GROOVE OUT

by Gregg Shapiro

QUEERLY INDEPENDENT

From cabaret to punk, GLBT voices make some noise

Since the beginning of 2003, I have received no less than two dozen CDs by GLBT artists. Most are self-released, on independent record labels owned by the artists, with limited distribution or availability exclusively through the performers’ websites. Respectable smaller labels have released a few, such as albums by Patty Larkin and Cheryl Wheeler.

Some Company (Violent Yodel Music), the third full-length disc by singer/songwriter and piano virtuoso Skott Freedman, is the perfect companion to his previous releases and proof that he is maturing and growing as an artist. Opening the disc on a daring note with “The Wind,” a song written by the controversial Cat Stevens, Freedman inhabits the brief and breezy song and makes it his own. The title track, featuring Freedman’s trademark piano work, is a thought-provoking song about slowing down. The track includes the lines “Now I’m heading South/gonna learn to shut my mouth/and listen to the people and their places and their stories/before I turn to judge,” sung over his rapid-fire playing. “Breathing” continues the theme of leaving, as does the powerful “Tug of War,” in which Freedman sings, “Same old story/boy meets girl/boy falls in love/well not in this story/just two boys here.” Freedman’s cover of “Walking in Memphis” is even better than Cher’s, and it’s the right uplifting tune the album needed at that moment. “In November” is as frenetic as the first snowfall, and “Walking Away,” which closes the album, is Freedman's final word on the end of a relationship.

Before relocating to South Carolina, Freedman spent some time living in Boston, where the queer music scene is particularly fertile. Kate Schutt remains a part of that scene. Her latest album, Broken (Wild Whip), is the third installment in a trilogy that began with the thrilling Brokenwingtrick, on which she deconstructed the songs of Talking Heads, David Bowie, Aretha Franklin, Madonna, and Cyndi Lauper, and continued on to Brokenworld, a daring album of original songs (including the extraordinary ”Calpernia”). She wraps it all up in a jazzy bow with vocal and guitar covers of songs in a jazz setting. From her light-as-perfume reading of “The Lady Is a Tramp” to a funky take on Janet Jackson’s “Miss You Much” to her folky jazz interpretation of “Autumn Leaves” to her gentle parental version reading of “Father Figure,” Schutt has fixed a place for herself at the jazz table. Schutt originals, such as the wonderful “Lost You” and the instrumental hidden track “Good Gracious,” show that she has an ear for creating new jazz.

While we’re on the subject of jazz, I highly recommend the live recording by the Segre Ensemble, Segré - Felicita segreta (RAS). The songs are based on poems by Emilio Rentocchini, and the disc is the latest album featuring out Italian lesbian jazz vocalist Sandra Cartolari, In fact, her previous solo offering Two Lips is also well worth owning.

Although there is no mistaking Patty Larkin’s folk roots, her phrasing often has a jazz quality to it—breathy, languorous, elongated. Red=Luck (Vanguard), her new album, opens with her characteristic guitar playing before the near-gospel declaration “Hey a-change is gonna come.” But it isn’t the Bible, but “April told me so.” Jeff Lang’s slide guitar takes wing on “The Cranes,” with the heartbreaking chorus “If you’re thinking of leaving/you’re leaving at a very bad time.” With its “I remember” mantra, “Children” made me think of a musical interpretation of Joe Brainerd. “Italian Shoes,” with Jennifer Kimball’s “What I’m trying to say” backing vocals, is about the search for the right words. Larkin has no trouble finding something political to say in “Birmingham.” The stripped-down “Home” is a tender response to 9/11, and “Different World,” featuring Jonatha Brooke, is one of Larkin’s most radio-ready tunes.

A longtime fixture on the women’s music scene, Tret Fure has followed up her acclaimed and long-awaited 2001 solo disc Back Home with her new acoustic album My Shoes (Tomboy girl). On the title track, she addresses her breakup with longtime companion Cris Williamson in direct terms. “The Wedding Song,” with the chorus “Don’t lose sight/Don’t feel bound/Just give thanks for the love we’ve found/Take my hand/Take my heart/And I will keep the prayer to never walk apart” deserves to be sung at commitment ceremonies, civil unions, and weddings the world over and could come to replace the Paul Stookey song of the same name. “The Apartment” is a melodic companion to Kusma Petrov-Vodkin’s painting 1919: The Alarm. “Bigger Than I” is a musical cross-country journey. Irish duo Zrazy supply accompaniment (penny whistle and bodhran) on the gently galloping “Fly.”

On a recent episode of Friends, Monica and Phoebe attended an open-mike night at New York City cabaret room Don’t Tell Mama’s (where Phoebe’s boyfriend, portrayed by Paul Rudd, plays piano). That episode and Jack’s MAC-award nomination episode on Will & Grace are probably the most exposure the cabaret circuit has even gotten in terms of reaching middle America. While I don’t picture beer-swilling frat-boys and their sorority sister girlfriends abandoning the karaoke clubs that they flock to in lieu of an intimate cabaret setting, I do take the cabaret via sitcom thing as a sign that perhaps cabaret artists will finally get the exposure that many richly deserve. Tom Michael is one such singer. On his second album Written in the Stars (LML), the Houston-born Michael once again finds a pleasing balance between old standbys such as Rodgers and Hammerstein’s “This Nearly Was Mine” and Berlin’s “How Deep Is the Ocean,” with more bold contemporary material. His homey reading of Carole Bayer Sager and Melissa Manchester’s “Home to Myself” is comforting, while Jill Kaeding’s cello playing enhances “Dialogue.” Michael knows you can’t go wrong with a John Bucchino song, and Beckie Menzie’s piano accompaniment on “Better Than I” allows the singer to enter the tune without obstruction.

