Ellen Angelico: Hey everyone. Ellen here. Originally I was gonna have one bonus episode from the live show in March of 2025, but there was just so much great stuff in there. I decided to split it into two parts. So this first one is gonna be my interview with Broadband member Karen Dee and the Broadband reunion performance.

And my interview with Ann Powers will be in the next episode. So here we go. Enjoy.

Hi, everybody. My name is Ellen Angelico. Welcome to Girl in A Hurry Live. For those of you who don’t know why you’re here, I made a podcast about a woman named Shelly Bush.

 She was a remarkable woman who changed my life and the lives of a lot of people here in the room tonight. Tonight is being recorded for a bonus episode of the podcast, so please don’t shout anything out you’re not comfortable with me broadcasting to the public.

Shelly passed away 10 years ago, and I thought it was high time she got her due. This show is the culmination of five years of work, and I’m super proud of the podcast and proud to be a small part of Shelly’s story. First up, if everybody’s game, and even if you’re not, I’d like to record a message for Shelly’s business partner Garnett, who has bad knees and couldn’t make it.

So everybody say “Hello, Garnett” on three. 1, 2, 3. 

Audience: Hello, Garnett. 

Ellen Angelico: That’s very good. Another person who couldn’t be here tonight is Shelly’s mom, Shirley. I talk to Shirley all the time now, and she’s just an angel.

I was playing at somewhere crappy on Printer’s Alley. And I got a call from her and I stepped out into the alley and she dictated this message for me to read.

This note is from Shelly’s mom. Wish I could be there, but I would just cry. I miss Shelly so much. I’m all alone now. Shelly’s dad died on my birthday. The last Christmas Shelly was home, I asked her, “Shelly, don’t you wish you had brothers and sisters?” And she looked at me and said, “Mom, I do have brothers and sisters.

They’re in Nashville and I got to choose them. And I love them like my family.” Thanks everyone for being Shelly’s friends and brothers and sisters, and I love you all too. So that’s the message from Shirley to all of you.

All these people who were so close to Shelly, like her mom, Garnett. Shelly’s cousin, Sheila, is here. She came in from out of town to be here tonight. I want you to know, and I want Shirley and Garnett to know and everybody who’s so close to her, all her family back in Missouri, her best friend, Brenda, that we think about Shelly all the time.

I think I can speak for everybody here tonight who played with Shelly—and her memory lives on in our hearts. The women who are gonna get up and play here tonight and there’s loads of other women like them in town,

these people are Shelly’s legacy. It’s them and it’s the way they carry themselves in the world, the way they make music. You guys are amazing people and musicians, and I’m proud to call you my friends. And this story wouldn’t be here without you guys. So we’re gonna have some fun tonight.

We’re gonna talk to Karen Dee and Ann Powers, and we’re gonna have a live performance featuring members of Shelly’s band.

I’m really excited about that. And at the end of the evening, we’re gonna have a few minutes for audience questions. Start thinking of questions now, so that part of the show isn’t super awkward. First up, we’ve got a live interview with Karen Dee and, Nick, if you’ll hit the music, we’ll be back after a short break.

Thanks so much, y’all.

Actually, I decided that break is short enough. Let’s just go.

Hi, Karen. 

Karen Dee: Hello, Ellen. I’m gonna try not to cry. 

Ellen Angelico: Okay. 

Karen Dee: For one, just saying.

Ellen Angelico: I’m gonna try not to make you cry. 

Karen Dee: There’s a lot of memories, a lot of great memories.

Ellen Angelico: Hey, speaking of memories, I had a listening party at my house for the members of Broadband a few weeks ago, and we got to talking about something interesting to me. You mentioned how Paula Jo, when she first came to town, had to learn a million songs for Shelly, and when you switched from drums to bass, the songs that you taught to Paula Jo, then she had to teach them to you.

And that’s a theme that comes up a lot in the podcast, people learning how to play music in Shelly’s band. Can you talk about how that played out and what it was like to learn on the fly like that? 

