Ian Brennan Part 3

Recording Global Music with Producer Ian Brennan Part 3: Azerbaijan, Malawi, Parchman Prison

This is the transcript of my third episode with producer Ian Brennan. The podcast and video with show notes are linked.

Ian Brennan:

And so on the way back, I'm looking because I kind of know where it was, but I don't know, not that precisely. I knew, okay, it's somewhere in this 20 mile stretch there was somebody by the side of the road. And then fortunately, and the sun was going down, fortunately he was still there and this was Alfred from the band, pulled over and went there and talked to him and a bunch of kids gathered around hoping that they're going to sell stuff, but also just curious what's going on. And Alfred's quite shy. And so I asked him, "Hey, just if you would maybe play a little song." And he was a little reluctant and then he did. And it's this incredible song that's on the debut record. And it's one of those things very similar with The Good Ones where within like 20 seconds it's like, no, I don't need to hear a whole song. I don't need to hear other songs. This is beautiful.

Leah Roseman:

Hi, you're listening to Conversations with Musicians, with Leah Roseman, which I hope inspires you through the personal stories of a fascinating diversity of musical guests. This is my third conversation with Ian Brennan in this mini ongoing series with him within my podcast. If you missed parts one and two, they're linked in the show notes for you. Today you'll hear about how he recorded some of the oldest voices in the world in Azerbaijan and some of the bonus tracks including the Kronos Quartet and The Good Ones. Ian shared how he met the Malawi Mouse Boys and then brought them to international attention and what that has meant for them. We talked about the Chicago Gunfire Survivors Project, Ian's book Peace by Peace: 99 Steps Towards Violence Prevention and De-escalation and the powerful Parchman Prison albums. At the end, I asked him about his Grammy nominated album with Ramblin' Jack Elliot, "I Stand Alone".

In the show notes, you'll find photos from the album covers by Ian's wife, the Italian-Rwandan filmmaker and photographer, Marilena Umuhoza Delli. . You'll find the track information for the excerpts and the timestamps and everything is linked in the show notes on my website. You can watch the video on my YouTube or listen to the podcast on your preferred platform and I've also linked the transcript. Have a look at the show notes where you'll find all the links, including different ways to support this podcast. Please note that I've linked suggested episodes you'll find interesting along with other episodes with Ian, each focusing on different albums he's recorded.

Hi, Ian. So glad we could do this again.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Me too.

Leah Roseman:

I'll keep reminding listeners if they missed previous conversations with Ian, they're all linked in the show notes. This is our third interview. I wanted to start with Azerbaijan, the centenarians album. It's quite special and you also worked with other artists who did some pretty cool overdubs. So maybe let's talk about how that trip got organized and what that was like.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah, that was one of those things like most of them that kind of takes years, I wouldn't say in the planning, but sort of to come to be fully realized. And it was a little more difficult than some because we needed to kind of be sure that we knew where we were going and what may be there. So where we went is in the Talish mountains on the border of Iran and Azerbaijan and it's a very remote area. Once you get up to the main town, it's dirt road networks to different villages. And the motivation was that they have a museum there, a small cultural center about longevity because they claim to have the person who has lived longest that is known. This is a disputable claim, but also that there are many people that have also lived very long lives, over a hundred years, 140, 162, that sort of thing.

We unfortunately ended up going after COVID. So when we finally were able to get up there and be there and search to meet people, we found out that the majority of people had passed away during the COVID period, not necessarily from COVID, but I think a lot of them probably because of that are undiagnosed and it was winter so that made it a little rougher on the roads getting there, but it was an extraordinarily gratifying experience and educational beyond, I think like most of these things end up being way beyond what we imagined.

Leah Roseman:

What did you learn or what surprised you about that experience?

Ian Brennan:

Well, I think just being in the presence of people that have that wisdom and are really in most cases, I think whatever affect they may have once had, if they did, maybe they never did. It's a pretty rough life, especially the generation that are now a hundred plus years old, rural life and without electricity, usually without running water, that sort of thing. But if they had any affect, it's certainly been whittled down to their core. And so what's left I think in most people is a lot of love and a lot of gratitude towards others. And it's a very moving thing to experience I think in any form, but it was particularly moving. Also, you're at a high elevation, so probably that affects a very high elevation, that affects everything as well.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Did you have trouble with the fatigue or just being able to walk?

Ian Brennan:

Not in this case. Maybe in winter it was a little easier. Maybe in summer it would've been difficult. We had difficulty with the roads, which is a pretty common issue, but maybe these roads in a lot of cases in some cases were very dangerous, especially with the ice and snow. And we originally went in a big vehicle and you would think sort of like, "Oh, this is the best you can do, like a big four-wheel drive thing." And with a guy from the city, the capital, which is very modern, the capital of Azerbaijan is very modern and this is a stark contrast. In fact, he'd never been up there and everybody said, "Why are you going there?" Because the tourists usually go in the opposite direction up into the wine country and that sort of thing, but he got stuck and it was bad. I mean, the attempts to get it out were quite dangerous.

And ultimately, fortunately, some locals came by and helped. And then after that, we learned that the best thing to do was to get these local taxis that are these old, old, old Russian two doors like hatchbacks, but with special tires and the drivers in general, pretty crazy kind of Kamikaze kind of drivers, I suppose. And that's how we were able to get to these places and that's when we began to meet people.

The same thing often happens. You meet one person and then you meet another person and then in a smaller community, people start understanding what you're there for and become interested and if they feel that it's something positive, they want to help. And so they say, "Oh yeah, there's this person in a village that's to the east" and you try to reach them and that sort of thing.

Leah Roseman:

I'm curious, what kind of gifts do you bring or what kind of advice do you get about that sort of cultural knowledge?

Ian Brennan:

Well, it depends. I try to bring things from where I am. I think things have value when there's something that's not available otherwise. So in more formalized settings, meaning when there's a chief, there's often something you're supposed to bring like in when we went to the witchcamps, you have to bring these nuts to the chief. They're not necessarily expensive, but this is a necessity we were told. And so every chief that we visited, we would bring these to them. And we were fortunate. I think maybe that's generally the case, but we were fortunate that they were all very nice. You wouldn't think they were a chief necessarily. I mean, they were certainly weren't arrogant. But in other cases, we just try to bring things from where we are. And there's this one cookie that's easy to carry, meaning that it's not just that it's not heavy, but it doesn't break easily the way it's packaged and it has a poetic name, which is in Italian, is Holes in the Snow.

