Merriweather Makes Ready- Howard County Times

Howard County and Hollywood, California have at least one thing in common: When it comes to live music, nobody does it better.

Billboard Magazine, the music industry trade publication named the Hollywood Bowl and Columbia’s Merriweather Post Pavilion as two of the country’s top amphitheaters for 2010.

"We’ve got great reviews,” said Merriweather spokesperson, Audrey Schaefer, “but that doesn’t mean we can’t always improve.”

 So, what upgrades can concert goers expect when they pass through the gates this season? “Well, no matter where you are sitting this year, it’s going to be a better experience,” pledges Schaefer.

 First off, there’s good news for anyone who’s ever sat inside Merriweather’s pavilion on a sticky summer night.

“We are installing these new fans that use what is called whale technology,” Schaefer explains. “A normal fan has blades that are twenty-four inches. These are twenty four feet with a four feet diameter. They are going to be able to move four thousand cubic feet of air. It’s going to be a lot more comfortable, and interestingly enough, getting the humidity out even improves the sound quality.”

Fans who prefer to stretch out on the lawn will notice an improvement as well. The big TV monitors on display there are being replaced with High Definition screens.

“I expect that this will be a really fantastic season,” says Schaefer. “The line-up is shaping up to be really incredible and there are many more shows to be added.”

In the meantime, get out your calendars; it’s time to start planning this year’s concert outings in Columbia.

The Sweetlife Festival kicks off the season May 1 with headliners, The Strokes. Last month, the modern rockers released, “Angles,” their first CD in more than five years. The band’s Merriweather concert is one of only 5 dates they are scheduled to perform in the U.S. this summer.

“The Strokes were our dream band to get,” says Jonathan Neman, one of the organizers of the festival. The event is the creation of Neman and his partners, owners of the D.C. based restaurant group Sweetgreen, known locally for their network of healthy eateries.

 Last year, the inaugural Sweetlife Festival was held in the parking lot of Sweetgreen’s Dupont Circle location, drawing a crowd of approximately 1000 people.

“We always knew we wanted to something much bigger,” says Neman. “We can’t think of a better venue to do this than Merriweather. The place is legendary. I’ve seen some of the best shows of my life there.” In keeping with the company’s vision, concessions will offer organic food, and an on-site farmers market will feature produce and snacks from local growers.

A number of additional multi-band all day concert events are on tap for the 2011 season. Now in its third year, the M3 Rock Festival has been such a hit, that a second day has been added to the hard rock happening.

“It’s the end all and be all if you’re a heavy metal fan,” says Schaefer.

The daylong event, May 14, will feature such headliners as Whitesnake and Tesla. A kick-off concert will be held the night before with Baltimore’s own Kix.

“As a kid, I saw some of my favorite bands play at Merriweather,” says Kix bassist, Mark Schenker. “For me, as a local guy, to walk out on that stage and stand in the same spot as some of my heroes is kind of surreal.”

Self described, “Punk rock summer camp” returns in the guise of the Vans Warped Tour July 26. Now in its 17th year, this perennial summertime favorite is an eclectic mix of musical genres including punk, hip-hop and electronica, along with star athletes from the world of extreme sports. More than 60 bands will perform across 3 stages. Among the noteworthy artists headlining the main stage this year are alternative rockers Less than Jake and Against Me!

If your taste runs more Pinot Grigio than Pabst Blue Ribbon, then The Capital Jazz Fest may be more to your liking. This year’s annual three day contemporary jazz and soul showcase, from June 3-5, boasts a line-up that includes Natalie Cole, David Sanborn, and twelve time Grammy winner, Herbie Hancock.

Although dates and headliners have yet to be announced, organizers have confirmed that the Virgin Mobile FreeFest will return sometime this summer. This relatively new festival is quickly becoming one of the region’s biggest live music events, and as the name implies, it won’t pinch your pocketbook.

“Yes, it will still be free,” says Schaefer.
  
Not every show at Merriweather this season will be an all day event; single concerts this year include a range of acts from all ends of the musical spectrum.

“There is at least one show for everybody,” says Schaefer.

The first female artist in over a decade to score three Number 1 singles from the same album, Katy Perry will please the pop crowd when she brings her “Teenage Dream” tour to Merriweather June 15. Earlier this year, Perry won two People’s Choice Awards, including “Favorite Female Artist.”