Karen Dee: Well, first of all, I didn’t teach PJ anything. She just worked her rear off to learn all of Shelly’s songs in the girl keys and guy songs in girl keys, which is difficult. Erin Holiman was playing bass on the road with Broadband. And Erin’s in Vegas now, for those of you who don’t know her, but Erin got pregnant. And so that’s the one thing for a girl band that you can’t always factor in.

Ellen Angelico: Pregnancy? Pregnancy? 

Karen Dee: Yeah, pregnancy. You screwed up the band. What the hell? But anyway, so I understood the instrument. My mom plays bass. So I had kind of messed around with the instrument my whole life. But when it got right down to it, we couldn’t find another player.

I just told Shelly, I’m like, switch me to bass and I will woodshed. And you have to give me a couple of gigs downtown here and there to try to keep up and learn with the other girls as they’re learning new songs and stuff. But there were several songs during that time that, yeah, we’d be on stage and literally Paula Jo is just dragging me through the, you know, “Crazy” and stuff like that, those little more complicated songs.

And I was just always grateful and appreciative to her for just teaching me a lot of stuff. 

Ellen Angelico: You did that for me too. And you were a much more experienced bass player by the time that I was in Shelly’s band, but you play bass in a way that taught me the songs. I never didn’t know what chord we were headed for from the way that you played. Because you didn’t always have time to shout the chords at me or to give me what they were. 

Karen Dee: Just do this, Ellen. [vocalizes] 

Ellen Angelico: That’s right. In the podcast I describe you as my hero, which is true. I think for me it’s a combination of who you are as a musician and a person, as well as your sense of humor. Did you find that your sense of humor helped you survive life on the road with Broadband and with Shelly? 

Karen Dee: Oh, for sure. But just for me, sense of humor is the way I can survive life in general, regardless of the situation, whether it’s in a band or just every day. Because people are crazy, just saying. But yeah, you know how it is when you’re on the road and you’re all just exhausted and you’re basically punch drunk. Everything’s just super funny or everyone’s crying. Like I said, it’s girls. 

Ellen Angelico: Yeah. It’s funny ’cause it, at the time it didn’t always feel that funny, but when we tell the stories now it’s like… 

Karen Dee: It was stressful.

Ellen Angelico: It was stressful. 

Karen Dee: I mean, there was a lot of stress. We would play two shifts on a Thursday and then jump in a van and drive 16 hours. Show up in somewhere in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. And you had a choice, do I want to eat or do I wanna shower? We cut it really that close so many times. So yeah, there was a lot of stress involved, but you just roll with it, just do it. 

Ellen Angelico: I told Mandy that I was gonna try to run like, kind of a tight ship time-wise today, and she was like, well it’s the first time a Shelly show is gonna run on time. 

Karen Dee: That’s for sure.

Ellen Angelico: What made someone a good bandmate in Broadband? Or conversely, what made them a bad one? Not to incriminate anyone. 

Karen Dee: I don’t really recall having bad band mates. I felt like for the most part, for the number of hours that we were all locked up together in a tuna can, that we held it together pretty good. I’m not gonna say we didn’t have moments, you know, Nebraska. But… 

Ellen Angelico: Wait, tell me what happened in Nebraska. 

Karen Dee: Well, one of the girls in the band insisted that she could only be happy if we had Starbucks, and believe it or not, it was not Shelly. 

Ellen Angelico: Yeah, I was gonna say.

Karen Dee: It was not Shelly at that time. So it was some drama because it, you know, killed an hour on a 24 hour drive already. Those moments were tense. 

Ellen Angelico: How long does it take to get from here to Sturgis? 

Karen Dee: 24 hours. 

Ellen Angelico: 24 hours. 

Karen Dee: It did for us. I’m not sure what the normal, but you’re stopping every hour for someone to use the bathroom or someone to get another cup of coffee or, you know.

