Gretchen Peters

New Release, New Collaboration
Michael Holloway, Australia

Born: Gretchen Peters
November 14, 1957
Birthplace: Bronxville, New York

Gretchen Peters released a fascinating new project Feb. 1, 2009. It is a western themed album in collaboration with popular country music artist, Tom Russell. One to the Heart, One to the Head, an aggressively graphic title. The project mixes original compositions with covers of artists such as Bob Dylan, Townes Van Zandt, Rosalie Sorrels, Mary McCaslin, Jennifer Warnes, Ian Tyson, and Stephanie Davis. Also featured is Guadelupe, a popular song penned by Russell, recently offered to fans as a free download by Peters.

Recently, Peters posted a blog courtesy of Russell which offers a more poetic insight into this electrifying western bonanza. Russell’s awe of Peters’ accomplishments and the excitement they both feel in what promises to be a western masterpiece fused with haunting melodies with stunning desert imagery is evident in his assessment of their collaboration.

Russell said, “The music and Gretchen’s voice was hauntingly simpatico to the desert landscape. The yucca, sagebrush, chimesa and Mexican broom washed past our windows, like a Maynard Dixon painting touched up by Willem DeKooning. All of the singing was underscored by Barry Walsh’s marvelous piano score.”

Northern Lights

The album comes hot on the heels of Peters’ previous release a few ago. Oct. 21, 2008, Peters released her first Christmas album, Northern Lights, a deeply spiritual and uplifting masterpiece, skillfully interweaving updated versions of standard carols with Peters’ own lilting original compositions. Peters has the uncanny ability to make music which is simultaneously timeless in a classic sense, yet refreshingly progressive. Proceeds from sales of the album went to Room In the Inn, an organisation dedicated to finding decent housing for the homeless during the cold winter months. Earlier in the year, Peters participated in several benefits for Planned Parenthood which actively lobbies the US political system for pro-choice legislation, comprehensive sex education, and access to affordable health care.

Where She Came From

Peters describes herself as “the product of a liberal upper class family of six whose father (a writer) devoted his life work to exposing social injustices and pissing off defenders of the status quo, and the product of a divorced single mother who fled to the hippie town of Boulder, Colorado to escape life in the buckle of the bible belt.”

Peters nurtured her love and aptitude for music at an early age, at the same time her strong sense of liberalism fueled her passionate and visionary lyrics.

She said, “First I heard Django Rheinhardt and Ella Fitzgerald mixed with the sound of ice rattling in cocktail glasses. Later I heard Bob Dylan and The Beatles mixed with the smell of marijuana wafting down from the third floor of our house. When I woke up from my childhood I found a guitar and tried to make some of these sounds.”

Always a proficient songwriter, Peters believes her writing is not so much an act of self-expression as it is a process of self-discovery.

She said, “I don’t write to express how I feel, I write to find out. I’m usually as surprised as anyone.”

Independence Day

One of Peters’ most famous self-discoveries was her desire and commitment to ending the oppression and abuse of women. Her sensational anthem Independence Day became a huge hit for country singer Martina McBride, although, Peters also recorded her own version for a re-release of her debut album, The Secret Of Life. Many in the audience who hear the song’s powerful refrain are immediately compelled to join in the crusade and stop the violence.

“Let freedom ring, let the white dove sing
Let the whole world know that today is the day of reckoning
Let the weak be strong, let the right be wrong
Roll the stone away, let the guilty pay, it’s Independence Day.”

More Stellar Works

Besides The Secret Of Life (and the reissue with the bonus version of Independence Day), Peters other stellar albums in her repertoire include her self-titled second album, as well as Halcyon and Burnt Toast And Offerings. The latter of which featured a lovely cover of One For My Baby (which Bette Midler famously sang to Johnny Carson on his very last show).

Peters also released a live album, Trio which also featured three bonus songs: a cover of Paul Simon’s American Tune; her own original composition You Don’t Even Know Who I Am; and the resurrected Main Street, a paean to small town Americana (which would have appeared on what was to be Peters official debut album Buried Treasures had it not been permanently shelved.)

911 Words

Peters chose Simon’s American Tune for the live concert project just after the infamous September 11 attacks. The lyrics were especially poignant given the shattered innocence felt by many Americans, who had been perhaps once complacent in taking their liberty and safety for granted.

“And I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered or driven to its knees
But it’s all right, it’s all right
We’ve lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the road we’re traveling on
I wonder what went wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what went wrong.”

Though the song was written by another artist, Peters has a way of making any lyric or melody seem to come from her own heart and soul. Not surprisingly, Tom Russell refers to Peters as “God’s chanteuse” with her ethereal vocals and wistful emotive quality. Peters feels that the true power of music is felt when it is not seen merely as “content for media providers, background for worker bees, or sonic wallpaper for elevators. It’s for the people who are singing and the ones who are listening.”

Frustrating and Nurturing

As an artist, Peters acknowledges that music can be as frustrating as it is soul nurturing. When she is at the end of her creative rope, she finds inspiration in fellow musicians who reignite that spark in her. Then, she realises that great writers and musicians are indeed born, that it is an innate gift that many attempt, but only the most tenacious and spirited will succeed in.

She said, “I often hate the music business and sometimes I think I hate music. I’m always wrong about that. It usually takes listening to Leonard Cohen or Samuel Barber or Joni Mitchell or Gram Parsons or Jackson Browne or Ludwig von Beethoven or Miles Davis or Dolly Parton to bring me back to my senses. Then, I find myself with goosebumps or unexpected tears or joy bursting out of my chest, like it’s too big to be kept in there–then I remember what music is, what it does, and why I do it.”
Peters’ fans remain forever grateful she is brought back to her senses. She inspires us with her determination, her forward thinking ideals, and her immense talent.

She heralds our own ‘Independence Day’ from the drab and mundane to the colourful and surreal.

To further explore the extrasensory perceptions of Gretchen Peters and learn all about her new partner Tom Russell, please visit the following sites:     Gretchen Peters Official Website    Tom Russell Official Website

Tagged Gretchen Peters, music, Tom Russell