Sisters of Song

Sam Phillips’ A Boot and a Shoe is, like her 2001 Nonesuch debut Fan Dance, fiercely intimate in atmosphere and seriously stripped down in arrangement—not so much unplugged as beautifully unvarnished. Although Sam has long been admired for her coolly modern take on Beatles-esque songwriting and studio craft, she decided to move away from elaborate pop production and 21st century technological upgrades with Fan Dance . Since then, she has stuck to this road less traveled.

“I think the human is all that’s left in record production,” Sam explains. “We’ve been through all kinds of technology and tricks. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t use those things, but the music has to come from who you are as a human, what you like, how your heart beats, how you move, what you feel. That’s what I think makes this record interesting in this digital age. So much of what’s out there is musically airbrushed. This is not.”
On A Boot and a Shoe, Sam composes her songs with the terseness of an exceptionally smart screenwriter, one whose words alone are as powerful as any picture. She sets a scene, establishes a conflict, hints at motivation, and allows us to conjure up the rest. Her material may be highly personal, but she’s never been a blatantly confessional artist. The weight of what’s not been said or sung or played hangs in the air as dramatically as any third-act revelation.

The seemingly innocuous album title she chose, for example, harbors multiple meanings—some of which only became apparent to Sam herself once the record was completed: “The title represents a lot of things. Usually, I write first and think after. This one seems to be about men and women, opposites, the pairings of things you wouldn’t expect, of people you would never expect. If I want to get conceptual after the fact, it’s about a world of contradictions. But it started out just as being off-balance, walking in a boot and a shoe. As one of my friends said, when you’re thrown off balance it can be funny, but it can distract you from what’s next”

Sam calls this record “the other side of Fan Dance , its twin,” but there are marked differences between the two. The earlier album had a darkly alluring, not quite contemporary, late-night- L.A. feel. In fact, an NPR reviewer remarked, “James Ellroy wrote whole novels in this mood.”

A Boot and a Shoe is perhaps more cinema verite than film noir , with its melancholy tales of love betrayed and desires detoured unfolding before what sometimes sounds like a smoky, after-hours jam session. Fan Dance focused on guitars, strings, and ominous bass; this time, Sam and producer T-Bone Burnett turned up the drums, and recorded lots of them, often simultaneously, with Carla Azar, Jay Belarose, and Jim Keltner. The primitive, shuffling rhythms of “Draw Man,” for example, recall the slightly weird, offhand beat of Bob Dylan’s “Rainy Day Women #12 & 35.”

“I completely fell in love with the drummers,” Sam confesses. “”They’re all wonderful drummers—the best that I can think of, totally capable of playing a song by themselves. I don’t know why, but we just had to have two on almost every song. It was a thrill for me, because they all have their own rhythmic personalities.”

Sam plays guitar throughout, and is accompanied on several tracks by the Los Angeles-based Section Quartet. The strings were arranged by Sam’s newest collaborator, multi-instrumentalist Patrick Warren—best known for his work with Michael Penn on No Myth . As Sam explains, “Patrick recently started arranging strings. I loved his playing and sense of melody and I was really excited to get him to arrange some strings on this. I think he did a beautiful job. He was very economical with the strings, which I really like.”
The sessions, Sam explains, were shaped by intuition: “We were in the studio sometimes, at home sometimes. It was very friendly. It took a while to figure out where we were going and it took a while to figure out when we had arrived. That’s the trick: to know when to stop. I hope we stopped at the right place, not too soon or too late.”

Sam has more or less done exactly what she wanted over the course of seven albums produced by T Bone Burnett, including the Grammy-nominated Martinis and Bikinis (1994). She’s followed her unpredictable muse down a zigzag path, gathering inspiration from a wide range of sources: folk, pop, vintage rock and roll, literature, philosophy, the movies, and all the technical marvels a recording studio can offer. That has made her hard to categorize and market, but also that much more fascinating to follow.

Her unadorned, almost-straight-to-tape work for Nonesuch has been perhaps the most startling and rewarding of all her permutations, and she’s planning to take these songs on the road. Although she has performed at clubs in New York and Los Angeles, Sam hasn’t embarked on a proper tour in several years.

She describes herself now as a torch singer, albeit a rather non-traditional one, since she’s more inclined toward brooding than belting. Like her album title, torch is a word Sam applies metaphorically: “Torch can mean tortured, or carrying a torch for someone—meaning you love them, they don’t love you…and all that comes before and after that.”
In Sam’s world, “torch” can also meaning holding a light up against the darkness. As she points out, A Boot and a Shoe concludes on a tentatively hopeful note: “ ‘One Day Late,’ in the end, sums it up. I think something good can come out of our pain. I’m not sure if it arrives on time or not, but I do believe that eventually good will win out. Call me crazy.

Music, in its best form, should always tell a story. From a faultless piano tinkle to the stellar guitar riff – to a perfectly held note – instrumentation and vocal perfection are a natural combination for the best storytelling. Many musicians attempt to find that totality; a select few make it happen.

