[6/17/95]

Well, I would have a hard time answering this question about anyone. The question assumes that there's a distinct split between public and private persona, and it assumes that one can in fact know what someone really is like.

I will offer a few observations. Suzanne is a very focussed individual. She has worked very hard over the years at writing, and although she has tried her hand at other creative pursuits, she has rarely strayed far from what she does best. As many of you know, Suzanne grew up in East Harlem, a tough mostly Latino neighborhood. No doubt she always stood out, and always had to prove her mettle. There's a street-wise aspect to Suzanne that co-exists with what some regard as a frail appearance and introspective demeanor. Even that is misleading. She's not really frail at all. She works out and has studied dance. And despite the seriousness of her writing, she's a lot funnier than you might think, has a sharp tongue, and if cornered in a school yard--not something that happens often these days--she could probably defend herself with a withering barrage of expletives. Nevertheless, she can be somewhat shy in social situations, is often quiet around people she doesn't know, and doesn't often go to parties or host gatherings of people at her place. I think a good deal of her writing ability comes out of a private world of imagination that has been with her since she was a child. That part of Suzanne--a part of what she's really like--is hers alone.

2. What sort of friendship do you have?

Suzanne and I have know each other since around 1980 when we met at Folk City in New York City. We were playing an open mike, and for reasons I can't remember, we both ended up talking to each other. We were sitting at a table adjacent to the bar and I asked Suzanne what she wanted to do with her life--or something to that effect. She said she wanted to be a songwriter. I told her I was (already) a songwriter. I think we impressed each other with our bravado, and somehow recognized each other as kindred spirits. As friends we've always been supportive of each other, but more than anything else, I think we've challenged each other to do more and go further.

3. What do you guys like to talk about?

We talk about normal stuff from the trivial to the substantial--family, current events, politics, gossip, art and music. Sometimes we reminisce about the good old days hanging out together in Greenwich Village. We go on and on and everyone else present gets left out of the conversation. So we try not to do that when other people are around.

4. How has she changed over the years?

Suzanne is still the ambitious person she was when I met her, but she's settled down a good bit. She's now married to Mitchell Froom, is raising a wonderful one-year-old girl, Ruby, and she's much less eager to subject herself to the rigors of touring. Suzanne can afford things she couldn't years ago, but she doesn't live ostentatiously. She has a loft in Lower Manhattan, but no car. No driver's licence either. I remember how Jack Hardy--fellow songwriter and boulevardier--and I used to pay for Suzanne's late night cab trips home to the Upper West Side when she was still a student at Barnard College. And I remember when Suzanne opened her first checking account. She proudly wrote her first check to me for $10--paying me back for taxi fare. It bounced.

5. How have your lives changed over the years?

I don't think our relationship has changed that much over the years. Suzanne, of course, has had a great deal of success and recognition, and although I am not so well known, I have continued to work steadily as an artist, moving from one photo project to another and from one song to another. We're now each married, Suzanne has a child, I'm living part-time in Amsterdam, Suzanne travels back and forth to L.A. when her husband Mitchell is working there. Life gets complicated sometimes. Neither she nor I have really settled down the way most people do. There's a price you pay living that way, but it's never boring.

6. What are the differences between her public and private persona?

See question 1.

7. Have you helped to write any of the songs she's recorded?

No, but she has stolen a few lines from me.

8. How do you and Suzanne set about writing songs? Similarities/differences?

Suzanne does a lot of writing in notebooks. Eventually, the scraps and relatively finished sets of verses turn into songs. Sometimes she finishes things completely on the acoustic guitar, other times she takes works-in-progress into the studio to flesh things out with other musicians. I don't keep notebooks, but I scrawl bits of things on sheets of paper. At some point I sit down and organize things, start trying out musical ideas, and eventually I put the lyrics on my notebook computer. Suzanne writes a lot on the computer, too. For those of you who are curious, she has a Powerbook. I rarely ever finish a set of lyrics without working on the music. Usually, I pick up the guitar after I have a few lines written. Sometimes a musical riff or idea comes first.

