Claron M. McFadden - This Is My Destiny | S7 E01
Just before the pandemic shut down live performances across the world, the American soprano Claron M. McFadden appeared with pianist Alexander Melnikov at London’s Wigmore Hall to rave reviews for “an exhilarating and unorthodox show” and her “breathtakingly beautiful” voice. Having listened to her recordings, we wish we could have been there.
From Handel and Bach to modern and contemporary classical music and jazz, Claron is one of the most versatile singers of her generation. In music and in life, she is a fearless but not reckless risktaker who follows her curiosity and trusts her intuition to gamble with all sorts of possibilities. She studied voice at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York and traveled to Amsterdam with intentions of remaining for a year. She is still there 40 years later, noting that, in Europe, “people see her first as a human being and not as a black person.”
At 60, Claron is one of a very few vocalists “singing at [her] level of intensity.” In a life of going “after all that called to her,” she harbors only three moments of regret and those are mostly about not having managed a situation better. Enviable. Claron is also a founding member of a cultural group Naked Bitches. Curious? Listen to our lively, laugh-filled conversation with Claron to learn more. And listen to her gorgeous recordings on Spotify, Amazon Music and other platforms.
For more information about her, checkout her website.
+ TRANSCRIPT
Joanne and Idelisse: Welcome to Two Old Bitches. I'm Idelisse Malavé and I'm Joanne Sandler. And we're two old bitches! We're interviewing our women friends and women who could be our friends. Listen, as they share stories about how they reinvent themselves.
Joanne: You have a group called the Naked Bitches?
Claron: Yes
Joanne: What does that mean?
Claron: I was doing a project with former students of mine. I picked them, we were doing work by a composer from New York. I won't mention his name in case he doesn't want to be associated with the bitches of any kind. (laughter) And…we were riding the car because we had to go to different places, and then all these subjects would start coming up about periods, about orgasms, about all kinds of things-- about polyamorous relationships. There were four women and two men, gay guys, and they were talking about polyamory and we're like, oh, how does that work?
So it was all very much open and people were sharing. At one point before a concert, we were sitting in a dressing room, just changing and then we all were like in our kind of, basically in our underwear kind of going, “oh, wow look at us, we're the naked bitches!” and that started it. So basically when we get together sometimes, whoever's around, and we talk about certain issues or things that that affect us, or we feel strongly about or curious about there's no, you know, no regularity or managements.
Joanne: So you haven't performed as the Naked Bitches?
Claron: No. It's this freedom of talking about things without judgment. And that's what I love about… That's my interpretation of what a naked bitch is. Free of judgment out there and sharing with people who feel the same.
Idelisse: Welcome to season seven. You just heard the amazing Claron McFadden, who is the organizer of the Naked Bitches that you've just heard about and who is also the most amazing sublime soprano.
Joanne: So Idelisse, I didn't say what your name was, you are Idelisse Malavé…
Idelisse: Yes, Joanne? …and you are Joanne Sandler.
Joanne: That voice you just heard of Claron McFadden, which as Ide said, is such an extraordinary voice. You're going to hear the story behind that voice and the extraordinary life that Claron lives. Claron grew up in Rochester. She now lives in Amsterdam and our conversation with her revealed so many things about voice, which is something we're always interested in.
Idelisse: …about performance.
Joanne: Exactly about performance, about being an outsider, which Claron speaks really interestingly about. And, you and I talked about Ide, about risk-taking. About what is it to live a life where risk-taking is something that you desire and you aspire to that expands all of your options and opportunities.
Idelisse: And you know, Joanne, it sounds like funny term, but it's responsible risk-taking. This is not reactive impulsivity, this is not, oh, I'm going to go do that and you haven't thought about it. This is about being so present in the moment. That you are, you see the opportunity and you were willing to grasp it and not let it pass you by, but it's not reckless.
Joanne: No, not in the least. In fact, Claron, I think one of the things that Claron talks about that really stuck with me is how much she uses her instinct, how much she uses all of her senses. And experience to really determine kind of, what's the worst thing that could happen if I if I move in this direction?
