SOUNDTRACK: BABY ROSE-Tiny Desk Concert #944 (February 10, 2020).
I had not heard of Baby Rose, which I suppose makes sense since she put out her debut album last year.
The blurb makes it sound like she has been through a lot more than her 25 years might suggest.
But when the voice behind those words is as seasoned and vintage as Baby Rose’s, everything it utters reverberates like the gospel truth. The D.C. native — who came of age in Fayetteville, N.C. before coming into her own as an artist in Atlanta — returned to her birthplace.
She even speaks like a much older person:
“I would not be able to write with such emotion about these things without my fair share of regrets.”
It sounds like a sincere statement until you realize it’s a bit, an introduction to the song strangely spelled “Ragrets.”
But that is my favorite song here. It’s got a great opening guitar riff from John Scherer that is duplicated on the bass (with some great high notes) by Craig Shephard. Backing vocalist Erika JaNaé is there with her throughout–matching her with lovely backing ooohs.
Baby Rose has a voice that sounds a bit like Antony from Antony & the Johnsons–wavery and operatic. Especially as the Concert opens with “Sold Out” which features strings from Jasminfire on viola, Yuli on violin and Noah Johnson on cello.
It’s also evident in the third song “Over.” In the middle of the song she sings low and it sounds very Antony, although I suppose another comparison would be “the bluesy melisma of Nina Simone and the deep register of Sarah Vaughan–two of her idols.” This song is, surprisingly, less than two minutes long. It has a simple piano melody from Timothy Maxey. In addition to Erika JaNaé, Jasminfire and Yuli sing backing vocals. I like the bass slide at the end, which seems like it’s a transition to another part of the song, not the end.
The next song is “Mortal” which opens with a loud drum hit from Tauseef Anam and quiet shimmering guitars. There’s a lot of backing singing on this song and they all sing very nicely.
As this song is ending she introduces the band and says
“This is what real love sounds like. This is what it feels like.”
The blurb says
From any other new artist, a Tiny Desk declaration like that might sound a tad bit presumptuous if not altogether premature.
I actually thought pretentious was the word.
She asks if she can do one more (because of course an artist I’ve never heard of gets an 18 minute set). And in introducing “All To Myself,” she says she is
Dedicating the song to herself — and “to anyone here that’s ever wanted to call or text somebody that you know you should not call or text” — congratulating those of us who’ve refrained from squandering our emotions on the undeserved.
Her voice is really impressive on this song and I like that the blurb acknowledges that she’s not using autotune
In an era when the over-reliance on Autotune has nearly everybody in radio R&B land sounding like automatons, her unadulterated voice is almost otherworldly. It’s confounding how a vocal tone so weathered and wise emerges from her so effortlessly.
[READ: July 10, 2019] Who is Rich?
Rich Fischer is a cartoonist. As the book opens, Rich is beginning his annual week-long teaching assignment at a New England beachside Arts Conference. Rich was once sort of famous for his first (and only) published book and that’s why he was initially invited to instruct. In the intervening six years, he has not really produced anything except drawings for magazines, but the head of the council still likes him, so Rich has that annual work to look forward to.
Although he doesn’t really look forward to it. People come from all over to study all kinds of arts with esteemed faculty. It’s a place where writers, artists and historians show off that they are really drunkards and perverts and are willing to do anything to dance naked on a beach in a drum circle. At this point, he knows what he is and how he fits along with the rest of the teaching staff:
unknown nobodies and one-hit has-beens, midlist somebodies and legitimate stars.
His was a four day intensive workshop that cost $1500. He details his students–a former high school art teacher (who tried to take over the class), a med student who didn’t want to start med school, a trans kid, a Vietnam War veteran, a grandmother and a teenager skulking in the back.
But he was also sick of it. The same faces year after year. Nadia Klein “was widely mocked an imitated.” Larry Burris skipped his meds one year and wore a jester’s cap to class and lit his own notes on fire. And yet when he was asked to name another cartoonist he could vouch for to teach a second comics workshop, he didn’t answer the director, “because of the way my career had gone, I worried that I’d be hiring my replacement.”
He talks about his precocious success–at first it seems like a mistake, but you get used to it quickly. You assume it will always be there. Until it isn’t.
SOUNDTRACK: RIO MARA-Tiny Desk Concert #906 (October 25, 2019).
