose all the other stuff.

Zig: It is. It's all in my hands though. Here I am telling you this story like I am so sure of what I am doing and I definitely am conflicted about it. A lot of times I sit here and think, "Will I ever be able to do this again?" I've kind of torn myself out of the music business and maybe I won't be able to go back. When I separate myself from the baggage, I realize it is all in my hands. It's all in my attitude. It would be curious to see now that I'm a mom and on the other side of that mountain of where I was when I was thinking what kind of life do I want. I feel like such a different person now. I don't need the affirmations and all of that stuff. Maybe I wouldn't have all the baggage now. Maybe I'd just get up there and be like, "You know what, this is what I've got. Take it or leave it, you can come or you can go."

Val: Right. Once you've given birth...

Zig: Exactly, things are a little more in perspective. I think now I'm just faced with the practicality of having a baby and having another one coming. The logistics now just make it impossible. In other words, there are a lot of reasons why I left that didn't have to do with children. But now that I'm here I don't see that I have a lot of choice. To be the kind of mother that I want to be. I want to raise my kids. I don't want to subject them to living on the road. I think Rounder just kind of understands I'm having babies right now. Your songs come from life experience. I'm at that point. I've done the heartsick period where you're trying to find your love and you're trying to find your place in the world and what you're here for. I've written about those things. They're somewhere in my songs. I think I'm at this point where I need to experience life before I'm ready to start crystallizing it again. I don't feel like I have anything important to say to people right now in the form of a song. I feel like I really just need a rest and then another crop will come out.

Val: Do you ever have a morning when you're changing diapers and you think of the other life - the lights, the applause, the accolades?

Zig: Of course. I tell Nell, "You should not talk to me that way because I used to be somebody. I know now I'm nobody for you but I used to be somebody and people think a lot of me - all right?"

The interview ended with lots of laughter and Nell yelling, "Beep Beep" into the tape recorder. Well for sure no one's life is easy and the choices, I think, are never as clear as we'd like them to be. Some very wise person (I can't remember who) once said, "An unexamined life is an unlived life." I hope that if I ever have to make life choices as big as the ones Zig has that I will make those choices with as much honesty, grace and humor as she has. ~GC~

Valerie Adams is the host of the long running and very popular radio program Sunday Coffeehouse . The show airs on The Point (WNCS 104.7 fm) from 9AM to 1PM every Sunday.