Caitlin Cary
Looking Her Way
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Oh, and she's also trying to break out of the huge shadow left by her previous musical excursion, a little band out of North Carolina called Whiskeytown. Some of you may have heard of that band, or perhaps you're more familiar with its former lead singer, the engimatic songwriting machine known as Ryan Adams.
Whiskeytown left a small, albeit lasting, mark on the music scene a few years ago with the release of 1997's brilliant Strangers' Almanac, a monster of an album that had many alt.country lovers thinking they just found that genre's Nirvana. But what they got instead was its version of the Byrds, a loose-knit revolving-door collection of local talent and session players centered around a brilliant but impatient leader.
The band changed line-ups and musical styles so quickly that each of its three albums has at least one new member.
One constant throughout its five- or six-year existence (that depends on who you ask) was Cary, the stable violinist who provided the anchor for the group when Adams wanted to sail into any direction possible. Her beautiful harmony vocals were a staple of the band, and her mere presence probably kept the group intact while it lasted.
But that was then, and this is now. And this is also Cary's time, as March marks the release of her first full-length album, as well as an ambitious touring and promotional schedule. For Cary, who in 2000 released the five-song EP Waltzie, taking the jump from Whiskeytown sidewoman and caretaker to fronting her own band was a leap of faith.
"Its sort of a thing you really have to try, and, thank goodness, I so far haven't failed," Cary explained recently. "You don't know if you can do it if you don't try. It definitely was a big leap of faith, sort of like holding your nose and jumping off the high dive, and hoping that there's water in the pool."
From the sounds of While You Weren't Looking, it appears that the pool is not only full, but overflowing. Critics, yours truly included, are lauding the album as better than Adams's solo commercial breakthrough Gold, and possibly even better than his own strong debut, 2000's Heartbreaker.
One of the strongest criticisms of Adams is his desire to write and record as many songs as possible, no matter how finished or complete they are. While I'm sure many musicians and critics would kill to have his songwriting ability, his breakneck speed lives little room for perfection, and lots of room for haphazardness.
Cary, on the other hand, is the yin to Adams's yang. Her careful and deliberate approach to songwriting is readily apparent throughout her debut, and although it took her more than two years to put together, it certainly demonstrates that hard work does indeed pay off. Much of the album was co-written with Mike Daly, who played on Whiskeytown's posthumously released album, last year's Pneumonia. "Well, [working with Ryan], it was always me partly scrambling to keep up with him and partly really trying to slow him down and get him to do what I knew he was capable of doing," Cary said. "I've felt always like I was trying to say, 'Look, we need to take a little more time with these songs, let's work on the arrangements.' I think I just have a different aesthetic, and Mike and I are much more in line as far as that goes. It's much more of a 50-50 give-and-take, lots of compromise."
The more deliberate approach, Cary says, is a stark contrast to her Whiskeytown days, where she says Adams sometimes gave the band little time to learn and rehearse the many songs pouring out of his pen. "Ryan's attention span was so short that you had a little moment to shine and if you didn't happen to have anything to give to that song, it would be done and we'd be playing it more before you ever could notice."
On her record, Cary says that the song "Pony," a careful ode to her childhood days, was the most difficult to write. "I wrote the lyrics and I thought the lyrics were just great, but sort of risky and dangerous, and I didn't know how to put it to music without it coming out really corny," she said.
"Because the lyrics are much more sort of happy and silly than [anything] I've ever written ... I just had to hand [the song] over to Mike and have him write the melody, and he wrote a melody that was also sort of real catchy and happy."
Cary said it took producer Chris Stamey's encouragement that she sing the song "like you're trying to get the Four Tops to cover it" before it finally all fell together.
Another difficult song was the opener, the poppy "Shallow Heart, Shallow Water." "I was scared to death to put that as the first song on the record because I thought, 'Oh my God, the Whiskeytown fans are going to think I've sold out and become a shimmery pop girl'."
But the album as a whole is not a pop record, nor is it an exact replica of her Whiskeytown days. Although three of the songs were co-written with Adams, only two -- "Please Don't Hurry Your Heart" and the closer "I Ain't Found Nobody Yet" -- bring up comparisons to her former band.
Much of album is rooted in a folk sound, giving Cary's soaring soprano a more appropriate venue to shine. But she conceded that the album's folky timbre has more to do with the songs themselves, rather than the writer.
"I'm not sure that I could have been conscious of that," she said. "I think that when you write honestly, you're not in control of that. Some people have a rock and roll soul. I think there are songs on the record that to me sound like old Whiskeytown songs, but I just don't know that the honest songwriter, who's writing what they feel in their heart, can predict whether its going to be a rock record or a folk record. It just what it is."
Cary lists Rickie Lee Jones, Joe Henry, Gillian Welch, Ray Charles and Willie Nelson as other artists she admires who let the craft direct them, instead of the other way around. Or, as Neil Young so eloquenly put it, they "work for the Muse." But Cary also is quick to point out that in her mind, Prince is the "most influential artist of our generation."
Why?
"Its hard to define, but I just think he's the Ray Charles or James Brown of our time," she said. "He defined music in so many sort of styles and he's so incredibly innovative and unafraid, just totally brave. I would argue that Prince is the shit."
Reflecting on such crucial songwriters has also given her a chance to put her time in Whiskeytown in some perspective. Although she will only reluctantly admit that the band did have a big impact in the small pool of so-called alt.country, she says that she is beginning to appreciate just how influential they were to certain people.
"It is so difficult to have any perception that Whiskeytown was seminal," she said. "It was just us, you know? But I definitely with the past year have been able to distance myself enough from Strangers' Almanac and put it on and listen to it as if I wasn't even part of it and realize what a great record it really is. I'm awfully proud to have been a part of something that means so much to people. Its remarkable to realize that -- even though none of us made any real money or had any real fame -- to know that for at least a few people, it was such an important record."
But Cary is clearly moving on, and trying to shed the cursed "alt.country" label that can make some careers, but break others. "Its a dangerous thing to get plunked into this genre and limited in that way," she said. "Even if it's only in perception."
And her thoughts on Ryan Adams and his apparent mainstream breakthrough? Cary says that he is perhaps at his best on his own; she does not appear to be regretting the fact that she isn't there with him. "I've seen his live show and I think he's about 100% better on his own, with him and his guitar ... because he doesn't have anyone to fall back on," she said. "He has to really exercise his talent and give 100%, and he really can do that. Its incredible to see what he does to a room when he's just by himself with a guitar. I haven't seen him with the Gold band..., but I have a feeling I know what that sounds like -- that [probably] sounds like what he often wanted to do with Whiskeytown, which was wank off in a heavy metal way."
RODEO ROB | An expert on all things "alt," Rob spends his days covering the energy industry and his nights covering the DC-area bars. Raise yer glass especially high to this man, for he has contributed to this site constantly since its creation four years ago.