Ellen Angelico: And did you stop halfway and stay somewhere in Minnesota or something? 

Karen Dee: No. 

Ellen Angelico: Just drove 24 hours to Sturgis.

Karen Dee: I recall the last time, I believe, we did Sturgis, we came back through Missouri, maybe, Karen, and played the state fair? I think we played like fourteen gigs in nine days or something. And that was not just, walk in like this and pull out a stick. It was like, you’re tearing up. 

Ellen Angelico: Right. You’re pulling the whole…

Karen Dee: Twice a day.

Ellen Angelico: …PA and everything out of the van. And that’s like, this type of traveling is not comfortable. You don’t lay down in your bunk. 

Karen Dee: We rotated the back couch. Everyone would have a chance to lay down. 

Ellen Angelico: Why did we do that? How did we, what? How did we tol–? 

Karen Dee: We wanted to be rock stars, man. 

Ellen Angelico: Yeah. I couldn’t do that now. We were talking about that hustle. We just can’t do that now. 

Karen Dee: No, it’s definitely a young person’s sport.

Ellen Angelico: We’ve both played in a lot of bands and played a lot of different kinds of music and there was stuff that happened in Shelly’s band that just didn’t happen in other bands. Why was that? What was it about Shelly that attracted all this wackiness? 

Karen Dee: I’m not sure. I don’t know. I mean…

Ellen Angelico: It was wacky people sometimes too.

Karen Dee: Yeah. A little bit of that, I’m sure. 

Ellen Angelico: I, you kind of, I’m trying to say this in a way that is kind. You didn’t always know, like if Shelly had hired somebody to fill in, you didn’t always know that they were gonna hit the marks and you had to be willing to take them along with you and show them what it was.

Karen Dee: Yes.

Ellen Angelico: There were times I remember, especially towards the end of Shelly’s life, when we were doing those 2-6 at the Full Moon, and there was one particular drummer who we had trouble with who just couldn’t keep time through the whole thing, or couldn’t shuffle or always shuffled.

It was always something wrong. And I just remember you playing the bass just being like, [stomps]. On “Devil” or whatever, just pounding through to the basement of the Full Moon to get this girl to go with you. 

Karen Dee: That’s possible.

Ellen Angelico: Playing bass and drums at the same time. Again, it wasn’t funny in the moment, but now I think about you doing that, and it’s funny. 

Karen Dee: There were some challenges. 

Ellen Angelico: It was a challenge. I hope I wasn’t ever that challenging. 

Karen Dee: No. 

Ellen Angelico: What was the strangest or most unexpected gig you played with Shelly, where you rolled up in the van and you were like, “here?” 

Karen Dee: Shelly always liked to go to Wisconsin in the summertime and play a lot of the festivals and stuff up there. Oshkosh and Country USA and Cadot. The strangest gig was on one of those tours. Because she was trying to piece enough stuff together to pay us to go up there, you know? And we basically played a bowling alley. We actually played two bowling alleys that week.

One was very nice. One was nice with a dance floor and a big bar and everything like this. But the other one was literally like, I think I have a picture of me looking like my head’s in the claw machine, ’cause my drums were sitting right in front of the claw machine. So I had ’em take a picture of my face, like a stuffed animal.

Ellen Angelico: Did you guys haul the PA into that bowling alley? Like they didn’t normally have a band there? 

Karen Dee: Correct. Because what Shelly would do, she would call and say, I’m looking for work. Can we do a band? And she’s like, well, I don’t normally have music in here and Shelly’s like, well, so? Let’s do it. 

The bowling alley thing was kind of that. Well, we’re just gonna come in and play. 

Ellen Angelico: One of my favorite stories that you tell in the podcast is of the time that you guys were playing at Second Fiddle, and Shelly looked across the street and saw that the Full Moon was opening up. Can you tell that story? 

Karen Dee: As soon as the door was open or she could go in there and talk to someone, she was over there talking to Galen, trying to book some gigs.

