Tres Chicas inevitably shifted to the back burner, and at the time, that was fine with them. “We were playing too many shows locally, and people were ‘over’ us or something,” Cary says. “We were all like, ‘Oh my God, if I have to sing these songs one more time, I’ll die.’ And we sort of said, ‘Well, look, we’ll take a break.'”
Before the hiatus, they’d essentially finished a full album’s worth of material with Stamey, though there wasn’t much sense in trying to find a home for it at that juncture. But after Cary’s While You Weren’t Looking made a very respectable showing for an indie release, Yep Roc expressed increasing interest in rescuing the Tres Chicas record from the shelves where it had been gathering dust.
Everything finally fell into place in summer 2004. Other projects had run their course, at least for the moment, and Lamm had gotten past the demanding first couple years of motherhood. Tres Chicas’ debut, Sweetwater, was released on Yep Roc in late June, and it garnered attention right out of the gate. In early July, National Public Radio aired an interview with the trio that significantly raised their profile; if only fleetingly, Sweetwater rose to #1 on the Amazon.com sales charts immediately after the NPR spot.
Perhaps more importantly, waiting a couple years to release the album helped each of the Chicas to reconsider the band’s place in their lives.
“I think it changed everybody’s perspective about what this ought to be,” Cary says. “I mean, it was always just this side-project thing, and I never put a whole lot of weight to what we were doing….But then once it came out, we’d had all had a break and reassessed how we felt about the songs and ourselves and each other.”
The positive public reception to the record also helped rekindle their aspirations. “We knew we had made something that we liked, when we did it,” Lamm says. “So for it to come out, and for people other than us actually to like it, was validating. It gave us a little bit of a fire to sort of put ourselves behind for a little while.”
Still, it easily could have ended there, as a well-received one-off, a signpost in their respective separate journeys. Cary’s output has continued to expand and diversify; in addition to a second solo album (2003’s I’m Staying Out), she also did a duets record with country singer Thad Cockrell (2005’s Begonias). Lamm, meanwhile, has gone in a different direction, focusing on raising her daughter rather than pursuing other musical opportunities.
In fact, some of the touring Tres Chicas did behind Sweetwater did not include Lamm, but the shows still served their purpose of furthering the band’s following. A handful of fellow North Carolina Triangle players joined them in supporting roles, most notably bassist Dave Bartholomew and multi-instrumentalist Sara Bell, both of whom helped cover Lamm’s vocal parts when she was absent.
“Our shows were really well-received,” Cary comments. “They weren’t huge shows in big places or anything, but we have this great average where I think we sell a CD to 25 percent of any crowd that we play in front of. So that made us sort of get more serious, I think, once we realized that not only was the record well-received, but that we really liked touring together, and that we were reaching people somehow.”
Even so, there were no plans initially for any sort of timely follow-up to Sweetwater. “I think we probably always thought that we’ll always make records together,” Cary allows, “but I don’t think there was any feeling like there was any urgency to it.”
Fate, as it often does, found a way to intervene. In September 2004, the band shared a bill at Raleigh’s Pour House nightclub with English singer-songwriter and piano player Geraint Watkins, who’d recently issued an album on Yep Roc. Watkins’ gig was a one-off in the midst of a tour with Nick Lowe, for whom he was playing keyboards; also on the road with them was Neil Brockbank, an accomplished producer whose credits include several albums for Lowe and Watkins as well as records for Bryan Ferry, Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham, and Tanita Tikaram.
“We loved Geraint,” Lamm recalled of Watkins’ performance that night. “He’s an incredible musician and singer and songwriter.” After the show, Cary and Blakey went out for drinks with Watkins and Brockbank. “We talked about music and making records and the kind of philosophy that Neil had behind it — to make it alive, make it organic.” Blakey remembers. “It just sounded like a great way to make a record.
“I walked out that night saying, ‘We’re going to make a record with them.’ I was just sure of it.”
Fate, of course, is also often obliged to drop a serendipitous hint. “He [Brockbank] was talking about his studio and how it was called Gold Top, and he gave me his card,” Blakey says. “And I asked him why it was called Gold Top, and he was like, ‘Not because of the guitar; because it used to be a dairy, Gold Top Dairy.'”
“Lynn knew right then,” Cary interjects, “because she lives on a dairy farm.”
“I’m always looking for signs,” Blakey concurs. “And I was just like, this means something….I just loved the idea that they were music and life guys, and they weren’t gear and guitar guys, you know? They are great with their instruments and stuff, but it wasn’t about that.”
There was one small catch. Making a record at Gold Top Studio meant somehow coming up with the cash for the Chicas — plus Lamm’s daughter Sofia, and a nanny — to spend a month in London. Travel and lodging alone would be a major expense for an indie-label band (to say nothing of the Scrumpy Jack tab).
Yep Roc president Glenn Dicker proved surprisingly receptive to the idea. “We went and talked to Glenn about going on tour later on, and this idea came up again,” Blakey says. “And I was like, ‘Gee, I wish we could go to England and make a record with those guys.’ And thinking that Glenn would go, ‘Ha Ha Ha! You silly child!'”
