Another thing that I learned from my parents, who had pretty difficult, challenging lives, to put it mildly: I saw my parents use music to survive. They had to have that music. My mom had to sing and my dad had to go to church and he had to hear that music washing over him and through him. It wasn’t a, “Oh, this is nice”; it was a, “I’m not going to make it if I don’t have that.” So I’ve felt that that’s my job. That’s how I think of what I do. I have to give people that lifeline, you know, that I saw my parents reach out for, and that I was taught to reach out for, and so that’s what I aim to do. And I guess I don’t feel like I can do that without that connection to the spirit.

Iris Dement til NPR

Hele interviewet med et par sange…