Interview with Amanda Petrusich, Part Two

Here’s more with Amanda Petrusich, author of It Still Moves: Lost Songs, Lost Highways, and the Search for the Next American Music.

Matthew: So you went all over the country, you visited all these major hotspots. Was that something that was totally necessary for you? To have some first-hand experience?

Amanda: I thought this book made the most sense as a travelogue. On a really selfish level, I wanted an excuse to drive around listening to old records and eating barbecue sandwiches — that always seemed like something fun that boys got to do. I’m a sucker for that whole canon of road literature, from Kerouac to Bryson to McPhee to William Least Heat-Moon. But I was also really interested in the relationship between art and place, and how Americana music reflects specific landscapes. This is going to sound both terribly pretentious and way cheesey, but I do think I understood Delta blues better — or at least I understood it differently, or on a more concrete, visceral level — once I’d spent just a week in Clarksdale. Americana music is so tied to place, it just didn’t seem like there was any other way to tell its story.

Charley Patton “I’m Goin’ Home”

Matthew: How did things change for you in Clarksdale?

Amanda: Clarksdale is an incredible place. In some ways, it feels unchanged, it feels stuck — it’s still impoverished, it’s still struggling, it’s still 1935, to an extent. It’s hard to be there and not feel the blues in your gut, your heart, your teeth. It’s a tough place. But the spirit of the people who live there is humbling.

Robert Johnson “Ramblin’ On My Mind”

Matthew: That’s quite a contrast with visiting Graceland.

Amanda: Oh, for sure! I love Graceland, too, though. I love the ridiculous, stupid commercialism of it, I love the 300 gift shops, I love the souvenir shot glasses, I love that they sell fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches. I love the Jungle Room and its carpeted ceiling and fake waterfall and monkey statues. The really haunting thing about Graceland is that Elvis is buried there, in the backyard — it’s like this whole hilarious circus of memorabilia and glitz, and then you get to the end of the audio tour, and you’re standing there in your T-shirt and headset, taking dumb pictures of yourself doing a thumbs-up, and all of a sudden you’re in a graveyard.

Matthew: Did you end up going anywhere that didn’t get into the book?

Amanda: There were lots and lots of small stops along the way. I spent a lot of time driving around Mississippi hill country, trying to find fife and drum bands. I also got really caught up in the history of the civil rights movement in Memphis. I made several visits to the National Civil Rights Museum, which is in the Lorraine Motel, which is also where MLK was assassinated. There’s definitely a whole other story out there about the way in which history is memorialized in this country and what we do with our sacred sites, whether it’s the Lorraine or Graceland or whatever.

Matthew: Yeah, I was just thinking about how these things either end up commercialized, neglected, or recede into the background.

Amanda: Exactly. There’s a gift shop or there’s nothing.

Matthew: So, as you said, you ate a lot of food, and it figures into the book somewhat. What really knocked out? What do you think people really have to go for if they’re in the vicinity?

Amanda: Oh man, in my secret life I’m a food writer. I actually don’t eat much meat normally, but that idea kind of imploded the minute I arrived in Memphis. Actually, asking people for restaurant recommendations is a great way to break the ice in an interview, and obviously cuisine can communicate a lot about a region. In Memphis, I would recommended Charles Vergos’ Rendezvous, which is a pretty well-known barbecue place, but it’s awesome. In Clarksdale and the surrounding Delta towns, you’ve got to try hot tamales (and sing Robert Johnson’s “They’re Red Hot!” while you’re cramming one in your mouth) — almost any stand on the side of the road will be good. In Nashville, Prince’s Hot Chicken is mind-altering (literally, it is crazy-hot) and the Loveless Cafe has the best biscuits and preserves I’ve ever had. Oh! And a hot brown in Louisville, Kentucky. For sure. At the Brown Hotel.

Matthew: Do you think there’s kind of an alternate version of your book that’s all about food, and its place in culture? It seems like in ways, bbq and so

ul food are going through a similar sort of revival, particularly in more urban areas where the food is desired, but the tradition doesn’t exist in the same way.

