ganic. The soundisn'tjust prettycan be very hard to do when you're in a JANIE FRICKE notes; it has body to it, character, redbad mood," Janie says. "You have to Georgia clay and Delta backwater. It'sprogram yourself. You just have to almost as if she got certain influencesmake yourself smile. Lots of times we "I remember I'd never sing withlittleor no direct exposure todraw little happy faces on our papers hymns the straight way. them. so we'll remember to smile and sound But there was one place. . . ."Ihappy. When I did commercials and I'd always kinda jazz was raised singing hymns in church,"had to sound energetic first thing in the them up or sing them in Janie says. The Frickes were Luther-morning, I'd have to get my hands ans, but the nearest Lutheran church moving around, make myself feel up." a folk style . . . ." was thirty miles away so they went to a The dubbings on the Elvis album, nearby Church of Christ. "My mothershe says, took all the professionalism was always pushing me out to sing andshe could muster. then out farther to take solos. I remem- "It was just awful," she says. "A her. After college, which she managedber I'd never sing hymns the straightweek before he died we were called to to sandwich around some jingle work,way. I'd always kinda jazz them up orthe studio and did voices over what he she went to Los Angeles "to try to getsing them in a folk style . ..put a lit-had done on that live show in Rapid in with the clique of studio singers outtle style into them. I think the folk mu- City, his last concert, when he was real there, to be a back-up singer. . . . I sic and the hymns blend into the coun-overweight, that TV special. We did never could get in with them. I wastry music I'm doing now." voices over what they had done to en- struggling the whole time, waiting for She was singing solos in front of anhance the tracks for the album. We the phone to ring, substitute teaching,audience so long ago that she can nodidn't finish the session, and I kept hoping. I only got to sing on a sessionlonger remember exactly what stagethinking he's: going to come walking every two weeks." fright feels like. She remembers a clue: into the studio, I just know he is. Then By andlarge,though,the Janie "When I was eight years or younger,we heard he had died, and they called Fricke Saga has involved one thingmy sister and her friends would wantus back to finish the project. We had to leading to another, hard work and me to sing for them and I didn't want togo out and sing and put earphones on steadily increasing recognition addingdo it in front of them, so I'd go into theand we heard his voice and we were all up to one of those rare true -life adven- closet and close the door and just singjust really, really sad. His producer tures in which virtue actually seems tomy heart out." Probably there is a con-was there, Felton Jarvis, and Felton be rewarded and the system actually nection between how early she got ridwas really upset. It was just a terrible seems to work. But first, of course, of self-consciousness about singing andfeeling, just awful." there was the talent, and, like all real how long she has been able to retain a But she did it. She always does her talent, where it came from is essential-certain innocence, a childlike freedomjob. And the movers and shakers and ly mysterious. Janie Fricke's back-from inhibitions about playing with aprognosticators around Nashville see ground doesn't satisfactorily explain it. song, as in "jazzing it up." The mys-this professionalism, this straightness She says her first semiprofessional in- tery behind the richness of her voice,in the old sense of the term, and they terest was in folk music, but by that sheI'm convinced, is tied in with this qual-see the talent, the innocence, the level- means the pop -folk of the Sixties, at ity of innocence. headedness, the modesty, the healthy least one remove from the roots. She look-who can blame them for going didn't listen to records or the radio AND now, of course, there is anout and ringing bells? The most impor- much as a child either ("We were out-overlay of solid professionalism. Sing-tant thing about it all may turn out to be doors most of the time"), but her moth-ing is connected with feelings, and athis: that if ever anyone were equipped er taught her to play the piano and read back-up singer, always having to play ato keep those bell ringers and the peo- music and her father taught her the bas-role, portray a prescribed mood, has tople and things beyond them from eating ics of the guitar. "I started out doing learn a lot about self -motivation. "Ither alive, Janie Fricke is. the Joan Baez ballads," she says, "Judy Collins, Ian and Sylvia type stuff. I didn't buy very many records, but when I started doing folk music in Janie Fricke and Johnny Duncan, co -nominees for the Country Music Association's college I would do the songs that were Best Duet award, during WSM's 51st -anniversary Grand Ole Opry broadcast. current.I'd also do Neil Diamond songs and Rita Coolidge songs, when she was starting out." She was steeping herself in second- ary influences, that is (Rita Coolidge was clearly one of her heroines). She was not bathing her soul in our vaunted elemental folk musics, white or black, but was listening to folk "hits" and oc- casionally to top -40 stuff from WLS, Chicago, and playing such stuff as Misty from the sheet music her mother brought home. Yet, when she sings something soulful (Please Help Me will do nicely as an example, although any- thing approaching gospel is even bet- ter), she seems tapped into something beyond all this, something basic and or-

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