Statesman Journal from Salem, Oregon • Page 36

ENTERTAINMENT Statesman Journal, Salem, Sunday, September 18, 1994 reak time is over for Anita Baker Page 6D 3- t) fcr-r y. 'V. She has spent the last four years concentrating I on motherhood, but now she's making music again. The Los Angeles Times Anita Baker has seemed to I 4 it all for years: hit albums, 1 Grammys, successful concerts, critical acclaim. Yet something was missing in Baker's life: children.

Their even- tual arrival has kept her out of the spotlight for most of the last i four years. Since her last album, 1990's jazzy Compositions, her career has taken a back seat to mother-i hood. After her second miscar-i riage, Baker gave birth to two sons: Walter, 19 months, and Eddie, 4 months. 1 Knowing how important her I family is to her, some associates wondered whether Baker who tS, is married to Detroit real-estate i developer Walter Bridgforth -would ever return full time to the CHOICE OF THREE ROM A DOZEN Beer Batter Prawns Crab Cake Pan Fried Oysters Fillet of Sole Beer Battered Fish Surf Clam Coconut Prawns Cajun Catfish Snapper Parmesan Scallops Calamari Broiled Chicken body would be second-guessing me. But I was this little pregnant black woman, and they were second-guessing me every step of the way.

It got real stressful. QUESTION: How would you characterize your new album? ANSWER: It's not as jazz-oriented or melancholy as the last one. There are some contemporary pop things on it, but it's mainly ballads with an jazz and gospel feel to them. In terms of content or style, I wasn't going for anything different. What I did do was strive for a different sound on the technical side.

In the studio you can adjust the knobs and buttons to compress the sound to get it technically perfect, but you lose some of the emotion. That's what I've done on past albums but not on this one. You get a stronger emotional feeling from the songs on this album. QUESTION: Were you at all concerned that your fans would forget about you during the hiatus? After all, people are often fickle. ANSWER: You always worry about that, even if you're recording a new album every year.

Most artists are notoriously insecure and I fall into that category. When you're away for a long time, tastes change, fans move on. You hate to think about it, but it's an ugly fact of life. QUESTION: Given all that you've accomplished, why don't you feel more secure about your place in the music business? ANSWER: I iust don't. What AND AW A SHRIMP COCKTAIL (tQC TO TM COMBO OR v.

music business. There were periodic reports in recent years that Baker, now 36, I 1 had returned to the studio, but there was no new release and the speculation increased about her willingness to devote time to a career. Her only appearance on record since Compositions was on Frank Sinatra's Duets album last year, singing Witchcraft. But Baker does want a career after all and the singer re-3 turns from the hiatus in peak form in the new Rhythm of Love, which features more of the so- Current Factory Outlet fo1 CARDS GIFTS GIFT WRAP Statesman Journal news service SHE'S BACK: Anita Baker has kept quiet since 1990 while concentrating on her family. Now she has a new record, "Rhythm of Love," which builds upon her jazz-oriented sound.

PIP phisticated, jazz-inflected ballad style SQUEAKS COSTUME drives me is the feeling that if I make a mistake, it'll all be over that if I'm not perfect Ml all be over. In a way, I'm this mass of insecurities. If I fail, I know there will be footprints on my back from these "friends" and executives walking over me to get to some hot newcomer. Maybe that's why I'm sort of a control freak. I like the feeling I can control my own destiny.

QUESTION: You've always had creative control over your albums. How important is that to you? ANSWER: It's critical. Without it, I wouldn't want to make an album. I wouldn't sound like I sound. If I let other people do that, I might be out of this business now.

QUESTION: Some critics credit you with opening the door in pop music for a whole new wave of singers, like Toni Braxton, for instance. What do you believe you've contributed to the business? ANSWER: I think I've helped make it easier for female singers with deeper voices to get signed by record companies. Also, ballads are more popular than ever in the music business. The success of my albums may have helped that happen. I feel very good about that.

women are capable of more than just dealing with dirty diapers. QUESTION: So there was never any doubt that you'd make another album? ANSWER: Not as far as I was concerned, but others did doubt it. I know for a fact some people thought I'd never finish it. People (at the record company) were calling my engineer and asking, "Is she ever going to finish this record?" There was a lot of second-guessing going on. QUESTION: How did you feel about that? ANSWER: On the one hand, I couldn't blame them.

I was pregnant three deadlines behind and at least a half-million dollars oyer budget. But I told them I'd pay for anything extra out of my own pocket. When you ask them for more money, you risk losing creative control of your project because they have this huge investment to protect. I never want to lose that control. But on the other hand, being second-guessed stinks.

If I were a man and I was the executive producer of albums that had sold in excess of 13 million copies (worldwide), no mat tsaKer neiped popularize ui the 80s. 'Z, With the album just in the stores, Baker 2 spoke about the long hiatus, family life and her music. QUESTION: Did you intend to take such a long break from the music business? ANSWER: Not really it just happened. I Tl had to work around my pregnancies. There ZZ was a surgical procedure they were using on me for the first time and they didn't know if it would work.

The doctor put a lot of restric- tions on me, so hard work was out, which meant I couldn't work on the album. Then Eddie who was an accident came along, but that was a relatively easy pregnancy, but I wasn't physically able to concentrate on the album for much of those years. QUESTION: Some people were guessing 11 that you'd quit singing to become a full-time mother. Could you ever imagine doing that? ANSWER: No. If I had to be a mother all the time and couldn't work, I wouldn't be a good mother.

