| Delmhorst finds 'Strange' lyricists By Ed Symkus Thursday, June 1, 2006 - Updated: 06:21 AM EST Kris Delmhorst had some talented collaborators for her new CD, "Strange Conversation," released this week. You may recognize the names of her co-writers - Lord Byron, Walt Whitman, George Eliot and Edna St. Vincent Millay. The resulting album is a wonderful pastiche of folk and pop and rock and even a little Dixieland. Delmhorst, along with her band, performs these and other songs at a record release party at the Somerville Theater on Saturday. Originally from New York where she studied classical music - cello and piano - through high school, Delmhorst later added fiddle and acoustic guitar. By the time she settled locally - first in Somerville, then in Cambridge - in her mid-20s, she was just starting to write her own songs. "I had been playing fiddle in traditional and Celtic bands, but I didn't really sing in front of people until I started writing songs," she says by phone from the home she recently moved to in Greenfield. "And I don't know why that started happening. It's always been a surprise to me that it didn't happen sooner. I was obsessed with songs and lyrics since I was a tiny kid. But I guess it had to incubate for a while." Delmhorst, boasting a strong and clear voice, claims she has no trouble singing, but admits that the writing part can be difficult. "Every now and then one drops out of the sky, and is easy, and that's always really nice," she says of her original songs. "But it's hard in a way that's hard to describe. It a weird little dance with yourself every time." Drawing inspiration (and lyrics) from famous poets may have helped the process. "When I'm working with all new songs I'm starting with nothing and trying to build something up," she says. "But with the songs from the poems - even though with a lot of them I ended up writing some or most or all of the actual lyrics - I was starting with all this stuff to work with, and either adapting it or boiling it down." A fascinating example of "boiling down" comes in her reinventing of excerpts from Walt Whitman's "Passage to India," from which she took a few words or phrases and references, and turned them into the mid-tempo pop-rocker "Light of the Light." "I put some sweat into that one," she says. "When I found that poem I knew I wanted to make something out of it. But it just kind of sat in the back of my mind. I probably worked on it for a year and a half, and I bet that I had about 25 completely different musical concepts for that one. That was a long slog." Delmhorst's transforming of George Eliot's "May I Join the Choir Invisible" into the joyous Dixieland ramble "Invisible Choir" came courtesy of her upstairs neighbor who put a box of books on the sidewalk for people to take. "I flipped through one of them and saw this George Eliot poem," she recalls. "I didn't even realize that shewrote poems, but that one was just perfect." She laughs and adds, "But I don't quite know why the Dixieland part happened." Of her years in Cambridge, Delmhorst did her share of performing at Club Passim, but mentions that her favorite places to play or just hang out were Toad and the Lizard Lounge. And she refers to Cambridge, a folk center of America, as a thoughtful town. "I think that helps the climate of people being interested in original songs a little more than they might be in other places," she guesses. "And there's something about being close to New York but totallyother than New York somehow helps. I feel that there's a slight bit more independence and a little bit of freedom from the big business angle here." She left town to live in the comparative serenity of Western Massachusetts, and admits that with any move like that, you win some and you lose some. "This is where my stuff is and my house is and some of my friends are," she says of Greenfield. "But I still feel that musically, my home is Cambridge and Boston. When I rehearse, it's there; whenever I want to see people play, it's there. I still spend a lot of time there. So I'm sort of in this weird state of being a commuter to my own life." When she comes back this weekend to play in Somerville, she'll bring along the band that's featured on the record: Kevin Barry on guitars and vocals, Paul Kochanski on bass and vocals, Lorne Entress on drums and vocals, and guest guitarist and singer Jabe Beyer. Delmhorst will be handling most of the singing, and will likely be playing fiddle and acoustic guitar. But lately she's been thinking of strapping on an electric. "I sometimes write on electric, and a couple of times I've played it onstage when I've been using someone else's set up," she says. "So far I just haven't taken that leap. But yeah, sooner or later I definitely will, because I love playing electric, and it's very cool." Kris Delmhorst plays at the Somerville Theater on June 3 at 8 p.m. The Wood Brothers open the show. Tickets are $20 and $25. Call 617-931-2000. |
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