PJ Harvey: On War And The New 'England'

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PJ Harvey: On War And The New 'England'

TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross.

My guest is musician, songwriter and singer Polly Jean Harvey, who's
also known as PJ Harvey. She was named Rolling Stone's Best New Artist
in 1992 and Artist of the Year in '95. In 2001, her band won England's
top music award, the Mercury Prize. She's just released her eighth
album, called "Let England Shake."

Harvey has said that she dislikes repeating herself, and this album
takes her in a new direction. She's written many songs about love and
obsession. "Let England Shake" features her new songs about war and
about her country, England. Musically, she's drawn on folk ballads and
rock in ways similar to Nick Cave, who she's collaborated with, and
Richard Thompson.

Before we talk, let's start with a song from "Let England Shake." This
is "The Words that Maketh Murder." Harvey is featured on autoharp and
saxophone, as well as vocals.

(Soundbite of song, "The Words that Maketh Murder")

Ms. PJ HARVEY (Singer): (Singing) I've seen and done things I want to
forget. I've seen soldiers fall like lumps of meat, blown and shot out
beyond belief, arms and legs were in the trees.

I've seen and done things I want to forget coming from an unearthly
place, longing to see a woman's face instead of the words that gather
pace, the words that maketh murder.

These, these, these are the words, the words that maketh murder. These,
these, these are the words, the words that maketh murder. These, these,
these are the words, the words that maketh murder. These, these, these
are the words, murder...

GROSS: That's PJ Harvey from her new album, "Let England Shake." Polly
Jean Harvey, welcome to FRESH AIR. I really like this album. It's a
pleasure to have you here.

There's an image in the song that we just heard of arms and legs in the
trees, and I wonder what inspired that image, if you'd seen a photo like
that, or if somebody had described it in something that you'd read or
somebody who had witnessed war described that to you.

Ms. HARVEY: Well, I did enormous amounts of research for this album. I
needed to. And the more research that I did, it would keep leading me
into different areas. There seemed to be so much to uncover.

And much of the most valuable research that I did came from firsthand
accounts, from the eyewitness, from the person on the ground, whether
that person was a soldier and regardless of either side of what was the
action that was taking place, or whether it was a civilian – again, on
either side. It was those firsthand accounts that I drew upon most.

GROSS: You have a big range in your singing voice. Some of your songs
are really deep. Some of the - by deep I mean in a low range. And some
of them are in a high range. And some of the songs on your new album are
in a high range, and I think that that's kind of interesting because
it's a more female - you know, a range that is more associated with
women than men, but you're singing about men in war, in a more female
kind of voice, like, than some of your other recordings. I don't know if
that's making any sense to you, but some of your...

Ms. HARVEY: No...

GROSS: Some of your recordings are really in a very deep voice but not
so much this one.

Ms. HARVEY: It makes perfect sense, what you're describing. With each
body of work, with each album, or with each song, actually, one has to
find the right voice with which to deliver the song at its best.

Now, with this new record, it was very, very difficult to find what
voice to deliver such words with, because obviously these words have a
great deal of weight. They have very strong narratives. They're very
much action-on-the-ground storytelling, the witness to the action on the
ground.

I needed to find a voice that didn't add more weight to the weight that
was already there, and it took a lot of experimentation to find the
voice. To begin with, I tried approaching singing it with what I would
call my full voice, which is a 41-year-old adult woman voice and it
destroyed the words. It was far too strong, much too weighty, because
the words already have that.

So gradually, through a process of elimination and mistakes, I finally
came across the voice that you're hearing, which you're rightly
describing as a very high, very simple voice. It was - I was looking for
something that was almost characterless, that could just be the narrator
of the story, almost disembodied from the action, just relaying what
they can see happening, and that voice had to be very, very simple, very
pure, very high, to inhabit almost a characterless place within the
scene.

GROSS: It sounds as though almost like you approached this album as
music theater.