Amanda: Well, it’s hard to have a real barbecue pit or smoker in the middle of New York City. I think we’re seeing a lot of inherently unfancy food gussied up and served on a china plate and given a big price tag, at least in New York, right? There’s definitely a huge trend towards American comfort/soul food being reinvented as gourmet here, which is weird but also really interesting, from a cultural standpoint. In some ways, it feels ornamental — I mean, look what happened with PBR five years ago — but I also think that southern food is just uncommonly delicious. It’s also time-intensive, which is maybe where the comfort comes in — when it’s made right, you know it took a lot of time and effort.

Matthew: Yeah, I agree that in many cases, it’s one more exotic food to get a make-over, to get pulled into this unrelated magpie tradition. It doesn’t seem like much can exist in the context of NYC without being integrated and changed.

Amanda: Absolutely. That says a lot about New York City, doesn’t it? It’s like one big vacuum.

Matthew: Did you feel it as much when you were growing up? We’re from more or less the same area, and I know that I always felt really compelled toward the city. I wrote about this one the site recently, that living relatively close to the city and always seeing NYC media, it made me feel like maybe the more rural/suburban area I was from didn’t matter as much.

Amanda: Yes — compelled and terrified at the same time. I remember taking the train into Grand Central and the subway down to St. Marks Place to buy Manic Panic and Sex Pistols t-shirts and Fugazi records. I was overwhelmed and transfixed. There’s nothing like the suburbs to instill that sense of being from a noplace. Not that I feel that way about my hometown, necessarily, but it was within commuting distance so it did feel like a support system for New York, in a way.

Matthew: Yeah. I mean, you’ve been to my hometown! It’s a really specific place and yet it still had that feeling.

Amanda: New York casts a pretty big shadow, is the thing. Even now when people ask me where I’m from, I always define it as being X miles north of New York.

Matthew: Yeah. Sometimes I fudge the details somewhat — my hometown is basically the first town out of Westchester in Putnam county, but people know Westchester, and I’ve been known to just use that as shorthand. Or I say “across the river from West Point,” and people either know that or they don’t.

Amanda: Yup, I do that, too. I just say “Westchester,” which is ridiculous.

Matthew: I think the thing I try to get across in addition to proximity to the city is that I’m not from Long Island or “upstate.” I think upstate begins once the Hudson Line is up. Once you’re beyond Poughkeepsie, you’re upstate.

Amanda: Ha! That’s a good barometer, actually. I wonder how actual upstaters feel about saying they’re from New York.

Matthew: Yeah, the state really changes a lot the further north you get. I mean, there’s a pretty big change just going from Rye and White Plains to Peekskill and on to Beacon, Duchess County.

Amanda: Sure, it’s really quite rural in spots, and the demographics totally switch.

Matthew: And then you have bits that are basically Canada, or New England.

Amanda: If I learned anything driving up and down the east coast, it’s that this particular stretch of America is tremendously varied, geographically and otherwise.

Matthew: I think that’s kind of a microcosm of something that’s clear in the book — that we’re just living in this loose collection of disparate regional cultures, and they come together just as much as they have nothing to do with each other. But the regional cultures are something to be proud of.

Amanda: Right. Of course, regionalism is being challenged in a lot of ways — the internet takes a lot of the blame for that, culturally (things are less insular now, so they spread faster, meaning there’s less time for a movement to take on real regional distinctions) but things are also getting commercially homogenized (every town has it’s Chili’s, etc.). I do think the pendulum will swing back, and people will get tired of that sameness and re-embrace local things. I think that’s already happening.

Matthew: Where do you see that happening?

Amanda: It’s a collection of vague impressions, honestly. I think there’s a Michael Pollen-led/environmentally-conscious trend towards eating locally, for sure. And then in terms of art, I think we’re seeing a little bit of a resurgence in the notion of the regional scene — like what’s happening around the Smell in LA or Wham City in Baltimore. I do think human beings require a certain amount of community. Obviously, that’s something that’s always existed for religious groups, but even for people who aren’t religious, it’s important to feel like you’re part of a place, I think.