Two of the more acclaimed bands in the indie rock world will touch down in Columbia this summer. Folk rock band The Decemberists, will try to top last summer’s much buzzed about Merriweather performance with a return engagement to the venue June 13. The quintet recently earned their first-ever number one album with their sixth release, “The King is Dead.” U.K based band, Mumford and Sons, will perform June 9. The Londoners debut release, “Sigh No More,” earned them the 2010 Brit Award for “Album of the Year.”

The undisputed kings of the Jam band scene; Phish return for a two night stand June 11 and 12. “Phish love Merriweather,” says Schaefer. “The 2011 shows will make it their 7th and 8th times playing here.” The band still holds the record for the fastest sell-out in Merriweather history.

For country music fans, there may be no bigger star at the moment than Miranda Lambert. Earlier this month the songstress won four Academy of Country Music awards, including Top Female Vocalist, plus Record, Song, and Video of the Year for “The House that Built Me.” Lambert brings her Texas twang to Merriweather July 15. Multiple Grammy winners Sugarland, coming May 22, are currently burning up the country music charts with their fourth CD, “The Incredible Machine.”

Between 1972 and 1980, Steely Dan released seven platinum selling albums and helped define the soundtrack of the 70’s. This summer the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers are putting a unique spin on the concert experience by letting fans help determine their set lists by voting online. Hear if your favorite classic rock hit made the cut when Steely Dan performs in Columbia August 2.

A Ticket to Deannaland- Howard County Times

It wouldn’t be surprising if Deanna Bogart was feeling a little bit anxious right now.

 This weekend, the Howard County based musician is playing what is arguably one of the more high profile gigs of her career.
“We’re calling it the ‘mother ship show’,” says Bogart of this Friday’s concert at the Weinberg Center for the Arts in Frederick, Maryland.

 It is, in fact, the centerpiece of an ambitious musical project. “I’m really nervous and very excited about it,” she confides by phone from her home in Woodbine.

For the past two years, she and her band have been followed around by a camera crew gathering footage that will be used in a documentary. Friday’s concert will play a central role in the production. The film will include footage of Bogart entertaining the troops in Kuwait and blowing her sax in Cairo, but the bandleader says it wouldn’t be complete without local footage of the place she calls home.

“Maryland is my musical birthplace. I wasn’t born here, but I’ve lived here for thirty years now.” Even though she’s now a nationally recognized figure on the blues music scene, having shared the stage with the likes of B.B. King and James Brown, Bogart hasn’t forgotten where it all began.

“Howard County, and Carroll, and Frederick counties kept me afloat in the beginning of my career,” she notes. “I have a lot of love for Howard County and to all my friends here who’ve been traveling this particular road with me.”

 Fans who plan to come out to the concert can expect to see Bogart’s core band; guitarist Dan Leonard, bassist, Scott Ambush and drummer Mike Aubin, as well as a myriad of special guests that have played a part in Bogart’s long musical history.

While they’re at it, the band will also record audio for a live CD, which will be packaged along with the DVD when it is eventually released.

Originally from Detroit and raised in New York and Arizona, Bogart moved to Maryland in the early 80’s. Her first foray into the performing life was with the Maryland-based western swing group, Cowboy Jazz.

Next up was a stint as a horn player for Root Boy Slim, a popular D.C. based singer renowned for a rowdy blend of the blues, rock& roll, and R&B. By 1988, Deanna Bogart was ready to strike out on her own and has been fronting her own band ever since. Along the way she’s honed her impressive skills as a pianist and saxophone player, and has grown into a terrific singer and top notch songwriter.

Bogart’s music is a fusion of styles that is deeply rooted in the blues and boogie. Her finesse and performing prowess have not gone unnoticed. The musician has won well over twenty Washington Area Music Awards, and has been named the Blues Music Awards Horn Instrumentalist for the past three years running. She’s even taken on a new challenge; hosting a television show for HCC TV. The Howard Community College production, “An Evening With…,” explores the local and regional music scene.

But a resume does not define a life, and it’s the experiences and personal connections made along the way, that Bogart says she treasures most.

“I get to play with marvelous musicians who both inspire and challenge me and I get to travel to all kinds of places and meet all kinds of people.”

Not that her line of work comes without its sacrifices. A single mom, Bogart is on the road many weekends, playing nightclubs all across the country, and abroad. She’s also the band’s manager, and makes all the business decisions. If a printer in the office is broken or a band member misses a plane, it’s Bogart’s job to fix the problem.

