At first I wasn't impressed. Her voice sounded off-key, like she didn't know how to sing. But her guitar kept me listening to those a bit off-center lyrics. Viers is based in Seattle and her latest CD Carbon Glacier is on Nonesuch, but her first recordings were on her own label Raven Marching Band. Gotta keep my ears on this one - she's coming to Iota in mid-October.
Is she Suzanne Vega or Jane Siberry or Dar Williams? I dunno, but her website is a bit odd. Olivia 101 reminds me of Siberry's Writers are a Funny Breed or Marco Polo
Add Jesse Sykes to that list.
San Francisco Chronicle interview with Joni Mitchell about her retirement from music:
On this afternoon, she talks about how she developed her style, but the most essential quality of a songwriter, she suggests, may be mental toughness. Like Bob Dylan and fellow Canadian Neil Young, Mitchell has fallen in and out of favor over the years. She has been revered, imitated -- and ridiculed for being esoteric and out of touch.Ultimately, she was not tough enough. "Everything in my later career, with few exceptions, has been compared unfavorably to my early work," she says, matter-of-factly. "I've done 16 records hearing people say, 'You're not as good as you used to be. Finally, I said, 'OK, I agree with you.' "
Mitchell announced she was leaving the music business in 2002 and hasn't looked back. "My goal as a writer is more to comfort than to disturb," she says, explaining her decision. "Most of the art created in this particular culture is shallow and shocking, and I can't create music for this social climate."
She pauses. In conversation, she is outspoken, funny, self-deprecating and stimulating. But she doesn't find anything funny about the topic at hand. "There's not much room for subtleties today. It's the shallow, flashy heart that grabs the attention; chase scenes, atrocities."
She doesn't have the same opinion of her songs that us fans do. About Both Sides Now she says:
Even after all this time, she doesn't understand all the excitement over the song. "I thought 'Both Sides Now' was a failure, so what do I know?" she says, smiling. "I was not a good judge of my early material; none of it sounded all that good to me. That's why I wanted to keep moving forward."
Certainly the songwriter is going to have a different perspective on a song, but that sounds like she is trying to distance herself from her past, her early years, the years that everyone compares her current songs to. I understand that. Mitchell has long bemoaned fans and critics wanting her to "paint A Starry Night again, man" (from Miles of Aisles). On that live album she went into a long story about artists repeating themselves. Certainly her affinity is more for painters than songwriters.
Call her a voracious musician/singer/songwriter. Ani Difranco. Love reading articles like these in business mags.
On an Ani jag these days. Maybe it's the times, the political climate -- the hurricane of accusations, lies, pretense, the fatigue of these days. Dilate is talking for me:
so i'll walk the plank and i'll jump with a smile if i'm gonna go down i'm gonna do it with style and you won't see me surrender you won't hear me confess 'cuz you've left me with nothing but i've worked with less and i learn every room long enough to make it to the door and then i hear it click shut behind me and every key works differently i forget every time and the forgetting defines me that's what defines me
Note to self: Relative newcomer Linda Dickson Kudzu should be on my to-buy list.
I might have heard Eddi Reader as a back up singer but don't remember reading her name on any cd and I am pretty meticulous about that. Her song Lucky Penny from Simple Soul, released in 2001, was sweet but not simple. Her latest release is a cd of Robert Burns poems. In the US, her CDs are available through Compass Records
Just missed it this year, but New Song Festival looks like a great way to find new singer/songwriters. Not all of them are young, not all of them are "new" (as in new to recodrding/playing).
While you're at it, check out the Country Roads Music Festival, also in West Virginia. What a line up!
Heard Enola Gay (from Next)) this morning. Had never heard of Kate McDonnell before. Reminded me first of Dar Williams (as many younger women singer/songwriters do -- isn't that what the critics did to women in the late 1960s and 70s -- everyone was compared to Joan Baes, Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, etc....) 'cause of some of her phrasing, but her guitar is different.
I look forward to seeing her perform this winter.