Heroine Interview from Twang by Julie Cannon

This week I’m hosting  Julie Cannon with Twang, Veronica Heley with Murder in Mind, and Paula Mowery with The Blessing Seer (no giveaway). If you want to enter the drawings for the books, please leave a comment on one of the post during the week with your email address. I will not enter you without an email address (my way to contact you if you win). If you don’t want to leave an email address, another way you can enter is to email me at margaretdaley@gmail.com. The drawings end Sunday (September 2nd) evening.

Interview with the heroine from Twang by Julie Cannon:

1,  Jenny Cloud, tell me the most interesting thing about you.  Well, most people would say it’s that I’m a diva. A country music superstar with a ton of hit songs. But, personally, I think it’s that most of my songs are autobiographical. Conway Twitty says; “A good country song takes a page out of somebody’s life and puts it to music,” and a good number of my songs are from one of those pages in your life you’d really like to rip out, crumple into a ball and throw away and forget. But, hindsight being 20/20, I know putting them to music was, and continues to be, cathartic for me.      

2.  What do you do for fun? When I need a break from the stage or the studio, Bobby Lee and I go hide up on Cagle Mountain. No paparazzi  are on to us yet, and I put on my old bluejeans and a holey t-shirt and run barefoot through the pastures, sit on the banks of the river, and lay back in the grass and gaze up at the sky. Sometimes I’ll even let Bobby Lee try to teach me to fish. 

3.  What do you put off doing because you dread it? When I’m being interviewed, I don’t like answering questions about growing up in Blue Ridge. I dread going home to Blue Ridge, and thus rarely do.

4.  What are you afraid of most in life? My father. He does not respect women.

5.  What do you want out of life? I want to fulfill my destiny, which I believe is writing and singing my songs, and hopefully they’ll  bring joy to a lot of folks.

6.  What is the most important thing to you? I’d like to think I’m making a difference in the lives of some young girls who experienced what I did growing up. I love and I hate getting letters from girls who hear my songs and feel they can confide in me. A lot of them are victims of abuse and they’re afraid to speak up.  It’s important that they know someone who’s overcome.

7.  Do you read? If so, what is your favorite type of book to read? I love stories, but the stories I crave are the ones in the songs of my country music singing peers. A few of my favorites are “The Coal Miner’s Daughter” by Loretta Lynn, “Kaw-Liga” by Charley Pride, “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash, and “Raggedy Ann” by Little Jimmy Dickens.  A lot of them tear my heart out every single time I hear them.

8.  If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? My stubbornness. I guess I was born with a strong bent toward being pig-headed. Being stubborn has a positive side, such as when I was so determined to make it in Nashville. But it’s not so good when it comes to other things. For instance, I’d made up my mind that I was not going to hear about all this religious stuff when my hairdresser Tonilynn started in on telling me I could trust Jesus to help me dig up painful issues from my past.

9.  Do you have a pet? If so, what is it and why that pet? Bobby Lee and I are the proud parents of Erastus, a black hound dog who travels on the tour bus with us. He was Bobby Lee’s before we met, and now, since we can’t have children, he’s our baby.    

10. If you could travel back in time, where would you go and why?  I’d go back to the 1960’s, when Patsy Cline was part of the early Nashville sound. No, maybe even earlier. I’d like to have been around when Loretta Lynn came on the American country music scene. Loretta Lynn’s story of rags-to-riches inspired me a bunch when I was a teenager. I loved to hear how she journeyed from the poverty of the Kentucky hills to Nashville superstardom.