Entertainment
BY R A N DY PAT T E R S O N, B O O M E R O C I T Y.C O M
Beth Hart T
O SAY THAT BETH HART is
one of the most amazing new female singer-songwriters of the new millennia would be an understatement. Beth was discovered in the ‘90s while performing on the streets of L.A. by David Wolf, who became her close friend and manager. He managed to land her a record deal with Atlantic in a matter of weeks. Her talent has landed her on TV (performing as well as her songs being used on shows) and even in front of our current president (along with the iconic Jeff Beck). Because of her openness about her battles with booze, drugs, bad relationships, and being bi-polar, Beth has inspired many to fight the good fight against their own personal demons. In my interview with Joe Bonamassa last month (who is performing at the Knoxville Civic Auditorium on November 14th), he said this about Beth. “I think Beth is probably the most naturally talented singer and musician that I’ve ever been on stage with. She has such a wonderful sense of timing and phasing, vocally, and has an infinite capability, vocally. She commands attention. There are some people who can really sing. They stand up there and sing. She stomps up there and she takes control of the stage. You can’t teach that kind of stage power and that presence. She’s a very, very, very special individual, and I’m very proud of the records that I’ve made with her.” 56
EVERYTHING KNOXVILLE November 2015
I was recently afforded an opportunity to chat with her about her latest CD, Better Than Home, the title song of which is truly soul stirring. Beth shared with me the story behind it and how it impacted fans. “It’s really standing before God and what I see as spiritual healing and something that looks over me and guiding me and having the courage to say, ‘This is what I want for my life.’ I think it’s hard when you have such low self-esteem to say, ‘This is what I really want for my life’ because you feel like you don’t deserve it. So Better Than Home is getting to that place where you realize, despite my insecurities, despite my warped thinking, I absolutely deserve to have everything that I’ve ever wanted: Love and health and being able to be responsible for myself and letting go of feeling sorry for myself. “What I did, though, when I wrote it was I made it about the road so, that way, I wouldn’t have to explain that personal thing that I add to the song, but I could use the road as an example. What the road means to me is just getting out of your house. It doesn’t necessarily have to be singing and doing a show. It just means getting out of where you’re hiding from and experiencing life again. And THAT is better than home – better than hiding.” In addition to what she had shared earlier, Beth shared what else is on her radar for the next year. “Well, you know, what I decided is doing
nine months on the road a year is just too much,” she said. “It’s getting in the way of my relationships with family, with friends, with being able to be a wife to my husband, and it’s getting in the way of writing. Even though I work with my husband on the road, it’s still all about the Beth Hart Show. At home, I want to be able to cook for him and go to the beach and ride bikes with him. “I was telling this to my manager recently. I was saying as a writer, I’m not going to write about airplanes and hotels. I gotta write about real life, and in order to write about real life, I have to be connected to real life. “So I think what’s on the focus for me is, like, seven months out of the year on the road, living a real life and being able to write from that place. Being really healthy. Really balanced. I’m 43 now. This is the time where you’ve really got to take care of yourself if you want to live to be old, and I want to live to be old! I want to have a long life. I want to be able to be there to take care of my husband when he gets really old the way he’s taken such amazing care of me through all my difficulties. So I’m kinda reprioritizing things, and I think it’s a good thing! I feel really good about that.” If Beth’s future is as full of life as she sounded during our call, then, happily, we should be hearing from this beautiful and amazingly talented woman for many years to come... and that’s a wonderful thing. You can read this interview in it’s entirety at www.boomerocity.com. Photo by Greg Watermann