“It’s a lot of work,” she acknowledges. But the tradeoff, she says, makes it all worthwhile. “I wouldn’t change it for the world. I remember being the sad homely girl when I was a teenager. But when I played the guitar, I felt free.”

 That feeling of liberation remains with the musician to this day.

“I play for when that can happen,” she reveals. “It’s so wonderful. People who play music for a living are playing for meaning,” she continues. “You’re playing for what you need to give or get, or heal from. Within that, she says, comes the possibility for a transcendent experience. “Every artist has a different name for those moments,” she divulges. “Some call it being “in the zone” or “being in it.”

Bogart’s description is a bit more fanciful. “I call it Deannaland,” she says with a chuckle. “It’s that moment where all past and present and future pain and joy meet, so that it’s utterly synchronized with everything and nothing at the same time. I can’t imagine a better drug. You sort of forget that everybody is there and you’re lost in the music, yet at the same time you’re completely in communication with the people you’re playing with and with the music itself.”
 
It would be fair to say that a big part of Bogart’s appeal is her lively stage presence. Sure, she has the chops, but it’s also obvious that she’s having fun.

“I figure that if I’m excited and the band is excited, then the audience will pick up on that energy as well,” she says.

Thirty years into her career, how does Bogart manage to keep her act from becoming routine?

“I realized over the years that whenever I would rely on what worked, or what was comfortable or safe, that it was consistent; but it lacked any kind of creative spark or the sense of adventure that can happen when you’re willing to put yourself out there a little bit,” she reveals.

That’s when Bogart deliberately began to shake things up.

“I started to exercise my fearless chip,” she explains. “I would call out a tune that no one had ever played together before, or I would change arrangements on the spot. It became really fun and exciting for the musicians and me. As a live performer, and someone who makes their living doing live shows, I have to have that, or something starts to die a little bit inside. I have to throw myself and the band some curveballs. Everybody has to be on their toes, and that gives the potential for magic to happen. At least the possibility is there.”

A few months ago, Deanna Bogart woke up in the desert where she had traveled to celebrate her fiftieth birthday. She was surprised by how energized she felt on that morning.

“I didn’t expect to feel this way at this point in my life,” she confesses. “Oddly enough, I’m starting to feel like I just got up to bat. Now I’m thinking, where else can I take this, and what else can I do now? I have so much more to write about, and play about. Boy, what a great ride this is.”

Kathy Mattea - West Virginia Magazine Feature

Last fall, singer Kathy Mattea had an epiphany. The West Virginia native was in a classroom at Boston’s Berklee College of Music teaching a lesson in vocal theory, when she realized that the students were hanging on to her every word.

“It was life changing,” says the musician of her experience as an artist-in-residence at the prestigious music academy. “I found out that I could really connect with these kids,” she continues. “It felt like discovering you can sing, when you never knew you could. I discovered that I could teach, and I never knew that about myself.”

The forty seven year old singer so enjoyed the experience that she’s signed on for a similar program; this one run by the folks at West Virginia Public Radio’s Mountain Stage program. This month, the two time Grammy winner will mentor young musicians at the New Song Academy in Shepherdstown. From August 23rd to 25th, Mattea will engage in three days of intensive workshops on song craft and live performance.

“I always wondered what I would have said to myself when I was twenty and just starting to make music myself,” she says from her home in Nashville. “Now I kind of get a chance to do that.”

Music was always a part of Kathy Mattea’s life. Growing up, she loved listening to records in the living room of her family home in the small town of Cross Lanes, eleven miles northwest of Charleston. Her older brothers introduced her to country and rock and roll, and her dad’s record collection introduced her to big bands and bluegrass.When Mattea started grade school, her teachers discovered that she was academically advanced. They urged her parents to keep the young girl active and engaged.

“I was quite a handful,” laughs the singer. “My mom took the advice very seriously, so I did Girl Scouts, piano lessons, singing lessons, ice skating, all kinds of stuff. The only thing that didn’t eventually get boring had to do with music.”

 Despite her passion, when it came time for college, Mattea enrolled at West Virginia University to study engineering.

“I was good at math and science, and my parents really wanted me to get a degree,” she recalls.

