Rebuilding Through Rhythm: Rebecca Magnuson on Music, Resilience, and Empowering Women

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to the Living the Dream Podcast with Curveball. If you believe, you can achieve. Welcome to the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast. A show where I interview guests that teach, motivate, and inspire. Today's guest is an incredible woman whose life is a testament to resilience, creativity, and the courage to rebuild your voice. Rebecca Magnuson is a singer, songwriter, playwright, concert pianist, entrepreneur, and advocate whose life has taken her from a child piano prodigy to the Nashville singing and songwriting community, and also to be a powerful voice for women who have subject about abuse. After enduring years of physical, emotional, and financial abuse, Rebecca is doing her one-woman musical because she sings in her documentary series, because she sings about narcissists. So we're going to be talking to her about everything that she's up to and gonna be up to and about that musical and documentary. So, Rebecca, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

Well, thank you so much for having me.

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Why don't you start off by telling everybody a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Sure. Uh so I am presently in Nashville, Tennessee, right now, and I have been dividing my time uh between New York and Nashville. Uh I also have a run a nonprofit up in Western New York because I spent my high school years up there. Uh it's called She Is Safe. And so that has taken some of my time uh being up there as well. But um since 2018, I have been touring a one-woman show that I wrote. I went through quite a bit in my life and uh was raised in Brooklyn, New York, one of six kids. My father was a minister. And unfortunately, as kids, we went through uh, I call it religious abuse, where the Bible is used as a weapon almost uh to give people in authority the right, in their opinion, of um to be able to hurt kids. And uh ours was not a sexual thing, it was physical. We were just beat up quite often because we had to be perfect as preachers' kids. So that was the where I started out, but then moved to uh through high school. I moved to western New York, we moved out of Brooklyn, and uh and that's where I've been running the nonprofit. But I've been touring this one woman show where it starts uh about the abuse from childhood and how oftentimes we repeat as women, we often will repeat the pattern of abuse. So we might endure that during our childhood, and then we tend to later in life, as we're growing up, pick uh partners who are also abusive, maybe not physically. In my situation, mine was uh moving forward, it was more the emotional, the verbal attacks, and the financial abuse. Uh so that is the goal of the musical. And then, of course, you mentioned my uh five-part television documentary that has not been released yet. Uh, we're currently in talks with a few different um platforms. So we should have a decision here pretty soon. It should be coming out uh as well. But the goal with everything that I do is to help people heal uh through the music that I write, help educate them as to the telltale signs of narcissism and people who are abusive. Oftentimes they're the most charming, beautiful people, and we get connected to them because they target us, and then we don't see what those signs are. So we we try to educate people uh and then empower them because my story is not all about my past. My story really is about the empowerment and having moved past it all and and living a full, rich, wonderful life. So there you go. That's it all in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

All right. Well, I know that you were a child piano prodigy and you went to train under a renowned concert pianist.

SPEAKER_01 5:02

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 5:05

So talk about how those experiences shaped the artist and woman that you have become.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Yes. So when I was my mother played for Billy Graham Crusades, and she was playing at a crusade, and my father was a young preacher, and he saw her up on stage and pursued her and ended up marrying her. But she was a concert pianist. So every night as a little girl, I would listen to my mother practice. They all of us kids would go to bed about eight o'clock, and it was so peaceful for me living having lived in this abusive environment. That was like my place of peace was listening to my mother play Warsaw Concerto, Rhapsody and Blue, Chopin Audes. I mean, she was just amazing, and that influence uh started so young where I started playing when I was three years old. And by third grade, I was the church pianist. And in my dad's church, my mother was the organist. And then moving forward, I just I the way the reason I became the musician, the pianist that I am today, I believe, is because I knew that if I was at that piano, my father would not hurt us. If I was playing, he was calm and he would lie on the couch and relax. And if I so I I always felt that if I continued to play, I could keep him from hurting any of my siblings. I know that sounds crazy, but it it's really what shaped me as a as a pianist. And once I got to high school, we moved to this town in Chautauqua County, where there's a place called Chautauqua Institution, and it's open only during the summers. Seven, eight, nine thousand people a week come there, and it's really an art center. And that's where I was uh I received scholarships to work with Ozanne Marsh, who was a world-renowned concert pianist. And I'm beyond honored, and I'm still it's amazing to me that I was offered that opportunity because that's when I really started um playing, you know, six, seven hours a day. I was playing piano. And um it was uh it it was life-changing, and uh I credit him with so much of uh my musicianship today.

