Phoebe Legere

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Phoebe Legere is a pioneer female composer and multi-instrumentalist and a well-known activist and community leader championing women’s causes.

Interview conducted on November 29, 2020

By Dan Locke

PHOEBE LEGERE (Abenaki) is the President of the Foundation for New American Art a nonprofit whose mission is to bring free art and music lessons to the children of low-income communities. She is a composer, playwright, poet, painter and multi-disciplinary performance artist. Legere has received numerous awards including NYSCA, a Pulitzer nomination and a recent YADDO Fellowship. Legere is the Conductor and Music Director of the Lower East Side Children’s Chorus.

What is your upbringing?

I grew up on a small farm in New England. My parents were both artists.

Your family came over on the Mayflower. What does that mean?

I am descended from at least four Mayflower travelers and of Native Americans on both sides. That means that genetically I am a survivor. 70% of the Mayflower pilgrims died in the first winter. 90% of Native American died in the “Plague of Little Spots.”
I wrote an opera about the spiritual friendship between the first pilgrims and the Wampanoag.Yes, I am a Native American and a Mayflower descendant.
My mixed background gives me insight into American history. I consider myself to be a walker between worlds. The important thing to remember is that the first Mayflower pilgrims were deeply religious. They considered every detail of every day to be a holy message from the Lord.
Similarly, Native Americans say that every day is holy and everything is an manation of the Great Spirit.
The Pilgrims were monotheistic, as are Orthodox Jews. One God, with many appearances. I understand our Native American religion to be very much this way too. That is why we say: “We are all related.” In the beginning there was an affinity between the Pilgrims and Wampanoag. They were friends. They helped each other.
It was only later, when land speculators and business people came to America, that things got ugly. It is a crime the way rich powerful people treat regular folks. That goes for now, then and throughout history.

How did you discover music?

It discovered me.

How did you start to write music?

I wrote my first composition at age 6.

You play piano, accordion, cello, Native American flute, organ, buffalo drum, synthesizer, cavaquinho, and invented instruments. What instrument came first?

Piano.

How does one invent an instrument? In addition, what was your first? And is it copyright or Patent Pending?

I have a patent on my instrument the Sneakers of Samothrace. The Nike of Samothrace was the Ancient Greek Goddess of movement and victory.
To invent the musical sneaker, I had to learn programming and engineering. I studied with Perry Hoberman, the great installation artist. I invented musical sneakers for disabled children. I wanted to give them the inspiration to take their difficult next step.

How did you get your first guitar, and do you still have it?

It was a Fender Mustang. I had to sell it because as the music business died and I needed food.

What was your first performance at like?

I was 4 years old. I opened my mouth, and nothing came out. I started crying. Then someone came out on stage and started to sing with me. I remembered this was what I was there for. I remembered that I had to open my mouth and push some of that special air out to the audience. I got a standing ovation.

What makes a good songwriter?’’

If you are unlucky in love and very, very sad…if you write hundreds and hundreds of songs… if you keep working on them day and night… if you are desperate to be held, to be heard, to be loved, if you listen carefully to the songs the Angels are singing and just write them down exactly note for note every time you overhear one…then you will be a good songwriter.
The Bible is full of songs. People used to respect songwriters and make them into Kings in the old days. That is because songs are messages from the future.

What was the title of your first original song? Did you record it?

It was called Grasshopper Willy. I wrote it down. My kindergarten teacher taught me how to write music. People learn quickly when they are very young. That is why I am committed to bringing art and music to young children.

How do you like being called the female Frank Zappa?

I am deeply honored. That was Roman Kozak, the great Billboard journalist who published that.

How was it to meet Hunter Thompson?

He was the most fun, the most dangerous, the most Alpha male, the funniest, and the second most intelligent man I have ever met. He had been in the air force btw. He loved guns and blowing things up.

You have opened up for the likes of David Bowie, played with Joni Mitchell and Billy Joel, John Hartford and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. How was it to tour and open up for David Bowie?

