Gather will be interviewing Suzanne Vega next week! Leave your questions and comments below, and we'll do our best to ask on your behalf.
"This is a good time to look back and say 'Here's what I've done,'" reflects Suzanne Vega, one of music's most distinctive singers and storytellers. "If you had said in high school that this kid who (technically) couldn't sing and wasn't outgoing would have a 20-year career as a performer and pop songwriter nobody would've believed you. I'm still very much that teenage girl in my room wondering how my music can connect with people, can I put my vision into words, do other people see what I see? There's still a thrill about that for me."
For fans that have grown up with her, Suzanne's new album Beauty & Crime is a revealing look into Vega's continual evolution as songwriter and recording artist. For newcomers, it affords an opportunity to discover a unique voice that has, much like fellow die-hard New Yorker Lou Reed's, been shaped by keenly observing urban life, glancing down the side streets and peering into the shadows, empathizing with the outsiders and dreamers, the helpless and the hopeful. Reed isn't a far-fetched comparison: Vega, a fan, has said she'd been listening to his Berlin the day she wrote "Luka," the economically arranged, emotionally devastating story of domestic abuse from her second album, Solitude Standing, which became a surprise worldwide hit in 1987.
In Vega's new material, New York City emerges on its own as subject and setting. As she explains, "My last album [Songs in Red and Gray] came out two weeks after September 11th. That particular album was really personal and it felt really weird to be talking about all these personal songs at a time that wasn't like any other in New York... I spent a lot of time thinking about things in the last six years, being in New York with my daughter, walking around. It seemed natural to write a bunch of songs that were about New York or little stories that had New York as a character."
Republished with permission from Blue Note records
Find Beauty & Crime in Stores July 17!
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Comments: 14
1) how do you juggle being a mom and musician? How have you interwoven what you do-- the songwriting, the act of creating with her and also what about the touring and time on the road?
2) what triggers your songwriting? the bit of melody or harmony or rhythm? Or is it a thread of a lyric that comes to your mind? Do your relationships with others and with your child trigger songs that you want to write?
I Love her music.
Where can I hear of her music?
She is very interesting like a cat walking on the wall with the fullmoon, like dancing with the devilish-angel in the pale moonlight...
Looking forward for her hew Album... CRIME and BEAUTY(?).
Just curious, have you ever owned or driven a Chevy Vega ?
What kinds of musical sounds are you listening to now and who's your favorite at the moment.
Love you.
Cool song....
I just wanted to stop by since I am finally going through what is now listed as under 5,200 pieces of gather new mail that is sitting in my inbox on here.
With that mentioned I just came across either a mailing from you yourself, or someone else brought this piece to my attention. You or they felt that your creation should be shared with the gather community, which I am very glad that it was passed on to me to view.
So I wanted to say Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to publish it here on gather for us to all view. :o)
As well before I leave you I wanted to wish you a Happy New Year... in 2009 :o)