And it was my mom's favorite cookie when we would bring it to her. So I always bring it to people and say, "This was my mom's favorite cookie." And it's a way of kind of bringing her into grounding me as well as in the environment.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. There are a lot of short tracks for people that haven't heard it, like 22 and there's these bonus tracks with artists that you've collaborated with, but I wanted to start maybe even the first track. My life is good. It is like a flower. It's an elder woman singing.(Music: track 1, album linked in show notes)

I'm curious, is she on the album cover? Do you know?

Ian Brennan:

No, she's not. The woman that's on the album cover was able to communicate a little, but not a lot. Some of the much, much, much older people struggled more. So there were some beautiful Talysh folk songs that were done and then otherwise it was mostly people talking about their experience or singing songs that they remembered, snippets of songs that they remembered and then using elements from the environment. So there's a lot of agricultural tools on the album because there's some pretty elaborate ones still, like big things that look like a seesaw to crush wheat and that sort of thing.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. Were you suggesting that to use those?

Ian Brennan:

No. I mean, not suggesting, but just I'm always interested in what's there. I mean, because musical instruments in general weren't available. I mean, there was someone that played flute and a few other flat drums, or frame drum,s which is almost everywhere, but otherwise there weren't a lot of instruments. But I'm most interested in the voice anyway. I really like acapella singing, but in terms of albums worth of material, I think having coloration is important. Otherwise, people just dismiss it as other and ethnic or quote unquote world music. And for me, these records are really, maybe they're all those things, but they're none of those things. I really think that it's modern music. These are living people and this is their music. They just happen to be rural people, but I don't think that that makes what they do any less relevant because they're not using electricity.

Leah Roseman:

Actually, I like the track five Bulbul (Nightingale) with the frame drum because I really like frame drum and I have to admit my first assumption was the singer wasn't playing the frame drum because of my own ageist attitudes, but I don't know, maybe they were.

Ian Brennan:

No, they were.

Leah Roseman:

Okay.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. (Music: clip of track 5, album linked in show notes)

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Let's talk about ageism and maybe some of your motivation for recording these elders.

Ian Brennan:

I mean, almost every project we ever do, in fact, I would say every project we ever do. We say we'd really like to hear from women, which sometimes is not possible, like culturally is prohibited. We have an upcoming project that unfortunately that's the case, but then ironically at the last minute, they told us, "Well, there's going to be a female singer." And I was like, "Great." Not because we wanted it was just kind of the way it worked out. I'm like, "Okay, but they told us that it was forbidden, so okay, good." But whenever possible we say we really, really, really would like to hear from female singers more than as much as or more than male singers, and we'd really like to hear from elders. And that of course is a very subjective concept. What does that mean? And as I've aged, more and more, that means people younger than me in certain cultures.

But the motivation for this is here's this area that's known for longevity and here's people that are over a hundred years of age. And to really, really try to promote those voices or to see how heroic they are in a sense in the face of ongoing youth worship that we make progress seemingly in that regard and then it just all seems to slide back. It's hard to maintain the progress.

I think now maybe there was some progress in the late around 2020, right before and after. But I think since things have really gone about as far back as I can remember in my lifetime, as far as going back to really objectifying and worshiping youth, really young people that I think youth is great, but I think people that haven't really fully developed at all a vision of what they're trying to say other than "look at me".

Leah Roseman:

And the language they speak up there, is it related to Persian languages?

Ian Brennan:

Well, it's spoken in Iran, but it's a language that is different and it's Talysh. So it's on the one side of the mountains, it's the same territory essentially, but divided by the mountains and by the country. But the interesting thing was this happens sometimes where you have to get an interpreter for the interpreter and so we had to get this interpreter for the interpreter and what that meant was that we got a local guy from down in the valley to come and help us. The local guy from down in the valley said that he... I mean, it's not far. It's like an hour and a half down drive, not a far drive at all. He said that he himself had trouble understanding the people in the mountains because he didn't go up there much even though it's nearby. And so I think he estimated that he understood something like, I can't remember, two thirds of what they said or something like that, three quarters.

I mean, enough that he could communicate, but really it was different just even there.

Leah Roseman:

We haven't talked that much in these conversations yet about some of your earlier career. So maybe we'll get into that eventually, but Kronos Quartet you know. So you got them to do a little... So I'm assuming you sent them a track and they improvised around it ?

Ian Brennan:

That was an existing piece which happened to be related to an Iranian composer and they felt like it was sort of written in the stars and I think it kind of was.(Music: clip track 23 with Kronos Quartet, album linked in show notes) And then the others, yeah, were improvisations.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. Yeah. The one with The Good Ones, which I'll play a little bit of track 26, if you know their music, you right away recognize that sound and we talked about them in Part 1 with you if people missed that. (Music: clip track 26, album linked in show notes)

Okay. I wanted to get to the Malawi Mouse Boys because I wanted to talk about them last time and we didn't quite get there.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

So I noticed with a few of these artists, the Tiny Desk Home concert, you had sent videos to NPR and they featured some of these artists and the Malawi Mouse Boys were featured on that. So a lot of people saw this video.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

So was that a COVID thing where they were doing these, or do they still have that where they have remote ?

Ian Brennan:

Yeah, it was a COVID thing and also I just think the timing of the cultural timing was there was a sudden openness and I think that has now there's been a big change in terms of the management and leadership because the person, one of the founders of Tiny Desk, one of the main proponents retired, but there was an openness there. And the nice thing is I think that that's translated to them now having more interest in international music in general. I think the nice thing is that it's turned into maybe they have a lot more international artists now than they had before, but what happened was that that footage was not shot for Tiny Desk. That footage was shot quite a few years before just as by Marilena as just something she would cut into one of these mini documentaries that she puts together for the records.

