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Good Times
Santa Cruz Sentinel
Cayuga Vault
Good Times Santa Cruz
Written by Dylan Travis
Tuesday, 30 October 2007
Sherry Austin rocks one of the most all-American motifs possible; she sings songs about cars. Her first album is called Drive-By Romance. Her second is called Drive On Back. Her song, “How’s the Mustang Running?” even appeared on NPR’s dreaded Car Talk, also known as The Thirty Minutes Preceding “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.” Her music has an equally apple-pie sort of sound to it, driving Austin’s voice (a relaxed, authentic alto) down the well-worn roads of honky-tonk country right up to the singer-songwriter state line.
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SANTA CRUZ STYLE
May 16, 2003
Love, life and automobiles fuel Sherry Austin's music
By WALLACE BAINE
Sentinel staff writer
Singer/songwriter Sherry Austin describes her recent emergence as
a performer as a creeping evolution: "Out of my bedroom, into the living
room and then out into the world."
If you’re looking for a nice illustration of that butterfly-coming-out-of-her-cocoon
phenomenon, look no further than Austin’s new song "I Wouldn’t
Lie To You," a song she debuted live on KPIG’s Sunday morning program "Please
Stand By" and has been in rotation on the station ever since.
The song had a similar transformation, beginning as a personal song
and then blossoming into a pointed political anthem.
"It started out as a broken-relationship song, and it just
wasn’t working," she said at home in the hills north of Soquel.
But then, an epiphany.
Reworked just a bit, the song underwent a dramatic but natural transition.
It went from being a wounded lover’s song to a reproach from citizen to
president, specifically a slap at what she see as the Bush administration’s
manipulation and deception.
"I had one woman who stood up, crossed her arms and turned
her back to me, muttering under her breath," said Austin of the experience
of playing the song live. "I love this country, and that’s what makes
me so sad and so angry. I think democracy should be based on truth and honesty,
and I don’t see that with the people in charge."
"I Wouldn’t Lie to You" is, however, a departure
for a singer more comfortable on the terrain of her personal life. Austin performs
tonight at the Kuumbwa Jazz Center in Santa Cruz in the wake of the release of
her first CD, "Drive-by Romance," which does not, by the way, include
her political anthem ("Lie" was written too recently to make it on
the album, which was re- leased earlier this year).
The album oscillates between wistful, genuinely moving taking-stock
songs and more gritty, upbeat fun songs, most of those having to do with cars. "Baby
Blue Bonneville," "How’s the Mustang Running?" and a cover
version of Gillian Welch’s "455 Rocket" are all songs that touch
on the romance of cars and the open road.
"I’m not sure how that happened," said the San Francisco
native who grew up on the Peninsula and moved to Santa Cruz just a few years
ago. "I grew up in the ‘60s, and then, when you didn’t have
anything else to do, you cruised El Camino Real."
She once got a ticket for drag racing in her beloved Mustang. At
a stoplight, she spotted a guy in a "grungy, gray, grandma’s car." She
challenged him to a drag race through Palo Alto in the wee hours of the night.
He beat her soundly.
"Turns out his car was a 455 Rocket, which is why that song
is kind of endearing to me."
"How’s the Mustang Running?" is a nostalgic trip
back to her teen years and the subversive influence her pal Kathy had on her,
built around a snappy, open-air country tempo. "Bonneville" is similarly
concerned with cars and youth, but takes a longer view: Who would have thought
I’d wind up here/you never know where your road is going to veer.
Austin began writing songs and performing only three years ago. She had been
a singer in her early 20s while living in Hawaii, but moved on to other things
and didn’t pick up her guitar for 25 years. A painful divorce and her daughter’s
growing up occasioned a change of heart. She turned back to the guitar, literally
in her bedroom, as to lessen the embarrassment for her teenage daughter. (Her
daughter Malia, a UCSC graduate, is 24 and now living in San Diego.)
Moving to Santa Cruz allowed her to meet a whole new set of people,
people who have shaped her music and enhanced her life. Austin, who also works
as a horticulturalist, fell in with the music lovers at KPIG and began listening
to the music of Canadian singer/songwriter Fred Eaglesmith, a staple at KPIG,
and one of her most fervent musical heroes.
She has one song each from Eaglesmith, Robert Earl Keen and Slaid
Cleaves on "Drive-by Romance."
The new album’s artwork features two of the icons closest
to Austin’s heart, a bright red Mustang convertible and her 14-year-old
poodle Tinker (one picture features Tinker wearing a collar that reads "Fred
Head" in a reference to Eaglesmith).
Tinker, however, never lived to see the CD release. One morning
she was taken away by coyotes who were trying to get to a persimmon tree in her
yard. Tinker’s death, a fire that destroyed a barn on her property, the
lingering effects of the divorce put some emotional pressure in her life, but
she’s been able to use it in her music.
"Since then, everything’s been great," she said. "It’s
like this sign that I needed to go through that stuff to see what I was made
of. I learned to let go and that you have more strength than you realize."
Contact Wallace Baine atwbaine@santa-cruz.com.
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Sherry Austin
Cayuga Vault, 1100 Soquel Ave, Santa Cruz
Apparently, tickets to Sherry Austin's show Friday come with a
complimentary copy of her new CD, Drive By Romance. Which I consider to be
damn generous, since I am currently diggin' it. It's got new versions of some
of the songs she roughed out on her demo CD, including her own gorgeous "Sapphire
Sky" and great covers of Robert Earl Keen's "Love's A Word I Never
Throw Around" and Fred Eaglesmith's "105." Fredheads especially
should note that this woman is the leader of your tribe, and in fact has been
invited to perform at Charlie Hunter's Fred Eaglesmith Weekend in Vermont next
month. Wait a minute, the guy who wrote "When, exactly, did we become
white trash?" gets his own weekend? What the hell is this country coming
to? (Steve Palopoli)
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