"Shadow boxing with Amanda Marshall- Walmart Profile

Wal-Mart Profile Magazine

Shadow Boxing with Amanda Marshall

by Wolfgang Dios

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Anyone who's ever seen her on stage has little doubt that Amanda Marshall is a flamboyant natural performer, due not only to her arresting physical appearance -- the fluttering fingers that seem to punctuate each song, the sideways movement of the head as she shakes the shoulder length ringlets of her hair in time to the music and her constant, energetic motion -- but the tenacity and commitment she brings to the music itself. Invariably, she takes on more than she

had initially thought possible.

"But that was only because I hadn't done it before," she says, relaxed in a deep leather couch in the Toronto office of her management company on a sunny day late in April. She's just spent the day auditioning musicians for the upcoming Canadian tour to promote her new, and second, album Tuesday's Child "It wasn't that I couldn't do. These were things I just hadn't gotten to yet. There were a lot of firsts on this record ...the first time writing most of the material, being closely involved in the production and actually playing an instrument (the piano)." Despite this, "It was a much more relaxed record, a time of discovery..." That process, 'shadow boxing in my head again', is poetically though obliquely referred to in the laid-back, atmospheric minor chord song 'Right Here All Along', which she co-wrote with the legendary Carole King.

It may seem like a long time since her first self-titled album, which debuted in April of 1996 and ultimately sold two million

copies, "but I toured relentlessly for two years and it took about a year to get this record together." It was the tour that

provided the seeds for further musical germination. "One of the things I noticed was which songs elicited the strongest

reaction. People were connecting with me as a writer. I thought maybe I wasn't entirely certain of my contribution to

the two others that co-wrote, 'Dark Horse' and Let's Get Lost'."

When other artists began covering some of her material, including LeAnn Rimes, who did a version of 'Sitting On Top

Of The World', it was a substantial boost to her confidence. "Then I thought 'there must be something here'. So twelve

weeks before the end of the tour I began keeping a journal. Anything remotely inspirational, I'd keep a record of it. There

were words, poems, pieces of music, melodies. Then I made a list of people I wanted to hang with, and work with." That led her to Philadelphia and the home of writer/producer Eric Bazilian (Joan Osborne, The Hooters), with whom she co-wrote most of the material on Tuesday's Child. "Neither Eric nor I knew what to expect for a few days and just talked. I told him I didn't want to write unless I had something to say. Of course, he'd looked at the journal and said, 'Well, obviously you do have something to say!'"

Initially having intended to stay only for four days, she ended up remaining a month, not only writing songs ("it got so we couldn't enter the same room together without writing something") but creating elaborate demos in his home studio, with Marshall on piano and Bazilian on guitar. The result was a pile of 30 tunes "that we changed and honed and rifled through," from which they selected those that fit within the thematic context of the album. That earlier work paid off in some unexpected ways, since when they brought in veteran producer Don Was and added other musicians, Was thought they should hire the original piano player, since the artist "locked well" with the material. "That was easy to do," quips Amanda, "since the piano player was me!"

The overall theme of Tuesday's Child is of finding one's place in the world, and in one's own life. "everyone is born with a path to follow," Marshall observes. "some of us find it sooner, some later. A lot of it was to do with finding our place within relationships, or with family, or out in the world professionally. All the songs touch on that in some way. There are a lot of love songs on the album that really aren't about love affairs at all, but about family and friends."

To Marshall, one of the most important of these is 'Shades Of Grey' which is one of the two narrative songs on Tuesday's Child (the other being 'Too Little Too Late'). The 25-year-old, Toronto-born Marshall comes from a mixed racial heritage, her father being white Canadian, her mother Trinidadian. "It wasn't ever really discussed, it never came up but I was aware of it," she says. There's a chilling line in 'Shade of Grey' where Marshall's grandmother comments that 'Thank God I (Amanda) looked like my Daddy'." "That song," Marshall explains, "came in a huge chunk. I wrote he melody and lyrics in half an hour in a hotel room. It was my interpretation of not being close to my grandparents. Mind you, part of it is that when you're a kid, everything seems to relate to you. Everything is because of you, you have no real understanding of adults. I grew up an only child, and very close to my parents. The older I got, the more I interpreted the distance between myself and my grandparents. then I thought, maybe it's me...I'm not black or white but this odd in-between. When I'd written the song, I went into Eric's studio with the words and music, and told him 'you've got to hear this'. We didn't change a thing."

Not all of the 14 songs on Tuesday's Child came that easily. the album's final track, the raw power ballad 'If I Didn't Have

you', "was one of the hardest to write, and one of the first we (she and Bazilian) wrote). We had the music, the lyrics...it

took an hour to write but it just didn't work. It took 7 1/2 month of us torturing one another to finish it. But it's one of

the best vocal performances I've ever given. It was the most moved I've ever been, by myself." She laughs brightly. "I

always thought the greatest thing was to make my mom cry (musically speaking, sic)" she quips. "But I guess if you're

too moved to finish a take, that's a good thing too."

