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September 7th, 2008
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Still a compelling voice

Suzanne Vega returns to Prague with new songs and stories
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June 25th, 2008 issue

By Rachel Shimp

COURTESY PHOTO
Beauty & Crime, Vega's ode to New York, marks her debut on Blue Note.
Suzanne Vega


When: Tuesday, July 1, at 8
Where: Congress Center
Tickets: 990-1,450 Kč, available through Ticketpro and at the venue
For the Post
The valentine to New York City: It’s an American pop culture tradition that doesn’t age, because every artist — whether a filmmaker like Woody Allen or a legendary crooner like Frank Sinatra — sees the city in their own way.
Last year, longtime NYC resident and singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega offered hers in the form of her seventh studio album, Beauty & Crime. It’s also her Blue Note Records debut. The famous jazz label has been releasing iconic albums since the ’50s, and lately expanded its repertoire to include modern songwriters like Norah Jones. Now Suzanne Vega’s latest work joins a catalog that includes Miles Davis and John Coltrane, on a label that couldn’t be more New York.
That’s not to say her music has taken on a jazzy bent. Like PJ Harvey’s 2000 ode to NYC, Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea, Vega’s Beauty follows her own personal style. It’s a mash-up of straightforward folk and lush, synthesized production. Her even, mellow voice sounds as crisp and sublime as ever. And, as on all her albums, the songs are miniature stories, some autobiographical and some told from an omniscient, or fly-on-the-wall viewpoint. It’s one she’s refined through more than 20 years of work, since rising to prominence in 1987.
Vega got her start in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village folk music scene in the early ’80s. The café culture she joined spiraled her into the public eye after the release of her second album, Solitude Standing. It produced her two most famous and enduring songs, “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner.” The former is a rumination on child abuse, told from the child’s perspective, and the latter an a capella day-in-the-life diary entry that quickly found a second life through dance remixes. That the two are so different showed Vega’s impressive range, both musically and emotionally.
Commenting on Solitude’s success in a 1987 New York Times article, Stephen Holden wrote, “What Ms. Vega describes in the album’s more pictorial songs is a scarred cityscape that retains a certain desolate beauty.” Since Beauty is largely the product of post-9/11 introspection, the same can be said for it. While New York is a city much changed (and always changing), her songs are evocative of its multiple personalities — whether radiant, melancholy or damaged.  
Each song on Beauty & Crime is given a brief explanation by Vega. “Zephyr & I” is about her time with iconic graffiti artist Zephyr, as they reminisce about the Upper West Side of the ’70s; “Ludlow Street” remembers good and bad times on that former party block; “Angel’s Doorway” brings things into the present with the tale of a policeman (based on a relative) at Ground Zero. “Frank & Ava” pays tribute to the tumultuous show-business coupling of Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, the latter of whom famously declared that they were great in bed — “It was usually on the way to the bidet when the trouble began.”
Vega has also had her share of strife, and her work can veer highly personal. Her 1996 album Nine Objects of Desire was filled with songs inspired by her first husband and their daughter, while her last album, 2001’s Songs in Red and Gray, addressed the painful break-up of that marriage. On Beauty, she again discusses her daughter, Ruby (who also adds backing vocals on a track), as well as her new husband.   
This week the frequent Prague visitor brings those song-stories, and others spanning her career, to another of her favorite cities. In 2006, she appeared as a guest at the Academia Film Olomouc, Europe’s longest-running festival of documentary films. (Vega was the subject of one of the films that year). She has also appeared at Švandovo divadlo as a guest on the Stage Talks cycle, with other international and Czech celebrities.
For this appearance, Vega will be supported by local artist Načeva, a woman who has made her unique mark on Prague’s musical landscape since 1994. Načeva cites influences as different as Patti Smith, Jarboe (of Swans) and Coil, and her latest work, 2007’s Mami, echoes the more lustful, industrial sounds of Vega’s early-’90s work on 99.9F. It’s safe to say that Vega’s success laid some of the groundwork for female artists in cities all over the world — particularly those with things to say, and compelling ways to say them.
Rachel Shimp can be reached at rshimp@praguepost.com


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