Queen Esther

Wheels Off with Rhett Miller

Rhett Miller

Arts, Performing Arts, Music

5.0 • 596 Ratings

🗓️ 4 April 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Musician, songwriter, actor and playwright Queen Esther joins Rhett from her home in Harlem to talk about her extraordinary multi-hyphenate career, which currently includes two new albums (to be released this year), and a play, which will culminate in an off-Broadway run. There’s no shortage of wisdom and inspiration in this conversation, as Queen Esther discusses the importance of following the creative spirit, what it means to plug into one’s own uniqueness, and why imposter syndrome is off the table. Queen Esther’s most recent work includes a performance with her western swing collective The Black Rose of Texas at Lincoln Center’s 2022 Summer for the City. Her critically acclaimed 2021 Black Americana album Gild The Black Lily is the fourth release on her imprint EL Recordings – and her 2018 TED Talk about the true origins of country and bluegrass continues to reverberate throughout the Americana community. Coming in 2023: Rona, an EP of rangy alt-Americana songs written in Harlem during the early months of the pandemic lockdown and Things Are Looking Up, a jazz album of original songs and Lady Day's lost classics. Queen Esther website Queen Esther on IG @thisisqueenesther Rhett on IG @rhettmiller Rhett Miller website Wheels Off is brought to you by Osiris Media. Hosted and produced by Rhett Miller. Co-produced by Kirsten Cluthe in partnership with Nick Ruffini (Revoice Media). Editing by Matt Dwyer. Music by OLD 97’s. Episode artwork by Katherine Boils and Mark Dowd. Show logo by Tim Skirven. This podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also ask Alexa to play it. Please leave us a rating or review on iTunes. Revisit previous episodes of Wheels Off with Rosanne Cash, Rob Thomas, Will Forte, Lydia Loveless, Allison Moorer, Ted Leo, Paul F. Tompkins, Jen Kirkman, and more. Find Rhett's podcast #WheelsOff and other music-powered shows on @Osirispod Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	O'SIMUS
0:02.0	Welcome to Wheels Off, a show about the messy reality of the creative life.
0:09.3	I'm Rhett Miller.
0:10.0	That's when it got wheels off.
0:13.0	He started out and he ain't gonna stop.
0:16.0	Oh, she made me feel like a good God.
0:19.0	That's when it got wheels off. Queen Esther is a great singer, songwriter, actor, playwright, director, director, cook, apparently.
0:36.5	She does talk about cooking during the course of this interview as well
0:40.1	oh she's so great uh this interview runs longer than a lot of my wheels off conversations do
0:48.0	and i wasn't about to try and rain her in or shut it down because it's just all so good.
0:57.2	I feel like there's so much useful, actionable wisdom in the next hour of conversation that
1:07.5	you're going to listen to.
1:09.5	And I'm really grateful I got to speak with Queen Esther.
1:13.4	She is a very thoughtful person. I think you're going to love this. There's a moment recently.
1:22.2	I was on stage in Plymouth, Massachusetts doing a solo gig. In the venue is a place called the Spire Center.
1:28.9	And it's a really beautiful old church turned synagogue, now turned performance space,
1:37.1	1860 something, fully haunted by ghosts and all that.
1:41.6	But I was on stage and I think I was dropping F bombs.
1:46.0	And I said something by way of apology.
1:50.1	And in the midst of that apology, I said, you know, what I'm doing up here, this isn't sacred, making a joke.
2:06.5	And then went on to play the next song and it bothered me weirdly for the rest of the night this idea that what i was doing isn't sacred because it kind of is
2:15.0	is even the goofiest songs,
	...

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