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By
Published: Mar 25, 2009
Category: Rock [4]
I get many self-produced CDs. I try to listen to them all. Sadly, I usually make it only through a song or two. And then I send off an e-mail expressing admiration for the singer/songwriter and apologizing for the few issues I can spare for music. What I don't say: I'm on your side, but standards are standards.
Gun Metal Sky [5], a new CD by Lori Lieberman, came my way via her sister. I was not entirely thrilled to have it, for her sister is a talented and thoughtful woman who once did our daughter a great kindness, and there is no sense of obligation that weighs heavier on me than one that involves a sincere interest in our kid. I did not, therefore, rush to play it, or even to find out that Ms. Lieberman is more than her sister's sister.
I know better now.
Three decades and change ago, a young singer-songwriter saw Don McLean perform. She was knocked out. And so Lori Lieberman wrote a poem about that night and the man who was “killing me softly” with his songs. She was then collaborating with some noted songwriters; her lines become “Killing Me Softly”, which was recorded by Roberta Flack. It sold trillions.
Lori Lieberman also recorded that song. And more. She was a rising star in the '70s --- notables like Leonard Cohen would show up at her club dates --- and her CDs were beloved by Those Who Knew. Then she married, had children, divorced, remarried. Although she's released 10 CDs, her busy life near Los Angeles and her relative silence have whitewashed most awareness of her gifts. And then there are the minor matters of the near-total collapse of the music business and America's general lack of interest in anyone who can't sing karaoke on “American Idol”.
So what hope is there for a CD that sounds, in part, like outtakes from a lost Joni Mitchell or Laura Nyro masterpiece? That contains a very satisfying re-recording of “Killing Me Softly”? That looks for cover songs in a delicate collaboration between Brian Eno and Paul Simon because Lieberman just can't resist a line like “It is a moment, a chip in time, when leaving home is the lesser crime”? That, for backup, relies more on viola than drums? That has, at its core, admiration for adults who have had their hearts broken in grown-up romance but still dare to dream of love?
According to the Gospel of the Internet, a CD like this just might get Lori Lieberman ...discovered.
And for the simplest of reasons: authenticity.
Lieberman's songs are miniatures --- portraits of love gained and lost. But if they're drawn from her life, they don't seem autobiographical. They're less about what's seen than what's felt. They shine a little light on lives that never make the headlines. And about ideas that are very familiar and rarely celebrated --- like, for instance, the courage it takes to show up every day and carry on. And they're delivered passionately but modestly.
In general, I loathe CDs by singer-songwriters; they have a “too sensitive to live” quality that bugs me. Lori Lieberman's CD is levels above that self-involvement. This I can listen to, start to finish.
To buy “Gun Metal Sky” from Amazon.com, click here. [5]
To buy “Gun Metal Sky” from Lori Lieberman's web site or learn more about her, click here. [6]