Ms. HARVEY: Well, I often see the songs as I'm writing them in - maybe
in the way that you might see a specific scene in a film. I can often
see the action and see the colors, and I can focus on that as I'm
writing the song, and then it brings to me all of the descriptive words
and language that I need.

GROSS: My guest is PJ Harvey, and she has a new album called "Let
England Shake," and it's war songs, songs that come out of different
wars, songs she wrote about different wars.

And I want to play another song. It's called "All and Everyone," and if
you don't mind, I'm going to just say the first few words of the lyrics
of this song: Death was everywhere, in the air and in the sounds, coming
off the mounds of Bolton's Ridge.

Tell us a little bit about this song and the battle that you're writing
about.

Ms. HARVEY: Well, I would like to interject and just say that the album
is not solely about war. There are other songs on this record that are
much more to do with one's nation, and although as an Englishwoman I
sing about England, I tried to use words that were dealing with the
emotional quality that any human being could recognize in the way that
they felt about their country as well.

So it's to do with the world we live in. That world, as you know, is a
brutal one and full of war. It's also full of many wonderful things and
love and hope. And I tried to offset the brutal language with very
beautiful music all the way through, but also bringing love in the form
of relationships between the people in the songs, and that was equally
as important to me.

Of course, there are songs specifically referencing war and very brutal
language because that's a huge part of our world today. I found that in
order to make more sense of our contemporary wars, I had to learn quite
a lot about history because it all gets passed down the line. It has
repercussions. It's in collective memory in all of our different
countries, of all of the wars that have gone on there before.

And so I looked a lot back through the ages, and one of the conflicts
that affected me a great deal was the Gallipoli campaign in the First
World War. Something about the dreadful mismanagement and the shocking
waste, needless waste, I thought about it a lot and really affected me,
because to me it had such resonance with the wars that are going on
today.

The basic language that human beings use to describe the emotions that
go with such conflicts don't change. That language, those words are the
same, when human beings are just trying to describe what it's like. And
that's what drew me in.

And then in some ways the record is timeless. It doesn't matter what war
it was. The language of war is the same.

GROSS: Well, let's hear Polly Jean Harvey's song "All and Everyone" from
the new PJ Harvey album, "Let England Shake."

(Soundbite of song, "All and Everyone")

Ms. HARVEY: (Singing) Death was everywhere, in the air and in the
sounds, coming off the mounds of Bolton's Ridge, death's anchorage. When
you rolled a smoke or told a joke, it was in the laughter and drinking
water. It approached the beach as strings of cutters, dropped in the sea
and lay around us.

Death was in the ancient fortress, shelled by a million bullets from
gunners waiting in the copses with hearts that threatened to pop their
boxes. As we approached into the sun, death was all and everyone, death
was all and everyone.

GROSS: That's "All and Everyone" from PJ Harvey's new album, "Let
England Shake." So the song we just heard was - is about how death was
everywhere after this battle, and I know your mother is or was a
sculptor, your father a stonemason, correct me if I have that wrong. Is
it right that one of them made tombstones?

Ms. HARVEY: Well, my father and mother have most of their lives quarried
stone. There's a specific quarry in Somerset, in England, called Ham
Hill, and this quarry range has a very particular type of stone, and
there's only two different people that quarry this. And it goes
throughout the world. It goes to many different countries because it's a
unique stone.

They've quarried this particular stone for the last 40 years, I think.
So they work in that together, and quarrying stone, you know, that's a
manner of actually hacking it out of the ground. Enormous quarry faces
and huge blocks of stone come out of there, and out of that the stone is
broken down for housing, paving, house names, tombstones, fireplaces.

And there are many different workers at all different levels. Some of
them are cutting the huge blocks out of the ground, and others are
slicing down the stone, and others are engraving, letter-cutting into
it.

My mum does a lot of letter-cutting. She also does more sculptural
pieces. Often people want something carved into a headstone or into a
fireplace, which can be quite detailed.

