Interview: Sunny Crownover
A: This new release had originally been intended to be an entire collection of songs, about 10 or 11, intended as a follow-up to our critically-acclaimed Tales from the Tiki Lounge CD (Blue Duchess Records, 2009). That was our first joint release (billed as “Duke Robillard and Sunny Crownover” vs. another group name), and truly was a labor of love. That effort began as a tribute to Les Paul and Mary Ford, but morphed into something even more, including South American and Latin vintage tunes like “Sway” and “Kiss of Fire.” While we never toured to promote it, and only performed songs from it on a few dates after it was released, it continues to sell to this day (although it is nearly out of print), and has achieved something of a cult following. We always intended to revisit the Tiki Lounge, in part because fans kept asking for it, and also because we love the genre of lounge/exotica/Americana so much that we had a lot of other songs in mind we couldn’t fit on the first project.
Somewhere around 2013, we embarked on the follow-up project and gave it a working title of Lava Vamp, which we cut tracks for as our schedules permitted (particularly Duke’s). We ended up partially completing about 8 or so of the songs we chose for it by early 2015, with the two on this current release that had already been completed and mastered. However, because the project didn’t fit neatly into either the blues or jazz genres, we had a hard time getting all of the funding we needed to complete it in a timely manner. Unfortunately, at around that same time, Duke became unable to play guitar due to a rotator cuff injury (which, it turned out, had been plaguing him for years without him realizing the severity of it). For those reasons, we decided to put the project on the back burner for a while. Duke has since undergone a successful surgery, and is currently in physical therapy, while he is hopefully on the way to making a full recovery. At any rate, we thought, hey – we have these two ready to go! Why not release them independently? And so, I founded Meadow Time Records, and our little EP was born.
Q: How would you say you have evolved as an artist since your album, Right Here Right Now?
A: Like most artists, I hope that I am constantly evolving through pushing myself to continue learning and growing, trying new things. I’m never satisfied with standing still artistically. Stretching outside my comfort zone is what I thrive on! Pretty much everything prior to Right Here Right Now that I have recorded with Duke has been a process of evolution, crossing styles, genres, and eras. All of it has been challenging, in part because it should be, but also because it’s all so different! With the prior releases, much of it being either swing, jump blues, or jazz, my vocal delivery was aimed at fitting in with the style of the era those songs originated from. With Right Here Right Now, we actually returned to my roots in contemporary blues, R&B, and Americana which is what I first became known for in Texas. A bit more of a rocking feel to that release. Before that and after that, I’d say, I’ve worked to have people recognize me as an artist whose voice isn’t just one note, or one style; rather, as someone who can sing a wide range of music from jazz to blues, to roots/Americana, and even folk/country. Like Duke, I don’t like to be pegged as any one particular kind of musician. So, hopefully, you’ll hear a shift back to the more vintage sound on this new release than you heard on Right Here Right Now, which should demonstrate that flexibility.
Q: When did you decide to become a musician?
A: In truth, I fell in love with music as a little girl. My first performance was in 2nd grade, for show and tell, where I sang harmony in a duet of “Que Sera Sera.” I knew from a very early age I wanted to perform music. It wasn’t until I was probably age 8 or so that I began to want to play guitar and accompany myself, which was around the same time my older brother Scott picked up and taught himself the guitar. I was pretty determined to become a musician from around that time (so much so, that I would get caught sneaking into his room trying to play his guitar until he finally agreed to teach me a few chords). I just had the bug.
Q: What attracted you to blues and jazz, and when did that fascination start?
