December Transformation: From Wallflower to Star

Please excuse the hyperbole — I am practicing supporting my music with better marketing efforts. As I mentioned in the November post I took part in Maia Duerr’s course “Fall in Love with Your Work” this fall for the second time. The signal realization for me this time around was that I had wanted to become a performing singer and songwriter at age eleven and that I still wanted to do that. Maia gives students in this class an opportunity to sell work on the Liberated Life Project Marketplace website, which inspired me to create, “Clueless,” a new EP (reduced length CD) of three original love songs I had written in 2012. “Ingenue” describes the experience of falling in love despite “a lifetime of love gone wrong.” “The Werewolf” talks about “the alcohol werewolf blowing my safe house down,” worrying out loud about potential problems in a desired relationship and “Clueless” details mishaps of courtship where both participants trade off being “clueless” by not understanding one another, not picking up hints, etc. That one, like “Ingenue” has a happy ending — it is always a positive, enlarging event to fall in love because it opens the heart.

This new E.P. marks the first time I have released a recording of all original material. I might as well be known as Sharyn Don’t-Call-Me-a-Singer/Songwriter Dimmick because I am always saying that. As a songwriter, I value my own material and I sing it myself, which technically makes me partly a singer/songwriter, but, as a singer, I like to sing all kinds of songs, from traditional Scottish and American ballads, to hymns and Christmas carols, to 19th century classics like Stephen Foster’s “Hard Times” to iconic songs like Joni Mitchell’s “Woodstock” and Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” to lesser-known contemporary gems like Shelley Posen’s “No More Fish, No Fishermen,” a lament for the decline of the Newfoundland fisheries. Because I wanted to present some new music this year and because the songs on the “Clueless” album hang together well I decided to release them as a solo acoustic project, an album with no overdubs or guest musicians.

My previous recording, “Paris” covers a wider scope of my musical interests. The inspiration for that recording was the title cut, also called “Paris.” When someone I thought might be more than a friend took off for Paris without me and did not send me so much as a postcard from the trip a song was born as I mulled over every visit I had made to the City of Light, from a hitchhiking trip when I was twenty to a visit to a lover’s family in the 1990s. When I wrote the song I knew I wanted people to hear it, including my zen and writing teacher, Natalie Goldberg — I figured if I put it on a CD she would have to listen to it.* The recording features two other original songs, “The Wallflower Waltz” and “Morning Shanty,” which I had recorded previously on a cassette recording called “I Am Your Winter Lover” in 1998. I filled out the CD with songs I had known and loved since childhood: “Barbara Allen,” “Bringing in the Sheaves, ” “Big Yellow Taxi” “When You and I Were Young, Maggie” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic.” I sandwiched “The Battle Hymn” between Richard Thompson’s “We Sing Hallelujah” and Leonard Cohen’s wonderful anthem “Hallelujah,” recording the three songs as “The Hallelujah Trilogy,” backed by a group of singers I called “The Hallelujah Chorus.” I also employed musicians to add fiddle, banjo, second guitar, concertina and harmony vocals to some songs, and dubbed in my own harmony parts on others.

I am pleased to announce that Bay Area readers (or those traveling through town) will have an opportunity to meet me and to hear my music in a live performance at the December 12 Open Mic at the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists, 1606 Bonita St.. I will be the featured performer for December and will sing a 20 minute set. If you are in town, please come to hear me. You might even be able to take home a copy of the “Clueless” EP.  I will also be singing the Scottish ballad “The Bonnie Banks of Fordie” on the radio this week on “Traditional Ballads with Sadie, streamed at www.kggv.blogspot.com or live at 95.1 FM on Thursdays 7:00 to 8:00 PM Pacific Time.

Be sure to check out other offerings from the Liberated Life Project Marketplace. Here Jill S. talks about her lovely note cards of architectural details and dahlias.

* After the “Paris” CD was released, Natalie confessed to me that she only listened to the tracks she liked best and skipped the rest. I extracted a promise that she would listen to the entire CD. She did and then wrote me a lovely review on CD Baby. Later she featured the lyrics to “The Wallflower Waltz” and stories about me in her book, “The True Secret of Writing.” She has continued to be a staunch supporter of my music and a good friend.