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Offbeat Magazine loves Mopping Up Karma!!!
June 17, 2008
Mopping Up Karma is a flashback of sorts, a return to material Judith Owen started in Los Angeles in 1998 with Glen Ballard and Clifton Magness for a Java Records album that didn’t come out. Nothing on the album sounds a decade old, partially because the tracks were finished and revised with vocals and other parts rerecorded by John Fischbach at Piety Street Recording. The lyrics, too, follow Happy This Way in the way they depict someone at peace with her demons, someone who’s found the comfort of being sad—and someone more interested in the peace and comfort than the drama.
The cover depicts Owen in front of a rich, red drape in an elaborate dress, complete with cinched waist and oversized skirt. The theatrical dimension of her art highlighted by the photo is front and center here, and the jazz chanteuse takes a back seat. Her song sense and ability to involve listeners in her persona are as
present here as they are on any of her recent albums, though oddly, this new album of old material makes more sense if you know Here and Happy This Way, the albums that preceded it.
-- Alex Rawls
Judith in Billboard!!!
Billbaord
June 21, 2008
BlogCritics gives Karma two thumbs up!!!
Blog Critics
May 28, 2008
Judith Owen is the sort of artist that makes you want to throw labels out the window. So what if she’s generally listed under jazz? There’s nothing on her albums that wouldn’t play well on an intelligent FM rock station — that is, if you can find one these days.
I suppose the jazz tag has stuck to Owen because of her extraordinary vocal purity and technique. Her natural gift is a voice like watered silk, full of coloratura glints and shadows, but she brings in shrewdly intelligent phrasing and a gutsy rhythmic sense that work equally well as alt-rock. Like her frequent collaborator Richard Thompson (another underrated virtuoso), she can get plenty funky when she wants to; comparisons to Dusty Springfield and Chrissie Hynde are equally appropriate.
Owen’s songwriting also steers her latest album, Mopping Up Karma, out of conventional jazz territory. She has crafted numbers that showcase her own talents – scatting melodies that demonstrate huge range and dead-on pitch, restless syncopations that demand keyboard virtuosity - but it’s the content that’s most distinctive. With a voice of such liquid beauty, Owen could easily have gone for lush sentimentality. Instead, Mopping Up Karma is fiercely edgy and ironic. (It comes as no surprise to learn that she’s married to comedian Harry Shearer, a man with his own dark sense of humor.)
Even her love songs are hardly about dewy romance – they’re relentless investigations into the collateral damage of jealousy, betrayal, and cruelty (hence the rueful “mopping up karma” of the title). Other tracks are Lilith-Fair-like declarations about finding your own path, defying expectations, and knowing yourself. Toss in a couple of snarky satires (“She’s Alright,” “Extraordinary”) and you’ve got an album with a spiky sensibility indeed.
Judith Owen’s idea of a making-up song, “Creatures of Habit,” talks more about licking wounds and learning to cope than about reconciliation; “Ruby Red Lips” takes a standard honky-tonk title and twists it into a not-so-thinly veiled threat. “Let’s Hear It For Love” defines love as quintessentially illogical:
It's curious, it's mysterious, it makes you furious,
The places where you find love
There's no plan, it's a man, it's a woman
It's heaven and it's human and there's nothing better going
It's the taste of danger, it's sex with a stranger
It's the last man on earth, it's a dog in a manger
So let's hear it.. for love
If gospel-tinged anthems like “I Promise You” and “Message From Heaven” come off as perfunctory, Owen hits a confident groove with the cabaret-like “Shine,” a slouchy number about a misfit daughter coming into her own (it’s worth noting that Owen’s father is an esteemed Welsh opera singer), and the country-rock waltz “Who’s That Girl,” a wry cautionary tale about jealousy. She winds up with a rousing pair of rockers, “Mother Mercy” and “Wide Road,” which – despite a little more orchestration than they really need – could hold their own alongside classic Carole King or Joni Mitchell tracks.
New isn’t exactly the right word for this album — most of it was written and recorded eight years ago, when Judith was still on Columbia’s Java Records label. When Columbia let her fall through the cracks (she’s since found a home on Courgette Records), that material went into limbo. Only now has Owen rescued them from undeserved retirement, though several tracks were re-recorded to reflect what eight years has added to her artistry.
The fact that Owen could still relate to those eight-year-old songs suggests how idiosyncratic her work is. When you follow your own muse instead of what everybody else is doing, you can afford to let material simmer for nearly a decade. Judith Owen may not be to everybody’s taste – that’s one dark view of human nature she’s packing – but her eclectic musical sound and biting lyrics push all the right buttons for me.
-- Holly Hughes
Judith Owen has relentlessly followed her muse, independently releasing recordings that have captivated fans, Hollywood music supervisors, fellow artists and the most discerning critics. With the same determination she has applied to finding her voice, she has also found her audience. Her albums and tours have led to her being featured by NBC’s “Today Show” and NPR’s “Weekend Edition Sunday” and lauded by The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, The Washington Post and many others.
Equal parts musicality and wit, Owen’s music combines pop, rock, jazz, classical, R&B and theatrical influences. Variety effusively describes her as “a charmer and a seducer, a rocker, and a jazz chanteuse.” The Los Angeles Times, in a Sunday Calendar profile, called Owen “whip smart, soulfully cool and deeply introspective.” The Washington Post praises Owen’s “rare talent for effortlessly crossing genres” adding, “her alluring vocals are a gift that keeps on giving.”