Ellen Angelico: She just put the band on autopilot.

Karen Dee: Oh, you guys sing a couple, I’ll be right back. That kind of thing, which was fine. Everybody in the band’s always sang pretty much. 

Ellen Angelico: She would do that a lot. She would do that to take a call, book some more gigs. 

Karen Dee: Two phones. 

Ellen Angelico: Two phones.

Karen Dee: Always. 

Ellen Angelico: Which I’ve heard is, like, a sketchy thing. I have two phones now because I work for this guitar company. And they’ve got a phone for me, and now I’ve got two phones. And my understanding is I could conduct illicit business on one of them. Anyway, that’s just an aside.

Karen Dee: We’ll talk about that later.

Ellen Angelico: What were we talking about? Oh yeah, Shelly’s running around, leaving gigs. Can you explain another fun Shelly phenomenon, which was where she would occasionally leave her vehicles during gigs on Broadway? 

Karen Dee: Well, years ago you could actually park on Fifth.

Ellen Angelico: You could park on Broadway.

Karen Dee: Yeah, you could park on Broadway and you could park on Fifth right there by the Ryman. Because it was one way at the time. And she was towed like every other day. And then they did, finally though, I think that once they realized whose van it was, they actually kind of started leaving it alone.

Ellen Angelico: I definitely remember times that we were playing Layla’s and she had the van out in front of Layla’s with the flashers on for, like, most of the gig. 

Karen Dee: The loading zone. 

Ellen Angelico: Yeah. Just left it and then would leave, would say, hey, play a couple songs if there was a need to move it. But it’s funny, you couldn’t do that now. 

Karen Dee: No, no. There’s no parking anywhere now. Much less on Lower Broadway. 

Ellen Angelico: Another theme that comes up in the podcast that this makes me think of is Shelly’s relentless work ethic. How did that energy affect the band and the people around her?

Karen Dee: Well, she just had so much work. You could work as much as you wanted to, sometimes, maybe more than you wanted to. But she was just that relentless that if you were in the gang, you were just along for the ride. She’d send out an email at the first of the month or whatever, with road gigs and miscellaneous stuff.

And then she had, I don’t even know how many regular shifts on Broadway, just that we knew, standing gigs or whatever on a weekly, so, she was very busy. 

Ellen Angelico: I mean, it was as much work as you could possibly want. Like if you wanted to play with Shelly. You had as many, I mean, when I got off the road and Shelly didn’t know me from Adam, it was just because Mandy said, hey, Ellen’s getting off the road. And she was like, sure, what all gigs do you want? Like I got, 

Karen Dee: Oh yeah. 

Ellen Angelico: It was like she opened up the, it was like [makes sound], it was like a whole thing full of gigs. And I was overwhelmed because I hadn’t done that type of gigging. I was like, so what songs do you do? And she was basically like, “all of them,” and sent me a list of songs that was, like, five pages long. And I remember, and I was sitting in this room that I rented from a lady who owned a bagel shop that I was doing wholesale deliveries for at the time.

And I charted and charted and charted. I mean, I must have gone through, like, three Sharpies because it was just so much music. She really knew that much music. 

Karen Dee: Oh yeah. 

Ellen Angelico: Mostly knew it. 

Karen Dee: Yeah, she did. She did. And, in atypical chick singer fashion, she actually knew what key she sang things in. Not, oh, the record or, she actually knew. She had enough musical knowledge to understand that she needed to know those things. 

Ellen Angelico: Yeah. She really had business acumen. Like she knew what the expectations were and she tried to meet them. Something that Beth said in the podcast that I hadn’t really thought about was the way that Shelly standardized the list of girl songs. You played with other people besides Shelly, before Shelly. Did you find that that was true?

Karen Dee: I would say so, but I think that, if you’re down there enough, you know that everybody’s gonna, there’s a 20 or 25 songs that every band is going to play.

