MUSIC NOTES j.d. buhl
Let That Girl Boogie-Woogie
on temptation, she replies, “It’s too late Daddy I already did.” When her mama tells her she’ll forfeit eternal life unless she’s sorry for her sins and mistakes, Birch is sure that “heaven’s gonna be one lonely town.” The singer has suggested that it is One of the world’s most influential the very constriction of a “Bible belt” musicians was one of 11 children born tightening around her that ultimately to a sharecropping preacher in the squeezed out these songs of freedom Mississippi Delta. After 14 years amidst and heartbreak:The whole album is one the sights and sounds of African American big sigh of relief. The world again benchurch music, John Lee Hooker fled to efits musically from the strict upbringhis stepfather Will Moore’s home ing of a preacher’s kid who bolts from because his own daddy wouldn’t allow the church, exchanging the body of a guitar in the house and considered the Christ for the body of her current lover. Such transference of passion, rooted in blues to be the devil’s music. Moore actually played the blues him- Ray Charles’ “I Got a Woman,” conself, and it was at his knee that Johnny tributes to a pop humanism that, while learned everything he knew, because, as inviting compassion and a commitment he later said of his stepfather, “I was to human rights, often works at crossinto him just like he was God.” In his purposes to Christianity. Gospel songs are archetypal “Boogie Chillen,” Hooker about acceptance; pop songs are about sings about hearing his stepfather tell his rejection. Notwithstanding the euphoric mama, “Let that boy boogie-woogie. union that begins the cycle, the majority ’Cause it in him, and it gotta come out.” of pop songs cover post-coital boredom, Something else that’s in him — and betrayal, and neglect. We all face sin. A good pop song in many others from conservative religious families — is the feel of gospel depicts protean examples of the stuff music, and often it comes out at the with heroic characters’ efforts at containment; these same characters then go same time. One can imagine the above conver- on to commit more, and a new song is sation taking place between the missionary born. Pop humanism places the capacity parents of Diane Birch, a soulful singer- for redemption squarely within each of songwriter in her early 20s who has us, directing the natural drive to worship learned much from the hymnals and songbooks of their travels. From Michigan to Zimbabwe to South Africa to Australia to Oregon, Birch’s folks had ample opportunity to watch a performing personality develop in their daughter and decide whether or not they would let her boogie-woogie.The result is Bible Belt, a 2009 success of such warmth and artistry that you almost wish it was about something other than failed romances. Birch’s songs recall further parental discussions.When the preacher in “Don’t Wait Up” warns against opening the lid PRISM 2010
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toward one of two unworthy objects: the self or the beloved. In “Forgiveness,” which comes near the end of the album but often opens her shows, Birch exhibits an honest resiliency en route to that redemption:“Your love, no, it ain’t worth cursin’ / Your heart, it ain’t worth hurtin’.” What makes an artist leave the security of Christ for the rough and tumble of the bedroom? “Love makes the price good enough to wanna pay,” sings Birch in “Fire Escape”; however, “it don’t make the hurt go away.” Already too many names have been used to describe the familiar comfort of Birch’s sound: from Carol King and Laura Nyro to Lucinda Williams and Amy Winehouse (“minus the dysfunction”). As flattering — and accurate — as these comparisons may be, such “soundslike” wallpaper makes a true artist feel trapped, as if she is little more than an extension of her record collection.There are many mansions to Birch’s voice, not a single room. She has the openness and innocence that makes a song indelible, and after enjoying several available performances (I highly recommend her appearance on Live From Daryl’s House at LiveFromDarylsHouse.com), I have never caught her oversouling. Birch finds her true peers among such unaffected singers as Alison Krauss, Carrie Rodriguez, and Jacqui Naylor, women who through a number of musical styles — all with some gospel roots — lend those good-news chords of the church to the bad-news chorus of human frailty, failure, and even forgiveness. John Lee Hooker boogied to his death, leaving behind five decades of insight on the human condition that might have amazed his preacher papa. In heady flight from her religious upbringing, Diane Birch is doing some work that may also someday make her parents proud. J.D. Buhl is a regular contributor to PRISM’s music column.