I need my career. That's what invalidates me. Also, I want my boys to see YOUR CHOICE Cat Mouse Devil FREE with any Halloween purchase of 5 or more (Recommended for 6 mos. to 6 years) PRICES GOOD THROUGH 92494 OUTLETS 4 price 1 Mi if Mon-Frl10-7 Sat 10-5 Sun 11-5 3886 Center St NE Phone 375-9294 (LocatM in TugM Start Shopping Mali) A Carpenters alternative 0 It's yesterday once A a I Due to Ovenvhelming Demand New Friday Performance Added The World's Most Popular OperaSee if Live Now! a Yv via llfflK Stateman Journal file photo MUSIC REVIVAL: Karen and Richard Carpenter helped shape the musical taste of a generation. Now that's being reflected in "If I Were A Carpenter," a tribute album by alternative rock groups.

Puccini's masterpiece is the timeless tale of Mimi and Rodolfo, and their passionate Bohemian friends in 1 840s Paris. You'll be swept away by the music by the larger-than-life staging and visual effects by the power of a live orchestra end chorus and by voices that have thrilled audiences throughout the world. You'll be amazed at how effortless it is to follow the English translations projected above the stage. You'll be surprised at how deeply the music moves you. You will just love IA BOHEME! Sept.

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I.Joe's TicketMaster Outlets Statewide; PCPA on Broadway; Memorial Coliseum. The Perfect Opera for Newcomers. See It Live Now! pnore for the music of Saren and Richard Carpenter. JJtatesman Journal news service It's the love that dares not peak its name. No sane person would admit he loved the Car-ipenters, the clean-cut duo whose airy pop dominated radio throughout the 70s.

Until now. With the release of 77 Were A Carpenter, an all-star tribute rnalbum on Records (the Car-HPenters' label), superstar alter-tliative bands like Sonic Youth, JCracker and the Cranberries have come out of the closet with their Carpenters fandom. It's rather eerie how easily an alternative rocker like Grant Lee Buffalo falls into a note-perfect Rendition of the late Karen Car-Jpenter's sweet alto vocal on We've Only Just Begun, crooning lyrics Pike "Sharing horizons that are jpiear to us, watching for signs mlong the wayTalking it over "just the two of us 2ZL But like most of the artists on XJfl Were A Carpenter, Grant Lee Buffalo approaches the music with reverence. Each song is iplayed straight. "Normally I try to avoid all tribute records because they're jU8t so says Jeff McDonald of Redd Kross.

"But I'd always been a huge fan of the -Carpenters, and an admirer of iJheir songs. The quality of their Bongs was so wonderful, they were lyrically very sophisticated, Iliot this teenybop fare. So I knew the songs could easily be trans-elated into an underground settling more honestly than if Ma- Jiah Carey or Michael Bolton did Why the Carpenters? Why iow? For one thing, it's the 25th an-jrriversary of their signing with Records. "Additionally, with 70s revival in full swing, J3nany alternative bands are just piow coming clean about their se-l-cret love for the era's pop music, fc. "The secret is that most bands, Ifcom.

the late Nirvana to whomever, just want to write perfect pop songs," says McDonald. "And Jthese are perfect pop songs. So for most people it was a great op--portunity to actually perform and record songs that they'd wish they'd written. "Everybody wanted to do Superstar," says McDonald, "but Sonic Youth got it. And it's a very amazing, French-influenced version." Redd Kross ended up recording Yesterday Once More, the Carpenters' ode to nostalgia sha-la-la-la, every whoa-ho-ho still "I started playing the chords to Testerday Once More' all scaled down without the strings and the cheesy doo-wop vocals," says McDonald.

"The lyrics, when I started to figure them out, were very ironic, like they're being sung from beyond the grave. So everything is in the past tense." Matthew Sweet, one of the few artists involved who could actually be termed "pop," was a natural choice for the album, although he claims he wasn't a Carpenters fan originally. "I remember all those songs," says Sweet. "Their music has poignant, strong melodies that you still feel when you hear them." Richard Carpenter himself played keyboards on Sweet's track, Let Me Be The One, calling Sweet's voice "pure." Redd Kross' McDonald, who in terviewed Carpenter for the Los Angeles-based magazine Ray-gun, says of Karen's brother: "He knows a lot about (older) rock 'n' roll. He's a very kind man, very smart.

He doesn't know too much about what's going on today. But he really seemed to grasp the honest intent of the record." So far the pick-to-click track on modern rock stations is Sonic Youth's languid take on Superstar, Karen Carpenter's vocal tour-de-force. McDonald thinks that pop music, if it exists, has a bad name these days. "People don't really understand it. I guess a pop artist of.

today would be Madonna or Ma-riah Carey or something like that. Back then people tried to make well-balanced three-minute songs, a perfect combination of everything you needed to make a hit. Now people don't really understand that, so it's not as cool "In the early 70s pop music was great, just really, really great. The Beatles really perfected that format, and the Carpenters never insulted your intelligence. And it's all been a little lost." n3KTWsIT) Portland Opera, 1516 SW Alder, Portland, OR 97205 i.