The Nautilus Studio M31 Files interview singer-songwriter Tracy Wiebeck (part 1)

Studio owners Mr Bill (Nautilus Studio) and Yves LF Giraud (Studio M31) interview singer-songwriter Tracy Wiebeck (part 1).

For more info on Tracy, please visit:
https://www.reverbnation.com/tracywiebeck

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:32

So welcome to uh the Notelist Studio M31 Files, and today uh our guest is Tracy Weebeck. How are you doing, brother? Welcome good. Thanks for joining us. Great to see you guys. Thank you, thank you. Great to be seen. Thank you. And great to see you too. Yeah, yeah. So, Tracy, um, very simply, can you tell us where you're from and uh how your life started?

SPEAKER_01 0:59

Yeah, um, to paraphrase Steve Martin, I was born a young child.

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Not a black child. I was a white child all the way.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Um Lincoln, Nebraska. Oh when was it? November 18, 1950. Wow. Yeah. Well, that's the wrong number. That's uh easy to remember.

SPEAKER_02 1:19

Yeah, not too far from. I know, it's easy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:22

75. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:24

There you go, eight man. 75. Yeah. We made it to two t uh 226, 2026. Yeah, here we are. Been a rough one. And we're kicking. By the way, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty amazing. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, so uh let me ask you, how did you how did you get started in music? What was your your I don't know, your epiphany, the moment youpiphany, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Well got you. Probably like a lot of people in my age, my generation, it was hearing the Beatles. Yeah. Okay. I never paid attention to pop music or what was on the radio much at all until I heard the Beatles. Really? And then it was like my antenna went up, you know. Yeah, yeah. And then saw them on the Ed Sullivan show. And the girls. Well, yeah, that that was uh that was uh motivating as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Say no more. If we can get girls to screen match it, let's do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah, so it was definitely the Beatles got me interested in. You did in I had no clue. Um we were at my grandparents' house in Lincoln one day, and my mom happened to be there, and my grandparents had this beautiful grand piano, and no one ever played it. And then one day my mom sat down and just started playing this beautiful stuff, and I go, Oh, what yeah, she she played it when she was younger, uh, but never pursued it at all. And nobody else in the family is okay.

SPEAKER_02 3:03

So you didn't have a piano in your house.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

No, no, no, it was a it was at the grandparents.

SPEAKER_04 3:08

Yeah, wow. So from the Beatles that that inspired you to want to play guitar or just music in general or guitar. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah. So like later, and it was probably like late 64. Um, I got some money from my grandparents, I think. It was for my birthday or Christmas, I can't remember. So I went to Woolworths and I bought an electric guitar for like 35 bucks. Awesome. Woolworths drugstore in Minot, North Dakota. Nice, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

You didn't have a Sears, huh?

SPEAKER_01 3:41

No, but the very first band I was in uh shortly after that with a couple other kids uh that were living on the Air Force base there in Minot where I was at. Um they each had the silver tone guitars with the the amplifier built into the case. Oh yeah, yeah. Remember those? I remember those. Yeah. And I didn't have an amp, so I shared one of their amplifiers. So there was like two of us plugged into one of them.

SPEAKER_02 4:12

So I'm guessing you I'm guessing you didn't have a drummer.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

We eventually did, and we named the band after him. Uh his name was Maynard. Oh, that's a good name. That's a cool name. Yeah. Let's call it Maynard's Men. Yeah, all right. All right. So we did a few things, you know.

SPEAKER_04 4:28

So how how old were you? Uh just to get an idea of what era we're talking about. How old was I then?

SPEAKER_01 4:34

Yeah. Uh like 14, 15, when I started learning a little bit about the guitar. And that was the other thing. Um those guys were really wanting to play guitar. One guy was wanted to do lead, the other by rhythm. So I thought, okay, I'll I'll play bass parts on my six-string electric guitar. Yeah. And that's kind of what led me to being a bass player for 55 years. Yeah. Yeah. And it's worked out pretty good, actually.

SPEAKER_02 5:04

Yeah, boy, I'll tell you a bass player can get a gig. Guitar players. I know.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

You guys both play bass, I know, and very well. And that's the truth, man. Teach your kids to play bass if you want them to have a gig and make a little money. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there's a much better chance that's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

It's not the best for me. I was gonna say it's not the best for around a campfire.

SPEAKER_04 5:29

No, you know. No, although if if uh if you're in a situation like often uh you are in where there are so many guitar players, but if one guy shows up with an upright, it's suddenly it's like, oh yeah. And now he's the center of the uh action in a way.

