Join @thebuzzknight for this music podcast interview with the powerful singer-songwriter/musician Daniela Cotton. She is known for her powerful, soulful voice and her unique blend of rock, blues and soul music. Daniela has overcome significant challenges in her life including battling cancer and she delves into her inspirations and creative process.
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A Walk.
When I wanted to get out, I sat on the floor and put the headphones on because my mother always told everybody, I don't know, she have old people's she has old soul tastes. Because I was young, there were no kids putting on a headphones listening to Phyllis Hyman somewhere in my lifetime and here's that rainy day, and then flipping over to Chaka Khanda, this poorgy and best she has done, this album, this collaborative thing, and then going to songs in the key of life.
Welcome to this episode of the Taking a Walk podcast with your host Buzz Night. Buzz speaks with musicians so all type, from new and rising stars to Indian Hall of famers and everything in between. Today, Buzz speaks with indie rock artist Danelia Cotton. She combines a bit of roots, rock and country into her own special sound. So speak about her passions, her trials, and her tribulations. Right now, joined Danelia Cotton with Buzz Night on Taking a Walk.
Well, Danelia, thanks for being on Taking a Walk. I want to start off with a quote here from our friends at the w XPN in Philadelphia, great radio station. Their quote about your work is with an equal emphasis on rock, jazz, and soul and with roots and gospel. New York based singer Danelia Cotton draws on a wide range of influences, from led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones to Mayvis, Staples and Edit James. I love that quote. Can you tell me first, starting with led Zeppelin what they mean to you in terms of influence, and then will work our way through those.
Artists I mean to me, I would say groups like led Zeppelin and even Rolling Stones, it's rock to me, they sort of have other elements in there they allowed They both I know for sure, the Rolling Stone and I believe Zeppelin as well. They all have this heavy blues influenced They all loved the blues grades and really drew from that, and so I can hear that in their music, which is, you know, there are a lot of genres in existence that pull from other genres, rock being one of them. Country to pulls from that blues aspect, but you know, they both pull from that. But then they have the rock aspect which sort of takes blues to this whole other level that I like, which is a little bit more wild and uncontained, where blues is what it is, and it's got this kind of thing rock sort of it's like it blows it out on this major scale, but still is telling a story. It's the way that it's executed. It's the best way to put it. And I think Zeppelin they're just you can get lost in, you know, some of what they do, some of the more bluesier numbers and not just hey hey may hey maybe no may you know, there's that too, but there's just a lot. There was a lot more when I discovered both of those groups because I think I in the beginning, my brother was playing more like sort of bombastic rock like ac DC, which immediately, as I've said in a lot of interviews, sounded the way that I felt, you know, being you know, one of the only black kids in my class. It just it sounded like sort of my anguish and my anger and my whatever. But when I first heard Zeppelin and or like when I heard Ruby Tuesday, you know, Rolling Stones. It's funny because a lot of people would not think of Mick Jaggers as this great vocalist because they think of it more unatechnical. They think of things like technically, he doesn't know how many octaves does he have. He can't do this or that. And to me, the great singers are the ones that transport you. And if you want to get stinky about it, you can say that Joe Cocker has one octave. But I saw him live in Colorado. I remember kem O had got off and we were all like yeah, yeah, and then he comes on. He's just like whatever, And I never sat down. I never sat down. It was like he was going to explode like his person. I had never seen anything like it. I couldn't believe that. I didn't sit down the entire performance. It was extraordinary. And that's sort of where I learned that that's what it's about. It isn't It's about how they transport, how they move you, and they can do that with one octave. They can do it with one note. It's the way they tell a story. It's I don't know, it's sort of the rock secret of rock gods. But it works and it makes you understand the real artistry of being a performer. So that's kind of an answer.
That's a great answer. Now there's another Philadelphia related quote from the Philadelphia Daily News, and they also equate you and your work to Let It Bleed era Rolling Stones, which is certainly one of the greatest Holy Grail albums of all time. How does that make you feel when someone writes about you that way?
You know, I was an actress before I went to I was in performing arts high school. I went to Bennington and theater was my major. And we would always make a rule like, don't ever read a critique or a review because it'll just get in your head and it's just one person's opinion. You know. Sometimes I hear that and I don't know. I don't I take it that that is. You know, whoever that author I mean or writer was, you know, that's their perspective. I'm not going to lie and say it's not.
That.