SPEAKER_02 7:44

Well, I know that your journey took you from classical piano to classical piano and music education to songwriting in Nashville, where your work was signed by major publishers. So talk about what you learned about the music industry that ultimately inspired you to create She Sings Publishing and Take Control of Your Creative Vision.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Yeah, so I moved here hard to even fathom this, but 30 years ago, I left everything. I was modeling in New York, I had a piano studio where I was teaching piano, and uh I just realized that what I really wanted to do was have a voice because I had been left voiceless for so many years, and I wanted to tell my story through song, and I knew that Nashville was a great place to do that, and I didn't know one soul here uh 30 years ago. I got on a plane from DC, came to Nashville to visit, and immediately said, this is, I just knew this is where I needed to be. And within a month, I had I sold my uh my studio, I stopped the work in New York, I continued to do some work in New York, but overall I came here and for one year I didn't work. I had enough money that I was able to just immerse myself completely in the songwriting community. And the reception here, back then it was a lot easier, I think, to meet legendary songwriters and to collaborate with them. So I immediately had the opportunity to write with people like legendary songwriter Hall of Fame, Bobby Braddock. By the way, I'm having dinner with him this evening, and he wrote probably the greatest country song ever, He Stop Loving Her Today. I don't know if you know that song, but he wrote, God is great, beer is good, people are crazy, Time Marches On, all these hits. Um and I've started writing with people like him, like Fred Kohler, and uh just gathered a bunch of girlfriends around and we would start co-writing. And uh and that really I once I was able to start writing songs, get in the studio, record these demos, then I I got a publishing deal with Garth Brooks Publishing Company. He and Bob Doyle, um, that's his manager. I started writing for them and then uh started writing with Sony as well. So it was just Nashville was so receptive and such a it was, I think, a little easier back then to make those connections. Now I cannot believe what's happened in our town. The population has just it's uh quite packed with people now. And it's I think it's harder for young artists. Uh so I am just now about to launch She Sings Creative Agency, where I will be working with uh female artists and helping them navigate through through this, you know, through the songwriting process, helping them get the co-rights, working with them with vocal coaching, social media. There's so many things that have to come together for uh an artist, and I have so many resources that can help them. So that's another thing that I'm uh, in addition to the touring musical and the documentary series, is it's something I'm really passionate about doing now. You know, paying forward the songwriting that I was able to do and and the connections that I was able to make, just paying it forward to help others do the same.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Well, I know at a point your paying could have silenced you, but you decided to create she sings a a sewing musical. So at what point did you realize that your story needed to become art?

SPEAKER_00 11:58

I think that it um it was really in my in my high school years that I that I realized um because of what I had been going through, I I knew that I that's when I started writing songs. And it was always my plan to put those songs out there. I think once I hit high school and I matured enough to realize that I could have a voice. And that's also the same time period that I was able to just tell my father, no, you're not gonna hit me again. I was 16, and I just stood up to him one day. He was, it was not a good situation. He was really angry and ready to come at me, and I just uh had saved money from waitressing and uh I was ready to walk out. And once I stood up to the bully and I just said, nope, that's it, everything changed. And he stopped and he uh he started respecting me for having that courage to be fearless and just say, no, I I'll leave home. I will I will not live here. So I encourage people, you know, um, to do that. But it was high school, I think, in answer to your question.

