'We Write Lists' Interviews: Allison Crowe

UK blog 'We Write Lists' caps its multi-part exploration of music and more with this week's thoughtful Q&A with Allison Crowe.

Click on the banner above to enjoy this interview session.

Pieces of You - 'We Write Lists' Part 5

UK blog 'We Write Lists' presents the penultimate excerpt in its series of Allison's guest blogs - which begins:

"Before, and into, my teens, I often had a hard time sleeping in my own bed - I remember thinking it was haunted. I'd have bad dreams there, and so I moved from bed to couch to-couch-to-bed and on. A mainstay in the soundtrack of those times was Jewel's 'Pieces of You'."


To enjoy the fifth post in the six-part series, click on the album cover image above.

Do Look Back

Who Will Save Your Soul (Jewel)

As the release of “Spiral”, a new album from Allison Crowe, approaches, it’s fun to revisit where things began, with a pair of songs from among the earliest popular (i.e. not jazz or classical) songs and inspirations in Crowe’s repertoire.

Here’s Allison Crowe covering, live, a song that was a hit when she was 15 – "Who Will Save Your Soul”.

WWSYS is the lead off track on “Pieces of You”, the debut album of Utah-born, Alaska-raised, singer-songwriter Jewel (Kilcher). The POY album, (for which Jewel wrote songs alone, and together with wild-and-crazy Haligonian-at-birth Steve Poltz), has sold over 13 million copies worldwide. It’s an organic blend of songs recorded, (in the mid-’90s), live at the Innerchange coffeehouse in San Diego, and at Neil Young’s Broken Arrow Ranch studio in Woodside, California, sensitively produced by Ben Keith.

Jewel, via her “J-team”, has been kind to Allison Crowe, and especially supportive when Allison was first venturing out from her Canadian island to greet a larger world with her music.



Fade Away

Allison Crowe’s first public performance, at age 5 or 6, was singing the jazz-era hit “Ja-Da Ja-Da (Jing Jing Jing)”.
 

For the next decade, Crowe’s musical training hewed to jazz and classical, with Beethoven being a natural favourite. By her teenage years, this foundation enabled creative flight, further fuelled by such diverse influences as “The Little Mermaid”, Ray Charles, Aretha Franklin, Janis Joplin, and Chet Baker joining a new generation of bands, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Counting Crows, among them, and women in the spotlight – from Ani DiFranco, and Tori Amos, to Joan Osborne, Jewel, Sarah McLachlan and plenty more inspirations.

“Fade Away”, penned when she was 15, is the first song Allison Crowe wrote as a singer-songwriter.

On this recording, she’s accompanied by Larry Anschell, on electric guitar, Dave Baird on bass, and Kevin Clevette on drums. Recorded and produced by Anschell (Bif Naked, Sarah McLachlan, Pearl Jam), at his Turtle Recording studios in White Rock, B.C., Canada.



The photos of Allison accompanying these music vids are by the fabulous Billie Rocha-Woods

Hallelujah: let the good times roll

As this new year launches on a range of calendars, Canada's Allison Crowe finds herself one of the most popular performers in the world of what is one of the world's most popular songs.

It's a good start.

Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah", with a final push from the giant 'Pop Idol' franchise, has been delivered into a maelstrom that swirls together the song's mainstream resonance with its cabaret and cult appeal. No longer a secret, it's struck a global chord.

Crowe, who recorded "Hallelujah" in a single-first-take late in 2003, for release on her Tidings CD, is, both, witness and contributor to this phenomenon. A truly independent artist who's steered clear of the corporate marketing machine, Allison Crowe's been able to reach audiences by continual touring, and, in this digital age, through forums online that, as yet, remove the barriers for artist and audience to connect.

On YouTube, Rufus Wainright, whose Shrek-soundtrack recording, (alongside John Cale's version in the movie itself), launched "Hallelujah" well into the mainstream, trades-off the most-viewed cover spot with the late, iconic, Jeff Buckley. Also with over eight million views, and third in popularity, is the Norwegian quartet known "The New Guitar Buddies" - Askil Holm, Espen Lind, Alejandro Fuentes, and "World Idol" Kurt Nilsen.

The "Idol" television franchise, a vehicle for SonyBMG acts and licensed songs, has, for years, included Cohen's "Hallelujah" in its songbook. Swelling acceptance of the song on the show reached full-blown top-of-the-pops status recently, with the latest "X Factor" winner, Alexandra Burke, landing the UK's Christmas #1 single with her version. Burke's "Hallelujah" holds fourth spot, with 3.25 million views.

Allison Crowe's video version, made for under $100.00, marches fifth on YouTube, with an audience now nearing three million people.

Crowe's performance of Hallelujah is followed by: Amanda Jenssen, (the Swedish "Idol" runner-up has 2.6 million viewers); America's Kate Voegele (and an audience of 2.3 million), John Cale (who selected the Cohen lyrics most often used by performers, attracts 1.8 million); Jason Castro (an "American Idol" contestant, has his devotees numbering 1.4 million); and Diana Vickers, (a contestant on the UK's "X Factor") rounds out the top ten "Hallelujah"s with 1.28 million folks tuning her in via YouTube. A pair of well-known music industry veterans, kd lang and Sheryl Crow, each top one million viewers to follow closely behind ingénue Vickers.

Leonard Cohen, the original, whose 1980s German television version has 6.4 million views, has rarely sounded better performing "Hallelujah" than in 2008 - and, this newest version from the song's creator is anticipated on DVD this Spring.

