Quiet Record Comes On Strong for Claire Holley
Singer-songwriter Claire Holley
is presently living in California with her husband and their son, but she spent
some very productive years in North Carolina where she has a sturdy fan base.
Holley also has a new album in
hand titled Hush. Released in late
May, the work was produced by John Plymale and features a dozen tunes, 10 of
which are Holley originals. The song "Innisfree" is the Yeats poem
set to Holley's music. The 12th tune is an excellent cover of a nugget from the
American Songbook, "Stars Fell On Alabama."
Hush is a
beautiful album project; it's as strong a piece of work as anything Holley has
ever released. Her songwriting is, as always, exceptionally musical and
literate. The musical arrangements are polished and intriguing, full of
ear-catching sonic gems contributed by a number of fine players, including Greg
Leisz, Ben Harris, Don Heffington, Laura Thomas and Plymale.
The album opens with "Visit
Me," one of the finest tunes I've heard in quite a while. Holley's vocal
is lovely, and her poignant lyrics impart a wonderful sense of yearning born on
a quiet strength. We can miss a loved one and be uncertain in our longing, or
we can miss that person and remain centered and confident in our longing.
"Visit Me" evokes constancy in affection and faith in the return of a
loved one. The song has a deeply moving subtext flowing beneath a lyric that's
personally resonant and modestly articulated.
The arrangement is a deft
layering of voices and strings that put some air in the song without making it
sound ethereal. This opening track reveals the character of the album: Holley's
elegant, economical songwriting, her vocal clarity, and Plymale's subtle,
in-the-pocket production sensibility.
Holley has transitioned from
singer-songwriter to singer-songwriter-mom in the past four years, and that's
evident from the songs "Go Away Now" and "Say Goodnight."
The former tune offers an admonition to things that go bump in the night:
"Go away now, silent monster / With song you will not take me / Go away
now, the baby sleeps / Go away now, the baby sleeps." The latter song is a
charming lullaby for little boys who may be reluctant to hit the rack.
Another winning track is
Holley's transposition of Yeats' poem "Innisfree." This is monumental
poetry, so from a lyrical perspective she's in the tall cotton. The arrangement
is uncluttered yet quite evocative of the mood of the poem. The outcome is a
sweet piece of work. For yet more appealing music, cue up "Another
Day" — a tune that feels like a ray of sunshine — and "Simple
Meals," a truly Southern love song that finds its inspiration in an
intimate supper.
Hush is a roaring
artistic success for Holley and Plymale, albeit a fairly mellow roar. Holley's
original material is golden, and Plymale's production is the equal of Holley's
stellar performance. Snag a copy of Hush
online at: www.cdbaby.com.
In discussing the new record,
Holley noted that she spent a year working on Hush.
"The basic tracks were done
in about a week in a house in Glendale. We took the better part of a week, and
I just recorded live with an upright bass player. It really just felt like the
start of something.
"For several months I tried
stuff in my own little studio," she said, "and John would have people
come in and overdub. We sent things remotely to people in Arkansas and
Nashville, and in the end we had to go through it all and see what was
working."
When asked if she thought the
project took too long, Holley replied that, "I think with an album the
question is often when to stop. You know, initially, I thought I'd try to make
an album like Patty Griffin's Living with
Ghosts — where it's just her and her acoustic guitar. In the end I realized
I don't do that as well. It's one thing to have a live show like that, but with
a record, well, I just like production.
"I don't want my records to
sound over-produced," she allowed, "but I definitely like layers of
vocals, for instance. We wanted the sound to be lean, you know, but there are
ways to keep it interesting. If you want to hold a listener's attention you
need to keep something coming. You don't want to just record some songs because
you can."
Holley noted that Plymale's
contribution as engineer and producer was key.
"Plymale knows his stuff
and he knows people — he understands people. I think that's a good start; he's
a kind soul."
She explained how they went
about cutting the album, given the distance between Plymale in Durham and
Holley in Los Angeles
"John sent four UPS boxes
with lots of different equipment. I kept that stuff in our apartment for a
while. We rented monitors. John flew out here for about a week, and we made a
little makeshift studio in this guy's house in Glendale. We tried the guitar in
different places in the room; we spent about a day in pre-production, just
getting everything arranged, and then we started.
"After that I flew out to
Durham, stayed about a week and did a little bit more at John's studio, Overdub
Lane. Most of the songs were done here in California, but I did three new songs
in Durham. We ended up not using two of those songs, however. The song
"Another Day" was the one we did in Durham and kept."
"Another Day" led to
Jack, Holley's son, who will be turning 4 on the last day of July, and his
stimulating presence in her life, which accounts for several songs on Hush.
"Jack's quite an inspiring
person, so I think I've tapped into something that I had not tapped into
before," she observed. "I feel like my songwriting in the past had
been sort of journalistic, talking about things outside of me and stories that
might have happened or did happen. With Hush,
however, I tried to go inward more, and I think having a child was something
that made that easier for me."
When asked specifically about
the song "Visit Me," Holley noted, "three summers ago we were
living in a little cottage in northern Alabama across the lake from a boy's
camp. We were living in Los Angeles and moved away for the summer so my husband
could work at this summer camp. This place where we lived was right by the
DeSoto State Park, and there were these trails that I'd walk on with Jack, and
there was this river we could hear at night that was very soothing. Even when
all the windows were closed you could hear the water going over the rocks.
"I think that environment,
and going for our walks every day, just reduced all the clutter in our life and
made these moments count for more. I couldn't even get e-mail at our cottage. I
had to drive 20 minutes to the library in Fort Payne just to check my e-mail,
so I didn't have that distraction. That made it a very inspiring place for me.
The song may sound like someone missing a loved one, but it's really more about
being alone and being OK with that.
"I think Greg Leisz on
pedal steel makes that song," she added. "I wanted him to make it
watery, like he played on kd lang's album Ingénue."
Holley wryly observed: "On
this album I had to make peace with the fact that I'm not a rock star. I never
thought I was, but with other albums I think I tried to push that part of me.
With this record, however, I just let it be a quiet record, and I was OK with
that."
Anyone who listens to Hush will be OK with that, too.
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