Paul Burch Talks the Bond Between Musician and Food

What did country music legend Jimmie Rodgers enjoy for dinner when he was on tour in the 1920s? If you want an answer to that question, Paul Burch is the man to ask. He knows his Jimmie Rodgers. Burch’s Meridian Rising, a brainy and beautiful imagined autobiography of Rodgers, reads as both a well-researched history project and an exercise in method acting, with Burch adopting the persona of Rodgers from his Mississippi childhood through his years on the road to his death from Tuberculosis at the age of 35. The record (released 2/26 on Plowboy Records) manages to take the listener back in time without resorting to musical clichés, providing a fresh and modern take on Rodgers’ life and work.
Paste chatted with Burch about truck stop hot dogs (the kind that seem to have been roasting “longer than sorrow,”), the fresh-killed chicken, steaming turnip greens and fruit pie with a lard crust he convincingly imagines as Rodgers’ road fare. It’s enough to make you want to go back in time, at least for dinner.
Paste: You’re at a truck stop, you’re starving, and you have five minutes to assemble a meal. Please describe that meal, and how you feel about it.
Paul Burch: Well… (all great rockabilly songs begin with Well…) it depends on the quality of the truck stop. Mid-level? Apple, banana and a vanilla yogurt. Starbucks iced coffee has the least amount of sugar. Simply Orange is the closest thing to an actual orange. A higher grade truck stop might have hard boiled eggs. Now you’re in high cotton! All you need is a cheese stick and a pickle and you got yourself an egg salad sandwich. Beef jerky? Be careful! A peanut butter sandwich with honey is the ultimate standby. In the South, the saddest truck stop will sometimes inexplicably have fried chicken. I think this is always a “go” over the eternally roasting hot dogs that have been there—in the words of Gabriel Garcia Marquez— “longer than sorrow.” How do I feel about all this? Like I couldn’t have gone another mile without any of it.
Paste: When you’re traveling, what food from home do you crave?
PB: Like a great archaeologist who can see the remains of ancient settlements where others see only dirt, my wife can take the mere shadow of a green onion and turn it into a leek. So I miss it all when I’m away: homemade drop biscuits, magical soups, frittatas, meatballs, roasted vegetables, or rice with steamed carrots, cabbage and tamari butter. Where can you get that on the road? You can’t. That’s why it’s the road.
Paste: Is there anything special you like to eat before you play a show? Or anything you definitely do not like to eat before you play?
PB: MSG shuts my voicebox down like a frightened clam. A pasta dinner will hold my lungs hostage for air. Popcorn or mixed nuts will cling to my vocal chords like a petrified 8-year-old rock climber who just looked down at mom and dad from 40 feet high. And I can’t sing or play on bourbon or any other luxury item, which perhaps is further evidence (if needed) that the artists of Sun Records were men among men, since many of them were better drunk than anyone in the charts are today sober.
Paste: Do you have any superstitious pre-show drink rituals?
A fine cup of coffee. As for other rituals, I’m usually so relaxed that I could almost fall asleep. But once I’m onstage, I feel absolutely fearless.
Paste: Please imagine a meal Jimmie Rodgers might have eaten on the road and describe the setting and the food.