Ellen Angelico: Yeah. There was something different about Shelly, though, on Broadway. Well, there was many things that were different about her, but the most noticeable one to me was the all female band or even just the mostly female band. I mean, when she was on Broadway, she wasn’t always trying to do Broadband. Like it was just whoever was around. And it happened to be mostly chicks most of the time. Did you feel that that got you and Shelly more opportunities, fewer opportunities, or just different opportunities? 

Karen Dee: I would say at the time, definitely more opportunities. Shelly was booking a lot of casinos and she had done gigs for a long time downtown and all around town and traveling before it was all girls. And then it just happened that a lot of the people that she was using on the regular were female. And she had an agent that recommended to her that if she could make it an all female thing, it would definitely be beneficial as far as booking road work. 

Ellen Angelico: Because she was almost there. Because it was, like, almost an all female band. 

Karen Dee: Yes. Usually the missing link was the guitar because that is, by nature, not a feminine instrument. 

Ellen Angelico: Yeah. It’s hard. Even today, it’s hard to find people who can, like women or non-men who can play guitar at a really high level. 

Karen Dee: Yes. 

Ellen Angelico: In country anyway. I feel like I see it more in rock and pop.

Karen Dee: Even people like Bonnie Raitt, they’re not chicken picking.

Ellen Angelico: Right.

Karen Dee: They’re very good, they’re very talented, and they’re awesome at what they do. But it’s not the same as what Nashville grows you into.

Ellen Angelico: And it’s funny because now that I’ve been out of downtown, I don’t have that facility. We were just talking about that. I don’t have that same, you dropped me into Layla’s with KP or the Risches or whoever and it’s time for Orange Blossom Special and I’m just gonna “boom chick” until it’s over. I don’t have the technical skill that I used to have ’cause it was demanding. Playing with Shelly was demanding.

Karen Dee: Oh, sure. 

Ellen Angelico: You’re an amazing storyteller and you make me laugh so much. Can you please tell me the story of Little Jimmy Jacker and can you explain what was going through your head while all that went down?

Karen Dee: We were booked on a Mardi Gras party in Gulf Shores, at the convention center. Very large venue. We’re all pretty pumped up and we’re excited. It’s big production with lighting and a sound company and all that. And I think Amy was playing drums and I was on bass and Shelly liked to start with Hicktown. Then she’d do Here for the Party, like as a two-song medley, and we kick it and we’re playing and we’re vamping and she doesn’t come in. And so we’re just like, go. She panicked. I guess she forgot the lyrics, but she, the first line, I’m not even for sure what it’s supposed to be. 

Ellen Angelico: Little Jimmy Jackson is jacking up his Bronco. 

Karen Dee: Yeah. Little Jimmy Jackson is jacking up his Bronco, but she said, “Little Jimmy Jacker is jacking up his johnson.” I mean, needless to say the seriousness of the moment, of the gig and everything, we all lost it. Paula’s crying. I’m just crying, laughing so hard. I was, and Amy, you have to know Amy. We just couldn’t stop laughing. It was really hard to kinda regroup after that. But Shelly had this way too when she knew she messed something up. She just turned around and she just give you this look like, what? Like, what now? And we just couldn’t help her because no one could speak. We were just so, just could not stop laughing.

Ellen Angelico: Was that also the gig that Amy found something unexpected backstage?

Karen Dee: In the green room. 

Ellen Angelico: Now that story didn’t make it into the podcast. Can you tell that story?

Karen Dee: So we show up at the venue and over to the side, there are rooms and plain as day, there’s a room that’s with Broadband’s name, Broadband, there’s your green room. We’ll bring you some food later. Okay, great. So Amy’s gonna take her backpack, her changing of clothes and everything. Put ’em in the green room, till we got through soundcheck. Well, I guess the prior event was still happening in that room, which involved a pole and a scantily clad female. But Amy’s like, oh, are y’all sure this is our, all these dudes in there. It was interesting.