SPEAKER_02 13:18

Well, I know that your one-woman show has sold out all across the country. So what is it like to stand on stage and share a story that's so deeply personal to all kinds of audiences across the country?

SPEAKER_00 13:33

So I'm not an actress, and when I perform my show, it's 13 songs and there's narrative in between, and I tell my story, and it's almost as if every time that I perform it, I relive it at some level. And it can be painful to perform it, but then at the end of the show, when people line up, and I've had more people, women especially, come up to me in tears and say, That's my story. This happened to me. You're validating what I have experienced by telling your story and being able to tell such a hard story in a beautiful way, is um it's an experience like none other. People are sitting right in front of you, and you can feel their bodies go rigid, and then you feel them relax when you're speaking, or you're singing a song, and all of a sudden they start dancing or tapping their foot, or sometimes they call out at my show, you go, girl! Yeah, you got it. You know, it's just every emotion is evoked with that show where people cry and then and then at the end, it's just my story is so empowering of how I overcame everything. I became an Amazon delivery service partner after a horrible divorce and was able to make my own money. And uh that's really what enabled me to be able to move forward and tour the show, pay for the documentary series myself. And um I never thought I'd ever own a home. I own two homes. I uh bought a restaurant, I ran that for the last three years. I recently closed that so that I could really focus. I can't do everything. Um, so I really wanted to focus on the documentary series, the musical, and then doing this this new business, uh, this new business venture. So stage is just an incredible it's it's so powerful to be able to tell your story and and see people uh heal and and watch the healing and uh feel their emotion because you're so close to them on on that stage.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

Well, what have you learned about the connection between creativity and healing and um how art can sometimes express things that words alone cannot that's pretty much exactly you just said it.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

That's exactly what I do. I use uh art for healing. And you know, it could be a painting, it can be art in so many different ways can heal. You don't have to just be a musician or a songwriter. Uh, there's so many gardening, you know, a beautiful garden can be healing. And I encourage people to a lot of people will say to me, you know, I don't have a gift. I I don't have I of course, well, you have the gift, you play piano, you can sing, so you're able to go do these wonderful things. And uh I tell people, yeah, but you have a gift as well. You just have to, you just have to dig deep and find out what that gift is. And a gift is something that we give away. So music is my gift. And if I were just gonna sit at home and play my piano and write my songs and not put them out there, that's not right. The the goal with our art and our creativity is to give it away, give it back out there. And I encourage people all the time find your gift and then give the gift that's been given to you and then give that gift out into the world.

SPEAKER_02 18:59

Well, let's talk about your documentary series. She's saying surviving the narcissist. I know you uh you let other women share their stories, so uh tell us what you can about that and talk about uh how listening to their stories has affected your own journey.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

