 Credit: Michael Inglish Described by Rolling Stone as having a voice combining “the high-mountain sunshine of Dolly Parton, with a sweet-iron undercoat of Chrissie Hynde," Mary Lee Kortes is a musician and author who has released five albums of original material to wide critical acclaim, each of which landed on the Billboard critics’ top ten list in the year of its debut. Additionally, Kortes is also a published short story writer who will be releasing her first novel, Dreaming of Dylan: 115 Dreams About Bob, on November 13th. Ahead of its release, Kortes graciously took the time to answer her Essential 8 where she spoke about her songwriting process, the influence of her grandmother, and more. Where do you draw inspiration from when writing? I think it’s basically everywhere. It’s not about finding a source; it’s more about being open, letting stuff hit you and then letting it combine with your own personal reaction and imagination. I heard a statistic years ago about domestic violence that shocked me—that 75% of women who are killed by a partner are killed after they leave him. I was talking about it with a friend and my emotion poured out in a spontaneous rhyme: People say “Why don’t you leave him.” “Because he said he’d kill me and I believe him.” And I realized it was a song waiting to be written. That song, “Why Don’t You Leave Him,” has gone on to have a significant impact in a number of women’s lives. Very gratifying. When/where do you do your best writing? For me, it’s about getting the original spark for a song, which can happen anywhere. Then I like to let things gestate. I always feel like my ideas work on themselves in the back of my mind while I’m doing other things. Then I come back to them a week or two later. This can happen anywhere. But when I get down to writing, it’s important for me to be in some kind of cocoon, where it’s just me and the idea and anything can happen. That cocoon can be anywhere too: at home at my desk, in a coffee shop, on a train, lying in bed waiting to fall asleep or waking up in the middle of the night. Do you write about personal experience, the experience of others, observations, made-up stories, something else or a combination? All of the above. When I write about personal experience it almost always gets affected by something outside myself. I made up a murder mystery story while I was driving on I-80 from NYC to the Midwest. It’s called The Trucks of Pennsylvania and has bits and pieces of the stuff you experience driving that route. So, that was a combination of a made-up story and observations and it totally surprised me. It was a long drive. The song is 6 minutes!  Please choose one song and tell the story behind it.
I have a new song called “Dreaming of Him.” It’s both a long and short story. I wrote it to go with my book that’s coming out this week (Dreaming of Dylan: 115 dreams about Bob). That’s the long part—the book took a long time to do. But the song didn’t. I used images from various dreams in the book and wove it into a list song that, to my surprise, ended up having an arc somehow with a little bit of punch at the end. What’s the best advice you have ever gotten from another musician? I’ve had people ask me how I wrote a certain song and I never had a good answer. I felt like I didn’t really know, not that it was some sort of “channeling” thing. I don’t experience writing that way. But I could remember when and where I got an idea, just not the full act of writing it. Then I heard Springsteen in an interview say that if he knew exactly how he wrote something, it probably wasn’t that good. What’s the most frustrating thing about being on the road? Having to drive for 12 hours then get on stage and be charming. How do you kill the long hours in the van/bus/etc? Mostly with music. On one of my first long drives—I think it was from New York to New Orleans for the start of a Joe Jackson tour I was opening, with a couple of gigs on the way—I divided up the number of driving hours into albums and it suddenly seemed like just a bunch of pleasure. 8 hours? That’s only 8 albums! Do you have a musical mentor? If so, who was it and how did they influence you? My grandmother was my musical mentor and biggest influence. She was an amazing piano and organ player. I grew up listening to her play Gershwin, Cole Porter, and countless songs from the 1920s forward. It gave me a great appreciation not only for songs and musicianship, but for how music brings people together and can transform an ordinary moment to a magical one. I inherited her Hammond A100 when she died. It lives in my husband’s studio (Eric “Roscoe” Ambel, Cowboy Technical Services) and has appeared on many artists’ albums, not just mine. So, she keeps contributing. Dreaming of Dylan is available for pre-order at Amazon.com and IndieBound.org. Website/Facebook/Twitter
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