Ellen Angelico: Something that gets discussed amply in the podcast is Shelly’s incredible ability to mess up lyrics and land on her feet. And sometimes it was unintentional. And sometimes it was intentional to avoid a certain topic and she didn’t wanna sing about marijuana. And so in Toes, she said, “gonna lay in the hot sun and get me a sunburn,” instead of, “roll a big fat one.” And I just couldn’t, there were so many lyric stories that didn’t make it into the podcast that were incredible. Like the classics, like “she was in the backyard sitting on a picket fence.” She was in the backyard sitting on a picket fence. And I mean, it’s just like you, she was sitting where?

Karen Dee: Well, and “The Devil,” she left out a verse. When you’re singing “The Devil,” if you leave out any of the lyrics, then the story doesn’t all come together. She just gets to that one verse and she said, the devil said, “get on, boy.” 

Ellen Angelico: There was one time towards the end of Shelly’s life that she sang the first verse of Devil and then went right to the last verse, which if you’re familiar with Devil Went Down to Georgia, eliminates the whole middle, like the whole plot. The devil and the guitar solo, the whole bit. 

Karen Dee: Yeah. The showdown. 

Ellen Angelico: And it was, I think it was you and me and maybe Leon. And we just got to the end and it was like [vocalizing], and we were like… 

Karen Dee: It’s like, man, that’s the fastest rendition. 

Ellen Angelico: We’re looking around, like, I guess we’re not gonna keep going. Another, there were so many that didn’t make it into the podcast, and if you ever wanna know, just like dozens of these come up to me anytime, and I will read them for you off of my phone. But Luther told me one at the party that I hadn’t heard. It’s the Martina McBride song, My Baby Loves Me Just the Way That I Am, and the real lyric is he never tells me I’m not good enough.

Paula Jo Taylor: Just gives me unconditional.

Ellen Angelico: Just gives me unconditional love. Thank you. And Shelly goes, “he never tells me I’m not good enough, likes my nerve, and he loves my stuff.” And Luther says, well, Shelly, you must have some real stuff.

Karen Dee: It’s too bad. Luther had another story that he was gonna tell that night at your house too, about Shelly at Legend’s Corner.

Ellen Angelico: Can you tell it?

Karen Dee: I can. Shelly had, in the beginning of her career, she had a wireless mic that was a little iffy at times. It might just cut out at random. And there was this older gentleman, every time he came to town, he would find Shelly. He’d always come hear us play and he would want to sit in and sing a couple of older country songs and we were glad to have him. Nice enough fella, but he went by the name of Captain Country.

So, uh, Shelly’s gonna introduce and get Captain Country up to sing, and as she’s getting ready to announce Captain Country, her mic cut out at…

Ellen Angelico: Oh.

Karen Dee: At just the exact right.

Ellen Angelico: Just before she got to the “try” of “country.”

Karen Dee: Yes.

Ellen Angelico: I see.

Karen Dee: Yes. How do you recover from that? I mean, really.

Ellen Angelico: But she did somehow, like, none of this was ever a real big deal to her.

Karen Dee: No.

Ellen Angelico: Like, she just kind of kept right on.

Karen Dee: Shelly had an ability to let difficult things roll off of her in a way that is enviable actually, I think because she had a lot to overcome.

Ellen Angelico: Yeah.

Karen Dee: So she was a pretty tough girl.

Ellen Angelico: Yeah, she was. If she was here today, what do you think she’d think about the fact that we’re all sitting around still talking about her? I don’t think it would surprise her one bit.

Karen Dee: I don’t think it would surprise her. And I think honestly it would make her very proud. I feel like that it would make her very happy. But only if she could sing, only if we’d make this Shelly Zone.

Ellen Angelico: Right.

Karen Dee: With 14 books and 10 CD stands.

Ellen Angelico: Yep. Yep. Yeah.

Karen Dee: All that made Shelly.

