Not that one should read too much into those vocal assignments. The Chicas give no definitive answers as to who may or may not answer to the nicknames Bloom, Red, and the Ordinary Girl. “One of the things that we thought about,” Blakey clarifies, “is that all of us are all three of those at various times.”
That said, the lyrics of “Shade Trees In Bloom” are classic Blakey. “Sometimes what you think is the end/Is the beginning,” she sings in the song’s opening verse, revealing her predominantly optimistic, silver-lining outlook on life. Not that she doesn’t have her vulnerable moments: “Keep a close watch on me/I might fall apart,” she warns a couple verse later.
Blakey is the Chicas’ hidden gem, to the extent that both Cary and Lamm have previously spent some time in the spotlight. Cary’s tenure in Whiskeytown and her solo excursions have made her the group’s most recognizable name; Lamm’s time with Hazeldine brought fair attention in Europe, where the band had a couple of major-label releases.
Blakey’s band Glory Fountain, meanwhile, never really ventured beyond regional notice, though their records — particularly The Beauty Of 23, produced by southern pop svengali Mitch Easter — warranted a broader hearing. (That album’s exquisite title track resurfaces on the new Chicas album, retitled “Slip So Easily”.)
And yet Blakey has a considerable and intriguing pedigree. She spent most of the ’80s ensconced in the storied Athens, Georgia, scene, including a stint in the band Oh OK (with Michael Stipe’s sister Linda). She also played briefly with Easter in his alternative-pop outfit Let’s Active.
Glory Fountain brought Blakey’s considerable vocal talents into full focus, and the harmonies of Tres Chicas have magnified them. Her soaring soprano is the trio’s most immediately arresting feature, though ultimately it’s the way all three voices swirl and swing in and around each other that creates a singular musical magic.
For Blakey, such musical magic is something that manifests itself in an almost cinematic manner, as this comment about working with Brockbank illustrates. “I would describe to him how I thought he managed to make a certain song that I wrote feel, and he was always so happy with that,” she says. “Like, you know, ‘You managed to make “Bloom” sound like the leaves on a tree in the summertime in the heat haze and the wind blowing, and they’re shimmering.’ That’s how I talk about records. And he understood.”
“Really? You’re weird,” Lamm deadpans, with perfect timing. Her sardonic response speaks volumes of her place in the Chicas’ picture. The balance and variety of their humor is no small part of how these three relate to each other, and Lamm finds herself in an interesting position these days. While she no doubt would be voted “most likely to make a wise-ass comment,” she’s also the one presently in the midst of the most wide-eyed experience as a result of her young child.
Motherhood clearly has turned Lamm’s world upside-down, and she seems genuinely blessed by the opportunity, even if it’s a challenge trying to be both a mom and a musician. She recalls, for example, a show in Berlin last year, when her former Hazeldine bandmate Anne Tkach was along to assist as Sofia’s nanny.
“We launched into ‘Sweetwater’, and three seconds into the song, Sofia’s screaming on the side of the stage,” Lamm says. “And I’m just looking at Anne, and Anne’s restraining her. Sofia’s like, ‘Brrraaaaagghh!’ And so we’re like, ‘OK, I guess we’ll just get a little chair for her. So we got her a little chair, and we sat her beside the amp. And people were taking pictures; she totally upstaged us. People were standing on their seats to take pictures of Sofia.”
It’s hardly an ordinary life, and yet Lamm was more than happy to step into the narrative role in Watkins’ “My Life” lyric (“I’m not Jesus Christ/I’m just an ordinary girl”). “I aspire to be ordinary,” she contends.
Moments later, Cary wants in on that action, too. “All I want right now is to be the ordinary girl,” she offers. In the album’s title sequence, however, she sings the role of “Red”. Musically, the song fits Cary to a T; it’s a traditional waltz that sounds straight outta the ancient English folk pantheon, much like the songs that dominated her debut solo EP. Lyrically, though, there’s something much darker going on: “I don’t wish you well and I’ll see you in hell,” she sings at one point, later asking, “What is the shade of a promise? What is the color of a lie?”
Like her recent collaboration with Thad Cockrell, rejoining Lamm and Blakey affords Cary a kind of camaraderie that can have meaning in a way that doing your own thing might not. Cary seems in some respects to be the consummate team player; she’s one of the few musicians to have worked extensively with Ryan Adams without ever having some sort of falling-out. (In fact, Adams invited Cary onstage last June when he played in Raleigh for the first time in almost five years.)
“It was very very vital to me to do those solo records and know that I could, and know that that’s who I was, and that I wasn’t only a sideman to Ryan,” she concedes. “I won’t say that I’m a better collaborator than a solo artist; I think both are viable and operative for me.
“It’s kind of the same with Tres Chicas operating as a side project for a while — at some point, that becomes unsatisfying and not viable. If you’re putting in the amount of work that it takes to do something like this, you have to throw yourself into it and believe in it and invest in it.”
Cary does acknowledge that “I think there will come a time relatively soon where I’ll reinvest” in a solo outing. “I’m due to make another record and I’m writing for it, and I write songs for myself and hoard them away. But right now, I don’t have time to do that.
“I read this article on Ryan in my parents’ local paper, where he just refused to apologize for being too prolific and too busy, and I feel the same way. It’s like, you want to hear more Caitlin? Wait a couple years, I’ll get there, you know. But right now, this is what I’m doing. And I’m not gonna do it half-assed.”
ND co-editor Peter Blackstock is enormously indebted to his wife, Lisa Whittington, who transcribed the long and winding tape of his interview with Tres Chicas.
