harlemchixo’s blog

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Being able to discuss what I might be thankful for...

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Chixo

Susan Cagle, Subway Recordings

Her record company bio makes no mention of her age but let’s step out on a limb: singer/song writer, Susan Cagle was probably not even born when Rupert Holmes answered a personal add in his song, “The Escape” with the now infamous words, “Yes I like pina coladas and getting caught in the rain!”  Yet somehow, Cagle’s question, “Do you like Shakespeare?” from a song on her new full-length release evokes the same kind of romantic, match-maker, we-just-met, curiosity that made Holmes’ song so great and just a part of the reason why Cagle’s new hook-filled The Subway Recordings is so appealing. 

Like Holmes, Cagle has no problems wearing her heart on her sleeve as she does on the idealistic “Dream” and again on “Be Here” where she sings,

“Open your ears, what do you hear? Do you hear the sound of someone in despair? Do you hear me?  Then be here… now, with me.” 

A testament to sadness and loneliness that is punctuated by need – the kind that everyone feels at least once in their lives but oftentimes never articulate. Cagle shares that difficult moment without fear and fortunately, she does so for the rest of us who do not share her unique talent for candidness.  Then she reassures us all with the almost religious yet certainly spiritual, “Ain’t It Good To Know” where she cries:

“From the dark clouds of your sorrow come the bright skies of tomorrow

And as the clouds begin to clear you know someone loves you dear…

Ain’t it good to know you got somebody who sees you when no one else knows you’re here?”

And ain’t it good for us to know that the lady with lots of questions also has some answers.

But before you begin to think this record is a slew of pleasing odes to how cruel life is or worst yet, that Cagle has no sense of humor she promptly recovers with the sarcastic, “(Isn’t It True That) Happiness Is Overrated” – a song that that helps to explain away the irritated human in all of us.  In fact, Cagle seems to turn every song into a sing-along.  Especially, her “Transitional” about a friend, turned lover, turned bad idea that would make any daytime soap opera writer proud.

Her sense of humor must have come in handy while she entertained subway riders in NYC’s famous transit system.  It was there that she was “discovered” by a record company executive and given a recording contract – Quite the Hollywood ending for the young artist considering she continues to play the Union Square, Grand Central Station, and Times Square venues beneath the city.  What a great idea to have her first major release recorded there (yes, those are platform announcements and trains rolling by in the background of this live recording).  She has said of her experience there:

"It was just so amazing. Sometimes I would play late at night where people would be grouped together waiting for trains going in different directions on the same platform and I would get a huge crowd. And you could feel it…I felt like I was singing just for them. I felt like I was able to touch them in some way through my music."

It is this “new” love, innocent, cheerful-in-spite-of-this-pain, humorous-serious, environment that makes her new full-length release, The Subway Recordings, such a joy to listen to. There’s only one truly disappointing part of her short ten song set:  Just after finishing her tune “Ask Me,” Cagle tells the crowd “The band’s gonna take a little break and we’ll be right back.”  She never returns.

In an age when downloading single songs via MP3 is the norm record companies have begun to do everything they can to make the full-CD buying experience a little more attractive.  Videos, mini-movies, interviews, pictures and games, have become either individually or collectively included along with the music to enhance albums.  How fortunate we are that Rosanne Cash, on her latest offering, Black Cadillac, provides a short musical memoir to the music.  In the introduction, Cash says, “To talk about love, truth, or loss in abstract terms” means nothing – it isn’t part of a life.”  To talk about the chair they sat in, the car they drove, the room they sang in, or the road, “That has everything in it to me.” 

And so it is not surprising that on Cadillac the daughter of the late and certainly great Johnny provides images that are everything to the songs.  Her songs draw distinct visual lines, like those apparent in “Radio Operator,” and lines filled with metaphor, as she does on “Like A Wave” and the title song.  At times she provides bright, vivid colors and at others her brush strokes are more black and white and grey.  Somehow, her songs are all at once sad and joyous. 

Her songs are true visual portraits.  A driving bass that that seem to turn the wheels and drums that mimic rain you can practically see falling, grace the title track.  Like most of the songs in this set, Cadillac is heavily influenced by basic blues, country, and roots music sensibilities.  Also, like most songs on the CD, Cadillac is autobiographical or in part reflective of her recent losses (dad, Johnny, September of 2003 and mom, June Carter, in May of the same year).  Sensitive lyrics like, “It was a black sky of rain; none of it fell; One of us goes to heaven the other stays here in hell… Now it’s a lonely world; [but I] guess it always was,” can be found on just about every song in this set.  Thing is, you never really get tired of them. On “I Was Watching You,” for example, Cash sings of the time her parents decided to marry:

“Headlights on a Texas road

Hank Williams on the radio

Church Wedding they spent all they had

Now the deal is deal is done to become mom and dad...

….Long before life there was love.” 

Unlike hearing most sad stories over and over, she has somehow managed to take personal tragedies, loneliness, lost love, pain, and so many other unattractive emotions and make them digestible art.  The listener is drawn to learn how this story ends.  Comparisons to other artist that have accomplished this feet can easily be drawn.  In fact, she sounds a bit like them on some: “Burn Down This Town,” (Tom Waits) “Radio Operator,” (Johnny Cash), and “Dreams Are Not My Home,” (Stevie Nicks).  Cash, however, is never mistaken for them.  These are her songs; Her pictures.

Downloading of singles was born from the idea that hardly any popular music CDs have enough quality material to justify buying the whole thing.  Black Cadillac, however, contradicts this notion.  To download a song or two you would miss Ms. Cash’s point entirely: “You can’t just see part of the movie and think you know the story.”

Tell us about an event that changed your life forever.
Submitted by Miss Scotch.

Actually, there were a few: 

1. Hearing Louis Armstrong for the first time ("West End Blues")

2. Meeting Muhamad Ali in a Harlem barber shop

3. Seeing my children born.

4. Seeing my father die.

5. Discovering Christ.