As it turns out, Mattea didn’t get that diploma, but she did make her parents proud. The singer’s list of accomplishments includes eighteen top ten country music hits. In 1990, she won awards for Female Vocalist of the Year from the Country Music Association, and the Academy of Country Music. At the height of her fame, the musician’s parents got to see their daughter play to a crowd of about 150 thousand at the Sternwheel Regatta in Charleston.

“There were people on the bridge, in boats on the water, across the river, and all up and down the boulevard,” remembers the singer. “It was incredible.”

Ironically, Mattea’s musical career took root in college. Almost as soon as she arrived at the Morgantown campus, she joined the bluegrass band Pennsboro, and performed with them in all of her spare time. The joy she found in music easily surpassed the feelings she had for calculus. After her sophomore year at WVU, one of the singer’s band mates announced that he was moving to Nashville. He invited Mattea to join him, and she knew instantly that it would be the right choice for her.

"I knew that I would never have this opportunity again, because I would never have moved there by myself,” she explains. “I had a chance to see if I could make a life with music, and have a shot at a more interesting life.”

Despite her conviction that she was meant to pursue music, Mattea knew that breaking the news to her parents would be difficult.

“My mom just thought I was throwing my life away, and I can understand now how a parent would worry,” says the singer. “But what you couldn’t really see on the outside was that this wasn’t arbitrary for me,” she continues. “It was something I had thought about a lot, I just never really talked to anyone about it. I wasn’t running from something, I was going to something.”

Mattea returned to Cross Lanes before moving to Nashville so that she could spend time with her family, and to tell them why the decision made sense to her.

“It was a transformative time in my relationship with my folks,” she says of the visit. “It was the first time in my life that we could disagree strongly, but still respect each others opinions. Looking back, I see I was stepping into a new relationship with my parents.” In 1978, Kathy Mattea packed the car and headed to Music City, a journey she would later write about in the hit song, “Leaving West Virginia.”

Once in Nashville, Mattea worked a series of odd jobs to help pay the rent while working towards her big break. Her first gig as a tour guide at the Country Music Hall of Fame was followed by a stint as a secretary at an insurance company. Finally, she settled on a job as a waitress so she could have at flexible schedule in which to pursue session work as a back-up singer. Eventually, Mattea landed a gig singing in Bobby Goldsboro’s band. That soon led to the musician landing her own record deal. Her breakthrough album came with her third release, 1989’s “Walk the Way the Wind Blows” which produced four top ten hits.

Just the year before, Mattea had married musician Jon Vezner. The couple met when the songwriter stopped to help his future wife after her car broke down on a city street.

Mattea had a string of successful albums throughout the nineties, and with each new release she grew artistically, incorporating melodies beyond the restriction of the country music genre.

“Sometimes it can be a little frightening leaving what one knows so well. But these changes are exactly what makes you grow as an artist,” she says thoughtfully. “You hit a certain point and you know that you have a finite amount of years to make records,” she adds. “I had some records that I really wanted to get done, and I didn’t want my life to pass without doing that.”

In 2000; Kathy Mattea released “The Innocent Years,” which revealed the artist in a period of personal and professional reflection.

“My dad was struggling with cancer,” she explains. “I decided to try to share some of the human experience of growing through adulthood in the songs.”

 Mattea believes she connected with people by sharing her story, and it inspired her to keep challenging herself musically. The singer knows a thing or two about taking chances, and these days her music isn’t so easy to categorize.

 “I’ve always had eclectic tastes,” she notes.

 On her latest CD, “Right Out of Nowhere,” Mattea is still a little bit country, but she’s also equal parts folk, blues, and rock and roll. Self produced; the project is perhaps Mattea’s most personal record to date. Her father eventually lost his battle with cancer, and last year both she and her husband lost their mothers. For years, Mattea traveled home every four to six weeks to attend to her ailing parents. She says prayer, and running along Lake Chaweva in Cross Lanes helped her cope.

“You just sort of live in crisis for years, with lots of chronic illness and helping people walk towards their death,” she remembers. “Then you have to sort of rise up and dust yourself off and kind of figure out who that has made you.”

Part of that discovery included the musician’s decision to produce for the first time in her career. It was Mattea behind the controls of “Right Out of Nowhere.”

 “I’ve always had a lot to say about a project, but I’ve never had to be the person whose butt is on the line,” she notes. “Every time I would meet a producer to talk with them about the project, I kept coming up with a feeling that I was supposed to do it myself, and if I didn’t do it I would somehow regret it.”

