One victory at a time

 

 

Catch Jennifer Greer Oct. 10 at the Lily Pad.

There she was, singing for an audience at the Nevele Grande Resort in New York.

 

 

Jennifer Greer’s career as a musician was still years away from beginning, but a talent contest for young children staying at the resort had drawn her into performing. And, like a sign of her musical abilities that future audiences would come to know and love, she won.

 

But the win fell short on satisfaction.

 

As the fourth, third and second place finishers were announced, each went up to claim a prize from a pool of choices. By the time Jennifer’s name was called as the top-place finisher, the only prize left was a sewing kit with the resort’s name emblazoned on it.

 

The Cambridge-based singer and songwriter remembers the story with a laugh, thinking about what an 8-year-old girl would do with a prize sewing kit. Still, like the foreshadowing of her talent, the event also had a glimmer of other lessons.

 

She has released two CDs in the past six years, and is getting ready to record a third.  Her voice and piano playing have won the praise of critics, and her songs have earned accolades from magazines and radio stations. First and foremost, Jennifer expresses gratitude and appreciation for all of those things. At the same time, like any artist, she wonders how and when those victories will snowball into bigger goals, such as expanding her audience.

 

As the progress comes incrementally, Jennifer’s next step is to begin recording a new CD this month. Comparing the songwriting process to putting together the pieces of a puzzle, she said, “my job and greatest joy is to figure out how all the pieces unfold and come together.”

 

This time around, she is planning a style that is more aggressive and more direct than before.

 

Her prior release, The Apiary, drew comparisons to jazz influences, as well as the likes of Tori Amos and Norah Jones. All of that is valid, but Jennifer cites Joni Mitchell as her primary influence.

 

Other influences include Fiona Apple — “the textures are right there, you feel like you’re in the room [with her]” — and Stevie Wonder — “the songs are so joyful, they’re pure rhythm.” In fact, her passion for rhythm and mile-deep groves is underscored in her crowning of Led Zeppelin as “the best band ever.”

 

That power, accentuated with “thick, heavy drums” is something she wants to explore in the new CD. And like the overall sound, the writing process on this CD is different than before, too.

 

“I write more slowly now. I do much more editing. I can take one hour on a line of lyrics,” she said with a laugh. The spontaneity is still there, but the work now involves “lots of fine-tuning,” she said.

 

And, in another departure from prior works, “very few of my songs are about myself anymore,” she said. Sparks of inspiration now are more likely to come from characters in books and movies, current events, interactions with friends, and her fly-on-the-wall observer skills.

 

Even with a variety of sources providing ideas, she noted that “the lyrics are the hardest thing for me to do.” Not that it was always that way.

 

From the time she was 12 until she reached 25, Jennifer was an avid, prolific writer of poetry. She had a book she was putting together, and getting ready to publish.

 

“And then it just evaporated,” she said. That creative river of words that she had been pouring onto paper suddenly, and inexplicably, went dry.

 

“I was beyond puzzled. I was deeply upset,” she said. “I was quite certain that poetry was what I was going to do with the rest of my life.”

 

But the void created when the poetry disappeared was getting filled by something else.

 

“Where I had been hearing words, I started hearing sounds,” Jennifer said. That drove her back to playing the piano — something she hadn’t done for years. The move meant winning back a way to express her art.

 

With the victories she has notched in the years that followed, it seems the change in creative direction has worked well for her. But, she wouldn’t mind if her creative fountain started spouting words again, instead of music.

 

“I’m hoping when I’m old the writing will come back with a force,” she said.

 

 

 

FIRST TIME

“The first song I ever wrote was to my dead hamster.” The late ‘Sally’ inspired an emotional and musical outpouring from a very young Jennifer. “I was devastated. I didn’t even go to school the next day.”

 

 

WORST TIME

The challenges of playing live can keep even the best performers on their toes — or their faces. At one particular gig, Jennifer was tortured by a loose bolt in a mic stand. As she sat at her piano, playing and singing her songs, the mic slowly began to succumb to gravity. Not wanting to interrupt her song, Jennifer kept going, following the mic’s descent with her face. By the song’s end, her mic and face were buried in the piano.