Well, uh in uh touring the One Woman show, I realized that I couldn't fully explain and and fill in the blanks um uh from my life in 90 minutes. And it was because of that the touring show that I made the decision to transition from that to film. And we traveled from we started out in Brooklyn, New York with a film crew, and then we filmed in DC, where I'd spent significant time. Um we also filmed out in Los Angeles, we interviewed women uh during the filmmaking process, and we realized that so many of us are experiencing the same thing. In fact, millions of us around the world are. And thousands of women have reached out to me to tell me that they have dealt with the same and men as well. So I don't want to just say I'm not a male basher by any means. There are some wonderful, wonderful men out there like you. So um it's that's not um, but I I think in a general sense, uh we tend to often as women will give everything up and marry someone or or or find a partner that uh assures us, like this happened to me, you don't have to work, you can stay home with the kids, I will do everything, you don't worry about the money. And 18 years later, he walked away with everything and left me almost nothing. And I had put all of my faith in that. And through the documentary series, I try to encourage women especially, make sure that you don't give up your job or your own financial um independence. Because once you do that, you are at a high risk of getting to a certain age. And in my case, I was in DC Superior Court, and the judge in my divorce trial said, Well, you just need to rehabilitate yourself. Those were his exact words. And you know, you've got to figure it out. And yes, of course I do, but I had given, I had built my um in in the in that relationship, I had helped build by staying home an empire, essentially, uh venture capital world. And but then it you'll have to watch my documentary series. It's a riveting story of what transpired over two months in DC Superior Court. Uh I can tell you one of the things, which is just crazy, is that I had to be my own lawyer because my partner had claimed he was homeless and broke. And he had built this, you know, venture capital firm. And I subpoenaed the banks. I was, we were pro se in court because we had no money for lawyers. And I uncovered the banks, turned over to me four bank accounts totaling over 20 million that he hadn't turned over in Discovery. All four of those accounts were in his name only. And I had to personally file a motion. I rode my bike down from my beautiful home in Georgetown to DC Superior Court on a Friday. Afternoon, about two in the afternoon, and within two hours, the judge emailed us. Motion denied. You should have had this information at the beginning of the trial. I can't stop the trial so that you can go uh do investigative work on this money. So that's just one part of what went on. He threatened to throw me in jail. I was arraigned in criminal court for sending a text. He got a protective order on me, that uh there was no crime ever committed. The uh I reveal all of this because if I were silent about it, that would be wrong. Because I want to warn people of what can happen in our court systems. And it's a problem throughout our country. There's corruption in our court systems, and people don't want to hear that. But the women that I've talked to across the U.S. have been through such similar circumstances. Uh, you know, protective orders are a weapon that a partner can use. And if you have a great relationship with a judge, which in our situation, his business partner went to Stanford with the judge. So it was definitely stacked against me from the very beginning. And when it comes to money, the person with the power in the courtroom is the person who has the money. And I didn't have the money. I had given all those years to raising children. So it's a it's it's detrimental and it almost took my life. Uh, I definitely fell apart. I had a mental breakdown completely. Eventually, I got breast cancer uh because of all the stress, and uh knew I wouldn't be able to ever own a home. How do you rebuild? How do you uh you give everything up to be in a relationship? So the documentary series really I want, I I put out there so that women could see this and learn at a much earlier age. I'm sorry, excuse me, at a much earlier age, uh, to make sure that they don't let the same thing happen to them as what happened to me. But I figured it out and I ended up, you know, doing really well and uh definitely financially secure and but not everyone does that. Uh, but I want to inspire people that to know that they can, they can rebuild even after going through something as horrific as what I went through.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Well, I know you've you found it. She is safe of CHQ County to support women in abusive situations. So talk about the biggest misconception that people have about people who stay in abusive relationships or situations.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

Well, the biggest misconception is that uh women and men as well, um they think they sh they can just leave. They think, oh, well, you were beat up. Why didn't you why didn't you leave? And I've worked closely personally with so many women in Chautauqua County, New York, with this very story where they go back. Oftentimes it's and then they get judged for it. And oftentimes it's financial. Well, who's gonna pay for the, you know, for the kids? How how am I gonna get back out there and how do I take care of my children and get a job? And um, and and it's also very uh manipulative where they lure you back in because of the narcissism and oh, I love you and I promise I'll never do this again. And the woman or man will trust the partner and go back, and and it's a mind game, and um I think a lot of a big misconception is that you can just leave, and you can't just leave in so many cases, it takes almost being killed before a person will fully leave, and it can take months and years to finally make that that break. So I try to give people a break, and when I see them go back and I've worked so closely with them and I've helped give them shelter, I've put them in a hotel and given them a week in that hotel, and tried to help them financially, give them a job, and then they turn around and go back. You know, I just I can't be upset at them for it. I I get it, and I just try to keep loving them and encouraging them. You can do this, and we'll just continue to help you. And eventually, I hope you will make that final break, but it's a tough thing.

SPEAKER_02 28:29

Well, I know you face tremendous adversity, but you've also reinvented yourself multiple times. What would you say to someone who felt like their past has taken away their future?

