** Jonatha Brooke at Park West, (773) 929-5959, April 2
After two successful self-released discs, 1998's Live and the harder-edged Steady Pull from 2001, Jonatha Brooke has returned with the stellar Back In The Circus (Bad Dog/Verve). This collection of originals and covers (that's right, covers) will touch listeners in ways that are unique to Brooke. While her devoted and diverse following will have no difficulty immediately connecting to songs such as the title track, 'Better After All,' 'It Matters Now,' 'Less Than Love Is Nothing,' and 'Sally,' it is her stirring reinterpretations of songs by Alan Parson ('Eye In The Sky'), James Taylor ('Fire and Rain') and Brian Wilson ('God Only Knows') that may cause the biggest stir.
Gregg Shapiro: In 2003, you performed at a benefit for the LCCP (Lesbian Community Cancer Project) in Chicago. Are you often asked to perform at charity events?
Jonatha Brooke: Very often. And it's really hard to figure out which ones I can actually help with. Benefits are notoriously sponsored and organized by incredibly well-meaning, beautiful people, and sadly it's rare that they actually make money and are able to help the charities that they seek to. So, it's really hard to figure out which ones am I going to make a difference for and is it worth giving this a shot. I don't want to do it if it's not going to make any money for them.
GS: Have you performed at or been asked to perform at any political fundraisers in this election year?
JB: No (laughs). They're probably afraid of me because I wrote that war song ('War'). I get pissed off about everything on stage.
GS: There are circus references in both the title track and in the song 'No Net Below' on your new CD Back In The Circus (Bad Dog). What is the circus a metaphor for, for you?
JB: (Laughs) Pretty much anything you want it to be a metaphor for, the circus will do. About a year and a half ago I got remarried, so I entered that circus again—which is the best of circuses. And I moved to New York, which is certainly a circus. Also, just putting out a new record is kind of like getting back into the fray. It's a very cyclical thing. Once the record is out, you are a road dog, traveling town to town and shaking hands and gripping and grinning and trying to get your stuff out there.
GS: I'm glad you mentioned cyclical things. Your new CD is being released on your own label, Bad Dog, which is being distributed by Verve, a company owned by Universal …
JB: (Laughs)
GS: … who also owns MCA, for whom you used to record. Do you feel like you've come full circle?
JB: (Laughs) In a strange way I have come full circle. Although I am way more in the driver's seat than I've ever been, and it feels great. I am still independent. They basically distribute my record and help me market it. But I am paying all the bills, calling all the shots, making all the decisions and I'm pretty much telling them how I want this to be. So it's full circle, but in the best of ways.
GS: Few songwriters can express heartbreak better than you, and you continue to mine great songs, such as 'Better After All,' 'It Matters Now,' 'Less Than Love Is Nothing,' from heartache. And yet, here you are newly re-married, so how does that work?
JB: Yeah, what's up with that, right? (Laughs) I have no idea, because I'm incredibly in love and I'm in a very happy place. But I continue to be drawn to dark subject matter and to want to get at heartbreak and complicated emotions and strange messed up relationships. That seems to be way more interesting than a happy song. I tend to go there. It's more moving. People really connect to powerful emotion and that's my gig.
GS: Yes, I've been to enough of your shows to know that everyone sings along with the sad songs.
JB: I know. Everyone loves 'Inconsolable.' It's their favorite break-up song. (Laugh) I gave myself an assignment (when writing 'Inconsolable')—'Write a really sad break-up song and see what happens.' I just set out to write a really simple song and now it's everyone's favorite.
GS: There is a wonderful use of new technology on the CD; in the aforementioned 'Less Than Love Is Nothing' and 'Sleeping With The Lights On.' Can you say something about this element of your work?
JB: When I was demoing the first few songs —'Back In The Circus' and 'Sally' and 'Sleeping With The Lights On,' I fell in love with the sound of weird drum loops and samples with my voice. It was somehow a more contained drum sound. It was more intimate. I loved the balance of my vocals being really front and center, right in your face, closely miked, and these loops. I thought it was really poignant somehow. That became the template for my record. I tried live drums on some of the songs and they sounded wrong this time. They sounded overpowering and they didn't keep in the vibe that I was going for. A lot of the songs have that in common. I messed around with loops and samples. They're great samples; they're not cheesy. They're somehow in the same realm that my voice is.
GS: As someone who is well-known as a singer/songwriter, it was surprising to discover three cover tunes on the new disc. I have a vague memory of Christine Ebersole doing a torch song cover of the Alan Parsons' song 'Don't Let It Show' when she was a cast member on SNL. Your version of Parsons' 'Eye In The Sky' also has a torch song quality to it.
JB: I'm not a cover song person. I never even had considered it and I never wanted to because the songs I most love I would never go near. But people kept throwing these ideas at me. My guitar player, Goffrey Moore said that he had this idea for 'Fire And Rain' that he thought would be really cool. Then my husband said, 'You've got to check out, 'God Only Knows.'' And I think it was my husband who said, 'Wouldn't 'Eye In The Sky' be cool?,' because it's a really gorgeous song and you never really know it because the production was so overwhelming and the delivery was sort of cold and brittle. I thought, 'These aren't songs that I would have thought of on my own, so I'm not really attached to them, and I can really make them different.'
GS: 2004 looks like it will be a good year for female singer/songwriters with new releases by women from across the spectrum including Janis Ian, representing one generation …
JB: Oh, awesome!
GS: … and Norah Jones representing another—and you smack dab in the middle.
JB: I'm holding up the rope.
GS: How does it feel to be in such company?
JB: It's really great. I think it's a really open time for intelligent music. I think the public is so sick of this crap, the mindless bubbly pop—please give us something to hang on to. It's tough because radio is so consolidated, it's hard for the indies to get through. We can't really pay for radio play. But I think there is a real hunger for substance. You can be sexy in a turtleneck. I'm sorry; you don't have to show everything. I'm on a campaign for sexy, intelligent music with clothes on.
GS: Just look at Diane Keaton in Something's Gotta Give.
JB: Exactly! How sexy was she? She was the bomb. I love that movie!
