Reflections of Herself :
k.d. lang’s Watershed Moment
By Margaret Michniewicz
“There aren’t any bombs I can drop here today,” laughs k.d. lang in an apologetic tone, at the suggestion there might be an exclusive scoop the singer-songwriter’s harboring these days.
Certainly it would be tough for the older, mellower lang of today to prompt the raising of eyebrows higher than she did during the first several years after she burst beyond the wide open prairies of Alberta, Canada into stardom in the U.S.
And, it’s clear from our conversation that the older, mellower lang of today, now 48, does not want to raise eyebrows, necessarily. But that’s not to say she’s done thrilling us with that voice she possesses, nor has she lost the spirit to challenge many aspects of the world’s status quo.
The four-time Grammy winner spoke with Vermont Woman by phone from her California home, in advance of her April 24 concert date in Burlington. She’s been touring over the course of the past year in support of her most recent CD, Watershed, which was released in February of 2008, and is her first recording of original songs since 2000. At the time of our conversation she’s on break and scheduled to resume a jam-packed spring schedule starting March 20.
A New (Kathryn) Dawn
It’s a vivid memory, thinking back to the 1988 Winter Olympics held in Calgary. I couldn’t tell you who the gold medalist athletes were that year, because they are forever eclipsed for me by the vision – and sound – of a red cowgirl-costumed figure galloping across the outdoor stage with a perfect 10 voice, exuberantly belting out “Turn Me Round.” Her toweringly spiky haircut looked more like punky Billy Idol’s than the big hair of, say, Loretta Lynn – and indeed the dancing backup crowd alternated between do-se-dos and the pogo. Those of us watching the closing Olympic ceremony on TV together turned to each other in amazement, slack-jawed, asking, “Who is that?!”
It was Canada’s own rising star Kathryn Dawn Lang of Consort, Alberta – a town so small her mother had to drive her 70 miles as a child for weekly piano lessons (which her mom did faithfully for years). The Olympics performance came fresh off the heels of her album release Angel with a Lariat, under the arty moniker k.d. lang & the Reclines, an homage to the late, great queen of Nashville Patsy Cline, whom lang had come to emulate – despite having grown up originally with a distaste for country & western music.
In fact, rather than having been steeped in country music, lang was at that point fresh out of music college and as an art school student was exposed to a different kind of folk music: punk. “At that time I think I was listening to everything from Jonathan Richman to the punk acts that were going on – [from] the Sex Pistols [to] the Canadian local punk groups,” lang recalls. “I was listening to country and I was starting to listen to things like twentieth-century composers – so it was an amalgamation of that, plus experimenting with sound – sound as an art form rather than a musical form.”
Upon discovering the music of Cline, lang’s reverence for her predecessor was absolutely sincere – to the point that for a time she even referred to herself as the reincarnation of Cline. And later she would praisingly allude to the “salt of the earth” nature of country music. But, not surprising of an art school student of her generation, she also playfully reveled in the camp possibilities afforded by the country genre, gleefully toying with gender roles and constructs (which has been a consistent theme throughout her career).
And so, rather than having emerged from the Grand Ole Opry, lang in essence knocked down Nashville’s door, a cyclone of punk-imbued camp androgyny with a soaring voice so phenomenal (and a spirit so sincere and down to earth) that the C&W establishment and country fans all over couldn’t help but welcome her.
For the 1988 album Shadowland, lang sought out Owen Bradley, who had produced Patsy Cline’s records. Her next album, Absolute Torch & Twang earned her the Best Female Country Vocal Grammy, and began to garner lang a wider range of fans beyond Canada and Nashville, from cynical young male college radio station DJs to legions of earnest lesbians, and virtually everyone in between.
Absolute Twang was followed by 1992’s Ingénue, for which lang won the Best Female Pop Vocal Grammy and which remains for some lang’s pièce de résistance.
It was on her Absolute Torch and Ingénue tours in the late 1980s and early 1990s that lang made her first visits to Vermont, performing at Burlington’s Memorial Auditorium – a venue beloved by Burlingtonians who also acknowledge that the Auditorium’s acoustics are not, shall we say, Carnegie Hall quality.
