Interview: Steve Gillette Musician, Songwriter, and Teacher

I heard Steve’s songs long before I met him in 1984. He’s a soft-spoken man who plays guitar and sings with the conviction of a tornado, while his melodies can charm the most discerning listener. Yes, an astounding entertainer. He and his equally talented musician life partner, Cindy Mangsen, have not traveled much since Covid joined us, but they’re not been biding their time either.

Crow: When did you first realize that you had the skills and moxie to be a

great songwriter/performer/teacher?   What did it give you that kept you

coming back? What other fields have you explored?

Steve: I imagine my answer would be the same as most of us who have some

affection for music and the arts in general. And maybe this has to do

with those around us giving the space and possibly the encouragement and

maybe even the example of the gift of the things that are always

described as culture. That may sound highfalutin’ as they say, but

simply the joy of a catchy tune or a pleasing rendering of color and

shape can be magical and nurturing.

The first memory I have of the transformative power of music is from the

first grade. Our school district had a music teacher who would visit all

the schools in turn and one day a week we would carry our chairs down to

the larger room that the kindergarteners had and Miss Patty would pass

out mimeographed sheets with song words. One of the songs was “Oh What a

Beautiful Morning” from Oklahoma. She taught us parts for a simple

arrangement, and it’s the first time I recognized what harmony meant. As

we began the song, I was looking down at my words and as the two harmony

parts diverged on the word ‘morning’ and I heard that amazing flat

seventh of the melody against my note which I believe was the fifth of

the chord. My paper got blurry as my eyes filled with tears.

My dad always played piano when he would come home from the office and

you could see the cares of the day falling from his shoulders as he

played his old stride-style standards; “Ain’t Misbehavin”, “Jada”,

“Dark-town Strutter’s Ball”. I bought a DAT recorder in 1990 and took it

to my dad’s house to capture him playing. I treasure that recording and

I used some of it on my concept album called “The Man”. I had some

other, wonderful musicians on the project as well, but my dad’s piano

stood in for one of the main characters I call ‘Old Jack’, a rough-handed character who

played his way up from the bawdy houses and speakeasys.

You can check it out for free at Abouttheman.com, my

WordPress site for the story and recording.

He encouraged all of us kids to play or sing along and brought home an

assortment of cheap instruments, so I had a ukulele when I was seven,

and then a four-string tenor guitar with which I learned to imitate the

songs on the radio, the Everly’s, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, even

Elvis.

But it was the Kingston Trio that connected with me at that

formative time in High School when I was searching for who I might be

musically. Dave Guard was my hero and I bought a five-string banjo and

with Pete Seeger’s banjo book, Dave and I grew into our banjo playing

together. It was the simple traditional folk tunes that gave me the

access with my limited skills and musical knowledge to start to join in

with a sense of purpose, of personal direction.

In college, I fell in with a lot of talented young people who expanded my musical world and it wasn’t long before I went from learning to play the songs that drew me

in, to experimenting with my own ideas and writing my first songs.

In high school I also had a great love of art which I attribute to my

art teacher Yoshio Nakamura. He was a gifted artist himself, he had

survived the Japanese internment camps of World War II and had gone on

to become a decorated soldier. He taught me how to make silk screens and

I started making posters and some art pieces with that process. I also

did a little bit of painting and later took up painting with a palette

knife. I love to look at paintings but I could see that it might take a

lifetime to grow into being a real painter, music has always been my

chosen mode of expression.

As far as giving advice, I’m afraid I would say what so many others have

said, follow your passion, your bliss. Stay with it. Have good reasons

for giving it your best besides wealth and fame. The wealth and fame

might easily accompany good work, but they can present some

difficulties. Not that I’ve landed that high in the wealth and fame

ladder, but the toxic effect can be an issue at any level. Maybe the

word I’m looking for is professionalism. Making sure that you are

honoring the listener and bringing some genuine light to the work. Easy

to say and hard to do, but I think just devoting time to the process and

having patience will bring reward.

Crow: As a writer of books, songs, and a blog…what are the biggest

challenges for you? Do each fulfill a different need?

Steve: It’s good to be willing to do anything that might help things along,

even when you might not have the skills for new things. For me the

biggest challenge is to learn new things, or maybe I should say, to

finally really learn what I should have learned a long time ago. The

teaching I do with songwriters is mostly about listening appreciatively

and offering encouragement. Then I try to suggest what would be the best

use of another hour or so to improve the song. Maybe it’s a matter of

better rhymes, sorting out the structure of the song so as to build the

meaning, maybe thinking about more of a difference in the verse and

chorus melodies, maybe even considering creating a bridge, that sort of

thing.

But so often I realize the limitations of my own musical knowledge when

I encounter a discussion of drop-two voicing of Gospel changes, or

Lydian soloing over a dominant seventh, out of my depth, always more to

learn. In addition to my teaching at Kerrville, Cindy and I did a few

songwriting workshops around the country, but when the pandemic shut us

down, I picked up the slack by creating a songwriter blog at

Aboutthesong.com  For that I have taken on some of the more challenging

technical issues like the Circle of Fifths and the creative process as

well as a lot of articles about our own songs and how they came to be

and what has happened with them. I hope some of your readers will find

it helpful. It’s meant making videos for a lot of the songs and that has

a learning curve of its own. But it’s fun.

Crow: Is your most recent song always your favorite?  If not how do you

judge your own work spanning decades?

Steve: Isn’t it nice when out of the blue you hear an early song of your own by

accident and you like it even before you recognize what it is? Sometimes

we forget how much went into the early things, and yet, we do like to

think that we’ve learned something since then. And sometimes I’ll hear

an earlier recording and bristle at the affectation that I’ve long since

abandoned. Who was I trying to be, Waylon Jennings? I think that’s the

most irksome thing, to hear some of those recordings when I was trying

to pitch songs to some of the country artists and was taking on a fake

twang that makes my skin crawl today.

As a California kid, I won’t ever sound like Garth or even Don Williams,

so it’s better to sing the song the way it’s most meaningful to me and

hope that people will hear it. A lot of those recordings were made as

demos, and much of the recording I do today is an attempt to get others

to sing the songs, but I’ve given up insulting them with the fake voice.

Like so many, I started out believing that I had to find that ‘magic

man’ who would open doors for me. I have to say that I did benefit from

the help of a lot of good people who did open doors for me, but I like

to say that really, you have to be your own magic man. (or woman, of

course) People will help along the way, but you have to bring the work

along at least to the point where they can see its potential.

The other side of that equation is that there may come a time when you

are free to do things your own way for your own reasons, and you do. Of

course this may come by default as you ‘outgrow’ the biz. (the clever

reader will sense the irony of this age reference)

In November I’ll begin my ninth decade on earth, and it took me a long time to realize

that I could do the kind of writing I always wanted to do. I have known

so many, some of them very successful performers who would say that they

were only doing what they were doing until they could do what they

really wanted to do. It’s important to recognize that you can do that

now, as long as you are not deferring to some magic man or corporate

gate-keepers or other illusions. There’s more about all that at

Aboutthesong.com

I was fortunate as a kid to be able to learn to ski and water ski and go

to camp and join the Boy Scouts and lots of other middle-class pursuits.

The skiing has given way to snow shoes and camping has given way to a

bed and breakfast in Maine, but we’ve had a lot of wonderful adventures

in our travels and now that things seem to be opening up we hope to

continue to walk on beaches and be with people.

For many years I worked in Los Angeles on the margins of the music

industry. I sang on demos, wrote commercials and did some limited

session work on guitar, but the brass ring was always a little out of

reach. I missed the days a few years before when my first Vanguard album

had come out and I was able to travel the country and play for the folk

music venues in small towns and on college campuses. When I had a minor

hit recording of one of my songs it bumped me up into a participation in

the music business and publishing industry, but took away that personal

contact with the folk world.

Crow: And when did you find Kerrville Music Festival?

Steve: My first Kerrville was 1984 when Rod Kennedy invited me to teach the

songwriting school and be one of the judges for New Folk in addition to

my Saturday night performance. When I got to the festival I was glad to

see many of the performers I had known from the folk circuit, Bill

Staines, Carolyn Hester, Happy and Artie Traum, Gamble Rogers, Jerry

Jeff Walker and many others who were still traveling and playing for

those audiences. It encouraged me to get back on the road. I’ve been to

the festival just about every year since, except for last year. It’s

been a life-changing experience for me as so many others will say, and I

hope the festival continues to thrive well beyond this year’s fiftieth

anniversary.

Crow: Thanks so much for your thoughtful responses. I should have known that your answers would be from the well. I encourage everyone reading this to visit Steve’s blog www.aboutthesong.com and read his book on songwriting!