Idelisse: I think she, she does, she relies and trusts her intuition.
Joanne: Yeah. So, yes. To hear about a life extraordinarily well-lived and living. And of course, we started with the question that we'd love to start with.
Idelisse: I am so fascinated and intrigued by how you might answer this question. The simple question that we asked most of our guests simple, but not easy, I guess I would say... And that is who are you?
Claron: Who am I? How much time do we have? How many weeks do we have? (laughter)
I am. I suppose in a nutshell, I am duality. I'm a dualism. I am this contradiction, I am this dichotomy, um, there's a strong side of me, that's very present, very extrovert and an equally introvert side, and people get confused by the two. There's a strong quote unquote feminine side, and there's an equally strong quote-unquote masculine side, and that's also confusing to people on all levels. I'm very humble, but at the same time I made a profession that's totally narcissistic. So I…basing my whole life trying to understand how this works, how this duality works. Is it a contradiction or not? So that's…I would say I try to be empathetic or empathic to people, and I'm very fascinated by what makes me tic. What is nature? What is nurture? What did I grow up with? What is in my DNA? Um, and how does that relate to other people around me? So that's pretty much who I am. I like to laugh a lot and sometimes I like to…I like Laphroaig.
Joanne: You like Laphroaig? I like Laphroaig too.
Claron: Yes. So I enjoy a good time with, you know, within reason.
Joanne: And how do you describe Claron, you know… reading about you and your interviews and things. How do you describe your art, your craft?
Claron: I, first of all, I say to people, I didn't choose it. It chose me. I had no choice. There's something inside of me that needs to come out and it comes out through my voice.
And so it's, for me, emotions are very, very important. Because certainly with the voice, it's all connected with breath and all emotions, as far as I can tell, the true ones, are you take a big breath and then noise comes out and your eyes close. And the deeper the emotion, the bigger the breath, the louder the noise, and you know you get into a kind of state.
So that's pretty much what my art is tapping into, or I feel like I'm a vessel. I'm a kind of vessel that communicates this emotional experience with breath, with sound to people who are open to receiving it. And so I'm more like a sound fetishist, I would say, than somebody who's busy with communicating text, which is a really bad thing to say as a singer.
Joanne: A sound fetishist?
Claron: A sound fetishist. I communicate on another level, on a more primal level… dealing with vibrations, with frequencies, with things. And the way to sharing with somebody is much more direct in my case like that. So that's pretty much what it is.
Joanne: You said… you wouldn't call yourself a singer?
Claron: Well or a soprano. People say you're a soprano, you're an opera singer, you're a classical singer…But I start to get more and more into the feeling of I'm a singer or vocalist, a musician who's instrument is the voice. …More of that kind of feelings as I get older. If that makes sense?
Idelisse: It does. It does. I think it does. I may not make the same sense a bit that you do, but it makes sense to me. Um, so, and you sing across, right? You don't just sing opera? You just, you make whatever kind of vocalization is called to you it sounds like.
Claron: I've always been like this very curious to learn about different sounds, different styles, different…. and I'm trying to imitate that… be it a language or a musical style. And I've noticed that this voice that I have, or this means of expression is very broad. So, um, I mean I'm a classically trained singer, but I work with all different people on different genre and it feels really good. I'm the happiest, of course, when I'm singing classical music in certain things, older music, because that's the way my voice is happiest doing that… but I grew up singing, you know, jazz and funk and soul. And that's in me as well.
Joanne: I read somewhere where you said –that was so fascinating to me— because you were talking about your voice and emotions…that voice expresses every emotion except for jealousy, which I was so fascinated by. What does that mean? What does that mean?
