By Jim Barber
Tami Neilson’s life is about journeys. For much of her early life, the roots/country artist travelled the continent of North America as part of her family band. The Neilsons were beloved entertainers who practiced a traditional form of country and western music with deep roots, resonant themes of faith and family and a wholesomeness and joy that is lacking in much of the music industry these days.
Later, as an adult, she journeyed from her home in Canada to literally the opposite side of the earth both longitudinally and latitude wise, falling in love with a man from New Zealand, moving to the land of kiwis, Crowded House and Hobbiton, beginning a new life as a wife and mom as well as a new creative journey as a songwriter and recording artist in her adopted nation.
Any artist who is true to their craft and calling, and who is blessed (some may say cursed) with self-awareness, as well as a passion for storytelling and processing the vagaries and vicissitudes of the world through their art is also on a journey. It’s a continuum of self-exploration, expression and growth as a musician, a lyricist and interpreter of life, both her own and of those around her. Neilson has attained this level of creative apotheosis.
Her new album, Neon Cowgirl marks a key moment in her journey as the concept of traveling from place to place, traveling through time and space, traveling alone and with her loved ones, traveling to new places and old haunts infuses ever fibrous musical tendon of the album.
The title is a real object of some size and impressiveness. The Neon Cowgirl is a landmark in one of the most important and culturally rich hubs of American music, Nashville, Tennessee. It is a symbol not only of the solidity, significance and tradition of the town, but also an important signpost along Neilson’s own journey as a human and as a creator.
“The Neon Cowgirl, towering over Broadway like the patron saint of heartbreak in downtown Nashville as she smiles over her shoulder in red cowboy boots, watched me grow up. Basking in her glow, I walked wide-eyed into the Ryman Auditorium as a 16 year old, clutching my ticket. Later that night, dreaming of standing on that stage, I drifted off to sleep in the bunk of our home on wheels at the KOA [campground] next to the Opry. When I was 18, she saw me flipping through Loretta Lynn CDs in the Ernest Tubb Record Shop after performing the breakfast and lunch shows on the General Jackson showboat with my parents and brothers in our family band, The Neilsons. At 25 she watched me running all over town, meeting up with other songwriters – writing, writing, writing – before I had to fly back home to Canada again,” Neilson wrote in a piece included in the promotional material for the album.
“At 30, I returned as a newlywed on my honeymoon, flying in from New Zealand where I’d moved for love, holding hands with my new husband in Hatch Show Print, introducing him to her like a family member. A decade passed without her as I built a life on the other side of the world and raised two babies. My heart raced as I returned to her again to showcase at Americanafest, playing to 12 people at 3rd and Lindsley. Five years and many showcases later, I swear she smiled right at me as I stopped to point her out to my two children as we walked past her, into the doors of the Ryman to finally perform for the first time. Neon Cowgirl represents a lifelong dream of chasing Nashville and country music. I’ve loved her my whole life, even when she breaks my heart over and over again.”
In the leadup to writing and recording the new album, Neilson and her family literally loaded up a camper and drove thousands of miles along the highways and byways of the United States and Canada, as a way to not only visit friends and relatives, but hit locations that had profoundly deep meaning for Neilson.
“It was the way I grew up. So, it was kind of the equivalent of taking my kids back to my childhood home, because my childhood home was usually on four wheels above a tarmac across the highways of North America. That’s how I grew up for over a decade, living in a motor home with my brothers and my mom and dad while we were touring. So I wanted to give my kids the experience of getting a little glimpse of what that felt like, how that was for me, because you can tell them all the stories, but until they’re there it would be, I guess a normal person’s version of taking them home to the old family house and neighbourhood and them getting to live there for five months. Suddenly it becomes a shared experience and a deeper level of bonding. For me, it was really important. From the time I had my babies I was saying to my husband that one day I really wanted to spend more than just a two-week holiday visiting family. I want them to experience living in Canada and in North America and really get to know that part of their heritage and the foundation of the other half of where they come from. My oldest, Charlie, was about a year away from starting high school, so this was the window of opportunity; this is the window when both of the boys are old enough to remember, but young enough to still like hanging out with us, you know, before the teen years hit,” she said, adding that it’s actually part of the Kiwi tradition to have these sorts of extensive travel experiences, especially for young people.