Mattea’s most recent song was one she wrote after the Sago Mine disaster. Both of her grandfathers worked in West Virginia coal mines, and the singer wanted to pay tribute. The morning of the memorial, the musician gathered some of her friends in Nashville to perform “The Slender Threads that Bind Us.”The video was played on “The Larry King Live” show during a special episode that honored the twelve victims of the tragedy.

“Everybody was so grateful to be able to do the smallest thing to extend their hearts to these families who had been through so much,” says Mattea.

The musician still has plenty of family in the mountain state, and visits whenever she can. Her brother Joe lives near the family’s childhood home, and Mike lives just across the river. “He likes to call his house the West Virginia embassy in Ohio,” Mattea says with a laugh.

Other than her music and family, it’s her spirituality that drives the artist today. She is a voracious reader, and cites Madeline L’Engle’s “Walking on Water,” as a recent favorite.

“It’s about the creative act, and what a spiritual leap of faith it is,” says Mattea. “She talks about the tension between listening to the voice of the work that is calling out to be made, and the reality that we all want to be accepted. I’ve been absolutely terrified sometimes, but I haven’t let it keep me from doing anything I’ve wanted to do, because that is where the divine enters our lives. The fear doesn’t go way, but the divine is an antidote to it.”

"Shock of the Real " Photorealism Revisted: ArtReview.com

“Is it art if it looks like something that isn’t art?” That’s the question posed by Wendy Blazier, senior curator of the Boca Raton Museum of Art before a recent tour of the Florida museum’s current exhibit, “Shock of The Real: Photorealism Revisited.”

The genre, more a style than a formalized movement, favors quintessentially American subjects like diners, art deco movie theaters and automobiles. When seen from a distance, the paintings resemble photographs. Get a little closer, and the “is it art” question is answered when the viewer glimpses the high level of virtuosity required to achieve such an illusion. The term Photorealism was coined by New York City gallery owner Louis K. Meisel in 1969. According to Blazier, the Boca Raton Museum of Art is the first in the nation to assemble a retrospective of this magnitude.

Historically, artists from Edgar Degas to Paul Cezanne have used photographs as visual aids in their work. Photorealists take it a step further by actually transferring photographic slides on to a canvas and painting over the image.

 Sometimes the likeness is projected to scale, but often the artist will manipulate the size to produce a different perspective. Such is the case with the late Charles Bell, whose paintings of vintage toys were often depicted in a scale as much as ten times life size. Imagine a huge steel ball ricocheting off a bumper that is aiming for you in his colorful close-up paintings of pinball machines. One of Bell’s finest, “Tropical Nights,” is included here.

Augusta Georgia native Davis Cone is featured prominently too.

 For the past twenty-five years, Cone has meticulously captured the architectural grandeur of the old time movie palace. His paintings are alive with vivid detail. “County 1999,” with its Art Deco neon sign of bright blue and canary yellow is a perfect example of the artist’s masterful eye for composition and color. Movie director Peter Bogdanovich once wrote that Cone’s paintings “produce an oddly emotional experience: a sharp recognition of a kind of innocence lost, a distant memory suddenly recaptured.”

 On “Thompson 1980,” Cone has used the camera to record the effects of light and shadow on a once stately movie house in suburban Atlanta. Now we see its faded paint and broken light panels and become nostalgic for a time when going downtown to see a movie was an event, and not simply an average visit to a shopping mall movie megaplex.

Some of the more lively paintings in this exhibit belong to Idelle Weber, one of the few female artists to have achieved recognition for her Photorealist work. Weber, who has taught art at Harvard University and New York University, first achieved recognition as a Pop Art painter during the genre’s 1960’s heyday. Weber’s bold hues were likely influenced by her work in the era of Warhol and Rauschenberg.

 “The possibility for a compelling color statement plays a strong part in my selection process,” she once wrote. The artist has three works on display here including “Corner Fruit Jungle,” an oil painting from 1974 that features a bright yellow storefront sign which dominates the upper half of the canvas. Underneath, open crates of ruby red tomatoes and crisp green beans appear as though three dimensional. It almost looks as if the produce can be plucked right off the canvas.

For many, the hallmark of Photorealism is its detached objectivity. For museum curator Wendy Blazier, that approach makes sense considering its historical context.

