“I was struggling to play these songs,” she explains, “and this guy comes up and says, ‘Oh, you like Sandy Denny? Who else do you like?’ And I said, ‘Well, I like this woman who doesn’t seem to exist, named Shawn Colvin.’ And he says, ‘Well, she does exist, and as a matter of fact I’m going to see her this weekend. Would you like to come along?’ I was like, ‘Oh my good God Almighty!’ So I went with him and met her, and fell absolutely in love with her songs.”
Soon Lord’s mission in life became, in her words, “to turn the world on to Shawn Colvin’s music.” To that end, for the next five years her set list consisted almost entirely of Colvin’s songs. Lord describes her own vocal delivery at this time as “exceptionally weak,” but she also points out that Colvin’s songs “contained so much merit in the writing that, no matter how bad my delivery was, they were still fucking awesome.”
The two women became fast friends, and Lord got to bear close witness to Colvin’s gradual rise to national prominence. Besides providing the satisfaction of seeing a friend succeed, Colvin’s experience enlightened Lord to the fact that a career in music was more than an ephemeral possibility. Moreover, at about the same time her friend’s popularity was beginning to soar, Lord’s own musical direction was starting to take a turn. After years of playing songs steeped in traditional folk motifs (“The Ballad Of This” and “The Battle Of That” is the way Lord puts it), she began to sense that those types of songs weren’t really suited to her. One day she heard Daniel Johnston’s “Speeding Motorcycle” on her car radio, and something clicked.
“I thought it was a woman singing. I pulled over and listened, and wondered, ‘Who’s that weird girl singing about the motorcycle?’ Finally someone told me it was Daniel Johnston, and when I asked where I could find his albums, they sent me to this record store [called] In Your Ear. I told the folks there I really liked Daniel Johnston, and asked them what else I would like. So they started giving me these kooky little tapes of people like Centridoh, the Pastels, the Vaselines, Lois — all this stuff that’s very similar to folk in its craft, but yet different. I was really too young to be doing the folk thing anyway, so I started getting into this lo-fi indie stuff, and discovered that that’s what I wanted to do.”
Not surprisingly, Got No Shadow neatly straddles the line between the approach of coffeehouse veterans such as Colvin, Patty Larkin and Jonatha Brooke, and that of the various indie rockers Lord cites in her best-known song, “His Indie World”. (Incidentally, for her current tour, Lord has revamped “His Indie World” into “His ND World”, lyrics courtesy one Peter Blackstock, whoever he is.)
Considering the intense, widely publicized bidding war that preceded Lord’s decision to sign with the Sony-affiliated label Work Group, it seems remarkable that the album’s sound bears very little trace of production sheen. Furthermore, the publicity hype surrounding Lord has thus far focused largely on her experiences as a street musician. To their credit, Lord’s handlers seem to be taking the long view, and to that end, they’ve allowed her to map out the direction of her career.
“They trust me,” Lord says. “When they talk with me, they know that I’m not going to let them down, and that I know what I’m doing. And also, by signing me, Margaret [Mittleman, Lord’s publisher at BMG] not only got my songs, she also got Nick. She knows I have a really good set of ears, and she signed me partly for [that reason], I think, and not just for my songs.”
Indeed, in some ways it seems as if an unspoken bargain has been struck, in which Lord has final say regarding such matters as collaborators, schedules, producers, and the songs she chooses to cover — and in return, she acts as an unofficial A&R scout who brings talented friends such as Saloman to the attention her label and publisher. Lord clearly enjoys fulfilling her part of that deal, and relishes the notion of sharing any attention that comes her way. She’s quick to point out, however, that her motives aren’t entirely unselfish, for by spreading the glory among friends, she understands that much of the pressure which otherwise would be hers alone is diffused.
“One of the cool things about my record, and about my life, is that it’s not all my stuff,” she explains. “In a way, I feel like I’m not alone, that all these people are a part of me. And so it becomes this joyful mission, to get out there and play, because I’m finally being listened to. And people should also remember: The Beatles, the Stones and Dylan all did mass covers on their early records, and nobody gave them shit. It would’ve been really funny if people had said, ‘Oh, they’re not prolific, so we have to slam them.’ It’s not like I’m covering ‘American Pie’ or greatest-hits stuff; it’s the friggin’ Bevis Frond! And these songs, I just think they’re fantabulous.”
These days, Lord is primarily preoccupied with the prospect of touring with her very own band for the first time, after several years of solo tours and busking binges. Characteristically, in lieu of recruiting established players, she’ll take to the road with backers from her hometown of Salem. Most of these musicians are relative unknowns; one, keyboardist Amy Griffin, also plays in the rockabilly outfit Raging Teens. Interestingly, the Teens — who will serve as the opening band for parts of the tour — have been a prime influence on Lord of late. In recent weeks, she’s been listening to vintage albums by artists such as Gene Vincent and the late Carl Perkins, songwriters whose work she had somehow overlooked until now.
“I completely missed out on all that,” she confesses, “so I’ve been going back and listening to those [artists], and to people like Ernest Tubb and Faron Young. I’ve actually written a couple of rockabilly tunes recently. A lot of this is due to the influence of Amy and my friend Kevin, who’s also a member of Raging Teens. Now that I have this band — these people — I expect to be with them for a long time. They’re my first-hand resource, so I imagine I’ll be trying out lots of ideas with them. In a way, having this band makes me feel like I’m sixteen again.”
Russell Hall makes his home in Anderson, South Carolina, a town where lots of people who shouldn’t operate heavy machinery, do. His writing appears regularly in Request, Goldmine, Wall of Sound, and other publications that have nothing to do with hunting or fishing.
