Susie Hug - Tucson Moonshine

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 8 / 6 / 2010

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Back in the late eighties I remember falling head over heels in love with a song called ‘Lights Out (Read My Lips)’ by a band named the Katydids. There was something exotic about the female lead singer and the guitarist had a pretty neat sound. The fact that the song was produced by Nick Lowe also helped I thought. A winning combination if there ever was one. I bought the album that song came from simply titled ‘The Katydids’ and also the band's follow up album ‘Shangri-La’ a year or so later. This time the band chose Ian Broudie and Ray Shulman for production duties. What was it with this band; they always picked such great producers and I have no shame in admitting that I like both Simon Dupree and The Big Sound and Gentle Giant; but maybe you had to be there. Those two albums were played a lot when first released but I have to admit that over the years apart from noticing that the guitarist, Adam Seymour, went on to play in the Pretenders and recently putting selected tracks from those albums onto my iPod and therefore rediscovering them all over again that I didn’t have a clue as to what the singer, Susie Hug, had been doing. I also have to admit that although the name seemed vaguely familiar it still didn’t register that when I first played ‘Tucson Moonshine’ that Susie Hug was the girl whose voice and songs I fell in love with twenty or so years ago. I was interested in ‘Tucson Moonshine’ initially not because I realised who Susie Hug is but because the album was produced by JD Foster and featured not only a handful of co-writes with Joey and John Burns but the Calexico connection was strengthened even more by some of the band playing on the album. It was almost too good to be true. In checking out what Susie Hug has been up to musically over the last two decades (and it’s plenty, far too much to go into here but there is a Travis connection that I completely missed out on for starters) it became obvious that these gentle but strangely tough vocals came from that same singer who for a few months twenty years ago was my favourite female singer. The good news is that Susie has lost none of whatever is was that made her vocals so appealing so long ago. In fact if you compare those albums against the songs on ‘Tucson Moonshine’ the vocals could almost have been put down in the same period. It’s incredible that Susie’s vocals have lost none of the innocence that shone through in her songs in the intervening years while still managing to sound sultry at times. It’s also pretty obvious that Susie has lost none of her talent for writing intelligent pop songs as there isn’t a dud song on ‘Tucson Moonshine’. Despite the input from Calexico and a couple of co-writes with Adam Seymour this is very much Susie’s album. Of course trumpeter Jacob Valenzuela and John Convertino’s distinctive drumming leave you in no doubt that the spirit of Calexico hovers largely over the proceedings and by opening the album with ‘A Modern Life’ which is a duet of a sort with Joey Burns it’s obvious that there will be a Calexico influence but it’s just as obvious that this is a project that is going to yield some fine results due not only to JD Foster’s production but to Susie’s songs. It’s an atmospheric collection of songs and while those vocals remain the same the songs cover more ground and take you on a far more interesting musical journey than anything the Katydids did. It almost feels like this is the album that Susie has been waiting to make all these years. As good as those early albums are ‘Tucson Moonshine’ sounds like some kind of homecoming for Susie. It’s like she’s finally found her musical home. Listen to Susie’s vocals in ‘Cherry Blossom Hangs’ for proof that she has lost none of her vocal talents and wonder why it’s taken so long for her to hook up with this bunch of musicians as it just sounds so right and natural. One of the biggest surprises this year has been the return of a singer I had almost forgotten about who has placed her songs in a setting you wouldn’t have expected and made one of the most affecting yet catchy collection of songs released so far this year.

Track Listing:-

1 A Modern Lie
2 Everybody Changes
3 Shed A Tear
4 Cherry Blossom Hangs
5 Prison of Your Heart
6 Out of Nowhere
7 Lonesome Dream
8 Down To the Water
9 Second Thoughts
10 Flinch
11 Stolen Moments
12 My Own Skeleton

Label Links:-

http://www.vacilando68.org/
https://www.facebook.com/Vacilando68

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