SPEAKER_01 5:47

Yeah, yeah, and I mean it I didn't start out, I didn't start out on bass because of that. I didn't know that at the time. It's just that's just what I discovered. Oh, yeah, everybody seems to need a bass player.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Yeah, yeah. And it doesn't keep you from playing guitar, but I think it helps you understand the interaction with the drummer. Absolutely. Which a lot of guitar players never really get that down to. Yeah, I think you're right. And uh it makes you a better g Fraser and guitar player, I think.

SPEAKER_04 6:19

Rhythmically it has it has such a potential to to to get you a better sense of 3D, the fact that it's a band, not just you playing guitar. A lot of guitar players are thinking about their solos and real fault where they can shine and and how they're checking the pro or whatever. Yeah, in in the overdrive pedal. Well that you you know, you do who doesn't have one? I like saturation myself more than overdrive, but yeah, yeah, not as as many of those. I'm a purist, no pedals, no pedals.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

But I don't play electric guitar anyway.

SPEAKER_02 6:53

Oh you you you're not playing it at all at all?

SPEAKER_01 6:56

I I play acoustic guitar. Uh do solo shows and duo shows on acoustic guitar. So I you know, I did keep playing at guitar a little bit, but then you you know, when I was about 18, I 17, 18, I started focusing on bass. I got a real bass, and that helped a lot. It does. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:18

I'm sorry, that's when you get your jazz bass?

SPEAKER_01 7:21

I didn't get that jazz bass. It's a 63. I didn't get it till 74 when I was coming back from an ill-fated road trip. That would the gig was in Chicago and I was living in Southern California at the time. We got we drove all the way to get to the gig. It was with a backing up a folk singer, and uh it was an ill-fated trip. His engine blew up in Albuquerque, and I had just passed his van just before that happened. So me and the guy I was riding with. So you kept going. We kept going, you know, no cell phones or nothing. So we got to Tulsa, called his mom in Chicago. Have you heard from Albert? Yeah, he blew up his engine in Albuquerque. I thought, oh crap. So then anyway, the gig didn't happen because the building we were supposed to play at the the the club, the roof caved in. So it was a good thing you weren't there, huh? So I I came back uh back to uh my brother was living in Netherland outside of Boulder at that time. So I stayed with him for I don't know, four, four or six weeks, and I found that jazz bass in a pawn shop in Boulder.

SPEAKER_02 8:36

Very cool.

SPEAKER_01 8:37

And I was broke, absolutely broke. So I traded my 63P bass for it. Oh my gosh, you had a the 63 in both the bass system.

SPEAKER_02 8:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:48

What what was um I don't know much about basses to be honest with you. Um but just how to play one. Why were you willing to I mean that to trail?

SPEAKER_01 9:06

It was it was the how comfortable the neck felt on the jazz bass. It was much thinner. Yeah, especially down by the nut. Narrower, narrower, yeah. Yeah, okay. And I I just picked it up. I don't think I even played it through an amp at the pawn shop. Just the way it felt in the in the picked it up, and I said, I gotta have this. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Well, and that was a fair trade for uh your theory.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

It was, and he wanted uh 150 for it, and that's what I paid for my P base. So it was fair trade.

SPEAKER_02 9:37

Take me back in my time machine, please. Yeah, really.

SPEAKER_04 9:44

But um, so going back to you, um at this point you're in Colorado. Well, how did you end up in Colorado from Nebraska?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

What was the Oh man, well I was I was raised up in a military family. Oh, okay. So, you know, we moved like every three or four years we were some let's see, Nebraska, England, Texas, Nebraska again, Alaska, North Dakota, and then Florida. And that's where I was at. I was in Florida at high school when I graduated high school. My parents went overseas to Turkey. And um I was 17. I convinced them to let me stay. I I'd met some GIs I was playing music with. And um I'm jumping ahead here. Maybe I'm not, or maybe I'm going too far back. Anyway, no. You need to stay right on the timeline. The timeline, the timeline. So skip. So anyway, about that time uh I I was that's when I, you know, had a real bass, and I was really beginning to get into bass. And so I started playing with these these guys in the air force. They were about three or four years older than me. Okay. And uh then eventually one of one of their friends got out of the air force, went to Panama City, Florida, came back to Homestead, that's where we were at, down in the down south of Miami. And this guy's name that he came back with was James Harmon, who was eventually a very well-known blues harmonica player, singer, and songwriter in later years. So anyway, we became friends with them, and then eventually we all started playing together. And in uh January 1970, we all loaded up in two cars and drove out to Los Angeles. Wow. To make it beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

Yeah, that's the commitment when you say we're going to Hollywood.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

And yeah, yeah, and boy, that was those were heady times. Just quite a trip. Um, but during that time I got I got really immersed in blues. That that to me, you know, I had narrow uh tunnel vision. Well, if it wasn't blues, it ain't really music. Yeah, yeah. And you know, over the years I definitely uh started appreciating a lot different kinds of music, but at that point it was all about blues.

