Nevada City Declares Joanna Newsom Day: Watch Her Speech

Joanna Newsom doesn't make many public appearances these days — and nearly two years after she debuted new songs in concert, we're still waiting on that Divers follow-up — but she was present in her hometown of Nevada City, California on Wednesday. As her record label Drag City points out, she had a good reason to be there: The city council officially decreed it Joanna Newsom Day in Nevada City.

Newsom gave a speech accepting the honor, starting with thanks offered to her childhood friend, Mayor Adam Kline of the band Golden Shoulders:

Thank you so much, Mayor Kline. This proclamation truly means more to me than a Grammy or any other award could. Nevada City, you're so dear to me. Being formally recognized as your native daughter is one of the highest honors I could imagine. There are so many things I wanted to squeeze in up here. My first draft of these remarks was edging into filibuster territory, so I had to do a little editing. But of course I need to start by thanking Mayor Kline, not only as a mayor, but as my friend. My lifelong friend.

Adam was one of the first people I ever played my music for, 30 years ago-ish, or give or take. And since then, he's been an unwavering source of encouragement for me and so many other people in the community. He's also arguably the reason I have a career. When I first started recording my little demo CD-Rs and handing them out to friends just for personal use, Adam took it upon himself to pass one off to Will Oldham, who was a musician passing through town, performing at the Magic Theatre, then known as the Magic Theatre.

And Will brought it back to his label, Drag City, out of Chicago. And a couple weeks later I heard from Dan Koretzky from Drag City, offering to put out my record. And thus began a 25-ish year relationship that has been so wonderful with that record label. And when I look back on it, it does represent pretty much the only path down which I could have made records the way I want to and wanted to. And if I couldn't have done that, I wouldn't have made them. So thank you, Adam.

For what it's worth, last year Will Oldham told me he got Newsom's demo from his friend Rob Kieswetter aka Bobby Birdman. Watch the beginning of Newsom's speech here:

Or check out the full speech below in the YouTube archive of the full city council meeting. She steps to the podium at about the 9:20 mark in the video.