Thursday, July 26, 2007
Susan James doesn't live in Los Angeles anymore and this makes us sad.
A staple in the L.A. folk scene for years, James left Los Angeles for the UK in the early 2000s to have a family life -- pretty much the only acceptable reason we'll allow good artists to leave us. We followed her around town as she did the coffee house and small venue circuit (which back then seemed to be a lot more in numbers) at a bunch of now-deceased venues like Little Frida's, Highland Grounds (now called The Dive), and Mogul's.
We loved her simply for being way ahead of her time. Her writing frequently went into different directions, often crossing the lines of folk and pushing into the more avant-garde, perhaps something she was able to do effortlessly because of her ethnomusicology background. She was also doing guitar acrobatics long before anyone heard of Kaki King. And so in the mid-90's, labels were after her pretty hard touting her as the next Ani DiFranco (meets Jeff Buckley) but even in the era of Lilith Fair she resisted and put out two daring albums independently on her own label Red Letter, Shocking Pink Banana Seat (1996) and Fantastic Voyage (1998).
Susan personally introduced us to tons of L.A's best musicians including Joseph Hammer, Abby Travis, Rusty Squeezebox, and Morris Tepper and gave us huge support in the early years of la-underground. We hope that her new family is well and that she comes back soon because we miss her too much.
"Falling Waltz" has always been our favorite SJ song. We play it often, but especially if we're driving down PCH around dusk.
Susan James - "Falling Waltz" (MP3)
from the album Fantastic Voyage
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I must be horribly out of the loop 'cause I always thought she left us ages ago. Perhaps she returned and left again. Regardless and more importantly, I agree. A true gem of LA's musical world. Bernard
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: 8/05/2007 09:06:00 AM
: 8/05/2007 09:06:00 AM<< Home
