Kousha Navidar: This is All Of It. I'm Kousha Navidar, in for Alison Stewart, who is on vacation and will be back Monday. A reminder that you now have one month to submit a tune to the WNYC Public Song Project. Take something from the public domain. I'm talking about a work of music, film, literature, poetry, and send in a song based on it. You'll get to be part of WNYC's Public Songbook, and you might even be interviewed here on air. All kinds of songs and skill levels are accepted. Have fun with it.

Here's how you can submit. Go to wnyc.org/publicsongproject for more info. The deadline to submit is April 28th. Again, that address is wnyc.org/publicsongproject. That's in the future, the not-too-distant future, but the future nonetheless. Let's get started right now, this hour, with the final installment of our Women's History Month series, Equalizers: Women in Music Production.

[music]

Kousha Navidar: Trina Shoemaker is a producer and engineer. In 1999, she became the first woman to win a Grammy for Best Engineered Album for her work on Sheryl Crow's The Globe Sessions. She's worked with Brandi Carlile, Indigo Girls, The Secret Sisters, Emmylou Harris, even Iggy Pop and Queens of the Stone Age, and many more musicians over the last three decades. In 2021, she won a Grammy for Best Country Album for her work with Tanya Tucker.

Later that year, she was given a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association. For our final installment of our Women's History Month series, Equalizers: Women in Music Production, I'm thrilled to be joined by Trina Shoemaker. Welcome to All Of It.

Trina Shoemaker: Hi. Thank you, Kousha. I'm glad to be here.

Kousha Navidar: I'm so excited to get to speak with you. Let's start right at the beginning. What was your first engineering job?

Trina Shoemaker: My first engineering job was really cleaning recording studios in New Orleans. In my mind, that was an engineering job-

Kousha Navidar: Totally.

Trina Shoemaker: -because it was the late '80s, early '90s, and I was in a studio and I got to touch the gear. I got to dust the gear. For me, that was my first engineering job. It was from there that I, over a very harrowing beginning, learned the art of recording.

Kousha Navidar: Harrowing is a great word. What was harrowing about it?

Trina Shoemaker: For me, it was harrowing because, again, this was pre-Internet, pre-digital. This was back in the analog era, and I was a young woman alone in a strange city. I have a lovely family, but they didn't know what I was doing. Nobody really knew what an engineer was in the world I came from. Everybody knew what a record was, and they knew what the radio was. I think for a while, my dad actually thought maybe I was going to work at Blockbuster Video.

There was no correlation between the art of recording or recording and what I kept saying I wanted to be, a record producer, an engineer. I felt very alone. I had no peers. I just had my wits. I made very little money. I lived literally hand to mouth for a very long time. In that way, it was harrowing. It was also just in the face of this monolithic equipment, which is how it looked to me again. Now, computers are small and equipment is quite dainty, but we're talking about big tape machines, big recording consoles, big speakers, big, heavy rolls of tape.

Cutting yourself on razor blades when you're doing editing, it actually had the possibility to inflict physical injury upon yourself inadvertently. All of it just seemed quite harrow. Beautiful but harrowing.

Kousha Navidar: You mentioned your family not being able to really make the connection between the music they were listening to and the process and what you wanted to do. What drew you to engineering in the first place?

Trina Shoemaker: It was a twofold psychological process that, of course, in hindsight, because I'm nearly 60 years old and I have been able to think back across the past 40 years and fathom that question, I do remember clearly being a very little girl and having a little record player that played 45s and understanding early on that while life was chaos around me, things I didn't understand, things that I found frightening, if I put the needle on the record and it played, and I would always find a favorite part of the song, the chorus or whatever it was that captured my little imagination.

I understood that if I lifted the needle up and put it back and laid it down again, I would receive the dose, I would receive the hit that I needed. Even at maybe four or five years old, I bonded with that which came off the vinyl as something I could count on, something I could control. In addition to that, of course, I loved music and I loved albums, and I loved looking at album jackets and the inside. I would occasionally see glimpses of what I now know as the control room and the people in there crafting the music.

My dad, meanwhile, worked for a gas transmission company and he was a dispatcher. He worked in an underground room at Midwestern Gas, and it was called The Control Room. Inside it was a console, which was, of course, a big board up on the wall that showed the lighted route of the pipelines. There were all kinds of meters and knobs and valves and things that again, later, as I found myself in an actual control room with very, very similar-looking pieces of equipment and a console, a closed environment, I feel that I inadvertently gravitated towards meters because as a little kid, I saw pictures of meters in control rooms and I loved my dad and I wanted to be near him in his place.

Kousha Navidar: Oh, it's so interesting.

Trina Shoemaker: It's just a strange little, I think, psychological thing that happened-

Kousha Navidar: It was that connection.