He was a perfect gentleman and a fascinating artist. He taught me the virtue of “holding back” on stage. He had impeccable control on stage. Bowie reduced his gestures to the essence of dignity and emotion.

How did you feel to be nominated for a musical poem “Waterclown”?

It is wonderful to get prizes, but in art, prizes are not the point. The point is to sing your truth. I wrote this poem about that stuff that flows out of your tap. Where does it come from? Why is it important? Those who have done tours of duty in hot, dry places can answer this question and could write poems about water too. Water is life.
You can buy The Waterclown for one dollar at my Amazon store.
The download is called “Off the Score.” Look in the “Be Physically Fabulous” department.

What is the difference between playing at Carnegie Hall and CBGB?

Carnegie Hall is a sonic temple. Just breathing onstage is orgasmic bliss. And they have a 7-foot Steinway concert grand, handmade. Respect for artists is built into every architectural element of Carnegie.
CBGB was a shithole. Kids got trashed, they got tinnitus, they got addicted to drugs…
Punk was exciting in the early days, but I came on the tail end of that CBGB era– by that time Punk had morphed into New Wave – a which was a cunning combination of machine made “Dance Rock” and elements of punk fashion. By the time MONAD started to play at CB’s everybody brilliant was dead or had sold their souls to the Record Companies.
My band MONAD was signed as New Wave when I was 15. https://phoebelegeresmonad.blogspot.com/
They had just invented a machine interface called MIDI that was intended to replace musicians and save money for record companies. The record companies said: Get rid of your band. We just need the singer and a track. It is over. I said, “My band is my family.” I loved the feeling of being part of a unit, a creative ensemble…traveling together, making things together.
MIDI was the beginning of the end. Then Sony invented the CD for their CD Players. That was a con. The whole game became a creepy, fake hustle.
Sexual harassment was the name of the game for both sexes. You had to “put out” to get them to “put out” your record. I can’t talk about it. It’s over.
Now all we have are legacy bands we can watch on YouTube and Netflix.
I love Urban Music and Hip-hop. Who doesn’t? But on the high end is just machines talking to each other. Congolese Hip-hop is interesting though. It is little kids like 12 and 13 who are soldiers make the sounds of drum machines and samples with tree branches and rocks.
I grew up in the belly of the music business beast. I was signed to Epic Records as a teenager. Very few people know what I know about that life.

How was it for you 2018 CD Heart of Love to make it to #18 on the Roots-Americana Chart?

I was thrilled to finally be on mainstream radio. It felt good. Radio is where I belong.

What is Americana?

Americana is an alternative country music. Same great playing, same powerful imagery, same twang, some slide guitar and fiddle, same great blues and gospel foundation. I belong in Country music because I’m a country person. I love the blues.

What is your favorite track on the album?

“Heart of Love” is about me getting my CDL and driving a truck around North America. I like to drive because it is like driving through a landscape painting while listening to country music.

How do you stay healthy while touring?

It is impossible. If I were successful and had a manager and an agent and a real record contract, I would have a tour bus and a proper refrigerator and stove and I could cook the right food. But I have to tour in my car so I have to grab what I can.

What are you’re feeling about streaming music?

Complaining about streaming is like being one of those Japanese guys who didn’t know WW2 was over. We found them hiding in caves on remote Japanese islands….and finally we had to take blowtorches to get em out of the caves and tell the poor suckers: HEY! THE WAR IS OVER! STOP FIGHTING.” (You can see this on YouTube.)
That’s music streaming. It’s over. The musicians lost. We let Apple take the CDs out of the computers – We let car manufacturers take the CD’s out of cars and we just rolled over and died. Apple, Google, Amazon and Spotify got total control over American Music. BTW my music can be found on all these steaming platforms but to hear my songs for free subscribe to www.youtube.com/phoebelegere
Musicians should have fought like hell to keep the album alive. We should have fought to death for our freedom and autonomy.
The album is more than a story. It is a snapshot of the soul of an artist that you can visit, in private, it is a place you can go – where you can be safe, and explore your own emotions. Again, and again and again a great album welcomes you.
What do singles accomplish? It’s like a slider. You gotta eat 5 of them to be satisfied and you still don’t feel like you had a proper meal.

