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Here’s how easy it is to miss great music these days. I did not know I was on Natalia Zukerman’s mailing list until one day not long ago I received a CD of Gas Station Roses in the mail. I knew Natalia only through Winterbloom, the quartet which features herself, Antje Duvekot, Meg Hutchinson and Anne Heaton. They have gotten together the past couple of Christmases to musically celebrate the season with fans and friends and I gave them a positive mention here and there. I am an unabashed Antje Duvekot fan and, truth be told, I probably would not have even noticed their album (Traditions Rearranged) but for her. It is a pleasant Christmas album and I am always on the lookout for seasonal music, especially updated like theirs is, but it is very folk-based and while very good, not too far outside the box. So let me tell you that Gas Station Roses is not at all what I expected. There is nothing on this album which even vaguely resembles the music from Winterbloom. Instead of straight ahead acoustic folk, Zukerman delves into blues, jazz and rock and, man, first time through, I was just short of shocked! Second time through I was intrigued. Third time through I was impressed. Now I’m stunned.

I’m stunned because Zukerman takes us so far outside the folk box in places and does it so dramatically and with such ease. I’m stunned because Gas Station Roses, a gutsy bluesy force of a song, anchors the album and anchors it perfectly. The last thing I expected to hear is what I have come to know as southern blues, especially the sultry side, but that’s what she gives us. It is outstanding, especially the slide guitar (amped just enough to barely mimic blues harp in places). Nor did I expect the very War-like beginning of Indiana, a downer in blues and jazz, if you will. The harmonica by Ray Bonneville is a mix of Lee Oskar and Larry Adler and is alone worth hearing, but everything about the song reeks heat and humidity and men in sweaty undershirts screaming “Stella!”. It is a mood killer if you’re up and a mood changer if you’re down. It is Four-Cornered Room with more blues and less R&B. It is Natalia Zukerman showing depth I never dreamed she had. And it goes to show you how little I know Natalia Zukerman.

She doesn’t abandon her folk roots completely. They show through here and there and dominate on a few songs, but even they are a bit outside the box. Sorry Side of Town would not be but for the excellent production and the superb guitar work of, and I am assuming, Meghan Toohey (The Weepies) or Zukerman herself. Same goes for Always. Both beautiful songs made more beautiful by production and Toohey (and the simple but haunting background harmonies, sparse as they are).

It occurs to me as I write this that one thing I really like about this album is the jazzy undertone. Even at the folkiest of moments it seems to seep through. It gives a cohesion to the entire project. It gets under your skin if you notice it and maybe does even if you don’t. I listen to music all the time (and I mean all the time) and have yet to figure a lot of it out. This is one of those mystery albums for me, the ones I could give a hundred reasons why I like but which really boils down to only one: I like it. In fact, I love this album. My days of ignoring Natalia Zukerman are over. I am now officially a fan.

Almost every artist I have reviewed goes with a tight song structure. Verses and choruses proceed in a predictable pattern, and the bridge, if there is one, comes roughly in the middle. The verses rhyme and scan in a particular way, and the choruses might have a different scheme, but each chorus works the same way as every other. I’m not knocking writing a song this way. It’s not easy to do it and have it sound true. But it’s possibly even harder to break these rules, and still have songs that work. That’s what Natalia Zukerman does on Gas Station Roses, and she makes it work beautifully. The songs here are messy, but so are the relationships they portray. Choruses arrive like unfinished thoughts, to be fleshed out in later iterations. Rhymes happen naturally, if at all, and the number of syllables in a particular line may change from verse to verse. All of this comes on top of the tight grooves laid down by Zukerman and her band. In fact, there is a tension between the tightness of the playing and the looseness of the vocal lines, and that is why the whole thing works so well.

