On Her Own Terms
Blues singer Tracy Nelson x’67 finds a home outside the music industry in the hills of Middle Tennessee.
By David McKay Wilson
By David McKay Wilson
In the late 1960s, when the counterculture and psychedelic rock flourished in San Francisco, Madison transplants Tracy Nelson and Steve Miller fell in love.
Nelson x’67, a blues singer, and Miller x’67, a rock guitarist, had both been a part of Madison’s vibrant music scene, and they naturally gravitated toward each other when they ended up on the West Coast in the Age of Aquarius.
But though their music caught the attention of concert promoters and recording industry moguls, their romance disintegrated after six months, Nelson says, when Miller suggested she focus on supporting his band instead of striking off on her own. The good-looking Miller was also a bit too popular with the Bay Area gals, she says.
“He offered to have me sit in with his band, but that didn’t work,” she recalls one fall afternoon at her home in Burns, Tennessee, about forty miles west of Nashville. “The men in San Francisco back then hated the idea of women in bands. They wanted the women to take care of them. I wanted my own blues band.”
Nelson x’67, a blues singer, and Miller x’67, a rock guitarist, had both been a part of Madison’s vibrant music scene, and they naturally gravitated toward each other when they ended up on the West Coast in the Age of Aquarius.
But though their music caught the attention of concert promoters and recording industry moguls, their romance disintegrated after six months, Nelson says, when Miller suggested she focus on supporting his band instead of striking off on her own. The good-looking Miller was also a bit too popular with the Bay Area gals, she says.
“He offered to have me sit in with his band, but that didn’t work,” she recalls one fall afternoon at her home in Burns, Tennessee, about forty miles west of Nashville. “The men in San Francisco back then hated the idea of women in bands. They wanted the women to take care of them. I wanted my own blues band.”
She got her band. She called it Mother Earth, taken from a tune written by blues legend Memphis Slim. (She performed the song at his funeral many years later.) Mother Earth recorded several albums, toured extensively, and launched a solo career for Nelson that has spawned two dozen albums. And Nelson made those recordings outside the popular music mainstream, refusing to bend to the wishes of industry moguls who wanted her to sing the songs they wanted her to sing, the way they wanted her to sing them.
“I love the music,” says Nelson, who is working on a novel about the recording industry. “But I hate everything about the music business.”
Her breakup with Miller turned out to be one of the defining moments in her career. While at her uncle’s home in Walnut Creek, California, one afternoon in 1968, she wrote the lyrics to her first song. She called it “Down So Low,” and it told the story of a heartbroken woman who was trying to pretend that she was only distraught because she couldn’t find a man to replace the guy who left her so all alone.
The words to what would become Nelson’s signature song spilled out in half an hour. She later wrote the melody, with two time changes and three key changes. She recorded it on her first album, Living with the Animals, and three more times, including for her 2003 album, Live from Cell Block D, recorded at the West Tennessee Detention Center.
“I love the music,” says Nelson, who is working on a novel about the recording industry. “But I hate everything about the music business.”
Her breakup with Miller turned out to be one of the defining moments in her career. While at her uncle’s home in Walnut Creek, California, one afternoon in 1968, she wrote the lyrics to her first song. She called it “Down So Low,” and it told the story of a heartbroken woman who was trying to pretend that she was only distraught because she couldn’t find a man to replace the guy who left her so all alone.
The words to what would become Nelson’s signature song spilled out in half an hour. She later wrote the melody, with two time changes and three key changes. She recorded it on her first album, Living with the Animals, and three more times, including for her 2003 album, Live from Cell Block D, recorded at the West Tennessee Detention Center.
“At first, I didn’t think it was very good,” she says. “It took me a long time before I would play it. I was embarrassed because it was so personal.” The lyrics begin: “The pain you left behind has become part of me, and it’s burned out a hole where my love used to be. But it’s not losing you that’s got me down so low — I just can’t find another man to take your place.”