The approach to Tuesday's Child, thanks partly to Was, Marshall describes as more organic."David Tyson (who produced her first album) was more mathematical, where Don's approach was to guide you on the path you were already on...'just give me the best version of you', he'd say. There's a lot of overdubbing. Tuesday's Child is a produced spectacle," Marshall explains unapologetically. "It's a big rock show." On which, it should be noted, her voice has a direct and unadorned emotional simplicity that -- despite the epic scale of the music --paradoxically possesses a much greater intimacy that on her first album. Part of this is an increase in Marshall's confidence. "You learn a lot on tour," she says. "I've become much more aware of my surroundings and audience" Some of this she picked up while opening for John Mellencamp. "As a young performer you think you can do everything...but John is a veteran and has a devout, and frenzied, following. Watching him was a real education...it was like walking into someone else's energy field. Of course, every performer connects with an audience differently. And there are little tricks you can use. Let me think..." She pauses. "No, I wanted to give you an example, but I can't think of one."

The success Marshall has enjoyed has also brought with it an acute awareness of her situation and the personal cost of being an entertainer. Marshall began playing the club circuit when she was only 18, where she was noticed by bluesman Jeff Healy, ultimately leading to her deal with Epic/Sony. "People don't realize...when you do this with commitment, with passion, it sucks up your whole life. it's easy to become disassociated. Even with people you're close to, whom you love. But if you're lucky, you come all the way around...all that matters was really there all along to begin with." That sentiment is echoed in the song 'Right Here All Along': 'The little things I look so hard to find/ Are right here all along.'

Now she's intent on pursuing her own musical path, though she regards Carole King as something of a role model. 'Right Here All Along' was one of the last songs written for the album. "Carole's name has come up...I was going to Los Angeles and I knew she lived there. So I called her publisher and went to her studio. We just hit it off. I felt like I'd met her before. She was there when female singers came into their own, the Brill building...all of that. She's what I would like to be at her age, with her enthusiasm and passion." Marshall and King crafted two songs together, but the second one doesn't appear on the album. Instead, it's slated to be the B-side of her first single, 'Love Lift Me', in Europe.

For the most part, Tuesday's Child is an album with Marshall's trademark, over-the-top energy, and her powerful, slightly raspy, r&b vocal phrasing. With lyrics taken from her journal, many of the songs are about Marshall herself, who she is and whom she is becoming --- like the line 'Peace and quiet/ Puts me in a coma anyway' in the song 'Best Of me;. "That's me! That's true! Oh, that's true," Marshall exclaims cheerfully, shifting on the couch, unable to sit still.." Mind you, I'm learning to appreciate it...peace and quite." She pauses, not sure she's being altogether truthful, then relents. "I'm more inclined to noise and chaos," she admits, with satisfaction.