Trina Shoemaker: -in a kid brain. Then the backdrop was, of course, my great love for music, but never did I have in me, nor do I to this day, a desire to be the performer, to play, to get up in front of people. I'm actually very shy in that way. I was fascinated by the sound. I also remember being a kid putting on headphones, the big 1970s-style heavy plastic headphones, and listening to things like Tubular Bells and Jesus Christ Superstar soundtrack and Simon & Garfunkel and all these amazing records and being fascinated by how is it that this sound is only in the left ear and this sound is only in the right ear and this sound seems to be not quite in the middle.

I didn't know the word panned left or center. Now, of course, I know that's the panning scheme in any given mix, but I was fascinated by it and the aspects of sound.

Kousha Navidar: There's a lot of pieces here that really brought you-- culminated in this desire to investigate the creation of music. We looked at your Discogs and AllMusic credits to get a sense of where you started, going from being a kid to dusting off the consoles and your first job to then actually producing music. We went back to the very beginning. We found a track from the album Steppin' Out Texas Style by The Smokin' Joe Kubek Band from 1991. Do you remember working--

Trina Shoemaker: No. See, AllMusic is not accurate. Sorry, AllMusic. You'd have to go to my website to my discography. That is the accurate. It goes back into the early '90s. I have no memory of that record. Now, that doesn't mean that I wasn't an assistant on it at some point, but there have been probably thousands of records that I've been exposed to. I have no knowledge of this record. You're welcome to play it. I hope it's [crosstalk]

Kousha Navidar: No. I was wondering because that's part of it. It's just that finding such a long, illustrious career, I'm sure you have made so much music. Do you remember the first one that you would credit yourself with making?

Trina Shoemaker: One of the very first ones would have been a record called University by the Throwing Muses. Another very, very early record that I was not just an assistant on, but an actual functioning engineer was Giant Sand record called Glum. Really early on, of course, the Iggy Pop record American Caesar. There was a Neville Brothers record that was produced by Hoch Wolinski. I don't know why I cannot remember the name of it at this moment. There were some really very early stuff that would have been in the very early '90s.

Kousha Navidar: Moving along a little bit, we found another one, Orphan Girl by Emmylou Harris from 1995.

Trina Shoemaker: Yes. Very, very much.

Kousha Navidar: AllMusic credits you with engineering, editing, sequencing, and mastering. Talk to us a little bit about that. What are you proud of on this track?

Trina Shoemaker: Everything. I'm intensely proud of that entire record. It has actually just been or about to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame album area, whatever the proper name of that is. My part of it took place at Kingsway Studio in New Orleans, which was owned by Daniel Lanois, who was a great mentor of mine. I learned much about recording from him and Malcolm Byrne and Mark Howard in those early New Orleans days. Emmylou's record was just magical.

Daryl Johnson sang quite a bit on that. He's a singer and a bass player, and a multi-instrumentalist, not to be confused with the bass player who also plays with the Rolling Stones. There are two Daryl Johnson bass players in the world music. This is not that one. This is another one. Neil Young came in to sing on it. Suddenly I'm getting vocal sounds for Neil Young and just crafting Emmy's vocal. I still remember all of the reverb settings. I remember the EQ settings. I remember the compression settings.

I remember the excitement of mixing live. There was no automation package on the API console at Kingsway. For listeners who don't know what that is, an automation package is basically automated faders that you write in the moves.

Kousha Navidar: You were doing everything by hand.

Trina Shoemaker: Everything by hand. It was all persons on deck. To print one mix, there were several fader moves and several mutes and changes that had to happen.

Kousha Navidar: Let's listen to a little bit of it to give listeners a sense. Here's Orphan Girl by Emmylou Harris. Let's listen to a little bit.

[MUSIC - Emmylou Harris: Orphan Girl]

I am a orphan

On God's highway

But I'll share my troubles

If you go my way

I have no mother

No father

No sister

Kousha Navidar: That was Orphan Girl by Emmylou Harris from 1995. We are talking to Trina Shoemaker as part of our final installment of our Women's History Month series, Equalizers: Women in Music Production. Trina Shoemaker is the first woman to win a Grammy for Best Engineered Album. I want to talk about the Grammys a little bit, Trina. In 1999, you won the Grammy for Best Engineered Album, becoming the first woman to win that award. Take us back to that moment. What did that milestone mean to you?

Trina Shoemaker: It meant a great deal, of course. It was shocking. It was utterly unexpected. Sheryl Crow was, of course, already a famous artist when she started her second record. I was involved in that second record. Nonetheless, to get a call from a colleague of mine I don't even remember, who alerted me that I was nominated for a Grammy, I really didn't even know what on earth he was talking about. It just seemed so unfathomable to me that that was happening.

Of course, Tchad Blake and Andy Wallace were also recipients of that Grammy Award. Of course Tchad called, and he's like, "Are you coming out to LA for the show?" I was panic-stricken because Grammy gowns aren't really in my closet. I went out and bought a dress and did the whole thing and flew out to LA. Tchad and I went together, and that was enough. Just to show up and be in a gown and have my hair done and makeup done and then to sit there.

I never ever thought for a second that it would actually win, and then it did. Of course, you go up on stage. It was pre-show. It's not part of the telecast part of the show. It's the pre-show Grammys. Went on stage, though, and accepted the award. Of course, I was so naive about the process. I thought the prop that they give you to hold while you're accepting the award was your Grammy.

Kousha Navidar: Your Grammy, and you tried have to walk off with it.

Trina Shoemaker: I left the stage, and I'm walking off. They're like, "Excuse me." I was like, "I have to give it back?"

Kousha Navidar: "What's the point?"

Trina Shoemaker: "What's the point?" Then I understood that I'd be mailed one with a name on it.

Kousha Navidar: Do you recall how many women engineers were there around you, especially in those early years of your career?

Trina Shoemaker: Very, very few. Again, in the early years, there was no Internet, so there was no way to Google women engineers. I was aware only of Peggy Leonard and only because she worked on Purple Rain. I was aware of Susan Rogers. Early on, that was it, but I had no idea where these women were or how to find them. Now I know that there was also Leslie Ann Jones, there was Sylvia Massey and probably more, but in my sphere in the world I occupied, there were zero women engineers.

It was just me. Although that never entered my mind. I knew I was a woman, and I knew I was an engineer, but it never occurred to me that there weren't really many others because, frankly, I was busy and the gear doesn't care if you're a man or a woman. Sound does not have a gender. I was strong, I was mean. People didn't really mess around with-- I had a very specific job to do, and it was very exhausting to do, so I never had time to ponder, "I'm the only woman."

Kousha Navidar: You won that Grammy for working on Sheryl Crow's album The Globe Sessions, but you wanted to highlight a different song from Sheryl Crow from her previous self-titled album. The song is Maybe Angels. Why is this song important to you?

Trina Shoemaker: Because at the very beginning, and listeners will hear, a unique sound introduces the track. It goes [unintelligible 00:16:45]. The capturing of that feedback moment by me, and this is all on tape, mind you, we had no pro tools going on, this is all the old fashioned way, was something that I had been trying to-- I had it in my head that I could make two 1176 compressors do something that I wanted to hear. I tried over and over again to get them to do it, and then finally, I got them to do it.

I was in record, of course, and I captured that and I'm just extraordinarily proud of that three seconds in recording history. It's never been repeated. It can never be repeated.

Kousha Navidar: Let's listen to it. Here's Maybe Angels.

[MUSIC - Sheryl Crow: Maybe Angels]

Six-lane highway runnin' up to my back door

But it won't take me where I wanna be

Kousha Navidar: Trina, I'm so happy that you pointed out that sound effect right in the beginning because it really stands out in a wonderful way when you listen for it. Also, I want to touch on country and Americana as generally, because that music is a through-line in your work. Has that been deliberate, or was it more about the people you know and just got put towards that genre? What happened there?

Trina Shoemaker: I started doing music that now would be called Americana, certainly, and in the new country country, not the old country. Not like Arlo Guthrie country, but modern country, before there were those genres or before they were named Americana, certainly. My history just already existed. It actually used to be called alternative, but then that turned into something else. Americana rose up in the public lexicon.

Suddenly I was working on Americana stuff, but I had actually already been working on that sort of music for essentially my whole career. You could say Emmylou Harris's Wrecking Ball is Americana. Now it certainly is. Then it was just Emmylou Harris being cool. No, it was not a choice. It's just that I would start-- when you already have a discography that has a lot of that sort of music and that kind of sonic backdrop, you're known to be able to produce that sort of sound, and so people tend to gravitate towards it, but it was never intentional.

Kousha Navidar: That makes a lot of sense. What kind of music do you listen to for fun?

Trina Shoemaker: I almost exclusively listen to music from the 1970s because, in my opinion, that was the best decade for music, particularly the early '70s. I'm an old lady. I am still stuck in Everyday People and Some Kind of Wonderful and Sam Cooke and Otis Redding and the Rolling Stones, of course, and the Beatles and all of the-- Mainly because there's something sonically that is just-- It's what moved me in the first place. I truly believe that--

Now, that's not to say that there aren't new songs that I don't love and need. Of course there are, but I think that people during their formative years, and in particular adolescents, are bound to music because it helps them through that period where we evolve into young adults. I don't think we ever are able to release ourselves from that. Again, when Everyday People starts, that song freezes me in my tracks. I need to stop what I'm doing and just listen to Sly Stone.

There's no releasing me from that. It can never be a backdrop. It will always be the forefront in songs during that entire period of time. That's still what I listen to and is what I still think sounds the best. That's just me.

Kousha Navidar: Yes, totally. I'm a huge fan of the '70s as well. I rack that up there as one of the best decades for music as well. Let's play a song that just came out this year, though, which you mixed. It's Game I Can't Win from Charley Crockett. What makes you proud of this track?

Trina Shoemaker: Everything. Charley is just already a legend. Shooter Jennings' the producer, David Spreng, the engineer. I mixed that record. I didn't produce that record, of course. They are just so talented. Every single aspect from Charley, his band, the song, the production, the recording, my mix, if I may say so. It was such an easy thing to do. Charley was just so-- I'd put a mix up on the thread, and he'd be like, "You like it?" I'm like, "Yes, of course I like it. I just mixed it for you." "Well, I just want the ladies to be happy."

He's just a Southern gentleman, and he's just like, "I just want basically the ladies to be happy." He's not trying to be silly or sexist in any way. He's just letting me know if I'm happy with it, Charley's happy with it. That's a huge vote of confidence. It was just fun. It's cool. I love it. That's why it made the list.

Kousha Navidar: All right, let's take a listen. Here's Game I Can't Win.

[MUSIC - Charley Crockett: Game I Can't Win]

I'm gonna rob that Mesa Verde bank

Think I'll take it just as fast as I can

That old-time feeling just up and walked away

Left me with these interest rates

Them boys in Nashville, they don't mess around

Better watch 'em when your deal goes down

Gotta play along, let 'em lead you by the hand

Kousha Navidar: Trina, what are you working on these days?

Trina Shoemaker: I just finished mixing a record for the Turnpike Troubadours. This is the second record that I've mixed from them that is not released yet. I'm going to mix a track for a dear friend of mine, Trixie Whitley, in the next few days. Otherwise, I've got some stuff to do, but I still live even after all these years, after all these decades, hand to mouth. I'm waiting for a gig to come in. If anybody's got a record, they need mixed, hit me up.

Kousha Navidar: New York City, if you're listening.

Trina Shoemaker: New York City, if you're listening. No, it's feast or famine. I sometimes am booked with too many records and I don't have enough time to even breathe. I'm double booked. I'm mixing a song for one band, and then I switch, when I put that one up and start another one for another band, it can get to where I feel schizophrenic or then there are times when there's just nothing happening. Then, of course, I panic and think, "It's over. We're done, people. It's finished."

Luckily, I've developed, in my late 50s and going into my 60s here, an entirely new passion which fills the downtime and allows me to know that life isn't over if I don't have another gig lined up immediately. Do you want to know what it is?

Kousha Navidar: I bet I could guess, but why don't you share? What is it?

Trina Shoemaker: I started writing novels.

Kousha Navidar: That's what I was going to guess.

Trina Shoemaker: I've got a novel out on submission now with my agent, Anna Worrell from the David Gurner Company. I'm about to finish my second novel. I don't know if my first novel's going to sell or not. It's all fiction. it takes place in the '90s. Writing another book, I found that I love writing. I never saw that coming. Never. I never wrote before, yet I've realized that all these years of living inside the hidden workings of other people's songs and creating narratives while I lived inside their brains, essentially, I made up my own set of characters that live inside my brain.

When I gave voice to them through written word, I found out that all these years of editing and of extremely focused-- I could spend three hours working on the bridge of one song. That's only about 40 seconds, and I can spend three hours working on a paragraph. It exercises the same part of my mind to work on music and to write, as it turns out. I want to be a writer.

Kousha Navidar: Wonderful. Sounds like you already are a person of many talents. Let's go out on one more song you engineered. You sent us a song from Brandi Carlile that you're proud of. I'm going to say the song, then I'm going to say goodbye to you, and then we're going to listen to it. It's called The Eye, from her album The Firewatcher’s Daughter. We've been talking to Trina Shoemaker as our final installment of our Women's History Month series, Equalizers: Women in Music Production.

Trina is the first woman to win a Grammy for Best Engineered Album. Trina, thanks so much for hanging out with us, for all of your work and for telling us your wonderful career trajectory here. We really appreciate it.

Trina Shoemaker: Thanks for having me.

Kousha Navidar: Let's listen to The Eye. Here it is.

[MUSIC - Brandi Carlile: The Eye]

It really breaks my heart to see a dear old friend

Go down to the worn-out place again

Do you know the sound of a closing door?

Have you heard that sound somewhere before?

Do you wonder if she knows you anymore?