Recalls one fan from Richmond: “It was during the ‘Ingénue’ tour; my wife and I were totally floored by the fact that if the mikes went out, it would make no difference whatsoever: she could sing over a hurricane! (We also have concluded that
k.d. lang is probably the only performer that we would both run away with!)”
Since then lang has pursued theme-based endeavors, such as the country-roots redux of Reintarnation (2006) to an album covering songs all related to smoking, with the deliciously double entendred title of Drag (1997). Duet partners have included the legendary Tony Bennett (with their album A Wonderful World), the late Roy Orbison (for the classic song “Crying”), and fellow Canadian sister Jane Siberry (the poignant “Calling All Angels”).
A Watershed Moment
Though she had settled in the Los Angeles, California, area in 1992, lang honored her fellow Canadians in her 2004 release Hymns of the 49th Parallel. The album consisted of cover songs originally performed by fellow citizens Siberry, Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, and Neil Young.
According to a July 2008 article in The Guardian UK, lang released Hymns “partly because she didn’t know what else to do in response to the path America had taken after 9/11.” As she told that interviewer, “All the flags and the aggression and the throwing the stones back. The oppressive environment of fear. For a long time, I didn’t know what to write or I didn’t feel I had the capacity to say anything about it.”
She has intimated in past interviews that perhaps there was a degree of writer’s block at play, also. Indeed, after her CD Invincible Summer of 2000, lang didn’t record a studio album of new songs again until February 2008, when she released Watershed.
The album immediately debuted in Billboard’s top ten. According to her press release, Watershed is, for lang, “like a culmination of everything I’ve done – there’s a little bit of jazz, a little country, a little of the Ingénue sound, a little Brazilian touch. It really feels like the way I hear music, this mash-up of genres, and I think it reflects all the styles that have preceded this in my catalogue.”
The press release also notes that Watershed serves as a “highly personal companion” to Hymns of the 49th Parallel. Lang asserts that it was through studying the songs and songwriters featured on Hymns that she has learned much about the craft of songwriting. Working on other people’s songs “left me with a strong sense of what a good song sounds like,” she told The Times UK in January 2008. “That sort of changed my DNA as a songwriter.”
Lang has also begun to alter her singing style, out of both self-critique and concern for preserving her voice. “When you have a 12-cylinder engine, I guess it’s hard not to put the pedal to the metal sometimes,” she confided in the same Times article. “Part of the process is learning how not to force your voice. And that’s really hard.” Lang added that she now disapproves of some of her most celebrated performances, notably the duet with Roy Orbison that originally brought her to the attention of so many here in the U.S. Looking back, she admits, “I was ready to conquer the world and my voice was just an extension of my exuberance.”
But with Watershed, she found no need to belt. “I think that is age and wisdom. It’s like a painter discovering earth tones again in a whole new way or a chef coming back down to the Alice Waters level of cooking, where sea salt is the absolutely perfect spice. It’s about communicating, and sometimes communicating is about whispering or about simply stating something in a gentle, quiet manner.”
She describes the sound of Watershed as how she likes to sing at home, when she’s just playing the guitar: very easy and understated. “I really wanted to capture sort of [that] very personal, intimate style.”
In truth, k.d. lang could casually sing the words of an instruction manual and make it one of the most pleasurable whiling away of time you could experience. Indeed, the languid and sensual track “Sunday” – a pop-jazz number à la Burt Bacharach – takes you to a sun-drenched bed where there’s nothing to do but feel pleasure in the moment.
With Watershed, lang has again collaborated with longtime colleagues such as Ben Mink and David Piltch – but she has added to her long list of accomplishments by producing this CD herself. I ask lang to explain in lay terms what that means; we discuss how listeners will hear her influence as a producer on Watershed. Playing devil’s advocate I also ask if she thinks that by producing her own album there’s the risk that she’s going “unedited” (the track “Jealous Dog” is particularly noteworthy, incidentally, in that it is the very first take of the song).