The last song on the album is Little Bird, and it features just voice, acoustic guitar, and an understated bass part. But the rest of the album’s songs have drums, bass, and some combination of electric, acoustic, and lap steel guitars. Brooklyn adds a tenor sax, Indiana has some amazing interplay between tenor sax and harmonica, and Howard Hughes features fiddle and banjo. The music is a fine stew of rock, blues, and even intimations of funk in places. And then there is Zukerman’s voice. She sings in a smoky alto. Her voice is often breathy, but she can break into a full voice that tends to reach for higher notes and heightened emotions. She can portray hope and disappointment in the same song. And her singing adds a detail to some of the songs that is not in the lyric: she has a warmth and even a sense of humor that says she can pick herself up and go on. Love doesn’t always work out, but Zukerman’s characters are never ready to give up on it.

In the song Brooklyn, an unread book can cause an avalanche. At the start of the song, this is a symbol of a cluttered life. But by the end, when the image returns, I had the sense that reading the book meant allowing oneself to fall in love, and the avalanche was now emotional rather than physical. This is a fine example of how Natalia Zukerman uses a metaphor, and she does it exceptionally well. A word or a phrase will repeat in the course of a song, and its meaning will change with the context. Zukerman uses this device to tell her stories. Gas Station Roses is one those songs where you wonder what the chorus has to do with anything. The song seems to be a simple plea for love. But the last verse ties it all together, and the song turns out to be an attempted apology. Indiana is a mood piece. On top of great atmospheric music, the lyric uses a series of images to describe a bleak emotional landscape, but Zukerman still offers hope. Sorry Side of Town has a narrator who must learn to let go of self pity and accept love. Instead of the sudden breakthrough you might expect, there is a gentle evolution, beautifully rendered. And Come Undone might have been a good title for this album. Each of the song’s four verses ends with the words “Come undone”, and each time the meaning of these words shifts, from a burst of mutual attraction, to a tumultuous point in a relationship, to finally an acceptance and a sort of emotional détente.

If you think the good ol’ boy folk club is the top of the singer/songwriter food chain, then get over yourself.

Where those boys can certainly write a good story and sing it, it often takes the rest of the club to play it and produce it. Move aside, fellas, Natalia Zukerman’s in the room, and she can do what it takes five of you to do! This incredibly good performer has been around for ten years, and since the “get go” she’s been blowing away music critics, writers, musicians, and music lovers with her profound, engaging songwriting and her stratospheric ability to play the ever lovin’ shit out of anything with six stings. With her latest release, Gas Station Roses, she picks, slides, growls, rocks, swings and croons to create three dimensional songs that will rip you right open and make you listen from the inside out.

This time around, Zukerman wears a co-producer hat along with kindred spirit Willie Porter. Her bond with Porter was apparent with Brand New Frame. Now, she has her comfort zone within him, and she sores. It’s almost heartbreaking to hear, but on the other hand, it is one of those exciting events that music writers, like me, live for. In my mind, an album achieves greatness when the artist opens up and bravely chooses to be this honest. Mark Gas Station Roses, as one of Natalia Zukerman’s defining works. Two things seem to be going on here. The first is her signature ability to take a picture in her mind and build vivid lyrics around it. It’s like a photographer’s dark room in her head. The second is that devastatingly beautiful juxtaposition between cynicism and hope.

On the track, “Sorry Side of Town,” Zukerman gives her best example of darkness and light as she accompanies her visual style of writing into something more. The song goes into her heart and offers an intimate glance into the inner workings of one of the top performing songwriters today. These are only glimpses. The foundation of this album is in the title track, “Gas Station Roses.” It’s everything that Zukerman does better than anybody else all wrapped up in one rocking, gritty, in your face Southern groove. There’s no catalytic converter on this engine. The song is a full on five senses working metaphor of the worst kind of relationship dump. You can almost smell the oily, gas stained floor of a real, honest to god, service station. Fellas, back off! Natalia Zukerman pulls out the stops and rips it with electric, slide and lap steel. You can hear the echo in the service bay as the song gets dirty and sweaty, right before it peels out and lays some serious rubber on the street. You’ll need to wipe your face after you listen to it. In fact, it’s right up there on the Stave Player. Crank that sucker up and let it rumble.

