Interview With Anita Bruhnke (Excerpts)

Jason: When were you first aware of music...?
Anita: ...I remember being little, like, not even in kindergarten yet and my mother had a favorite song.  It was “Alley Cat”.  …it’s by a jazz pianist guy.  …she would listen to it regularly and so… I’d make her play it over and over again and dance to it.  …when I was, like, elementary age I had…Sleeping Beauty on a record, and so my friends and I, we’d listen to that…
Jason: Sleeping Beauty?  The, uh, Disney…?
Anita: No…no, no, no...! (in a whispered, laughing manner)
Jason: That’s all I could think of! (laughing)
Anita: …Sleeping Beauty by, is it Tchaikovsky?  …[it was] a ballet.
Jason: Now you know I don’t know much about ballet! (laughing)
Anita: And then, of course, we had Tubby The Tuba that went through all four of us kids. …music was pretty big for my parents as well, so we always had music going on.
Jason: Were your parents musicians at all?
Anita: No.
Jason: No?
Anita: ...my father tried, but...
Jason: …what did he…?
Anita: Well, now, he sung. …he did sing, like, barbershop and stuff like that.  And then when my mother was in college, she and some friends, they used to have these booths at record stores where you could cut an album yourself…it was a little 75, and, I think it played actually from the inside out…the sang, um, “Mr. Sandman…” …and my father liked, uh, big band, country and western…(opens mouth and points inside of it in disgust; Jason laughs ) and uh, barbershop.  So, and, lots of times when we were driving in the car we would sing and we’d, like, go through the alphabet…when it was your turn, you had to sing a song that started with that letter…
Jason: And how far’d you all get? To “x”?
Anita: We might-a cheated. (both laugh)…music’s always been there. … In church, I was always in the choir. …since I was, like, seven or so.
Jason: Have you taken…formal voice lessons…?
Anita: No…
Jason: You said your dad was…into the jazzy stuff?
Anita: Yeah.  Now, my mother was more, um, she liked musicals. Jacques Brel is Alive and Well and Living in Paris was one of her favorites, …“Timid Frieda”… And then she liked…the “Alley Cat” one…
Jason: Bent Fabric…played “Alley Cat.”
Anita: …and this was back in the…mid ‘60s.  So, and then, my brothers were big into, um, [The] Mothers of Invention.
Jason: …Frank Zappa?
Anita: Mmm-hmm, and, um…Marianne Faithfull…I don’t remember them listening to The Beatles at all.  I don’t…care for it.  …then they moved to Maine, and Maine had, like, four radio stations: one was…easy rock, light rock or whatever…
Jason: Sure.
Anita: …but that was the “popular” station.  Then they had country and western, they had classical, and then they had a station that you could get the TV…the music scene in Maine was pretty pitiful.  So, that’s when I went, like, totally classical music ‘cause I couldn’t stand, um, Elton John and…Captain & Tennille…
Jason: Mmm-hmm.
Anita: ABBA, stuff like that, so I went classical…until…I moved to Durham, North Carolina and discovered New Wave.
Jason: Can you elaborate on that…?
Anita: …loved, you know, [The] B-52s and Blondie…I lived with my brother…we would listen to…a radio station…out of UNC Chapel Hill, and there was a fellow that he always made sure to listen to that had, like, a…two or three hour thing that he would do once a week. …he had a lotta, you know, like, ah, Laurie Anderson…
Jason: Doesn’t ring a bell…
Anita: She had some really weird, out there…music…’90s…grunge…that’s when I kinda started getting away from listening to the radio ‘cause it was either…grunge...or…
Jason: Nirvana just came and killed everything! (both laugh)
Anita: Um, well, oh, who’s that woman, I can see her plain as day? … Shoot!  And she has this really big, loud voice and her aunt is Dionne Warrick.
Jason: Not ringing a bell.
Anita: She’s married to somebody Brown, Bobby Brown.
Jason: (laughs) Whitney Houston.
Anita: Yes.  So, then, EVERYBODY had to have all this, you know, [does a psuedo-imitation of pop soul/r&b vocal ornamentation] in their…songs…it drove me crazy, so I stopped listening.  And then when the boys got to junior high, they wanted to listen to the radio again and I heard, what was that song by System of a Down?
Jason: (excitedly) …when they first came out?
Anita: Um, no, it was a…little bit later.
Jason: Let’s see.  I’m a big System fan.
Anita: It was on…war…the…rich…only the poor fight the war…
Jason: “Why do they always send the poor?” “B.Y.O.B.”
Anita: …that song came on and I LOVED it.  …so, then I started getting into that…and stuff…  I like Linkin Park…Muse…course, when John and I got married, (Jason laughs) he is folk music…(opens mouth and points inside of it in disgust; both laugh)…and, um…jazz.  And…I was not a big…I like The Andrews Sisters…and, um, Benny Goodman…he was more, like, the ‘50s and ‘60s jazz…only jazz pianist that I like is, um, Bud Powell…Paul Gonsalves for saxophone…anyways… he helped broaden my horizons a little bit…
Jason: What kind of equipment did you listen to the music on, back in the day?
Anita: …my parents had a stereo, and  it was one where the…turntable would fold up, and then the speakers would attach to the sides.  It was a portable! (both laugh)…it was about the size of a suitcase.  But, by the time I got it…when I was, like, 12, it was 25 years old, 30 years old, something like that.  And, if I wanted to listen to any music I’d have to turn it on a half an hour ahead of time in order for the tubes or something to warm up.
Jason: Oh, wow! (both laugh)
Anita: So it would spin fast enough for the…song.  …my father, course bought an 8-track player, which, we know how well that lasted for, and then I had, uh…cassettes in my car, cause I didn’t like the music that they had on radio…but, I love CDs.  …John and I have a difference of opinion as to, he likes music live, you know, he wants all the goofs …and all the people and the noise and that distracts me.
Jason: Did you use …headphones…?
Anita:  …you had to have ‘em plugged in and you had this huge, long, spiral thing, like they used to have chords on…phones…
Jason: Once you started listening to music you discovered on your own, um, how did the…figures with authority in your life like it…?
Anita: I was listening to classical; they couldn’t really complain.  … I can’t imagine not having music.  I like it too much.