Rita Wilson on Her New Album, Making Music at 70 and the Advice from Bruce Springsteen that Changed Her Life
During an intimate discussion at Nashville's RCA Studio A, Wilson shared the stories behind the songs on ‘Sound of a Woman’
Key Takeaways
- Rita Wilson's 'Sound of a Woman' explores marriage, motherhood, grief and midlife.
- Bruce Springsteen's advice helped Wilson embrace creativity at any age.
- Wilson's song “My Mother” reflects on grief, Alzheimer's and lasting family bonds.
Rita Wilson requires no introduction. For decades, she’s charmed audiences on screen in beloved movies and series like Sleepless in Seattle, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, The Good Place and Girls while making her mark as a film producer and singer-songwriter. But when it comes to her music, she’s still finding new ways to tell her story. And on her latest album, Sound of a Woman, out now, Wilson explores the complexities of midlife, marriage and motherhood and everything that comes with it.
During this year’s AmericanaFest in Nashville, Wilson sat down with music producer Dave Cobb (Chris Stapleton, Brandi Carlile) and moderator Leslie Fram for an intimate Q&A at RCA Studio A, the historic studio where Dolly Parton recorded “I Will Always Love You” and “Jolene”—and Woman’s World was there! To celebrate the album’s release, Wilson opened up about the inspiration behind the songs, the challenges and catharsis of writing about deeply personal subjects and the advice from her dear friend Bruce Springsteen that changed how she thinks about pursuing passions.
When Fram asked Wilson about the title of her latest album, she explained that it’s an ode to all the chapters in a woman’s life. “We were all having a conversation, and through that conversation, we were like, ‘What is the sound of a woman?’ And it’s everything,” Wilson said. “It’s screaming, it’s crying, it’s silence, but it’s also courage. It’s powerful. It’s tender. And we wanted to explore all of that through different phases of a woman’s life.”
Keep reading to discover what Sprinsteen’s life-changing advice really was, how Wilson’s following her heart on her own terms and why everyone should embrace creativity at any age.
Rita Wilson wants women to share more about midlife
Every September, AmericanaFest comes to Nashville. The five-day music festival and conference, hosted by the Americana Music Association, is known for its impressive lineup of performances, panel discussions and intimate conversations with musicians, bands, songwriters and artists—and this year was packed with surprises. During the Americana Awards at the Ryman Auditorium, Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers received a lifetime achievement award and reunited for their first performance together in more than 10 years, with Chris Stapleton joining them on vocals for hits including “American Girl,” “You Wreck Me” and “Breakdown.”
These intimate conversations are part of what makes AmericanaFest so special as fans look forward to hearing the stories behind the music. Ahead of Rita Wilson’s Q&A and performance at Studio A, fans and festivalgoers lined up for exactly that. The legendary wood-paneled studio space has welcomed generations of musical greats, from Dolly Parton to Frank Sinatra and John Prine, so the air was buzzing as attendees waited for the Q&A to begin. After a few minutes, Wilson walked out to cheers from the audience and sat down with her producer, Dave Cobb, and moderator Leslie Fram.
Fresh off the release of Sound of a Woman, which was also recorded in Studio A, Fram asked Wilson about the album title and why tackling topics that women face in midlife was important to her. “You know, nobody’s really writing songs about being in a long-term marriage, for example,” she said to the crowd, laughing.
“Or about different experiences with health or your relationship with your body and so on. I wanted to explore those different things with this album, and it’s really just scratching the surface. I think there could be 100 volumes of Sound of a Woman because there’s still so much to say.”
One of those subjects is the tension so many women feel when trying to meet the demands of both career and family. On “Jury of One,” Wilson captures that familiar feeling of never quite doing enough—even when you’re doing everything.
Elsewhere on the album, she turns the lens on her 38-year marriage to Tom Hanks. On “Marriage,” she opens up about the highs and lows of a long-term marriage, while track six, “Whose Body Is This,” turns inward on self-image. The song is an honest, powerful look to Wilson’s own journey with overcoming breast cancer and coming out on the other side with new appreciation—and gratitude—for her body.