 “In the 1950’s, the art world was all about abstract expressionism which was physical and emotional,” she said. “The Pop Art of the 1960’s was a reaction against the feelings and gesture of that movement. If Pop Art was all flash and fun, then the Photorealists were the opposite of that; dead serious, neutral, with an emphasis on technique.”

When California native Ralph Goings graduated from the California College of Arts and Crafts in 1953 he was a disciple of Abstract Expressionism, but a passion for photography eventually led him to a career in Photorealism.

“It went against all my art school training,” he once wrote. Today, the artist is best known for his highly detailed paintings of pick-up trucks, and the interiors of hamburger stands and diners. Embracing banality doesn’t make the work boring though. Goings succeeds in breathing new life into everyday objects by making us see the loveliness in the otherwise mundane. In the 1981 watercolor “Red Menu,” a Heinz ketchup bottle, pepper shaker and sugar container appear monumental thanks to the artist’s intensity of focus. Removed of any background, the items look epic. Elsewhere, “Collins Diner,” reveals Goings’ admitted fascination for the effects of light on surface. This close-up of a diner interior finds the artist skillfully capturing the reflective qualities of chrome counters and glass enclosed pie windows. These paintings are certainly far removed from the artist’s early abstract work.

 “People were upset by what I was doing,” Goings has said about his first Photorealist paintings.

“That gave me encouragement in a perverse sort of way. I was delighted to be doing something that was really upsetting people. I was having a hell of a lot of fun.”

 

Brandi Carlile Howard County Times

Brandi Carlile has spent the better half of the past few years on a tour bus, but that doesn’t mean she wants to sing about it.
 “I did not want to record a bunch of songs about travel and highways,” says the musician about the writing process for her newest CD, “Give Up the Ghost.” “Those types of songs are a little too carefree and self-indulgent,” she adds by phone from a tour stop in Iowa. “I wanted to transcend the bus, and the road, and all the daily routines because ultimately; it isn’t all that relatable.”

 Instead, the 29 year old singer/songwriter has produced a collection of songs relevant to anyone who’s ever lost a friend, been in love, or missed someone.

 “If you write about your immediate feelings or your immediate environment, it is sort of temporary,” says Carlile. “There’s something permanent about looking deeper into what’s inspiring those feelings. That’s the concept behind calling the album “Giving Up the Ghost.” It’s about really digging beneath the present moment and writing about something outside of it.”

Next Monday, October 4th, fans can hear Carlile’s new songs when she performs in concert at Rams Head Live! in Baltimore.

Brandi Carlile released her first CD when she was just 23. The musician’s self-titled debut received enthusiastic reviews, and in 2005, Rolling Stone Magazine named Carlile as one of the year’s “Artists to Watch.” Her second album, “The Story,” was produced by T Bone Burnett and featured three songs prominently featured on TV’s “Grey’s Anatomy” at the height of McDreamy mania. The exposure certainly helped boost the musician’s profile, but how does Carlile intend to maintain that level of popularity?

“That’s what touring is all about,” she maintains. “You come into a town and play a bar, and the next year you play a bigger hall, because one person from that bar brought ten friends,” she says. “That’s how you are able to maintain a career; that loyalty of people coming back and spreading the word. It creates a relationship that I think is really special.”

Among the artist’s growing legion of fans are a few famous faces. Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls was an early Carlile supporter, and Elton John was so impressed with the singer/songwriter, that he became somewhat of a mentor to her.

 “I can’t wrap my head around the idea that Elton John likes me, but I can say that he probably knows what an impact he’s made in my life, and he has stepped up to that responsibility in a way that’s really above and beyond the call of duty,” Carlile stresses. “He’s sat me down and given me advice, and never ceases to amaze me with his time and energy.” Elton John collaborates with Carlile on the track, “Caroline,” from “Give Up the Ghost.”

In a landscape where many female artists are marketed to conform to a certain stereotype, Brandi Carlile has managed to challenge conventions. She has a big, emotive voice, and is not afraid to use it.

“When I’m on stage, I like to project,” says the musician. “I like for my voice to be loud and my stance to be strong. I think that in real life, women can be all kinds of different people,” she continues. “You can be a businesswoman or an athlete, you can be feminine or masculine, demure or forward, but in the music industry, it’s only looked on as appropriate to behave in a certain way. I want to defy those boundaries.”