“The Kiwis, as a nation, as a people, prioritize travel. We’re an isolated nation at the bottom of the world, and they have a thing that’s called an OE, which is your ‘overseas experience,’ and everyone does it. They finish high school, or university and boom, they head overseas for at least a year. And it’s prioritized when you live somewhere so isolated from the rest of the world. So when we went to visit their teachers and said this was what we were thinking of doing, taking them out for five months is a big, big ask, without exception, from the principal to their teachers they all said, absolutely. They knew the boys were going to learn so much more than sitting in a desk in this classroom for the next five months.
‘The trip was a chance to not only have that special experience with my family, but I’ve built the career that I have in two-week increments over the past decade around family life and being far away from my kids. I don’t like being away from them for long periods of time, so I kind of cap tours at two, three weeks tops. I thought this was my chance to be on the ground still, playing shows, but not missing anyone because they’re with me, and I can hit it as hard as I can. We can all be touring together. This is my once-in-a-lifetime chance to really make a dent in North America as an artist.”
This is where things take a bit of a detour, if you will, and this proposed opportunity for familial bonding and career advancement came to an abrupt halt as Neilson found herself on another journey – one within the health care system of New Zealand and the road to recovery.
“Two months before we were booked to fly out, I landed in the hospital in ICU with sepsis and a collapsed lung. So life had very different plans than I did. It was my gallbladder; it was gall stones. And I was told not to worry, it’s the most common surgical procedure in New Zealand, everybody gets their gallbladders out. They said I would be up dancing by Christmas, and this was a week before Christmas. And of course you sign a waiver that says there’s a one per cent chance that all of this horrific stuff could happen. I guess I should have bought a lottery ticket because I was that one per cent. It got pretty bad,” she said.
“We then were contemplating right up till a couple of weeks before if we should even continue and do this tip. Was I physically able to do it. We did decide to go through with it, and it because this journey of healing – quite literal physical healing, kind of happened bit by bit as we drove across the country with the kids. Each gig that I had, one was a showcase that was only one song and then another was an opening slot that was just 20 minutes. So I was able to get my legs under me slowly and as I had to do vocal rehabilitation to expand my lung capacity again, I had to lower the keys to a lot of my songs. So it kind of became this incredible journey of healing while also being so full of gratitude at the same time. I think when you have a near-death experience, there’s a fresh sense of gratitude for every little thing in life.
“I feel this album and the songs and the stories around it are so vivid in a way that only happens after you’ve had a near death experience. Like, you suddenly notice every detail and you really treasure everything. You look at things now like roots that stretch back 30 years. Suddenly you’re seeing blossoms popping from those roots that you’ve been tending and tilling and nurturing and watering and digging in the dirt for 30 years. That’s how it felt and how everything feels to me now. I know that this trip will be one that stays with me until the end of my time here.”
Two monumental and life-altering experiences in particular happened along the RV-bound journey. One was an opportunity to audition on the hugely popular TV series, America’s Got Talent. The second was the chance to perform on stage at the legendary Ryman Auditorium, former home of the Grand Ole Opry, and still one of the most important of venues – a living, working repository of the history of American music. That was special enough, but what added much more emotional resonance to the occasion was that she was asked to perform at the venue opening for Crowded House – the New Zealand equivalent to The Beatles – and was asked personally by band leader Neil Finn himself. Also on the road trip, the family hit Salvation Mountain [which became another song on the album], Dollywood, the Statue of Liberty, Graceland and Yellowstone Park. Each member of the family had their pick, and they visited them all.
But first, let’s head to Hollywood and the stage for America’s Got Talent, which was a cool experience for Neilson on one hand, but a bit of a downer in another aspect.
“We started the trip in Hollywood. I had a talent scout ring me months before and they asked if I would audition for America’s Got Talent. I said I was not American and they said it was okay, it’s just the title, you can be from anywhere. I said ‘I don’t know how I feel. I’m already an established artist. I’m not going to pretend that I’m undiscovered and all that.’ And they’re like, ‘oh no, that’s not the narrative anymore.’ It was one of those wild things. I auditioned and, again, I had a collapsed lung. I was doing one song, the first time performing and standing in front of the judges and in front of a live audience in Hollywood. I got a ‘yes’ from all four of the judges. I got a standing ovation, the whole nine yards. And then you walk off the stage and there’s a lawyer and she says, ‘congratulations on all your votes. Congratulations on such an incredible performance. There’s no guarantee you’re going to make the show.’ And I didn’t make the show. People need to know that those shows are very much about building a narrative. It’s not about the talent. If I told them about almost dying the month before I probably would have won the damn thing, but I didn’t want to go down that route.”