A: With jazz, I think it started with me watching classic old Hollywood movies – my sister Jennifer adores them – so many of the stars like Rita Hayworth, Fred Astaire, etc., where much of the music was jazz, or popular music from that era. Louis Armstrong, Bing Crosby, the list goes on – I was fascinated. It also was when I decided to become a dancer, taking every class I could get my hands on, but that’s another story. With blues, I think it began when I moved to Texas in 1973 or so. I was listening to a lot of popular music, but at that time, radio stations did something new. They allowed DJs the ability to cross boundaries with the not only genres, but song lengths they would be allowed to play in a given show. So, late at night, I would hear Led Zeppelin, followed by maybe B.B. King and Willie Nelson, and even Z. Z. Top, all of who were playing blues (sometimes disguised as rock) to young American audiences whose tastes might have otherwise been limited to the pop music of the day. Being from California, moving to Texas greatly expanded my horizons. Around that time, I fell in with some guitar players who introduced me to a lot of other blues music, and I was hooked. I began playing with a couple of guys and formed a trio doing both blues and some folk and some rock, and we’d go into Ft. Worth on Sundays and play for free in neighborhoods my parents would have not approved of. I had learned a John Prine tune called “Angel From Montgomery,” which I had been singing pretty regularly with Dave Merrill in Arlington, TX’s J. Gilligan’s for tips. After a show one night, someone came up to me and told me I sounded like Bonnie Raitt. I didn’t know who she was at the time – true story – so I didn’t know what that meant. I immediately went and bought her music, and you could have knocked me over with a feather! While I didn’t really think we sounded that much alike, I considered that the biggest compliment anyone had ever paid me at the time. She became a huge influence on me after that and remains so to this day. When we performed at the Blues Music Awards in 2010, she was sitting in about the third row. I had watched her be inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame the night before. To think that Bonnie Raitt saw me perform absolutely blows my mind.
Q: The blues scene seems to be dominated by men. Has it been a challenge for you to infiltrate a boys’ club?
A: There are so many women who have contributed to blues in a major way, historically speaking, that I wouldn’t say that is entirely true. For me, in Texas at the time, in some ways it was at first, yes, definitely – especially once I moved to Austin. However, I was very fortunate (given that I didn’t know anyone when I moved there), to have been introduced to a lot of great guitar players. They were top notch musicians in the blues, jazz, and R&B scene at the time, around 1993 or so. All of them liked me (I was just kind of one of the guys), and liked my voice, but it was truthfully a “no girls allowed” mind set when it came to electric blues, at least for me, at first. Some of that had to do with my voice not being as gritty or gravelly as was popular in comparison to mine. I began getting more offers to work with people during the acoustic shows rather than electric shows, which of course I was grateful for, and really enjoyed. People like Van Willks, Dave Sebree, and Tommy Elskes were wonderful to work with, and introduced me to the greater Austin music scene. Great guys and wonderful musicians that I consider friends to this day. I did eventually branch out and sit in with wider varieties of bands before leaving Austin. Eventually I ended up with a 12-piece jazz and R&B ensemble called Blue Millennium where I branched out style wise, and got to belt out blues and jazz with gusto. Today, I think that is really different. There are so many strong, talented women in blues today finally getting the recognition that they deserve.
Q: Was Right Here Right Now your first effort? How would you describe the process of making it?
A: That was my debut solo CD, but not my first recording with Duke, or the Duke Robillard Band. I first began collaborating with Duke Robillard when he and I met at a blues symposium at the Harvard Extension school in 2008, where we were both performers. The process of making the album was entirely different than anything else I had done prior (or since), in part because Duke actually went to Nashvillle and co-wrote six of the songs (with legendary songwriter Gary Nicholson), specifically for me. So, some of the songs are really personal to me. It was also different, in that being Executive Producer, I got to be in complete control of which songs ultimately made the cut from all the ones we had to select from. Another thing that distinguishes the process on this effort is that it was the first time that Duke reached out to social media to solicit songs. He was flooded with material, so we had to weed through a lot to come up with a short enough list to pick from to round out the tunes he wrote with Gary. We ended up recording music from a lot of local songwriters, and some from as far away as Texas. Because it was over a year in the making, that also made it quite different, in that most of the work I’ve done with Duke has gone from conception to completion quickly, in sometimes only a couple of months! You gotta be ready to roll when Duke says go, and I’m always game for the challenge.