Paul Simon, Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Big Bill Broonzy, Lightning Hopkins, Leadbelly, Paul Kelly, MDC, Dead Kennedys, Doc Watson, Norman Blake, Barry Manilow
“I’m the most sophisticated hillbilly you’ll ever meet.”
When Michelle Shocked says this about herself, it’s hard not to crack up. ‘Hillbilly,’ after all, is no compliment. And frankly, it’s tough to reconcile that reflex image of a backwoods, overalls-and-a-smile hillbilly with this focused, erudite singer-songwriter. If such a creature exists, however, Shocked is its picture, sans Billy-Bob teeth. Come to think of it, she was born in or at least near the backwoods of East Texas — and get this — to a carny father and a fresh-faced high-school mother after being conceived, if memory serves, “in the backseat of my Uncle Huby’s Chevy at the prom.”
Her upbringing was more well-rounded. In her early childhood, Shocked logged thousands of miles as a military brat, living in Massachusetts, Germany and Maryland, before returning to Texas. She lived there until her early twenties, experiencing the stark contrast — and copious benefits — of having a fundamentalist Mormon mother, Army lifer stepfather, and hippie teacher-slash-“ultimate autodidact” father. Eager to further expand her horizons, Shocked eventually decamped for San Francisco and, ultimately, the peripatetic life of a touring musician.
Fittingly, there’s a phantom Texas taproot and that self-styled wanderlust in her music. Much like the work of her East Texas peers Willie Nelson, Victoria Williams and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown, Shocked’s songs hold fast to a definite core, but owe no stylistic allegiance — just like their itinerant, mercurial, utilitarian creators. Shocked identifies strongly with her musical compatriots, and not just because they’re from her neck of the woods. “My family was welfare class,” says Shocked, “and that makes you really, really, white trash. [These artists] helped remove class bias because they have all been given honorary middle-class value because of what they’ve achieved in their music.”
Shocked has likewise transcended class bias, while retaining the parts that make sense, in a 23-year career that has seen critical acclaim at every juncture. In the early 1990s, she famously escaped major-label indentured servitude, subverting the artist-label relationship that helped lead to the current trend toward artistic self-containment. She has made good use of her independence, releasing more critically-acclaimed albums on her Mighty Sound label. Her lucky thirteenth album, Soul of My Soul, is the latest of these.
Two intense, seemingly divergent, emotions — love and anger —dovetail on Soul, a passionate album in every sense. “I think the meditation these past several years, ever since I stopped drinking, really, has been to jettison rage,” says Shocked, “without losing the ability to feel strong feelings.” Two “strong currents” in her present life conspired to teach her that lesson. Artist David Willardson, “the Official Love of My Life,” is one such tide, and Shocked raves about his warm and nurturing nature. On the flipside is her “nemesis,” the Bush Administration “and their alleged enlightened self-interest. Between the two of them, my emotions have run quite high in recent years.”
The sentiments on Soul of My Soul are couched mainly in straight-four, no frills, rock ‘n’ roll — just the context for Shocked’s two-pronged passion play. Among the songs about her new love is the acoustic ballad “True Story,” where Shocked sings directly to Willardson. “The producer [Devin Powers] said he wasn't getting enough emotion from the vocal performance,” says Shocked. “I knew exactly what to do.” Pouring her heart out over the phone, she nailed “one perfect, passionate take” that culminates in a deluge of happy tears. Willardson also inspired the ebullient, Stones-y anthem “Love’s Song,” a spacey Kate Bush-meets-U2 meditation on the couple’s future called “Heart to Heart,” and the lusty “Paperboy,” a snapshot from Willardson’s youth (when he lost his job for neglecting his duties to chase a girl).
Clearly there are no love songs for the Bush Administration, at least in the traditional sense. Shocked does proffer a ballad, “Other People,” that at first blush sounds like a kiss-off to an untrue lover — which it is, except Shocked sings to Bush’s America, the ugly, war-mongering face of the country she loves. “I used to rant, ‘Bush, pull out like your father should have.’ Now I say, ‘I love you America, but I think we should see other people.’” She gets feistier on the Steve Earle-ish folk-rocker “The Ballad of the Battle of the Ballot and the Bullet,” which she sings “because I can.” On “Liquid Prayer” — Soul’s lone soul tune — Shocked meditates on tears cried to a God she counts on to provide the Kleenex. In the ironically tropical “Pompeii,” she frets over the fate of a “broken democratic state” beholden to corporate compromise and “entwined in orgiastic lies, with the top about to blow.”
Shocked says her “vexation” fuels these Soul songs. She’s righteously, morally and intellectually pissed off at the state of the nation over the last eight years — but instead of tossing beer cans, she flings measured words. For example, “Giantkiller” is a snarling punk rock anthem where Shocked artfully and poetically vents her venom, in turn giving her message added philosophical oomph.
. . . that fact in the back of my mind
I meant to meet the world
A pocket full of rock and wood
But I was fearless, I was bold
Taking aim so carefully
I set my stone and let it fly
And when the giant fell to earth
None more surprised than I
If there’s a more eloquent way to say you’re chuckin’ rocks at a big ol’ jackass, well, leave it to a sophisticated hillbilly to find it. And really, that’s the nut and the shell of Soul of My Soul: it’s a reconciliation of our most gentle and base aspects by demonstrating that we are neither by default or circumstance, and both by choice. “It was Zen and the art of the Dunk-Tank,” Shocked smiles. “I had a target, I took aim and I hit, I believe, a bull’s-eye.”
