Review Fix Exclusive: BettySoo Talks ‘After Times’

Review Fix chats with singer/songwriter BettySoo, who discusses her origin in music and so much more.

About BettySoo:

The Kerrville New Song Contest winner and seasoned veteran of countless recording sessions (both her own and as a guest vocalist on myriad projects for other artists: James McMurtry, Eliza Gilkyson amongst others) admits she went in feeling nearly as nervous as she did going into the studio to record her first album more than 15 years ago. “It’s hard enough not feel intimidated any time you attempt to cover such classic, iconic songs as those two,” she explains. “And it’s especially hard when you haven’t been in the same room to rehearse with your band in over a year! Still, I couldn’t resist the urge, and with Mark Hallman (Carole King, Ani DiFranco) producing, I was in safe hands. Plus, I just really believed that my fans would love cranking these up as much as I did, to celebrate all the live music that’s to come.”

Review Fix: How did you get involved in music?

BettySoo: I started taking piano lessons when I was 4 or 5 years old.  Everyone in my family was musical and played at least one instrument, so over the course of growing up, I had taken lessons in piano, violin, oboe, and flute, I had been in a professional singing group as a child, and I started picking up the guitar in my late teens. That said, we were NOT necessarily encouraged to take music on as a career… 

Review Fix: What’s your creative process like?

BettySoo: That’s an interesting question to me because I’m not sure I even understand it.  I guess I believe humans are being creative all the time.  We are constantly solving problems, telling stories, responding to stimulation, figuring out who we are and want to be, and trying to grow…isn’t that all creativity is? 

Review Fix: What inspires you?

BettySoo: Love. And the absence of love. 

Review Fix: How has CO-Vid affected your art?

BettySoo: It helped me get over my slump when it comes to actually releasing music. I have been recording tons this past decade, but I have released almost none of it.  Somehow, I started getting really bogged down and would get pretty severely depressed every time I got finished with recordings, and it was time to come up with a plan to release it.  The intersection of art and commerce always leaves me really uncomfortable.  But then seeing this very kind, loving support from music lovers everywhere who affirmed to so many artists that our continuing to create and share our work was meaningful and important to them, alongside this very present worldwide reminder about both the brevity and unpredictability of life, kind of nudged me past some of my block.

Review Fix: What does music mean to you?

BettySoo: Music is such a beautiful, magical mystery.  Why does some of it “do it” for some of us and not for others?  I wonder sometimes if it’s all really taste or if there’s biology involved…after all, we are constantly learning new things about the human brain, and the sonic attacks in Havana a few years ago revived my wondering about how sound is physical — I wonder about these physical waves of sound hitting the tiny tympanic drum in our ears, and the message going to our brains.  All of our ear canals are shaped differently, all of us are wired differently, each of us is the protagonist of a totally different individual movie…how does that affect what we hear and how we feel about it?  So mixed with all this subconscious stuff I wonder about, the fact that we can so quickly and easily make pretty complicated sounds and arrange them in a pattern that is pleasing to other people…it seems like alchemy.

Review Fix: How would you describe your sound to someone who has never heard you?

BettySoo: If I was analyzing myself as a stranger, I’d say I’m a soprano who clearly wishes she was an alto, a folky who longs to rock out with musicians via a time machine to 20, 30, 40 years ago, a clear-voiced singer who’s jealous of gravel, and someone who’s listened to a LOT of country music but feels a little shy about it.  That all sounds discontented, but I actually feel lucky 99.9% of the time.

Review Fix: How are your live shows different from your studio work?

BettySoo: Money.  Ha!  But honestly, money, or rather, lack of it, is what keeps me from touring more with a band.  That said, I love playing solo shows too.  But since I’ve almost always recorded with a band, playing solo is going to make things sound softer/folkier/gentler than hearing those same songs with a rhythm section and a lead player.  I also do a lot of studio work recording on other people’s albums, and of course that can be all over the map.

Review Fix: What inspired your latest single?

BettySoo: Being isolated, completely alone, in my house for so long brought out the workaholic, the sugar addict, and the fully-fleshed insomniac I always knew I could grow up to be. For the most part, I didn’t really mind being alone…consciously.  But obviously my body was in rebellion and was internalizing a lot of distress.  I would crank up Rodney Crowell’s version of this song pretty often and literally jump around frenetically to it.  

Review Fix: What are your goals for the rest of 2021? 

BettySoo: I’m in a band called Nobody’s Girl, and we’ve just released our first full-length album with Lucky Hound Music.  We are booked to tour both coasts, so we’re waiting to see if that all goes to plan or if “things going viral” means we need to stay closer to home — and not invite our fans to gather together “in our name,” so to speak. 

Review Fix: What’s next?

BettySoo: I’m working on the 2022 version of my Work+Play/EveryDay Planner – it’ll be the second year of publishing my own creativity/productivity planner –  and I’m making a lot of improvements.  I’m going to be releasing more solo music.  Life is short, so it’s always time to get going.  

Review Fix: Anything else you’d like to add?

BettySoo: I’ve joined a small team of BIPOC guest hosts on Sirius/XM’s The Village channel.  We’re releasing specially curated shows under the title PRISMS, the Sound of Color. There are some real heavy hitters in the group: Don Flemons, Dan Navarro, Reggie Harris, Chris Pierce, Sweet Honey in the Rock.  I feel so honored to be working alongside these artists. My curated show will air this month (August 2021), and I’m thrilled to host an hour-long show and share the music of a dozen or so contemporary Asian American artists.