The Ryman is one of the most famous and iconic performing venues in the United States. It is has such importance and is such a mark of distinction that artists outside of the country and western vein vie to trod it’s boards.
“The next show I did after America’s Got Talent was at the Ryman and it was opening for Crowded House as an acoustic duo with my brother [Jay], one month after being in the hospital. It was my first time on that stage, so it was a bucket list performance and there I am with a semi-collapsed lung. It was just wild,” she said, again reiterating the fact that it was a fellow New Zealander who got her the spot.
Finn’s career stretches back to the late 1970s when he helped form the popular New Wave band, Split Enz, who had massive international hits such as ‘I Got You,’ and ‘Six Months in A Leaky Boat.’ Later in the 1980s, he helped form Crowded House, who became part of the soundtrack of most music lovers throughout the late 1980s and 1990s with songs such as “Better Be Home Soon,’ ‘Don’t Dream It’s Over’ and ‘Something So Strong.’ Finn stayed in his home country and has worked hard to grow and nurture the New Zealand music industry, with his own studio being at its epicenter.
Needless to say, getting the nod of approval from Mr. Finn is the dream of every Kiwi musician, regardless of whether they were born in Wellington, or southern Ontario.
“He’s New Zealand music royalty. Actually, he’s music royalty period, but he is so beloved and is a very real, accessible person, in a very New Zealand way. There aren’t things like entourages and gatekeepers around. It’s like a small town. I mean in the whole country there’s only a million people. I’ve been a Crowded House fan my whole life. I first met him in person when we were both booked at a record store in Wellington for Record Store Day. We were both on the bill and he invited me to perform the song ‘Distant Sun’ with him. I was so nervous, this was 10 years ago now, and I was so overwhelmed to meet him and stand next to him in a place where you would not normally see him, this little record store, not even at a venue or a proper gig. We were on the same flight home [to Auckland] and our flight got delayed so we were sitting in the lounge chatting and getting to spend time together, which was like a dream come true,” Neilson said.
“He’s very much like a father of the industry here. He’s very much about elevating other artists, pulling up-and-coming artists, platforming and collaborating with them. He’s just one of those people who just loves music; he loves creativity and he stays fresh and vital. His creative output is so prolific. And his boys are around my age and Liam and Elroy are both very involved in the music industry here and I think that helps to keep things fresh for Neil. It keeps him really plugged in. All three of them are influencing each other and creating together, and they’re in Crowded House now as well. So when I recorded Kingmaker [her 2022 album] it was done in and out of lockdowns and the pandemic, and all the borders were shut. So Neil was home because he couldn’t tour and I was recording at Roundhead Studios which is not only his studio but he and his wife Sharon live above it, it’s also their home. So he would pop down in the morning, and I’d see him with his coffee and I remember him shyly coming up to me one day to say, ‘I hear that you’re doing strings today. Would you mind if I sat in and just listened? It’s a beautiful way to spend the day.’ He’s very dear friends with Victoria Kelly who did all the string arrangements on my last few albums.
“After I came out of the hospital after my gallbladder surgery, it was literally weeks and I was at a very small event that a mutual friend was putting on and they had asked me to sing a song. I told them I didn’t know if I could even sing very well, but I did it. Neil came up to me afterwards and he said, ‘well, you’d never know there was anything wrong.’ And then he said, ‘a little bird tells me that the Ryman is your bucket list venue. We’re performing there in May [2023] are you going to be in Nashville in May?’ I said, ‘I am now!’ I remember people in the industry in Nashville saying to me, ‘you’re moving to New Zealand? You’re committing career suicide. People come here to make it. Why are you going there? And I love that my first time stepping on the stage at the Ryman was because of my New Zealand community.”
All of these experiences informed the creation of Neon Cowgirl, an elevated benchmark of Neilson’s songwriting excellence in the way it takes all the stories, all the experiences, all the adventures of the literal and figurative journey that Neilson went on through much of 2023 with her family.
