Singled Out: Carolyn Broussard's Without You

11-21-2024

New Orleans music star Carolyn Broussard just released her Charlie Wooton produced album "Ghosts of the Past" and to celebrate we asked her to tell us about the single "Without You". Here is the story:

I always wondered how I would handle it when I was finally asked about the inside story on "Without You". The truth is, the most interesting thing about this single isn't the situations that inspired the lyrics, but the gauntlet i ran just to get it out into the world.

The recording of "Without You" that has been released is actually the second time it was recorded. The original version was made in December 2018. There was a whole different album attached to it that I made with my former band "Carolyn Broussard's Revival". We'd all been together for six or so years at that time. A few months later, as we were finishing up edits & mixing, I got to the point where I couldn't take the psychological abuse from the drummer anymore. Over those years the manipulation & gaslighting, personal & professional, had been shredding my mental health. I couldn't do it anymore. So, I fired him.

I had talked myself out of firing him for so many years out of fear. I'm sure you can imagine my relief when I had a meeting to inform the rest of the musicians and was met with an abundance of love, support, and sadness that I had been suffering silently and had felt like I couldn't come to them. For a brief few hours I had the confidence of knowing my guys had my back, I was safe, and this person would soon be out of my life for good.

I left that meeting and went straight to a meeting with the drummer to inform him of his termination and let him know what the causes were. We talked about everything. We both cried. It felt like a break up. We hugged and I was just about to forgive him and say "never mind. Maybe I'm overreacting." Then it hit me. We'd had this exact conversation numerous times before and every single time before he'd emotionally manipulated me to let him stay in the band and he almost got me again!

I immediately pushed him away from me and called him out on it. One of the most chilling things I've ever witnessed was that moment after when his mask of contrition and gratitude melted into an arrogant and vengeful glare. I was proud of myself but stunned as he went to his car and sped away still glaring daggers at me. There's no way I could have known the mess that was about to unfold. I turned my phone off for a celebration dinner with a friend. By the time I turned my phone back on after dinner everything had changed.

The drummer had gone to meet with the other four musicians and turned them somehow. I was now facing a barrage of five men telling me I needed to suck it up, asking "if it was so bad why didn't you say something", accusing me of making things up, all of the stereotypical things men say to downplay & disparage women's lived experience with everyday misogyny. It was brutal. I was absolutely devastated. One of their girlfriends even went so far as to harass me over months with texts about what a horrible mother I was. I'd suffered mostly in silence for years out of fear of exactly that experience and it was worse than I'd imagined it. When I refused to budge about firing the drummer the other four decided to try to pull a power play by telling me "well, if you fire him, the rest of us will quit." I really don't know what they thought would happen. Maybe they thought I'd back down because we had a gig the next day, but it was my band. I had subs three deep for every one of them. So I told them "I'd prefer not to lose you guys too, but I understand if that's what you need to do. He's still fired." I called my backup guys and didn't miss a beat playing. Again though, I was devastated.

I realized quickly the bassist still had the backup drive. I asked him to return it. He refused which was, again, upsetting but not altogether surprising. I then reached out to the engineer to get the main drive from him so I could start mixing. That's when he informed me that he couldn't [wouldn't] release my record to me without written permission from the other five musicians who were now claiming ownership of everything on the hard drive. The songs were mine. The arrangements were mine. The money was mine. None of that mattered to this man who is a well-respected recording engineer used by a number of big names in the New Orleans music scene. Why? Because his buddy and four other sidemen told him my recordings didn't belong to me.

I proceeded to pester him weekly in an attempt to have my record returned while continuing to play gigs and work with my friend who was a forensic accountant to get every bit of proof of ownership I could find organized. This went on for a year.

Then Covid came on the scene. I was three days into my three week LA to L.A. Songwriter Tour and had to rush back across Texas to get home to my family.

My husband was having to teach from home. So I jumped in to do virtual school with my kids. In between that, live streams, and the crushing depression that goes along with the bottom falling out of the basket you put all of your self worth in, I was being jerked around by the recording engineer's lawyer. I kept pushing through and started to work with Ashley Keaton at The Ella Project, a pro bono Legal, Business, Advocacy nonprofit for New Orleans culture bearers. After two and a half years I got the hard drive back. Countless friends, family, and fans had told me to give up on the record and just start over, but I wanted to make it clear that I am not one to be crossed and I will get what is mine back no matter how long it takes.

Once I had it back THEN, and only then, I shelved that whole album and started over recording with Charlie Wooton as my producer. I didn't want my debut album to forever be associated with those guys and what they tried to take from me. "Without You" became a driving anthem for my own personal journey in the creation of my album "Ghosts of the Past". There was no doubt in my mind that it needed to be the lead single because, as the chorus says, "life still goes on without you."

Hearing is believing. Now that you know the story behind the song, listen and watch for yourself below and learn more here