Oh Susanna rockt iets
meer op haar derde album

De Canadese rootszangeres Oh Susanna heeft haar derde album uit. Er sluipt er iets meer rock in haar muziek. Zoals in het nummer Right By Your Side, een soort honkytonk-homage aan de Rolling Stones. Suzie: "When I perform it I say, 'this is my chance to live out my twelve year old girl fantasy of being Mick Jagger.'"
In Canada is ze reeds alom gerespecteerd. Filmmakers willen haar muziek gebruiken als soundtrack, zoals Paris, Texas-Wim Wenders: . "I love doing stuff with people that's outside of the music scene, and having it be put in a different context that reaches other people who wouldn't necessarily hear it."
Vorig jaar was Oh Susanna al voor enkele concerten in Europa. Nu zijn dat er meer, met ondermeer een heuse tour door Engeland. Reden voor Sue Keogh van de BBC voor een uitvoerig artikel op de bbc-site. Suzie Ungerleider (Oh Susanna is haar artiestennaam) komt uitvoerig aan het woord en het album wordt nummer-voor-nummer besproken. Hier enkele citaten:

…The Be Good Tanyas…Kathleen Edwards…Blue Rodeo…The Guthries…The Sadies…Corb Lund…Oh Susanna - all Canadian artists who've headed for the UK stage in the past year. It seems the roots music scene is thriving over there, creating a welcome alternative to the glossy production (not to mention hair) of MTV queens such as Celine Dion, Shania Twain and Avril Lavigne…

…"There are plenty of people in Canada who are being very pop," says Suzie Ungerleider, AKA Oh Susanna. "But the fact that they're Canadian is overlooked because they're not trying to identify themselves as Canadian. If you're doing very rootsy, very earthy music that's tied to acoustic instruments then you will be much more willing to say 'I'm from this place and this is what I write about.'"…

…Born in Massachusetts but growing up in Vancouver, Ungerleider was blessed with access to a rich diversity of music; her parents listened to everything from The Beatles to jazz and show tunes. (…) Whatever the style the thing that always interested her was the voice. "And it didn't have to be a beautiful voice or a melodic voice; it just had to have a character. And that was really important, that the music should have this passion and intensity, whether it was Mick Jagger singing about drugs or sex or whatever or if it was Ella Fitzgerald being much more articulate and sophisticated."…

…Ungerleider's approach to songwriting really began to take shape when she discovered some old recordings of people living in the Appalachians. "It started to be more about stories for me," she says. "When I first started I wanted to write songs which were like those old songs, so I started to use that imagery and that form and imitate that." With a stage name, Oh Susanna, taken from the old Stephen Foster song, in 1997 she released a seven song EP of harrowing and simply written murder ballads. Her full-length debut, Johnstown, followed soon after saw her exploring these dark themes still further. Soon comparisons were being made to Gillian Welch, another artist from outside the Appalachians who draws from its musical traditions with sincerity and an authentic feel...

…As an emerging artist on a small independent label she's had to get used to some pretty long journeys between gigs. "A short one is five hours and a long one is thirteen hours. So we say we should have a subway line across Canada!" Supporting The Handsome Family last year she found herself crammed into the back of small van with the country-noir husband and wife duo as they insisted on driving themselves to each of their UK gigs. Quite an interesting experience. "They were the Mum and Dad going on this crazy road holiday that had gone wrong…and then Rennie is in love with animals and she was like, "I want one of those lambs! I want to take one home!"…