We recently connected with Beth Patterson and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Beth, thanks for joining us today. Do you feel you or your work has ever been misunderstood or mischaracterized? If so, tell us the story and how/why it happened and if there are any interesting learnings or insights you took from the experience?
Where to begin? Being misunderstood is a hard cycle to break. There are so many ways in which one’s true nature can become distorted through the lens of the world. It can take the form of your intentions (no matter how good they seem in the moment), the way your mind operates, or your reaction to stimuli you find stressful. It can simply be anything your peers deem an anomaly, that lights up the fear centers of their brains. If this sounds familiar, read on. Or at the very least, know that you’re not alone.
I was slapped with the childhood social liability of being *different* (even within the gifted program), long before I ever decided to pursue a full-time career in the creative arts. I suppose choosing the Irish bouzouki as my main instrument was an instant template for landing off the grid of expectations, now for thirty years and counting. But between that and everything else I’ll share with you, I’m not sure I was capable of having it any other way. I loved the sound of my instrument, I followed the paths it opened for me, and I pursued every unorthodox endeavor that fascinated me.
I’d made my first real money in music while I was still in high school, playing bass in a Cajun band in my native Lafayette, Louisiana, as well as English horn (cor Anglais, if you’re reading this in another country) in the local symphony. I’d also played bass in some heavy metal bands, which created a tribe that never quite forgot me. But the bug to play Irish music bit me hard during that time, just as the genre was becoming accessible to everyone. I embarked on a journey that involved me studying in Ireland, tracking down traditional musical icons I admired–bombarding them with questions–or just getting my hands dirty with whatever it took to embrace it all fully. When the Celtic Tiger economy crashed and people back home began to lose interest in Celtic music, I was still able to make a living playing original songs, or taking on other gigs that spoke to me. I played bass in Latin, blues/funk, Cajun, and R&B groups. I played bouzouki as a side person/soloist for other songwriters, and nabbed studio work (using all my bells and whistles at my disposal). But by this time, it became harder to market myself for gigs, because I’d become so indelibly pigeonholed as an Irish musician in New Orleans. I still sometimes get turned away for not being Louisiana enough. When I’m home, I’m fortunate to have a few venue owners still in my corner, who make room for me to play my hodgepodge repertoire.
I later found myself teaming up with aspiring chart-climbers and album sales hunters. They informed me that in order to have any songwriting success, I had to stultify my lyrics, adhere to a certain formula, or write something more relatable to the masses. The main stumbling block was that I had a hard time relating to the rest of the world. I loved progressive rock (especially Rush), I loved odd time signatures, and was thirsty for lyrics that made me think. I had a difficult time understanding life in an unchanging bubble. At one point, a former parter snarled at me, “You’ll never have a gold record with your five-syllable words!” I replied with a croon, “Unforgettable…” Let’s just say I made my point.
Eventually, too many aspects of my life began to feel as if they were collapsing. I’d given this “commercial solo album” thing one more shot, Not only did I fall short of my mark, but the effort nearly broke me musically, emotionally, and psychologically. I took refuge with my 105-year-old grandmother in Starkville, Mississippi, where I got to share the last few months of her life. She regaled me with tales of ways she and other family members had fallen outside of society’s parameters. She held her head high when my grandfather taught at Columbia University, and people assumed that these southerners would be too crass to attend concerts conducted by Toscanini, which she and my grandfather relished with grace and style. Her career as a runway model began when the designer had her try on the ugliest dress imaginable, then told her, “If you can make that dress look good, you can make anything look good. You’re hired.” She accomplished countless achievements in Girl Scouts, not to mention served her community in the face of those who told her these goals couldn’t be done. (Spoiler alert: she knocked all these out of the park.) I also got to hear firsthand anecdotes of female concert performers and symphony conductors in the ’30s, people who defied racial barriers, and other determined souls who broke the mold. Then there was her aunt, who finished college in 1891. She was a telegrapher, the first woman business owner in Columbus, Mississippi, and the daughter of a suffragist. Because of my great-great aunt’s standards, she chose not to settle down and marry her suitor, and remained unmarried. Were these family members misunderstood and mischaracterized? I certainly think so, and it was for the greater good.