Claron: I mean, I don't know. Maybe jealousy is not an emotion? I don't know. But I’ve said that and…I thought…what, what are you saying, girl? Go home! Don't think about it. But, the pure ones, anger, rage, sadness, ecstasy, real happiness, these, what I would call “pure emotions”. So jealousy isn't one of those, I think jealousy is fear. That's more linked to fear somehow …a sub-emotional, like maybe it's a hemi-, demi-, semi-emotion, I don’t know. These….as I noticed that there's always sound connected to them and it's pure. It's just booming out. And it resonates with people. If somebody's really mad… or really scared or really sad…and they make a certain sound that… it goes straight inside me. It's just very, very…it's on another level…yeah, connected this voice with breath.
I'm aware of the fact that I use my voice all the time because it is my living. And maybe that's different than somebody who can put their instrument down. So by talking to you now, I'm using my instruments. So I'm aware of it. And if I had a performance tonight, I would be talking to you in a very different way than I am now. I would still be expressing what I'm expressing, but the voice would be a little bit different…be a little bit more quiet, a little bit more, “okay”. Well, and if I were laughing, I would actually not laugh loud and raucous like I'm doing now. I would just sort of put my head back and shake and let you laugh for me.
Idelisse: Claron is a risk-taker, and at the same time, we just heard how careful she is about her voice in advance of a performance.
Joanne: Exactly. That what's so interesting, Idelisse. We have talked to many artists on Two Old Bitches. Claron is an artist. She's a performer, and as a performer, you know, you would think that as you get older, things become even more challenging, particularly as a performer. As a woman performer, especially, and listening to Claron's take on that…what happens as she ages.
Idelisse: She's 60 years old now.
Joanne: Exactly. And she says, she's one of the few women who's performing with the level of intensity, right? That she still works with.
Claron: The musical life that I have now is very different from the musical life I had 10 years ago, but I was very lucky that….Even though I came to Europe to do a certain type of music, I ended up going in a completely, other different direction professionally and I didn't care. I just wanted to work. I came for old music. My first concert as a student was what I call “hardcore modern music”… and people go, “oh, who's this”? And nobody was doing it. People, singers were like thinking, “well, it's going to ruin my voice and I don't want to do it, and I only want to see Procini and the real stuff”.
And I said, I'll do it! Like there's… maybe it's a very American way of thinking. If there's a niche I'm going to… this is my place, but I'm going to sing it like it's Mozart, you know, make it sound beautiful, even if it's crazy, all over the place. And that's kind of been my motto. So I've been doing a lot of concerts in the concert halls here. I've been primary in Europe. Europe was the first part of my career. Only in Europe and not at all in America. And then things started to shift a little bit, about 15 years ago. And then I started to have some work in America, but with groups from Europe and now it starts to shift. Then I am in this last phase, let's call it that, that I'm actually being invited to come to the States for me, which is, which is…you know…it's all kinds of things. Most of what I have done has been modern music, new pieces, commissioning people to write things for me. Which I say is like having George Armani say, “Okay, so I'm going to make a gown for you”. I'm one of the few women of my generation still singing on this level, or with this level of intensity. So that's a very interesting thing. I'm very curious why that is… but I'm working with people who…could be my kids, like Nora, but now I'm starting to work with kids who could be my grandkids, which is curious.…What I noticed is that things that were very easy 15 years ago they're still there, but I have to work a little bit harder for them and I have to… yeah each time it's harder. Let's say a High-D , where before, when I was 30, I would just whack it out, you know? And now it's like …that's a lot of energy to sing a High-D… and at a certain moment, I'll go, okay, I'm not going to sing that D anymore. I don't want to work that hard. Okay. C-sharp. I sort of by, semitones just kind of go down… So I'm like a pop singer singing, like, you know, bars, which is fine. It's cool. When I say it's different if I'm improvising, then it's coming from a different place than my…I can sing every high, low everything, because it's coming from my own expression from inside…and then it just happens. But if I have to take somebody else's logic, like a composer's logic, and put it in my own brain…my body just goes, man, I don't feel like working this hard. So I think it's, yeah, I've noticed it now that I see, okay, that I used to whack out and I can't anymore. It takes sometimes longer to recover from, you know, after performances, after premiers, if you go to bed at two o'clock because the adrenaline is on a high and then…I mean, sometimes I wake up early when I go, “I'm waking up earlier because I'm older”. Sometimes I go, “oh, I'm in bed till noon because I'm older” But the voice, the quality of the voice in my cases, hasn't changed… just the effort it takes to reach things has changed. There, the level of perfection is very high. You get, like I say, you get two screw ups a nights. Of the thousands of notes that you sing, only two are allowed to be off. And if there's any more than that, we start wondering if you're in a small suit or your voices roll under this and that. So to be on that level all the time is really, really taxing. Whereas with other voices, the more croak and ganjan thing, that's really wonderful. That's what makes it great. Listen to Joni Mitchell… you're just like, whoa, man, it’s just so wonderful…And so not fair, but it's… there's no room for it. So I think that's why a lot of people are just saying… “I'm just going to stop. I'm not going to be doing these concerts anymore”. Because people are waiting for you to—Oops. Did she just have that one note? Oh, there's the other one. Okay. She's got 10,000 more and they better be perfect.