9. "... In the Performing Songwriter Profile on the website, she speaks of the influence Sylvia Plath had on her. If I could ask anything of Brian Rose perhaps it would be: "Can you comment on what you "see as the major influences on Suzanne's songwriting style, both early on and at present. How has that style evolved over the years, in your opinion?" "

Clearly, in the beginning, Suzanne's songwriting style was influenced most by folk music. But I would argue that even then, her predominantly anglo folk style was affected by the cultural mixture she grew up in. Her stepfather is a Puerto Rican/American writer, and I think it was natural for Suzanne to gravitate toward songwriters who took their texts very seriously. Like a lot of young writers, Suzanne was influenced by the people she was rejecting at the same time. It's easy to credit someone a little removed in time from you as an influence. It's harder with contemporaries or people just ahead of you. I think it was especially important for Suzanne to put some distance between her and other female musicians like Joni Mitchell. And creatively, Suzanne was trying to move away from the flower-child folk thing. She was interested in developing a sharp, clear voice that was personal without being cloying. In the early 80's Suzanne and I were both listening a lot to new wave bands as well as to contemporary singer songwriters. I think I'm probably the one who first got Suzanne listening to old records by the Velvet Underground, which led to Suzanne's interest in Lou Reed's music. But Suzanne listens to all kinds of music and reads all kinds of literature. In recent years Suzanne has expanded somewhat on the solo ballad style she started with, although she continues to write primarily on the acoustic guitar. Part of that is the result of working with other musicians and producers like Anton Sanko and Mitchell Froom. I don't think it's likely that Suzanne will go back to writing long narrative ballads like "The Queen and the Soldier." You can't repeat that kind of thing. You can't make the same moves over and over again and maintain freshness. It quickly degenerates into self-parody. Suzanne has taken each step forward with care. She hasn't put out numerous mediocre albums just to satisfy the market, and she is self-conscious enough to know the difference between half-baked material and the good stuff.

10. Did you try to get a record contract? If so, what were you experiences and do you have advice for aspiring songwriters?

Yes. I have tried. This is not a happy subject for me. Sony is presently spending $30 million to promote Michael Jackson's new album. Just think how many new artists could be brought to the public if even a fraction of that figure were spent on them. I had a little interest for a while from Private Music, a small but quality label in California. I sent my tape unsolicited to them, and one day the phone rang in my apartment. It was the president of the company. He was in his car on the freeway in L.A. and he called to tell me that he had my tape on the car stereo and thought the music really cut through everything else he was listening to. A few months later he called to tell me that he was passing on my tape, though he believed I deserved to put out an album. A few months later Private Music released an album by Ringo Starr, which promptly bombed. My advice to aspiring songwriters? Male singer-songwriters are in trouble. Think about starting a band that can do your songs. Women have a better chance solo. Try to break through before you're 30 or 35. If you're older, try to find someone successful to cover your songs--and then the chances of getting a record contract increase. That's probably what I should do at this point. I know several songwriters in New York who are tremendously talented who have been slogging away for years without records deals. Let me name three: Jim Allen, Richard Julian, and Wendy Beckerman. If you wanted to start a new record company, you could start there.

11. What is Fast Folk?

The Fast Folk Musical Magzine, originally called "The Coop," is a record/magazine dedicated to promoting songwriting--primarily folk music, though not exclusively--and it has been in existence since 1982. Currently, the magazine produces 10 CD's with accompanying text a year. I helped create the magazine with Jack Hardy, one of the three boulevardiers referred to by Suzanne.

The magazine was edited for a few years by Richard Meyer, but Jack is once again in charge. A few months ago, the Fast Folk opened a music club in New York--the Fast Folk Cafe--which is located in Tribeca.

12. What was so interesting about Tom's Restaurant that made you both write about it?

I wrote Open All Night about a fictional all-night diner set in Washington, D.C. (14th and T), a city I had spent much time in before moving to New York. I only became familiar with Tom's Restaurant after I met Suzanne. She was attending Barnard College, a part of Columbia University, and Tom's Restaurant on Broadway is located nearby. If you stand on the corner of the diner and look east, you can see St. John the Divine looming up a block or so away. If I've had any specific influence on Suzanne's writing it's probably in the way I use direct observation of places, such as in Open All Night. But the two songs are so different! The missing second John Doe might be hanging out in my diner. Jerry Seinfeld hangs out in Suzanne's.

13. Are you the subject in any of her songs? Is she in any of yours?

I'm the transvestite in As Girls Go. No, no. In the early days we used to write songs back and forth with veiled or not so veiled references and digs. I'd like to think I'm in Knight Moves somewhere, but I don't really know. I got the idea for my song In the Mirror from an Egon Schiele drawing--from a book Suzanne has. And I was thinking of her reflection in the window of Tom's Diner.

But it's not exclusively about her.

Well, that's it for now. I hope my responses are not disappointing. I think what makes artists tick is often illusive and unknowable. I have never tried to dissect Suzanne's persona or thinking process. Biographies can be illuminating, but just as often they diminish their subjects. The tenor of the times is kiss and tell, and the state of the art in criticism is psycho-babble. I hope I haven't contributed to either of these trends.

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