 |
Dates Appearing: July 19, 20 Current Release: It Happened One Night Home: Toronto, ON Birthday: November 25 |
"For the fans and ourselves, I wanted to make a live recording." says Canadian chanteuse Holly Cole of her new record, It Happened One Night. "We grew up so much as a live band and that's difficult to capture on a studio record."As anyone who has witnessed one of Cole's captivating, mercurial performances can testify, she's completely in her element on stage. "The audience feeds me so much. The communication that goes on in the live show is multi-faceted: there's the interchange between the band members, from us to the audience and the response that the crowd gives back as fuel."
"I like it when an audience has a face, and I get a feeling for who the people are," she continues. "Every night is different, so the songs take new directions every night." Hence the album's title. While most albums are culled from the best takes from a series of performances, these eight cuts were judiciously taken from a single balmy evening in Montreal on June 28th, 1995, showcasing a single emotional journey. As a bonus, the interactive portion of It Happened One Night has four full length live performances, plus the original videos for Calling You and I Can See Clearly Now, a discography, profiles of the band members and a Q&A with Holly.
The songs included encompass selections from three of Cole's previous releases: Blame It On My Youth (1991), Don't Smoke In Bed (1993) and her acclaimed 1995 collection of Tom Waits interpretations, Temptation. The steadfast dedication of the singer and her musicians to push themselves stylistically has allowed her to successfully embrace an expansive range of material, from standards like Cole Porter's "Get Out of Town" to tunes by contemporary luminaries like "Don't Let the Teardrops Rust Your Shinning Heart" by Ben Watt of Everything But The Girl.
Cole grew up surrounded by music; her parents are classical players, her brother is a composer and jazz artist, her uncle sang and acted on Broadway and her grandfather plays C & W accordian. In her youth, she listened to everything from Broadway Musicals, Country and Western and Classical to sixties rock and the pop of her generation. In her mid-teens, she discovered Nina Simone, Sonny Rollins and Betty Carter and for a long time listened exclusively to jazz. "Jazz is a big influence on my sound, but ultimately it's a fusion of many styles." Her favorite contemporary artists - Gavin Bryars, Elvis Costello, Lyle Lovett, k.d. lang, Mary Margaret O'Hara, Tom Waits - often defy categorization. "Categories aren't important to me."
The same stylistic breadth and iconoclasm resonate in the inventive artistry of her fellow players. It Happened One Night finds Cole joined by longtime collaborators David Piltch on bass and Aaron Davis on piano, augmented by drummer Dougie Bowne and guitarist Kevin Breit. "Working with the quintet opens up more sonic avenues," Cole observes. "Breit and Bowne complement the trio's aesthetic vision. We wanted people who were solid, creative, and most importantly shared our musical sensibility. We really like things to be sparse and minimal. We didn't want extra musicians just to fill up space."
The minimal approach allows Cole's pliant voice the maximum amount of emotional elbow room to dig in and make a song her own. In a single turn or phrase, she can switch from the most devil-may-care nonchalance to an artist of commanding emotional gravity, or soar from an intimate whisper to an impassioned belt of pure feeling. And she keeps getting better every night. "I go back to my old albums and think, "Oh my God, how innocent," she confesses with a laugh. "I hadn't lived much of a life yet."
Off stage, she consumes life with the same gusto she communicates in her music. While some artists seclude themselves in rehearsal studios and their homes, Cole delights in getting out there in the thick of it. "If it weren't for the ups and downs in life and a commitment to the pursuit of adventure, there certainly would be less to sing about," she admits. "Those are the things that motivate me to make music." With It Happened One Night, Holly Cole invites you to share in one very special evening in that life.
Related Links
Return to Lilith Fair Artists