INTERVIEW: Linda Purl is ready to start something new
Photo: Linda Purl’s new album is called This Could Be the Start. Photo courtesy of Matt Baker / Provided by Richard Hillman PR with permission.
Linda Purl, known for her TV work on Happy Days, The Bold and the Beautiful, Matlock, The Office and a number of other shows, has been expanding her musical career in recent years, which has allowed her to stay busy, even with the writers’ and actors’ strikes shutting down Hollywood. She recently released her fourth album of standards, entitled This Could Be the Start, and she will celebrate its debut with a special concert Monday, Sept. 11 at The Green Room 42 in Manhattan.
“I’m very, very grateful,” Purl said in a recent phone interview. “It was fun to do, and I’m looking forward to being back at The Green Room.”
Purl said that her musical projects begin with Ted Firth, her musical director. She was first introduced to him 15 years ago, and ever since then they have worked together on recording projects. Purl will typically bring a concept to Firth, and he’ll take some time to flesh it out and develop some unique arrangements. “And we compile a much too long list, and then we just start to play with ideas,” she said.
Firth will be at The Green Room 42 gig on piano. The other band members for the evening will be David Finck on bass and Ray Marchica on drums. The song selection will lean on the new album, which features tunes like “Blue Moon,” “Let’s Get Lost” and “Taking a Chance on Love,” according to press notes. Ultimately the album is about crossroads and the decisions one needs to make.
“We all come to those moments, those intersection moments where you think, do I go, do I stay, do I walk through the door, do I pick up the phone,” she said. “They’re thrilling, precarious moments, and sometimes you make the right decisions — God knows, sometimes you don’t, at least in my case. Also, coming out of the pandemic, it was such a reset button, for better and for worse, for so many people. We were all kind of starting afresh and reemerging. I think it was a time of new beginnings in many ways, individually but also collectively.”
Purl said that in her younger years as an actor on TV, she would often look to the veterans in her industry as people who had it all “figured out.” Now, with some perspective, she realizes there many more mountains to climb at this point in her career and life (and there are literal mountains to climb — Purl is an avid hiker and ascender of Colorado’s many peaks).
“I think the thing that surprises me at this stage is that there are so many beginnings,” she said. “I think in my younger years I would look to these ages — I’m in my 60s — and I just sort of thought, well, everything is figured out by then. You’re settled, and you know exactly what your life path is going to be. That couldn’t be further from the truth. New jobs come up — new friendships, new opportunities, new challenges. I’m a parent, so my journey as a parent continues and changes. So there are always learning curves and curveballs. My partner, Patrick Duffy, and I started a sourdough starter company a little over a year ago. That’s been a huge learning curve, just huge. We’ve never done something like this in our lives, and we just kind of fell into it. I sure didn’t see that adventure coming.”
When selecting songs for the new recording, Purl was looking for deep lyrics that touch upon some of these issues, words and stories that impacted her in the right way and provide some fresh perspectives on life and living.
“I guess because I’m an actress-singer, the story of the song has to grab me in order for me to want to do it, and so it has to hook into me in some personal way, either consciously or subconsciously,” she said. “There has to be an immediate emotional spark to it, so that’s one thing. It tends to articulate some particular moment in life, so I think that’s true for each of the songs on any CD that we’ve done, but certainly this one. … So I usually come into the studio with Ted with an idea behind the song, whatever the story is behind the lyric, and also a feel and/or a rhythm I’d like to try out on a song. But that’s a big blob of clay to give someone, and then Ted makes it happen.”
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
Linda Purl’s new album is called This Could Be the Start, and she will celebrate its release with a special concert Monday, Sept. 11 at 7 p.m. at The Green Room 42 in New York City. Click here for more information and tickets.