And so it's a continuous shot, but at some point she zooms in on Maligo's hands and at some point she zooms in on his feet and then she comes back and it was right at sunset. We were fighting the light, that sort of thing, pressured for time and people going by trying to keep people from interfering, but it wasn't meant to be a complete take and it wasn't meant to be seen like that. It turned out to be quite strong because of his performance. In fact, probably better than the ultimate recorded performance that's on the album. But some people I recall in the comments were like, "Why are they focusing on his feet and why would they do... " As if it was done in some type of anthropological way. And it wasn't that at all. It was just B-roll, like getting B-roll while you're getting the A - roll.

But I sent it to them, I'm not sure why. I think it was just one of those things where Sunday morning kind of thing where I woke up and I thought, let me send it to them or ask them if they're interested and send it to them and within, I don't know, very quickly in many cases, never hearing back about that kind of thing, never hearing anything, but within like an hour or two it was like, "Yes, we want to do this. " And it was like, "Wow, okay, great."

Leah Roseman:

Yeah, it's interesting. I was curious because of your connections and your reputation as a producer that you would get more immediate attention but not always.

Ian Brennan:

No, no, no. It's very difficult and that's something that I'm not bitter about at all. It's something that I think it's just that it's the main issue we're dealing with that we believe that it's important to try to counterbalance, which is just that the digital age has created such a sheer tsunami of information and music that no one, even the people, the gatekeepers, can't keep track of it all. They have to filter it somehow. I try not to interpret people's silence because I've had too many people come back literally 10 years with no response and then they want to do something or whatever it may be. So in their head, maybe they're thinking the whole time, "Okay, we're going to write about The Good Ones someday, or we're going to write about the Malawi Mouse Boys at some point, but you never would necessarily know that.

So I don't have that level of influence and that's part of what... If I have regrets, my regrets are that things didn't go as I had hoped when I was younger, which was to have a little bit more commercial success, to be a litle bit more quote unquote famous, so I could use that to help in these situations. And I don't have that. I have just many years of working at it and some contacts, but a lot of those contacts age out, they move on, they retire, pass away, all those things. And meanwhile, we're dealing with levels of music, over a hundred thousand songs uploaded to Spotify daily that it's almost impossible. Compete is not the right word, but it's almost impossible to be heard above all that noise.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Well, I'm trying to help in my tiny corner of the internet!

Ian Brennan:

Well, thank you so much. (Music: clip of In Memory of a Hungry Child)

Leah Roseman:

First of all, there's a single on Band Camp from 2022 in Memory of a Hungry Child with kind of a ghostly wind instrument and there's this photo. Is somebody playing that instrument and is that what we're hearing in that track?

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. Yeah. That's all live that was something that... In 2018, there was an opportunity for them to potentially do the score for a story that was based in Malawi and a film that was shot in Malawi. And so that was the last time I went there with them and we recorded specifically for that purpose all on speculation. Nobody was committed enough to give money to help, but it was like, maybe this will work. And I thought what they did was beautiful and unfortunately it didn't work. They wanted a more traditional film score, that sort of thing. And so this was one of the tracks from when we got together, more experimental. The record that ultimately came out, I think is a really strong record, a really different record. And there's two songs that really feature their gorgeous harmonies, but otherwise it's extremely experimental.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. I've listened through to it. I was kind of curious. They must have had some input from the filmmakers in terms of the scenes, what they wanted.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. There was the rough footage of on scene in particular, a pivotal scene in the middle of the film that they wanted a score or two and then there was the cut of the opening of the film. So that's largely what was being worked from, were those two things as best we could. We weren't in a studio where we're projecting the screen. It was more like, look at this on the laptop and then we'll do some stuff.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Well, I'll play a clip of the Hymn Hunger because their singing is so beautiful.(Music: clip of track 2) I also wanted to play this improvisatory guitar music Dirt Floors.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. (Music: clip of track 5)

Leah Roseman:

And they have other albums on the streaming services, although they're not on Bandcamp, I noticed.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. They predate Bandcamp and the label that was very supportive of them. And in fact, the first record made a big splash at the time in the UK and in global music circles. That label essentially stopped operating. I think they're operating in some form, but hasn't put out albums for a long, long, long time. I mean, probably close to 10 years now. So those records therefore predate, I don't know, predate Bandcamp is probably wrong. Probably Bandcamp started long before, but before it became a more regular thing for people to be involved with.

Leah Roseman:

And you had brought them to the US?

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. Well, we were very fortunate. Any of the artists who've had the opportunity to go overseas, it's almost always due to WOMAD, the WOMAD Festival. And it started with the Malawi Mouse Boys that after the first record that got a lot of attention, I mean, for a record of that nature and basically unsolicited attention, not something we had to hire a fancy publicist for. The head person for WOMAD, booking person for WOMAD, who's really great, really great person, Paula, wrote me. I didn't know her and she wrote me and said, "We really want to bring them to the festival." And my first reaction was, "No way." We may have talked about this before, but that I never wanted to be anybody's manager. I never wanted to be anybody's booking agent. I'm not good at those things necessarily. It involves a lot of paperwork. It gives me a headache.

I've since gotten a lot better at paperwork because I've done a lot of it in the time since. So that was my first thought. I didn't respond, but I realized I think very quickly, I think within less than an hour, I was like, "No, I've got to do this because this is a great opportunity for them and so I've got to at least see it through." So we did and it was shockingly successful because they'd never been on a stage before. So they did a warmup gig in London on the Friday night before or the Thursday night before and then they went and played the first show. They had two shows and they played in front of a massive audience because they were the only thing going on at the end of the night. So everybody came to this one tent, it was like 10,000 people.

So it was pretty overwhelming and they did fine but not great. But then on Sunday they played during the day and they had time to kind of think about it and it was just the learning curve was like they just skyrocketed and they came out and gave one of the best live performances I've ever seen in my life by anybody and there were 10,000 people around outdoors in the sun this time rather than the dark in a tent and it was incredible. So that led to them being invited immediately to the Australian and New Zealand version of WOMAD and they went down there and they were very, very successful there, especially in New Zealand because they were on what was at the time the morning breakfast show, which doesn't exist anymore.