Joanne: One of the the things you loved about Sarah Vaughan, that when you were thinking about jazz classical, was that she takes risks. And I imagine, I mean, that kind of signal to me that you're someone who really treasures risk.
Claron: Yes.
Idelisse: I want to know about that. I also want to know if it's changed over time, right? I mean, cause obviously you moved to Amsterdam and stayed there, so, you know, that's, you're not a homebody, not risk-taker as a young women, right? Clearly. So talk to us about risk and your relationship with risk and also over time, has it changed? Now that you're older?
Claron: I can start working backwards. No, it hasn't changed one bit. The risk is the same now as it was when I was 21… and it's linked directly to my curiosity and the curiosity I always had, and it has…undimmed. See? I'm getting all excited now.
And as I get older, there's always—every so many years, big risks wanting to be taken. Why don't you just pick up and go move somewhere else? And then I don't, or I do. But I always come back to Amsterdam. As I get older now I'm also thinking about it. Okay, something's going to happen at some point, I'm gonna make a move. Maybe I'm…I do a bit more planning ahead of time…that I sort of think, okay, if I want to move somewhere…For example, I'm obsessed with tiny homes and I would love to have my own tiny house that actually I build or help build, but that it actually allows, it welcomes me into the next phase of my life, which is, you know, maybe my knees don't work anymore or, you know, all these sorts of things, but then I could just wheel it along to, you know, an assisted tiny house nursing facility or something.
I don't know. So, I mean, I'm being more careful about those sorts of things. I wouldn't have thought about that. Things like that 20 years ago and just said, okay, when I go there, I'm going. So that’s a little bit… but as far as music goes, I'm one of the biggest risk takers that I know of. Even people think I've very, very… I am very careful in what I do because I need to have some kind of framework in which to work with them within that I could go nuts.
Idelisse: And you talk about risk. You talk about risk with such exhilaration.
Claron: I love it…yeah..it's important…know what I'm saying? That somebody said, I don't know what, probably maybe the brain…neuroscientists would say the same or similar drugs are released in the brain when you're performing, or just before you're performing, as if you were being chased by a saber-tooth tiger or something. And so you're very sharp and aware of what's going on to get you out. You know, you're in fight or flight or freeze mode and the people who, like me, when they're in this mode and this chemical is coming, I go into fight mode and then it makes me sharper. I know there's… take beta blockers or whatever that is necessary. But this is the moment where I'm really on the edge. And I don't need to bungee jump. I don't need to jump out of airplanes. I don't need any of that. I have it every time I get up and perform and after all these drugs coming in…my dopamine and stuff, it's like whoa man.
This thing that we were saying before, when you mentioned Sarah Vaughan, and the reason why she's my hero is because she takes risks…she's not afraid of sounding ugly, or whatever that means, or making strange noises or doing things that are off the beaten path or abstract, or for the sake of the expression of what it is that needs to come out of her.