On a different stage, but, also fun and bringing together an array of musicians this season is the inaugural 'Lyrics for Life' auction organized by multi-platinum recording artist Jewel to raise funds for Project Clean Water

Jewel's handwritten and signed lyrics for her huge hit song "You Were Meant for Me" drew a top bid of US $1,505.00 and dozens more lyric items from some of Nashville's finest, alongside some well-known folks from pop and rock music, helped fill the well.

Allison Crowe's delighted she could contribute with lyrics to her song, "Silence" which sold at auction for US $205.00. Others helping raise the banner for better water include: Katy Perry, whose "I Kissed A Girl" lyrics - written on an Obama O's cereal box - brought in $175.00; Pussycat Dolls "I Don't Need a Man" ($155.00); heartland-rocker John Mellencamp's "Longest Days" ($425.00); new country's Carrie Underwood's "So Small" ($795.00); Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman" ($120.00); Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" ($400.00); Josh Groban's "Remember When It Rained" ($100.00); and, fellow Canadian, David Foster's handwritten and signed music for "St. Elmo's Fire" ($60.00).

Collectively, over US $10,000 was raised for the cause in this unique way.

And the year's just begun.

what is tomorrow?

“Our beginnings never know our ends”, observed T.S. Eliot. Bob Dylan sings, “Let me forget about today until tomorrow.” And, less focused on the metaphysical, perhaps, Bob Seger (and, more recently, Ronan Keating) croons, “We’ve got tonight, who needs tomorrow?”

It was during Spring 1999 that I first heard of Allison Crowe. I was fully into the bands and barbeques, (and beers), at the South by Southwest Music (SXSW) music festival in Austin, Texas. There I met some fellow Canadians who happened to have with them a copy of a magazine called Cosmic Debris. This mag, mostly, featured musicians active in Canada’s Pacific Northwest region.

"Allison Crowe is a 17-year-old 'Jewel' in the making. She is sending shivers up the spine of almost every onlooker. I've never seen talent that has affected me like this before." This quote in an article came from Tina Ruotsalainen, a veteran booking agent on Vancouver Island, B.C., Allison’s home at the time. (And, only one boat-ride away from my own base of Salt Spring Island.)

While at SXSW, I carried on forgetting about today until tomorrow, enjoying performances by Lucinda Williams, Beth Orton, Chuck E. Weiss, the Donnas, Stacey Earle & Mark Stuart among others. When I returned to Canada, though, foremost in mind was checking out this young artist about whom I’d just read. I’d witnessed, fairly close-up, Jewel (Kilcher)’s evolution from San Diego coffee-house performer to multi-platinum recording artist and celebrity.

I wanted to know whether or not Tina R., in so praising Allison Crowe, had hit upon some truth. (She had, well, and that’s something to talk about another day.)

The first chance I had to experience Allison in concert came on the weekend of July 15 and 16, 1999. She and her band, Lucid, billed as “Celtic funk”, performed both nights at the Royal Room - in the Royal Hotel, located in Chilliwack, a rural community a couple of hours drive from the city of Vancouver, B.C.

Allison would return to the Royal in November 2001, headlining “A Night Without Borders” - a fundraiser for Face to Face, the Afghan Children’s Relief Fund. Helping women and children in war-savaged Afghanistan was not all that popularly embraced as an humanitarian act in late 2001. A bomb threat was called in to the Royal on concert week, but, the show went ahead, and thousands of dollars were raised from the concert and a related auction.

I’m reminded that Allison, as long as I’ve known her, is about people. (Not to be confused with Soylent Green - which IS people.) Allison makes music for, and about, people. And she is one of the people. (Cue return to the Planet of the Apes.) In her professional choices, she simply does what a decent person, or simian, would do under the circumstances. Politics don’t factor in the equation.

(In Spring 2003, Allison was being courted by record labels - and stationed in New York City. Witnessing Code Orange alerts and the hysteria, fear and war propaganda of the time - she penned “Whether I’m Wrong”. True to her empathic nature, this song is timeless. With Bob Dylan, who took aim at the masters of war in a previous generation, today hawking SUVs, the most honest expression is one that includes us all in the same boat - with or without wheels still in spin.)

By the Spring of 2000, I began to work with Allison full-time.

In August 2000, Allison, her bandmates and I were in Port Alberni, B.C. setting up for a concert that night in the town’s Capitol Theatre. Gerrit Meier, a photographer visiting from Germany, chanced upon us during load-in - and invited Alley and her bassist, Dave (Baird), to become part of his “what is tomorrow?” multimedia project.

Wondering what tomorrow had brought, I located Gerrit Meier online this weekend. Today, he emailed me to say:

“What a surprise! I do remember very well when we met. It was in the summer of 2000, august 12th. I was just starting with my project what is tomorrow? , and Allison was the 4th person who took part in the project (together with Dave Baird - who was number 3). Since this day I continue this project, and now there are more then 70 persons from 7 countries who have written a statement to the same question. You can see the results on the project website at:

www.what-is-tomorrow.com

Last year in january I did an exhibition in Hamburg with a selection of the photographs - actually Allison’s picture was one of them... And next week I will hold the first edition of the what-is-tomorrow book in my hands :)

You see, sometimes things need some time to develop...”

Kicking off 2008, with best wishes to you and yours, and all of us here, I quote the essence of Allison’s statement to Gerrit that very sunny afternoon:

“if you take hold of now and are not afraid to let go of the things that hold you down, tomorrow can be yours.”



Happy New Year!!!