I was fortunate enough to be able to bring them to the United States because of a festival in San Francisco that doesn't normally support international artists, but it's a free festival and they have this trust that they can use money. And so they were moved and they were motivated. And so they went there and were able to perform. And then we did a show in LA and we did another show in Oakland that six people were there. They played the festival and there were thousands and then they came across the bay the next night and there was nobody there almost virtually. And then they played in New York. But unfortunately the opportunities kind of dry up there. I mean, there aren't a lot of opportunities beyond that. I wish there were, but there just have not been.

Leah Roseman:

And in one of your books you wrote about them and how it was very sad because in their community they were perceived a certain way so they had trouble getting work because they were seen as successful even though it didn't translate into money for them, regular money.

Ian Brennan:

Right, right. I mean, every culture's different. Human nature is human nature, but on a spectrum, the culture there is known for sometimes having envy, like envy attacks and that sort of thing. So it's some form of that, that because they traveled, which the vast majority of people in their area, which is the poorest area of what at the time was the poorest country in the world and remains in the top 10 poorest countries in the world. In their area, even the successful, richer people usually have not had that opportunity because the visas are so hard to get even if they've got the money. In the capital or in Blantyre or the other city, it's possible that some people have, but it's rare. So I mean, they were the first people in their families to ever be on an airplane, the first people to have passports, the first people to go overseas, and people know this.

And so when they got back and reality sets in and go looking for work, people were saying, "No, you don't need the job. You're the fancy person that went to the UK," or that sort of thing. And so it's quite sad. And when they were in New Zealand, Australia and then New Zealand, that was the time that they were able to make a significant amount of money because there's so much more utility to the money there because of the currency exchange. And we tried really hard to stress to them like this may be it. They'd had quite a run for a year or two, but it's like there may not be other opportunities like this, so really make this money last because if you're careful, you can make this money last two, three, four years. But of course that's very hard to do. And one of the reasons it's hard for people, because they're generous usually as well, is that they want to help other people.

So they get home and the neighbor needs some help and the mother or the father or the brother or the sister and obviously they've got kids. And so it's hard to do that. It's hard to do that in Italy. It's hard to do that to budget money. I'm not good at it. But we really were trying to manage expectations. We're always trying to manage expectations that we're going to try this, we're going to pay you to record, but there may never be a record. And if there is a record, it might be one, two, three years from now. And if there is a record, there might be a chance to perform somewhere else, but we don't know that. And if there is, it will probably be limited to a few countries and times. But there are obviously exceptions to that. And it's beautiful to see artists that are able to really carve out a career for themselves playing Europe.

There's a band BCUC, which is a great live band from South Africa. And they come to Europe, I don't know how many months out of the year, but certainly the summer season and play almost every night. I mean, they have a packed schedule and I'm sure they must be making pretty good money now and it's beautiful. It's great. And it would be nice to see artists that... They're not commercial, that band, they're very catchy and incredible live energy, but it would be nice to see other bands have some version of that. But obviously when you're doing rural, acoustic, more ballad oriented music, it's harder.

Leah Roseman:

So the Malawi Mouse Boys make their own instruments?

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Ian Brennan:

Yeah, they do. They do. Or in some cases, people have made them for them, but they make their own instruments. Yeah, the guitars. At Maligo's house, who is kind of the leader, there is instruments in various states of repair or disrepair or development, like guitars without strings and that sort of thing. But when they came to London, they came to the UK, they said, "We really want you to get us real instruments. This is their thing. Real guitars and blah, blah, blah." So we did. Okay. We bought them a, I don't remember, like an acoustic guitar and an electric guitar and a bass guitar, something like that for them to be able to take home. And the first night there's one guitar, it's sort of like a ukulele guitar almost, that is made with sheet metal and tree limbs and just recycled metal string. And so they played and maybe it was... Yeah, I think it was before or after they played. Now I don't recall. I guess it was after. And then Nelson took off the guitar, only instrument they had other than some hand percussion, which was like a Coca-Cola can and things like that. And he leaned it up against the wall like people do with guitars if they don't have a stand and then was talking to people or whatever. And then suddenly this person came up with their phone and took a picture of it and then somebody else came up and pretty soon there was a line of people. I mean, it was a small club, so maybe 10 people, five, 10 people came up and took a picture in a row of his guitar. And he's a smart person, he's an artist, he's observant. And he saw that and he realized, "Oh, that's not a liability." And that's what I've been trying to tell them, but it's a thing.

Those are words, but this was something experiential. And so they actually took those guitars home that we'd given them and sold them to be able to then get materials to build more instruments. And that's what they used on the future trips, the trip to Australia, New Zealand, and the trip to the United States.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. Interesting.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

And the name of the band?

Ian Brennan:

Well, they sell probably still to this day on occasion when they need to. But as younger men, when I met them, when we met them in 2011, I think the youngest at that point was still a teenager. I don't recall precisely, maybe 19 or 18. They would sell roasted mice on a shiskabab by the side of the road, which is sort of a delicacy in that region. So people that travel from the capital to the other big city in the south, some of them would say, this is something when I was a kid we'd stop and we'd get this. And so they will still sometimes do that. And so that was how they would make money. And so we met them because when we were out, I saw somebody with this guitar and was like, wait. But we were in a hurry so we didn't stop, which now I'm a lot better at stopping when you see somebody for sure.

But sometimes you just can't. Sometimes you're on your way to meet somebody else, that sort of thing. And so on the way back, I'm looking because I kind of know where it was, but I don't know, not that precisely. I knew, okay, it's somewhere in this 20 mile stretch. There was somebody by the side of the road. And then fortunately, and the sun was going down, fortunately he was still there. And this was Alfred from the band. And so pulled over and went there and talked to him and a bunch of kids gathered around hoping that they're going to sell stuff, but also just curious what's going on. And Alfred's quite shy. And so I asked him, "Hey, just if you would, maybe play a little song." And he was a little reluctant and then he did. And it's this incredible song. It's on the debut record.

And it's one of those things very similar with The Good Ones where within 20 seconds it's like, "No, I don't need to hear a whole song. I don't need to hear other songs. This is beautiful." And so I said, "Well, we'd like to come back and record you if you're interested." And he said, "Yeah, yeah. Okay. And bring your... " He goes, "I play with other people. " I'm like, "That's great. That's even better." And so we went back on a scheduled day, I think two days later, and they were there and they took us from one village to another. And it ended up being seven or eight people. And it was pretty chaotic. Some of it was good and some of it was kind of a little too rough. Some of the singing and some of the playing. But then we talked to them some more and said, "Well, we'd like to come back again." And they said, "Okay, we'll bring this person, this person, and this person and focus it.

