Pop

Mike Mascioli

Singers and Songstresses

S

uzanne Vega's an artist awash in contradictions. The 26-year-old New York-based singer-songwriter, who performed recently at Wolfgang's to promote her first, eponymously titled LP on A&M, is one of the chief beneficiaries of the flurry of renewed interest in folk music, yet her themes and her look are contemporary, even new wave.

Her songs often invoke fantasy and fairy tale images of queens, soldiers and mythic movie stars but, just as often, urban characters (the neighborhood hooker, the woman living acorss the alley) in public places (the park, the playground), couched in insanity or romantic malaise: "Marlene watches from the wall/Her mocking smile says it all/as she records the rise and fall/of every man who's been here".

Her songs are poetic, but it's often a brittle, hard-edged poetry. Even the singers whom Vega brings to mind are a motley crew: the occasionally spoken lyrics, precious fairy tale imagery, brooding depictions of urban life; her dark palette, haunting sound, emotionally cool delivery even her allblack suit recall, in varying degrees, Laurie Anderson, early Joni Mitchell, Lou Reed and, most of all, Leonard Cohen. With minimal accompaniment, mostly guitars and other string instruments and synthesizer, she achieves maximum musical effects a rich, almost lyrical sound both on LP and in concert (where she performed all 10 songs from the LP and a smattering of others). Last but not least, physically Suzanne Vega's pale and ethereal, but her talent is substantial and very, very real.

Much of this month's best gay entertainment seems to be emanating from a tight little circle of performers. On Aug. 9, Boston's Elliot Pilshaw, one of the foremost proponents of gay men's music, sings at the Valencia Rose with pianist John Bucchino, who is not only the accompanist for Pilshaw on his forthcoming LP and for Holly Near and Ronnie Gilbert (both of whom were recently spotted in the audience at Ten Percent Revue), but performs his own songs the Rose, Aug. 10, to mark the release of his new recording On The Arrow (Dinosaur Records). On Aug. 16 and 30 at the Artemis Cafe and the Rose, respectively, Pilshaw and SF's own Ruth Jovel share the stage. Jovel, for her part, promises a repertoire of jazz, pop and show tunes, both vintage and contemporary"God Bless The Child," "Home" from The Wiz, "New York State Of Mind," "Twisted" and "Single Bars and Single Women," popularized by Dolly Parton. They'll be accompanaied on piano by Magdalen Luecke and joined on occasional vocals by Laurie Bushman, who'll also provide stand-up comedy.

Moreover, all four can also be found, along with Romanovsky and Phillips'

highlights from Ten Percent for these reasons, these gigs shouldn't be missed.

Though his first LP appeared in '73 on the short-lived Brut label (it's been reissued on John Hammond Records), singer-songwriter Michael Franks didn't make his mark until '75 with The Art Of Tea, the first of his eight Warner Bros. LPs. The cover portrait Franks looking out at us with soulful baby blues

neatly echoed his vocal and the music within soft, attractive, impossibly sexy. His ballads were sensitive and literate (Peggy Lee recorded a later one, "Robinsong"), but best were the clever, sassy, sexually-charged lyrics

Impossibly sexy: Michael Franks' lyrics detail the vagaries of passion.

Paul Phillips, under the lavender and pink umbrella of Tom Wilson Weinberg's superb Ten Percent Revue, which just ended a two-month run at the Rose but, luckily, continues Thursdays through Aug. 29 at Artemis, a popular women's coffeehouse (yes, men are welcome). Jovel, it bears repeating, is a genuine find, unknown to this reviewer and to many Ten Percent Revue viewers (huh?) before this, but her soaring, full-bodied vocal and dynamic, full-fledged stage presence have made a lasting impression. As an opportunity to hear Jovel in her own repertoire; a preview of Pilshaw's LP (listen for this poignant yet potent "How Nice"); and a sampling of

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("How come you always load your Pentax when I'm in the nude?") detailing the vagaries of passion in songs with titles like "Popsicle Toes" (which The Manhattan Transfer's recorded), "Wrestle a Live Nude Girl" and "Now That Your Joystick's Broke" like Leonard Cohen without the angst. I'm told, though, that his latest, Skin Dive, is a departure, offering, as it does, a harder sound again reflected in the cover photo, which has him looking awfully like Frank Zappa. Franks performs at the Warfield, Aug. 10.

It's unfair to judge performers by what you thought they'd sound like

unless, of course, the judgment's favorable. Even though I'd enjoyed Ernestine Anderson's latest, When The Sun Goes Down, her seventh for Concord Jazz, I feared that in reality (i.e., live performance) she'd prove a member of a certain school of substandard yet popular black female vocalists (e.g., Abbey Lincoln, Gloria Lynne and, closer to home, Faye Carol). Instead, in her recent stint at Kimball's Anderson proved, if not a special singer, at least a solid one. She's 57 and her voice is still strong, and when she aims for a note or attempts an improvisation, she usually gets what she wants.

But her program at least in the set I caught was less than sterling: three amusing but interchangeable songs about a feisty, self-sustaining woman shucking a no-good man; the classic and lovely "Street of Dreams" performed, alas, as a samba; and "Sunny," one of those songs, like "Goin' Out Of My Head" and "Feelings," that it was clear, even when it was all the rage, would never be more than a mere fad, sort of like swallowing goldfish. And songs from Sun (by Ellington and Basie, among others) were absent reserved, perhaps, for later.

"My Funny Valentine," on the other hand, brimmed with sincerity and wisely eschewed the mood-shattering climax some other singers would have hauled in with both guns blazing. Though Anderson's known as a jazz singer, her songs were almost invariably bluesy, even soulful, further blurring the already hazy lines between those idioms. And while I like my lines a little cleaner, Anderson, at least, carries it off, which not everyone can.

Laine Kazan's perhaps the most prominent of a school of powerful-voiced pop songstresses who emerged in the mid-'60s, influenced by Barbara Streisand (who, in fact, Kazan understudied in Funny Girl). Unfortunately, these singers Julie Budd and Lana Cantrell are two more came on the scene just as rock was gaining a foothold and the older generation to which they appealed was being overshadowed by a younger one. To make matters worse, both Kazan and Budd recorded for MGM, which was no longer the haven it once was for singers like Joni James and Connie Francis (and which soon faded into oblivion, but not before Kazan recorded four LPs). Kazan's acting career, unlike Streisand's, had taken a back seat to her singing, and for a long while these singers' careers were kept alive by Merv Griffin, and Johnny Carson. Like her colleagues, Kazan no longer records in 16 years she's only released one LP, The Chanteuse Is Loose ('77), on her own label but unlike them, she's maintained a regular schedule of personal appearances (she's a virtual fixture on the supper club circuit). And in recent years she's revived her acting career with roles in moves like My Favorite Year and, most recently, Lust In The Dust, which found her in a knock-down, drag-out catfight with none other than Divine. Kazan's at the Venetian Room, 8/6-18, singing, not sparring.

Savage

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18 Sentinel USA August 1, 1985