During that time, I wrote my first and only novel _The Wild Harmonic_. If you’re a writer of any sort, I’ll warn you now to set down your beverage. I somehow thought this was going to make me special. Or better yet (are you ready for this?)…understood! But I did enjoy trying to flip the script with werewolf tropes, pointing out that all musicians have to be shapeshifters in some way in order to survive, and how vilifying predators is *so* seventeenth century.
Then there’s being misunderstood with passages in fiction or comedy songs I’ve written, that fall under the megacategory of “Whoops, that didn’t age well.” In most cases, I merely should have been paying attention. The nice thing is that no one has confronted me so far (at the time of writing) over any creations I’ve chosen to remove from my repertoire, or passages I someday hope to edit out of updated editions of my books. This is why I need interactions with folks who come from other backgrounds. It’s crucial for me to have discussions that might make me uncomfortable, as long as everyone is respectful. It’s more than I deserve, and I’ll take it. Such experiences can potentially help me become a better version of myself by breaking old beliefs. And even if civil discourse is not on the menu, as long as I walk away with a new perspective, it’s a win. If I don’t practice this, I could miss out on some incredible new friendships, so to me, it’s worth it. My deepest regrets don’t necessarily inoculate me from repeating my mistakes, but I’m willing to bet they’ll make me less likely to repeat them.
Here I am: mischaracterized, but not giving up. I’m doing a lot more traveling these days just to remain a working musician, but I always manage to find some sort of tribe that truly sees me.
The song “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” penned by Bennie Benjamin, Horace Ott, and Sol Marcus was put on the map by Nina Simone, and has been covered by numerous greats. I find it relatable to this day. But as I encounter more and more people whom I rub the wrong way (some of whom even claim to care for me), I ask myself this constantly: is it necessarily a bad thing that some people will never truly grok you?
My music and my career have become a compass in my quest to understand the world around me, and the people I share it with. My cousin Andy Waggoner (composer, violinist, currently teaching at Duke University) once made this statement in a missive: “Be Waggoners: weird and fierce and full of love for the world.”
The world may never accept us. But we can try to get a glimpse in to what drives other people, and that’s a start.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
Like a lot of things that make me ask myself, “How the hell did I get into this mess in the first place?” I guess the answer for why I became a musician and writer is the same: “Seemed like a good idea at the time.” I somehow balanced my time between finishing my degree in music therapy with playing five nights a week in the French Quarter in New Orleans, due to insane amounts of coffee. In this way, I learned the foundations for musical arrangement and surviving the big, bad music industry in one fell swoop.
One of the things that might set me apart is that I add as many experiences as possible to my mental toolbox, truly never knowing when I’m going to need that weird piece of minutiae I learned in college until I’m elbows-deep in a musical project. Or running into a stranger with a language barrier, but being able to play some songs together I might have learned years ago at a folk festival.
I strive to be an encyclopedia of styles, a reinventor of the wheel, a raconteuse, and a baton-passer to the next person. Now that I’ve said everything I want to say via nine solo albums of my own, my mission is to be a team player and see what I can do to make someone else’s endeavor be the best-sounding project it can be.
Some of the things I’m proudest of don’t necessarily hold any sway on a resumé. They’re so much better than any “facts” I constantly need to have corrected on Wikipedia. When I was fifteen, my high school marching band shared a billing with Ray Charles at the Superdome in New Orleans. By the time I was sixteen years old, two of my heavy metal shows were shut down by the cops. I used to skip school to go visit old Cajun musicians, and record their songs and stories. I once goaded a very drunk Ronnie Wood to sing “I’m a Lumberjack” with me at a bar in the French Quarter. In my quest to collect new tunes, I hitchhiked between two small towns in Country Clare, Ireland…on the back of a tractor. In the middle of a New Zealand gig, an earthquake hit, so I decided to vamp on a groove until it subsided (because pretending like nothing was happening would have been silly, and stopping would have aggravated any distress). After a gig in Cambodia, the locals were touched that I was trying to speak Khmer, so they taught me how to sing their equivalent of “Be Bop A-Lula” and rewarded me with some fizzy palm wine brewed up in someone’s back yard. After a gig in Ecuador, I decided to sing “J’ai Passé Devant ta Porte (one of two songs dubbed the Cajun National Anthem) on the equatorial line…in an inflatable t-rex costume. Some of these are brag worthy, and some are just good for subversive storytelling. Instead of front row tickets to life, I’ve been given a backstage pass.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
It’s profoundly rewarding to churn up something abstract in my head, then cause it to exist. It’s a process of filtering information through my personal lens and coming up with the right formula. Sometimes the results aren’t what I were aiming for (for better or for worse). But I always have the option of reinventing myself. It’s a lifelong mission: finding out what works and what doesn’t. If we’re lucky, we never stop learning.
