I SAegae
Celebrating
women in music.
straight-ahead narrative songs about
her bat mitzvah was getting to per-
her experiences, including "Blown
form in front of a large group.
Away," which recalls her visit to the
The largest group hearing one of
former Yugoslavia before the war.
her songs consisted of TV viewers
Taking her chances at open mike
watching the NBC soap opera
nights in small clubs brought her early
"Another World" in May. They lis-
attention.
tened to "Bound" from Where I Draw
"When I'm on stage, the songs are
the Line.
mostly my originals," said Becker, who
"I had a review published in a Los
moved to Ferndale to be close to her
Angeles music magazine, and some
boyfriend, Adam Druckman, another
guys who read it were interested in
musician working in local
clubs.
"I want to promote my
CD, and I also have a lot of
new songs. Every once in a
while, I'll throw in some of
my favorite songs by other
writers."
Becker's first CD, Where I
Draw the Line on her own
Turnabout Records, comes
across as serious and at times
sad, very different from her
upbeat. personality.
"When I'm happy, I'm out
doing things like roller skat-
ing, and I'm not busy writing
songs," said Becker, who has
been a winner in the Tucson
Folk Festival songwriting
competition and the John
Lennon Songwriting Contest.
"I think a lot of artists do
that, drawing from a [deeper]
place and connecting with the
music.
"I like sad songs, and
they'll always be part of my
writing. That CD also was
part of a phase that I was in,
and a lot of the songs came
out of troubling circum-
stances."
Since the recording, she has
written a Holocaust memorial Ferndales
hearing more," she explained
song, expressing feelings about Audrey Becker:
about this career break-
what it's like to be two genera- 'Making music through. "I sent them my kit,
tions away from that experi-
is just what I
and they wanted publishing
like to do."
ence. A very quiet song, it is
rights for two songs.
not performed often.
"Two weeks after I signed the
The daughter of former Detroiter
papers, they had placed the song on
Shirley Chessler Becker, the entertain-
the soap opera. It turned out they had
er considers her Jewish roots impor-
pitched eight different songwriters to
tant and recalls that part of the fun at
the soap opera producer, who picked
my song. "'Bound,' [about trying to
hold on to something that's falling
apart], was used as background music
for a scene between two people who
were tormented about something."
In June, Becker performed at North
by Northeast Music Festival and
Conference in Toronto, where she was
part of Canada's leading new music
expo and industry conference. She also
was one of 20 performers chosen for
this year's Telluride
Troubadour Competition in
Colorado.
"I've said to myself I'd give
[a music career] two more
years and see where it takes
me, but I think that even at
that stage, I would still be pur-
suing it," said Becker, whose
local shows generally are
booked at the request of the
owners now familiar with her
style and whose out-of-town
engagements often are set after
she searches the Web to con-
tact appropriate venues.
"Making music is just what
I like to do, and I think there
is a time limit when you can
go on the road 75 percent of
the year and not have that be a
problem.
"There's never a limit to
when I can write a song even
if it's something that some-
body else will perform, and I
think I'll always be writing
songs. I'd never put a time
limit on that." ❑
Audrey Becker has three
local performances in July:
10:30 p.m. Thursday, July 9,
at Paychecks, 2932 Caniff,
Hamtramck, (313) 874-0909;
9:30 p.m. Friday, July 10, at
Gypsy's, 214 N. Fourth, Ann
Arbor, (734) 994 23940; 10 p.m.
Saturday, July 11, at the Detroit
Women's Coffee House, 4605
Cass, (313) 832-5888; and 9 p.m.
Thursday, July 23, at Max &
Erma's, 250 Merrill, Birmingham,
(248) 258-1188.
Festival Forecast
Lilith Fair is the first of a number of
hyped tours coming to Detroit this
summer. Here's a roundup for every
kind of music lover.
FOR DEADHEADS: The Furthur
Festival opens 6:30 p.m. Monday,
July 13, at Pine Knob, with rock
bands including Rusted Root, The
Other Ones and Hot Tuna.
$30.50.
LOLLAPALOOZA LOVERS: The
H.O.R.D.E. Festival (Horizons of
Rock Developing Everywhere) plays
Pine Knob 3:20 p.m. Saturday and
Sunday, July 18-19. Featured bands
include Barenaked Ladies, Blues
Traveler, Ben Harper & The
Innocent Criminals, Alana Davis and
more. $33 advance/$38 day of show.
HEAVY METAL: OzzFest '98, fea-
turing Ozzie Osbourne, Tool,
Megadeth, Limp Bizkit, Soulfly,
Coal Chamber and Sevendust, and
second acts including Motorhead,
opens 1 p.m. Thursday, July 23, at
Pine Knob. $45.
HIP-HOP: The Smokin' Grooves
festival takes the stage 5:30 p.m.
Wednesday, July 29, featuring
Public Enemy, Wyclef Jean and the
Refugee Allstars with Canibus,
Busta Rhymes, Gang Starr, and
Black Eyed Peas. $30 pavil-
ion/$24.50 lawn.
FOR FOLICES: It's the Newport
Folk Festival with Nanci Griffith,
John Hiatt, Joan Baez, The Violent
Femmes, The Staple Singers, Marc
Cohn, Lucinda Williams, Wilco,
Rickie Lee Jones, Rodney Crowell
and Loudon Wainwright III. 1
p.m. Saturday, August 22, at Pine
Knob. $35 pavilion/$18 lawn.
— Joshua Paul Cane
For tickets, call Tickmaster at
(248) 645-6666.