Today, Nelson regularly belts out “Down So Low” when she’s out on the road, singing at blues festivals, benefit concerts, and intimate clubs. She got over Steve Miller long ago, but the product of her late ’60s anguish has paid many bills.
“That song literally bought the farm,” she says.
In 1976, Linda Ronstadt recorded a cover version of it, providing Nelson with a royalty check big enough to buy a $14,700, eighty-acre Tennessee spread with a log cabin, where she settled and developed her career without the pressures of stardom.
Nelson no longer lives there. These days, she has settled in with her longtime beau and record producer, Mike Dysinger, on his family farm on eight acres in nearby Burns. There, Nelson and Dysinger share the 1910 farmhouse with four dogs, four cats, and, until recently, a pigeon called Miss Penny that roosted in the towering maple by the vegetable gardens that Nelson tends.
Nelson sings the same way that she’s lived her life — on her own terms. She’s a natural talent who never studied voice. While some singers spend hours a week practicing, she doesn’t, because it would make singing seem too much like work. When Nelson records, she usually does so without a rehearsal. She learns the lyrics, picks a key, and meets the musicians in the studio, where they then make music to be recorded for posterity.
Today, Nelson regularly belts out “Down So Low” when she’s out on the road, singing at blues festivals, benefit concerts, and intimate clubs. She got over Steve Miller long ago, but the product of her late ’60s anguish has paid many bills.
“That song literally bought the farm,” she says.
In 1976, Linda Ronstadt recorded a cover version of it, providing Nelson with a royalty check big enough to buy a $14,700, eighty-acre Tennessee spread with a log cabin, where she settled and developed her career without the pressures of stardom.
Nelson no longer lives there. These days, she has settled in with her longtime beau and record producer, Mike Dysinger, on his family farm on eight acres in nearby Burns. There, Nelson and Dysinger share the 1910 farmhouse with four dogs, four cats, and, until recently, a pigeon called Miss Penny that roosted in the towering maple by the vegetable gardens that Nelson tends.
Nelson sings the same way that she’s lived her life — on her own terms. She’s a natural talent who never studied voice. While some singers spend hours a week practicing, she doesn’t, because it would make singing seem too much like work. When Nelson records, she usually does so without a rehearsal. She learns the lyrics, picks a key, and meets the musicians in the studio, where they then make music to be recorded for posterity.
“It’s spontaneous — that’s how you get the best stuff,” she says. “It’s like you are playing live. I think that if you do more than two takes, you are beating the song to death.”
Nelson’s digs in rural Tennessee provide a comfortable setting for the sixty-two-year-old singer recently dubbed “the queen of Americana music” by a Sacramento Bee critic. That’s the broad genre that includes folk, blues, gospel, and country music. Nelson, who is most well known on the blues circuit, likes to call it “roots music.”
It was American roots music that Nelson learned in her family’s living room in Madison’s Shorewood Hills. Her father, Donald, a jeweler, sang bass while her older brother, Timothy ’65, JD’67, sang tenor. Her mother, a soprano, accompanied them on piano, and Tracy played the autoharp and sang traditional tunes such as “Beautiful, Beautiful Brown Eyes.”
“I love singing harmony,” says Nelson. “In my family, that’s what we did.”
As a teen, Nelson respected her parents’ insistence upon church attendance by joining the choir at Grace Episcopal, where the music director led the singers in challenging works by such composers as Francis Poulenc and Gabriel Fauré. By the time she entered the University of Wisconsin in 1963, she was teaching guitar to Madison youths, playing folk songs at hootenannies, and getting paid to play gigs at the Avant Garde Coffeehouse in Milwaukee.
Nelson’s digs in rural Tennessee provide a comfortable setting for the sixty-two-year-old singer recently dubbed “the queen of Americana music” by a Sacramento Bee critic. That’s the broad genre that includes folk, blues, gospel, and country music. Nelson, who is most well known on the blues circuit, likes to call it “roots music.”