For someone who’s released three albums in just five years, it’s surprising to hear that Carlile isn’t a big fan of making records.

“Often times going into the studio is just a way to keep on touring,” she admits. “That hour and a half to two hours I’m on stage is the best part of every one of my days,” she continues. “Picture a really big pivotal moment in a person’s life like a wedding, or a really big birthday. That’s my life every night when I’m on tour.”

Many artists acknowledge that stepping away from that attention is an adjustment, and Carlile is no exception.

“Last time I took a break, I was kind of depressed and I was telling Amy Ray about it, and she told me that I needed an applause tape,” Carlile recalls with a smile. “She said every time you do the dishes, or make the bed, just hit the play button. But it’s not an ego thing,” Carlile emphasizes. “It just feels like performing is what I was made to do, so when I’m not doing it, I feel like half of myself.”

 

Marianne Faithfull - Howard County Times

When reminded that she recently told a journalist on the CBS Sunday Morning program that she finally, “gets it,” singer Marianne Faithfull confesses that she’s not sure what she meant by that statement.

 “Oh man, what the hell was I talking about?” she says with a laugh by phone from her home in Paris.

 “I suppose it must have been about life in general,” she continues. “I understand the rules now. They’re pretty simple really. Behave well, and don’t drink and take drugs!”

 Faithfull’s dramatic tale has been well documented.

 At 17, she became a pop star with her version of “As Tears Go By,” written by The Rolling Stones. As the girlfriend of Mick Jagger, Faithfull was the crown princess of swinging London, until a notorious drug bust at the home of Keith Richards set off a long downward spiral into addiction and homelessness.

“It destroyed me,” the musician now recalls.

By the end of the seventies, Marianne Faithfull had all but disappeared from public consciousness until her triumphant comeback album, 1979’s “Broken English.” Even though years of abuse had rendered her once angelic voice into something cracked and weathered, it had somehow become even more stunning in its imperfection.

“It’s a good instrument,” Faithfull proclaims. “It’s got something it can do that no one else can.”

Indeed, hers is a voice that’s lived, and if any more evidence is needed it is found on the musician’s new CD, “Easy Come, Easy Go.”

“It’s really long term this career I’ve had,” Faithfull says of her 22nd release. “I hope I’m not sounding too smug, but I am rather pleased about that.”

 On Monday, local fans can catch up with the iconic songstress when she performs at Ram’s Head on Stage in Annapolis. Although she could easily fill up bigger concert halls, Faithfull is purposely opting to play small venues on this current tour.

 “I want to see people,” she says. “I think my audience is very much like me; they’re people I can talk to. We are very much connected.”

“Easy Come Easy Go” reunites Faithfull with Hal Willner, the producer of her critically acclaimed 1987 release, “Strange Weather.” That album first revealed Faithfull’s talent as a masterful interpreter with a unique ability to make any song her own. The CD’s highlight was an updated version of “As Tears Go By” which was now filled with all the disillusionment and regret befitting Faithfull at 40 years old.

“When I did “Strange Weather” I had just come out of treatment and I was in early recovery,” the singer recalls. “It was a hard time.”

With its jazzy cabaret sound, “Easy Come, Easy Go” is perfectly suited to Faithfull’s distinctive and dramatic voice. Also notable is the CD’s stylistic sprawl. From Dolly Parton to The Decemberists, Billie Holiday to Brian Eno, “Easy Come Easy Go” is an effortless mix of classic and contemporary.

“The only real concept for this record was to work with great songs,” Faithfull says.

The disc features guest appearances by a few of her famous friends including Keith Richards, who appears on the Merle Haggard cover, “Sing Me Back Home.”

“I first heard that song in the sixties when Keith and Gram Parsons used to sing it” says Faithfull. “I wanted it to be as good as their version. With ours, Keith is singing a low harmony which is very beautiful.”

When she was recording the new CD, Faithfull was in the midst of ending a twelve year relationship. The sense of loss is palpable on her version of “Solitude,” first made famous by Billie Holiday.

“It’s very personal for me, and I knew I could put that across,” she says. “I think it’s beautiful. It makes me want to cry.”

“Easy Come, Easy Go” was recorded in just nine days, and Faithfull says that gives the album, “a real freshness and a certain sort of edge.” With typical candor, the musician also admits that the project had to move quickly due to budget concerns.

