|
Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular MusicA B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZVEGA, Suzanne(b 12 August 1959, NYC) Singer, songwriter, guitarist. She grew up in Spanish Harlem, encouraged by her stepfather, Edgardo Vega Yunqué (d 2008), a novelist who would play guitar and sing Leadbelly and Pete Seeger songs around the house. She emerged from the East Coast folk circuit with warm reviews from the New York Times; debut Suzanne Vega '85 on A&M reached top 100 pop LPs in USA, top 20 UK, including 'Marlene On The Wall' and 'Small Blue Thing': comparisons with Joni Mitchell and Laura Nyro were inevitable, but some heard a little Lou Reed and Dory Previn as well. 'I have two types of song,' she said at one London concert, 'love songs and your basic mental health songs.' The six-track Live In London was not as widely released. In '86 her 'Left Of Center' was featured in film soundtrack Pretty In Pink, and she contributed to Especially For You, an album by the Smithereens. Her second album Solitude Standing '87 built on the first with light arrangements including synth, guitar, drums, electric bass, but was in fact a strong concept, a series of short stories which never became twee, each arragement precisely fitting songs such as 'Solitude', 'Tom's Diner' (a cappella), 'Luka' (about child abuse). Video Live At The Royal Albert Hall '87 was representative of her act. She wrote two songs for a Philip Glass project Songs From Liquid Days '87 and sang the title track on A&M's Disney tribute album Stay Awake '88; her own third album Days Of Open Hand '90 reached no. 50 in Billboard asnd entered the UK chart at no. 7, including 'Book Of Dreams', with a backing vocal by Shawn Colvin. D.A. Pennebaker made a documentary film about her '90, and UK technos DNA ripped off 'Tom's Diner' to Vega's initial displeasure, but were signed to her label on the strength of their hit. She sang two tracks on Deadicated '91, a Grateful Dead tribute. Her album 99.9°F '92 veered away from folk towards 'dance' and charted less well; there was a limited edition with a hardback book with pictures and pages from her diary and a bonus track. She sang on Pavarotti And Friends '93, a benefit concert album; she had a baby girl, then Nine Objects Of Desire '97 was an ambitious attempt to touch all the bases, her folk roots still showing but with delicious Latin and jazz influences, produced like the previous album by Mitchell Froom (her husband, R.E.M.'s producer and sometime keyboardist), with bass and drums Bruce Thomas and Pete Thomas from the Attractions. In 2009 she had been dropped by her label and was glad to be off the treadmill, hanging out in Greenwich Village where she started, paying for a new project (Suzanne Vega Close-Up) herself. She was recording her own songs acoustically, so that she could 'own' them again, and planned to release four themed collections, the first, Love Songs, scheduled for Valentine's Day. |