She plays, among other things, hip-swayin' backporch jazz. Americana singer Devon Sproule talks to JOE BREEN
MUSICIANS ARE generally, and no doubt rightly, cautious about telephone interviews. When you can’t see the whites of your interrogator’s eyes, who knows what kind of dastardly things they might be cooking up? Sweet-singing Devon Sproule, shortly to play in Cork and Dublin, is different.
“Thank you for helping us publicise the shows,” she says. And you just know she means it. She disarms with such charm, honesty and absence of guile that at the end of the call it feels like we have had an actual conversation.
It is the same with her music. Her two most recent albums, Keep Your Silver Shinedand this year's Don't Hurry for Heaven!are enchanting and engrossing postcards of a life lived with her husband, musician Paul Curreri, in Charlottesville, Virginia. Bathed in washes of folk, country and jazz, her songs are candid, humorous and warm but not confessional.
At 27, and a professional musician for over a decade, Sproule knows how to write and indeed perform a song (check out her singing of Don't Hurry for Heavenon YouTube), yet her take on Americana seems so fresh.
“My brother-in-law once called my music hot wifey backporch jazz. Ha, ha. But yes, that works fine for me! With my new record being quite a lot less airy, more groovy, maybe you’d need to add another adjective in there: Hip-swayin’ backporch jazz. Something like that?
“Seriously, though, I tell folks that it’s got a lot of folk influence, Virginia influence, but with more descriptive writing, less outright storytelling.”
Her influences are quite revealing. “Well the guy I live with, Paul Curreri, has definitely been a big ol’ influence. It’d be hard to not be influenced by him — he plays guitar all gosh darn day!
“I really, really love the Beatles. Love that their playfulness fits right in with everything they did. For some reason, I think about [noted American singer/songwriter] Victoria Williams all the time. I’m not even that intimate with her music, I just love thinking about the way she is and what she’s hung on to from being a child.”
Sproule agrees that her songs convey an endearing openness and candour but also a sense of innocence. “Yeah, sure. I’m pretty sure I’m an optimist. And I like simple stuff. And I had a pretty good childhood.
“So maybe that helps me to just bare it all and not feel funny about it. But I like to think that I have high standards for lyric writing, so even when it sounds totally candid, it’s usually been worked through pretty carefully.”
That childhood was different from the norm. Born in Canada, Sproule’s parents brought her up in a commune in Virginia and it is clear that she has fond memories.
“Lots of land. Lots of people. Lots of music. Good, healthy food.
“Good communication. Men in skirts. Women running sawmills.
“Copperheads. Compost. Consensus. Yeah, it was good for me.” She also has no regrets about sharing a musical life with her husband.
“It’s sort’ve what you’d think. Wonderful to have music in common.
“Great to be able to sleep in. Not much money. Lots of time apart which, for the most part, is really good, keeps things fresh. Sometimes it’s hard. Paul’s always helped me with my songs, even before he was producing records for me. I’m pretty sure I help him too. I certainly help him stay grounded to practical stuff, to everyday life. But with creative things too, I think. Collaborating used to be a lot trickier, a lot more ego involved. We’ve gotten better over the years, more easy-going.”
Recently the pair spent some time in Africa on an unusual mission. "In the 1930s, Jimmie Rogers, the famous American yodelling country singer, died of TB. In the 1950s, a British guy named Hugh Tracy recorded two sisters in Kenya singing a song called Chemirocha, sounding suspiciously like his name.
“Turns out the people of the Kipsigis tribe had decided anyone who could sing as well as Jimmie Rogers couldn’t be mortal. So they elevated him to some sort of deity and with some amount of humour, incorporated him into fertility rites in which they asked him to leap so high that he would leap out of his clothes.
“Some time in the last couple of decades, a guy named Guy Morley heard these recordings and decided that the story needed to be further explored. He decided to bring together African and western musicians to collaborate. Paul and I were the westerns! We spent 10 days in Kenya, playing music with older, established musicians from Nairobi and around the country. Some parts of it were very loose, some were more structured. It was an incredible experience. We’re hoping to record more and perhaps tour with them in 2010, if our British pals can make it happen.”
As befitting someone with such a distinctive style and voice, Sproule also dresses quite individualistically in a 1940s style. Is that a conscious decision and, if so, why?
"Well, sure, if I had to pick a favourite era for clothes, that might be it: frumpy and layered but incredibly cute. Unfortunately, I never really perfected the finger wave. Also, that vibe went really nicely with my last record, Keep Your Silver Shined. Whereas the new one, Don't Hurry for Heaven!, is a little groovier, a little heavier, and perhaps my wardrobe choices have reflected that a bit. Ha! This actually makes me sound like I care about it much more than I do. But it's fun to talk about."
Finally, apart from touring, what is next on the Devon Sproule agenda? “I’ve got my fingers crossed for another trip to Africa!”
Devon Sproule plays in Crane Lane, Cork, on October 26th and Crawdaddy in Dublin on October 27th. Don't Hurry for Heaven!is on Tin Angel