“This was terribly expensive,” she explains. “I always have to have the best, from the artwork to the band. I’m happy to do it, but it costs me.”

The musician says she’s eager to perform these new songs, and while it may seem that life on the road would prove too rigorous for the now 62 year old singer, Faithfull says that she finds her greatest joy in performing.

“Literally all your depression and anything that’s keeping you earthbound are gone by the end of a concert. All your aches and pains just disappear.”

 

Bringing some G. Love to Merriweather- Howard County Times

Last summer when G. Love & Special Sauce performed at the Pier 6 Pavilion in Baltimore, it was very much against doctor’s orders.

 “They wanted me to cancel my tour, but I just kind of plowed through and maybe that was stupid,” admits the band’s singer, guitarist and harmonica player, Garrett Dutton- better known as G. Love.

In 2008, the musician was diagnosed with an acute vocal hemorrhage.

 “The injury that I had for a singer was equivalent to an NFL player having a torn ACL,” he explains by phone from his home in Boston. “When I wasn’t on stage, I was on complete vocal rest.”

 Fifteen years of singing his signature growling blues had taken its toll, so last November the 36 year old musician underwent surgery to repair his torn vocal cords.

 “I think I’m sounding better than ever,” he says.

 Local fans can judge for themselves on Saturday  when G. Love & Special Sauce plays the Merriweather Post Pavilion with singer/songwriter’s Jason Mraz and Eric Hutchinson.

G. Love & Special Sauce, which also includes bassist Timo Shanko, keyboardist Mark Boyce, and drummer Houseman, were one of the first acts to mix hip-hop with the blues. On their self-titled 1994 debut, the band managed to channel both the Beastie Boys and B.B. King. Their single “Cold Beverage,” became a staple on MTV and college radio.

 “I call it the hip-hop blues,” G. Love says of the band’s sound. “That’s the cornerstone of what we do, but we also have rock and roll, reggae, and even country. It’s basically a big soup of American and world music.”

Over the course of ten albums, G. Love & Special Sauce has found new ways to enliven that formula. From the horn laden hooks of “City Livin” to the acoustic sweetness of “Crumble,” the band seems invigorated on their newest release, “Superhero Brother.”

“I write all different kinds of songs,” G. Love says. “They are heavy and light and funny and sad and everything in between.”

 Still, the musician will admit that it’s the band’s upbeat tunes that fans respond to best. “People like the fun party vibe songs,” he acknowledges. “When people come to a G.Love & Special Sauce show they want to have a funky good time.”

 If their mantra is to give the people what they want then “Superhero Brother” delivers, but the band has not always been so successful.

 After releasing 1999’s critically acclaimed “Philadelphonic” CD, G. Love & Special Sauce saw their profile diminish. Their next album was met with tepid response and the band was dropped by their record label.

Ironically, the group’s decline coincided with the rapid ascension of Jack Johnson, a singer/songwriter first introduced to the music world by G. Love & Special Sauce.

“I met Jack when he was this surfer kid fresh out of college,” G. Love explains. “He played me his demo and I thought it was really good.”

 The band covered Johnson’s “Rodeo Clowns” on the “Philadelphonic” release, and invited the younger musician to share vocals on the track. The song became a hit, and Jack Johnson soon released his own album, the platinum selling “Brushfire Fairytales.”

 “It’s been really awesome to see him blow up,” G. Love remarks.

 Still, it couldn’t have been easy to watch his younger pal eclipse him.

“It was interesting to say the least,” G. Love says with a laugh.

 He can afford to find the situation amusing now. When Jack Johnson formed his own record label, G. Love was one of the first artists signed, and in 2004 Brushfire Records released his first solo album, “The Hustle.” “Lemonade” followed, and in 2008 the full band was back with “Superhero Brother.” They might not be platinum sellers, but G. Love says the band is happy to make their living as working musicians.

“Sure everyone would love to sell a million records but the fact is that it’s harder and harder to do that now,” he says of the current state of the music business.

 With so many ways to access free music, artists today can’t rely on album sales alone to expand their fan base. Getting people to fill the seats is what’s most important in the new paradigm. Fortunately, performing live has always been the band’s strong suit.

 

“Every night before a show we come together for a hug and take a minute to let the rest of the day go so we can go there and give it to the people,” G. Love says. “We put everything we have into the music. I can honestly say that I never take it for granted.”