It was American roots music that Nelson learned in her family’s living room in Madison’s Shorewood Hills. Her father, Donald, a jeweler, sang bass while her older brother, Timothy ’65, JD’67, sang tenor. Her mother, a soprano, accompanied them on piano, and Tracy played the autoharp and sang traditional tunes such as “Beautiful, Beautiful Brown Eyes.”
“I love singing harmony,” says Nelson. “In my family, that’s what we did.”
As a teen, Nelson respected her parents’ insistence upon church attendance by joining the choir at Grace Episcopal, where the music director led the singers in challenging works by such composers as Francis Poulenc and Gabriel Fauré. By the time she entered the University of Wisconsin in 1963, she was teaching guitar to Madison youths, playing folk songs at hootenannies, and getting paid to play gigs at the Avant Garde Coffeehouse in Milwaukee.
It was also a time of great political ferment in Madison. Nelson got involved with left-leaning organizations such as the Students for a Democratic Society and the W.E.B. DuBois Club. She recalls one protest against draft deferments at which the demonstrators argued that it was unfair for students to avoid military service simply because they had the money to attend college.
“There’s a great picture of me in The Capital Times, with my guitar, leading the students who were singing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ ” she recalls.
Nelson arrived at the Madison cam pus intending to study social work, but music was her true calling. The Madison music scene was really happening, with future rock stars Miller and Boz Scaggs x’67 and jazz pianist Ben Sidran ’66 learning the licks that would lay the foundation for careers that continue to this day. Nelson played the raucous fraternity circuit with the Fabulous Imitations, a rhythm and blues band led by Sidran that featured two keyboards, a full horn section, and three singers.
With all that musical firepower, there was no need for Nelson to play the guitar, so she stood in front of that wall of sound and belted out hits popularized by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Otis Redding.
“Tracy is a great natural singer,” says Sidran, a Madison resident who played with Nelson at the opening of the city’s Overture Hall in 2004. “For Tracy, it’s not about pyrotechnics or theatrics; it’s about the song and her voice. She stands flat-footed and delivers.”
“There’s a great picture of me in The Capital Times, with my guitar, leading the students who were singing ‘We Shall Overcome,’ ” she recalls.
Nelson arrived at the Madison cam pus intending to study social work, but music was her true calling. The Madison music scene was really happening, with future rock stars Miller and Boz Scaggs x’67 and jazz pianist Ben Sidran ’66 learning the licks that would lay the foundation for careers that continue to this day. Nelson played the raucous fraternity circuit with the Fabulous Imitations, a rhythm and blues band led by Sidran that featured two keyboards, a full horn section, and three singers.
With all that musical firepower, there was no need for Nelson to play the guitar, so she stood in front of that wall of sound and belted out hits popularized by James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and Otis Redding.
“Tracy is a great natural singer,” says Sidran, a Madison resident who played with Nelson at the opening of the city’s Overture Hall in 2004. “For Tracy, it’s not about pyrotechnics or theatrics; it’s about the song and her voice. She stands flat-footed and delivers.”
When she wasn’t performing at frat parties, Nelson would drive three hours to Chicago to see then-boyfriend Charlie Musselwhite and immerse herself in the South Side’s vibrant blues community, catching shows by guitarists such as Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters. There, she recorded her first LP, Deep Are the Roots, which featured blues standards such as “House of the Rising Sun” and “Motherless Child.”
By the end of her sophomore year, Nelson found herself spending more time in Chicago than in her social-work classes. She’d also run afoul of university rules by staying out all night from her dorm. She was called before the J Board — a student-run disciplinary panel — that grounded her for two weekends. Nelson vowed never to serve out her sentence. She dropped out and headed west to San Francisco, which at the time was the epicenter for the 1960s counterculture and a thriving rock scene headlined by the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin.
