Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers Suzanne Vega

• 1 Carson's Blues 02:55
• 2 New York Is My Destination 03:09
• 3 Instant of the Hour After 03:06
• 4 We of Me 02:52
• 5 Annemarie 03:18
• 6 12 Mortal Men 02:47
• 7 Harper Lee 03:43
• 8 Lover, Beloved 03:24
• 9 The Ballad of Miss Amelia 04:18
• 10 Carson's Last Supper 03:30
• Total Runtime 33:02

Info for Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers

Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers is the new album based on Suzanne Vega’s play about the enigmatic author Carson McCullers, featuring original songs sung by Ms. Vega, and written by Suzanne Vega and Tony winning composer Duncan Sheik (Spring Awakening, American Psycho.)

In the play, Suzanne Vega performs the role of the iconic author Carson McCullers in which she talks and reminisces about her life, her loves and her art. While trying to explain herself, McCullers must wrestle with the demons that have intruded on her from the beginning of her life. Seamlessly moving between spoken word and song, Ms. Vega channels the resilient spirit and unrelenting humor of Ms. McCullers in a way that reveals the meeting of two souls in a single work of art. Featuring the of songs by Ms. Vega, and Duncan Sheik, Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers is a musical portrait to one of the most important figures in American literature.

In songs like "New York Is My Destination," "We of Me" and "Lover, Beloved," you can hear the signature cool detachment of Vega's singing and revel in the characteristically incisive observation of her lyrics, many of which deftly draw on McCullers' own writing. But the songs' elastic melody lines, loping rhythms, idiosyncratic instrumentation (including clarinet, harmonium, banjo, ukulele, trombone and accordion), and surprising arrangements (by guitarist extraordinaire Gerry Leonard, who also produced the album) are like nothing we've heard from Vega before.

Overall, Lover, Beloved finds a sound that exists outside of time. It's traditional enough to suit the iconic quality of its subject; clever enough to capture her originality and daring; and contemporary enough to help establish McCullers as an avatar for this century as well as the preceding one. Most of the instrumentation is acoustic, but, in particular, Leonard's evocative, atmospheric electric guitar playing lifts the music into another, more imaginative realm. That McCullers herself was an accomplished, classically trained pianist – and that the lyricism of her writing reflects that innate musicality – only further enhances the shivery dynamic between words and music on the album.

"Suzanne Vega has always been a songwriter with a literary sensibility, displaying a feel for character and wordplay that was noticeably more nuanced than her peers. It seems entirely fitting that Vega might wish to honor one of her influences as a writer, and with Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers, she's done just that. One of Vega's favorite authors is Carson McCullers, who enjoyed critical and popular success in the '40s with her novels The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, The Member of the Wedding, and Reflections in a Golden Eye. In 2011, Vega performed a one-woman show about McCullers' life and work, and five years later she's released Lover, Beloved, which features ten songs she wrote for the show. (Duncan Sheik co-wrote the music with Vega, except for two songs she wrote in collaboration with Michael Jefry Stevens.) The album often has a somewhat different feel than much of Vega's work, especially in the songs in which she takes on McCullers' persona and discusses her early days after leaving Georgia for New York City ("New York Is My Destination"), and dishes about fellow authors she sees as hopeless inferiors ("Harper Lee"). The vintage jazz accents on "Carson's Blues" and "Harper Lee" also take Vega's songs into musical territory that doesn't always seem comfortable to her. However, the less specifically biographical numbers are quite effective, as Vega takes up stories from McCullers' life and work and weaves them into her own creative sensibility. Vega's vocal performances are intelligent and skillful throughout, and the largely acoustic arrangements give this music a vintage sensibility without forcing the issue. Lover, Beloved isn't a radical shift from Suzanne Vega's usual body of work, but it does find her stretching a bit from her comfort zone, and she sails gracefully along on this smart and tuneful song cycle." (Mark Deming, AMG)

Suzanne Vega, vocals
Duncan Sheik, Hammond B3, harmonium, pedal bass, percussion, background vocals
Gerry Leonard, guitar, mandolin, producer, ukulele, vibraphone
Roswell Rudd, trombone
David Rothenberg, clarinet, bass clarinet
Michael J. Merenda Jr., banjo, banjo-ukelele
Jason Hart, piano
Will Holshouser, accordion
Byron Isaacs, double bass
Yuvall Lyon, drums
Doug Yowell, percussion
David Poe, background vocals
Ruby Froom, background vocals
The Garrison Gang, background vocals

Produced by Gerry Leonard

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This album contains no booklet.