Digital vs. vinyl?

Vinyl of course.

What are your feelings about the social uprising going on in the United States?

But like I said, it is over. Come out with your hands up. There’s no living for indie artists anymore. We have about 7 big corporate stars and they’re supposed to be doing the singing for all the rest of us.
Millions of Americans can sing. They each have their own song inside them that is screaming to get out. But no. The Media Controllers say, “Just sit in front of the TV and jerk off to whatever tarted up clown they are selling you this week.”

You wrote the play “Hello Mrs. President” about the first woman of color to become president of the US. Have people started to relook at this work since Kamala Harris is on Biden presidential ticket?

Prophets haven’t been able to make a good living foretelling the future since Bible times. You’d think people would throw me a bone about all of my accurate predictions, right? As a poet, artist prophecy is my job. I have foretold many things, my ideas have been ripped off by many people, I have been copied by clowns and betrayed by buffoons, but I’m still here and I’ll have my day in the sun. I see it coming.

Why did you make “Glory” a free download?

That song is awesome. That was a song by Susan B. Anthony sang at the first Women’s Suffragette Conference in Philadelphia. I arranged it as a blues.
“Our Hearts have felt the glory of the coming of the time When Law and Love shall make our land sublime. When every mountain, hill, and rock with freedom’s light will shine and Truth goes marching on. Glory Glory Hallelujah!”
I am born on the 4th of July. I love patriotic songs, I love the flag, I love our men and women in uniform. Many in my family have died fighting for freedom over the years. I think about Americans with overwhelming emotion.

What is the mental health situation of the United States? How can the public help the doctors and nurses on the front line?

Go to my Amazon store and buy my amazing Immunity Enhancers. https://www.amazon.com/shop/phoebelegere. All proceeds go to my free educational programs for low-income children. Take these herbs, get enough sleep, don’t go to bars and you won’t get sick. Trust me.

What song from the past is in your mind right now? Moreover, what is the meaning that song means to you?

Well, I saw a good show on Amazon last night about Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon. I liked that movie because it was about a group of people working together to make something great, empathetic and progressive.

How do you feel the Covid-19 virus is going to affect the music business in the future?

Real music is going extinct. Musicians were the walking dead before. Now we are really dead. Machines, the Drug Cartels and Gangs are running the “Corporate Music Business” show now.
Music is a way of talking to the Lord. Can someone tell me how violent gangs got control of our sacred American music? Well, they did it by intimidation of course. By sticking guns in people’s faces.
I stay alert with my own preparations for possible attack. I am a weapons expert but I never use force to intimidate or bully.
I grew up in the music business life. It is a violent, weird world of betrayal and greed.

What have you been doing with your self-quarantine?

Playing guitar, painting and creating educational games for children. You can play one of these games free on my website phoebelegereart.com. It is called Million Dollar Dice. This is a game that teaches kids how to add.
Your points can be used for discounts at my store.

Have you discovered or rediscovered any new hobbies?

Yes. I taught myself to juggle. I am learning Hebrew so I can read the Old Testament. I got back into my Chinese and I’ve been doing more and more animation and game development.

During the Corona Virus Pandemic, you were offering touch free delivery of Fine Art Prints from your online gallery. How did that happen?

Each beautiful print of my artwork is printed by a machine, packed by a machine, and delivered by a UPS driver wearing gloves. You can get touch-free delivery at www.gallery.phoebelegere.com.
But if you buy direct from me at www.phoebelegereart.com I personalize every painting and pack it myself. I wear gloves. I am obsessed with sanitizing.

