Soaring singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile ...

Soaring singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile brings tunes to Higher Ground

By Brent Hallenbeck, Free Press staff writer • Thursday, January 28, 2010

Though she has one of those voices that seems capable of handling anything, from whispering to soaring, Brandi Carlile confesses that there is one song that gives her no end of trouble — “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

That’s not much of a confession, however, as the archaic lyrics and sharp octave changes of our national anthem have been known to trip up the mightiest of singers. Pressed to come up with something else, Carlile names a one-of-a-kind performer whose voice had a range similar to hers.

“Roy Orbison always gives me challenges,” Carlile said. “His voice is so floor-to-ceiling.”

Carlile’s confident voice and stage presence convey a sense of fearlessness, so even Roy Orbison doesn’t scare her completely. Speaking in a recent phone conversation from her home in Maple Valley, Wash., outside Seattle, Carlile said she was debating between covering Bruce Springsteen’s anthem “Born to Run” or Orbison’s “Running Scared” on her tour that began this month and will bring her Friday, Jan. 29 to Higher Ground for a sold-out concert.

Carlile’s visits to Higher Ground reflect the growth in her career since “The Story” came out. She was booked in the music club’s smaller Showcase Lounge in the spring of 2007, but the gig was moved into the larger Ballroom after strong ticket sales. She played the Ballroom less than six months later and drew an even bigger crowd. This time her Ballroom show sold out more than a month in advance.

That progress might have something to do with that floor-to-ceiling voice of hers. Carlile’s vibrant vocals merging the best of rock, folk and country carried her breakthrough record, 2007’s “The Story,” and bring similar power to her latest album, “Give Up the Ghost.”

“The Story” was focused and raw, and while “Give Up the Ghost” has some of that feel as well, the new album is bigger and brighter. Tracks such as “Looking Out,” the concert staple “Dying Day,” “Dreams” and “Caroline” (a duet with one of her musical heroes, Elton John) flesh out Carlile’s intensity with more detailed production and increased instrumentation and harmonies by her and her omnipresent band mates, the Hanseroth brothers. Even some of the quieter songs take Carlile in a new direction, such as the haunting, elegant “Before It Breaks,” which removes Carlile from her familiar acoustic guitar and puts her behind the piano.

Carlile said her self-titled 2005 debut album and “The Story” were the results of songs built over a lifetime (albeit a short one — she’s only 28). The material on “Give Up the Ghost,” however, has been written since Carlile became a professional musician, and she wanted to be careful not to write only from that perspective.

“I knew we couldn’t make a whole record of road songs. It’s very immediate, right now — ‘Right now I’m homesick, and in a month, I’m going to be road-sick,’” Carlile said. “I don’t really think great art lives in the moment.”

So she said she tapped into her “subconscious thoughts” for many of her songs. “Caroline,” for instance, is at its heart a jaunty road song (“I’m on my way back home to you/Can’t imagine what I’m goin’ through without you by my side”). But the song reaches deeper than a typical relationship song; Carlile said “Caroline” is about her young niece who would grow close to Carlile while she was home and then would forget her after her aunt spent months on the road (“Oh, won’t you say a prayer for me/I hope you will remember me”).

Songs with a whiff of nostalgia fit the tone of “Give Up the Ghost.” Like “The Story,” the new album was recorded to analog tape with a host of old instruments. “Give Up the Ghost” has a vinyl-album presentation with the logo for Carlile’s record label, Columbia, posted in the CD cover’s left-hand corner, and the songs broken up on the back of the cover into “Side No. 1” and “Side No. 2.”

But don’t suggest to Carlile that she’s going retro. “It’s not necessarily retro as much as it is timeless,” she said. “So many people when they try to achieve timelessness become vintage.

“It’s about finding your own place in timelessness.”

http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20100128/ENT05/100128005