Toshi Reagon
Getting Toshi Reagon on the phone for an interview was remarkably easy. I dialed the number I had been given at the appointed time, and a woman’s voice picked up on the third ring.
“Hello?”
I paused for just a second. “Um, yes, hello. Is Toshi there?”
“This is Toshi,” she said, and we were off and running.
Apparently, that’s how it goes with Toshi. She makes it easy for people: she’s easy to contact, easy to talk to and her music is oh-so-easy to listen to.
As a musician who started writing songs in childhood, Toshi has almost always known that she would spend her life singing and playing the guitar. Almost. During my 20 minutes with her on an ordinary Tuesday morning, she told me about her one other childhood dream for the future: to be a football player. “That was a really good young person’s dream, and then I got on the right track,” she said. “You know, to actually do what I was supposed to be doing.”
Growing up as the daughter of Sweet Honey In the Rock founder Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon allowed Toshi to be “surrounded by music and art.” She said she believes that “it’s so healthy for human beings to be soaking in that. It feeds the spirit.” She told me more than once that she’s grateful to her mother for a childhood that gave her that gift and that her mom is still one of her favorite people.
In that vein, we had a great conversation about dreams and aspirations, satisfying an audience, loving children and respecting elders and the Packers.
Listen to the podcast now, and go see her performance at the Pitman Theatre at Alverno College, Saturday, Nov. 14, 8 p.m. Visit the Alverno website for show details. Learn more about Toshi by clicking here. Check out Alverno’s radio station and click “Listen Now.”
UPDATE:
I swear I was just walking to the ATM at Alverno when I turned the corner and right there in front of me was Toshi Reagon and her band, BIGLovely. Of course, everyone in my small party recognized Toshi. And of course, she had no idea who we were. That only lasted a second – my partner said, “Toshi?” and our musical superhero turned around to look at us. “Toshi, I’m Kim and this is Lucky Tomaszek – she interviewed you…” But Kim’s voice was cut-off by Toshi’s warm response.
“Oh, hey!” She said. I extended my hand to introduce myself and Toshi just shook her head at me. She pulled me into a hug and laughed. “It’s good to meet you,” she said, “It was nice talking to you on Tuesday.”
Straightening myself back up, I said, “Thanks so much for doing that interview, Toshi. It really meant a lot to us.”
Seated in Pitman Theatre, I told my guests a little about Toshi. They were, as yet, unfamiliar with her music or her history. “She’s been onstage with everyone,” I said, “Lenny Kravitz, Elvis Costello, Dar Williams, Ani DiFranco, Pete Seger, Nona Hendryx, everyone. Her music is incredible — it’s a little blues, a little R and B, a little folk, a little roots. Mm — Amazing!” At this point, I might have let out a small squeal of excitement. Maybe.
And when she took the stage, she proved me right. She came on with four members of her normally seven-piece band. She was traveling light for her Midwest Mini Tour, but you wouldn’t have known from their sound that anything was missing. They opened with “Have You Heard,” a rocking folk-gospel piece that brought shouts of delight from the audience.
On tour with her was bassist, Fred Cash, Jr., drummer, Allison Miller, and Adam Widoff on electric guitar. Each musician was as skilled as Toshi herself, and she took several opportunities to name them and thank them on stage.
Though I’ve been listening to Toshi Reagon for years, this was my first time seeing her live. I was delighted to find that she’s an audience chatter. Not between every song, certainly, but with some regularity she would share the history of a song, or talk a little about her life. At one point, she looked up and said, “I like to sing a lot of break-up songs,” and laughed a laugh that was both sweet and sardonic. Then, she sang a song that featured the brilliantly honest lyrics, “The next time you see me / you want to see my back / you want to see me walking away / I know you want to see that.”
She also sang a song she dedicated to the revolutionaries in the audience by saying, “Revolutionaires don’t get vacations. But it’s a pretty good life.” But just to prove that she doesn’t herself too seriously, I’ll say that one of my favorite moments of the evening was her introduction to “I Hate I Love.” Toshi said, “This is a folk song I wrote for those times when you’re miserable. It happens, right? When you’re in a room full of people and you’re the only who’s right. It happens, right?” As she wailed the line, “I hate I hate I hate / when it’s tragic / I love I love I love / when it’s my way,” the audience joined in, loudly. Because don’t we all?
Toshi rejoined the audience twice for encores – we just couldn’t let her go. She gave all of her energy and all of her sound right through the last song – a quiet folk tune with a large amount of crowd participation. She said she loved us as much as we loved her. It was Toshi Reagon’s first trip to Milwaukee, but she swears she’ll be back.