There comes a moment in the relationship between artist and fan when the fan can't wait to hear the next thing the artist produces. Way back in the days of vinyl, I remember being among the dozens huddled in the pre-dawn chill outside Peaches Records in Dallas, where we waited for hours for the doors to open, so we could grab the latest album by Jackson Browne, Linda Ronstadt, Bruce Springsteen -- whomever.
For me, I know an artist has made it when the same old feeling comes over me, when they've produced multiple examples of recorded music, but there's a new record on the way, and ... I've got to have it. This was the feeling I had, waiting for Liz Longley's new album, Weightless, whose official release date is Friday.
I first became smitten with Longley's music on a hot night in 2011, when she appeared as the warm-up act at Uncle Calvin's Coffeehouse in Dallas. She sang "Unraveling," about her grandmother's battle with Alzheimer's disease, and I was hooked. As with the best lyricists, Longley has the ability to channel personal experience into songs that leave a lasting impact.
Even then, her work carries something more, a cleverness, a wit and a mix of musical styles mastered at the renowned Berklee College of Music in Boston. She grew up outside Philadelphia and now lives in Nashville, where for her debut on Sugar Hill Records she assembled a killer rock band to supply the firepower on such songs as "Bad Habit," about a failed relationship with a chronic smoker: "The night we first kissed/on the balcony alone/Well, he tasted like trouble/But he felt like my own bad habit."
"Camaro" is a straight-up rocker whose memorable imagery chronicles yet another 20-something experience. Her ex-lover's "red-hot vintage Camaro" becomes a symbol for a torrid affair that produced "200,000 miles of memories."
But enough about the past. I have in my hands the new record, which marks a departure for Longley, who's committed, as the best artists are, to moving in a new direction.
Weightless is decidedly, demonstrably a pop record, different in many ways from her eponymous Sugar Hill debut and other recordings that came before.
In those, she moved easily from folk to country, and if we must have labels, pop is the one that best fits the new record. Power pop, at that.
I played the soaring opening track, "Swing," for my son Ted, who immediately said, "Sounds like Madonna." And that's not a bad thing -- at all. Ted is a smoker, so he loves the song "Bad Habit," but he liked the sound on Weightless as soon as Longley's sweetly distinctive voice filled our car as we cruised down the highway, the volume turned up as loud as it could go. While "Swing" underscores her extraordinary talent as a singer, her soprano rising at just the right moments, "Weightless" exemplifies her rare gifts as a songwriter, one whose patron saint is the great Joni Mitchell. (Longley does terrific covers of Mitchell's "The Circle Game" and "River" on previous records.)
But just as Mitchell has long been willing to take chances and try new things, leapfrogging genres along the way, so too is Longley. For Weightless, she turned to producer Bill Reynolds, who oversees an upbeat, driving tempo that defines all 10 songs, "Say Anything You Want" being one of those. "Rescue My Heart" is a haunting ballad that takes us on a tour of a woman's heart, one wounded by love, who can't dig her way out. The feeling continues with "What's the Matter" and "You Haunt Me," which contains the line: "Something's Missing. I feel it in my bones" but "when you go, you haunt me."
My favorite is the ballad "Never Really Mine," about the pain of a woman who realizes the bitter truth of a relationship gone bad when, by chance, she sees her former lover with someone else. "Electricity" channels the euphoria of a love affair for a sensitive soul, who says with a sense of wonder, "We had it from the start, an undeniable, indescribable spark."
"Only Love This Time Around" and "Oxygen" serve as closing arguments for a woman, who, however painfully, has found a new direction in love and life. And in that respect, they parallel the growth of Longley's creative journey. My only regret about Weightless is having to wait for her next record. At least, she's booked for the Kessler Theater in Oak Cliff on Oct. 18, which should keep us calm at least until the countdown begins for the next album. I would even wait outside in the cold to buy it at Peaches, if, that is, Peaches still existed. For Longley knows how to put out a peach of an album.
Liz Longley performs "Outta My Head," from her eponymous debut album on Sugar Hill Records:
This is one of my favorite videos of Longley's on YouTube. It's a song titled "If You Love Somebody," co-written and co-performed by Longley and Korby Lenker:
