Explore every episode of the podcast Girl To Country: A Memoir

Mother & daughter on the road in 2004, the last hurrah?

This episode brought me to tears a few times. I cut out the big sobs. It also made me laugh.

Includes I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts live from Barry's Pub Grange Ireland by Hazel & Amy Rigby

You can watch the whole show on YouTube

"I'm not just a girl. I'm a girl with a guitar..." I wrote in Girl To City. Guitar is part of my identity, and it's not always easy how that works. A big part of it is about feeling free.

Writing Dancing With Joey Ramone, touring with Steve Earle.

Early solo version of DWJR from an interview on KUT in Austin. 

Thanks for listening!

It hadn't been an easy tour...but then what tour was ever easy? Ireland, the UK; Charles tightens the screws even with an ocean between us. Back home, an ending approaches.

I don't think I realized until recording this episode how sad, and how strong I must've been back then. Thanks for listening.

“If I hadn’t been up on a stage, he wouldn’t have looked at me twice. He was the type of man who measured his self-worth by the kind of woman he was with. I was definitely not that kind of woman.
If I hadn’t been a singer-songwriter, he wouldn’t have thought he knew me when we’d barely met.
If I… if only… why do things happen the way they do?”

Recording Til The Wheels Fall Off. Gaining traction but getting weary, heading for some bumpy road...

Tracks in this episode:

• The Deal from Til The Wheels Fall Off
• Rode Hard from The Sugar Tree

The ins and outs of living in Nashville circa 2003...my picture on the post office wall; Angelo and Chuck, Rosie and Lucinda

• Don't Know Nothin' circa 2003, me and Tony Gilkyson on guitars

Thanks for listening!

On the road again...and again: Dallas, Dublin and a promising encounter in Hull.

Thanks for listening. Back to our weekly schedule!

Going out of print...the end of one thing and the beginning of another.

My daughter's growing up, how does that work?

Song in this episode from Til The Wheels Fall Off

Chapter Sixteen coming next week.

Homeownership, the world changed; van trouble and playing anyway

Songs in this episode 

• (What's So Funny `Bout) Peace Love & Understanding live Sept 21, 2001
• Don't Ever Change April 24, 2026

Farewell to a forefather; ciao Roma; keeping on

Tracks in this episode:

• Flashback from Girl To City
• Babysitter
• Rode Hard from The Sugar Tree

Thanks for listening!

Still hanging out at the artist door - late night TV, lots of touring; Patti Smith's backstage rider.

Songs in this episode: 

• Cynically Yours live on Late Night with Conan O'Brien
• They Don't Know live at Village Underground Jan 2001 (you can find that recording along with other old live & demo tracks on Faulkner, Dylan, Heinz & Me

Songwriting in Nashville: writing dates, song demos; publisher and friends

Tracks in this episode:

• Keep It To Yourself demo and cassette tape discussion with co-writer Bill DeMain
• One More Time cassette demo - Joy Lynn White and me, Joy recorded this song for her 2005 One More Time album co-produced with Kyle Lehning

Dip top cones, John Prine, Whole Wide World and a family slide show

Live recording of Cynically Yours (circa...2003?)

Rode Hard from The Sugar Tree

Thanks for listening!

Ups and downs of my first UK tour, back in the year 2000

Includes a clip of Wait Til I Get You Home from The Sugar Tree and a little interview snippet, from an archive recording of The Tom Morton Show on BBC Radio Scotland

Rode Hard from The Sugar Tree (as of last week, this album is finally available to stream on Apple Music, Spotify, etc )

Thanks for listening!

A music convention in Cleveland circa 2000 and the Beachland; summer in Nashville; love with a drummer

Tracks in this episode

20 Questions and Give The Drummer Some from I've Got The World On A Broken String

Rode Hard from The Sugar Tree

Thanks for listening!

Making an album in Nashville circa 2000 with a talented bunch of players; aiming for the heights but falling a little short with the cover photo shoot.

Songs in this episode from The Sugar Tree

You Better Stay Gone

Let Me In A Little Bit

Happy For You

Rode Hard

Touring with Warren Zevon; Skeeter at the Opry; seeing in Y2K back in Brooklyn; getting it together to make a new album

Songs in this episode:

• Reconsider Me live at The Space Hamden CT 
• Everything's Different Now rough demo 1999
• Rode Hard from The Sugar Tree

The challenges of adjusting to Nashville 1999, and a few of the benefits too

Songs in this episode:

• The Good Girls (from Diary of a Mod Housewife)
• Always With Me (from Little Fugitive)
• Rode Hard (from The Sugar Tree)

Thanks for listening!

Leaving New York City for Nashville the hot summer of 1999 - can you say car trouble?

Songs in this episode

• The Purgatory Principle - live recording circa `93, Faulkner Dylan Heinz & Me
• Bargain Bin - original Last Roundup demo 1983
• As Is - Middlescence

Thanks for listening!

Love - a major inspiration and near-constant distraction.

In the round at the Bluebird, oh lord I want to be in that number.

Songs in this episode:

Magicians demo

Rode Hard from The Sugar Tree

Thanks for listening!

A nice guy from Springfield...

The road is long and the struggle is eternal

1998 - Still looking at Nashville and Making Middlescence

A cat named James and a smart kid

Songs in this episode:

Snippet from Sleeping With The Moon recorded by Jay Joyce (unreleased)

Rode Hard from The Sugar Tree

NYC alternate side parking burnout; sophomore album second-guessing, and the siren song of late 20th century Nashville.

Songs in this episode:

Farmer's Daughter - Shams rehearsal tape

The Good Girls

Rode Hard

New York singer songwriter Amy Rigby finds herself at a church service in Nashville. Thirty-five years old—uncomfortably close to being over the hill —she's exploring the possibility of a songwriting career while she tries to find someone to release her first solo album Diary Of A Mod Housewife.

"It was 1994, the year Kurt Cobain killed himself and Michael Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley. A few months later, OJ Simpson would be arrested for murder...Church sounded like it could be interesting, or at least amusing. Maybe even helpful? I didn't know what I believed anymore."

Songs in this episode:

• Rode Hard, from The Sugar Tree