Heck Of A Guy

“Gorgeous” – Adjective Of Choice For Allison Crowe’s Music

It may now be impossible to properly describe Allison Crowe’s voice or her songs without employing some form of the word “gorgeous.”

Crowe, who doesn’t merely use her voice as an adornment for her tunes but suffuses her own poignant songs and those of others with a gorgeously (see, there it is already) rich sound, celebrated Valentine’s Day by completing the final mix for Spiral, her new album. (Ongoing readers may recall a November 2009 post, Video Prelude To Allison Crowe’s New Album, showcasing a precursor to one of the new songs, “Going Home Tonight,” in video format.)

Now,  getting the music into the hands, heads, and hearts of her fans is only a matter of burning CDs, arranging distribution channels, setting up the printing of the covers, organizing the retailing of digital versions, … .

The current schedule calls for Spiral to be released as a CD on March 17, 2010 with the digital formatted music available a week or so earlier.

In celebration of the  impending album release – or, as I like to think of  it, Allison Crowe reaching another milestone in her pilgrimage to musical iconicity,  Heck Of A Guy post presents “Phoenix” (from Crowe’s 2006 album, This Little Bird), which makes its YouTube debut today, as well as some background on the  evolution of the album with a special focus on the how the  collaboration between Allison Crowe (singer-songwriter and icon-in-training) and Kayla Schmah (orchestrator, arranger and producer) came about.

And there’s more – or, at least there will be more. Future posts will include musings on the conceptual  construction of the Spiral album and, if all goes as planned (cue the hysterical laughter), previews of the music from the album.

But, back to today and the true story of the making of Spiral,  featuring Allison Crowe, her best friend, her best friend’s wedding, her business manager, a baby, a deal, and music, all of which appear to have not only survived a  plot premised on coincidence  but to have thrived as a result.

“Hey, Let ‘s Put On A Show” – How Allison & Kayla Teamed Up To Produce The Spiral Album, As Told By Adrian du Plessis¹

A decade ago, Allison and Kayla [Schmah] became friends … . At that time, they were both focused on making music their lives. Allison has continued in the path of live performance – concerts, touring, recording … . Kayla, who hears a symphony in her head, went from the coffee-house and club stage to college – a couple of years at Selkirk College in the interior region of B.C., outside the arty community of Nelson, and followed by four or so years at Berklee College in Boston. She found her passion for music best expressed in scoring, in orchestrating. She was top/honours student upon Berklee graduation, and Kayla’s combination of personality, drive/dedication and sensitivity in artistry quickly landed her work in L.A.

When we last heard from Kayla, she’d landed on her feet in L.A. – where, her work ethic and creativity, and reputation for same, saw her quickly advance in composing and scoring for films – indie projects and big-budget Hollywood movies. A couple of years paying her (uncredited) dues in the field, and she began to even receive credits for her work, as well as royalties. Now, at this same time, health issues led her to visit a hospital in Hollywood .. . She began to volunteer at the hospital, and, in short, she decided nursing was a vocation preferable to working in the movie industry. At the beginning of this year, she moved back to Salt Spring Island, to give birth to a son, Wyatt, and, go through the hoops to begin nursing studies at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Her husband, Kyle, also a movie-music-maker, moved up to Canada this Summer – and enrolled in engineering at UBC.

Due to immigration rules and all, there’d not been a wedding in Canada, the pair had been hitched on the sands at Malibu the previous year – and, so, a big party for friends and family occurred here in mid-July. Near the end of the night, a DVD of their California wedding, and the trip to and fro the hospital for their baby’s birth, was projected onto a screen set up inside the large nursery (of the plant kind) greenhouse which was the venue for the bash. I’d seen the wedding video as a silent film, at Kayla’s parents’ home (referred to by some as a “sylvan castle”, hand-made by the Schmahs, from logs). Now it had a soundtrack, and I was struck by how resonant it was, and, in a fit of inspiration, asked Kayla right after the wedding party screening, if she’d have any time/interest in adding strings+ to some songs which Allison was just then recording, for her new album.

