Natalie Lovejoy
Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States | Established. Jan 01, 2001
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Natalie Lovejoy welcomed a sold out crowd to “slow, luscious music” at the Icehouse on Sunday night. She was there to introduce us to her third album, Hiding in the Light. The stage was as crowded as the house with as many as nine people on stage. I have to say, a string section on stage is worth the squishing!
Lovejoy opened with House of Coates, which has an undercurrent of dance music but it’s a song, like all of her songs, that tells a story. She played a number of songs from the new album.
“Would You Be Happy” has the potential to a big song for Lovejoy. It has a harmony and a catchy tune and a sad story. It’s a summer beat for a winter tale. Her voice is just this side of being too big for song, which adds a compelling tension. Her producer, Andy Thompson, also works with Jeremy Messersmith and I think the influence shows in the song. Contrast that with a song like Fool where Lovejoy’s torch singer voice shines; it’s low and slow and imploring.
“Demolition Derby Queen” takes another twist – no imploring here. It’s a powerful song; it reminds me of the Irish Rockabilly torch singer Imelda May. Lovejoy’s voice sounds like a 1950s pinup looks. This is the song I could put on auto-repeat for a long time.
Lovejoy is fun to watch on stage. She’s gracious. We were introduced to her daughters and her mother. She made time for a personal introduction to everyone on stage. There was a lot of love for her in the audience. She ended the night with “Nobody Does it Better,” another great showcase for her voice. - Twin Cities Daily Planet
For Natalie Lovejoy, trusting the process means starting with music, and then letting the words come. And after being silent for almost a decade, Lovejoy returns to the stage with a dynamic third album and new trust in the process.
15 years ago to the day, February 22, 2000, Lovejoy released her first album at the Dakota and for the next few years was swept up in a life of love and music, only one of which would last. After a wedding, a second album, one child, and then another - on top of being an independent business owner - the years passed and music all but disappeared. New realities took hold, ones that weren't necessarily ideal, and Lovejoy felt something missing. "You know that classic story," she asked me, "of how once people get married, they change?" Well, that change meant that her music wasn't supported, it wasn't a priority. And running into famed Minneapolis writer Jim Walsh years after her last performance, she was received with: "Where have you been? You fell off the face of the earth!”
As Lovejoy told me matter-of-factly, "If you don’t honor your art, it'll tell you in other ways," and she realized she had to be making music to be true to herself, to what was in her soul. It started by hosting a women’s songwriting group for women with children: creating a place and time to make making music their priority. The rule was, you had to show up with a new song, no matter how ridiculous. This cultivation of creativity included names such as Katy Vernon and Hannah Lynch, who "were all watching each other blossom again," and Lovejoy was no exception. She got back to playing shows here and there, a minimal commitment at best, but one that threatened her (romantic) legal one. As quickly as her Kickstarter fundraiser and support for a third album came together, her marriage fell apart. There's "that person [who] will always make you feel like you can’t do [it]," Lovejoy told me, and there was just no place for him anymore.
Partnering with Grammy-nominated Andy Thompson (Jeremy Messersmtih, Dan Wilson) this time around, Lovejoy has been able to write her richest release yet: Hiding in the Light.
The title track, which concludes the album, came about after Lovejoy titled the album. In her marriage she felt trapped, and worked to maintain what there was, but she saw hope - a light - in the future. This name was so fitting, she wished she could write a song for it, and just that happened one day upon coming into the studio. This lovely waltz plays on the positives, in the midst of other heavier topics, daring to say, "you bring me peace of mind I've never known." The elegant instrumentals round out the feeling of what could be, inspiring a feeling of hope, and that love may come again.
Considering Lovejoy's life events have been no easy feat in the last few years, optimistic tunes like "Hiding" shine bright, although she found it was easy to err on the depressing side of things. But Lovejoy isn't one to write a full album of melancholy tunes, no matter what she's been through. How to stop writing depressing music, one might ask? Well, she took Jeremy Messersmith's advice, which is: "Buy a ukulele!" Lovejoy used this merry instrument to write a song for her daughter; to cheer her up before going to school, where she was getting bullied. With a few tweaks for the album, it has become a song that we can all listen to and get a a skip back in our step before heading out the door.
Every song on this record has a story. From "House of Coates," about the book by Alex Soth and Brad Zeller, to the more personal ones, that tell the story with the lyrics themselves. Lovejoy lays out her past and her future not only with words, but with her mature, soulful vocals that light up every song like fresh morning light coming into a room. She can be intimate or build up a bright glory of sound, like on "One of a Kind," as she repeats the title phrase with full band behind. She asks "Would You Be Happy?" like the quiet thoughts running through her head, but later it's clear the end is near as "Goodbye" evokes a dramatic soundtrack feel, with heavy percussion, distorted guitar, and Lovejoy not holding back.