SPEAKER_00 28:43

I would say that there's so many examples of people who have turned it around and to try to immerse yourself in those stories and those uh learning about how people have have done it and try to surround yourself with people who are positive and making changes. Don't don't stay around negativity or toxicity. Uh remove yourself from those types of people because it's really who we associate with and and the books that we're reading and and what we are filling ourselves with. Great music, you know, listen to positive music. Uh all of these things can help a person make that change to become successful. And it's not just financial, it's success is about peace, really finding peace and having emotional, um feeling emotionally and physically even secure in yourself and having that confidence. So it's a process, but I I encourage people to to try and just keep the all that other stuff away and surround yourself with good things, positive things.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Well, tell us about any upcoming projects that you're working on that listeners need to be aware of.

SPEAKER_00 30:09

I think the uh the big one is the what I mentioned earlier is the she sings creative agency. So many people need to have a voice. And with this agency, my goal is to help people write songs and express um express what they want to say through songs because that's how I have healed. And if music has always healed me, my goal is to help other people heal, especially women. That's who I really want to uh work with. I've done this for years, but I've never done it under any actual business model. It's just something that I've sat and written with women and men, of course, and and helped them heal through their writing. But now I want to make it more formal so that uh we have it out there and can promote it so that it's easier for people to find uh through social media and that type of thing. So that's what I've been working on right now, as well as uh we're in talks about the documentary series, and then we're working on uh getting another tour because I stopped touring the show back in my last show uh was about eight months ago. And so we're working on uh another tour and booking that. So lots to do.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Well, so listeners can keep up with everything that you're up to, go on to contact info.

SPEAKER_00 31:51

Yes, so everything is under one umbrella. It's she sings.com, and that's spelled she s-h-sings, s-in-g-s. So she sings.com. My music videos are there, the trailer to the five-part television documentary is there. Information will soon be there about the uh the the uh creative agency that uh I am in the process of forming. That should be there within the next few weeks. And uh yeah, so that's our that's the contact information. And then through there, you can email me uh through she sings.com when you go there. You can uh sign up and then be able to communicate that way.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

All right, we'll close us out with some final thoughts. Maybe if that was something I forgot to talk about that you would like to touch on, or any final thoughts you have for the listeners.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

Um do you have a minute where I could just play a verse and chorus at my piano if she sings, the song our anthem song? Would that be okay? Yeah, this is I'm taking my uh computer down to my Yamaha grand piano. And it's not gonna be the best of recording, you know, it's not a recording by any means. I'll just sing it live. But um, it's very moving and I hope it inspires your listeners uh just by hearing the song. And it is available on most uh platforms. It's my music is at Spotify, Amazon, uh just most of the music listening um platforms. You can hear this song and others from my musical.

SPEAKER_01 33:43

There's nothing shallow about her. Sometimes she walks on water, she might be right, might be wrong, doesn't really matter. She's gonna get there. She reaches for precision, nothing lacks a vision, she lives by the truth that she's been given. She is living when she saves the land, she brings right up the earth to find the seas with her own voice. She makes this world a bit of a place to be when she sings when she sings.

SPEAKER_00 34:48

So that's the verse in chorus, and then it does go on. Uh, but if you want to hear the rest of it, you can go to she sings.com. My music video is there, or uh just go to Amazon or Spotify and look up Rebecca Magnusson and she sings, and uh my you can hear my music.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Absolutely, ladies and gentlemen. That was absolutely beautiful. So please go check it out. And if you have the opportunity to check out that One Woman show in a city near you, please be sure to go do so and check out that documentary when it comes out. Once again, she sings.com. Also, to keep up with all things living the dream, please visit www.curveball337.com and share the website and show to everybody you know. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. And Rebecca, thank you for all that you're doing and being such a powerful voice and being uh so brave to share your story, and thank you for joining me.

SPEAKER_00 35:49

Uh, thank you, Curtis. It was such a pleasure. You have a wonderful rest of your day.

SPEAKER_02 35:54

For more information on the Living the Dream with Curveball Podcast, visit www.curveball337.com. Until next time, keep living the dream.