Review: "True Stories"
- Jeff Waxman: Musical Director, Piano
- Laura Liben and Andy Perkowski: Drums
- Dave Phillips: Bass
- Michael Shaw: Synthesizer, Backup Vocals
- Michael Schiralli: Director
- Barbara Shapokas: Flyer Design
- Michael Ian: Photography
True Stories, A Cabaret Verite, focuses on songs written about real events, real people and real places. Everybody has a story to tell and True Stories run the gamut from people's everyday experiences to the impact of major historical events on our lives and our world. Drawing on music from such diverse composers and lyricists as Irving Berlin, Oscar Hammerstein II, Jerome Kern, Michele Brourman, Michael Smith, and Joni Mitchell, True Stories offers a fascinating look at the notion that truth is stranger than fiction.
- THE GENTLEMAN
(Michele Brourman) - TRUE STORY
(Kat Eggleston) - THE LAST TIME I SAW PARIS
(Oscar Hammerstein II and Jerome Kern) - (I'LL SEE YOU IN) CUBA
(Irving Berlin) - SISTER CLARISSA
(Michael Smith) - MAMA'S OPRY
(Iris Dement) - WOODSTOCK
(Joni Mitchell) - THERE'S A WALL IN WASHINGTON
(Iris Dement) - JUST A HOUSEWIFE
(Craig Carnelia) - CRAZY PEOPLE
(Bryan Johnson) - VINCENT
(Don McLean) - DANCEBAND ON THE TITANIC
(Harry Chapin) - GOODNIGHT, NEW YORK
(Julie Gold) - JOHN DOW NO. 24
(Mary Chapin Carpenter) - DEAD EGYPTIAN BLUES
(Michael Smith)
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Lisa Asher is appearing in what seems to be her best outing to date. It's been said that lightning never strikes twice in the same place. That may be true in nature, but it wasn't so at Don't Tell Mama last Wednesday, while Asher was singing her heart out in her new show, "True Stories." Every song had the energy of a ball of lightning as she electrified the stage from opening to encore.
This, my friends, is one voice to be reckoned with and recorded on a major label. She sounds like a combination of Reba McEntire and Barbra Streisand at times — the perfect instrument for rock, gospel, country and all points in between. A flawless rock belt fired Jeff Waxman's bravura arrangement of Harry Chapin's rarity Danceband on the Titanic, which has become the talk of the town. In the show's funniest moment, Asher and her five-piece band brought the house down with an off-the-wall spin on this totally hysterical ditty.
As good as Asher is and having so much commercial potential, she might take her ballads to an even more profound place and allow more vulnerability show. She's capable and did this with Don McLean's Vincent, creating a sensually illuminating effect that was perfect.
Every once in a while I have the opportunity to experience a thrilling, exciting raw talent with unlimited potential. Lisa Asher is among that small number of performers destined to climb to the top in the music business. Look for her on the top 40 charts before long. The show was deftly directed by Michael Schiralli.
JOHN HOGLUND, Back Stage
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Of the current cabaret performers, Asher, who resembles both Bette Midler and Bonnie Raitt, may be the one most confidently poised to break into the bigger time. The show this time around — a folk-country-gospel — is called "True Stories", which means all songs have been taken from someone's life somehow. Her smartest move would be releasing Harry Chapin's Danceband on the Titanic, immediately.
DAVID FINKLE, The Village Voice, Voice Choices/Music
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This is one occasion when I want to break a general policy I have against offering performers direct career advice in critiques.
If I were Lisa Asher, I'd record — and quickly, before someone else gets the idea to do so from seeing her sing it — a number that's a highlight of her current act at Don't Tell Mama. She makes it swing and rock and shout for joy. It's a wonderful showcase for her full, good-hearted, self-assured, clear voice, as well for her imaginative arranger/bandleader Jeff Waxman.
Written by folk-rock storyteller Harry Chapin (1942-81), the song didn't go anywhere in his lifetime. But Asher's rescued it from obscurity, and what with several books on the subject making the best-seller lists, a Broadway show on the subject winning several Tonys, and a film on the subject winning 11 Oscars, the timing couldn't be better. The song is Dance Band on the Titanic. She has great fun with it. It might help get her some much-deserved airplay.
She also gives Irving Berlin's I'll See You in C-U-B-A, infectiously arranged by Waxman, a terrific, surprisingly contemporary-feeling workout (although I wonder if the effect of blowing a whistle every time a certain work is sung is overused).
Both her choices of songs and her ways of setting them up are generally thoughtful. I loved not only that she's selected Craig Carnelia's Just A Housewife but that she's prefaced it with a skillful obliqueness, by reading an obituary of an actress whose career never went too far.
Asher deserves to find a broader audience, the way Nancy LaMott (who likewise started modestly at Don't Tell Mama) so effectively did.
CHIP DEFFAA, New York Post
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Blessed with a beautiful voice, a gift for comic storytelling, and a highly successful track record on the New York cabaret scene, singer Lisa Asher unveils a thoroughly rewarding new offering. Called "True Stories," and billed as a "cabaret verite," the show focuses on songs linked to real events, people, and places. Highlights include Kat Eggleston's True Story, an affecting and beautiful song about a homeless woman who traveled cross-country to see Nureyev dance; Irving Berlin's I'll See You in C-U-B-A, which Asher and the great band led by Jeff Waxman turn into a playful delight; a very strong reneition of Iris DeMent's moving There's A Wall In Washington, and an emotionally rich interpretation of Craig Carnelia's ironic Just A Housewife.
ROY SANDER, Buzz Column, Editor's Pick, New York Citysearch.com
