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Old Weird Americana - Rising Star
Eileen Rose
The
first two lines on Eileen Rose Giadone's debut album 'Shine Like
It Does' run: "I was sure enough to come. I was dumb enough to stay."
And thereby hangs a tale. For over the next 41minutes this gifted
songwriter and singer offers up 10 happy-sad songs about an Irish-
Italian American life lived for the last nine years in England.
Through thinly-veiled autobiography we follow Eileen Rose's drift
across the North Atlantic, from the poor north Boston suburb of
Saugus (bordering on the notorious Lynn), where she grew up the
youngest of six sisters and three brothers - via Salem, Mass., and
on to, first, rural Essex and subsequently north London.
Opening track 'Rose' (sometimes the autobiography is not even thinly
veiled) has her father accepting her career of choice providing
she "never learns to sing the blues". It's a fond quip set to a
tune that sounds like an instant classic (with all the delicacy
and melody of a less kooky Melanie). Second up - and the only other
song in which she namechecks herself - 'Still In The Family', has
her shifting through emotional gears like only a real singer can.
Bone-tired and barely coping become high on hope by the time the
chorus rolls around, through Eileen Rose's gorgeous phrasing. While
words like "Why are you crying?/You said you wanted to know!", offer
tender glimpses of domestic situations without ever laying things
prosaically bare. These poetic portraits of blue collar America
set the tone for much of what is to follow. Until, that is, you
reach 'Silver Ladle', the album's hymnal centrepiece, which does
the strong:vulnerable thing to a "T", and ends up seeming like nothing
short of a gilded dream of a better place, or a tiny, very significant
light slowly disappearing over the horizon.
And so it goes. Eileen Rose's heroes: Tom Waits, Patti Smith, Creedence,
Paul Simon (another wandering American who found creative inspiration
in England; famously writing 'Homeward Bound' on Widnes station!),
Neil Diamond (Eileen's song 'Lincoln Park' refers to his 'Sweet
Caroline'), Kate Bush, Janis Joplin and Fleetwood Mac, all provide
clues but no real hard evidence of where all this comes from. For
that you have to go back to "Lynn, Lynn, city of sin, you never
come out the way you went in".
Lynn's the kind of place where Eileen Rose's immediate ancestor,
John L Sullivan: "The Boston Strong Boy", could get by on his bar-room
catchphrase "I'll lick any son-of-a-bitch in the house", while cradling
the biggest fists of any heavyweight boxing champion ever! It was
there and elsewhere around Boston that Eileen Rose first came to
prominence, fronting Daisy Chain, Medici Slot Machine and Fledgling,
who were signed to Nine Inch Nails launchpad TVT Records.
'Shine Like It Does' was recorded in Monnow Valley studios in South
Wales with Jerry Boys, who began his career tape-op'ing for the
Beatles and Stones and most recently recorded 'Buena Vista Social
Club' with Ry Cooder. The album has been mixed by Mark Freegard
(Breeders, Madder Rose, Marilyn Manson).
Eileen Rose's group comprises three current members of Alabama 3
- keyboard player Orlando Harrison, drummer Sir Eddie Real and guitarist
Mark Sams - plus Fledgling survivor Davey Bull on guitar, and Barry
Payne (once of Wreckless Eric's band) on bass. The sleeve for 'Shine
Like It Does' was shot by Eileen Rose's sister Kathleen on the last
dawn of the last century at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire; the scene
of the song 'Walk The Jetty'.
WHAT
THE PRESS SAID: " . . . a gorgeous, clear,
invigorating voice that makes her, along with the similarly beguiling
Neko Case, one of this year's finest discoveries." Maddy Costa,
Guardian
"It is a great album; a subtly epic work of guts and guile with
a rich and classic, timeless style." Ross Fortune, Time Out
"Eileen's exquisite album defies facile categories, gliding from
Crazy Horse guitar swirls to slow-burn ballads, her voice alternately
strident and seductive." Chris Roberts, Uncut
"Eileen Rose shows the single-minded spirit and intensity of Ani
DiFranco, full of attitude and gritty, evocative portrayals of life
on an emotional knife-edge . . . The arrival of a forceful new talent
whose day will surely come." Colin Irwin, Mojo
"Rose's voice is an earthy, expressive thing conveying lived-in
loveliness and battered vulnerability somewhere between Stevie Nicks,
Patti Smith and Michelle Shocked . . . country rock that marries
perfectly hard living masculinity with perceptive, sensitive femininity.
A shining debut." Anna Britten, Q
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