And she's not sitting in a hotel room or wherever working it out. And that's also why I think too, when I work with people now…or if I'm going to work with people, and then they say, well, let's rehearse this, you know, a billion times. I'm like, no, I don't think we're the people that we shouldn't be working together.
Let's get to know him. I say let's sniff each other, like dogs. Let's just…let's just play. Let's go have a drink. Let's have coffee. Let's just be, let's make a bit of music. Let's improvise. Let's whatever. But so that I understand who you are and the choices that you make. When you're quiet, when you're drunk, when you're nervous, when you're….And there's some first… and then we… then we can take risks together because I go, oh, okay. This is different than me before, but now I know this person's in this space so I can adjust accordingly. That's where the magic comes from. That's a risk… There are certainly things that I want to do that involve risk that they work or they don't work. If that makes any sense.
Idelisse: It does.
Claron: This is crazy, but I see myself with my little tiny house, somewhere in a very warm place. Probably, you know, just above Bordeaux somewhere, and on a beautiful piece of land. And then just having once a month or something, having a plug and play, kind of seeing where people from the villages or the community, they come, there's a list…you know, they have 15 minutes or 20 minutes. Let's see. And they put their name down and they can do whatever they want. They can sing. They can talk. They can bitch. They can try anything out. They can declaim poetry. They can talk about a book, whatever. 15 minutes, next. They can read, you know, but you have this kind of rotation. And the idea is that for the summer solstice, we would go the full night, like this…said that just every 15 minutes there was somebody else coming, doing something. And then I would be making cocktails and blobby, but, you know, sit there and it was like one giant naked…
Idelisse: Please invite us.
Joanne: Yeah, it sounds so great. Please do it!
Idelisse: I also want to ask you if it’s ok. So you go down, you know, this curiosity, this boundless curiosity takes you to Amsterdam. What keeps you there? Was it, you know, I can think of all the tricks, you know, was it the people, was it relationships or was it the place? Was it work? Say a little about that if you would.
Claron: I was a little bit of an odd ball… when I was growing up just…who I was and how I went through life as a child. And of course, growing up in America as a person of color, you're very much confronted with that. And I didn't go to Europe with that in mind, but I very quickly, immediately, I don't know, I got off the plane and said, well, I've come home. And I don't know why there's something very profound. And within six weeks of being there, --jet lagged out of my brain, I was just a mess cause I didn't do it well-- but it was clear to me that this was my destiny, this place. In Amsterdam, not to say I would spend the rest of my life there, but it was clear that this was a place where I first…like a human being, So that I actually got off the plane and felt that I was home. So it's been what, 40, almost 40 years that I lived here. And, I still feel, at first, a human being. And that's important to me, when people look at me like… that first and not as a black person? Then it's the right place. I thought, the moment I start to be seen as first a black person, a person of color or whatever, and then as a singer or a human being or nutcase or whatever, that it's time for me to go back. And I'd rather feel that in my own country, my country of birth. So that's pretty much what I was thinking. And you know, and there's a lot of stuff going on, especially now people are kind of looking and going, oh, you’re black, that's a good thing that they're only now looking at me like that…but then they're like all over me, like, what does that mean? And this and that, and blah, and diversity and all these crazy things. And I'm like, let's chill for a minute. And let's talk about it, you know, in a reasonable, in a quiet way and how we can take hopefully society one step further away from the chaos or towards our own extinction, but that's another…
Idelisse: It makes me want to ask you, because one of the things I noticed in visiting Amsterdam, as often as I did was the change in the political climate. Right? As did getting… much of Europe, and God knows, we can't even describe the United States in these terms where, you know, way ahead, in terms of right-wing, but also in terms of racism, right? Immigrants. Anti-immigrant. Anti-color. Has that…have you felt that?