	Wal-Mart Profile Magazine Shadow Boxing with Amanda Marshall by Wolfgang Dios -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyone who's ever seen her on stage has little doubt that Amanda Marshall is a flamboyant natural performer, due not only to her arresting physical appearance -- the fluttering fingers that seem to punctuate each song, the sideways movement of the head as she shakes the shoulder length ringlets of her hair in time to the music and her constant, energetic motion -- but the tenacity and commitment she brings to the music itself. Invariably, she takes on more than she had initially thought possible. "But that was only because I hadn't done it before," she says, relaxed in a deep leather couch in the Toronto office of her management company on a sunny day late in April. She's just spent the day auditioning musicians for the upcoming Canadian tour to promote her new, and second, album Tuesday's Child "It wasn't that I couldn't do. These were things I just hadn't gotten to yet. There were a lot of firsts on this record ...the first time writing most of the material, being closely involved in the production and actually playing an instrument (the piano)." Despite this, "It was a much more relaxed record, a time of discovery..." That process, 'shadow boxing in my head again', is poetically though obliquely referred to in the laid-back, atmospheric minor chord song 'Right Here All Along', which she co-wrote with the legendary Carole King. It may seem like a long time since her first self-titled album, which debuted in April of 1996 and ultimately sold two million copies, "but I toured relentlessly for two years and it took about a year to get this record together." It was the tour that provided the seeds for further musical germination. "One of the things I noticed was which songs elicited the strongest reaction. People were connecting with me as a writer. I thought maybe I wasn't entirely certain of my contribution to the two others that co-wrote, 'Dark Horse' and Let's Get Lost'." When other artists began covering some of her material, including LeAnn Rimes, who did a version of 'Sitting On Top Of The World', it was a substantial boost to her confidence. "Then I thought 'there must be something here'. So twelve weeks before the end of the tour I began keeping a journal. Anything remotely inspirational, I'd keep a record of it. There were words, poems, pieces of music, melodies. Then I made a list of people I wanted to hang with, and work with." That led her to Philadelphia and the home of writer/producer Eric Bazilian (Joan Osborne, The Hooters), with whom she co-wrote most of the material on Tuesday's Child. "Neither Eric nor I knew what to expect for a few days and just talked. I told him I didn't want to write unless I had something to say. Of course, he'd looked at the journal and said, 'Well, obviously you do have something to say!'" Initially having intended to stay only for four days, she ended up remaining a month, not only writing songs ("it got so we couldn't enter the same room together without writing something") but creating elaborate demos in his home studio, with Marshall on piano and Bazilian on guitar. The result was a pile of 30 tunes "that we changed and honed and rifled through," from which they selected those that fit within the thematic context of the album. That earlier work paid off in some unexpected ways, since when they brought in veteran producer Don Was and added other musicians, Was thought they should hire the original piano player, since the artist "locked well" with the material. "That was easy to do," quips Amanda, "since the piano player was me!" The overall theme of Tuesday's Child is of finding one's place in the world, and in one's own life. "everyone is born with a path to follow," Marshall observes. "some of us find it sooner, some later. A lot of it was to do with finding our place within relationships, or with family, or out in the world professionally. All the songs touch on that in some way. There are a lot of love songs on the album that really aren't about love affairs at all, but about family and friends." To Marshall, one of the most important of these is 'Shades Of Grey' which is one of the two narrative songs on Tuesday's Child (the other being 'Too Little Too Late'). The 25-year-old, Toronto-born Marshall comes from a mixed racial heritage, her father being white Canadian, her mother Trinidadian. "It wasn't ever really discussed, it never came up but I was aware of it," she says. There's a chilling line in 'Shade of Grey' where Marshall's grandmother comments that 'Thank God I (Amanda) looked like my Daddy'." "That song," Marshall explains, "came in a huge chunk. I wrote he melody and lyrics in half an hour in a hotel room. It was my interpretation of not being close to my grandparents. Mind you, part of it is that when you're a kid, everything seems to relate to you. Everything is because of you, you have no real understanding of adults. I grew up an only child, and very close to my parents. The older I got, the more I interpreted the distance between myself and my grandparents. then I thought, maybe it's me...I'm not black or white but this odd in-between. When I'd written the song, I went into Eric's studio with the words and music, and told him 'you've got to hear this'. We didn't change a thing." Not all of the 14 songs on Tuesday's Child came that easily. the album's final track, the raw power ballad 'If I Didn't Have you', "was one of the hardest to write, and one of the first we (she and Bazilian) wrote). We had the music, the lyrics...it took an hour to write but it just didn't work. It took 7 1/2 month of us torturing one another to finish it. But it's one of the best vocal performances I've ever given. It was the most moved I've ever been, by myself." She laughs brightly. "I always thought the greatest thing was to make my mom cry (musically speaking, sic)" she quips. "But I guess if you're too moved to finish a take, that's a good thing too." The approach to Tuesday's Child, thanks partly to Was, Marshall describes as more organic."David Tyson (who produced her first album) was more mathematical, where Don's approach was to guide you on the path you were already on...'just give me the best version of you', he'd say. There's a lot of overdubbing. Tuesday's Child is a produced spectacle," Marshall explains unapologetically. "It's a big rock show." On which, it should be noted, her voice has a direct and unadorned emotional simplicity that -- despite the epic scale of the music --paradoxically possesses a much greater intimacy that on her first album. Part of this is an increase in Marshall's confidence. "You learn a lot on tour," she says. "I've become much more aware of my surroundings and audience" Some of this she picked up while opening for John Mellencamp. "As a young performer you think you can do everything...but John is a veteran and has a devout, and frenzied, following. Watching him was a real education...it was like walking into someone else's energy field. Of course, every performer connects with an audience differently. And there are little tricks you can use. Let me think..." She pauses. "No, I wanted to give you an example, but I can't think of one." The success Marshall has enjoyed has also brought with it an acute awareness of her situation and the personal cost of being an entertainer. Marshall began playing the club circuit when she was only 18, where she was noticed by bluesman Jeff Healy, ultimately leading to her deal with Epic/Sony. "People don't realize...when you do this with commitment, with passion, it sucks up your whole life. it's easy to become disassociated. Even with people you're close to, whom you love. But if you're lucky, you come all the way around...all that matters was really there all along to begin with." That sentiment is echoed in the song 'Right Here All Along': 'The little things I look so hard to find/ Are right here all along.' Now she's intent on pursuing her own musical path, though she regards Carole King as something of a role model. 'Right Here All Along' was one of the last songs written for the album. "Carole's name has come up...I was going to Los Angeles and I knew she lived there. So I called her publisher and went to her studio. We just hit it off. I felt like I'd met her before. She was there when female singers came into their own, the Brill building...all of that. She's what I would like to be at her age, with her enthusiasm and passion." Marshall and King crafted two songs together, but the second one doesn't appear on the album. Instead, it's slated to be the B-side of her first single, 'Love Lift Me', in Europe. For the most part, Tuesday's Child is an album with Marshall's trademark, over-the-top energy, and her powerful, slightly raspy, r&b vocal phrasing. With lyrics taken from her journal, many of the songs are about Marshall herself, who she is and whom she is becoming --- like the line 'Peace and quiet/ Puts me in a coma anyway' in the song 'Best Of me;. "That's me! That's true! Oh, that's true," Marshall exclaims cheerfully, shifting on the couch, unable to sit still.." Mind you, I'm learning to appreciate it...peace and quite." She pauses, not sure she's being altogether truthful, then relents. "I'm more inclined to noise and chaos," she admits, with satisfaction.