It's not. I don't take it as a compliment. But then I realize that they can actually hear what I listen to. You can really hear the influences in what I do, which most of the time you can. And so I give the I give sort of the nod back to those greats because they're just coming through me. I'm just like next generation taking that in, you know, but it's good. But I try not to let that influence too much. What I do, you know, but it is. But it's good. They're hearing what actually influenced you. So there you go.
So on the day we're recording this, I'm able to say happy birthday, Danelia to you, and good health as well, which is important to wish you so close your eyes. And if you were to get this birthday gift of a dream collaboration with somebody living or dead, who would it be?
I think I would have said Prince for a long time, and I probably it would have been a tie between like a year ago, between like Prince and David Bowie. But now I'm just feeling the sly sly because when I go in there, I realize, like, that's what that probably was Prince's person that he listened to, like whoa. It's right down to everything that he did, like his greatest hits, to his version of k Sarah Sarah, just the way he does the background vocals, and then to find out that he's kind of laying those all down like all of those recording it's just him doing everything. I think he was other level and people have yet to still understand the greatness of that. And he is alive. But that right now, that's where I go like I get, I'm like, wow, how did I just like make that misstep? Utter genius? Genius.
Yeah, you were a guest on our companion podcast which is called Music Saved Me hosted by Lynn Hoffman, and it was a great episode, and I want you to share a little bit on your beliefs on how powerful in your life for your challenges and struggles that music has been.
I think. I mean, I always reference the fact that biblically, it even for those who are religious, it's like considered, you know, one of the big gifts to get. But it doesn't make people better or worse for carrying that torch, because it's also a huge responsibility if you take it that way, if you understand the power of what music can do. But for me, you know, I had a lot of trauma, and had I not had a place to recycle that pain, I don't think that I would have made it. There's just no way to have music as that outlet, to be able to put it somewhere and then turn it into something that somebody else can use. And I have to say, the biggest compliments are when somebody comes up and tells me I couldn't paint for four years and I heard this song and I painted I'll walk away, and then I get Then I have a moment because something that I wrote during a moment where it was intense allowed somebody else to free themselves of something. So, I mean the beauty of music is that you get to recycle it into something that is that brings another person joy, that unblocks somebody, that lets somebody know they are not alone and what they feel and where they are in life. And so for me, it did it. I mean anything I wrote was doing that for me out the gate and then I put it out there, And if it did that for anybody else, then I'm humbled that it did for me. Music always when I cried for a long time, I would put on Tom Wait's Tom Trubadour's Blues Is. I think people would be like, really you Tom, Like yeah, that was like my go to cry song. I don't know what it was about that soldier. I don't need to know. It's just Tom Waits in that moment. It was the orchestration of that song that and my weird eclectic taste led me to there, and I was like, WHOA. So that was my cry song for like two decades. So I think music just it's healing, it's freeing, it's it has so much power. And for those who feel alone like that, they find themselves in an artist or in a a in a song. It's just it's an incredibly powerful tool. People should not underest to make that good or bad. It's an incredibly powerful tool. And for me it really was. It helped me get up and out. I mean when I wanted to get out, I sat on the floor and put the headphones on. Because my mother always told everybody, I don't know, she have old people's she has old soul tastes. Because I was young, there were no kids putting on the headphones listening to Phyllis Hyman somewhere in my lifetime and here's that rainy day, and then flipping over to Chaka Khan did this Poorgi and best she was done, this album, this collaborative thing, and then going to songs in the Key of Life. But then my brother upstairs had Zeppelin and Foreigner and Todd Runggren and my aunt down the streets having Dan Fogelberg that out of mine is the playground for the devil. Do you won't again? There was so much people are like you were around that much. I was like, that's how diverse. You know. My family's so musically like inclined. It's such a big part from my family. But nobody liked the same thing. So I was luck I was. I felt privileged, and that part of why I'm the way I am is because it was all around me and it was different, and so I wasn't taught like this is this good genre to listen to. I was just the doors were open and I would walk in and be like, oh, that's cool. I mean, I remember when Bing Crosby died because I used to watch old movies because everybody wanted to go outside and those hands Christian Anderson, I came with Danny Kay and then you know, Bing Crosby died. I cried. Phillis Hymon died. I pulled my car over on the side of the road and I cried. They were like people that got me through my childhood, and they were like not of my generation. Nobody was listening to that stuff, but for me, I mean, there was pain in Philis Hymon's voice, so I should have known she would have gone out. She you know, she had a drug overdoise. But I heard that pain right out the gate, and that's what connected me to you know her. But you know, some music's really substantial for me in so many ways, in being able to express my pain, being able to recycle it. It's just it's a huge. It's huge. It's a big one.