Ellen Angelico: Her little milk crate with the charts in it. Her huge pull-behind zip thing with all of the con–, her legal pads and notebooks.

Karen Dee: She had quite a lot of stuff to move around down there on Lower Broadway. She’d be rolling that suitcase and that little CD cart from Layla’s over to the Full Moon and back and forth. 

Ellen Angelico: Karen, thank you so much for agreeing to do this and sitting down and talking to me. We’re gonna take a few minutes here and have a changeover, and then we’re gonna, what did you say? Clear it up and make it Shelly Time.

Karen Dee: That’s it.

Ellen Angelico: We’re gonna clear it up and make it Shelly time.

Karen Dee: Real quick.

Ellen Angelico: Yeah. Oh, please.

Karen Dee: I would just like to say, first of all, this is such a blessing what you have done. I’m not sure that you understand that, but I think all of us, we get it. It takes a lot of time, a lot of energy, and a lot of effort, and I’m very grateful.

I appreciate you, Ellen. You’re such a talented person in so many ways. And when I started listening to the podcast, it just gave me a whole ‘nother level of appreciation for your gifts.

Ellen Angelico: Thanks, Karen. I love you.

Karen Dee: I love you too, girl. 

Ellen Angelico: I’ll just say that podcast software is very good right now and any idiot can do it, but I do appreciate that.

Karen Dee: Oh, then sign me up.

Ellen Angelico: Karen, I’m telling you, I’m serious. The feedback that I’ve gotten so far is that we need a Karen podcast, so watch out for that.

Karen Dee: I’d never be able to stay on the air. 

Ellen Angelico: …have an exorbitant amount of money to pay me and we’ll get this Karen Dee podcast on the road. But anyway, we’re gonna change over and get Broadband up here and we’ll be right back. Thanks y’all. 

Audience: Yeah.

Ellen Angelico: Are y’all good to start?

Karen Dee: Yes. 

Ellen Angelico: I think we’re good to start, Nick.

Alright. We’re back. I’d like to introduce the folks on stage. Y’all have already met Karen Dee, she’s playing the drums. One of my very best friends in the world, Mandy Shucher, is on bass. She’s over there. The Viral Granny Guitarist herself, Paula Jo Taylor, legend, is on electric guitar. The underrated funny and wonderful Karen Pendley is on fiddle, and with the biggest job of all the great Emily Peck is here to sing lead vocals. 

Emily Peck: Is it all right if I say something? 

Ellen Angelico: I mean, do you think I got a real tight grip on this? Like, no.

Emily Peck: Okay. I just wanna say what an honor it is for me to fill the spot, and I’m getting a little emotional just doing it because, the only reason I get to be here right now is ’cause she’s gone. And that’s always been a struggle for me. So bear with me if I struggle through the first few verses or lines. And it’s pretty big shoes to fill. I feel like a little 5-year-old in my mama’s shoes right now. 

Ellen Angelico: Emily filled in a lot for Shelly after she passed, ’cause Shelly booked so many gigs that they just kept coming.

Emily Peck: Yeah.

Ellen Angelico: For a little while. 

Emily Peck: Yes. And while I wasn’t a part of what you guys were all doing all the time, I felt kind of like I was, and for her to be that gracious and to extend to other female singers, the welcoming red carpet that she did to give us gigs it’s, I think, uncommon.

Ellen Angelico: Yeah. 

Emily Peck: For that graciousness that she had to support other singers, which, sometimes they talk about things being cutthroat and she was not that way at all, and never said a bad word about anyone. And if she did, they really screwed up.

Ellen Angelico: You’re right. Yeah. She wasn’t precious about that kind of thing.

Emily Peck: Right.

Ellen Angelico: A lot of us got where we are because Shelly gave us a chance. I feel that way about myself. So here’s the thing, we did original music with Shelly from time to time. We know a couple of her songs really well, but she made like 85 billion CDs. And so I was going through all of this music and when I came across this song, Girl in a Hurry, I just about fell, my clothes spontaneously lifted off of my body. I was so surprised because it couldn’t have, obviously she was talking about a romantic partner in that song, but it couldn’t have been a more fitting metaphor for her life. Here’s the thing though. It’s just got so many chords and that’s probably partly why we didn’t really play it a lot downtown.

