Holly Yarbrough Swings in Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Too often a cover album draws scorn from fans of the original material because it diverges (or doesn’t stray far enough) from the source. Holly Yarbrough’s jazz covers of the songs by Fred Rogers’, known to the world as Mister Rogers though Yarbrough affectionately calls him the King of Uncool, show that the key to a successful cover song is in finding a way to reinterpret the originals while still paying them their due respect. Songs that we grew up with as children, songs about friendship, platonic love, self-esteem, and security, take on an adult twinge with Yarbrough’s re-crafting. In Mister Rogers, she finds that the wholesome and encouraging messages that entertained us as children can captivate and enrich us as adults. It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood when Rumpus sat down with Holly, took off our sweater, put on a different sweater, and talked about the King of Uncool and her path as an independent artist.
Rumpus: Did you have a musical upbringing?
Holly Yarbrough: I definitely did. My dad, Glenn Yarbrough, is a musician, well known in the late 50s, through the 60s and even into the70s. He still does a concert every now and then. I grew up sleeping under pianos in a recording studio, or on tour buses. I remember sitting in bars listening to him perform, drinking endless Shirley Temples.
Rumpus: At that early age, is that when you knew you wanted to be a musician?
Holly Yarbrough: Not really, when you see the way the music business works, you don’t really want jump into it. But, that’s just the business aspect of it, music has always been a part of me.
Rumpus: So, when did your love of music outweigh your feelings on the music business?
Holly Yarbrough: I’ve never been able to stop doing music. I think in spite of all the challenges you face trying to do stuff as an independent artist, it’s much more rewarding to have control of your life, not trying to fit into someone else’s mode.… My dad and I did several records in the past, mainly because I wanted to try to express what was inside of me. The last record was in 2006, and that closed that part of my life. I got into jazz when I moved to Nashville and that helped me to find my voice as a musician. Before that, I was doing lots of folky, pop stuff, which I enjoyed. I still hope to meld some of that into my style later on.
Rumpus: Being an independent artist isn’t the only aspect of your life that involves music, correct?
Holly Yarbrough: I don’t make much of a living as a musician now I work for Alive Hospice to pay the bills. I’m also getting certified in a program called Music for Healing and Transition (www.mhtp.org). It’s very different from the performance type of music I do as an independent artist. All that’s sort of the ego part of it, and that’s good, I like to bring happiness to people that way. But the Music for Healing and Transition Program is about the people you’re playing for, and helping them. In my independent music, I hope to meld the two and I feel I was somewhat successful in doing that with Mister Rogers Swings!
Rumpus: Why a whole album of Mister Rogers songs?
Holly Yarbrough: Like most people of my generation, I grew up with Mister Rogers until I was about five or six and then it was all about The Electric Company. When he retired and passed away shortly thereafter, I saw a tribute to him and his music. When I heard Mister Rogers’ tunes all together on that program, I realized that he was really playing jazz. All those years as a toddler, listening to him, jazz had sort of bubbled into my self-conscious. Like so many people when Mister Rogers died, I was so sad and I felt so much affection for the man. I started watching the show again and it was sort of campy fun. It was real and sincere on one level but campy and wacky on another, and it appealed to me on all these different levels. I started thinking about these songs and how they were never appreciated as jazz and I wanted to do something to ensure and help his legacy. To help people hear that his songs were more than ditties for children. I thought it would be a lot of fun to do an album as Ella Fitzgerald would have done. She would take a composer like Gershwin and do a whole record based on their songs.”
Rumpus: Some songs, such as “You’ve Got to Do It” take on a romantic, if not sexual tone. Was this intentional?
Holly Yarbrough: It was definitely on purpose. I wanted to make an adult album. People would say, “Oh, that’s great you’re making a children’s album” and I would laugh because I was really making an album for grown -ups. The arrangements were intentional and the vibe was trying to show another side to these songs without doing disrespect to the songs. It’s a testament to the great song writing that they can be approachable from multiple angles. But we tried to do it in a spirit of fun and not in a sleazy way. For one of the tunes, “I Like To Be Told”, I remember when we were tracking it, we had to take a few extra passes at it for that reason. We tried to do most of the tracking live, to get live band feel. But after the first pass or two for “I Like To Be Told”, Chris, our drummer, had taken the percussions up to a stripper level. So much that we finally said, “Chris, we need less tassels.”
Rumpus: But it’s still a very adult album.
Holly Yarbrough: When listening to him with adult ears, or watching his show, I just found so much of each message was still relevant and that they helped me connect to my heart and take life a little slower. In some ways it was an antidote to the over stimulated world that we live in. Our world is so much about the jump cut. Cut to this, cut to that. Mister Rogers’ world is almost under-stimulated, connecting with one thing at a time, focusing on one thing. I felt that way about the songs. They still had that to say to me as an adult. And, maybe, it’s more important now than ever. When the world is so focused on outside stimulus, “It’s You I Like” focuses on what’s important; what’s on the inside of you.
Rumpus: Were you worried about digressing from the source material too much? Or not digressing enough?
Holly Yarbrough: I can’t say I didn’t worry but when it came time to do it, it’s sort of like the song, “It’s You I Like.” You just dive in. You can’t let thinking get in the way of the creative process. I was fortunate to work with amazing musicians and we hit that sweet spot that I hope we’d get to.
Rumpus: “I’m Taking Care of You” seems to be a thank you to Mister Rogers, is that something that was going through your head at the time?
Holly Yarbrough: That’s exactly how I felt about it. When you sing a song, you’re not thinking about it, you just have to be there with it. I have quite a few songs of his. I bought all his records, and listened to them for months. The reason I chose that song was that it spoke deeply to me to want to do something to continue his legacy. I wish everyone would be a little more like Mister Rogers. It’s sort of everyone’s responsibility, now that he’s gone, to put on a sweater every now and then.
Rumpus: Your solo career largely skipped the traditional steps of creating a fan base through local gigs and building that success to gain interest from a label. So, how did you arrive at a national release?
Holly Yarbrough: I had some fan base left from working with my dad. However, with this release, because Mister Rogers is recognizable across the nation, was able to get out to a wider audience. The album has received quite a bit of radio play on jazz stations, there’s more interest there than if I had recorded a standard jazz album. I think any artist can do that because the technology is there. If you make a good record, you’re not bound by any label’s rules. That’s not to say you’re going to make money, but you can get it heard on a national level. It is so much easier for indie artists to distribute themselves nationally these days. As an indie artist, you can still get on iTunes and Amazon, or sites like Facebook and MySpace. There are so many ways to reach a larger audience. In some ways, the whole geographical thing might be getting a little outmoded. If you can go out on the web and find people interested in what you say, that’s almost like a virtual neighborhood. It’s similar to how you used to have local neighbors at a small bar.
Rumpus: You’re saying Facebook and MySpace are like local bars for indie artists?
Holly Yarbrough: You can recreate that online. I’m happy about all the technological changes and I’m happy to give away free music and have people hear it. Recorded music is really a new phenomenon. Music really only became a commodity with the invention of the gramophone. Back in the 80s, before the net blew the lid off everything, music was controlled by labels and it became about money. People have always made music, but they made it at small campfires or as wandering troubadours. Only recently did music become a product.
