Joy Clark’s debut solo album is an ode to her Louisiana roots.
The singer songwriter and guitarist grew up in New Orleans in a tight-knit Gospel church family. Clark sang with her parents, siblings and grandparents every week.
As a college student at the University of New Orleans, she found inspiration in Southern rock, blues and Americana artists and started playing professionally in bands for the likes of Allison Russell and Brandi Carlile.
Her debut solo album “Tell It To the Wind,” out this month, explores her personal journey of self discovery as an artist and as a Black, queer young adult living in the South.
Clark told Morning Edition host Karen Henderson one of her biggest challenges was coming out to her family as queer. Clark’s parents didn’t approve, but her grandmother was different.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Joy Clark: I remember bracing for it, but she was as cool as a cucumber, and it was one of those moments where I felt like I was playing tug of war and I was waiting for the tension, but she just disarmed me and she just accepted me. And so I think that point in my life that made me really open up and start to dig deep into my music.
Karen Henderson: And you have a song that's a tribute to your grandmother? You dedicate the song “Lesson” to her.
Clark: Lesson, yeah. I grew up homeschooled and sometimes my mom, in the times that she had to work, she would drop me and my siblings off at my grandma's house. And so we'd have our math book and our English book and just workbooks that we had to do sometimes as kids do. I'd be jumping on the bed and I wouldn't be doing my work, and she would come down the hall and she would say, "Y'all stop jumping on that bed and go get your lesson."
I used to chuckle at that because it just sounded funny. But when she passed, I started thinking about all the things that she taught me. She taught me to be grateful, and she taught me to be kind.
And she grew up during the Civil Rights era. So she loved Martin Luther King and she loved peace. She also knew that, okay, yes, there's a time for peace and there's a time for strife. And she sort of put that fire into me to fight for freedom and to fight for the things that are just.
Henderson: A lot of your album, it seems to be about transitions in life, and particularly your transition from a teenager to adult. It's very pivotal for you as you're expressing some of the biggest challenges for you personally, is talking to your family, talking to your grandmother, what is it in this album that you're wanting to say about this period in life in general, from becoming a teenager to an adult?
Clark: I've been on the music scene for a while, and this album is just, it's really about hope and it's about dreams and it's about growth. I'm just stating my piece on the landscape. I claim my ground and how I see things in the world and how I've grown and how in those times of growth, you can't take everything with you. So yeah, it's such a good question. It's such a big question. There's so many ways I want to go with that.
Henderson: Is a big question. You also celebrate the person you are today and a lot of your music. I'm thinking about the song “Shine,” which it sounds like a celebration.
Clark: Yeah, well, we wanted a song that was just fun. We wanted a song to take the audience out of their awkwardness. To take myself out of my own awkwardness. I've got a lot of deep thinking songs, and we really just desire to have a song that was just fun. It has a whole horn section. It's just an exuberant song about encouraging you to shine your own light.
Henderson: Yeah, it's a celebration. It really is a celebration of the little things of what makes us unique. How did growing up in Louisiana and the music scene here shape you as a musician?
Clark: Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, I'll tap back to Shine. So I used to have a gig that I would play on. I don't know if you've ever been to Frenchman Street or if anybody has ever been to Frenchman. There's so much music, there's so many brass bands, and sometimes I'd be on my gig and I'd be playing my songs and playing my favorite covers, and then there was just a brass band that would just start playing. So all you could really do was stop and just enjoy the brass band. So I love horns. We wanted that to be a part of the album.
As far as being a musician, New Orleans is just this beautiful place where you can always join in. You're always welcome to join in. You're always welcome to sit in. As soon as somebody finds out you play or they find out you sing, they will invite you to come and sit in. And I think that was so important for me, just in my formative years, it was just a fertile ground of help, of like, "Hey, come and play on my set." You might have to wait three hours before you get on stage, but it is just a generous landscape to where you are always invited to the party, and I always felt invited too.
Henderson: Already in your career, you've played in bands for artists such as Alison Russell, Brandi Carlile, Madeleine Peyroux. How have those experiences shaped the sound on your own project?
Clark: Yeah, all of those artists, oh my God. I think being able to support people like that and being able to experience their generosity and their sisterhood, it's just empowered me and it's given me a new purpose, and I can see them shining their light, and I can see them putting their story out there and being brave and sharing and being really vulnerable. It's one of those things that just carries over.
And yeah, I think that's given me a big gift and putting the fire in me to have the courage and the bravery to tell my own story.
Henderson: Are there some songs on this album that you are particularly inspired by other artists?
Clark: I will say “All Behind.” Most of this album I wrote, me and Margaret Becker, who produced the album, we co-wrote this album sort of beginning from 2022 to 2023, and All Behind is one of those songs on the album gave me sort of a peek into just in those moments of your life where I've felt like I'm moving into a different territory.
I started playing with Allison Russell and I played the Ryman, I played the Grammys, and I played Jimmy Kimmel. I played Austin City Limits. And having those experiences really showed me that when you're growing, sometimes you have to break up, not so much with people, but sometimes you have to break up with how you see yourself, how you see your past self, and how you can move into a new season in my own life.
And I think that song I can point to personally. It's not a breakup with a person, it's a breakup with how I have seen myself in the past.
Henderson: That's a good segue for my final question here, and that's what would you want to tell the younger version of yourself growing up in such a different environment than you're in now?
Clark: Yeah, I would want to tell her that "You were totally right." Because I think sometimes we want to tell older versions of ourselves, especially the child version of ourselves, that "You're okay." But I honestly think that the childhood version of me, I always knew that I wanted to pursue music, but it's honestly, as soon as you start to grow up and you start to see how life works, that's actually the time when it's sort of like you feel like you have to go into this career path to be successful. But I think my 9-year-old self really always knew "You want to have a guitar someday. You're going to have a horse. You love boots. You are going to have boots." You know what I mean? Just those really childlike dreams and wishes are really valid. So I would say to 9-year-old, Joy, "You were spot on."
Henderson: Joy Clark's debut album, “Tell It To The Wind” is out now. You were spot on. Joy, thanks so much for speaking with me.
Clark: Thank you for having me.
