[3]
By
Published: 2008
Category: Jazz [4]
Judith Owen: “I'm back as me --- the real me”
Women who write songs and then sit at a piano and sing them are annoyingly difficult to classify --- and because few critics bother to ponder the new and thorny, Judith Owen had been out and about for years before I heard about her. And then it was only because she's married to Harry Shearer, better known as Derek Smalls (the bass player for the legendary band of loons in This is Spinal Tap [6]) or as the voices of Mr. Burns, Ned Flanders, Smithers. and Principal Skinner on “The Simpsons”.
Judith Owen's CDs [7]are smart, sassy, heartfelt, and, not least, good music; they convinced me she was well worth knowing on her own. And when I learned that she was appearing in New York as a solo act and touring with the great Richard Thompson, I thought she'd be a smart, sassy interview. I had no idea....
JESSE KORNBLUTH: I've read about you. I've written about you. But I can't imagine what it's like to see you perform.
JUDITH OWEN: I like to think that if Joni Mitchell [8] and Eddie Izzard [9] had a baby, that would be me. And that's how the show comes across --- you do laugh, you do cry. The show gives you a theatrical experience.
JK: Drama has structure. An Eddie Izzard evening feels free-form. He seems to use everything.
JO: And I'm like him --- not scripted. All seat of the pants. I know where I'm going because the songs are my tent poles. Otherwise, I'm saying the first thing out of my mouth.
JK: Do you have Tourette's Syndrome?
JO: No. I have a fast brain and I'm not a glum, down person --- I'm a depressive with a really bright funny side. And both have to be seen because I can't stand being gloomy.
JK: Granted that your shows are all different, do they share any common moments?
JO: I come on with a glass of wine and a cup of tea --- and a coat so people can see my wardrobe. I take off the coat, settle myself at the piano, and there I am: a stand-up singer-songwriter....
JK: Sounds fun. So where does the dark side of this approach to performing come from?
JO: I started writing music because I was unhappy. My mother died when I was 15, and ours was a good Welsh household --- no one could speak. So I wrote melancholy music. But it was music. And that saved me from taking drugs. I self-medicated with music.
JK: How did you get to America?
JO: Thank Derek Smalls. In '92, Spinal Tap was in London, on tour, staying at the Hilton in Chelsea Harbor. I was broke and depressed. So when I was asked to fill in at a jazz club, I agreed --- without learning that it was a brunch gig. Which means people came up asking if I knew anything from “Cats” while I did four hours of the same songs in different keys. After one song, I heard unusually enthusiastic applause. I turned around, and Harry Shearer, looking like Derek Smalls, and Chris Guest --- my idols --- were clapping.
JK: Two performers become a couple. Does “A Star Is Born” come to mind?
JO: Well, my star is being born as we speak. Thank God that Harry isn't James Mason, a drunk careening downhill. I'd have to take care of him, which I'm too selfish for.
JK: You've been recording and performing for years. Why is your star “being born” now?
JO: Because I had to get well to do well.
JK: Explain.
JO: I've had an awful lot of therapy, mostly cognitive. And really great drugs from a gifted psychopharmacologist. I fought the meds for a long time, because I was ashamed. But now, with each CD, I'm healthier and healthier. You can hear that. And you can see it on stage.
JK: Audiences like you better now?
JO: I think they always did. But I didn't. I wasn't at ease. There was always something prickly about me. If audiences like me more now, it's because I'm literally back from the dead. I feel the joy. I am in heaven. And I want people to be absolutely entertained --- for me, that's going on a ride together. I was always funny off stage, now I'm funny on. I feel entirely seen. And to hear people laugh....that is just incredible. The crap that comes out of my mouth...
JK: Are you perhaps Billy Connolly's lost sister?
JO: I wish I were Scottish. But as I'm Welsh --- that's like being Irish without the fun. The Welsh are the most dismal bunch ever. It's like the Dylan Thomas line about finding joy in the dark stuff.
JK: You make the Welsh sound almost....Jewish.
JO: Well, I ended up with a brilliant Jewish musician who's funny.
JK: After 25, groupies are unlikely. But do you have Stage Door Johnnies?
JO: I now find myself at the end of shows talking to women with their mascara running, saying “This was the most joyful evening” or “I thought you were telling my story” or “I lost this person, and...” I hear a lot of “This is like therapy.” At that point, I say, “Cheaper, too.”
JK: On your blog, you describe yourself at Live-Aid as “a slutty-looking backup singer.” How did that come to be?
JO: The whole reason I'm in America is “Spinal Tap.” It's everything I love and everything I hate. And now, all these years later, I find myself onstage as a backup singer for them --- the kind who's slept with everyone in the band and is still singing backup. I'm watching my husband perform in front of 65,0000 people, and the grin on my face could not have been brighter because there I am, onstage, with my favorite people in the world. Of course we were shitting bricks because we were on right after Metallica. But no matter. I was back --- as me, the real me.
JK: What does Richard Thompson [10] see in you?
JO: We met when we were languishing at Capitol Records. Instant love affair. He's the “guitar god” who writes songs almost as vulnerable as a woman. That's not a knock; a man can't go where women can, he has to have a front. So Richard writes these killer, revealing songs --- and he's funny as hell between songs...
JK: On the tour, you open for him?
JO: No. I play piano and sing with him. It's not a scripted show. The theme is the history of harmony, but again, the songs are the tent poles.
JK: This tour represents the longest separation in your marriage. Can love survive?
JO: This is a marriage in which we're actually supportive of one another. We love what the other does. We both live to work. And we both know that work comes first. I'm never more in love with Harry Shearer than when he's on stage.
JK: Or, I'd guess, when you are. Any superstitions or rituals?
JO: Remember to take my meds.
For more about Judith Owen, click here. [7]
For Judith Owen's web site, click here. [11]