Music Style Country

Musical Influences Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton

Albums "How Else Can This Story Go?"

Press Reviews For more on new artists: Billboard Magazine June 19, 1999 Eye Of The Storm is a regular column regarding atmospheric pressure and stalled systems by the Editorial Director of WeatherBureau. Timothy White, Editor The state of limbo in which many indie albums can languish after being licensed by a major label is always lamentable for the artists involved. But it can be an equal injustice for a record-buying public increasingly faced with a bland marketplace lacking any real element of surprise. Delays in setting a release date (or, in this case, a re-release date) often result from structural shifts at the sponsoring conglomerate, but too often the tardy appearance of a ready-to-ship record is also owed to the same genre-defying magnetism that got the act signed, namely: Where do you display an objet d'art that exceeds any contemporary decor? In the case of "Don't Stop Asking," a radiant album by San Francisco-based singer Lucy Lee, the answer is: Any damned place you please. One of the most delectable pop outings imaginable, "Don't Stop Asking"'s shining sense of fun is leavened by worldly-wise depth of experience, and also heralds the arrival of a classic bandstand belter with a winning grasp of edge-of-the-stage subtlety. The record's title track peals with the same plucky brio that propelled Little Peggy March's "I Will Follow Him" to No. 1 on the Hot 100 in 1963. However, Lee's own hard-swinging knack with torch songs shows a distinct postmodern cast as she puts her passion on call-waiting with the canny couplet, "Well tonight's not quite right/But don't stop asking!", later imploring, "Please don't take it personally/ You can consider me an interested party/...Have your people call my people/I wish that I was kidding!" This rollicking cut is utterly beguiling in its bittersweet earnestness, reimagining the girl next door as an unattainable victim of e-mail, speed dialing and love deprivation, struggling to sustain both civility and romantic possibility in a mega-stressed culture. The rest of the album has the same conflicted air of sophisticated hesitation and homespun hyperdrive, its wacky-wise production values (courtesy Scott Mathews and Roger Clark) poised at the intersection of the Beach Boys, the Association and St. Etienne. If there are fresher and more instantly memorable tunes on the airwaves than the expectant, seemingly autobiographical "How Else Can This Story Go?" and "Impossible," the latter a backporch plaint that ranks with Madonna's best power ballads, this writer hasn't heard them. "Don't Stop Asking" was originally issued by West Pole Productions/Visual Music Co. in 1996 in slightly different form under the title "How Else Can This Story Go?" The 13-track indie set earned immediate West Coast raves and drew the attention of PolyGram's Island Records, which had originally planned to issue the album in September 1998, then reslotted it for March 23 of this year (see Temperatures Rising, WeatherBureau, Spring 1999) with Universal's since-restructured Island/Mercury division. However, as of early June '99, despite receptivity for its title track at AC radio ("43 small-market stations are on it," says Lee), "Don't Stop Asking" still lacked a shipping date for Island/Def Jam. "Oh well," says the perky Lee with a laugh, "my collaborator Roger Clark, who writes all the songs, says his main inspirations are soap operas and sitcoms, so I guess it fits the whole situation. For me, the 'Don't Stop Asking' song is so appropriate. I'll meet a nice guy who'll want to ask me out, but I've deliberately kept myself free of emotional entanglements because of my career." Born on Sept. 6, 1971, in Oakland, New Jersey, one of seven kids (and the sole daughter) by electrical engineer Thomas Loraditch and his homemaker wife, Sarah Lee, Lucy began singing while an English Lit. major at Wheaton College in Massachusetts. "I was in an a capella group called the Wheatones," she confides, giggling. Heading west after graduation, Lee introduced herself to Clark while he was booking acts at the Claremont Hotel in Berkeley, Calif., and asked for a gig. "I was doing old standards like "Blame It On My Youth" and Hollywood cowboy tunes like "Cow Cow Boogie," she says. Clark began writing material well-suited to Lee's brassy vulnerability, like "Her Next Life," "Who's The Lucky Woman?" and the bantering "Sensitive Guy," while she worked on her quirky-quaint performance style, which contrasts her provincial attire and battered suitcase of props with the stunning power and confidence of her singing. As Lee awaits the day when "Don't Stop Asking" will drop, she and her combo can be found regularly gigging in Bay Area clubs, and twice a week she performs against the din of the B.A.R.T. (Bay Area Rapid Transit) subway to test the upper range