Joyce

Woodson
New-Old

Western Music

Interview

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Back to the Heartland
Singer is inspired by California's land and sky.
Interview by Mary Lou Aguirre, for the Fresno Bee on July 20, 2007 - California

Jesse James may or may not be responsible for singer Joyce Woodson's rebellious side. At least it's a family rumor that the legendary outlaw, whose middle name was Woodson, is a distant relative.

The connection, albeit slim was the reason Woodson traded a teaching career to pursue her love of songwriting and performing. At least that's what she told her parents more than 25 years ago.

The western singer will perform Saturday at Maverick's Coffee House in Visalia. She is promoting her new album, "If I Hadn't Seen the West" (Radish Records).

She admits that earning a bachelor of arts degree from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a teaching credential from the University of California at Irvine was done to please her parents.

"I taught fourth grade for six months in San Clemente," she says. "It took everything out of me. I knew I would have to drop doing music. If I didn't, I'd be cheating the children and giving them half as much effort."

Ultimately, Woodson chose music and moved to Santa Monica in 1979 after commuting for two years, and later to Nashville from 1996 to 2005. While in Santa Monica, Woodson got a job at McCabe's Guitar Shop, which specializes in folk instruments and is known for its concerts. The shop 's Web site lists past performers from Chet Atkins to Michael Nesmith to Kate Wolf.

"It was one of my favorite jobs in the world," Woodson says. I saw John Hartford, John Stewart, The Knitty Gritty Dirt Band and Steve Martin doing magic. Jackson Browne played there all the time."

The San Juan Capistrano native lived in Nashville for nine years, a move that gave her the chance to meet other songwriters. They would gather weekly and ask each other, "What have you written?" Woodson had been playing guitar and writing songs since she was a teenager.

"There were so many songwriters all working toward the same thing," Woodson says. "It was more of a camaraderie thing than cut-throat. You meet people who are at your level. You don't have access to famous people. They all live outside of Nashville."

She was able to meet singers who were a few steps further in their careers and who could offer career advice. Today, Woodson's strategy is to perform at western music festivals and coffeehouses to get people to hear her music. Her previous albums are "Landscapes" in 1993 and "Capistrano Girl" in 1996.

Years of listening to other singers at Nashville's Bluebird Cafe left an impression.

"I learned I needed to step up," She says. "You have to be honest about your songwriting. You can't cheat at it. You really have to sing from your soul."

She is a fan of singers Lucinda Williams, Diana Jones and Eliza Gilkyson. Woodon also admires the writing style of Merle Haggard.

"He was a big influence because he wrote about his own experiences here in the California heartland," she says.

Woodson returned to San Juan Capistrano from Nashville in 2005 because she missed the landscape. It is the subject matter for many of her songs.

"I was homesick for the West," she says. "I missed the high blue skies and the night sky with stars," she says.

Her songs about the land are what make her a western singer, not a country-western singer. Her lyrics are a reflection of growing up on a ranch; song titles include "Have You Ever Seen the San Joaquin?" "The Sprinklers of Salinas," "Casper, Wyoming" and "When the Swallows Come Back to Capistrano."

"I don't sing about relationships. That kind of bores me," Woodson says. "I sing about cowboys, the beauty of the land and the vanishing landscape of farmland."