So your grandmother, I believe, is one hundred and three years old. Do I have that correct?
Yes, you need to interview. I did an interview and I taped it of her. It's extraordinary to speak to somebody you just want to. I had like ninety questions, like what do you think of the world? Then, I mean her what she's seen. She's like, y'all took steps forward, now you're taking steps back. I don't understand, you know, Like it's the way she sees the world and how her loss of faith based on sort of events that are happening around it's incredible. Yeah, but she's alive and there she reads like three books, three to four books, if not more a week. That's how she gets through her time. That's probably why she's so like cogn she's so her cognitive abilities probably past some people that are younger because she's just always feeding her. You know, feeding well you answer.
You answered what I was going to ask. But I have a follow up to what I didn't ask, which is, you have a lovely, wonderful laugh. And I'm a fan of laughs. You could probably guess that I often judge people. Either I shouldn't, but I often judge people by their laugh or their non laughter. Basically, So did you get that joy and laughter part of your persona from your grandmother or from who?
I don't know. My mother always said that I had a perverted laugh and I used to, you know, snort a little bit. And then yesterday, you know, my other half is a criminal defense attorney and he's always in court. He's a great litigator. But he said, you know, sometimes at the end of your sentences you laugh as if it's a tick. I was like, are you trying to point out something?
You know?
And I realize I do. He said, you do two things. You never stop humming, and when you were gone, our daughter just hums. Now the doormen are like, if she not humming, Like if I'm not humming, They're like, are you okay? Because they think I'm happy? But I do laugh. I don't you know, if people say why are you? You know, how do you stay young? I was like, I don't hold onto things. Holding onto things just destroys you inside. Like at certain points, you just have to forgive people. None of us are perfect.
We is.
I don't know anybody that never made a misstep, and forgiving somebody really means, like, as they say, putting it as far as the east is from the west. Some people call me foolish because I let the same people walk over me. But I don't hold it in my body and I don't allow it to affect my health or my mental health. You just kind of have to get to a point where sometimes things aren't about you. They're just not about you. But you know humans are so to me. Life is sort of figuring out the balance of the ego and where that is. And you know, we're all you know, a lot of us are like it's I me, I me, and everything we equate it back to us, and sometimes it has nothing to do with us. So you just walk on because it wasn't about you. You just happen to be there and it got thrown at you. But if you carry that with you, it just it does nothing but weigh you down. And then it physically can cause illnesses. You know, many people believe that. So I don't know. I just I choose to figure out. If I can't figure out, I just let it go because sometimes it just has nothing to do with you.
Yeah, you mentioned the snorting. I have to just take a sidebar here. I managed the radio station in Columbus, Ohio a few years ago and I interviewed for a news position a woman named Gail Hogan, and Gail snorted as we were having lunch with her laughter, and I stopped. I went, Gail, you're hired. The snort got you hired?
O great? Yeah? So yeah, yeah.
So how does running help you to be a better musician?
I was just thinking, like today I'm due for like a fifteen sixteen miler and I'm going to probably do it tomorrow because I just woke up late from Nashville. Oh god. It not only clears my mind like I can write a song during it, but true fact, when I ran my first, like first or second seventeen mile run for one of my first marathons, on comes Neil Young. Oh man, take a look at you live. You're a And I was not a Neil Young fan. I like me on It's Someoneerful and I listened. I'm just like listening, and then I got caught in the story and I was like, oh, so you a lot like your dad, but you don't really want to be like you'd like I was in. And then I was like, oh my god, what mile am I at? And that was before the Apple I watched. I was like, shit, I ran past the distance I was supposed to. That's when I found him and it was over, you know. And then in Philadelphia, I thought his song should have won that that dead song at the end, I was like, what that should have won? I love you, Bruce, but that was genius. So you know, I discover you know, even the OJ's for the love of mon because it's don't I go for beats and so that one has boom, you know, that bassline. It's like But then I realized that I'm I've heard that song. But then I was like, god, it's dark. Some people like I finally heard that song. The way he sang it was like is mad. It make us all crazy? We steal, we lose our minds, we just want it. They're just And then I'm out of me because at the end of the day. In a performance, you hope you can transport your audience for forty five minutes or fifteen minutes or whatever where they're not thinking about themselves, so they can like exit the phone and life and you just give them freedom for a little bit to jump into something else. When I'm running, I'm in that to forget that my feet have to go another you know, thirteen miles, So I really listen to music in a different way. But I also when my phone has died, I write I'd come back, and I don't know the endorphins, I can deal with everything. You know that I'm coming home, and you know, my other half is fighting mantle celemphoma, and I hope you know, there's many people that have lived with it quite a long time, but it was a hit for us when we found out. And you know, I have a six year old and I just you know, I want to come in and be like for her and just you know, let her have that beautiful childhood we're all supposed to get don't always get. And you know, the running allows me to come back and just breathe in a different way. Just there's a calmness and when I don't do it, there's a huge difference. And I think for a lot of people sometimes who are mentally when there's you know, slight chemical imbalances, activity like that can really help you stay and balance in a natural way. And so for me, it's just I get to double hit, I get to hear all this music and I listen to it differently, and then I come back and I'm more patient. It's just it really helps me balance out. It's just as a person. And I've run pretty much my whole life from the moment I really started in school. I did it in college, even at Bennington, even though they had no real sports. I'd run around the campus, you know. When I was in London, I found some paths where I was. It's just for me. It's a real it's a real coping too.