" And it was like, "Great." So that was the first record. There were more than the four men involved, but less than the eight original. And then when it came time to tour, the problem is always that you can't bring everybody. And so you have to find some core. And so this ended up being the core of the group is Maligo, who's really the leader anyway, the primary instrument builder and then a few folks around him. Alfred, the person that we originally met as well. Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

And you were in Malawi for another purpose? I mean, to meet musicians or to do other -

Ian Brennan:

Oh no, no, no, to meet musicians. But we were there also the first time we were there with Marilena's father. So Marilena's mother is from Rwanda and her mother and father met in Rwanda. But Marilena's father, who's Italian, spent more than a decade, most of his young adulthood, like 15 years I believe, he spent in Malawi doing charitable work. And so he learned to speak fluent Chichewa and had to do a lot of it on his own. A lot of times he was the only person in the village working to build something there, that sort of thing. So that was his country much more than Italy, he felt like that was his place. And he was ailing so we went with him. He wanted to go one last time. And his best friend still lived there, an Italian man. And so we went and spent time with him and while we were there, we went in search of music and we recorded, like in a lot of cases, we recorded a lot of, I wouldn't say a lot, but we recorded other music and we recorded one singer who was quite good.

But just clearly there was something particularly special about what the Malawi Mouse Boys were doing.

Leah Roseman:

Okay. I was wondering about the language. So he was your translator on that first trip.

Ian Brennan:

He was pretty weak and not really that interested in helping with music, but his friend helped. And then we also had another person that we met there and he helped and he's continued to help with the group because his English is quite good. Someone who's from... He grew up in the north of Malawi, but he now is based nearby a couple of villages away from where the remainder of the group all grew up and where their church is and that sort of thing, which is a tiny, tiny village. (Music: clip track 14)

Leah Roseman:

Before we leave this group, is there anything you want to talk about around them?

Ian Brennan:

No, just that we continue to... I mean, I wish there was something stronger than just a hope, but we continue to try and hope and do what we can to assist. Their situation unfortunately doesn't improve dramatically. It would be nice if it would, but it's a continuing struggle that the brunt of a lot of the consequences of the Ukraine war with the impact on the production there of oil and the production of grain has been rested upon the countries that are already struggling. And now I'm sure with the current war between Iran and America, et cetera, is going to have probably, again, will impact them very dramatically. Obviously it's impacting the countries and the region really, really powerfully in a negative way, but it'll have repercussions that are probably going to, compared to what gas prices in America in the countries that are suffering most, it can directly lead to rises and starvation and other issues as well. So we continue to do what we can and want to do more for them.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Well, you have a recent project you'd sent me the Chicago Gunfire Survivors and it's not so much music, it's more interviews and spoken word. So this group, Cure Violence Global, all the profits go to support their work. Did you know the people working with them?

Ian Brennan:

I know one of the leaders was someone that when the Zomba Prison Project was nominated and it got a lot of attention internationally, a lot of people during that period contacted me that I'd never met or didn't know. And some of those people I've remained in contact with and they were one of those. And so I had the idea why don't we record with people in the community and let them speak for themselves and hear their stories and raise some money for the program as well that does incredible work with helping to stop violence. People can look at the rates of violence and say, well, they're sky high, but what they don't realize is that without these kind of programs, they would be much higher, much worse. And maybe that's hard for people to imagine, but it's the truth.

So contacted them, they said, "Yeah, let's do this. " And went there. And again, like a lot of the projects, I would say virtually all of them, it takes on a life of its own where there's this person or that person or this person or that person is scheduled to be there, but then maybe doesn't show up some of them. Most cases they do, but maybe doesn't show up. But then there's other people that come with that person or suddenly somebody, when it becomes real, tangible, they go, "Oh wait, my friend's friend, he's a singer or whatever." But a lot of the people came from the neighborhood itself, meaning that block where it's a very stable neighborhood in general where a lot of people have lived in the same homes for generations. And some of the households are, I'd say the majority of them are multi-generational.

It's actually quite close-knit really. So the saddest part of it really, or the most telling part of it is that virtually anybody, when the community leaders walk up and say, "Hey, would you like to talk about your experience with gun violence?" It's almost a given that they have experience with gun violence. (clip track 3, Chicago Gunfire Survivors, album linked in show notes)

Leah Roseman:

So the south side of Chicago has a rich cultural and musical history.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah, it does. I mean, it's the home of the electric Blues, which were mostly people transplanted from the South and Mississippi that plugged in. And that's really what led to certainly, maybe not rock and roll, but certainly that led to a lot of the British invasion because that's where so many people in Britain were inspired by a lot of those artists. And it continues today. I mean, there are and have continued to be a lot of rap artists that come from the community. And it's a big area. I mean, it's not like we're talking about some tiny little area. It's a big chunk of the city down there.

Leah Roseman:

So you convened by chance on the day that deployment of the National Guard?

Ian Brennan:

Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Was it kind of scary?

Ian Brennan:

Well, I mean, I think this has happened maybe because things have been quite volatile lately, but this has happened at least half a dozen occasions that something happens when we're somewhere like in Azerbaijan that we got down to the Talysh area, we got settled. We went up there and kind of figured it out and then figured out where to stay because the place we were supposed to stay didn't exist. It was a scam. Didn't even exist. And so we had to hustle and figure out a place to stay and all that. And we got settled and then woke up the next morning and war had broken out again between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the border. And so there's always that sinking feeling like, oh man, maybe our timing's really doomed or really horrible.

And we recently were recording on the border of Iran and that was when his ultimatum that he was going to obliterate the whole culture of Iran and all that stuff. And so we went to bed with that and not knowing what we'd wake up to. So this was similar. But again, it's that thing that you read it on the internet or it's in the news, but you'd never know it. There was no sign of it. It's just something you've read about. The border issue with Armenia when we were there, never would've known. It's very far away in that case. In this case, we're in the city, but it was only an order. It hadn't even yet happened. But yeah, it was still disturbing. Disturbing to know like, okay, well this is at minimum dramatic. This is something dramatic that is going to impact the community whether somebody believes it's going to be harmful or helpful.