Owen’s newest album, Mopping Up Karma (Courgette Records) is the best representation to date of her singular artistry, which a recent Boston Globe Arts cover story described this way: “…records that blur the line between troubadour and chanteuse, pastoral beauty and urbane sophistication. Her songs are literate, and often melancholy, but also pithy and blunt. She’s been accurately described as the female Randy Newman, but there’s one big difference: Owen’s voice is gorgeous. It’s a phenomenally forthright instrument that whispers when necessary and wails when the moment calls for candor.”
The seeds of Mopping Up Karma lie in a set of recordings Owen began in 1998 for an album she was making with Glen Ballard, whose discovery of Owen performing in the Hollywood club Luna Park led to her signing by the Capitol boutique label Java Records. Setting out to make her first album for the label, she began writing and recording with Clifton Magness (Avril Lavigne) and Ballard, both of whom co-wrote, engineered, produced and played on various tracks. Owen wrote the lyrics and the bulk of the music, and supplied all of the vocals, piano and keyboard parts (organ/strings). The original recordings also featured contributions from such eminent musicians as Benmont Tench (Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers), who played Hammond organ, and David Campbell (Alanis Morissette, The Goo Goo Dolls), who provided orchestrations.
Owen was inspired to bring the material to fruition for Mopping Up Karma when she recently listened to the songs the first time in years and was struck by how good they were. She then spent months transforming the songs—newly recording vocals, re-mixing tracks, and more—for the new album..
Mopping Up Karma follows somewhat quickly on the heels of Happy This Way (2007) and Here (2006). Happy This Way, a layered homage to Owen’s native Britain, is co-produced by Owen and her longtime cohort John Fischbach, engineer of Stevie Wonder’s classic 1976 album Songs In The Key Of Life. The album is characteristically wide-ranging in mood and style, from fun British Invasion pop-rock to wistful chamber pop.
Learning to be in the present was the central theme of Here, which earned Owen an appearance on NBC’s “Today Show.” Jamie Lee Curtis, a longtime Owen champion, made her debut as a music video director with one for the Here title track.
Among Owen’s most ardent advocates are some of the world’s finest contemporary musicians, many of whom Owen has collaborated with in recordings and tours: k.d. lang, bluesman Keb ‘Mo, saxophonist Tom Scott, Julia Fordham, jazz vocalist Ian Shaw, Quantic and others. Cassandra Wilson calls her “one of the most passionate, mesmerizing, thoroughly creative vocal artists on the scene today.” Jamie Cullum has deemed Owen a “female Randy Newman.”
British folk-rock legend Richard Thompson was so impressed by Owen that he invited her to perform on his tour “1000 Years of Popular Music.” Owen’s considerable contributions to this historic jaunt are documented on a collectable 2006 CD and DVD of the event, where she and Thompson perform music dating back to the 13th century, up to contemporary tracks by Julie London, the Beatles and even Britney Spears.
Owen has become Thompson’s female foil of choice: Aside from him performing on Happy This Way, she was a featured vocalist in recent U.S. performances of “1000 Years.” Owen received tremendous praise on the tour: The Washington Post called her performance “amazing,” and The Boston Herald said she “nearly stole the show.” The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called Owen “as wildly versatile a singer as Thompson is a guitarist.”
Owen is especially beloved for her live performances. Reviewing her at NYC’s great launching pad for singer-songwriters, The Living Room, The New York Times raved that she “has the kind of wailing folk-jazz voice that slices away surfaces to touch vulnerable emotional nerve endings and leave you quivering.”
The beginning of Owen’s rapid ascent over the last ten years was her 1996 debut album, Emotions On A Postcard, which “Hand On My Heart,” the beguiling single featured in the 1997 Jack Nicholson/Helen Hunt film “As Good As It Gets.” Owen’s sophomore recording Limited Edition resulted in several tracks being showcased in television shows on CBS, NBC, HBO and the WB. An acclaimed third album—featuring a dozen tracks so penetrating Owen titled the disc 12 Arrows—earned the singer, songwriter and pianist an opening slot on tour with k.d. lang. 2005’s Lost & Found release and tour culminated in a sold-out performance at LA’s prestigious Walt Disney Concert Hall. Owen’s 2005 EP Christmas in July begat a fearless interpretation of Spinal Tap’s “Christmas With The Devil.”
In 2005, Owen formed the Warner Music/ADA-distributed Courgette Records with her husband/collaborator Harry Shearer and her manager, Bambi Moé. The partnership insures that Owen will continue to release recordings on her own artistic terms. The influential arts and letters blogger The Head Butler recently wrote, “jazz now favors female singers, and…each year, we get a new one to marvel at. We never seem to get Judith Owen. Our loss…You don’t have to sit in a club nursing Jack Daniels to appreciate [her] deep sensitivity, good taste and exceptional voice of Judith Owen.”
Judith , Thanks so much for your friendship . Your music is so fresh & with great taste. a beautiful voice Great arrangements & great musicians .You got it all going on. Thanks for the tremendous talent! All the best of success in the new year, to you . thanks, Doug
Thanks for the add. We were lucky enough to see you live with RT and Debra Dobkin (with a fairly geriatric, but sold-out and appreciative) audience in Schaumburg, IL a few weeks back - fabulous show!
