CHARLIE PEACOCK is a Nashville-based, (4x) Grammyยฎ Award-winning record producer, composer, singer-songwriter and jazz musician. Peacock has major hits in three decadesโ Amy Grantโs โEvery Heartbeatโ (1991), Switchfootโs โDare You to Moveโ (2002), and The Civil Warsโ Gold debut album, BartonHollow (2011). He also produced the #1 Billboard Pop debut, The Civil Wars (2013), featuring his co-write, โThe One That Got Away.โ Jazz collaborators include Ravi Coltrane, Marc Ribot, Jeff Coffin, Felix Pastorius, Don Alias, Joey Baron, Bรฉla Fleck, James Genus, Kirk Whalum, Victor Wooten, Roger Smith, and Kurt Rosenwinkel. Production credits include, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Holly Williams (with Jackson Browne, Jakob Dylan, and Gwyneth Paltrow), The Lone Bellow, Switchfoot, Brett Dennen, Jon Foreman, Kris Allen, Lenachka, Ben Rector, Chris Cornell, and co-wrote and produced โHush,โ the title theme to the AMC drama Turn: Washingtonโs Spies featuring Joy Williams and The Nationalโs, Matt Berninger. Music is a family affair for Peacock. His son, songwriter-producer, Sam Ashworth and daughter-in-law, singer-songwriter Ruby Amanfu (co-writers of โHard Placeโ, the Grammyยฎ nominated, break-out hit for H.E.R.), often contribute to Peacockโs productions. Peacockโs daughter Molly, and son-in-law, Mark Nicholas (music publisher), are co-founders of the music platform, Noisetrade. Fans also like T Bone Burnett, Cory Henry, Bill Frisell, Avishai Cohen, Matthew Perryman Jones. Check out the exclusive interview below:
1. Your roots can often shape your journey. Can you share a story or moment from your early life that had a significant impact on your path into music?
Charlie Peacock: Whatโs so interesting about this new release is that the producer, David Kahne, is someone who had a very significant influence on me. I didnโt know it at the time, because I was so concentrated on getting signed to a record deal as an artist. I didnโt know then that my โstuck in college radio/opening act careerโ would ultimately lead to a successful career as a producer. So, I have to admit, when first given the opportunity to produce, it was the time I spent with David Kahne that gave me the framework for what a producer was and what it meant to excel at itโas David did.
2. Did your musical journey begin with formal training, or was it more of a personal exploration? How has that shaped your unique approach to your craft?
Charlie Peacock: I did begin with formal training. My father was a working musician and educator. So, by the time I left high school I already played several instruments and was schooled in music theory. Even so, Iโm a self-taught jazz pianist, songwriter, engineer, and producer. Unfortunately, I never did finish a degree. It didnโt matter. Hearing the possibilities for music and being able to execute them with musicality is all the skill you need, whether you learn it in school or generate it through experience.
3. What do you believe sets your music apart? How would you describe your sound to someone discovering you for the first time, and what emotions or experiences do you hope to evoke in your listeners with this new release?
Charlie Peacock: In general, it is eclecticism and a grasp of every sort of American music and pop music of several eras that sets what I do apart. What sets the music on The Kahne Sessions 1980-81 apart is that no one has heard it before! Itโs been 45 years sitting in a vault. These six songs are the first real recordings of any merit Iโd done while developing as a young artist decades ago. They occurred right after getting signed to a development deal with A&M Records in Hollywood by a producer/A&R Director named David Kirshenbaum and a British A&R person named Julea Clark. Then a San Francisco producer named David Rubinson graciously let my producer, David Kahne, use the Automatt Studios to record me for these six songs. I hope people find it fun and interesting to listen to some lost tapes from an era in pop music when San Francisco was still a thriving hotbed of talentโmany of which David Kahne was producing. And for super music nerds, itโs a chance to look at very early work from two musicians, who both started in Sacramento, California, and went on to be chart-topping music producers. So, maybe people feel a little joy and learn something about pop music history, too.
4. For most artists, originality is first preceded by a phase of learning and, often, emulating others. What was this like for you? How would you describe your own development as an artist and music maker, and the transition towards your own style, which is known as Jazz, Pop, and Americana/Folk?
Charlie Peacock: A great question and so applicable to this project. I think the music on The Kahne Sessions is original, but my vocal performance and sound was not. I hadnโt really found my singing voice yet. I was very influenced by the punk/new wave vocal sound of Elvis Costello and othersโvery affected and definitely not my speaking voice, which is higher and much breathier. Now I sing in that natural voice. With a few exceptions, most successful pop vocalists are singing in a voice that is just an extension of their speaking voice. As far as my own styles, I work those American music lanes: jazz, all sorts of pop, and singer-songwriter, Americana folk sounds. Thatโs where Iโm comfortable today.
