Heather Greene - Five Dollar Dress

  by Malcolm Carter

published: 27 / 7 / 2008

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Review

This collection of eleven songs which comprise the debut by Heather Greene opens with the only cover here, a version of The Cars ‘Just What I Needed’ which Greene doesn’t, as we are so fond of saying when describing a brilliant rendition of a cover, just make her own, but turns on its head, spins it around and turns it into the most breathy, sensual and affecting cover we will hear all year. With Bill Frisell’s minimalist guitar, brushed drums and Greene’s pure, innocent vocals it really is a stroke of genius. It’s a beautiful piece of work and the Cars' Rik Ocasek who wrote the song should be proud that Greene has taken his song to another level. After that outstanding opener I was prepared to accept it if Greene’s own compositions didn’t quite match up to the brilliance of that interpretation. But they do. The very next song, ‘Not Exactly’ is a melodic tune again with Bill Frisell supplying superb guitar and on which Greene’s innocence-sounding but knowing vocals are as clear as a bell. “ You’re not exactly what I wanted, you might be what I need” the New York City based singer / songwriter sings, and not for the last time you get the feeling that there is a certain amount of sarcasm in Greene’s lyrics that belies the childlike innocence in her vocals at times. The only complaint this time is that at just 2 and a half minutes the song fades out just as we want it to never end. I had to check a few times that the song did in fact last for that length of time; it feels that it has only just started when it ends. I guess when you are enjoying something so much time really does fly… Although Greene isn’t breaking any new ground here as such there is enough originality in her lyrics and her singing style to pull her out from an already overcrowded genre. She flits between different styles of music. While that opening cover is still firmly rooted in the pure pop genre,Greene injects both jazz and folk into her songs. There are moments where the jazz inflected songs maybe don’t work so well on disc as they would in a club, ‘I Wrote Your Name’ is one song where Greene shows her jazz leanings and it’s a beautiful piece of writing, dreamy and with pedal steel and strings all adding texture but one can’t help but feel that to appreciate it fully you need to be sitting in a smoky club somewhere. The following song, ‘Hold Me Down’ again mixes Greene’s jazz leanings with her pop sensibilities and once again the stunning strings add texture to the song and there’s some outstanding percussion from Tucker Martine who also produced the album. While these jazz influenced songs take a play or two to reveal all their beauty when Greene takes a more traditional pop route as on the aforementioned ‘Not Exactly’ or ‘Saving Goodbye’ the songs instantly hit home. Just now ‘I Wanna Thank You’ is the most popular song from this collection round here, combining Greene’s jazz, folk and pop leanings in equal measures. Bill Frisell once again adds his gorgeous guitar to what just could be Greene’s best vocal performance on the album. It appears that Greene actually released this album herself way back in 2005, but now it has been issued on Judy Collins Wildflower Record label which should get it out to the wider audience the album so rightly deserves. A satisfying collection of songs that can be played and enjoyed at time and on any occasion. A truly remarkable debut.

Track Listing:-

1 Just What I Needed
2 Not Exactly
3 I Wrote Your Name
4 Hold Me Down
5 When You Drive
6 Daybreak
7 1000 Lights
8 Saving Goodbye
9 I Wanna Thank You
10 Looking Glass
11 Five Dollar Dress