I Just Read About That…

SOUNDTRACK: SUMMER WALKER-Tiny Desk Concert #903 (October 18, 2019).

I have never heard of Summer Walker.  This is who she is:

A 23-year old singer-songwriter with an uncensored pen and brown-liquor vocals, Walker has become something of a patron saint for colored girls who’ve considered bossing up when heartbreak is too much. With the release of her official studio debut Over It, she made history last week by racking up the biggest streaming week of any female R&B artist ever. Meanwhile, the first lady of upstart label Love Renaissance (LVRN) is lowkey leading a sonic revolution in Atlanta that’s turning the trap capital back into an R&B town. Her team was equally insistent on tricking out the Tiny Desk space by hanging lights that brought a diffuse glow to Walker’s creative set.

It’s funny to read this blurb and all of the glowing praise and “fan favorites” for a person I’ve never heard of and whose debut album came out the week before.  And yet, apparently she is in high demand.

For an artist who rarely grants interviews and admittedly dreads the public spotlight — despite an Instagram feed that clearly shows off her humorous, exhibitionist flair — Walker’s Tiny Desk is revealing. In the span of 15 minutes, she performs fan favorites (“Session 32,” “Wasted,” “Riot”) and the song that made Drake hop in her DMs, “Girls Need Love,” before ending with current single “Playing Games.” Even behind the bright lights and oversized eyeglass frames, her unadorned soul shines through.

I’m quite delighted with how restrained this entire performance is.  I don’t know if her recorded songs are similarity stripped bare (I assume not) but I really like how understated and chill this is.

For the first song, “Session 32” Summer plays guitar along with Elijah “Jah” Whittingham as she sings quietly.

Seconds before the cameras started to roll, Summer Walker showed just how much she was willing to sacrifice for her day at the Tiny Desk: She clipped her nails. It wasn’t an aesthetic choice but a pragmatic one. Not even her love for a fresh set of bedazzled acrylics would get in the way of her strumming the soul out of her six-string Fender electric.

The songs fills out nicely with a gentle bass from Stox and simple drums from Remey Williams.  By the end of the song there some twinkly keyboards from Slim.wav and in 2 and a half minutes, the song is over.

Summer puts the guitar away for the rest of the set (was it worth cutting her nails for less than 3 minute of strumming?) and just sings.

“Wasted” is a bit more slinky and sultry, with a groovy bass and some piercing electric guitar lines.  This is probably the fullest song complete with her backing vocalists.  And yes it makes me smile that her name is Summer and one of the backing vocalists is named Autumn (with the unlikely last name: Autumn Tuesdae) while the other is Angel White.

The third song, “Girls Need Love” is the one that made “Drake hop in her DMs” (whatever that means).  It doesn’t sound all that different from the other songs until you listen closely to the lyrics.  Never has a verse like this sounded so gentle and sweet:

I just need some dick
I just need some love
Tired of fucking with these lame niggas baby
I just need a thug

Girls can’t never say they want it
Girls can’t never say how
Girls can’t never say they need it
Girls can’t never say now

It’s hard to believe that the woman who sings this is actually quite shy

“Look, I’m really freaking excited to be here but I have social anxiety like a mother******,” Walker told the NPR crowd at the end of her set, barely mumbling the expletive in an attempt to censor herself. “I’m freaked the hell out, I’m sweating, but this is so exciting for me.”

After band introductions, she introduces “Friend”

The guitar wasn’t the only thing she’d brought with her from Atlanta. In her lap sat “Friend,” the pink stuffed animal who no doubt provided a bit of emotional support during a five-song set that forced the shy enigma out of her creative shell.

I really enjoy that “Riot” is just her and Jah’s electric guitar.  Similarly her singing is understated.  There’s no over-the-top R&B caterwauling–she just sings really nicely.  I hope that her singing style will inspires more singers to sing like her–dial it back, huh?

And it’s less than two minutes long.  Amazingly, all of the songs are short.  The first three songs were finished in 8 minutes.