SPEAKER_02 12:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

And uh and like I say, James Harmon went on to become world famous in the blues circles.

SPEAKER_02 12:32

Wow. I haven't heard of him. You should change it. I haven't either, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:39

Yeah, I mean, yeah, you might not if you're if you're if you're not into the blues circles.

SPEAKER_02 12:43

Yeah, well no, I'm into the blues, but uh uh and that name sounds familiar, but uh I I guess uh did he have any other sidekicks that uh were renowned too, like Stevie Ray Von or anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Well, a really well-known guitarist played with him for a while, uh Hollywood Fats. And Fats, I saw Fats at the Troubadour in LA when he was like 17 backing up a uh a blues a blues harmonica player. Uh-huh. He just blew our minds. Wow. You know, he looked like an overweight tiny Tim. Oh he had long curly hair and God he just played his ass off and did. He died young, probably in mid-30s or something. But uh yeah, James, James got very well known in the blue circles.

SPEAKER_04 13:35

So how many years were you in LA doing that?

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Um let's see. Yeah, LA, Orange County, you know where Orange County is? Yeah, uh between LA and San Diego County. So I lived in LA briefly and then Orange County mostly, and then San Diego County also. But uh we were uh we were I was there till I didn't leave 1970 till eighty five. My wife and I had just gotten married a year prior. We drove up, moved to Seattle or Olympia, Washington, and then Seattle. Okay, stayed up there for four years. Um then we came back to California and and um then we went to North Carolina outside of Raleigh. I know you were close to that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 14:37

And I was to all those places actually.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Then we came back to California again, then things were getting real expensive, so we moved to Golden Valley, Arizona, which is about twelve miles west of Kingman. Oh and that's where we were when my stepson and his daughter, uh my stepson and his wife, my daughter-in-law, uh moved to Hesperus and bought some property with a had an extra house, and said, You guys should come here and live with us, and uh we'll charge you really low rent and um take care of you when you get old and feeble. That's nice. So yeah, so he said, Well, sounds like a deal. So that's what that's what brought us to this area. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_03 15:27

Good going.

SPEAKER_01 15:28

And that was um what? That was uh April of 21. Oh, 21. Oh, okay. Okay. COVID was just kind of starting to peter out at that point. So I hadn't played any, I was hadn't played in Arizona for like the whole year before that because of COVID.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

Yeah. Yeah, 2020 was uh shut down, a lot of the different things. It did. So Tracy, um, I'm I've always been interested in in songwriting, um creative side of uh the music business, I guess. Um can you tell us a little bit about you and your songwriting?

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Yeah. Writing songs for me sometimes is like pulling teeth. It's not an easy process. Is it something you enjoy or don't enjoy? I I enjoy I really enjoy the finished product when I think I when I have something that appeals to me that I think's pretty decent. It takes me forever. You know, I'm not very prolific at all. Um, but I probably I wrote my first song when I right after I got that first guitar when I was like 15. That cracked up. But I don't remember anything about it except I just spoke it. It was a spoken word. I I had the word I there's a video uh super eight movie of me, family movie, holding this piece of paper up and reading these words I wrote. That was the very first one. And you didn't have uh like you didn't play uh music with it or not. Not not not on that one. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 17:10

But you had music in your head when you were saying it, do you think?

SPEAKER_01 17:13

Yeah, I I think I did. Okay. You know, yeah. That was just like the tip of the iceberg and just just getting started with that. Um I didn't really start um writing songs that I would perform probably until well, the fr early s mid seventies maybe. Okay. And then a few in the eighties and then in the nineties also. Um I was usually I was usually playing uh bass in bands at that, you know, in the uh up until early two thousands. And um Yeah, more the musician than the songwriter. Yeah, so you know, I I was still playing guitar, I'd play the guitar to try to figure out how to write, you know, to write a song for the chord changes and to figure out a melody and stuff. Um and then the bass kind of came okay, this bass part would fit that, you know. And I'd print present it to the band and it'd either go, yeah, that's a good one, or I don't know. You know. So that that's that's how I got into that. Uh and um I think I probably probably the the mid-90s into the 2000s was when I really started thinking I could do it. You know, create it create a nice piece of music that people would enjoy. And uh that kind of coincided with when I decided I wanted to um play in front of people playing a guitar, which I had never done.

SPEAKER_04 19:00

The guitar was always uh a tool for something that made you suddenly realize, oh, you know what?