“I think there’s definitely the possibility of that,” lang acknowledges, but notes that she has in essence been co-producing her records for the past 25 years – and she concludes that this has given her the wisdom to listen to her instincts. “I think what it eliminates is the possibility of getting lost in translation – because I would have to communicate to someone how I heard my music specifically and my music is quite hybrid in style.”
She adds that the time pressures to create quickly and the financial overhead that comes in a studio with a band and producer may negatively inform the decision-making process. “So when you eliminate all of that – it gave me a lot of time to very clearly present what I wanted to sound like.”
Given the advances in today’s technologies – “I did it on my laptop” – lang explains that she was able to craft the CD at her own pace and at her own leisure.
“I let my instincts and the integrity of my profession really hone in on what I thought was an honest performance, or on something that didn’t sit right with me.”
Of the “Jealous Dog” track she says: “That’s how I sing when I’m at home… It was all done in a morning, just after bassist David Piltch and I had composed it. It was actually written as a bluegrass tune, more up-tempo. I deconstructed it to put it on tape and when it was done, I realized, that is exactly how I feel about this song. So I just left it, I never touched it again.”
She has received validation of her efforts by having recently been nominated for two Juno Awards (the Canadian Grammys): Artist of the Year, and Producer of the Year – which, lang confirms, is particularly gratifying. “Absolutely. It was a shock. I laughed when I heard! I mean, I’m really glad… but it was a bit of a shock. It’s just wonderful; I never ever expected it – and to get it from my Canadian peers is really extra special.”
The Personal and Political
Even over the telephone, you can hear the smile in lang’s voice as she responds to the question of her mother’s impact on her life.
“Oh, my mother’s influence on my life is immeasurable! She is…” – lang pauses – “my true love. I just love her more than anybody in the world. She’s my mentor, one of my best friends, and I just really hope that I can follow in her footsteps. She’s very elegant, and [at age 85, about to turn 86] she never stops opening up, never stops learning, never stops trying to become more liberal and it’s really amazing to watch.”
Lang herself has likewise seemed to continually expand her worldview and speak out, not just sing out. In addition to having been on the forefront of openly lesbian celebrities/performers, advocating for gay rights, and contributing to HIV/AIDS efforts, she has also been a very vocal proponent of animal rights and vegetarianism. Unexpectedly for someone in the country music scene, she participated in the “Meat Stinks” campaign of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals – a stand that alienated her from many in her hometown, a bastion of the cattle-industry.
Lang’s more recent calls to action pertain to Tibetan rights, such as the 2008 column she penned in an Australian newspaper. “The torch for the Olympic Games was passing through Australia at the same time I was there,” she explains. “I felt it was my place to support the Tibetans [in the] media in Australia.” Lang has been a practicing Buddhist since 2001 and serves on the board of directors of Ari Bödh, the American Foundation for Tibetan Cultural Preservation.
“I just think that the struggle for Tibet is one that’s been going on way too long and I think there’s a whole generation of people who are unaware,” she declares. “It’s an ancient culture that is really one of the world’s great treasures, and I just think that the world loses when it loses its ancient heritage.”
Speaking with Australia’s Sunday Arts last April, lang was even more emphatic. “The fact that the torch would go into Tibet is a desecration of that culture. Now these are strong words and I will be banned from China, I’m sure. I have to speak out,” lang said. “I think my generation hasn’t even been really aware of what happened in Tibet. It’s basically a genocide of a very, very peaceful culture.”
In addition to her mother the other love of lang’s life is partner Jamie, a fellow student of Buddhism whom lang refers to as her “wife.” In the wake of California’s Proposition 8 controversy and given the current activity on gay marriage legislation in Vermont, I ask lang her thoughts on the subject. It seems that lang is not at the vanguard of those demanding the immediate legalization of gay marriage. “I definitely think that it will happen… Gay marriage will be a reality.