So we’re gonna go ahead and get the hard one out of the way, and then we’ll do the one we know better. So, cut us a little slack ’cause this one’s got, this one’s got two chords per bar pretty much the whole time. And it’s all different. And we know most chords. Anyway, I use chords. I play chords every day.

Broadband: I know there’s something you wanna get off your chest. I’m not sure what it is, but honey, I can guess ’cause I’m quick like that. Oh don’t you know? Are you standing around hemming and hawing, dragging your feet, nothing but stalling. I’ve got people to meet, baby, I’ve got places to go, oh. I’m a girl in a hurry so make up your mind, if you don’t know what you want, I’ll leave you behind. Life’s too short and there’s no time to worry. If you’re gonna break my heart make it fast, I’m a girl in a hurry.

Feels like I’m a souped-up automobile while you’re standing around, I’m just spinning my wheels. Never been the type to sit back and go with the flow. Are you getting the grip, I’m not getting any younger, there’s a whole lot to do and I still got the hunger. When I’m 92, then I’ll take it slow.

I’m a girl in a hurry so make up your mind. If you don’t know what you want, then I’ll leave you behind. Life is short and there’s no time to worry, if you’re gonna break my heart make it fast. I’m a girl in a hurry.

Come on, I can handle it. It’s gonna hurt, yeah I admit. If you wanna call it quits, get it over with. I’m a girl in a hurry so make up your mind. If you don’t know what you want then I’ll leave you behind. Life’s too short and there’s no time to worry. If you’re gonna break my heart, make it fast, I’m a girl in a hurry. A girl in a hurry.

Ellen Angelico: Hell yeah.

Hell yeah. Look, I think it probably doesn’t need me to say, it’s probably self-evident that these are some of the finest musicians that I know, and I know a lot of musicians. So y’all hire these people for your band and stuff. This next one we’re gonna do is an all time favorite Shelly song.

This is the Shelly song that I remember playing the most. We know this one a lot better. In fact, we know it better than it is on the record. I was surprised when I listened to the record to find that it was in D flat, not D, and the tag doesn’t push. But we’re gonna do it the way that Shelly did it, in D, not D Flat, with the tag pushing. All right, let’s go.

Broadband: Cardboard and bubble wrap, CDs and photographs. Headlights pointed toward the Dickson county line. White lines and open road, song on the radio. Strong cup of coffee for the drive. There’s a little pawn shop out by the overpass. Your diamond ring is paying for the gas. And now I’m halfway to Memphis with everything I need packed up in boxes in the back seat. I’ve got mama’s faded Bible and a million memories. What matters most, I’m taking with me. Right down to my favorite pair of shoes, the only thing I’m leaving is you. I tried believing, searched for every reason. I held on ’til there was nothing left to hold. But all you ever gave me was a broken heart and shattered dreams, there’s something better somewhere down the road. Now with every mile I leave you behind. Your memory fades and I feel more alive. And now I’m halfway to Memphis with everything I need packed up in boxes in the back seat. I’ve got mama’s faded Bible and a million memories. What matters most, I’m taking with me. Right down to my favorite pair of shoes, the only thing I’m leaving is you.

I’ve got mama’s faded Bible and a million memories. What matters most, I’m taking with me. Right down to my favorite pair of shoes, the only thing I’m leaving is you. Halfway to Memphis and the only thing I’m leaving is you.

Ellen Angelico: Thank you all so much. We’re gonna have a quick changeover and we’re gonna be back with Ann Powers. 

 Girl in a Hurry was produced and edited by me, Ellen Angelico. This episode was mixed by Liv Lombardi. Special thanks to Karen Pittelman and Michael Eades.