An interview Part 1

["J. Bird" <jaybird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello!

This is my first post to this list, but I have been a lurker (DG too) for
quite awhile.  I posted to the Admin list (my first list post ever), and so
I'm now brave enough to post to this one!  I'm sending out part of a
transcription of a radio interview with Alannah Miles from "Northern
Rocksposure" in 1995.  It's three pages long, so I'll post it in three
parts.  "R" stands for the radio announcer (I don't know his name), and "A"
is, of course, Alannah.  This excerpt is about Robert Plant and the record
companies.  I think you may find it interesting!  Note: [ brackets] mean I'm
not sure of the word, except in the instances of a song break and  where I
put in [Canada].

R--You have an interesting story about Robert Plant.

A--Well, actually, yeah, I'd forgotten about it until you mentioned it.  He
came to visit me in LA and we went to 29 Palms.  I took him to this favorite
place of mine, and subsequently he wrote a song for me called "29 Palms."
And this girl, [look alike] in the video, very romantic between us--no one
really knew, we both were very subtle about the way we described our love
affair.

R--29 Palms, is it a bar or a restaurant?

A--No, it's a place outside of...in the desert, in the Joshua Tree, outside
of LA, three hours outside of LA.  I brought him there as a retreat and he
fell in love with it.  And he wrote a song about his little desert heart,
and so on.  And he came into the studio when we were working on "Our World
Our Times" and he loved the track.  The minor was [dndndndna].

R--Ah, "Houses of the Holy."  Oh, "immigrant Song."

A--I can't remember the titles 'cause I'm not a big Zeppelin fan.  I like
"Going to California" and "Bron-y-aur Stomp," a few other beautiful tracks,
but....  So, we got on the mike together and we're singing away: every
single piece of equipment in the studio broke down.  It was a [neave]board
that had been used in England, the Abbey Road [neave]board, it had just
completely...broke.  And so it didn't happen.  So it wasn't meant to be, you
know.  It just wasn't meant to be.  Not in that way.

R--And you didn't feel like rescheduling it, or it just didn't happen?

A--He was in town, it was, like I said, it was non-organic.  It didn't
happen. The only way we're going to ever do a duet together is if it's
organic.  If it's set-up...if he ordains it.  You know, I won't ask him.  He
knows I want to sing with him!  And he's the only person I'd love to sing
with.  I love his voice.  And I think we'd make magic together, but that's
not my call.  That's his.  He's the superior here.

[a song or two break]

R--Second time out easier?  Harder?

A--I think...I just will be honest with you, I didn't want to make records
after the success of the first record.  I'd pushed myself to--beyond
oblivion physically, mentally and creatively.  I was, I had fallen in love.
It was a tempestuous relationship that required a great deal of my energy
and was very demanding, and probably cost me a lot of focus on my musical
career.  Made me a little bit confused.  The corruption I saw at the top
made me undesirous of continuing forward with my career.  It frightened me
and sickened me.  And um, I was a mess.  Personally.

R--You strike me as the type of person that would take stuff like that, take
it to heart.  Like whatever is going on around you is going to really....

A--Yeah, how can you help it?  I mean, it becomes your life.

R--Well, there are people who have the armor, you know, and it just reflects
off  and they kind of go on with the blinders on and do whatever they have
to do to get forward.

A--Well, no...this was far greater than you can imagine.  This was, this was
pressure beyond, um, ability to live within it.  It was, you know, it was
impossible.  And I'm also a control freak and, because I have my own
creativity, and I'm also very much--being a control freak, I want to be in
charge of my own direction.  So when someone comes along--after I've been
responsible for the direction and the success of that direction--and decides
to take the reins by their hands, it just makes me pull in the other
direction, you know.  Danny Goldberg was my manager.  He went to Atlantic
Records.  They wanted me to be managed by my record company executive!  All
I saw was control.  And maybe I made a mistake, perhaps I should have gone
along with it, but I saw me without a leg to stand on in a feminine sense.
Because of all this, you know, male force around me.  And, you know,
suddenly...it diminished my creativity, and you know, there was "I was a
woman.  And I needed to be told what to do."  This old hierarchic echelons
of big business.  And, um, I was a fool to think I could stand up against
them.  But I did.  And here I am.

R--Yeah.  Who was the love interest?

[continued in Part 2]