Dixie Gamble’s Story Of A Childhood Mystic Turned Nashville Music Executive Turned Filmmaker and Human Rights Activist Comes Alive in “Witch Hairs”
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In this episode 152, we visit with Dixie Gamble, author of “Witch Hairs, Mirth, Miracles, Mayhem and Music.” It’s the true story of Dixie’s remarkable life as a Nashville music executive turned filmmaker and human rights activist.
Rodney Crowell, Recording Artist and Author of “Chinaberry Sidewalks” says that “Witch Hairs chronicles the soul journey of a childhood mystic, music business executive, extraterrestrial confidant, primitive culture documentarian, mental health and prison reform activist, adventurer, devoted mother, lover of one of the world’s finest musicians and published author. Dixie Gamble has been there, done that.”
Recording artist Pam Tillis adds that “Dixie Gamble has never done a damn thing small and this memoir is no exception…brazenly admitting to experiences way, way past the realms of the everyday may make books about sex, drugs and rock and roll pale a little in comparison.”
We start the show with Dixie sharing with us some interesting facts about her remarkable life.
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Review of the book in Elmore Magazine
Learn about the connection between the written word and the music in the review Here
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About the Author:
Dixie Gamble, former Nashville music executive, turned author, filmmaker and human rights activist is a 21st Century visionary who in recent years has focused her lens on the intersection of mental illness and criminal justice.
As President of Elektra Asylum Music, a publishing division of Warner Bros. Records in the early 1980s, Dixie spearheaded the careers of Pam Tillis, Lewis Storey, KT Oslin, Josh Leo, as well as numerous other songwriter’s of that era.
Before entering the field of filmmaking, Dixie Gamble had a private practice in Spiritual Psychology in West Hollywood. She says: “My inspiration, education, and impetus to center my work on the crossroads of mental illness and criminal justice is galvanized by my youngest son’s on going suffering with severe and persistent mental illness. My volunteered time as a meditation teacher/self-awareness advocate in a maximum- security prison, as well as many years spent as Spiritual Advisor to Death Row agitated my determination to create CODE as a universal training tool for Correctional Institutions.”
A contributor to Tennessee’s New Abolitionists, The Fight to End the Death Penalty in the Volunteer State, Edited by Amy L. Sayward and Margaret Vandiver, Vision’s From The Afterlife by Lee Lawson, The Guardian, the National Allliance on Mental Illness and many other mental health publications, Dixie is a valued advocate for the mental health community.
Beyond Right and Wrong, a docu-drama depicting the last twenty minutes of the condemned life of a severely mentally ill inmate, won several film festivals including the Telluride Indie Fest.
CODE: Correction Officers De-escalation Education is Gamble Productions second film for NAMI TN, created as a consciousness-raising /training tool for correctional institutions and jails all across the country. This film is narrated by Steve Lopez, author of The Soloist, and esteemed editorial writer for the LA Times and is imbued with rock stars of the mental healthworld, including Pete Earley, former NY Times Editorial writer and author of Crazy and Dr. Javier Amador, of the LEAP Institute.
SAFE: Safe Aware First responder Education, is a successful, widely viewed law enforcement training film, created for NAMI TN in 2008, and thus far has trained many officers across Tennessee.
In 2009, Ms. Gamble produced and directed Utopian Art: A Bridge Across Time, a documentary about the Aboriginal dot painters from the Utopia Region of the Northern Territory of Australia. Gamble Productions is the only film crew ever allowed access to the tribal woman painters and their sacred Women’s Ceremony.
About the Book:
This is the true story of a remarkable life and a guide to how to live it. It’s the story of true love and how to get and give it.
Dixie Gamble went from a small North Carolina town as a divorced young mother of two boys to the first female president of Elektra Asylum Music, a publishing division of Warner Bros. Records in Nashville, guiding the careers of Pam Tillis, Lewis Storey, and many others. A second marriage to one of the most storied record producers in the country lead to another divorce and a deeper longing to find answers to her lifelong questions.
In Witch Hairs, she shows, and explains, every tug at her soul and the fulfillment she found, each pluck of what was and a map to what should be. Part memoir, part atlas of the soul of the Universe, Dixie Gamble hides nothing of her journey to find both herself …
And John.
About the Music – Songs from the Pages of Witch Hairs
Musical artists from Dixie Gamble’s past, present and future have collaborated to create this unique collection of songs, some inspired by and some giving inspiration to Witch Hairs. Rodney Crowell, Lewis Storey, Bee Taylor, Harry Stinson, Beth Hooker, Mary Ann Kennedy, Pierpaolo Adda, Lauren Braddock, Hannah Sutherland, and John Jorgenson bring their immense and eclectic talents to illustrate musically many of the amazing and heartbreaking experiences shared within the chapters.
You can tap in here to listen to previews of a number of the songs paired with the book Here
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Dixie and Elton John in the early years.
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