Johnette Napolitano
My friend Cat Celebrezze had a look at my blog recently. (See her link at sidebar.) She said she liked it. She also used the term “self-indulgent”–not critically, just stating a fact. True, true. But I guess that’s kind of the point for me; it’s all about me and my astigmatic lens on the world. Given that I spend most of my days trying to think about why human beings collectively do what they do, or why they don’t do what they should if they really wanted to change the world, and I work with an endless parade of students about what they think and write, and I realize that at the end of the day if I don’t have some kind of self-indulgent expressive outlet I’m going to go insane.
But this post is not about me. This post is the first in what I hope will be an ongoing series dedicated to moojes I admire. I should’ve done it sooner. I guess I had to get a lot of “me” out of the way first. I’ve got a few saved up, though, like I can’t wait to write about getting to watch the Fairy Godmother of Rock n Roll, Stevie Nicks at Red Rocks a couple weeks ago.
Enough with the prelude.
Johnette Napolitano. This is the former lead singer and bassist of the ’90s band Concrete Blonde, who brought you the great black candlelit vampire anthems “Joey,” “Caroline,” and “Tomorrow, Wendy” from Bloodletting. They had other stuff you’d remember if it came on the radio right now (“Someday?” “Ghost of a Texas Ladies Man”), but I think after Bloodletting they never got the credit they deserved. Was it Clear Channel’s market carving that pushed them out of any recognizable “popular” niche? Did a member stumble down the sorry road headed for a VH-1 “Where are They Now”? Unless I’m missing something, their last album was in 2002, and hardly anyone was listening by then. Which meant that one of the greatest voices rock ever birthed was drifting into obscurity.
On the bright side, such an unfortunate decline means Grandpa and I had a chance to watch this furious enigma wail for $16 at The Walnut Room, a tiny venue with crystal clear sound, tonight. No fucking kidding. And the woman was a force of nature. Long black tank dress over silky black pants, an unruly mop of dark hair frizzing at the edges, wild eyes that lit up crazily on particularly high, low, or loud notes, tattoos snaking around her shoulders–she was a vision of power and vitriol and grace.
So don’t you cry
it’ll give you lines around your eyes.
You gotta to try not to live so much of life alone.
And if I see you getting crazy by the bottom of the bottle
I’ll take you home
I’ll take you home
I’ll take you home.
I’m guessing she’s maybe 50 now. Probably an alcoholic, given the bottle of red wine she was slugging from all night and her reference to “not going to rehab” in one of her songs–but defiant and unrepentant in a way that I had to respect. I’m not saying she wasn’t poised, she just had her own version of it. Periodically she’d fly into a blistering rant about the President or the war or whatever came to mind; righteous messy little tirades that she’d just as quickly reel in. Most of the time it was just her and her slate-black 6-string and this voice…
How to describe the voice? Like if you died and went to heaven and opened a door to find a room filled with powerful, unflinching, battle-marked, dirt-smeared goddesses as far as the eye could see, Johnette would be the queen of them all, and her voice would transport you to a place of sobbing gratitude.
Like if the Divine gave you a huge suitcase of vocal talent and then made you walk a million miles over red dirt and mud rivers and scree, until one day you clawed down to the dark velvety core of yourself and started singing.
Howls. Long, rich vibrating notes, delicate pitch changes. Rolling hills of sound. Expert pullbacks into whisper, then blossoming explosions of melody. Serious, badass, womanly-crusty voice. Backing herself up the whole way with just an acoustic guitar. I really, really want to link an mp.3 to this post but can’t figure out how.
I’m sad that Johnette has not gleaned the fame she deserves. (I wonder if her new solo album, Scarred, tells any of that story.) But so glad that she is out there writing songs from her Joshua Tree hideaway, still making albums, and showing up to give everything she’s got to small, lucky crowds like us.
