Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer on "Bloody Mary Morning"

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

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John Spong (0:23)

Hey there, I'm John Spong, and this is One by Willie, podcast in which I talk each week to one notable Willie Nelson fan about one Willie song that they really love. This week, we close out season seven with Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer, founding members of 13-time Grammy winners and American musical and cultural icons, The Chicks, who are going to let loose on their very favorite Willie song to get together and play, Bloody Mary Morning. It's a song that their dad played constantly in the house and the station wagon when they first moved to Texas in the early 70s, and it shaped their earliest understanding of this place where they grew up. But it's also, of course, a key track on Willie's revolutionary 1973 album Phases and Stages, a concept album examining the end of a marriage from the point of view of a wife on side one and a husband on side two. And so we walk through the album together, paying particular attention to Willie's depiction of the woman's side of the story and just how true it rings. And then they'll also get into what a joy Bloody Mary Morning is to play live before taking a look at one of Willie's closest friends and most important collaborators, who happens also to be one of Marty's childhood idols, fiddle player Johnny Gimble, in the surreal star-studded scene backstage at Willie's 90th birthday shows at the Hollywood Bowl back in 2023

So let's do it.

Where we always start is, and it's always a stupid question, and it's a stupid question again this time, Marty and Emily, what's so cool about Bloody Mary Morning?

Emily Strayer (2:21)

It has banjo on it. That's what's so cool about it.

SPEAKER_1 (2:23)

I knew that was the answer.

Emily Strayer (2:26)

Every time we play with Willie, on whatever we're doing, we always pick that song and it just lends itself to our instrumentation and it's fun and it's accurate to the life of a musician. You got to get up and have your Bloody Mary in the morning sometimes. Hair of the dog. Hair of the dog a little bit. And so, you know, it's just a fun song.

John Spong (2:50)

Yeah. Yeah. And it's cool because there's not a lot of banjo in Willie. You know, I think that's probably the first record that had any.

And it's got some fiddle. I can't hear the fiddle on that version.

Martie Maguire (3:03)

It's way too turned down in the mix.

John Spong (3:05)

Way too turned down?

Emily Strayer (3:06)

If you do say so yourself.

John Spong (3:08)

I agree completely. I agree completely. Well, if it's cool then, will you listen to it with me?

Emily Strayer (3:14)

Yeah.

John Spong (3:16)

I'm dying to my-

Can you hear it? Yeah?

Emily Strayer (4:09)

It's the best.

John Spong (4:11)

Isn't that the best?

SPEAKER_5 (4:12)

It's the best.

Martie Maguire (4:13)

And here we are in LA.

SPEAKER_5 (4:16)

It's a fun track.

Martie Maguire (4:17)

Like I could just feel the spontaneous energy in the studio that must have been happening. You know, and there's not a space that isn't filled.

It's cut, you know, as instrumentalists, like Emily and I are, we're always wanting to like fill every.

SPEAKER_5 (4:35)

The singer isn't singing.

Martie Maguire (4:36)

It's like, I think, hey, stop singing, I'm going to do a little something. And this song is so quintessential. Yeah. Picking, you know, filling the space with, with happy picking. I love it.

John Spong (4:48)

It's relentless. It's relentless. It's like under three minutes and there's like three guitar solos and they're short and they're interacting and they're just like pounding each other. It's wonderful.

Emily Strayer (4:58)

Yeah, but it's so effortless at the same time. It's just so relaxed in its approach to, you know, just as Willie is. But yeah, just that, you know, being from Texas and either having to go to Nashville or go to LA to kind of work all the time or New York or whatever, it's like, getting back to Texas is always great. It's a priority and it's got to feel like we mimic that in our career as well. You know, it's, Willie has been a beacon for that. It's like, you can stay in Texas and still work the circuit, you know?

John Spong (5:28)

Yeah, yeah.

Which is the thing is when he did this, that was the thought. Nashville hadn't worked until he split and came home and it's like, maybe something will happen, but if it doesn't, I'll play Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico from now until doomsday and everything will go great. Yeah.