For more information on Michelle Shocked, please contact conqueroo:
Cary Baker • (323) 656-1600 • cary@conqueroo.com
All About Me by Michelle Hussein Shocked
I wasn't born too good. Nobody wanted me, not even my own mother. But I'm here now, so I figure make the best of it. There's gonna be a lot of Jesus talk at the end of this, so get over it now or turn the page. Just don't blame me for wasting your time if you keep reading this then don't agree with how it turns out. Anyways, it's my autobiography, not yours.
People are always punctilious about the particulars in these things, so I was born Karen Michelle Johnston on February 24, 1962. And even that ain't true. But anyways. I was raised in a strict fundamentalist Mormon household and ran away from home at sixteen to live in Dallas with my hippie athiest father. Whatever. I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in the Oral Interpretation of Literature. That part's a fact. Except I was so stoned most of the time I mostly remember the oral part, not the interpretation, or the literature. I remember it was around the time Luke and Laura got back together, if that helps.
Nobody likes to read much beyond this anyways, so what can I tell you? A guy recorded me in a field and I became a star? I sued my record label because they acted like the 13th Amendment didn't exist? Everybody
knows Franz Kafka wrote about cockroaches, but did they stop to ponder 'The Hunger Artist?' The fact is, I would've cooperated with all those people trying to make me into a nice little anti-commodity commodity except that I never found anything I liked to eat. I didn't like the taste of it. It smelled funny. And besides, I never knew love.
And that, my friends, is where this story ends. You see this man, David? I love him. I love him to my soul. And he loves me. And here's the best part. I know it. I really, really know it. I feel it, I believe it. I am loved.
Where's the Jesus part, you ask? Forget it, you didn't want to know anyway. I did it all myself. Nobody had nothing to do with any of the above except me, a poor bastard. I'm the brightest, smartest, dumbest hillbilly ever to come out of east Texas and if you care about any of the above, thank me. Now stop wasting your time reading this and get on with your day. I'm sure you have more important things to do.
*********************May 2008
Shocked is a traveler and a troubadour; a “picker-poet,” as they say in Texas. As a young feminist, she left Texas to travel, Kerouac-style, a musical vagabond caught up in Reagan-era grassroots politics. Her musical career was ignited by a bootleg recording made around a Kerrville Folk Festival campfire on a Sony Walkman. Released in England as The Texas Campfire Tapes without Shocked’s authority, its success abroad enticed Mercury Records to offer the newcomer a recording contract.
For Mercury, Shocked recorded a trilogy of albums that stand as a captivating primer on American music. Short Sharp Shocked’s spirited folk-rock progressed into Captain Swing’s energetic jump blues, expanding to Arkansas Traveler’s travelogue of minstrel-era country. While songs like “Anchorage,” “Come a Long Way” and “On the Greener Side” achieved popular success, her stylistic iconoclasm frustrated Mercury, particularly since she retained ownership of her masters. Shocked spent several years battling the label before finally “liberating” herself, citing the 13th Amendment.
Following one more foray into major-labeldom with 1996’s Kind Hearted Woman, on BMG’s Private Music, Shocked launched her own Mighty Sound label in 2001. A gospel-tinged debut, Deep Natural in 2002 was followed by reissues of her Mercury albums in 2003-04. In 2005, she defied convention (one of her specialties) by simultaneously releasing another trilogy: the roots-rocking “divorce album” Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Disney-fied western swing set Got No Strings and the Latin/blues blast Mexican Standoff.
ToHeavenYouRide spotlights Shocked where she’s always shone brightest—live onstage, delivering for an audience. The album captures her at her most soulful—in the original spiritual sense of the term. So continues the journey of a true American original.
I had the honor of singing with you on stage back in 2001 I think it was, in Eugene, OR. Now I live in Humboldt and would love nothing more than to hear you again. Hope you come around sometime!
Its been a while and we thought it was about time we updated you on what we've been up to. Our debut EP Little World is now available at our gigs and will soon be available from our myspace and facebook pages, you will also be able to download it from itunes, but we don't have a release date for this as yet.
To celebrate the fact that we have now reached 25,000 plays on myspace, we are giving you a free MP3 of Rockabye Baby. All you have to do is send your email address to queen.elvis@yahoo.ie and we will send it to you.
We have spent the last year rehearsing with a full band and are now ready to bring it on the road. You can get a look at us when we appear on Balcony TV this week with the full line up. We are currently taking bookings for gigs/concerts/festivals and can be contacted on the email above, or through our myspace and facebook pages.
Thankyou for your continued support in what has been a great year for us!
22 years ago an artist friend sent me a cassette with some of your songs on it, never forgot that first amazing impression. you are an inspiration ! Diana
Hi, again: it was a good show in Minneapolis on September 15. The music is great and I hope it sounds that good when I play the CD. I know I won't sound that good when I play out of the limited edition book: 120 Babies. It was a laugh riot with tears.
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