Though she wasn’t crazy about the psychedelic rock that was so popular in the Bay Area, the band’s sound appealed to promoter Bill Graham, who booked Mother Earth regularly at the Fillmore. Stored in envelopes in Nelson’s living room are original posters announcing her shows — the Fillmore show with Eric Burdon and the Animals, a Wonderland gig headlined by Donovan, and the outdoor festival in Golden Gate Park with guitarist John Mayall.
With her strong voice and a hankering for the blues, Nelson struck industry insiders as the next Janis Joplin. Her brother, Tim, a labor lawyer and retired administrative law judge at the National Labor Relations Board who lives in the Bay Area, recalls how his sister bristled at the way some music producers wanted to mold her.
By the end of her sophomore year, Nelson found herself spending more time in Chicago than in her social-work classes. She’d also run afoul of university rules by staying out all night from her dorm. She was called before the J Board — a student-run disciplinary panel — that grounded her for two weekends. Nelson vowed never to serve out her sentence. She dropped out and headed west to San Francisco, which at the time was the epicenter for the 1960s counterculture and a thriving rock scene headlined by the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin.
Though she wasn’t crazy about the psychedelic rock that was so popular in the Bay Area, the band’s sound appealed to promoter Bill Graham, who booked Mother Earth regularly at the Fillmore. Stored in envelopes in Nelson’s living room are original posters announcing her shows — the Fillmore show with Eric Burdon and the Animals, a Wonderland gig headlined by Donovan, and the outdoor festival in Golden Gate Park with guitarist John Mayall.
With her strong voice and a hankering for the blues, Nelson struck industry insiders as the next Janis Joplin. Her brother, Tim, a labor lawyer and retired administrative law judge at the National Labor Relations Board who lives in the Bay Area, recalls how his sister bristled at the way some music producers wanted to mold her.
“Tracy was being typed as a psychedelic singer, and she didn’t like those comparisons,” he says. “She had to do it her way. No other way it was going to happen.”
It’s no surprise that Nelson quickly tired of the San Francisco scene of drugs, sex, and rock ’n’ roll.
“It had become unpleasant, with heroin and cocaine seeping into the scene,” she says. “San Francisco had lost its allure. I wasn’t a good flower child — I’d gone there to make a living. I knew it was a good place to get a record deal.”
In 1969 she took her band to Nashville to record the second Mother Earth album. They rented a farm in the country, and Nelson liked the area so much that she decided to stay. Yet Nashville was home to the nation’s country music industry, so it wasn’t the best place for Nelson to make her name in the blues scene. She didn’t much care. She liked living out in the woods, where on a full moon, you could hear coyotes howling down in the hollow. She felt connected to her grandfather, Vern, who homesteaded on the North Dakota plains in the early twentieth century.
“I’ve successfully avoided major stardom, and that’s absolutely okay with me,” she says. “I like to play. I like to sing and the sound of my own voice. The experience of playing with good musicians on stage is wonderful. But I don’t have the drive, and I don’t have any need whatsoever for huge numbers of people to validate me. If I’d had a big mortgage, I probably couldn’t have afforded to be in the music business.”
It’s no surprise that Nelson quickly tired of the San Francisco scene of drugs, sex, and rock ’n’ roll.
“It had become unpleasant, with heroin and cocaine seeping into the scene,” she says. “San Francisco had lost its allure. I wasn’t a good flower child — I’d gone there to make a living. I knew it was a good place to get a record deal.”
In 1969 she took her band to Nashville to record the second Mother Earth album. They rented a farm in the country, and Nelson liked the area so much that she decided to stay. Yet Nashville was home to the nation’s country music industry, so it wasn’t the best place for Nelson to make her name in the blues scene. She didn’t much care. She liked living out in the woods, where on a full moon, you could hear coyotes howling down in the hollow. She felt connected to her grandfather, Vern, who homesteaded on the North Dakota plains in the early twentieth century.