95% of people said that they have changed the way they watch television. Which is your favorite streaming channel?

I already watched everything good on Netflix. They had a great prepper show. I loved it. I just watched the entire Qin Dynasty show, all 40 episodes in Mandarin. I am extremely interested in Military strategy and history especially the history of swords, bows, armor and cavalry.
I watch YouTube podcasts. I like Mike Tyson when he talks about Military History, Michael Franzese when he talks about the mafia in the music business, Lex Fridman when he talks about infinity, Joe Rogan when he talks about wild animals, I love “3 Blue 1 Brown.” It is a math show.
I study Latin, Chinese, and Hebrew on YouTube. Amazon has lots of French-language movies. I just watched one called Django about how Hitler killed the Gypsies. Hitler was a total asshole. The Nazis shot a blind Gypsy guitar player in the head in the middle of his solo.

Many artists are doing nightly concerts over either YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. What are you planning to do?

I’m producing a new Children’s Education TV Show. All sales from www.phoebelegereart.com and my Amazon influencer store (www.amazon.com/shop/phoebelegere) go to this show. I will be filming it at Speedway. Our first show will be “How to Build a Rocketship.”

Live Nation just started Live Nation from Home. Which are concerts from artist homes. An all-new virtual music hub keeping fans connected to their favorite artists featuring daily live streams, performances, new music, and more. Do you think it will be possible to make a living doing concerts this way?

I really don’t like mixing the private and the public. For me it is apples and oranges.
I hate the whole Zoom thing for so many reasons.
I have to do a Virtual Concert Fundraiser for my Foundation for New American Art Children’s TV show but I’m using OBS, another software where you can get a better sound quality.
Frankly it feels totally wrong to be performing in my own home. I’m a different person at home.
On stage I am super confident, assertive, gregarious and happy – But at home I am very quiet. I practice my art forms in a focused, deliberate way. I am shy. I like to cook.
On stage I wear extravagant costumes covered with shiny beads and mirrors,7-inch-high heels and show lots of fabulous cleavage.
At home I just wear my jeans, sneakers and my hair in braids. I wear cowboy boots when I ride my horse and otherwise rubber boots around the barn.
And, of course, I wear my mask.
Did you hear my song on the YouTube – I Wear My Mask. Please subscribe to my YouTube channel. If I can get 1000 subscribers, I can put my Amazon store right under my videos. It is called a “Shelf” where you can sell T-shirts but you have to have 1000 subscribers. I should hustle more but it so boring hustling on the internet. I like old fashioned hustling where you stand around with a drink and bullshit with people.

With Social Distance being the norm. Do you feel that it maybe the end of the music fest for the next couple of years?

“I WEAR MY MASK”

What about Holographic concerts in our living room?

Ok That is interesting. My virtual concert will be done in a holographic cube. I am obsessed with 3D and Virtual Reality.
3 dimensions are more fun than two dimensions. But 11 dimensions are the best. That requires a Wormhole Transcendental Time Travel Pod. I’m developing that now.

Are you a prepper?

Yes. I have a special department called Be Prepared at my Amazon store –. If you like knives, pepper spray, fire starters, compasses, bugout gear, tasers, and solar-powered generators come to my store! I love that stuff. I have tested every product in the remote wilderness. I was testing some grizzly bear pepper spray when I had a little accident. Don’t fuck with that stuff is all I can say.

How do you see yourself in the next five years?

I see myself living beside a beautiful body of water playing a Steinway grand piano and a Martin D-42 guitar with a Labrador retriever by my side with a beautiful barn nearby that has been restored into the perfect studio where I can paint, record, and create new alternative vehicles, that can travel on land, air, water and time (Shamancycle)

Anything you would like to say in closing?

Without brave Men and Women protecting us with the most advanced weapons and the best technology we will not survive. We must protect our Freedom and our Territory. Let’s stay strong and super disciplined. Teamwork is everything. God Bless our Military.

The Legendary Phoebe Legere: