Q&A by Brad Balfour
Both a musical odyssey and a deeply personal love story between two musicians, Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams’ It Was The Music is a search for what they call “music utopia.” When this romantic and musical duo step off the tour bus and into the limelight they make the idea of Valentine’s Day all their own.
Award-winning multi-instrumentalist, producer, singer-songwriter, and bandleader Campbell has been hailed for his defining work with such artists as Levon Helm, Bob Dylan, The Black Crowes and many more. Known for her resonant alto and passion for rootsy music,” Williams is an exceptional singer/actor known for her roles as Sara Carter in Keep On The Sunny Side and the title role in Always… Patsy Cline as well as her serving as a backing vocalist for Emmylou Harris, Jackson Browne, Phil Lesh and Friends and Peter Wolf, to name but a few.
Having set forth on their own joint musical career, It Was The Music shows the couple packing their bags, guitars, amps, and 30-year marriage into their SUV and setting out across America to sing their own extraordinary songs along with riveting interpretations of beloved gospel, blues, country, and classic rock ‘n’ roll.
Director Mark Moskowitz follows Campbell and Williams over 15 months on the road, from its starting point on a Friday afternoon on Williams’ seventh generation farm in Peckerwood Point, TN, to Campbell’s native New York City and the couple’s home in Woodstock, NY, to recording studios, clubs, and theatres across the country. Highlights include live performances at intimate venues and jam-packed music festivals, culminating in its grand finale with selections from the star-studded “The Last Waltz 40th Anniversary Celebration” presented by Lincoln Center at NYC’s Damrosch Park.
The series premiered on Sunday, December 13th on FANS. New episodes debuted every Sunday through February 7th (excluding January 3, followed by two episodes available on January 10). Check out (https://fans.live).
Along with the couple’s own personal story, the film includes exclusive interviews and never-before-seen performances from Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, William Bell, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Phil Lesh, Jerry Douglas, Jerron “Blind Boy” Paxton, Garland Jeffreys, Happy Traum, David Bromberg, and many more. But through it all, this movie documents a love story, Campbell and Williams show how love can create the music and how the music can bring us together.
Says Moskowitz, “It Was The Music is about what music means to us. The way my film, Stone Reader, is about what books means to us, and my upcoming film, Art Stops Here, is about what art means to us. In the end, these films are about us, how people respond to the arts. Not quite documentary, not quite reality, not quite memoir, not quite even story, It Was The Music is referential, memory-like. It’s allusive. Things touch other things…much like a song.”
A stellar soundtrack collects previously unreleased music from Campbell and Williams, including very new renditions of songs made famous by The Band, Grateful Dead, Little Feat, Buffalo Springfield, and more. They perform alongside such friends as Patty Griffin, Buddy Miller, Bill Payne, and the late Levon Helm’s world famous Midnight Ramble Band.
The full album soundtrack can be ordered now. the series is also available on Vimeo and Amazon. People can find out how to watch the series and get more info from: https://itwasthemusic.net Additional streaming venues will be announced on the website. For more info in general, visit www.larryandteresa.com
Q: How would your lives have been different had you not met — do you ever speculate on that or not?
LC: I’m of the belief, as naive as it may seem that there are people in this world who are destined to be together. When Teresa and I met it was after a long string of mistaken relationships that I’d put myself through and I was not at all interested in beginning another. I soon found out that this time I didn’t have a choice. We had a connection that I’d never experienced before and I knew I was supposed to spend the rest of my life with this person. Had we not met I probably would have wandered through the rest of my life with a much lower level of fulfillment and enrichment, personally and professionally.
TW: That question has crossed my mind fleetingly on occasion, but my brain never seems to want to countenance an answer. When we met neither of us was looking for a marriage partner consciously, but when we did meet, our marriage seemed simply imperative.
Q: In what ways do each of you make each other better creatively and personally?
TW: In some ways Larry can know me better than I know myself, and see what I need before I see it myself. Sometimes, he will hold that insight patiently until I come round to that knowledge on my own. This can be about creativity or it can be personal stuff.
He’s a very deep thinker. I contribute to him personally and creatively by nudging him (without saying it directly) to get out of his head and let the inner spirit drive the ship when it’s appropriate. When we were first married, it seemed he never succumbed to an emotion in an argument. I just thought that was plain weird and would stunt your growth. (Stoics out there forgive me here.) I grew up in a house where the storm clouds blew in, the thunder would crash and clear the air, and in the next 5 minutes the whole family would be in deep belly laughs. When Larry first engaged in an argument with me, I stopped being angry and just thought, “Yeah! Go!!” Ha. And I think that holds true musically too. Jump off the ledge emotionally — when you forget the technique and give in to the emotional flow, it’s heaven on earth. ‘Course the game is to have the technique and then be able to drop thinking about it at the edge of the stage so the subconscious or “spirit” can take over.
The answer to this question could go on and on….
LC: I’ve often called Teresa my muse, and until we met I wasn’t even sure what that word meant, but she is a true inspiration to me. Very often when I’m trying to write I think about her putting her soul into the performance of the song and it spurs me on. On a more practical level, I always run a song by her before I let it out into the world because I know she has a great nose for honesty and if something doesn’t smell right she has no problem letting me know. I may protest or push back but ultimately I trust that she’s probably seeing something that I’m missing.
Q:. How do you two work together, especially in making this series — is there a specific process or does it change with each night?
LC: As far as this series goes, there really was no process. We both quickly realized that in order to make the film that Mark Moskowitz wanted to make, our only real obligation was to be in the moment and react as we would react to any situation or performance the same way we would if the cameras weren’t rolling. There were moments when one or both of us would say “I wish I hadn’t said that” or “I hope he doesn’t put that in the movie” but I think the final result was an honest depiction of who we are and what we do.
TW: The quandary I’m going to talk about here is addressed in the series in no uncertain terms. We work together very well indeed. That’s the easy part. As Larry says, we were both professionals before we met, and I fully believe the passion for the work is what made us professionals and what attracted us to each other to begin with. I have perpetually felt that I could be a much better musical partner if I didn’t have the practical issues of homemaking to contend with. I think I would be a better musical partner if I could give up all the material stuff — live in a dorm or hotel where someone else took care of all that, the way it was in college, so you could just focus full time on the work! I really enjoy homemaking, but I don’t like multi-tasking. You might get this answer from every woman trying to do both. Probably not the answer you were expecting.
Q: How different is your work in being at home and in a comfortable environment and being on the road?
TW: Though you miss the people, the one-on-one exchange with them during and after the live shows, the pandemic has given us the time I’ve known I desperately needed since we started our own never ending tour, to “refill the well.” Because we were beginning our duo project while we were still working with Levon, after his passing, there was no pause. We began touring on our own, supporting that first record, and then the second, with the film crew getting our “off” days more often than not. So there was no rest. No stopping to think, to just be, to find silence and quiet to be creative for new material. That’s how it felt to me. I would find myself drawing stick figures of a woman holding with one hand to the caboose of a train hurtling down the track full speed — the woman’s body, dress and hair flying back from the force, holding on for dear life! That’s how the last 5 years felt. We needed this reset, like the rest of the world. My creativity needed it!
LC: Being on the road is difficult under the best circumstances. It’s a different hotel every night, erratic sleep schedule and constant upheaval, but it allows you to put yourself in front of a crowd of people who you’ve never met, hopefully express yourself in an artistic and emotional way and make a connection with a crowd of strangers, an incredibly uplifting experience. This year of Covid has allowed us to find out what it’s like to have some semblance of domestic balance and routine (though I’ve mostly been in Woodstock and Teresa in Tennessee where she’s needed to help her parents) and sleep in the same bed every night. I’ve been able to work producing or recording remotely with quite a few people but it’s just not the same as being in a room with a bunch of musicians and an audience.
Q: How different is the experience of recording the live experience and just recording within the studio?
LC: Recording live is always scary for me because though it may have an energy that you can’t recreate in the studio it is what it is and your ability to clean up the performance is limited. I’ much more at ease with the control of a studio environment but I have to be careful not to lose track of the value of a visceral performance.
TW: I like both experiences. Recording is like creating a tapestry, a poem, so that’s it’s own creative obsession. But there’s nothing like the live thing. That’s the only reason I got into this walk of life — the live thing. I like to have performed a song many times live before I record it (you don’t always get that luxury) so the song tells you what it wants to be.
Q: In light of the pandemic, how do you hope audiences will experience this series and what will be shared through it?
TW: So many things have happened in my life which have caused me to look up to the sky with complete wonder over the confluence of events, fate with extreme serendipity. Mark Moskowitz, the director, couldn’t have foreseen this project would find the correct distributor and come out during a pandemic. The themes addressed in the series are themes many are experiencing in this global reset: what really matters in life, how important our families are to us, how important art is to us and the healing properties it holds, how primal it is in helping us through our deepest hour of need, how music speaks to and through our pain.
LC: What we’ve been hearing from many comments is that people who thrive on live music are seeing this as an in depth journey into what motivates them to gather and have this communal experience just at the time when they’re really craving it.
Q: In doing this series of recordings under the gaze of the camera, did it change the two of you in some way individually and collectively?
LC: Honestly, I don’t think it has. As I said earlier, our job was to just be who we are and let Mark tell the story that he wanted to tell. I think for better or worse we’ll just continue down that road.
TW: I’m not aware of any change in us or our work because of being under the gaze of the camera. Cameras followed all of us around during the filming of Levon’s documentary “Ain’t In It For My Health” for years. Being “watched” is just part of this calling — revealing, sharing your insides is the gig. Maybe later some change will become apparent to me.
Q: What was shared/learned in working with director Mark Moskowitz, how was this like or different from your previous experiences in recording and working with other kinds of visual directors (like music video directors)?
TW: First, I’ll say one of the best things about doing this film series with Mark and his partner Colleen Atchley was the resulting friendship. (Also the friendship with the executive producer Steve Riggio and his wife, Laura.) Discussing books, art, music has just been a joy! The passion that they brought to these subjects is what made us know it was okay to go down this road with someone we just met at the signing table after a show at the Ardmore in PA. About 2/3 of the way into making the series, after we’d discussed passionately some aspect of the film, Mark, said to me later over lunch, “You know, you’re right: this film is about my record collection.” He had the thread of trying to tease out what that ephemeral spark is between the listener, audience and the musician, artist. But he also is a person, who once the series was completed, could say of himself, “You know what you thinkthe project is about until it showsyou what it’s reallyabout.” I love that!
LC: This was a totally new and unique experience for us. Mark approached us with a vision. He explained it in general terms and we were intrigued but none of us really knew exactly what it would turn out to be. We soon found him to be honest, passionate and trustworthy. We felt like we were in good hands and he gave us the confidence to just do what we do and not think too much about it and though in the moment I couldn’t really conceive of how that would be interesting to anybody I think the final product is a compelling and heartfelt story.
Q: If you had one song/album/ band to recommend what one would you two pick together and individually (3 songs)?
LC: This answer would change daily but for now I’d say you have to hear “Mr. Fool” by George Jones. I’ll talk to Teresa and see if we can’t agree on one together.
TW: For us together maybe “Your Long Journey”, by Rosalee and Doc Watson, which we’ve performed for years, probably first at Larry’s dad’s memorial service.
Larry’s band would decidedly be the Beatles, and of course they influenced all of us from that era. Hank Williams is my father’s favorite and I got a good dose of that at his knee growing up. You can’t beat that absolute pain and honesty delivered with deceptive simplicity. As Hank would tell his band when they ventured off into jazz riffs, “Keep it vanilla, boys, keep it vanilla.” “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” — but only by Hank Williams, Sr.
And I’ll throw in Lynryd Skynyrd, Pronounced —“Simple Man” — Hey, it’s always what hit you hard in high school!