“I’ve successfully avoided major stardom, and that’s absolutely okay with me,” she says. “I like to play. I like to sing and the sound of my own voice. The experience of playing with good musicians on stage is wonderful. But I don’t have the drive, and I don’t have any need whatsoever for huge numbers of people to validate me. If I’d had a big mortgage, I probably couldn’t have afforded to be in the music business.”
Still, Nelson wouldn’t mind if a major automaker used her engaging tune, “Got a New Truck,” for a lucrative national television advertising campaign. The song aired once on the NPR show Car Talk, but she’s yet to find interest among ad agency executives.
“I’d love it if they used my song for a jingle,” she says. “But that’s very hard to do. It’s like breaking into show business — you have to be in the right place at the right time.”
Her talent, though, has brought her two Grammy nominations — in 1974 for a duet with Willie Nelson, and another in 1998 for her collaboration with her idol, singer Irma Thomas, and Marcia Ball. She didn’t record through the 1980s, but in the early 1990s, she signed with Rounder Records for several albums that brought her back into the spotlight.
Her far-flung coterie of fans, which includes novelist Scott Spencer ’69 of Rhinebeck, New York, has come to terms with Nelson’s decision to march to the beat of her own drum. Spencer remembers her as a quiet student around campus with a huge voice and a keen focus on becoming a professional musician.
“To me, the amazing thing is that she continues to make such wonderful records,” says Spencer, the author of Endless Love and several best-selling novels, who buys Nelson’s albums and comes to see her perform at the Towne Crier in Pawling, New York. “It used to be puzzling to me that Tracy didn’t attract the adulation that fans had for Janis Joplin, or even Bonnie Raitt, or Maria Muldaur. All those women came up through the blues tradition — and Tracy has the best voice, the largest range, and the most musical smarts. But she wasn’t interested in a big-time career.”
“I’d love it if they used my song for a jingle,” she says. “But that’s very hard to do. It’s like breaking into show business — you have to be in the right place at the right time.”
Her talent, though, has brought her two Grammy nominations — in 1974 for a duet with Willie Nelson, and another in 1998 for her collaboration with her idol, singer Irma Thomas, and Marcia Ball. She didn’t record through the 1980s, but in the early 1990s, she signed with Rounder Records for several albums that brought her back into the spotlight.
Her far-flung coterie of fans, which includes novelist Scott Spencer ’69 of Rhinebeck, New York, has come to terms with Nelson’s decision to march to the beat of her own drum. Spencer remembers her as a quiet student around campus with a huge voice and a keen focus on becoming a professional musician.
“To me, the amazing thing is that she continues to make such wonderful records,” says Spencer, the author of Endless Love and several best-selling novels, who buys Nelson’s albums and comes to see her perform at the Towne Crier in Pawling, New York. “It used to be puzzling to me that Tracy didn’t attract the adulation that fans had for Janis Joplin, or even Bonnie Raitt, or Maria Muldaur. All those women came up through the blues tradition — and Tracy has the best voice, the largest range, and the most musical smarts. But she wasn’t interested in a big-time career.”
While she never became a big star, she kept on singing and adapting with the times. She now sells her albums at TracyNelson.com, which features an account of her career, clips of her music, and an online forum, which Nelson occasionally joins. The site also sells a 1973 documentary, Tracy Nelson and Mother Earth, shot by Yale film student Michael Dee, which includes concert footage, and interviews with Nelson with her dogs and cats at her country log cabin.
Nelson’s last extended tours were the Chicago Blues Reunions in 2005 and 2006, with guitarists Harvey Mandel and Nick Gravenites. But she certainly hasn’t stopped performing and recording. In September, she traveled to Nova Scotia to sing at a benefit for a wildlife rehabilitation center. In October, she was recording at guitar legend Scotty Moore’s studio in Nashville, singing gospel tunes popularized by Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1930s.