Kayla replied that she’d loved to do that, as it’s her passion and she wants to go beyond what’s possible in film-scoring. She had, however, only a narrow window of time, before she moved to Vancouver to ready for university. Alongside caring for a months-old baby, she managed to orchestrate “Going Home Tonight,”² … and write the cello part for a tune called “Chelsea Hotel No. 2″ – which has yet to manifest itself in the physical, recorded, realm.

That was it, we were done. Mid-August, Vancouver-residence-and-nanny-hunting, pre-med school duties, etc. – brought to conclusion this brilliant flash of collaboration. With not even a Summer break in courses scheduled for 2010, we anticipated the next time we’d encounter Kayla in a creative/music setting would be more than a year off. Well, a funny thing happened on the way to the operating forum. Kayla’s parents, who’d been mystified by, but wholly accepting of, Kayla’s change in life course – called me after the second day of uni classes, in September, to inform me that Kayla and Kyle had dropped out and were now packing, with plans to return to L.A./Hollywood (along with baby and their grand pianos) the next week!

To cut to the chase, as one should in Hollywood scripts, happenings conspire to place Kayla Schmah as producer, arranger and orchestrator of Allison’s entire album, “Spiral”, and we, now, have a way to complete a recording, and realize a dream, that’s not before been possible.

God is alive, magic is afoot.

To be continued …

“and I am not a saint, yeah I get that” – Phoenix By Allison Crowe

Today’s entertainment is Phoenix, a brilliant, lovely song by Allison Crowe that – well, that may be too gorgeous for its own good.  The explanation – AKA the Heck Of A Guy hypothesis du jour – follows:

Phoenix, like many of Allison’s songs, suffers from the Fallacious Hallelujah Heuristic – the misinterpretation of a song’s central theme by its audience (and by too many of the singers who cover it) because the song’s style and intonations are heard by those listeners as signals that is a triumphant anthem or at least a statement of optimism (one of my friends calls these “songs of the half-full glass”). But you know what? Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah – if one pays attention -  isn’t like that at all.  And neither is Phoenix (or most of Allison’s own songs). My favorite line from Phoenix is the one embedded in the heading for this section, “and I am not a saint, yeah I get that.” That ain’t sunshine peeking through the clouds.

Actually Allison’s songs have it worse.  Cohen’s plain voice does not distract one from the lyrics.³  Allison’s (yeah, I’m gonna use that word again) gorgeous voice trumps her equally wonderful lyrics, causing them, however laden with angst, anger, or other strong, not-happy feelings they may be, to be heard as – well, joyful.

As a result, I think many people on first hearing Allison, automatically pigeonhole her songs into the “woman in love” category – which is often technically accurate  but incredibly inadequate.

This would also make differentiating among her  songs difficult, which may explain in part why her covers are so popular (because folks already know “what the song means” before they hear her sing it).

It may be necessary to assign a study of Allison’s lyrics as a requirement for buying her CDs or concert tickets.

Just in case, I’ve included the lyrics to Phoenix.

Phoenix, Words & Music by Allison Crowe

You didn’t have to hurt me, you know
it wasn’t entirely necessary
and I’m not sure how much of that you meant
and I’m not sure how far
it went

but that doesn’t really matter now
I meant every word I said except for
one

maybe it all just paved the way
for what needed to happen anyways

and out of the ashes I rise
the one who can look up is the one who flies

and remember to never look back or down
don’t crash into the ground

and I am not a saint, yeah I get that

I’ve had it explained to me far
too many times

but I do try, and I like to think
that one day I’ll get back what I’ve
given

and you said that I would never be happy
and now that I am I wonder if
you’d believe me anyways

but that doesn’t matter now
and to tell the truth I don’t care what
you think

’cause out of the ashes I rise
the one who can look up is the one who flies

and remember to never look back or down
don’t crash into the ground

I can’t help you now, no I can’t stop you
so go ahead, crash in to the ground…

Allison Crowe – Phoenix

Video from Adrian22

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1. As many Heck Of A Guy readers know,  Adrian du Plessis is the Business Manager of Allison Crowe Music and an occasional contributor of insights from the music biz. [↩]
2. See Video Prelude To Allison Crowe’s New Album [↩]
3. One of the elements of Leonard Cohen’s music I most appreciate is the ease with which the words of most of his lyrics can be heard and understood. [↩]