The final song “Playing Games” fills out the sound again.  Even though everyone seems to kick it up a notch, it is still understated.

I found that I really liked Summer Walker quite a lot.

Out of curiosity, I listened to the recorded version of “Riot” and was delighted to find that it is indeed 2 minutes long and is just her voice and one guitar.

Understated beauty.

[READ: October 23, 2019] “The Bunty Club”

I continue to really enjoy Tessa Hadley’s stories.  Even though nothing ever really “happens,” I love the depth she gives her characters.

This story was a little different because the narrator inhabits all three sisters at one point or another and we see through all of their eyes for a time.  Although it is really Serena’s story.

The story opens on Serena, the youngest sister.  She is awake before the other two and is enjoying the garden which is “much more lovely now than when it had been scrupulously cared for.”  The house they were in is a stolid Victorian villa.  They had all grown up in this house but had outgrown it.

The eldest sister Pippa and the middle sister Gillian were in the house, reliving some childhood incidents.

All three sisters were back in Fern Hall because their windowed mother was recently hospitalized. They were taking turns to drive the forty five minutes to the hospital.

Pippa saw Serena in the garden, and felt guilty about the state of it. She felt that if Serena was going to spend do much time in the garden she might at least take care of it.  Pippa and Gillian both bristled at the state of their mother’s home.  There was a cleaning lady but she was terrible.  It was obvious that the tidiness and fashion of the house was from their father.  Gillian had meant to give the whole house a deep clean, but when she thought about it she was reluctant to do the work if the other two wouldn’t either.

The older sisters watched Serena somewhat disdainfully.  She was seven years younger than Gillian and had been an afterthought.  She was also their father’s favorite.  She was born with a hole in her heart and their father had prayed over her cot until she got better.

After they all showered, Pippa stayed behind while the other two went to the hospital.  She had plans to do things around the house but got absorbed in a book instead.  She was awakened from her reverie by a ring at he doorbell.  It was Sean, a man twenty years younger than her.  He said he did odd jobs around the house for their mother.

Pippa thought of the garden and showed him where the strimmer was.

When the sisters arrived back later, they heard the strimmer and Serena came bolting from the car screaming at Sean.  After ranting about the way the garden was now ruined, Sean felt bad but Pippa accepted responsibility.  She even acknowledge, to herself, that it did look better when it was wild.

Serena left the house to be alone. She’s always prided herself on being different–dangerous and intriguing.  She worked freelance and “was more than competent, easily making herself indispensable.” She went to cafe and sat by herself.

When Sean was finished strimming, he walked home and en route saw Serena in the cafe.  He was intrigued by her and decided to talk to her.  He apologized for the garden and she said it wasn’t his fault–that her sisters annoy her.

He compared her to her mother.  She seemed upset by this until he said he’d offered to cut the grass a few weeks ago and she said ‘No, why bother?’

They talked for awhile and she told him about her father praying over her.  She said that was why she had the horrible name.  When he said it wasn’t so bad she said “its even worse,” her real name is Angel Serena.  She quickly got rid of the Angel part.

When it was time to leave, Sean gave her his number and told her to text him. She wouldn’t, at least not in front of him.

Back at home, Serena was rummaging through stuff when she called out “Look what I’ve found!  It’s the Bunty Club!”

Pippa remembered it fondly but Gillian couldn’t recall it.  Serena reminded her “We had those secret club meetings in the shed “We swear not to do good and never to help people.”

Gillian asks if they did horrible things, but Pippa says, it was mostly a reaction to Daddy–the bad things they did were terribly innocent–hiding his slippers, digging up potatoes he’d planted.

Serena reminded them that it was her who did most of the bad things at their urging.

Early the next morning Gillian received a call that they must all come to the hospital right away.  Gillian had taken the call before he sisters awoke and as she went to tel them the news the details of the Bunty club came back to her.

Again, not a lot happens, but the story is very satisfying.