Saturday, August 07, 2004
I didn't plan to take a summer vacation from Wayne's Words. It just seemed to work out that way. Working at Billboardmagazine has exposed me to a lot of interesting stuff: There's kind of a unofficial communal CD library where you can just pick stuff up, sort of risk-free trials.
The early summer was dominated by some very original young women singer-songwriters. I had a musical crush on Rachel Yamagata
Rachel Yamagata, whose CD "Happenstance" (RCA Victor) made me think of the early development of Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, and Rickie Lee Jones, without actually resembling any of those singers (except for Rickie Lee).
Rachel hits her piano, hard, as if she were a drummer first before moving over to keyboards. The repetition of the first word in the title of "Be Be Your Love" kind of typifies her percussive approach to writing and singing. Most of the songs aren't just about obsessive love; they sound obsessed themselves. When Rachel came up to play a few songs at the Billboard Cafe one afternoon, I told her that her music made me feel like she spent half her life raised by highly educated people, and the other half being raised by wolves. She looked at me as if I somehow discovered the ingredient in her secret sauce.
The early summer was dominated by some very original young women singer-songwriters. I had a musical crush on Rachel Yamagata
Rachel Yamagata, whose CD "Happenstance" (RCA Victor) made me think of the early development of Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell, and Rickie Lee Jones, without actually resembling any of those singers (except for Rickie Lee).
Rachel hits her piano, hard, as if she were a drummer first before moving over to keyboards. The repetition of the first word in the title of "Be Be Your Love" kind of typifies her percussive approach to writing and singing. Most of the songs aren't just about obsessive love; they sound obsessed themselves. When Rachel came up to play a few songs at the Billboard Cafe one afternoon, I told her that her music made me feel like she spent half her life raised by highly educated people, and the other half being raised by wolves. She looked at me as if I somehow discovered the ingredient in her secret sauce.