Claron: I have, I mean, I've been through now…well, two full generations. I mean, Reagan was president when I came, so I've seen Europe go…it goes in waves. It goes from the right. And then it goes more socialist. And then it goes again, you know, and it's often, there's a crisis that triggers it and it shifts back to the right. Now it’s really….you know, people are starting to say, well, if you look at the situation in the world before the big world wars, they start to see similarities, huge migrations of people, large populism, a huge humongous difference between rich and poor. A lot of intolerance, people that have their head in the sand because they are so rich they don't have to think about it. And they don't care about anybody else. And then either revolution happens or some kind of huge events. So people are watching, they’re paying close attention to that. As far as racism goes and other things, these things are here. They're not not here.
There's…it's just as much as anywhere else. It's just, I mean like in America, because the country is built with this racism, it's part of our…of the fabric that it was woven in. It's very in your face. You can’t get away from it nor…
Idelisse: …it’s different.
Claron: It’s different. Whereas here in Europe, it was more…we're not… Europe exists for Europeans, but we actually will go somewhere else and say, oh, you people are, we don't recognize you as people and therefore the land you're living on is ours and we're going to, you know, use it and that's the basis of colonialism. So it was somewhere else that they did it.
And now it's very…it's become an economic thing. It seems to be more that it's a question of privilege and not, and so it's not necessarily immigrants… have no money and local people do, because that puts me in a weird position. I'm quote unquote, an immigrant, or what have you. I left my home and I came to Europe because I wanted a different quote unquote, better life, but I'm in a position of privilege so I cannot use the same arguments that somebody who comes from a boat who has nothing because their country was pillaged… that they come and find that…they're just not accepted because of how they look or how they speak or what they put on their hair, their head or whatever. So…it's just there. It's always there. And every time, I mean, so often it raises it’s head…the lid off of it and people say what they really think. And now people are really saying what they really think. I think the Netherlands is one of the most politically correct countries ever up until now…or 10 years ago when people started getting murdered because of what they said. And how that influenced the way people voted and thought politically it's the whole thing is just turned over, but it's now people just feel free to say everything they want to say because there is safety in numbers, the whole continent is dealing with this issue. So then people can say, you know, so, and it's good. That's like they say in America, you know who your enemies are because they tell you to your face. And here you always knew who your enemies were, but now you do.
Joanne: Do you feel Dutch?
Claron: I feel European.
Joanne: You feel European?
Claron: Yeah. I, even though… like I said, I live in this country because it affords me the possibility to create my own European culture.
I can't speak for anybody else, but by me choosing to be an outsider when I want to be an outsider, empowers me with the ability to be as much in control of my own destiny as I think I can be. And award me going into sheep mode, you follow the herd because you want and need to be accepted. You need to be a part of the herd. Otherwise you're on your own. I mean, because I'm a solitary person, I'm very happy on my own. I need the solitude that by definition I would not be…that makes me an outsider. Or I would be on the outskirts of the heart. I like…I need to be in it as well. I’m in a profession where we never can say “we”, sometimes I long to be somewhere where I can say “we” as longer than six weeks.
Yeah, it's a sense of empowerment, of being dependent. I mastered my own destiny now. And that loneliness that comes with it kind of makes me even stronger.
Idelisse: I grew up as an outsider. I'm Puerto Rican and I grew up in a middle-class Jewish neighborhood, you know, I was just a spick to them, right? You know? And I knew that outsider place and I embraced it. Part of it was I felt like I got to see more. You know that curious part as an outsider? I think you can see more. Did you have the sense that you could see certain things that may be from the inside you couldn't see?
Claron: I think you're absolutely right. I mean, because there's a certain objectivity that you have, because it doesn't matter what you think or how you act. It’s not…you're separating yourself from having to act in a certain way to belong. So you can recognize that behavior by looking at it from the outside.
Joanne: So Ide, this is what grabs me so much about Claron. Is that she is so profoundly resourceful and knows how resourceful she is.
Idelisse: She trusts herself.
Joanne: Totally.
Idelisse: And I think to be the phenomenal risk taker that she is—responsible risk taker—, you do have to trust yourself and know that, however it turns out you will somehow manage.