of her vocal chops, and to tug at the restless hearts of passersby. "Playing in the subway, trying to get everybody happy as they go through the day, reminds you that it's all about entertaining people," says Lee. "Roger sometimes likes to joke that I got signed to an H.M.O. instead of a record label, but we both believe the slow, steady approach will pay off in the end. Anybody who hears the songs, either on the radio or in the subway, seems to find them funny and sad and true." Timothy White, Editor by Diane Wilkes I have never been overly fond of the Christine Lavin Funny-Gimmicky School of Songwriting. The line between humorous wit and emotional truth is a hard line to straddle, and the only artists who I can think of who have ridden it with any kind of grace are Paul Westerberg and Elvis Costello. Their sneering Pagliacci personae never fails to remind me that they had to have tunnelled their way to success prodded by the memory of scores of jeering schoolmates. Women have a harder time of it. Mary Chapin-Carpenter has written several songs (“Opening Act,” “Young, Dumb and Blonde,” “If I Were a Diva...”) that are more humor than heartfelt, but has always wisely refrained from committing to them to vinyl. They remain an entertaining memory as opposed to a song you always want to skip after the second hearing. Other artists (Joni Mitchell and Teena Marie come to mind) occasionally punctuate their songs with a zinger or two, but the joke always takes the last seat in the back of the emotional content bus. Well, move over Paul and Elvis/Declan. Lucy Lee is coming to a town near you, and if you like retropop that rocks with tongue firmly in cheek, you will find this cd as irresistable as I have. I discovered this indie (West Pole Productions) in my favorite used cd store, and found my subconscious asking, “Why play one of my 2000+ disks when I can just play Lucy Lee again?” My answer was to repeatedly insert it into the player as if I was on automatic pilot. Imagine Madonna turning to her not-blonde musical roots instead of going electronic. She finds a cache of previously unrecorded Brill Building songs with a punk attitude. The result: the 13-song Lucy Lee debut, which will be released on Island soon (hopefully). Each song is a perfectly-crafted pop/rock gem that doesn’t sacrifice emotion, despite the consistent vein of humor that pulses through each cut. “Don’t Stop Asking” is the rueful request of a woman-on-the-move who doesn’t have time to date (“Have your people contact mine/I wish that I was kidding”). “Her Next Life” is a satiric description of a woman who would prefer to pine poetically over a dead romance than to shift into mundane reality: “She wears her bleeding broken heart on her sleeve for everyone to see/...In her next life, she will always love him... he’s gonna love her, too/in her next life”). This particular take on karma is as refreshing as it is funny--yet you can really feel the frustration of the drama queen’s buddies who try to convince her to re-enter the real world. “Who Died and Made You King?” (“Why’d you think that I’d ever stoop to kiss the ring?”) and “Show Me More” (“God’s gift to women, baby, that’s what you must think you are/You ain’t showing me nothing/You’ve got to show me more/For me to love you now) have a feist quotient about which Christine Lavin could only dream. My personal favorite? “Sensitive Guy,” where Lucy pokes fun at a girl whose boyfriend who “goes to church on Sunday, volunteers his time”--and herself for wanting him (“Me, I’d like to catch her sneakin’ something on the side, then I might have my own sensitive guy”). The dead-on combination of cynicism and vulnerability is credible and moving. Let’s get sensitive, indeed. There are one or two songs that aren’t as classic. “Elvis, What Happened?” and the rockabilly boogie, “Too Much Baby Alright!” are not as memorable as the plaintive “Who’s the Lucky Woman?” (“I don’t suppose it matters now if you ever really loved me”) and “To Die For,” a wry warning against domestic abuse. Lucy’s register, like Madonna’s, isn’t always the most exhaustive. But her asides (“Let’s get sensitive,” “I don’t think so”) are sassily convincing and make up for the occasional quavery vocal. This is a great album to clean your house to (assuming that you, unlike me, ever clean your house). It’s an utterly danceable pop-lovers dream. And I’ve finally figured out why Don’t Stop Asking works where others fail: the emotional issue is each song’s priority, and the humor derives naturally from the songwriter’s tone, not the other way around. In comedic terms, think Bill Cosby as opposed to Jackie Mason. You can buy this CD via Amazon.com. You could wait for the major label distribution, but don’t you want to be cool and have it on the indie label? Check it out, and see if you, too, are ready to kiss the ring.

Location San Francisco, CA - USA

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