TRANSCRIPT OF WOMAN ZONE INTERVIEW WITH TRUDY RUSHIN, PART OF ‘FINDING HERSELF’ PODCAST SERIES (DEC. 2020)
INTERVIEWER: THERESA SMITH
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I was going to ask you this question about
would you give a shoutout to anyone who has helped you along the way, so let’s
talk about that.
TRUDY: Ok, so I would definitely say the biggest influence in my life was my mother. She is now 90 years old and has Alzheimer’s, so our relationship has changed, because she doesn’t communicate like she used to, etc. but watching her, when I was growing up – at home, she was just Mommy and she wore like huisklere and cleaned the floors herself and cooked and did everything, but when she went on stage, she transformed, you know – she dressed and she wore jewelry and I remember always being blown away by her singing. Whether it was in a community concert or in an opera, but she was always this like unbelievable goddess. And... then at home she was Mommy – warm, loving, nurturing. Ja, you know, just such a strange combination and yet I think that ended up paving the way for sort of how I live my life – not that I’m a goddess! (giggles) Ja! I hope I’m raising one!
I have one sibling and that’s my sister, Wendy, and she’s always had my back, so shoutout to her. I have family members – cousins – who are fairly close and we, at different stages of my life, we lived with different family members, so my mother, my sister and I, we lived at different … with family… and then, in the music part of my world: Eddie Petersen, Keith Tabisher, Wayne Bosch.
The late Errol Dyers – I met him
only in 2011, but in the short time that I knew him, until his death, he made a
huge impact on me. I loved the fact that he seemed devoid of ego – in terms of
“I’m the great Errol Dyers” – he was very humble and it showed in how he made
space for me, when we made music together. And I just liked him a lot - his
value system, his no-nonsense approach. He refused to play cover versions. And
I regret to say that at one gig, I mean I got him to play a wedding with me,
where we did cover versions. But, you know, it was a job and, at different
stages of musicians’ lives, they do that kind of thing. But in general, he
didn’t like playing cover versions – he liked playing either his originals or
the originals of the person he was playing with, so he liked my songs. Or he
wanted to play South African music.
And then, more recently, a
musician I’ve worked with is Rudy Burns. He’s more than ten years my senior,
also a guitarist, beautiful musician and I really … I’m very lucky to have
these accomplished musicians who are happy to play my music and play along with
me, you know.
And then, three people I want to mention who are in the music world but not musicians, who’ve really made a difference to me: two of them are Chantel Erfort and her husband, André Manuel, who have Dala Flat Music.
And in 2004 they came to a gig
where Keith and I were playing, and Chantel heard some of my originals and gave
me an opportunity to perform my originals to a poetry audience. At that time, she was organising monthly poetry nights at this restaurant in
Adderley Street, called Off Moroka, which is no longer there. And that was the first time I’d played in
that kind of setting, where people were just sitting in a fairly intimate space
and I think for thirty minutes I just played my original songs. And it really
felt like baring my soul and it felt like such a … it was such a difficult thing for me, for
many reasons.
I just want to take a step back.
I had been married for six years, and even though I married a musician, it was
not a harmonious marriage, most of the time. And one of the things he said to
me, that informed me for a while, until I broke free of that, was “Don’t sing
your songs in public – they’re too personal. “ And the first night that I
played at Chantel’s poetry evening, when I sang my originals… only originals …
just myself, nobody else playing with me – at the end of that set, women came
up to me and said, “You’ve sung my story. You’ve put into words, into songs,
what I could never turn into a piece of art – but you’ve sung my story.“ And
that … that was a big, big change in my life. And another interesting part of
the Chantel-André dynamic is that I taught Chantel when she was in Sub A!
(Giggles) So that was amazing - that someone on whose life I had impacted, when
she was so young, then impacted on mine, all those years later.
And then another person who has done
a lot for me, musically, is Lisba Vosloo. She is a documentary filmmaker and I
met her when she was filming my mom for a documentary on the Eoan Group. And
she then came to one of my gigs and filmed me and then it turned into filming
two videos that are now on YouTube. So, Lisba has done a whole lot for me and …
ja… and we continue to be in each other’s lives, all these people, so it’s… and
there are many others … I just … you know, there are so many people who impact
on one, in small and big ways, and we
really are who we are because of other people – what they bring out in us and
what they see in us.
Oh, and then lastly, how can I
forget! I want to do a shoutout to my children. My son, Nick, is 25 and my
daughter, Summer, is 21. And they really know and understand me better than
anybody else and they are so supportive. Ja, they just…. I’m really in a very,
very good space with my children and it’s wonderful to see how they have
internalised some of the messages that I’ve tried to live my life with… you
know, like authenticity and speaking your truth, etc. So, big shoutout to them
as well.
Nick & Summer, March 2020
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