In honor of Earth Day, Margo Price stops by Southern Craft Radio for an interview with Joy Williams to talk about becoming the first female artist elected to Farm Aid’s Board of Directors, plus gives a sneak peek into her memoir, Maybe We’ll Make It: A Memoir, set to be released in October. Joy celebrates Farm Aid’s mission and history by playing music from artists who’ve played Farm Aid festival. Tune in and listen to the interview with Margo Price in-full on-demand here.
Margo Price on being the first female artist elected to Farm Aid’s Board of Directors
It just meant a lot because my family farmed and lost their farm in the mid ’80s during the farming crisis. So even just being involved and being able to play I think five of them. I’ve played five Farm Aids now, maybe six. That was just really nice to be able to give back and I always go out and do a couple panels and talk to farmers. And it’s always such emotional conversations, just hearing about what people kind of go through to keep a farm going and just the fight for food and climate change and everything that we’re facing right now. I think it’s one of the only jobs that might be more difficult than being a musician.
Margo Price on the work Farm Aid is doing year-round
There’s a lot of work being done around food justice and just trying to help get grants and help minority farmers especially that have been discriminated over the years and haven’t got as many of the grants. And so that is really where a lot of their work is lying right now. And it just seems kind of like they were ahead of their time now in the place that we’re at with climate change. And so we just had our first board meeting actually two days ago and it was very surreal to just be on the phone with Willie Nelson and John Mellencamp and then of course all the wonderful women who work at Farm Aid behind the scenes. Because really there’s a lot of women there on the board that they’re not musicians, but they are actually the ones running the show. And they were kind of letting us know about grants that they got and where the money’s going to go. And a lot of it is going to just trying to even out the distribution of grants among people who maybe would not qualify or benefit from those things.
Margo Price on how we can help Farm Aid’s mission
Margo Price: I think one of the main things that we can do that is just very simple, definitely inspired by a passionate Neil Young speech that I saw one year at Farm Aid and it’s just go to local farmer’s markets and you can also join a local area that brings fresh food to you. I think you can get a box delivered from local farms that you have to kind of look in your area for that specifically.
Joy Williams: Yeah. But they’re everywhere.
Margo Price: Yeah. I mean, our dollar is really powerful and where we shop says a lot and it informs a lot. And I think that if we start supporting just local business in general, we’re going to see those effects in our community. And so that’s one simple thing that we try to do. And going to the website FarmAid.org. If you go there and you can donate and see how you can get involved in your community and just helping areas like urban areas that really need access to good food.
Margo Price on her memoir, Maybe We’ll Make It, set to be released in October 2022
It’s really about the 10 years that my husband and I were struggling to get our foot in the door living in Nashville. And we went through a really, really rough patch. We lost one of our children when he was really young to a heart defect. And we went through a really tough time in our marriage obviously. I think you know anybody who loses a child is going to be affected by that. And so it’s a vulnerability hangover. That’s what I keep telling people. It’s been about my struggle with addiction and drinking. I’m just kind of recently have eradicated the booze from my life, which has been really great and really helpful. It’s a ride. It’s like I got done with it and I was like, I don’t even think I want to put this out into the world. I was like, I just don’t know what I was thinking. I was kind of doing it more as a therapy exercise.
Margo Price on deciding to publish her memoir, Maybe We’ll Make It, set to be released in October 2022, and the recent turning point in her life
As I was having just these questions about is this the right time? Should I wait longer? Am I going to make people upset? I really just tried to tell my own story and not air anyone else’s dirty laundry or whatever but just really kind of tell where I have been and where I’m coming from. I think now having a daughter of my own and I have a son as well. But I’m just really approaching this kind of turning point in my life, kind of just this you know what? I’ve been here for almost four decades and I don’t want to live my life for anybody else. And I don’t want to have to be worried about anybody else. But of course, other people’s judgment and other people trying to shame you and stuff. It hurts. But I just got to connect with the people who understand what I’m doing. I need to connect with more musicians, mothers and people who have just been through the wild ride that this is and you know you just kind of set out like I like to sing, I like to share my songs and then there’s all these other things that are tied to it that are very scary and very weird and that I never knew I was really signing up for.
