Brian Courtey Wilson & Liz Wright..주님, 듣고 계시나요?

NPR Tiny Desk Concert....Brian Courtney Wilson

 

전직 제약회사 외판원인 '브라이언 코트니 윌슨'...

대학을 졸업한 후,  일요일 아침이면 교회 가는 대신 숙취에 몸부림 치는 나날들을 보내다가...

어느새 휴스턴 연합감리교회의 음악감독 자리를 차지하게 되었다.
작년에 냈던 그의 데뷔 앨범'Just Love'에 새 노래 4 곡을 더해 다시 앨범을 냈는데,

외롭게 간구하듯 시작한 'The only Way"는 흥겹게 공감을 불러일으키듯 끝난다.

 싱어송라이터인 Brian...

 '만약, 바로 나를 위해서 예수께서 목숨을 바치셨다면, 나를 도와 주세요'라며

 그는 예수께 직접 말을 거는 데 어려움이 없어 보인다.

노래를 시작한지 45초 될 때 '나는 너무도 많은 시간을 허비했어요'라고 거듭 되뇌던 그가

4분쯤 지나자 회한에 가득찬 그 말을 이제는 멈추기로 결심한다.

 

Brian Courtney Wilson released his debut album, Just Love, last year and has just reissued it with four new songs.

One of them, "The only Way", begins lonely and pleading and ends up celebratory and communal.

Like much of gospel music, Wilson's songs are most often about humbling himself before God.

He's very everyman in his approach – copping to mistakes, owning up to weakness and crippling fear.

On this song, the refrain recalls painful times: "The choices made gave me scars that stayed." And then he asks for help.

"But now I have decided to stand here despite the fear. Teach me how to live and love again, the only way."

Wilson tells his life story much the same way.

He graduated from college and spent years hung over on Sunday mornings — and not in church.

He worked in pharmaceutical sales for years before committing to the church instead,

eventually taking over as music director at St. John's United Methodist Church in Houston.

As a songwriter, Wilson has no problem speaking directly to Jesus, saying he needs help "if I am to be the man you died to see."

This arrangement of "The only Way" makes it seem like that kind of direct line might be for real.

The song starts simple and clean. The left hand of the piano stays low, trading lines with the bass.

Gradually Wilson's voice — which lives comfortably in the mid-range, where regular people can sing along — becomes more confident.

Backup singers join him, and strings and a snare drum fall in line. It sounds like he needs help — then asks for it, and gets it.

After he's got some help, he gets a little playful — drops a trill, brings in more dynamics. He gives the drummer a fill.

"I've wasted so much time," he says 45 seconds in. By minute four he's decided to stop doing that.

이 짧지만 매우 만족할 만한 두 곡의 노래로 이루어진 미니컨서트...

언제나 진화하는 Liz는 차분하고 절제된 노래로 그녀의 과거를 지배하던 복음성가를 뽑아낸다.

밴드 또한 교묘하리 만큼 정교한 솜씨로 그녀의 노래를 도와준다.

 

In this short but satisfying two-song set at the NPR Music offices,

the ever-evolving Wright channels the gospel of her past while remaining coolly understated.

It helps, of course, that she's got a subtly crafty band with her.

Set List:

"Hit The Ground"
"I Remember, I Believe"

"Speak Your Heart" , 2008

 

 

 

리즈 라이트, 1980년 1월 22일 생...

재즈, R&B, 싱어송 라이터이다.

죠지아 주의 Hahira라는 작은 마을의 목사님의 딸로 세상 빛을 보았고,

유년시절 부터 교회에서 피아노를 치고 가스펠 송들을 불렀다.

죠지아 주립대를 거쳐 뉴욕의 'New School', 그리고 밴쿠버에서 노래를 배운 그녀..

리즈는 2000년에 'In The Spirit'이라는 4인조 보컬을 결성해서 비평가들의 극찬을 받았고

2002년에 'Verve' 리코드사와 계약을 맺었다.

그곳에서 작곡과 가창 스타일이 Norah Johnes에 비교될 만큼 성장했다.

2003년에 발매된 첫 앨범인 'Salt'는 2004년 빌보드 차트의 '최고의 현대 재즈'부문에서 2 위에 올랐으며

재즈와 팝이 주종을 이루던 이 앨범에 포크의 맛을 첨가해 음악적으로 블렌딩했다.

