Family Fourth: The Return of Lizzie West

So…I love the ones who stay in the fray. I was delighted a couple of days ago when my old friend Lizzie West dropped a new track with a Fourth of July theme, for I’ve missed her, and she is one of the few I’ve come across in this business-called-show who processes (and strives to put out) a vision of Americana that seeks to reclaim the positive traditions that have gotten lost and buried, ones of Transcendence, Spirituality, Nature, Beauty, and Love. (Those are ALSO America, ye money-grubbing, gun-toting swine!) I’ve capitalized those ideals because I’m pretty sure Emerson would do that, and he’s the sort of inspiration I’m getting at. Him and Whitman, and the Beats, and the makers of Be Bop, and folk music. It was George Stoney’s birthday the other day (Stoney, my old college adviser, was the Father of Public Access TV) and Public Access makes me feel the old “Fraternité, égalité, liberté”, and so does that wonderful cultural institution the open mic night, where everybody gets their stage time, everybody gets their say. I used to run an open mic night at a joint called The Charleston in Williamsburg Brooklyn in the late ’90s and into the early thousands, and that is where I first met Lizzie.

You meet so many people when you spend time at weekly open mics, poetry slams, hootenannies and what have you. I’ve written about several (Rev Jen’s Anti-Slam, Faceboyz Open Mic, Lach’s Anti-Folk one). The worst ones are the stand-up comedy clubs, and I count myself glad it’s been decades since I’ve subjected myself to THAT. But few DARE to try a musical open mic night without some basic competency at one or more element of song. My least favorites were the dull ones, and the painfully earnest ones, but I loved them for trying, and for showing up for the mission of sharing. My favorites were the strange ones, the ones you would tell stories about when you got home, for this is New York, and we make the best, most loveable weirdos on the planet. And there were a small handful who you just knew had their shit together and would be the ones to make it, or to at least get a bite at the big show. The ones who combined lots of talent, lots of imagination, lots of personality, and who had clearly put in lots and lots of hard work on every aspect of what they did, the songwriting, the vocal styling, the guitar playing (everyone played guitar) and the visual aspect (I’m in theatre — the costume counts).

Lizzie was one of a small group I could count on one hand, out of the hundreds of aspiring performers I met, whom I just knew had a plan and was following it, and would surely reach her destination. She presented herself as a star from the get-go. Her look was a kind of a cross between a Hollywood baby doll and a Nashville cow-girl; she sang in a world-weary voice of the sort that clicked very nicely in the nineties. She wrote these beautiful, poetic lyrics, and sang so sweetly, and seemed to embody something I connected with. I only just learned her real last name, Westergaard, so you can throw a little Viking maiden into the mix, although her persona is much softer than that.

Unlike most of us kicking around the Williamsburg scene she was actually from Brooklyn. I just found a terrific New York Times article that paints a cool portrait of that time and place (early 2000). The only flaw I can find in the piece is that it doesn’t mention ME! Though it does mention the Charleston and the Abbey, where I both ran open mic nights. But my clear centrality to the universe was overlooked! Quelle dommage. But it’s worth a read to connect with a time and place that’s long gone, and to witness the very moment Williamsburg became Williamsburg. Of the places mentioned, Pete’s Candy Store is still around, and it’s pretty much still like it was back then. I cite the article also because the Cathrine Westergaard in the story, who tended bar at The Abbey and had just opened a new club called The Stinger, is Lizzie’s sister.

Postcard from one of Lizzie’s early shows on my Wall of Fame

Something else that I did not know way back then (or perhaps forgot) was that Lizzie had only just started playing the guitar when she came around to the open mics. She picked up the instrument in 1995, and I think I first encountered her about a year later. And she was incredible! People like that just blow your mind. I knew she would be moving up and out of our orbit pretty quickly. She embarked on a nationwide tour of small clubs in summer 2000. Spike Lee used her song “Holy Road” in a tv commercial. Her song “Chariots Rise” was used in the 2002 movie Secretary with Maggie Gyllenhall and James Spader, directed by Steven Shainberg and written by Erin Cressida Wilson, both of whom also collaborated on the 2006 Diane Arbus bio-pic Fur. (Speaking of times and places; Wilson first came onto my radar circa 1998 when she co-created The Erotica Project on WBAI Radio and in live performance at HERE Arts Center.)

But we digress! Because then Lizzie made it to the big show. Warner Brothers signed her to a record deal and they released her first LP Holy Road in 2003. There was more touring. In 2004 she released a single called “19 Miles to Baghdad” and toured again in support of it. Somewhere in there she broke with the label. But many of her songs continued to be used in films and on television. Her second LP I Pledge Allegiance To Myself, was released in 2006 by Appleseed Records.

She then seemed to drop out of sight for awhile. It turns out she was living the simple life. But she never stopped making art. This tune, “Family Fourth” was the first peep out of her in a while, and it makes a terrific introduction to her music if you don’t already know it. Please do check it out! And also check out her past work, most of which you can hear on Youtube. She has an LP coming out this fall, and she’s going on tour, so this is the first salvo in an ongoing campaign!

Also check out her website and get on her mailing list here.