5. Music often transcends entertainment. Whatโs your view on the role and function of music as political, cultural, spiritual, and/or social vehicles โ and do you try and affront any of these themes in your work, or are you purely interested in music as an expression of technical artistry, personal narrative, and entertainment?
Charlie Peacock: I love this question. This idea that music is able to transcend functional entertainment has been the focus of my artistic life. I have written and produced what was Top 40 pop music for its era and loved it, because I grew up on pop singles and wanted to master how to create them. There really is an art to them that people like Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, and Beyonce and many more do so well. But Iโve always been attracted to a combination of experimentation and search for transcendence in art. Not to escape the ordinary but more as a participation in a long line of artists who pioneered this notion. In popular music Iโm thinking of John Coltrane, Nina Simone, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Paul Simon, U2 and more. A little more current, I see this at work in Rhiannon Giddens, Sara Groves, Bjork, and Beyonceโthey all have a reaching, a search about them. Currently, I hear it in the trio of Pino Palladino and Blake Mills featuring Chris Dave. See the song โTaka.โ And, I hear amazing search and reach in Tim Henson and Polyphia.
6. Do you feel the rewards of your musical career match the energy and passion you invest in it, or are there different kinds of fulfillment youโre still seeking?
Charlie Peacock: I have been amply rewarded. Andย , itโs really the case that my rewards and love for the music are the fruit of what others have invested in me. Which again, is why this current project is so rewarding to put out all these years later. David Kahne is someone who invested me that I might one day reap a reward. So, putting this music out is a way of recognizing him and his gracious influence.
7. Can you walk us through your creative process? From the first spark of an idea to the finished track, whatโs the most essential part of your process, and how do collaboration or external influences shape your work?
Charlie Peacock: Sure. First, I have multiple processes to lean into as neededโlike tools in a toolbox. For example, with songwriting, I can begin with a lyric, or a beat, chord changes, melodies, or just sounds that I combine in my DAW (digital work station) and morph into something that inspires a song. I can also sit down with manuscript paper and write a song without any instrument. So, there are lots of options, including collaboration, which Iโve done lots of. What is most essential is the openness to allow whatever process to bloom and not kill ideas on arrival out of fear. Fear is the enemy of imagination and creativity. It has no place in the writing and production process. So, generosity of spirit and a kind of grace are just as important as musical ideas.
8. Whatโs been the most challenging hurdle in either your personal life or music career, and how has it shaped you as an artist?
Charlie Peacock: Hands down the greatest challenge has been balancing the need to succeed by the worldโs standards with the need to be in community with family and friends and the need to excel at my personal artistic mission. These are never really in conflict but there is a constant negotiation to make them work and play nice with each other. I suppose this has made me more empathetic to the challenge that artists faceโjust to be seen and heard, to fall in love, have children, leave the world a better place than when they first arrivedโall that. I was fortunate to have success inย ย what you might call a meritorious era. If you worked hard and did excellent work you were likely to be rewarded. In a platform/influencer/algorithm world this is not so much the case anymore. A lot of extremely talented people are never heard or seen to the degree I was afforded.
9. On the flip side, what moment or achievement in your career so far has made you feel the proudest, and why? And letโs talk about your latest release and future plans.
Charlie Peacock: Well, after 50 years that would take awhile, so Iโll just riff through a few. Recording Al Green with my friend Brown Bannister, and other heroes from my youth like Jackson Browne and the trumpet player, Eddie Henderson. Discovering and developing the rock band, Switchfoot is a major highlight as well as working with the great Chris Cornell. Being part of the Folk/Americana boom in the 2010s was amazing and Iโm very grateful to have worked with The Civil Wars, Holly Williams, and The Lone Bellow during that time, experiencing a whole new era of Grammys and other awards. It was sweet. And yes, this latest release: The Kahne Sessions 1980-81, six songs from 45 years ago! Amazing that lots of the new AI driven tech is allowing us to recover and remix some of the songs that never came out. Something as simple as being able to raise the level of the lead vocal when all you have is a cassette tape to work with is a good use of the technology. Glad to have it and glad to see this music finally see the light of day. And, most importantly to let people listen to a little pop history when an artist and a producer were trying to forge a sound right at the cusp when all music technology was changing. I hope people have fun with in the spirit its given.
10. Creative work in a studio or home environment, or interaction with a live audience? Which of these two options excites you most, and why?
Charlie Peacock: The answer is really all about the time of life Iโm in. Right now, Iโd say working in the studio. I never was great at being on the tour bus for too long. Getting too tired, too lonely is not good for me. Which is why studio life turned out to be such a blessing even when I still had dreams to be on big stages around the world. But I had my little time of doing that and it was enough. Besides, now, the studio is like a musical instrument to me. And, a bit like breathing. It just is, and what it is, is enough.
