Every singer and/or songwriter we’ve grown to love started as an unknown, right?
This week, we’re looking at musicians who might be legends of the future.
The Chapin Sisters A Date With the EverlyBrothers Lake BottomA
Sisters Abigail and Lily Chapin, nieces of the late singer-songwriter Harry Chapin, deliver delicate, evocative covers of songs made famous by the Everly Brothers, one of the music world’s most memorable and influential sibling pop duos.
The 14 selections on A Date With the Everly Brothers were recorded in one day in a Brooklyn studio, the way Don and Phil Everly would have done in their late 1950s heyday.
The sisters’ admiration for the Everlys comes from the brothers’ ability to choose the perfect two notes in almost every three-note chord so that listeners never miss the third note. The girls share that skill, along with an easygoing musical convergence that comes with singing together all their lives. The result is a series of dreamlike, drifting laments to teenage love that collectively offer a timeless tribute to the Everlys’ classic hits.
Hot tracks: “Cathy’s Clown,” “Dream,” “When Will I Be Loved,” “Till I Kissed Ya.” - KAREN MARTIN Nataly Dawn How I Knew Her NonesuchA
Exuberant and as full of promise as a brilliant spring morning, Nataly Dawn’s debut solo album is a refreshing kick in the pants for anyone who thinks that songwriting has deteriorated to a series of weary love lyrics and tedious hooks.
The first song, “Araceli,” bounces from note to note like a child skipping through a field of flowers. The lyrics, which tell the story of a beauty whose perfect face dooms anyone she loves, create a timeless tale of powerful gods and ways to defy them.
After hearing it echo through your head long after it’s finished playing, you might think, “Wow, that was a heckuva song. Surely the rest of the album can’t be that good.” But it is. Maybe better.
The songs, written by Dawn and produced by Jack Conte, with whom she formed the duo Pomplamoose, are striking in their skill at telling serious stories to a bright, irregular beat,much like the compositions of Tori Amos. Accompanied by simple instrumentation (guitar, organ, percussion, drums, bass and strings), Dawn plays acoustic guitar while revealing in the title song the sadness of not knowing a mother before “your mind was too old … ’cause you did everything to please us and now you’re sitting in a home.”
And she takes graphic revenge with “Even Steven,” no doubt dedicated to someone who has it coming: “If I could get even with Steven/I’d have to stoop so very low/A swift uppercut wouldn’t cut it I fear/so below your tight belt we must go.”
How I Knew Her was funded by Kickstarter, where the minimal goal of $20,000 was reached in three days. The funding campaign came to a close with 2,315 people donating a total of $104,788, exceeding the original goal by more than five times.
Hot tracks: “Please Don’t Scream,” “Why Did You Marry,” “Caroline.” - KAREN MARTINTrixie Whitley Fourth Corner Strong BloodB
Singer Trixie Whitley appears in a ghostly image on the cover of her debut album and that certainly sets the right tone for the music she makes.
With her unconventional voice - soulful yet very breathy and raw - Whitley generates atmosphere first and meaning comes trailing after, if at all.
The guitars and electronics behind her throb and/or explode at regular intervals as she wavers all over the line between R&B and indie rock.
On a few occasions her grand vision comes together, most notably on the body-mover “Never Enough.” On other occasions, she has to drag her songs to the finish line.
Hot tracks: “Never Enough,” “Fourth Corner.” -WERNER TRIESCHMANN Ana Popovic Can You Stand the HeatArtisteXclusiveBGuitarist and singer Ana Popovic, a native of Belgrade, Serbia, found the environs of Memphis better suited to her preferred style of music - the blues. So she moved there in 2012 to hone her craft. Her new album, recorded at Memphis’ Ardent Studios, is a muscular example of the Memphis blues genre that grew out of Beale Street in the early 1930s.
It’s an edgy, Strat-fueled jaunt through material that comes across well on the recording and promises to sound even better live.
Along with an assertive command of her instrument, Popovic has a bumps-andgrinds vocal style capable of provoking the occasional shiver as she struts her way through the album’s 14 funky tracks. Her aggressive style of writing lyrics works best on “Blues for Mrs. Pauline,” in which she threatens a would-be rival for her man’s affections with phrases such as: “Next time you go and see my baby/It’ll be the last time you’ll ever see.” That’ll get your attention!
Hot tracks: “Leave Well Enough Alone” (aka “High Maintenance You”), the instrumental “Tribe,” “Hot Southern Night.” - KAREN MARTIN
Style, Pages 19 on 05/28/2013