Talk about your Charlie Pride project, the genesis of it, and why it's important for people to know about it.
Well, it was my grandmother's album. I thought it was my grandfather's and I did the project because there was so I didn't realize at the beginning. But there's similarities between the two men. They were both black men who chose to Charlie Pride, went into country music where there wasn't a lot of black singers at that time. My grandfather chose a small town that basically, by my album, a small white town in Jersey, and he chose to buy land there. He wasn't thinking like, oh, I'm going to be in the minority. He found that plot of land and that's where he wanted to raise his family. I think they both did so without thinking about the color issue. I think they both were graceful, elegant men, and I always say that sort of regal qualities like that that doesn't come for money, that's something that's inherent in a person. I think they both made changes and gained the respect in both scenarios because it wasn't They weren't doing it to make a statement. They were doing it because it's where they wanted to be. And they happened to both be darker than I am at a time when you know, it was a stark difference. When I realized that sort of the correlation there, I was like, Wow, that's it's deep. And then the more I got into the music, I mean, right now there's so many, you know, a lot of things the newer generations are coming up with it's like you can make music without an instrument. You can sample a lot of things, and the stories are different. I felt like the more that I got into those stories, it wasn't a person writing so much about themselves. Like even in Kissing Angels, he's like some people it was writing about. He was writing about that person's others perception of him and his happiness. And he was like, because you know, I have this, and but at at A And even when they wrote about love, it wasn't always from the perspective of you hurt me, but at I I me it sort of brought the other person in. There was just and they were just stories. They were real stories, and it was just a different thing. And I didn't I discovered that along the way too. I didn't go in knowing that I would lie if I said that. I figured it out. And then the more one of the reviewers, you know, I think gold mean gold Mine, Kurt said to me, can you listen to this B side? And I was like wow, And it was a B side of Charlie Pride's where basically in the song he was saying to a lover that probably was going to break up with him, like, hey, if you want to talk about it, you know what's going on. You could talk to me, but I know you might leave me. And it's just the whole perspective was just something that isn't written about because it's not about self and we're you know, everything today brings everybody back to here. I just there was just a lot of things, and it's it's a genre that remains intact with people singing, telling stories, playing real instruments, and that generally across the board. That's not to say that, you know, sort of as it grows that, you know, some other things come into play. But I don't think country is ever going to lose that. I really don't. And I think that that's beautiful thing. And I think it speaks to the common man more than probably any other genre. And that's deep. It's not talking about what you have and your car and your you know, country speaks to you know, if you want to say middle class, it might sometimes even go down. It speaks to every man. It doesn't leave any man out, and it sort of speaks generally to the guy the lowest on the totem pole first. And that's a beautiful thing too. I mean, there's so many things that I was that I discovered that we're pretty awesome and it's good. I mean, in life, you want to learn new things and our perceptions. I think it's great when you're disproven and it's like, oh, I thought, oh really, you know, it's a good thing. So that's I think this project, you know, hopefully will bring some people to a genre that they didn't listen to. It'll make them look up a man who really should have been more celebrated, who like next to Elvis, sold the most albums on RCA, was the first black ever in the you know Greynold operation. I mean, like he came in and he was quiet and he just did it. He didn't make an announcement. But now that he's passed, we can be loud about what he did. And I hope that he does get his due because it's it's well deserved.
I love how you're celebrating the present, but you're celebrating history and you celebrate multiple styles and genres. Venelia Cotton, Happy birthday once again, Thanks and thank you for being on Taking a Walk and continued success.
Thank you so much, thank you, thank you.
Thanks.
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