And some of the people in the community thought it might be helpful, but whether somebody believes one way or the other, it's certainly not going to be subtle.

Leah Roseman:

So it's very emotional listening to the tracks and they're mostly, it's like an audio documentary of your conversation. So track two, justice was not served. You talked to mothers who'd lost sons.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah.(clip track 2, Chicago Gunfire Survivors)

Yeah, often more than one. Yeah. There's a truthfulness to the communication that I think is really what's needed more in mass media, popular culture. We don't get it that often. And when we do, I think they value a singer that they really believe or a musician that really connects with them on an emotional level. And certainly these people are courageous and brave to share their voices. And when they do, it's not pretend. I mean, it's really coming from a extremely, extremely deep place.

Leah Roseman:

And there was a spoken word poetry. "All the young boys carry guns for toys". So he knew that you would be there or he just had this...

Ian Brennan:

Yeah, he was one of the ones in a situation like this where there's kind of the people that are set up that are more professional or musicians or singers or whatever it may be. So yeah, he was one of the people that works with the program. He was like many of the people that are on the record as well. And that work in the program was somebody who was incarcerated for a long time and took up poetry while he was there and has written one or two books of poetry. So this is one of those poems. Yeah. (clip track 6, Chicago Gunfire Survivors)

Leah Roseman:

I'm reading a, an aside, I'm reading a book and there's a very moving story of this poet when he was incarcerated, was slipped a book of Black poets when he was in solitary confinement and it was sort of smuggled into him and it changed the course of his life. I can't remember his name right now.

Ian Brennan:

No, I think that's what we all... I think most of us that are not playing commercial music, I mean, I think we hope for some version of that, that it'll have positive impact on somebody's life. I certainly would take something like that or even subtler than that having an impact on somebody versus attention for attention's sake.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. Last time we spoke about your book, Peace by Peace, about nonviolent crisis intervention. Remember I had these quotes written down longhand from your book, so I just wanted to ask you to reflect on a couple more.

Ian Brennan:

Okay.

Leah Roseman:

And I'll remind people your website's linked in the show notes if they want to contact you for any of that work that you do.

Yeah. So one thing you talk about how we need to... Well, you wrote "the body's constantly trying to race ahead of the mind and usurp it. The goal is to slow down the process and think to respond versus react". And you also talk about controlling your voice and you control yourself.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those are just physical aspects, but they're really fundamental. So the problem with the idea of being calm or mature is that most people believe they're calm and mature. In fact, they'll usually shout how calm they are in defense of any accusation that they're not. And so if we focus on something specific and concrete, then we're actually doing something that's measurable. And so the voice is so critical because normally we're not in control of our voice. Those sounds are not made when they're authentic, they happen. So with humor, with pain, with sexuality, with fear, sounds emanate that probably can never be recreated. I think we've all had that experience with a pet or with a loved one that you hear something and you realize, oh shit, there's something wrong, like medically wrong or something different. And so if we control our voice, meaning just the volume of our voice, because that's what we usually lose self-control first, then we're not calm, but we're calmer.

We're doing something specific. And this part of the brain is what we're trying to use, but this part of the brain operates three times more quickly, gets triggered three times more quickly. And so it's difficult. And that's why it's kind of provable that 50% to 90 plus percent of assaults and murders and pretty much accidents, pretty much everything that people don't want to be doing usually occurs when they're intoxicated. It doesn't mean they're falling down drunk, but it just means that they're not functioning quite as well cognitively as their executive functioning as it normally is. And as a result of that, they might have a slip of the tongue and say something to their boss that gets them fired and they wouldn't normally say, or they might stumble on some stairs three steps to their house that they normally are able to go up back and forth with no problem.

So if we try to use this part of our brain and really invest in that, then we're usually going to be slightly better off. That's basically the breaks as opposed to trying to judge the impulse, which is what people that are very moralistic want to do. That person's bad because they're violent. It's like, well, there's no such thing as a violent person. There's a lot more to that person than just that even if they've been violent. And there's no such thing as an angry person. That's a very angry concept. And so instead we can focus on hopefully being constructive and not destructive.

Leah Roseman:

So really separating the behavior from the person.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. Yeah. Not labeling someone, which is very tempting to do and very easy to do. And in some cases, almost inevitable, meaning as a way of communicating, but it's not communicating the reality. And so we really want to focus on specific behavior because everybody engages in bad behavior to some degree. And the comparisons is usually what gets people into trouble. They want to compare themselves to the worst as if that's a defense. And it's like, well, it's not a good defense. It's not a good defense that you're not a serial killer. It's not a good defense that you're not a pedophile. Those aren't good defenses. So have we done things that are less than perfect? Yeah, we have. And it's better to focus on those and acknowledge them as small as they may be. It's not a contest, so it doesn't matter that it's so much lesser than others.

It's not a damnation. It's just a recognition of, "Oh, I did this and I'm imperfect and maybe I can do better next time."

Leah Roseman:

You wrote Oh yeah. About this volume stuff, I guess it's kind of the same. You said the objective measure of calmness is to speak more quietly than the person we're interacting with. So to just keep lowering that to bring them down, I guess?

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. I mean modeling the behavior you want them to reflect back. And also there's kind of that paradox, which that's counterintuitive that when you're quieter, oftentimes people are more interested in listening to what you have to say. If you are whispering, most people really want to hear what you're saying because they think you're saying something, they get paranoid, they think you're saying something about them or whatever it might be, but there tends to be an interest in that. And I use the example, I believe it was Peggy Lee, but that when she started as a bar singer, she was a belter because that was kind of the fashion at the time. And she wasn't very successful. She was successful enough that in those days, early television days or maybe even a little bit pre-television, some of it, but that you could perform every night because people would go out most nights and you perform for many, many hours, that sort of thing.