“The way that I create most of my albums is I sort of collect little scraps of ideas for a year or two. I don’t usually go more than two years between albums so I tend to collect these scraps in between records and when it comes to pull them together I book studio time and that’s my deadline. Okay, now it’s time to start cooking. So I’m pulling out all the scraps and the ingredients and everything that’s been stashed away in this little treasure box over the last year, year and a half and get to work. For this record, I think that sonically I had a really clear direction of what I wanted it to sound like, which was the artists that were influencing the tone. I had sticky notes stuck on my window and when I’d finish writing a song I would put it under one of the sticky noes. There were four of them – four pillars or points of my compass for the album. And it was Roy Orbison, K.d. Lang, Patsy Cline and Elvis. They were the angels looking over my shoulder. And if a song didn’t fit those four pillars, I put it away for another time,” she explained.
“Thematically and lyrically, I was just writing what was in me for the previous year and a half. Also I normally, or predominantly co-write with my brother Jay and also with another frequent collaborator, Delaney Davidson, who doesn’t have a song on this album, but they’re kind of the two musical brothers, one being my literal brother, that I tend to collaborate with the most. But on this album, because I was on the ground in Nashville more often, making these cool connections and friendships, I worked there more. Getting to write with Laura Rogers of The Secret Sisters on the song ‘Keep On’ was amazing. That session happened the morning after performing at the Ryman for the second time, which was for a Patsy Cline special that aired on PBS with this all-star lineup. I was still on cloud nine when I practically floated into this writing session and it was another one of those deeply spiritual moments for me. Another person who, like Willie Nelson, I’ve loved my whole life is Wynonna Judd. You can actually hear her in my voice when I sing. She’s hugely influential. The gateway was she’s on stage with her mother [the late Naomi Judd] and when I was young I was onstage with my mother. It’s kind of a solidarity you feel. And I got to meet her for the first time at the Ryman for that Patsy Cline special.
“I lost my dad 10 years ago. And everywhere I go, especially for big milestone moments, like before I performed with Willie for the first time, and before I made my Grand Ole Opry debut, I have this letter that my dad wrote to me, that I carry everywhere. He wrote it to me when I moved to New Zealand. And now being a parent myself I can see that it’s him trying to impart, trying to infuse everything he wants for me in a letter to the other side of the world. And he said, ‘don’t forget who you are. Don’t give up.’ It’s kind of prophetic in parts that have come to life, come to happen so many times. There’s even specifics where he talks about Nashville and he talks about standing on the stage at the Ryman. So I read this every single time before something kind of big happens. I read it backstage and then sang my song and at intermission I got to go up and meet Wynonna. And my dad starts and ends the letter with the words, ‘keep on.’ And he finishes by saying, ‘keep on knocking, keep on writing, keep on emailing, keep on phoning, keep on, keep on, keep on – he says it three times. As Wynonna was walking past me, she took both my hands and looked into my eyes and she said, ‘keep on, keep on, keep on.’ Three times. And then she quietly walked away and left me, like, gob smacked and crying. So there’s a line in the song ‘Keep On’ that says, ‘though his flesh and bones have gone, he speaks to me through foreign tongues.’ And he has spoken through other people on multiple occasions. The next morning Laura asked me about the night and I just burst out with all these stories about meeting Tom Hanks and First Lady Jill Biden. It was just the most surreal night. I saw Pat Benatar walking around backstage and Kristen Chenoweth came up to me and said, ‘I want your voice.’ I was like, ‘are you kidding me! You’re Kristen Chenoweth!’ Of all the incredible things that happened, I said to her, it was the story of Wynonna that what the biggest thing. And by the end of me telling her the story, she was sobbing and I was sobbing. That same night I also met Ashley McBryde and we ended up co-writing a song. So many of these songs were born out of direct Nashville magic. It’s this crazy sort of stardust that just gets sprinkled on you when you’re there.”
Another musical icon with a connection to The Ryman and Nashville is Roy Orbison. One of Neon Cowgirl’s most hauntingly beautiful and spellbindingly compelling songs, ‘Foolish Heart,’ is a love letter of sorts from Neilson to the man whom she met as a very, very young child.