In many cases, the labor behind it can be exhausting, frustrating, or just tedious. But for those moments where I’ve manifested something I’m very proud of, it makes all that effort worth it.
Then afterwards, I allow myself a brief respite, then get back up and say, “Okay, what next?”
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
I tend to share a lot of my journeys (travel, musical endeavors, and observations) on social media, so that’s an open invitation for anyone to get a glimpse of my point of view. I think human nature initially instills in us an aversion to the unfamiliar. Maybe my path will gently send a message to dubious folks that uncommon ground doesn’t have to be scary. I can be in some distant land, playing music with people who don’t look like me, and then share some piece of wisdom I picked up from these incredible folks along the way. I can be forthcoming about a daunting, high-pressure show, and demonstrate I obviously got through it somehow. And lots of times, I’m eager to share moments where I absolutely fell on my face, and lived to laugh about it!
Music in particular breaks down a lot of barricades. And when it does, it’s equally enlightening and humbling. Learning new genres has forged new pathways to understanding other ways of life, and made me more aware of how to do better (thank you, Maya Angelou). But I can’t possibly be the only person who comes into a new situation and still hears this archaic inner monologue: “Pop culture, hearsay, old toxic traditions, and tainted information might have once told me that I should be suspicious of you. Maybe we have values that are diametrically opposed. Or we were raised with contrasting beliefs. Or there’s something about you that I don’t understand yet. Or our different ethnic backgrounds didn’t facilitate our paths crossing until now. Or our respective homelands are too distant for me to know your cultural comfort zone. Yet here we are, making music together, and we are now part of the same tribe. As your bandmate, I have your back. And you’ve just demonstrated that you have mine, too.”
Being creative often means being flexible and fluid, shapeshifting in order to survive. There’s a willingness to change one’s beliefs, and I’m certainly glad I’m not the same person I was in my early twenties! Recently a bandmate offhandedly said one of the most useful things I’ve ever heard: “I love to be wrong!” And she said it with such joyful authenticity, I had to smile. Because I know she’ll always keep growing. She’ll never find herself burned-out, bitter, or willfully unkind.
But I’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who is truly non-creative. The ways others navigate life don’t have to yield things you see in a gallery or hear on the radio. There are people who seem to think they lack imagination, then blow me away with their quick problem solving. Or they suddenly have to whip up a tasty meal using whatever odd ingredients are at their disposal. Or they can assess a rapidly changing world, and stay connected to it. Or they simply find new methods to enjoy life with whatever hand they’re dealt, now matter how horrific. These are all creative. Math and science are creative. Like a tone-deaf person who still loves to listen to a symphony, I don’t have to understand a complex math equation to appreciate its beauty deeply.
Some people find more comfort in routine, unchanging structure, and their own parameters, and that’s perfectly valid, too. Foisting my fruits of labor on someone else would be counterproductive. These people can divert their attention away from whatever it is I’m cranking out, and find something else that gives them joy or security. No one should have to struggle to understand my journey (since sometimes I barely understand it myself!). There’s enough room for every headspace at the table.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.bethpattersonmusic.com
- Instagram: @bethodist_manifesto
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bethodist
- Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/bethodist-manifesto
- Twitter: @Bethodist_2112
- Youtube: @BethPatterson2112
Image Credits
Marc Pagani
Steve Parke