So she could do it professionally, but she wasn't a success, so to speak. And the way I always recalled the story, which maybe isn't 100% accurate, was that one night she just decided, realized as she would sing and people are eating and clinking glasses and chattering above her as loud as she's singing, that she would come out and just whisper as she sang, sing as quietly as she could. And she started doing that and the room just hushed much more than if they've been shushed or told to lower their voices. And that essentially became her singing style. And it's influenced a lot of other people who have no idea who she is through the generations.

Leah Roseman:

You wrote "use what and how questions. They tend to elicit more honest and detailed information, whereas closed yes, no questions often coerce." So not, is everything all right, but how are you feeling?

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes, no is open, shut, black, white, binary. It's all that stuff that we're trying to avoid, but people use them. It's normal to use them. And it's a shortcut because I ask you a question within that question of a yes, no is usually an indicated correct answer. It makes people critical. It makes them fearful to be right or wrong, all that stuff as opposed to simply focusing on not can we do this, but how are we going to do this? What do we need to do? And putting the focus there. Not, is everything good? Is everything okay? But what can I do? What can I do to make it better? What are some things that would make you happier in our relationship? And those are the questions that aren't usually asked for a variety of reasons, but they tend to be more productive in terms of getting real answers, getting the truth from another individual.

Leah Roseman:

Oh yeah. You talk about care and communication like you're at a job interview or a first date when you want to make the best first impression, but to continue that in your interactions with people you know well.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. Yeah. We don't get in that much trouble when we're being careful. I mean, any extreme is problematic. So I certainly don't advocate for walking around wrapped in bubble wrap and that sort of thing. I mean, it's like there are limits, but in general, when you're being careful, you're okay. And that applies to pretty much everything. That's why I always give the advice that if you're late, slow down. Do the opposite of what you normally would do. Don't get hurt or killed over two minutes or three minutes or an hour or one missed flight or whatever it may be. And I mean, almost every time I'm at the airport, I see at least one person running through the airport and it's just like, it's not worth it. They look like they're literally going to seize up and it's like, it's not worth it really in almost all cases.

And so with communication, it's similar. It's just if we really are careful, which means just being thoughtful and not being passive in the communication and not burdening the other person with the yes, no questions, that sort of thing, then it doesn't mean it'll go great, but it means that probably the communication will again, be more neutral or even positive in its outcome.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. There's one more thing I wanted to get you to reflect back on. You wrote, "Beware that almost everyone becomes a better and more contemplative person during the lull following a crisis. The task is to find a way to sustain that sensitivity and gratitude over days, weeks, years across a lifetime." I thought that was so beautiful.

Ian Brennan:

Oh, thank you. Yeah. Yeah. It's something I try to work at and I think it's important is that right after a crisis is when people are more reflective and vulnerable and open to change and usually vow to change. And the dark side of that is that that's the abusive cycle. Somebody's abusive and then they're apologetic. And so it seems like, okay, there's hope and then it happens again because it's a pattern. But otherwise for most of us, it should be opportunities when there's a near miss, so to speak, medically or interpersonally or whatever it might be. It's an opportunity to like, okay, prevent this from happening again, hopefully if we can. And in a lot of cases we can. But then people slowly slip back into the previous behavior. And it never is... Well, I shouldn't say never. Sometimes somebody just goes off the deep end, let's say with addiction.

But more often it's gradual. I've seen that happen with friends. And some people can manage those things, but most people can't. So for them, it really has to be a bright line. But I had a friend who sadly ended his own life and his addiction was very severe. And he got sober at one point, but then just started that creeping back. And I have another friend who overdosed 23 times and is still alive and finally got sober the 23rd time. So there's a variety of ways that that can go. But I remember another friend who the night that after having a really bad episode with alcohol and realizing that there was a problem became sober for many, many months. And it was that thing of, it's just one glass of wine at dinner. And it's like, okay. And then that became two glasses pretty soon and all that.

So we hopefully can really continue to feel what that feels like when you really have a crisis. And if we do that, then we have better chances of not repeating the ultimately self-destructive behavior usually.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. And I'm sure it applies more broadly to when someone dies or different kind of, like you said, a health scare, all kinds of things.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. Yeah. If we could only... And I think some people do, if we could only hold onto that level of intimacy or that level of vulnerability or honesty, but it's not easy. No one should be faulted for not doing it. It's just advisable to do our best to try to continue to be that sensitized.

Leah Roseman:

I wanted to get to the Parchman Prison Prayer. You've recorded two albums there. I was curious, in one of your books you wrote, "Instead of attending the Grammys, I opted to fly to Mississippi and record with prisoners at the notorious Parchman Prison." Was that the first time you recorded or the second time?

Ian Brennan:

Yeah, that was the first time. Okay. Yeah, yeah. Yeah,

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. And they just gave you permission one week before, is that right?

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. It was something that had been in the works for years, but not very successfully in the works. So in other words, I attempted to do it many years before, and then they had huge crisis there, huge scandals there, deaths and suicides and a lot of negative attention in the media. And then COVID happened. But following COVID, they had a complete change in the whole state of Mississippi and the prison itself changed everything, changed the leadership and the culture and has done quite a wonderful job. I mean, it's an imperfect thing because it's such a big system and obviously prison systems are by design pretty messy and dystopian. It's hard to avoid that entirely. But when the new management came up and it was entirely different and it was like, yeah, there was an openness. But the confirmation that it could happen was completely last minute.

But I booked the flight. I went there. I didn't know what was going to happen. It's a classic situation really. But it was beyond anything I could have ever imagined was just person after person after person after person. Now these were people that the chaplains had selected from different areas. Most of them were from different parts of the prison. It's a massive prison. It's 25 square miles I think is the property itself. And so they'd chosen people that A, wanted to do it, and then B, that they though were good and just some incredible voices and incredible singers.

Leah Roseman:

So I wanted to include clips from both of these records to point people to both of them. The first album, track three, Break Every Chain. Just some great singing.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. Yeah. Incredible singing. Yeah. (Music: clip track 3, Break Every Chain, Some Mississipi Sunday Morning, Parchman Prison Prayer)

They knew that I'd chosen to be there with them rather than at the Grammys, but I told them at the end, many of the singers here are better than as good as anything that's going to be at the Grammys tonight. And I meant that. It's not a competition, but really just world-class singing. And then the next year happened to fall on the Super Bowl. So that was interesting in its own right for travel purposes, to be traveling. It was kind of a good day to travel because most people in America weren't traveling. So the planes were empty and the airports were pretty empty as well and that sort of thing. And the second time it was easier in a lot of ways because the people that had done it before were even more committed to the process. And then there were new people and they were great too.