Claron: But what happens when COVID came and the lockdown started. Things were getting canceled in March, March, April, May, June, basically four months that it was my sabbatical and it was a retreat. I was going to go and spend it in various places of solitude around the planet and Thailand. I wanted to go to the island of Iona and there's this place called Frauenzell, a monastery in Bavaria. And I wanted to just think and reflect and be quiet with my faults about what the next phase of my life, quote unquote musical life, would be and what that would mean with the changes that were happening. So on the one hand, I was scared out of my pants. You know, I was really scared about what would happen financially. And then I thought what's the worst thing that could happen? The worst thing can happen is I’ll end up having to sell my house and then I would go work for the Red Cross somewhere or volunteer somewhere. I mean, I would not end up…and that made me literally, it was like, it's more my ego that makes me afraid. But if I really take that out of the equation, I have to actually…it's okay. So I welcomed the break from adrenaline, that’s when I called it, of not having to perform. And then people started making other…like finding new synapses I would say. They started doing things online in a way like, okay, let's see, I'll sing this or I play this and then I'll send it to you and you play on it and let's…this sort of this new way of creativity. And a lot of people I know, they started teaching more or they started doing other things completely… tapping into other possibilities. One person started rebuilding houses. Another one, worked at a bank. And as long as the ego is not involved, then they said, this is what I'm doing because we're in the middle of a pandemic and I'm not going to wait or trust it's going to get back to normal. …The boat has already set sail, we're in the rapids. You can't go backwards.
Joanne: Right.
Claron: You can try to guide it a bit, but just think, like, you know, when you're scared shitless…when this is over, quote unquote, and I have to get out of this boat, where am I going to be and how am I going to move again? And that's sort of the challenge that…yeah, it was really difficult. I know some people who were like, these were the last years (singers) and everything was canceled. So then they said, okay, now I'm retired. Especially your opera singers. The next time things get planned in three years from now and…I’ll be 60 something. So that's a bit rough, but I was very lucky because my fingers aren’t (inaudible).
Idelisse: I do wonder for someone who is as curious and adventurous, I would say as you are, then when you look back, do you have any, is there anything that surprised you? Is there anything that you go, oh, I wish! You know? I wish I would have…Is there any of that in you or did you seize everything you wanted?
Claron: You see on my face, you already know my answer. If I'm sitting on a rocking chair, cause I want a rocking chair in my little tiny house, and I'm looking back going, no…I have no…there's, I don't want to be, “God, I wish I'd had the courage to do that. I wish…” So I’ve always, everything I've wanted, I've jumped at it, I've gone at it. Sometimes I could go, now maybe I could have handled that a little bit better. Maybe I shouldn't have said that or maybe…but it's very…there may be three moments of my entire life I think, “Oh maybe not…that would have been…I could have done that.”
I think the biggest surprise was that the course that my music, the direction that took, I did not at all expect for it to go, that I would be doing primarily contemporary music, modern music. I…that took me completely by surprise. But yeah, but I just went, okay…I'll take the scenic route.
Idelisse: The music, the sound that you've been listening to throughout this episode is Claron’s. And you get a taste I think, perhaps, how transporting her voice can be. And you can listen to her…
Joanne: Well, you can listen to her on almost any platform where performers are performing from Spotify to Amazon music. You can link to her website. We're going to put links on our website, or on our pages, to Clarons… to some performances, to her website. So I'm quite sure that you're going to want to spend some time being transported, not just by Clarons life, which we've talked about over the past period, but also by her voice. And as far as Two Old Bitches go, we hope that you'll contact us.
Just hit the link, the contact link on our new, improved…
Idelisse: …website and we have thanks we want to give, don't we Joanne?
Joanne: We especially as always want to thank Katherine Heller, who is our technical producer goddess and Loubna Bouajaj, who is our social media maven.
Idelisse: And we want to welcome Loubna to the team. She started this Spring and has made such a difference in the podcast and in our lives. Thank you, Loubna!
Joanne: Thank you, Loubna! And always and forever, thank you to The Pointer Sisters for pointing us to, yes, we can can.