For Wilson, writing from such a personal place comes with a certain amount of pressure. “It’s a bit daunting because you want to get it right,” she said. “You want to be able to make sure that whatever the story is that you’re telling is going to be truthful. So every time we went into something, I thought, okay, are we telling the truth here?”
The advice from Bruce Springsteen that inspired her
Wilson’s first album, AM/FM, released in 2012, and Sound of a Woman marks her sixth album release, but she hasn’t always felt confident about starting her musical journey “later” than her peers. Thankfully, a conversation with Bruce Springsteen helped her see the situation in a different light.
“I’ve only been songwriting for 13 years, and I always felt like I was trying to catch up,” Wilson said. “But I had this wonderful conversation with an artist who everybody knows, Bruce Springsteen, and he was talking about songwriting.” She recalled that during a pause in their conversation, she decided to ask Springsteen a question that was weighing on her.
“I said, ‘What makes me think that I can start writing now when everybody else and you have been writing all your lives?’” she said to the audience. “And he said, ‘Because Rit, creativity is time independent.’ And that was such a moment of clarity and liberation because I really believed that time had passed for me.”
It’s never too late: ‘There’s no clock on creativity’
Between Springsteen’s advice and a lot of self-reflection, Wilson said her perspective changed and she felt empowered to encourage other women who felt like their time had passed. “I thought, you can’t start new things, you can’t try, it doesn’t have any value,” Wilson said. “But then, I started to realize there’s no clock on creativity. There is no rule book.”
She also touched on how the entertainment industry can be less receptive to artists of a certain age, even as women continue to push against expectations. Still, Wilson thinks some of our biggest barriers are also our own limitations.
“I believe everybody has things they want to do,” she said. “I think we’re kept from doing them only by our own limitations and by what we’ve told ourselves or been from parents or teachers or society or whatever,” she said. “If you love doing something, do it. I’m all about that now.”
Diving deep on grief: ‘I feel like my mom is still with me’
If Sound of a Woman had a theme, it might be ‘women contain multitudes.’ Wilson, along with the other songwriters and collaborators on the album, including Cobb, Anderson East (who joined Rita for part of the conversation at Studio A) and Amy Wadge, dove deep on topics including grief. Wilson lost her mother in 2014, but she says she still turns to her for advice and inspiration—both while making this album and in everyday life.
One of the album’s most heartfelt songs, “My Mother,” was inspired by her own experience with motherhood but also by her mother. She told the crowd how after her mother’s death, she discovered there were still questions she wished she’d asked.
“My mom was my best friend, and she had Alzheimer’s at the end of her life so she stopped communicating,” Wilson said. “And I thought that I had asked her everything when she was alive about her life—then she died and they don’t tell you there are going to be questions that come up that you thought you had covered and you didn’t.”
The song, she hopes, will encourage others to have those conversations with their own families while they still can. “I feel like that song [‘My Mother’] could be an opening to any person having a conversation with their mother and asking those questions or if you’re a mother and you want to have those conversations with your kids.”
Toward the end of the conversation, Wilson shared one anecdote that visibly moved the crowd. She continued discussing the loss of her parents and explained how she continues to feel connected to both of them.
“But I do feel like my mom is still with me. For instance, the other day I was with a friend, and she was showing me an old picture of where we first met. And my dad is in the background of that picture and my mom’s hands are in the background of the picture. And I had never seen the picture before, so to me, those are little signals. And I still talk to my mom and my dad, but I talk to my mom all the time and I hear her voice.”
It’s one of those reminders that the people we love never really leave us. And with Sound of a Woman, Wilson hopes listeners will feel a little less alone as they navigate life, growth, grief and reinvention at every stage and age.
Listen to Sound of a Woman here and visit RitaWilson.com for more information—and upcoming tour dates!
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