How do you top this thing? I don’t know. Maybe Natalia Zukerman could pair up with Erin McKeown and just go give the establishment a big middle finger.

Natalia Zukerman comes from a family of musicians, and it shows. Her slide guitar has the swagger and skill of artists like Bonnie Raitt and Ani DiFranco. Her smoky alto climbs in and out of lyrics that tell stories with the painterly brush strokes of the visual artist she trained to be. She is one of those performers who have the confidence to be bold in her song choices, and the vulnerability to show a sweetly sensitive side as well.

Gas Station Roses has been a long time in the making. Zukerman has been on the road performing these new tunes both on her own, and as an opener for the legendary Janis Ian. The recording demonstrates the versatility of her artistry in that the music does not fit into a single category, covering Americana, new folk, southern rock and everything in between. She is a wonder on all kinds of strings: electric and acoustic guitars, along with the lap steel.

The CD opens with Brooklyn, a tribute to her hometown. Here, in finely honed lyrics, she urges her lover to stay: “when you come closer/And listen/Over all the noise in Brooklyn/Can’t you hear me saying/I’ve been saying: stay/Stay.” It is an upbeat tune with a catchy melody, featuring a wonderful closing solo on tenor sax by Aaron Gardner.

The Right Time is the kind of tune every songwriter wants to write. It’s about the exuberance you feel when love finally comes your way. Zukerman nails every nuance of what that moment is like—even the fleeting feeling of love and wishing you could capture it in a bottle and keep it close forever. Patty Larkin contributes a little magic to this song with her backing vocals. This is one of the recording’s best cuts.

Zukerman’s romantic side is revealed in the loveliness of a song called Always. Here she accompanies herself on guitar with Adrianne Gonzalez on backing vocals, Sarah Milonovich on fiddle and Meghan Toohey on electric guitars.

And saving the best for last, in Little Bird she likens herself to a bird on a wire, singing out its songs day and night, hoping for that opportunity to fly. Here it’s just Zukerman and her guitar with an assist from bassist Todd Sickafoose. Sweet and tender, and beautifully produced and performed, it exemplifies Zukerman’s gifted musicality. And it is a pleasure to listen to.

Natalia Zukerman has paid her dues, pounding pavements and opening for big name acts on the international stage. With Gas Station Roses she proves that she is ready to take center stage, and become a major musical star with her own distinct vocal style and presence. There is no holding her back. No more dime store roses for this gal. It is time for long stemmed roses and accolades. Gas Station Roses contains a collection of indelible stories, and a rare musicality to match. This is an artist on the rise.

http://www.nuvo.net/MusicBlog/archives/2011/03/10/soundcheck-weekend-edition

http://www.emusic.com/album/Natalia-Zukerman-Gas-Station-Roses-MP3-Download/12395216.html

Live performance in studio with Mona Tavakoli and Garrison Starr

Natalia Zukerman
Gas Station Roses
Weasel Records
Natalia Zukerman has already established her bona fides as a dynamite roots musician (if it’s got six strings, she can play it, and dazzlingly so) and as a songwriter with a keen eye for character and detail on previous albums. All the more reason to celebrate Gas Station Roses, on which the multitalented Zukerman flowers as a fully mature artist fronting a roots-rock ensemble including producer-guitarist Willy Porter, bassist Todd Sickafoose, drummer Dave Schoepke, and Patty Larkin, Garrison Starr, and Adrianne Gonzalez on background vocals. Combining the incisive songcraft of Shawn Colvin, the bluesy confidence of Bonnie Raitt, the Americana grit of Lucinda Williams, and the independent streak of Ani DiFranco, Zukerman commands—no, demands—attention on hard-rocking songs like the sultry, sexy title track, and the fetching, funky folk of “Brooklyn.” She does so, for the most part, via compelling, all-knowing vocals, boasting intimate, jazzy phrasing and a wide spectrum of tone and color, ranging from a Billie Holiday-like purr to an Aretha Franklin-like roar.