이어서 'Dreaming Wide Awake'는  2005년과 2006년에 다시 빌보드 차트에서 1위를 했고

2008년에 발매한 'The Orchard' 역시 호평을 받았다.

2011년, 새로운 앨범 "Fellowship"을 냈다.

.....홈페이지를 방문하면 그녀의 음악을 맛 볼 수 있다.

 

Liz Wright의 홈페이지 -     http://www.lizzwright.net/

Lizz Wright continues her genre-defying journey with Fellowship,

a nod to her roots in gospel on the one hand and her gospel of eclecticism on the other.

 Beginning with the ecumenical Me’Shell N’Degeocello-penned title track,

Fellowship is not a traditional genre exercise.

While emphasizing a healthy dose of the rousing hymnody Wright grew up singing in the church

 (she is, indeed, the daughter of a Georgia pastor),

the album borrows from the decidedly secular catalogs of Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Gladys Knight,

topped by even more modern material from Joan Wasser, of the indie-rock act, Joan as Police Woman.

Wright says, “I wanted to do some songs from home and some straight-up gospel,

but I also had some other things I want to share that I see as sacred.’”

Wright had taken some time off last year to stay close to home

and get back in touch with non-musical interests-including graduating from culinary school.

Deciding 2010 was time for a new album, looking homeward quickly provided focus.

“I went into this project thinking that it was a good time to sing the songs

that I needed in my life and that I felt like my people needed.

The gospel is always in my heart and veins,

and the voices of my family singing those stories is always with me

and at any time I can visit that place and come back with the riches quickly.”

There was never any question that Fellowship would be a mixture of standards

known to the African-American church along with some redefining choices.

“I definitely needed to represent where I came from, but I also needed to say something now.

When I was considering possibilities for covers,

 I thought it would be great if I approached the work of contemporaries like Joan and Me’shell.

“Compared to my previous albums, Fellowship was made rather quickly,

but because it evolved within the gathering of generous and gracious friends like Toshi Reagon,

Bernice Johnson Reagon, and Angelique Kidjo, the elements came to life, into focus,

and I had a clear direction after a short period.”

Growing up in the Pentecostal church, Wright wasn’t allowed to listen to popular music.

Oddly-or maybe serendipitously-the historic night

when she really made the leap from her early musical life to her present one

 involved putting a “secular” spin on a spiritual.

“There are some circles you could draw here that are real.

I was blessed to be able to work on this album with the pianist that I had my very first gig with,

 one of my best friends, Kenny Banks. He’s one of the ministers of music at a Methodist church in Atlanta,

and was right there when I was 19, watching me make the transition from only gospel to that first night

where I sat in at a club on Peachtree Street downtown.

I sang, ‘Amazing Grace’-but as a blues.

This song that I had known all my life just came roaring out of me

with anger and sadness and all my curiosity,” she adds laughing.

“The funny thing about the transition from only gospel to jazz is that I felt that jazz had a familiar sacredness to it.

 In all of my adventures in music, I’ve been drawn in by sparks of the familiar inside of the unfamiliar.

For example, when I first heard what people were calling the blues, I was taken aback,

because I had heard that sound all my life. That was how the mothers sang in church.”

Wright has been the recipient of nonstop critical acclaim and ever-increasing audiences

ever since her Verve debut, Salt, in 2003.

But she’s confounded expectations along the way about what should be expected of an artist

who’s known for topping the jazz charts but is far from most people’s idea of a traditional jazz singer.

“I don’t know how to aim at groups. Songs carry stories that I need to tell, and I just pick them up and sing.

Music has allowed me the opportunity to ask a lot of questions, to open and reconcile lot of things.

 My life is broad and very open, so my seemingly eclectic choices are also natural.”

Wright openly reflects on her motivations.

 “It’s time for me to think about what helps and heals somebody else.

And sometimes it’s good to sing simple things that people need, besides pieces that are more intriguing or that have great poetry.

 That’s where I found myself this time around. There are a lot of tools in here.

Sometimes we have songs to climb up on to get over obstacles.” Prepare to get lifted!

 

(Liz의 홈페이지에서 옮겨온 그녀의 삶 이야기)