SPEAKER_01 19:06

Yeah, yeah. It was it was the death of a close friend who was who was an outstanding drummer. And he had played uh in the band I was in at that time for several years, and then he he got cancer and and he passed away around maybe 2001. Steve King. Bless you, Steve, wherever you are. He was a great guy and a great musician. And I realized it was something I always wanted to do was get good enough on guitar to play in front of people and feel confident. Yeah. And his passing made me realize that, you know, we ain't gonna be here forever. You know? Yeah, make the best of your time. Do if there's something you want to do, you've been wanting to do, damn it, do it. Yeah. So that's that's what inspired me to do that. That's good. And then I think it kind of helped me get better at writing songs also.

SPEAKER_04 20:05

That makes sense. I think it's followed the process, everything, and kind of the piece that you add to the puzzle helps you build confidence and know-how and all that stuff. Um what would you say uh is the percentage when when when you do a uh show, let's say? Uh a duo, do you usually do uh you you're the one singing and guitar and then you have somebody else?

SPEAKER_01 20:31

Or do you split with the other? My duo partner, he sings and he also writes uh and plays guitar. Okay. Who are you doing that? Richard Levitt, a friend uh in Durango. He plays with a guy named Pete Giuliani, yeah, I know who's pretty well known around here. Yeah. Yeah. So um but the duo, it's mostly my thing, I guess, and uh and then you know, anything Richard wants to do, I'm open to that.

SPEAKER_04 20:59

Sure, sure. And what what would so my my question is what do you think your percentage of originals versus Cavos is when you do a show on on average?

SPEAKER_01 21:09

Um maybe a quarter to a third originals, a third at the most, probably. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:16

Yeah, that kind of makes sense most most of the time. I play all of them.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

I play all of them that I've written that are any good, you know, basically. I don't have a ton of them, but I got a few good ones, I think.

SPEAKER_04 21:28

Um do you do you have something regular that you do? Um I know occasionally I'll see I'll see I'm I'm terrible of looking at Facebook, I apologize. I go in there, I put my thing, and I get out. Oh, it's a beautiful thing. You you don't get caught in this you don't start your day with Facebook. No, yeah, sorry, yeah. Uh I'm not technology savvy like you, Mr. Bill. Yeah, right. That's right. I live on Facebook. Nah. But um the oh Well you have a phone, that's true. The um um I I see that you play it seems to me almost regularly at a place in Durango. I think it's called the office or something, some kind of office thing.

SPEAKER_01 22:14

Uh no, I don't do that gig. I would like to do that gig. Yeah, that's at the uh uh Straight. Oh the Straighter Hotel. Yeah. Yeah. There's a couple of rooms in there. Yeah. Uh maybe you have something like that, maybe in Durango, where regularly you get to play uh a place. Each each season since I've been here, except for when I was out of commission with the Vertigo stuff, um regularly at the uh 11th Street station. Um the last couple years uh been s doing summer gigs at uh Sirius Texas Barbecue in Durango. That's usually a duo gigard.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

The one by the river or the one up north?

SPEAKER_01 22:59

Yeah, on the south end of town. Yeah. What a beautiful, beautiful setting. It is I love I love playing that place.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

So it's so pretty you're right over the Animus River there. It's very nice. Okay. Yeah, cool. So a little bital dolls then, or is it middle with the stuff?

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Yes, it's outdoors. And uh um there's there's some other places uh in Durango and uh also out out uh out west uh I've been playing uh a couple times a year at Wild Edge Brewing Collective in Cortez. Um starting to do a few things at the zoo gallery and also um playing at uh Mancas Brewing, okay, which is a great place. I love that place. Well, I had also been starting up a trio where I was playing bass. Uh on my duo stuff I'm playing guitar, but um started a trio with with Richard Levitt and uh a great drummer named Mark Rosenberg from Durango. Yeah. Um and we just kind of got it off the ground, got it rolling uh last year, and we're gonna try to get a lot more gigs this year. Cool, awesome. And that's kind of Richard writes and I write. Um you guys have an uh band name for yes, the original Vipers.

SPEAKER_02 24:24

The original vipers not the old fake vipers.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Not the coffee vipers, not the fake vipers, the original vipers.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Wow. I was in my my first band was the cobras, so we would have had uh the cobras.

SPEAKER_04 24:41

You could have done it like a uh uh a night of uh snakes in the air. Battle of the bands.

SPEAKER_02 24:48

Did you play car shows? I used to play car shows in San Diego. I never did. I played at a Volkswagen dealership once. Grand opening?

SPEAKER_01 24:59

Uh no, just uh I don't know what the event was. A regular opening.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

A regular open event or open for business.