Aezra recording artist Crea is clearly one of the chosen ones. With a throaty-yet-feminine delivery that brings clarity and drama to every day themes, this accomplished singer-songwriter and musician from Birmingham, Alabama is both the future of homegrown rhythm-and-blues and a direct descendant of the storied past of the art form.

Crea’s story begins, like so many in the history of R&B music, in the deep south. Born LeCresia Holbdy, she was weaned on music from the very beginning. Starting with the violin, she felt herself more drawn to the gutsy, primal sounds of the guitar. “It just felt comfortable,” says Crea, “Like a good pair of shoes.” Primarily self-taught, she spent her childhood composing complete songs and performing for her captive audience – her toy collection.

When she wasn’t performing mini-concerts, she was studying her parents’ music collection. “I didn’t listen to the pop idols that were out at the time,” she recalls. “I was digging through my mom’s old record crates. I would find Marvin Gaye, Quincy Jones and Stevie Wonder. I was into music like Manhattan Transfer, Michael Franks and Steely Dan.”

Inspired by artists like Gil Scott-Herron and India Arie, Crea set off to fulfill her mission. She started early: by 16, she’d joined her first band. Solo turns in studio sessions helped her find her singular voice. “I had to figure out my sound early on,” she says. “I never had a ‘church voice,’ my vocals come from my emotions. It’s not something I can turn on and off. Either I’m feeling it or I’m not.”

“Being in the studio also helped me grow and find my niche as a writer,” she continues. “My songs are my inner voice put to melody – the words I want to say, in a way I want to say them, in the only way I can be heard and understood.”

“Like most teenagers I went through a lot during those years,” she explains. “There was a point that I had those end-it-all thoughts and instead of thinking about that, I picked up my guitar. Eventually, music saved her life. And she knew she would be a performer.

“My guitar became my therapy and songwriting my diary. From then on, creating music has been very therapeutic for me. And hopefully my music is therapeutic for the listener.”
Her efforts did not go unnoticed. Crea began singing live background on international tours. “I walked the balance beam – writing and performing,” says Crea. While collaboration is always good for establishing an artists’ sound, eventually, their own story must be told.

Crea accomplishes exactly that, with equal parts “soul” and “creation” on her self-composed debut album, MYSTORY. The aptly titled disc does what good music is designed to do – bring the listener into a new world, one that is intimately familiar yet wholly distinct. MYSTORY is a whirlwind trip through the psyche of life experiences. Although most of the material rings autobiographical, Crea writes for everyone – not just herself. “I think about women and even men who have gone through similar experiences to let them know they’re not alone. It’s like saying, I know this is what you think about and probably what you felt. If you haven’t had the nerve to say it to that person, let me say it for you.”

Crea’s conversation begins with finger snaps and tight guitar chords on “Intro,” conjuring up the husky moans of Me’Shell NdegeOcello and layering them over the sultry sophistication of Toni Braxton. “Can you stay a while,” she asks the listener in a whisper. With the intricate instrumentation, the question is obviously rhetorical.

On “Not The Words,” the mournful and gracefully painful lyrics are a perfect marriage to the elegant instrumentation. This diatribe on the actions (and in-actions) of a less-than-perfect mate is cinematic in their delivery. The song effortlessly paints a clear picture of the tension. “Don’t walk away when I’m talking cause I ain’t finished yet/Just sit yourself down and hear me out.” In Crea’s hands, what could be a typical kiss-off is instantly something more – a complicated composition that shows all sides to a difficult story.

Every R&B singer worth their weight in love songs attempts a he-said/she-said tale as part of their repertoire but Crea takes the theme to a new extreme. On “Changes,” she portrays the “other woman.” With a pulsating bass line as a backdrop, she urges the wronged woman to address her hatred to the right person: her unfaithful man.

In what could be a prelude to “Changes,” Crea opens up about a relationship that she wants to explore further. On “Shouldn’t Bring It Up,” she explains why things should remain the same but why her heart is telling her a whole different story. In the midst of a climatic bridge, she offers a vocal breakdown that is powerful and emotional. Wondering where you stand in someone’s life is a scary thing to contemplate. Crea brings those feelings to light in a spectacular way.

“Call Her,” one of the highlights on MYSTORY deals with a woman who needs to be supportive of a friend trapped in an abusive and unhealthy relationship that she needs to escape. It’s a refreshing take on a familiar tale. Whether you have been that woman who needs the help – or been the pal who needs to rally around your friend – the story is instantly recognizable. Crea presents an intense, powerful sentiment about domestic violence, complete with a lovely acoustic guitar that takes center stage on the bridge, lending an ethereal sound to the song.

One of Crea’s favorite compositions is the album’s first single, “U Lied.” It sums up just how deep love can be and how painful it can be when it ends. The song, a robust combo of sublime production and intricate vocal delivery, is indicative of all that Crea desires her music to be. “I want my listeners to know they are not alone,” she says. “These are love stories. We all have good ones and not-so-good ones to tell. But there is a spin. Love isn’t bad. There’s always hope on the other side.”