GROSS: Now, you grew up on a farm, didn't you?

Ms. HARVEY: I grew up on a small holding. I wouldn't say it was a farm
because my dad's primary occupation is stone quarrying. But we did have
animals, and we lived off our animals, and my mother and father still
do.

GROSS: What kind of animals?

Ms. HARVEY: Sheep, cattle, chickens.

GROSS: Wow, so you grew up in a pretty rural place in England.

Ms. HARVEY: Yes. Yes, yeah.

GROSS: So how were you exposed to music? What was in your parents'
record collection? I imagine you weren't going to a lot of concerts
growing up in rural England on a - you know, with a lot of animals?

Ms. HARVEY: No, quite the opposite. I was going to concerts all the
time.

GROSS: Seriously?

Ms. HARVEY: Yes, because my mother and father are very involved with
music. It's completely part of their soul. And they have an incredible
record collection, all vinyl, of some of the best artists, in my eyes,
that you can come across - I mean, people like Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan,
The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone, Captain Beefheart.

All of these artists were what I grew up listening to every day of my
life. And there's a very healthy music scene in the West Country of
England, where I grew up. Many people, not just my mother and father,
were involved in bringing a lot of bands to play in our local areas, and
often there would be bands staying at my house. Every weekend there was
live music to go and see.

GROSS: No kidding. Really? Who stayed at your house?

Ms. HARVEY: Many different bands from the London era in the early '80s,
a lot of rhythm and blues bands, Juice on the Loose, Diz and the
Doormen, bands that you wouldn't be familiar with but at that time were
big on the scene, and bands like Rocket 88, which was Ian Stewart's jazz
formation, Ian Stewart being often termed as the sixth Rolling Stone.

But he was a great friend of my mum and dad's, and he had some wonderful
bands. Rocket 88 was one, of which Charlie Watts played in quite often,
and they would stay at our house as well.

GROSS: So when you were listening to, for instance, Howlin' Wolf, the
great blues singer, he's from another era, he's from another country,
and you know, African-American music - what did you relate to about his
music as a young girl growing up in rural England?

Ms. HARVEY: Well, it's very hard to put into words, and this is where I
constantly struggle with trying to describe music in words. But the best
I could do is to say the soul, the spirit of it touched my soul and
spirit in a way that I under - felt understood and understood it. And I
can't describe it better than that.

GROSS: My guest is musician, songwriter and singer PJ Harvey. Her new
album is called "Let England Shake." We'll talk more after a break. This
is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: My guest is musician, singer and songwriter PJ Harvey. Her new
album is called "Let England Shake." When we left off, she was talking
about being influenced by the blues albums in her parents' collection.

I thought I'd play a recording of yours from 1995, a great recording
called "To Bring You My Love." And I feel like I hear Howlin' Wolf and
other blues singers in this. What do you think?

Ms. HARVEY: I think you're absolutely right.

GROSS: Good.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: I'm so glad you think that. Okay, so we should hear it. Do you
want to say anything about singing this? This voice is so different than
the one that we've been hearing from your new album. It's a real, like,
guttural voice. It sounds like you've met the devil.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. HARVEY: Well, again, like I said earlier in the interview, for each
song I take – I take that song individually and I look at what is the
best way for me to deliver this song to its maximum strength. And that
was the voice that I uncovered that this song needed to be delivered
with.

GROSS: Okay. So this is PJ Harvey in 1995, "To Bring You My Love."

(Soundbite of song, "To Bring You My Love")

Ms. HARVEY: (Singing) I was born in the desert. I been down for years.
Jesus, come closer. I think my time is near.

And I've traveled over dry earth and floods, hell and high water to
bring you my love.

Climbed over mountains, travelled the sea, cast down off heaven, cast
down on my knees. I've laid with the devil, cursed God above, forsaken
heaven to bring you my love, to bring you my love, to bring you my love,
to bring you my love.