“I tell people I met him, but he met me. I was a baby, so I didn’t really quite meet him. But he held me in his arms when I was about six or eight months old. My dad was playing a show with him and they met backstage and my dad asked for a photo of him with me. So he held me and I like to think of that as like my true Christening moment. I’ve always felt this connection to him. And driving past his house, where he used to live next door to Johnny Cash in Nashville, reflecting on the huge tragedies that he lived through in his life, which was a very short life [he died in 1988 at age 52] and the impact that he made in that short life. He dealt with tragedy that would probably fell most people. But he continued on, after losing his wife and his children. He must have endured unbearable, unfathomable grief. There’s a line in ‘Foolish Heart’ that says, ‘tragedy plays with me like a marionette.’ These were things that were beyond his control, but he still allowed himself to be vulnerable and open as an artist and was still so giving of his talent, and his voice, and that foolish heart that was, like, still beating. When I first wrote that song, I was very much reflecting on him and how grief bonds all of us. And I remember the original demo was called ‘Orbiting Orbison’ before I changed the title. So, yeah, I guess it’s just about paying homage to him and acknowledging the pain and the grief that he went through, and also feeling that kinship and solidarity with someone when you’ve walked through grief yourself. He was part of my life journey, back when I was just getting started in life, and he’s been there ever since.”
Finn also makes an appearance, singing harmonies alongside Neilson on the album’s title track.
“He was on tour and I sent him a message which included the song and I said, ‘this is the title track. And I don’t know, but I feel like it’s very Finn-like. It’s very Finny. And I can hear you singing harmonies on this one. But, you know, absolutely no obligation.’ He came back and said that he loved the song, and he was home for literally three days between his U.S. shows and starting his tour in Australia, months away from home on both ends. So he was home for just three days and what did he do in those three days? He went into the studio, and not only did he put down vocals and, as you’ll see on the album credits, he actually did a little arranging on the song. He plays the keys in the intro. He secretly got my producer Steven Schram, who’s the producer of Neon Cowgirl, but also the producer of Crowded House’s last album, to send him the song stems of the piece and did a little rearrangement magic and sent it through to me. He’s like, ‘I hope I’m not stepping on any toes. I love the song. I just hear some stuff. Do you mind if I have a play.’ I’m like, you’re Neil Finn, you can do whatever you want.”
Earlier this summer, Neilson had the opportunity to participate in the 10th Anniversary Outlaw Music Festival Tour, headlined by the legendary country music artist and cultural icon, Willie Nelson, and also featuring the inimitable Bob Dylan and The Mavericks, among other acts. Neilson firmly believes being in the orbit of Nelson, seeing how he conducts himself on and off stage, and even just his aura as a creative soul rubbed off on her and influenced how she views life, her career and music.
“I would love to think that a little bit of his magic dust has settled onto my shoulders and I hope I’ll carry it around forever. I really believe there is something to that. It sounds kind of airy fairy when you talk about things like that but Willie is such a deeply spiritual being. He has this incredible balance of being deeply grounded and an everyman’s man. But then when you look into his catalogue as a songwriter and recording artist – it’s out of this world. People have asked me what was my gateway into Willie’s music? I kind of came at it in a way that’s very different from others. A lot of people know him from the ‘Outlaw Country’ thing with Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash, or from the weed smoking and all of those things. That’s kind of become the stereotypical Willie stuff these days,” she said.
“For me, I grew up singing Gospel music in a family band. And so did Willie. For me it’s always been this like sense of solidarity and kinship because of that. He spent most of his life on stage with his sister [Bobbie Lee] and I’ve spent most of my life on stage with my brother [Jay]. The songs that he writes about his faith aren’t preachy or even what you would maybe even deem to be Christian music, but it’s Gospel music at its core. It’s very personal and spiritual. I think that, regardless, because he’s so open-minded, it’s just about spirituality and faith from one man’s perspective. It’s not about putting a label on what that is or isn’t.
“I think that when you meet Willie, and you spend time with him and you tour with him and you watch the way he sets the tone for everyone around him, right from his immediate band to the local crew that’s loading in the gear, all of them adore him and all of them are real, gritty people that have an open arms policy just like him. So that does affect you as a person and it does affect the way you operate in the world. And when you see a 92-year-old man who’s been in the business for seven decades as a songwriter and performer you can’t help but take it on board and try to soak up, like intentionally soak up, the way he moves and operates in the world and try to emulate that and bring that into the way you treat people around you and your friendships and your crew and your band and your family. All of that inevitably ends up coming through in your craft and in your songwriting as well.
For more information on Neon Cowgirl and when Neilson may return to her home and native land for shows, visit her website at https://www.tamineilson.com.
- Jim Barber is a veteran award-winning journalist and author based in Napanee, Ontario, Canada, who has been writing about music and musicians for more than 30 years. Besides his journalistic endeavors, he works as a communications and marketing specialist and is an avid volunteer in his community. Contact him at jimbarberwritingservices@gmail.com.