Leah Roseman:

It's a very old prison, over a hundred years old.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah, it's very old. It's the oldest in the system there. And the state itself is very impoverished and it has a very rough history dating back over a hundred years to being a farm system where people were basically doing forced labor. And obviously that thankfully has ended, but largely based on the physical buildings and the system itself and not having the funds that maybe others have, there have been issues also. But it is the maximum security prison for the state and it houses their death row and they do have death row in their state. I mean, they do have the death penalty in their state.

Leah Roseman:

And if people look, there's documentaries about the history of abuses and neglect and current situation. On the second album, track four is a rap with this guy's beat boxing and it's sort of, I don't know if it's an ironic, it's called MC Hammer, the title of the track.

Ian Brennan:

Right, right. I don't think he's that ironic about it. I think he's pretty serious. Yeah. Yeah. I mean it can be probably taken that way and probably piques interest because MC Hammer is such a character and kind of pop culture character that has had impact largely because of his uniqueness as a public figure for decades. But he became a preacher. I mean that was a chapter that a lot of people don't recall. In fact, I think pretty early on, I think not long after his big commercial success, he started transitioning into doing religious music and became a preacher, that sort of thing. So I'm not sure it's ironic. I try not to judge. I try to really take people at face value of what they present. No assuming that they're being ironic or certainly I'm never trying to be provocative or make fun of anybody.

Quite the opposite. I'm just trying to listen to them and what they want to communicate. (track 4, Another Mississipi Sunday Morning, Parchman Prison Prayer)

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. I mean, I think I read that in a review of the record. I didn't understand the reference.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it remains an open question. I'd say really it's probably more complex that it probably is ironic and not ironic at the same time. A little bit ironic maybe.

Leah Roseman:

And track one from the second album, Parchman Prison Blues, from what I understand, six men were improvising. It was the last track recorded that day.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah. It was the last track recorded, improvisation. And I think a lot of the best things happen that way where people are really in the moment and trusting their instincts. And it's beautiful. I mean, for me, the measure of value is largely does this sound different than what I've heard before? And it's rare because the hundred thousand songs that are uploaded today, the majority of them, I can't say the majority because I can't listen to all of them, but a sample of them, the majority of those sound very much the same. There's not a lot of variety. So anytime there's something that I can't draw a line from it to something else very easily, then it's like, okay, this has value. I don't know if I like it. I don't know if it's good. I'm not trying to judge it in that way, but I know that it's different.

And therefore I believe it serves a purpose that redundancy does not. (Music: clip track 1, Another Mississipi Sunday Morning, Parchman Prison Prayer)

Leah Roseman:

I did want to ask you about some of your earlier projects and I'm hoping in future conversations we can mix things up a bit. Ramblin' Jack Elliot.

Ian Brennan:

Yeah.

Leah Roseman:

Yeah. When he was 75, you recorded this album with him, "I Stand Alone". I was curious how you met him or how that came about.

Ian Brennan:

Oh, I met him because I had organized a benefit show with Merle Haggard who'd had a bit of a comeback or a crossover into the alternative world because he was on Tom Waits' label. And I put out a record on Tom Waits' label and it was a really good record. And so I had him play this little theater, like 500 seat theater in San Francisco as a benefit. And I asked Ramblin' Jack to open up because he's based in the Bay Area, has been based in the Bay Area for a long time. And so he came and he did. And so on his rider, it said to have a bottle of Maker's Mark backstage for him. And then in the time leading up, I don't know if it was the week before or the days before or the day of, it might've been the day of, his manager called and said, "No, you do not have that in his dressing room." And I'm like, "Okay." I think it was the day of because I'd already bought it.

So I took it out. And then as soon as he got there, I'd never met him before, he said, "Where's my Maker's Mark?" And I said, "Oh, well, we don't have it. " And so the point of the story is that it ended up being the first show that he'd performed sober in decades. And so he was understandably nervous about that. And so he went out there, he did the show. It was a huge success. It was this packed house. I was excited because they're seeing Merle Haggard in this tiny space, relatively tiny space for an artist of his stature. And Ramblin' Jack got I think two standing ovations. And so it really was a pivotal moment for him. And so we did other shows together. We did another show also with Merle Haggard and him down in LA and The Blind Boys of Alabama, another benefit show.

And at some point it just came to me, I'm like, "Ah." It was nothing I'd ever though about, but I was just like, "Let's maybe do a record." And so we did, and it was recorded live and in the studio, but live. And he was great. I mean, he's a great singer and great interpreter. And then it went on to get nominated for a Grammy nomination. I think in the period where it was more possible for a smaller record like that, let's say, with less institutional support to get that kind of nomination. It's a little different now. I think it's become harder. Sometimes some really good records get nominated, but I think it's become harder than before. But it received a Grammy nomination and that was a great thing.

Leah Roseman:

I understand his daughter made a documentary about his life, which I haven't seen yet.

Ian Brennan:

It's a great documentary. Yeah, she did. And that was before the album. Yeah. And that was part of what led to a renewed interest or awareness of him and his history and his impact on a young Bob Dylan and just within the folk scene itself also in Britain. He had a lot of impact there with... There's a story I think of Rod Stewart seeing him busk, Ramblin' Jack busk on a train platform somewhere in the UK, things like that. And one of the albums that I think Keith Richards had that he played a lot was a Ramblin' Jack Elliot record back in the '50s when he was a kid.

Leah Roseman:

Well, that's great. So thanks so much for this today.

Ian Brennan:

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leah Roseman:

I hope you enjoyed this episode. Keep in mind, I've also linked directly several episodes you'll find interesting in the show notes of this one. Please do share this with your friends and check out episodes you may have missed at LeahRoseman.com. If you could buy me a coffee to support this series, that would be wonderful. I'm an independent podcaster and I really do need the help of my listeners. All the links are in the show notes. The podcast theme music was written by Nick Kold. Have a wonderful week.