It was a fun night. Doug Day was there, and Debi Derryberry, Steve Rucker, Duane Thorin, Harvey Sid Fisher, Roxanne Beck, Howie Hoffman, Carla of Massage Moves--a veritable who's who of hot LA talent. This was what we closed the night with. It's the companion piece to Songs Are, expressing my credo about art and love and work...
Another cut from Bill Burnett's PetSet (a delightful DVD of animal songs that YOU CAN OWN if you wish). That's me in the bear suit, on an excruciatingly hot day in the valley. When I collapse at the end, it ain't acting!
(Seriously, contact me about purchasing the complete DVD of PetSet...your kids will love you even more.)
I've always felt that siblings who sing together have an amazing, other-worldly quality, as if their very DNA is somehow harmonizing. Take the Everly Brothers, the Boswell Sisters, the Roches, and Kate and Anna McGarrigle (who are featured this week in the SongTalk section.)
Georgia Rose and Suzannah Armstrong Park have that sibling thing. (Note, when I get a link for Rosie I'll share it with y'all.) When these young women open their mouths and sing together, wherever they are lifts off and is transported. They come from a long lineage of world class folk performers (their mom is the multi-talented instrumentalist, singer, songwriter and storyteller Jennifer Armstrong, their father the irrepressible Fred Park, and their grandparents the legendary George and Gerry Armstrong.
Rosie and Zannie have been singing as a team and separately since they were tiny. When they were 16 and 15 years old, repectively, I had the idea of writing some songs specifically for them and recording a little EP. So we did it in my home studio in the Hollywood Hills. This first song "New Mown Hay" was meant to kind of swing off on the type of folk tunes they'd been doing all their lives. You can feel the fun in the air on the tracks. (Or at least I can.) I wish I had video to show you, but the still photos are pretty mesmerizing on their own. Please, enjoy...
(PS...Suzannah is currently on tour in the Northwest with her significant other Nathan. You can find out where they are and when they'll be in a town near you by clicking on here.)
This is a mysterious female coming of age ballad that I conceived for two ethereal voices, and the sisters had that sister thing to bring to it. It's meant to leave you wondering what happened to Sally...a door marked "nevermore" that wasn't there before. I now sing the song solo but I still hear their voices in my head.
Wednesday, April 1, 2009 at 06:50PM