In early November, Nelson hit the road again, traveling 650 miles east for a live performance on West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Mountain Stage radio show. Then it was 700 miles west to Wisconsin to visit her ninety-one-year-old mother, Faye, the former proprietor of Nelson’s Books and Stationery in Shorewood Hills, who still lives in Madison. Nelson’s latest recording project follows the release last July of her twenty-third record, You’ll Never Be a Stranger at My Door. It’s an exploration of country music tunes and brings her full circle to an early Nashville recording made in 1969, Mother Earth Presents Tracy Nelson Country. The new album includes a lilting western swing tune, “Cow Cow Boogie,” several country classics, and a song she wrote called “Salt of the Earth,” an elegy to three old-timers who were Nelson’s neighbors near her log cabin.
Nelson’s last extended tours were the Chicago Blues Reunions in 2005 and 2006, with guitarists Harvey Mandel and Nick Gravenites. But she certainly hasn’t stopped performing and recording. In September, she traveled to Nova Scotia to sing at a benefit for a wildlife rehabilitation center. In October, she was recording at guitar legend Scotty Moore’s studio in Nashville, singing gospel tunes popularized by Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 1930s.
In early November, Nelson hit the road again, traveling 650 miles east for a live performance on West Virginia Public Broadcasting’s Mountain Stage radio show. Then it was 700 miles west to Wisconsin to visit her ninety-one-year-old mother, Faye, the former proprietor of Nelson’s Books and Stationery in Shorewood Hills, who still lives in Madison. Nelson’s latest recording project follows the release last July of her twenty-third record, You’ll Never Be a Stranger at My Door. It’s an exploration of country music tunes and brings her full circle to an early Nashville recording made in 1969, Mother Earth Presents Tracy Nelson Country. The new album includes a lilting western swing tune, “Cow Cow Boogie,” several country classics, and a song she wrote called “Salt of the Earth,” an elegy to three old-timers who were Nelson’s neighbors near her log cabin.
The soothing album of country tunes represents a change in direction for the tenor renowned in blues circles for her ability to belt out songs from the depths of her soul. She’s now considering recording jazz standards.
“Jazz singing is very restrained and subtle,” she says. “It’s more than a little hard to change styles. But it’s not boring.”
As Nelson considers yet another musical direction, she continues to live a life close to the earth. On a November afternoon, her voice lights up when she sees yellow finches at her backyard feeder. With her single brown braid dangling halfway down her back, she tends chili on the stove made with her garden’s creole tomatoes and habanero peppers.
After the sun sets, she pulls out a bottle of Jack Daniels and pours a glass, straight up. As she lights the candles for a home-cooked lasagna dinner, she recalls that her grandmother played with her senior citizens orchestra until she was eighty-seven. She feels like there’s many more years of song left in her.
“When I’m singing, I am very aware of my voice as an instrument,” she says. “I can hold a note, and have ten tonalities. I don’t have all the high notes I once had, but I have more low notes. That country record showed that I can still sing pretty. And so far, I’m still happy.”
“Jazz singing is very restrained and subtle,” she says. “It’s more than a little hard to change styles. But it’s not boring.”
As Nelson considers yet another musical direction, she continues to live a life close to the earth. On a November afternoon, her voice lights up when she sees yellow finches at her backyard feeder. With her single brown braid dangling halfway down her back, she tends chili on the stove made with her garden’s creole tomatoes and habanero peppers.
After the sun sets, she pulls out a bottle of Jack Daniels and pours a glass, straight up. As she lights the candles for a home-cooked lasagna dinner, she recalls that her grandmother played with her senior citizens orchestra until she was eighty-seven. She feels like there’s many more years of song left in her.
“When I’m singing, I am very aware of my voice as an instrument,” she says. “I can hold a note, and have ten tonalities. I don’t have all the high notes I once had, but I have more low notes. That country record showed that I can still sing pretty. And so far, I’m still happy.”
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