Forever Sucks (Chainsaw), the five-song EP by Tracy + The Plastics speaks to the “politics of dancing” crowd shaking their queer asses to Le Tigre and Ladytron. On disc, the listener doesn’t get the complete experience of the live (Tracy) and video image (The Plastics) presentation that is said to be essential to Wynne (Tracy) Greenwood’s work. However, the songs (which clock in under 10 minutes total), especially “Best of the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s,” “Dog,” and “Hey Rubella,” have a good beat. You are welcome to dance to them if you feel so inclined.

Shimmerplanet is a New York-based duo consisting of John Fischer, who is openly gay (“as a box of birds,” in his own words), and Carolyn Eufrasio, who is straight. Their debut disc Welcome to Shimmerplanet (Engine Company) is one of the most original and enjoyable releases in recent memory. The pair takes turns singing lead on the songs, and when they sing together, as they do on the exceptional “No Safe,” they complement each other like two planets in the same orbit. The variety of the material, from the keyboard and vocal on “I Am Still Looking for You” to revved up rock of “Everything’s Perfect” to the deadpan vocals on “Happy” to the racing S&M heartbeat of “Beat Me” to humdinger “Envy,” kept my attention from start to finish (including the “I Sleep With the Radio On” coda) and made me yearn for travel to Shimmerplanet’s galaxy.

Out lesbian drummer Jennifer Yakes, from the punk band Leah Stargazing, was recently written up in The Advocate, as much for her drumming abilities as for her being, well, an out lesbian drummer in a punk band. Yakes’ drumming is the driving force behind this youthful New England quintet’s sound on their debut disc Leave It All Behind (Telescope). Standout tracks include “Stick Around,” “Three Days too Long,” “Crazy 17,” “Expect the Worst,” and “Wonder What You Wonder.”

Out lesbian singer/songwriter Toshi Reagon produced The Women Gather (EarthBeat!), the 30th anniversary album by Sweet Honey in the Rock, the all-female vocal group founded by her mother, Bernice Johnson Reagon. Toshi also wrote three of the songs, “Fly” (in response to the events of 9/11, written “with S H I R in mind”), the breathtaking “22 Hours in the Day,” and “Yes It Was” (which is dedicated to Toshi’s late father, Cordell Hull Reagon). The remaining songs, which combine messages both political and spiritual, are essential listening, especially at this time in history.

Texas-based singer/songwriter Ruthie Foster’s voice is a religious experience, praiseworthy and heavenly. With musician and producer Lloyd Maines (father of Dixie Chick Natalie Maines) at the helm on Runaway Soul (Blue Corn Music), Foster’s radiant vocals propel these near-spiritual and blues-inflected songs into the atmosphere like sweet incense. “Runaway Soul” and “Woke Up This Morning” raise the roof and let the sunshine in, and “Small Town Blues” lives up to its title in a big way. Bonnie Raitt owes it to herself to record “Home,” a song that sounds like it was written just for her. Foster’s cover of Terri Hendrix’s “Hole in My Pocket” is splendid, and when Foster accompanies herself on piano on “Give You My Love,” you can feel the affection emanating from the tune. Foster’s partner, Cyd Cassone, is present throughout, as she provides backing vocals and plays a variety of percussion instruments.

Embracing This (DreamBorn) is the debut disc by young, gay “soulfolk” singer/songwriter Jeremy Blue. Blue expresses and explores a hopeful range of emotions over the course of the album’s 11 songs, including “feeling like a twink on a Chelsea street” (“Don’t Know Where”), the youthful feeling of new love on “New to Me,” the spell that is cast in “Green Love,” and his jazz-inspired cover of “If I Only Had a Brain.” Blue shows his true colors even as he wrestles with “growing up” on a couple of songs (including “Some Guy” and “Garconfille”).

You won’t find the Cheryl Wheeler song “If It Were Up to Me,” the one that Garth Brooks had a hit with during his short-lived Chris Gaines phase, on Wheeler’s CD Different Stripe (Philo/Rounder/EMI Music), even though the CD is being billed as a “career-spanning collection.” Holly Near also covered the song, and perhaps Wheeler felt that there were other songs that better represented her recording career. The songs on Different Stripe go as far back as 1986 (such as “Addicted”) and also include two new songs (one of which is the amazing “Gandhi/Buddha”). A majority of the songs are derived from her 1990 album Circles & Arrows, including the exquisite “Moonlight And Roses.” Wheeler’s songs have also been covered by Bette Midler, Suzy Boggus, Maura O’Connell, openly gay cabaret performer D.C. Anderson, and many others.

Other notable releases by queer artists include New Yorker Allison Tartalia's Ready (Make Haste!); Rock Widow (Urban Productions) by gay prog-rocker Robert Urban; bi singer/songwriter and Indiegrrrl founder Holly Figueroa’s How It Is (Cake Records); Elaine Place and Roscoe by Chicago-based performer Scott Montgomery; the Prince-inspired songs of Saturn on his CD The Virgin Poet (SJG Entertainment); and Montreal-based Cher Neill’s bluesy The St. Laurence Blvd. Semi-Annual Street Sale.

Pop culture journalist Gregg Shapiro is also a published fiction writer and poet. He has a poem in the new collection, Sweet Jesus (Anthology Press).RUTHIE FOSTER IN CONROE

Raised in Gause, a small town 180 miles southeast of Dallas, Ruthie Foster ended up in New York performing with top musicians including the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Paul Schaffer. Foster later returned to Texas to care for her ailing mother. As part of her tour for Runaway Soul, Foster will perform on May 10 at the Crighton Theater in Conroe. More info: www.ruthiefoster.com.

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