STN Entertainment
Queen Of The Everyday
Songstress Jill Sobule sings of the eccentricities of life.
" ill Sobule calls herself a "wander-
ing Jew." Born and bred in Den-
ver, Colo., she has since spent time
in Nashville, Tenn., playing gigs
at the renowned Bluebird Cafe, and now
considers New York City home.
Lately, though, she's been feeling the
urge to plant some roots and stay in one
place for a while.
Too bad she's just embarked on a
cross-country tour and musical stardom.
Her new release, Happy Town, is ac-
tually her third album. The first, re-
leased in 1990 with MCA, "didn't do
anything," she says. The second, how-
ever, was 1995's Jill Sobule, from which
sprang her first single, the experimen-
tal "I Kissed a Girl" (you may remem-
ber the video which featured a guest
appearance by Fabio). The 30-some-
thing musician is little sister to a broth-
er six years her senior who, she says,
was the local guitar hero of her neigh-
borhood.
"My parents were the tolerant ones
that let his band play in the basement.
My brother was so much older, so I was
the brat. I always wanted to come down
and sing, but he wouldn't let me."
She did find a music teacher of sorts,
though. "Mr. Cowan, who lived in the
area. He was Nat King Cole's accom-
panist. He wasn't your basic music
teacher who made you memorize your
scales and buy Mel Bay (the standard
al
PHOTO BY ANETTE AU RELL
LYNNE KONSTANTIN STAFF WRITER
book for guitar hopefuls). He would just
growl, 'What song you want to play,
kid?' and teach it to me."
Although Sobule is quite proficient
with her three Gretsch guitars, the
lyrics are really what come first in her
songwriting. "I like talking about what
people don't usually talk about, be it
fertilization (as in "Barren Egg") or kiss-
ing a girl," she says. "I'm inspired by a
lot of stuff that I'm feeling and strug-
gling with, and maybe someone else is,
also."
Her somewhat scattered quirkiness
together with a sharp intelligence pro-
duce a spirituality which makes her a
lyricist easy to relate to, and many do.
Part of this awareness of people and
their situations may stem from her ex-
perience of being a Jewish girl who at
one time attended a Catholic school. "I
grew up Jewish, but both my parents
remarried non-Jews. And I hated go-
ing to Sunday school as a kid," she adds.
"But now, I wish I would have ap-
preciated it more. I find that as I get
older, I feel a closer identity with [my
Judaism]."
The gentle, little-girl serenity with
which she considers her experiences be-
lie the resiliency, and humor, found be-
hind the surface. Jill Sobule introduced
this simple complexity. Happy Town
builds on it gracefully. ❑
Jill Sobule appears with Duncan Sheik 8 p.m. Friday, March 21. $13. 7th
House, 7 N. Saginaw, Pontiac. 18 and older welcome. (810) 335-8100.
Mordecai; and Steven Goren as King Ahasuerus.
The cast members auditioned before Conrad,
Chriss Golden and Larry Wolf, former music chair-
man at Oak Park Public Schools. Some of the peo-
ple selected have been active in community theater.
Conrad, who plays at services and directs the
temple chorus, wrote the play in 1992 because of
her fascination with the story of Purim. This year,
temple members decided they wanted to do some-
thing special for her by bringing the play to the
stage.
"In the Dead Sea caves, scrolls of every book of
the Hebrew Bible have been found except for the
Book of Esther," Conrad explained as she enlarged
her spoof. "The 'discovery' of a previously unknown
version of this book enabled me to do all kinds of
things with the plot.
"This also required the creation of Dr. Ella Fan-
tini, whose name is a play on words. Elephantine,
an island on the Nile, is the site of an ancient Per-
sian military post.
"The Elephantine papyri
found there are documents
relating to the daily life of a colony of Jewish mer-
cenaries in the fifth century B.C.E. I had lots of fun
making the Book of Esther a 1997 reality."
The reality of watching the production also is fun
for her.
"It really has been special to see the characters
come to life," said Conrad, who studied classical pi-
ano at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Bal-
timore and has been an accompanist for the Oak
Park Schools.
"It also has been wonderful to watch the cama-
raderie that has developed among all the people
working on the play."
As the wife of the temple's founding rabbi, Ernst
Conrad, the playwright has kept up the camaraderie
in her home by giving her husband a cameo role.
After all, he has a sense of history and a sense of
humor, too.
"He's a good sport," she said. ❑
The New Megilla will be performed at 7:45 p.m. Saturday, March 15, and 2 p.m. Sunday, March 16,
at Temple Kol Ami, 5085 Walnut Lake Road, West Bloomfield. There will be an afterglow on Satur-
day. For information, call (810) 661-0040.
Jill Sobule's wispy-voiced lyrics pack a punch.