Soul Driver by Stone Cupid / Julie Christensen

(Love is Driving is newly re-mastered and re-packaged and available here at CD Baby, too...)

Starting with live basic tracks over the course of 3 nights of public performances at Happy Valley School's Zalk Theater in Ojai, recorded in 24 track analog an mastered in the audiophile HDCD, the songs in Soul Driver were filled out with Julie's intimate and powerful vocals, as well as the live backup of Perla Batalla and Beth Fichet-Wood, horns (Lee Thornburg again, of Tower of Power), great guitar (Jonathan McEuen, who also provided duet and backup vocals, and Greg Leisz again, of k.d. lang, Joni Mitchell and Bill Frisell ), and the beautiful keyboard work of songwriting and singing partner and jazz stalwart Karen Hammack.

The rhythm section is Headless Household's Chris Symer and Supertramp's Cliff Hugo on bass and James Cruce, of J.J. Cale's band, and Jim Christie of Dwight Yoakum's band on drums and percussion. Soul Driver is a fully realized album of new and older songs (including songs from the never-released Todd Rundgren production for Polygram) of Christensen's with collaborators, and cover material by her friends Jeff Turmes, Peter Kingsbery, and Heather Hoban.

Julie Christensen Artist Profile

Veteran chanteuse Julie Christensen has been honing her chameleon craft over more than two decades of singing live and in studios. She has met the challenge of many a song poet who needed a foil: Leonard Cohen (even as his "Joan of Arc"), Steve Wynn, John Doe, Exene Cervenka, Van Dyke Parks, Chris D., as the other head of post-punk swamp-rockers Divine Horsemen (SST), Robben Ford, and many others of whom you haven't heard.

Other folks utilizing Julie's vocal talents have been as far-flung stylistically as Iggy Pop, PiL, Phil Perry, k.d. lang, Lowen and Navarro, Steinberg and Kelly, the Freewheelers and the Blue Hawaiians. No wonder we have trouble cramping this woman in a category! If one adds that she'll be performing in another of O-Lan Jones' opera theater productions at the Taper Too in early 2001, or that New York audiences and critics enjoyed her singing the role of the comic/tragic blue folk Slue Foot Sue at the Public Theater's production of Sam Shepard's Ballad of Pecos Bill on the eve of Killing His Wife, one wonders if there wouldn't be a poor man's Judy Garland or Bjork in the making.

One of the things missing from this chequered career is a conventional release from Polygram, which Todd Rundgren produced in 1990. Rundgren called it a "genius piece of work" and later said on his nationally syndicated radio show that "somewhere there's a really smart record executive that'll give her a chance to start up her career again." So, in 1996 Julie started her own record label and produced and then released her first solo CD of her own brand of Great Plains Soul-Folk Music called "love is driving", a little jewel played on at least 50 radio stations nationwide and covered in Billboard and CMJ as one to watch. There should be no doubt that this artist belongs in a AAA contemporary folk rotation along with the others who travel the road-weary lonesome land of longing and learning: Dusty Springfield to Shelby Lynne, Joni Mitchell to Shawn Colvin, Bonnie Raitt to Joan Osborne, and Rickie Lee Jones to Norah Jones.

For Central Texans around 1980, there were nightly live music choices to make that included Stevie Ray Vaughan or Miss Lou Ann, Asleep at the Wheel, Nanci Griffith, Lucinda Williams, Joe Ely, or Julie Christensen and her mostly jazz quartets consisting of players from the bands of Leonard Cohen or Eric Johnson, or the Austin All-Stars or players of all stripes sitting in. It was never uncommon to hear Julie sing a Patsy Cline song up against a bebop jam or an Aretha scorcher... Julie was everywhere in those days, singing almost as often as breathing.

When she emigrated to Los Angeles in 1981, she started out sitting in with Top Jimmy and the Rhythm Pigs and with Eddie Zip and his New Orleans outfit, landing a steady swing gig at the Vine St. Bar and Grill. These led to long alliances with some of the players she still hangs with, including Lee Thornburg, Cliff Hugo, and James Cruce.

Her participation in a group of L.A. rockers doing a country compilation for Demon Records called "Don't Shoot" was the beginning of Christensen's career turn into the land of the LA de Dah scene of the moment: disenfranchised post punk poets and a real folk rock frontier-town mentality that bonded the scene tightly together. From around 1983 to 1988 there was a lot going down in Angel town: Al's bar, the Lhasa Club, the Lingerie, Raji's, the Music Machine, and the Anti-Club all had pumping pulses.

X was still doing unannounced club gigs, the Blasters and Los Lobos ruled the road, Dave Alvin decided to sing, Steve Wynn struck out on his own from the Dream Syndicate, and members of bands like The Gun Club, Divine Horsemen, fireHose,Rollins, the Chili Peppers, John Doe, the Knitters, Exene, all took part in many a benefit acoustic gig at McCabe's or in Cathay de Grande's basement, at poetry readings and even an acting workshop at the Lhasa which this bunch started including Nicole Panter and Iris Berry

and Michael Blake and others...Peter Case left the Plimsouls for Victoria Williams, the fillies from the Screamers and Disgraceland and the Zero told their stories to the Rolling Stone.... Julie was there on many a night, when the Fall or Nick Cave was in town and she and her beau Chris D. were denizens of the clubs. Bob Forrest of Thelonius Monster or Smog or Tex of the Horseheads would listen to Julie's jazz crooning on those faraway nights, and everything was included and everything real counted. "Alternative"wasn't even a twinkle in anyone's eye. "Independent" didn't sport a grunge uniform. Were the audiences quite as jaded as they are in the new millenium?

In the thriving Ventura County scene, Julie has performed theater concerts on her own, including the performances in late 1999 that comprise the basis for "Soul Driver", gigs at the Ventura Theater opening for Rundgren and for Michael McDonald, duets with Jonathan McEuen and jazz nights at California 66 with fellow Stone Cupids. She's lent her studio chops to Cohen cohort Perla Batalla's new "Heaven and Earth" album, Robben Ford's "Supernatural" for Verve,to "Left of Memphis" and to former A&M singer-songwriter Wendy Maharry's live project. Her song "Thunderhead" graces the Ojai Compilation CD called "Sweet Reality" along with Ford, Batalla, McEuen, Dave Mason, and others. The song, "I Am an Angel" co-written with Karen Hammack, also appears on a benefit for victims of the 2005 La Conchita Mudslide Disaster.

Band Members: Stone Cupid's Collective of wonderful well-seasoned musicians include Karen Hammack on piano and vocals, Cliff Hugo and Chris Symer on acoustic and electric basses, Jim Christie and James Cruce on drums, guitarists Greg Leisz, Robben Ford, Jonathan McEuen, and Stevie Gurr, and trumpeter Lee Thornburg.

Average Customer Review: 5