“It’s a slow process and I think that it’s good that it’s slow,” she continues. “I think if it had passed in California, that would have been a great thing, but at the same time I think it’s still very divisive. And, I think the more we talk about it the more we learn about it – even for the gay culture/the gay community. [Even to] get really clear on what we want and who it is we want” [long pause] “either to emulate or appease. Are we trying to assimilate into a [tradition] that we actually do or do not fit into? It’s a very complex issue. I think it is happening at the right pace – as we proceed we’re clearer, we’re more informed – and I mean [in terms of] as a society, not as a gay culture.”
Great Gender Expectations
Though she may have cold feet as to the prospect of gay marriage, lang has hardly shied away from having some provocative fun with society’s gender expectations, through her own plays on word, imagery, clothing, and appearance.
Her album Drag, as cited above, was devoted to songs about smoking – but the cover photo of lang portrayed her in male, um, drag. Her campy cowgirl get-ups of her early career, a la Annie Oakley, were offset by her accompanying androgynous style – no makeup, butch haircut, Doc Marten boots.
And most legendary of lang’s gender-tweaking antics, her depiction on the cover of Vanity Fair in 1993 – which was, incidentally, her conception not the photographer’s. In it, she is dressed in full male drag, replete with gangster-type pinstripe suit and combat boots, ensconced in a barber’s chair with face lavishly covered in shaving cream. Behind her, in an over-the-top sexually-suggestive stance is a scantily-clad Cindy Crawford pretending to tend to lang’s shaving needs.
We share a laugh about her guest appearance on the TV show of Dame Edna (Australian Barry Humphries in drag, replete with lavender hair and cat eye glasses) – I ruefully note that I likely won’t be bringing tears of mirth to her eyes as Dame Edna did in that 2007 episode – and then ask her about her proclivity to impishly mess with such gender specific expectations.
“I guess it’s one of the purposes, one of the duties of my existence in the world,” lang explains. “It’s always been something I’ve been attracted to and played with, even as a youngster. [Also] I think men have done it a lot more than women in media and pop culture – but, it’s really fun to me, fun to shift gears. Even when I wore a dress for ‘Miss Chatelaine’…
“It’s just clothes you know, and I think also as a Buddhist practitioner [I’ve further recognized that] the concept of sexuality in general is that it’s just that – it’s just perception, it’s just a construct – it doesn’t have that much to do with anything!”
Sneak Preview…
“I’m really excited to come to Vermont again – I think it’s been maybe six or seven years?” lang said as we neared the end of our conversation. “I’ve always really liked it there – it’s a very beautiful part of the country and quite liberal; I’m happy always to visit.”
What can we expect from your upcoming show at the Flynn?
“Well, it’s pretty quintessential k.d. lang – we’re focusing on Watershed but it’s rounded out with back catalog stuff.
“I guess the big difference this year is my new band,” she continues. “It’s comprised of young, very handsome, very talented young men who have really sort of rejuvenated my approach to my music and it really translates to the audience – it certainly feels that way on stage – and I really have great love and respect and a good time with them. Hopefully, like I said, it translates to the audience.”
About backup bands – not just yours, but across the board – I wonder when we might get to the point in the industry when there is more gender equity among the backup performers and session musicians?
“Hmmm, that’s a good question,” lang pauses. “I really have no idea about that. I think a lot of it has to do with women. I think women have a tendency to be a little bit more, um, solo-oriented and they want to be the singer/the lead in the band… or they prefer to be studio musicians – I’m not really sure there’s that many touring women musicians out there.”
You’ve referred to the idea that the audience is as much of a show as you are – do you have any requests of us?
“Ah… have fun!” lang exclaims. “Listen. Listen when I’m singing… but I love dancers. I like when people, you know, participate in the banter part (though I like when they listen when I’m singing)… [I like a] respectful dance, I guess!”
In 1996 lang was made an officer in the Order of Canada. In that capacity, can she arrest any unruly audience members?
Laughing heartily lang replies, “Not in the States!”
Vermont Woman Editor Margaret Michniewicz can be reached at editor@vermontwoman.com
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