I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Cathy Richardson more than a half-dozen times since 1998.
The first interview was about her original music. Over the years, I interviewed her about her role at the “performing Janis” in a production of the Janis Joplin musical “Love, Janis,” more of her original recordings (including the Grammy-nominated “The Road to Bliss” and side projects), and then about her becoming a member of the legendary rock band Jefferson Starship. Cathy was kind enough to make time for an interview in the midst of a torrential suburban Chicago downpour.
Jefferson Starship, featuring Cathy Richardson, performs on March 9 in Fort Lauderdale at Lillian S. Wells Hall at The Parker.
Cathy, the first time I interviewed you was in 1998, for the album “Snake Camp,” the first one to bear the Cathy Richardson Band moniker. When you look back at that time, what would you consider the best part about being in the Chicago music scene?
It was a real scene! You could make a living having your own original band back then. I can't imagine doing that now. I'm kind of out of touch with the scene and what's going on with local bands and stuff [now]. But it was really a great time where you know you could play a million gigs, get paid, and make a living.
The 1990s were an especially good decade for Chicago musicians, including The Smashing Pumpkins, Liz Phair, Veruca Salt, Urge Overkill, and Material Issue, among others. Do you feel like you and your band benefited from the attention the city was getting during that period?
I definitely do. I feel like we were a buzz band. We had labels looking at us. We never got signed. Whatever that was, I can't say. But there was a lot of attention, and the music fans would go out and pack in the clubs and go see bands.
As a member of the LGBTQ community yourself, did you feel like you were being embraced by that community in Chicago as well as elsewhere?
Absolutely, I definitely was! At first, because I was leading an openly gay life, I wouldn't say I was in the closet, but I didn't want to be called a lesbian singer or whatever, because it wasn't the focus that I wanted. Naturally, lesbians started following us [laughs]. It was kind of unavoidable. We’d be playing at some place which would normally be really fratty and there'd be just a ton of lesbians, and it was so obvious [laughs].
The next time I interviewed you was in 1999 when you were cast as the performing version of Janis Joplin in the play “Love, Janis.” Had you played any lead roles in theatrical productions when you were in school or was “Love, Janis” your stage debut?
When I was a sophomore in high school at Hinsdale Central, I played Eulalie Mackecknie Shinn in “The Music Man” [laughs] which was the first time I’d done musical theater. “Love, Janis,” was not musical theater in the same sense as “The Music Man” is. Honestly, I was not looking for that gig. They came to me, and I actually tried to talk them out of hiring me [laughs]. I was like, “Oh, no, no, this isn't what I do. I don't sound like Janis. I'm really flattered.” They told me to think about it. I went to bed that night and I remembered that I'd had this dream a few months earlier that I think was a spiritual visit from Janis Joplin. When I remembered the dream, I started crying, and I was like, “Oh my God, I have to do this.” And, wow, what a journey that took me on. It changed my entire life.
As a singer/songwriter, used to performing original material with your band, was it a challenge to sing as Joplin night after night?
Yeah, it really was. As I said, I didn't believe that I sounded anything like her. From what I knew about theater and acting, if you're going to portray a real person you kind of need to make people believe that you're that person. It was super challenging, and I think it took me several years of doing it before I got really good at it. I just ensconced myself in her music and her life and everything that I could absorb about her. It was a several-year process, and even when I ended up in New York doing it off-Broadway for almost two years, I feel like I finally got good at it by the time I left the show. A couple of years later, I was asked to do it in different places on the road, and I feel like by that point I really had it down. I could lose myself completely and just let her take over.
Would you say that singing other people’s songs, as you did in “Love, Janis,” prepared you for your role in Jefferson Starship?
Absolutely! Because I wouldn't have even considered it. It was never something that I thought about doing. Honestly, I just always wanted to be an artist. I wanted to do my own music. Getting inside of someone else, as I did with Janis, made me grow so much as a singer and push myself to places that I would have been afraid to do before. With Jefferson Starship, obviously Grace Slick is another icon of rock and roll. I was never asked to be Grace Slick. They wanted me to be me. So, that was a totally different approach. As far as where I came from musically, growing up I was a huge Jefferson Starship fan. I thought, “This is in my wheelhouse. “I know this music better than you guys do [laughs].” But I was never asked to imitate Grace in any way, shape, or form. They just wanted me to be me, which is awesome.
Have you crossed paths with Grace over the years?
I have! I've hung out a couple of times at her house. She co-wrote a song on our last record. It’s not like I sat down with her, and we wrote a song. I was at her house in 2017. It was right after Trump's first inauguration. I was with China, Grace’s daughter, and we were upstairs watching the women's marches on TV, and I said, “I really want to watch this with your mom.” We went downstairs, and we're watching it, and Madonna said, “We're going to blow up the White House!” Grace was like, “Wow!” She couldn't believe it.” She’s like, “Holy shit! This is like the ‘60s. You take two steps forward and they knock you down and you get back up again, and you gotta just keep coming at them.” I said, “We should write a song about this, about the women's movement. It's about time for women to rule the world.” She said she liked the idea. I kind of forgot about it, and a couple of months later, I got this envelope of lyrics in the mail from her. She said, “Take what you want and throw away the rest.” That's what I did. She had written, “It's about time, it's about time, it's about time.” I'm like, “Well, this is clearly the chorus.” I grabbed my guitar, and I wrote the chorus really quick. Jude Gold, our guitar player, had this sort of anthemic guitar riff that sounded like this triumphant thing. I said, “I think I can marry that to this,” and we wrote the song. It was the first single on the last record.
How did the Jefferson Starship opportunity come about?
After my mom died and I ended my long-term relationship, I thought, “Life is short. I need to be happy.” I was just kind of sitting here, floundering in Elmhurst [Illinois], having no direction for my life. I was wishing that I could move to California, but I didn't know how I was going to do that. [The] “Love, Janis” [team] called and said, “We're doing San Francisco. Do you want to do it?” I said, “Yes!” This is my chance. I actually moved to San Francisco on Gay Pride in 2006.
I had to go right to a table reading, and Gay Pride was happening out the window around me. I asked, “Can I please just go?” And they said, “No [laughs]!” I finished the table reading and I walked out and I missed the whole thing. I did “Love, Janis” there. The producers were saying it's gonna run forever, it's gonna be like “Beach Blanket Babylon,” which had been running for 20 years.
After a few months, I signed a year lease, packed up my house and relocated there, and five days later, the show closed. I was like, “Are you kidding me [laughs]? Well, I'm here now, and I have enough money in the bank to live for a year, even if I don't get it another job.” But within a matter of months in 2007, Janis’ band Big Brother and The Holding Company called. They were still alive and still performing. They said, “It's the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love and we're going on tour with Jefferson Starship.” I was like, “Jefferson Starship, they're like my second favorite band [laughs]! This is so cool!” I was excited to open for Jefferson Starship and obviously to play with Big Brother, too.
Went out on the road with them for a couple of months, and their singer who had been with them for over a decade decided to quit on that tour, in the middle of the tour. They said, “How would you like to be in Jefferson Starship?” I said, “Are you kidding me?” I said yes, immediately. I continued living in San Francisco for about three years, and then I ran out of money. I was trying to sell my house in Illinois, and never sold it, so I just moved back with my new wife. We have two kids now, and it just all kind of worked out in a way that I never envisioned. I've been in Jefferson Starship for 17 years this March.