Take it from her directly: the "artistic part of our lives is important for everybody." Don't deny yourself the great pleasure of seeing Lovejoy step into the light on stage at Icehouse tomorrow night, and perform Hiding in the Light. After all these years, it turns out that no matter which loves end, love of music never will. Trust in the process, and it seems anything is possible. Even, perhaps, a happy ending. - The Aural Premonition
A passionate songwriter with a softly vibrant, almost jazz-crooner voice, Natalie Lovejoy was a regular player around town in the early-’00s but mostly set her music career aside to raise two daughters and open her Soapbox Salon in St. Paul. She’s back in a big way with help from Andy Thompson, Jeremy Messersmith’s right-hand man, who produced her new Kickstarter-funded album “Hiding in the Light.” Songs range from the etherial-poppy “Come Home” to the bare-all, Adele-like piano ballad “Fallen From Grace,” with such aces as John Munson, Brian Tighe and the Laurel Strings’ Josh Misner for backers. Lovejoy has plenty of reasons to celebrate its release. - Vita.Mn
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
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Bio
Lovejoy’s third album, “Hiding In The Light,” is the first recording from the St. Paul-based ambient singer/songwriter since 2003. Although she’s played plenty of live shows at the Aster Café and other Twin Cities venues, much of the last decade-plus was spent writing songs in private, raising her two children, Veronica and Lucinda, going through a divorce, opening her hair salon/performance space, Soapbox Salon in St. Paul, and falling in and out of love.
“I’m really connected with my clients,” said Lovejoy, who hopes her story – a single mother and independent business owner and recording artist – inspires others, especially women in similar situations. “The majority of my clients, I’ve been cutting their hair for 15 to 20 years, and I have amazing relationships, and I’m affected by their relationships as well. My clients and I are always communicating about life; very rarely do we talk about hair. I think that’s why my music is so introspective, because that’s what I do all day. In fact, one of the songs on this record was written about the end of one of my client’s marriage.”
The grist of all that experience can be heard in the deep grooves and dreamy melodies of “Hiding In The Light,” a work driven by Lovejoy’s huge heart, luxurious voice, and a batch of tunes that suggest Kate Bush holing up on a cold winter night with Lake Street Dive. And while Lovejoy’s first two albums, “Wish I Could Fall” (2001) and “One False Move” (2003) are good introductions to the self-taught musician’s vulnerable tunes, the new Andy Thompson-produced collection of songs is her most full-bodied work to date.
“Two babies close together kind of knocked me on my ass,” said Lovejoy, whose effervescent personality gives way to a decided pensiveness on “Hiding In The Light.” “Between that, working fulltime and trying to maintain a marriage, music got swept by the wayside. I didn’t mean for it to be a full decade between albums, it just happened. But it was the slow and painful fade-out of my marriage that made me turn to music again. Writing and playing songs became my therapy and my salvation from an unhappy marriage.”
Backed by the crack studio band of John Munson (bass), Alexander Young (drums), Dan Lawonn (cello), Josh Misner (violin/viola), Kevin Steinman (back-up vocals), Brian Tighe (guitar) and Thompson (everything else), “Hiding In The Light” was recorded at Thompson’s Instrument Landing Studio in South Minneapolis. The Grammy-nominated Thompson (Dan Wilson, Taylor Swift, Jeremy Messersmith, Julia Douglass) proved to be as musically inspiring as was Lovejoy’s sometimes painful real-life subject matter.
“Working with Andy was delightful,” she said. “He just ‘got’ me; we spoke the same language. He could play exactly what I was thinking with almost no explanation on my part. I had complete trust in him. He helped me grow immensely as a vocalist, he challenged my playing, and he really got the feel behind each song. He was also unbelievably understanding.
“My marriage ended just as I began recording with Andy. The poor guy barely knew me and I showed up bawling in his studio a few weeks after we got started. I would start crying during recording and say that I needed to take a walk. He would just sit back and say, ‘No problem, take your time, we’re gonna get some really great raw emotion in these vocals today.’
“I had to stay in the moment. It was sort of a Zen experience. I had to turn my brain off from whatever was going on, or whatever attorney meeting or court date was happening, and sing my heart out.”
You can hear as much all over the tracks, be it in the forlorn feelings behind “Goodbye,” “Would You Be Happy?,” “Fallen From Grace,” “House of Coates,” “Fool,” and the title track. Then there’s “Demolition Derby Queen,” a radio-ready should-be hit that mixes broken hearts with car crashes and takes the whole lover-as-hot-mess oeuvre to another level.
It’s been a long time in the making and gestating, but thanks to a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign that’s attracted new fans as far away as Germany, Lovejoy and the rest of us now have “Hiding In The Light” as a soundtrack to our lives.
“I was blown away by the Kickstarter process; it was an amazing experience, because it put me on the map,” she said. “I did so many personal updates on Kickstarter, that I think people got emotionally involved with the making of the record. Then my music, where I also put myself out there in not-so hidden ways… I’ve been getting lots of emails from people who say how they can relate and that it’s more than they expected, and thanking me for my honesty.”
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