GROSS: That's PJ Harvey, recorded in 1995. She has a new album called
"Let England Shake."

So we were talking about how you grew up in a house not only with sheep
and cattle but surrounded by music. Musicians stayed at your home. Your
parents helped bring the musicians to town to perform. They had a great
vinyl record collection.

When did you know that you wanted to be a musician, that you wanted to
perform?

Ms. HARVEY: There wasn't really a point that I can recall. I was a
visual artist primarily and a writer. Even from a very young age I wrote
a lot of stories and poetry, and likewise I had a desire to create
always with painting and drawing, and I still do that daily.

And I always had a desire to show my work. I'd want to read the stories
that I'd written, I'd want to show the drawings that I'd made. That was
just purely natural. And so I knew that I wanted to go into the arts in
some way and that I would like to show that work in some way. That's all
I knew.

I didn't know what territory specifically it would be in, whether I'd be
writing or acting or singing or drawing. And as I grew a bit older, I
actually was prepared to go into fine arts school and do a degree. And I
was all - I had my place. I was going to go and do that. So that was
what I was actually settled upon when I was first offered a record deal,
because I'd put together a band at art college, and we'd just begun to
play in London.

And I think it was our, maybe our fourth or fifth gig ever, and I was
offered a record deal, and that's what happened. That's just the way
that life took me.

GROSS: My guest, PJ Harvey, will be back in the second half of the show.
Her new album is called "Let England Shake." I'm Terry Gross, and this
is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Terry Gross, back with musician,
songwriter and singer PJ Harvey. Her new album "Let England Shake"
features her songs about war and her country, England.

I want to play an early song of yours, and this is "Rid of Me." And
would you say a few words, if you remember, about writing this?

Ms. HARVEY: That time of writing the whole body of work that became "Rid
of Me," it was my second album. It was the first time of writing that I
knew what I was writing would be heard. And so I, for a long time, felt
quite crippled by fear and unable to write, and gradually, gradually
worked through that and just remained true to myself and my instinct.
And, therefore, you have a record that is a very difficult record. It's
not easy to listen to. It's certainly not what some - what would get
played very much on radio, and probably not what my record company was
looking for at all at that time. But that's the case in point. It's what
I needed to make, and that's all I had to stick by. I had to stick by
what I needed to create as an artist, no matter how that came out.

GROSS: Well, "Rid of Me" is actually really catchy. And in this song,
you alternate - you know, we've been talking about the different voices
that you use. You alternate between a higher voice and a lower voice in
this.

Ms. HARVEY: Yes. Yeah, again, all to do with the song and dramatic
effect that you can achieve.

GROSS: Okay. So here's Polly Jean Harvey from 1993, I think this is? Is
that right?

Ms. HARVEY: I think it is. I think so.

GROSS: Okay. Okay. And this is "Rid of Me."

(Soundbite of song, "Rid of Me")

Ms. HARVEY: (Singing) I beg you, my darling. Don't leave me. I'm
hurting. Lick my legs. I'm on fire. Lick my legs of desire.

I'll tie your legs, keep you against my chest. Oh, you're not rid of me.
Yeah, you're not rid of me. I'll make you lick my injuries. I'm going to
twist your head off, see.

Till you say don't you wish you never, never met her? Don't you don't
you wish you never, never met her? Don't you, don't you wish you never,
never met her? Don't you, don't you wish you never, never met her?

I beg you my darling...

GROSS: That was PJ Harvey on the title track of her album "Rid of Me,"
from 1993. She has a new album called "Let England Shake."

You recorded the new album in a 19th-century church on a cliff
overlooking the sea. Why did you choose to record the album in a church,
as opposed to a London recording studio?

Ms. HARVEY: It was the way things fell, because initially, I was looking
at recording in Berlin, and I looked at studios there. I couldn't find a
studio that I liked the feel of, so I came back to England not really
knowing where I was going to record. And a man who lives locally and
runs this church as an art space - it's primarily used for exhibitions
of paintings and classical work. It's not really a functioning church,
as such, anymore. He approached me and said if I ever needed somewhere
to rehearse, the church was available. And that's how it happened.

GROSS: What felt right about it?

Ms. HARVEY: The location was beautiful and weather-beaten and full of
space and air and energy, and the building itself with high ceilings and
stone walls and full of possibilities for recording sound. And I went
there with Flood, my producer, and I sang a bit in the church for him to
listen to, and we instantly knew it was the place to do the record.

GROSS: Did it help, too, that it was a 19th century building, that it
was old?

Ms. HARVEY: Well, I think it added to its beauty and spaciousness, and
it just felt good in there. And that's all I ever look for. And
sometimes a recording studio can feel good. I'm sitting here in Maida
Vale in London, speaking to you. This studio has always felt good to me.
Every time I've come in here over the years, I like it here. Now, and
that doesn't go for any studio, and I might have walked into a different
church and not liked that church. So it's really hard to say why, but
this church felt good.

GROSS: I want to close with another song from your new album "Let
England Shake." How about "The Glorious Land?" Would you say something
to introduce it?

Ms. HARVEY: Well, again, I think too much is made of this being an album
about England and war. You know, it's not as simple as that. It's about
the world we live in. And this song, "The Glorious Land," illustrates
that rather well, I think, because it's nonspecific, particularly. It's
not - it could be anywhere that I'm singing from. And even the songs
that refer to England or the glorious land, referring to America, it's
the emotion behind. It's the core. It's the person. It's the individual,
who we are, that is the voice here.

And I try to use, throughout the record, language that carried a certain
ambiguity, a certain ambivalence. And I tried to remain impartial in
some ways, in the way that any news correspondent might try and remain
impartial. I just wanted to deliver the action. Here's the action. This
is the story. This is what's going on on the ground, and people make up
their own minds about things.

GROSS: After doing an album like "Let England Shake," which is about
feelings about country and war and lost friends and - where do you go
from there? Do you know?

Ms. HARVEY: Well, what I've always done is just follow my instincts. And
at some point, my instincts as a writer will take me into another area
that I feel is strong enough that I want to concentrate on for while.
And at the moment, being a writer that writes every day, I'm in that
familiar territory for me, after one body of work has just been
completed, though I'm feeling around. It's like feeling around in the
dark, and I'll write something here and I'll write something there, and
I'll think hmm, that's not really it. Nope. That's not it. That's not
it.

And then after a period of time, you have to work through that time, and
it's a very uncomfortable time to be in as a writer, because it's not
nice to not know exactly where you're heading, what your focus is.
Eventually, the focus comes, and then you just honor that. And that's
the period that I'm in at the moment.

GROSS: PJ Harvey, it's been great to talk with you. Thank you so much.

Ms. HARVEY: Thank you.

(Soundbite of song, "The Glorious Land")

Ms. HARVEY: (Singing) How is our glorious country ploughed? Not by iron
ploughs. How is our glorious country ploughed? Not by iron ploughs. Our
land is ploughed by tanks and feet. Feet marching. Our land is ploughed
by tanks and feet. Feet marching.

Oh, America. Oh, England. Oh, America. Oh, England.

How is our glorious country sown? Not with wheat and corn. How is our
glorious country sown? Not with wheat and corn. How is our glorious land
bestowed? How is our glorious land bestowed?

Oh, America. Oh, England. Oh, America. Oh, England. Oh, America. Oh,
England. Oh, America. Oh, England.

GROSS: That was "The Glorious Land" from PJ Harvey's new album "Let
England Shake." Today only, you can hear the entire album on our
website, freshair.npr.org. Harvey will give a few performances in the
U.S. in April, including at the Coachella festival and a second show at
New York City's Terminal 5, which was added because the first sold out
so quickly.

Coming up, we listen back to an interview with jazz pianist and composer
George Shearing. He died Monday at the age of 91.

This is FRESH AIR.
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*** TRANSCRIPTION COMPANY BOUNDARY ***
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..TIME:
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..NTWK:
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Remembering The Composer Of 'Lullaby Of Birdland'

TERRY GROSS, host:

This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of song, "Yesterdays")

GROSS: Jazz pianist George Shearing died yesterday at the age of 91.
We're going to listen back to an interview with him. He was born in
London and was blind from birth. He studied classical music, but was
most inspired by the records of jazz pianists like Art Tatum, Fats
Waller and Teddy Wilson. In the 1940s, Shearing was one of England's
most popular jazz musicians, but after World War II, he decided to move
to New York - the center of modern jazz.

He became an American citizen in 1956, the decade in which he enjoyed
his greatest commercial success, leading the George Shearing Quintet. It
featured the distinctive instrumentation of piano, guitar and
vibraphone. Shearing's best known composition is "Lullaby of Birdland."
The solo piano recording we're listening to now of Jerome Kern's
"Yesterdays" was recorded in 1974.

(Soundbite of song, "Yesterdays")

GROSS: When I spoke with George Shearing in 1986, he told me that as a
child, he studied piano at a school for the blind. I asked him if his
teachers were confident that a blind person could master the piano.

Mr. SHEARING: I don't think it's a question of whether a blind child
could master the piano, as whether a blind child can make a living in
anything other than playing in the pubs, which is where I started.
You've got to remember one thing, Terry, and that is that if I chose,
say, to be a studio musician - to be a studio musician, it's obviously
necessary to read music. And yes, I can read Braille music, but that's
not sight-reading sighted music. And you might find 30 pages of
manuscript paper with so many notes on it, just as if, you know, flies
were all over it. And we always that there are some sighted people who
read so well that if a fly appeared on the paper, they'd read it, you
know.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. SHEARING: This is not available to the blind, but playing in the pub
was, and eventually getting my own group was. And from there, I went
with an all-blind band - 15 blind guys learning to play instruments,
from being basket makers and chair caners. We were playing arrangements
of Jimmie Lunceford and Duke Ellington and people like that.

GROSS: How did you find each other? Who organized the band?

Mr. SHEARING: The National Institution for the Blind. People used to
write all the parts out in Braille. I was the only one who didn't read
his part. I could pick it up by ear, because I learned a lot of the
records, as well. There were a couple of people in that band - the first
trumpet player and the drummer - who had everything from, oh, you know,
early Miff Mole and stuff like that, all the way through Teddy Wilson
and Tatum and Fats Waller. And these people kind of became my mentors,
as you can imagine. So it was a - that was a really wonderful training
ground.

GROSS: Just as you were really coming of age and - well, you'd already
started your recording career - the war came along. How was the music
scene in London...

Mr. SHEARING: During the war?

GROSS: ...changed by the war? And was there anyplace to perform, or even
places to listen during the war?

Mr. SHEARING: I had more work than I could handle, because there were so
many people called up. I would be doing studio work in the daytime,
because there was enough of it that didn't demand reading, and they
couldn't afford to be that fussy any longer. So I learned the charts and
did the recordings and the jazz broadcasts and whatever was involved.

I did theater, two shows in theater, eight and 10 at night. I went on to
a supper club and played from 10:30 until about 1:00 or 1:30, and then
on to a nightclub and played till four, and then back in the studios the
next morning at 10. I had much more work than I could handle.

GROSS: Were you ever bombed while you were performing during the war?

Mr. SHEARING: Oh, yes. First of all, my mother was bombed out three
times. And I was in a cab one night going to work, and we stopped at a
traffic light and we heard this tremendous blast, and the cab shook like
mad. And I said boy, that was a close one, wasn't it? And there was no
answer. And I said, that was a close one, wasn't it? And I put my head
in front, and the driver's gone. He ducked in a doorway, and when it was
all clear he came out again.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. SHEARING: I said thanks a lot.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Really?

Mr. SHEARING: Yeah.

(Soundbite of laughter)

GROSS: Well, didn't you also do some playing inside air raid shelters
during the war?

Mr. SHEARING: Oh, yes. Matter of fact, I met...

GROSS: What kind of setup was that, that there'd be a piano there?

Mr. SHEARING: I met my first wife in an air raid shelter. And what we
did, we played in the basement, which had been turned into a gymnasium.
And there were kind of forms, you know, benches that one could sleep on
or - on the floor, and there were blankets and stuff. And there would be
an upright piano there. So I was living with a song-plugger at the time,
and he and I would play four hands, much to the amusement of people that
went, you know, down in that particular air raid shelter.

GROSS: So you think it helped pass the time for everybody?

Mr. SHEARING: Oh, yeah. Oh, well, sure. I mean, you had to make a life.
I mean, you had no alternative. Fifteen hours a day the raids would be
on, day and night, until we defeated the day raiders.

GROSS: Well, after the war, you decided, I guess, not to stay in London,
and you wanted to at least make a few trips to the United States. What
was the lure of America for you?

Mr. SHEARING: I met a few American musicians just before and a few more
during the war. And all, as if they were in one voice, pretty well said
man, you should go over to the States. You'd kill 'em over there. Well,
I started playing as an intermission pianist in 1948. What fun that was.
My goodness.

I'll never forget when I first sat in with Charlie Parker. Being a
reserved Englishman, I should have said, what would you like to play,
Mr. Parker? But I was a 28-year-old hippie who came from England. I
never dressed like a hippie in my life. That's not the point. But the
point is, I did say to him what do you want to blow, Bird?

And he thought - you know, he was a gentleman. He wasn't destructive.
But I guess he felt it was necessary to put me through the paces and
kind of just take me down a peg, in case I became too cocky. And I'm
sure he didn't think in this, other than to be good schooling for me. So
when I said what do you want to play, Bird? He said, oh, how about "All
the Things You Are" in five sharps? I don't know whether you play any
piano, Terry, but that's a difficult piece of music to play in B major.
I did it. I had the background, and I did it. And it was passing a few
of these tests and winning favor with the American musicians by ability,
which stood me in good stead.

GROSS: We're listening to a 1986 interview with jazz pianist George
Shearing. He died yesterday at the age of 91. Here's one of his most
popular recordings, "September in the Rain," recorded in 1949, featuring
the George Shearing Quintet.

(Soundbite of song, "September in the Rain")

GROSS: The group headed in pop directions in a lot of its records. What
was your reason for choosing that?

Mr. SHEARING: Capitol Records wanted it. They wanted me to add strings
and add this and add that, and there were a number of very successful
records because of that. But we started to lose favor with the critics,
as you can imagine. And in retrospect, the critics were right, because
there was a lot less creativity involved in the more commercial side of
my music.

GROSS: Is that why you broke up the quintet?

Mr. SHEARING: I just got tired of it. I was on automatic pilot. I'd go
to sleep playing the show. And I tried several things. I surrounded it
with brass. I surrounded it with Latin sounds, and people loved that.
But I could work all day long on a fugue or a very intricate piece of
music. When I came to work, will you play "Roses of Picardy"? Or play "I
Remember April"? You could work all day, and this is what they wanted.
And I'm glad they wanted it, but it's tiresome and it's confining. It's
as if you have fetters around your neck. You just can't move, you know.
And so I finally wanted to address myself to the proposition of being a
complete pianist, rather than a Band-Aid who rests on his laurels until
he gets tired enough to go to sleep.

GROSS: We're listening back to a 1986 interview with jazz pianist and
composer George Shearing. He died yesterday at the age of 91.

We'll hear more of the interview after a break. This is FRESH AIR.

(Soundbite of music)

GROSS: We're remembering jazz pianist and composer George Shearing. He
died yesterday at the age of 91. Let's get back to the interview I
recorded with him in 1986.

It seems to me that in the last few years, you've been adding more and
more popular songs to your repertoire, playing with singers like Mel
Torme, singing yourself. You've recently - I think it's recently, began
singing your...

Mr. SHEARING: Yeah, within the last 10 or 15 years, you know, recently,
yeah - by comparison with my career. This is my 50th year in show
business.

GROSS: What attracts you to a song when you're getting it...

Mr. SHEARING: Lyrics. Lyrics, and how the lyrics fit with the music. You
know, and being able to make literary sense out of the song. For
instance, everybody - and I do mean everybody that I've heard - when
they do "Send in the Clowns," they sing...

(Singing) Isn't it rich? Isn't it queer, losing my timing this late in
my career?

Now would you say it that way? Losing my timing this late in my career?
You would say: losing my timing this late in my career, wouldn't you?
But it's partly Sondheim's fault, and I love him. I love him dearly. We
had a long talk one night in the Carlisle about Bach. He's a great Bach
enthusiast. But people have to use a little bit of imagination, a little
bit of ingenuity.

(Singing) Isn't it rich? Isn't it queer, losing my timing this late in
my career?

This is why I love songs.

GROSS: I see what you mean with that.

Mr. SHEARING: Yeah.

GROSS: Did Sondheim agree with you?

Mr. SHEARING: I think so. In fact, I know he did, yes. Yes, he agreed
with me completely.

GROSS: You've written songs, as well, and I think your best-known piece
is "Lullaby of Birdland." Can you tell us the story behind writing that?

Mr. SHEARING: Birdland needed a theme song for a six-hour disc jockey
show that they had in the early '50s.

GROSS: And Birdland was a club...

Mr. SHEARING: A club. Yeah.

GROSS: ...in New York in the '50s?

Mr. SHEARING: Right. Yes.

GROSS: Mostly bop musicians played that...

Mr. SHEARING: Right. Yeah. Well, it was named for Charlie Parker, see,
whose nickname is Bird. So I wrote this thing. I heard it in my head. I
wrote it in 10 minutes - I always say 10 minutes and 35 years in the
business - over a steak in my dining room when I lived in New Jersey. I
went back to that same butcher a thousand times trying to get that same
steak again.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. SHEARING: Charlie liked it, and they played it every hour on the
hour - which is, of course, why it became my best-known song because -
in fact, it was my only well-known song. You know, when I go on as a
composer, I say I'd like to play you medley of my hit, you know.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. SHEARING: But the thing is that when something is hammered through
people's heads, of course it's going to - if it's got any substance at
all that people can hang onto, of course it's going to become a hit, you
know. And that's what happened with "Lullaby." And, of course, we got
over a hundred people recording it.

GROSS: The - I don't know if you wrote it with a lyric in mind or not,
but I...

Mr. SHEARING: No.

GROSS: I have heard it sung.

Mr. SHEARING: Yes.

GROSS: And the first line is - I'm not going to sing it. Maybe you'll do
it. but they sing the first line of "Lullaby of...

Mr. SHEARING: Birdland.

GROSS: ...Birdland" in it.

Mr. SHEARING: Yes, they do.

GROSS: Do you want to just single line, just to...

Mr. SHEARING: Yeah. Well, if you read it and you read it as if you were
dividing the lines, it's lullaby of Birdland, that's what I always hear
when you sigh. Never in my word-land could there be ways to reveal in a
phrase how I feel.

Well, doesn't mean anything, does it, really? So...

(Singing) Lullaby of Birdland, that's what I always hear when you sigh.
Never in my word-land could there be ways to reveal in a phrase how I
feel.

Now, it means something, because it's being read.

GROSS: George Shearing, recorded in 1986. He died yesterday at the age
of 91.
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