Becca Sutlive: Press

Singer/songwriter Becca Sutlive cut her musical teeth at various local venues over the past several years, and before she headed west to exercise her prodigious gifts in the Bay Area, she cut this most impressive debut disc with a pan-genre collection of some of Iowa City's finest roots musicians.
Boasting a strong, impassioned vocal delivery, subtle phrasing, impeccable timing, swinging tunes and revelatory, carefully honed lyrics, Sutlive and her sterling crew glide through 10 original tracks which include aching ballads, mid-tempo folk- and country-rockers, and a pair of shape-shifting reveries ("Bay Love" and the closing "Time To Go Home") which would nestle quite comfortably on Van Morrison's classic "Astral Weeks."
Beautifully recorded, mixed and mastered by Patrick Brickel at PZM Studios, "One Bedroom Apartment" features a core band of Sutlive, guitarist Randy Davis, bassist/guitarist Brickel and drummer James Robinson. Elegant textures are provided by Will Jennings (harmonica), Joe Peterson (mandolin), Dave Zollo (keyboards), Nathan Basinger (organ), Marty Letz (pedal steel) and Sam Knutson (vocal harmony).
Released this week on Knutson's Mudfence imprint, "One Bedroom Apartment" is a wall-to-wall solid sender, and even rent control couldn't keep this meteoric talent from going through the roof.

Becca Sutlive is from Iowa and recorded One Bedroom Apartment there, but now lives in San Francisco. You can hear traces of Lucinda Williams but there’s a spirit here that’s more reminiscent of Van Morrison. Like him, Sutlive can repeat a line or phrase without wearing out its welcome. She glides as much as she sings. In the lyrical “Just Too Much,” it’s like Sutlive’s beckoning all of us towards the dance floor where everything will be jake as long as the song keeps playing. This is roots rock that rocks.

In an age when it often seems as if musicians rush to record as soon as they’ve mastered a chord change, Becca Sutlive showed remarkable (almost painful) restraint in getting around to cutting her debut disc. A solid contributor to the Iowa City music scene for several years, Sutlive routinely wowed audiences and musicians alike with her hip, deep songbook, nuanced, tone-cool vocals, and assured stage presence.
Sutlive recently relocated to the Bay Area, but before heading west, she finally took the plunge with a fluid group of homeboys including keyboardist Dave Zollo and members of Shame Train, the Letterpress Opry, Big Wooden Radio, the Diplomats of Solid Sound and the Kelly Pardekooper Band. The majority of the ten Sutlive originals on One Bedroom Apartment work a midtempo, country-tinged folk-rock turf that’s well-suited to her vocal style (which recalls a more youthful and flexible Sheryl Crow) and spunky, lived-in lyrics.
Sutlive and crew also demonstrate the ability to kick it up and rattle the glass on the sassy, Lucinda Williams-inspired hip-shaker “Just Too Much”, but the real showpieces are the delicate “Bay Love”, “Good Life” and “Time To Go Home”. Tapping into the languid, hypnotic regions mapped out on Van Morrison’s classic Astral Weeks is not only daring but potentially disastrous, yet Sutlive pulls it off all three times, admirably maintaining the gossamer melodic core and emotional tension even as the packing slows to a near-stand-still. One Bedroom Apartment was a long time in coming, but worth the wait

With a voice that sounds like a cross between Lucinda Williams and Chrissy Hynde, Iowa born Becca Sutlive infuses character and power into the self-penned material on her debut disc, One Bedroom Apartment. The title track kicks off with a big crunchy guitar heralding a rootsy, organ swept mid-tempo groove that shows her rockin` edge. On the other side is the acerbic, coffeehouse folk-poet who sings songs like "Blind Faith". In Jim Musser`s Music Beat, from the Iowa City Press Citizen, Sutlive is described as "boasting a strong, impassioned vocal delivery, subtle phrasing, impeccable timing, swinging tunes and revelatory, carefully honed lyricsSutlive and her sterling crew glide through 10 original tracks which include aching ballads, mid-tempo folk- and country-rockers, and a pair of shape-shifting reveries ("Bay Love" and the closing "Time To Go Home") which would nestle quite comfortably on Van Morrison`s classic "Astral Weeks." (Mudfence Music)

Monday afternoon is quiet and breezy in the courtyard, which assures a good, uninterrupted chat with Becca Sutlive, current Skyline student and Songstress. She is kind enough to let me interview her on her hour lunch break from the Cosmetology program. In between questions and bites, she happily answers.

Where it all began...
Becca was born and raised in Iowa City, Iowa, which is where she realized she enjoyed music and writing. It was at the altering age of 13 that her father, a musician, taught her to play the guitar, and the rest was history. Coming from Iowa, she is heavily influenced by country, blues, and a little bit of early 90's grunge rock.

"When I was 13 and 14, grunge-rock was really big, so I was really into [bands like] Hole and Nirvana," she explains, admitting that the first album she learned was Hole's entire "Live Through This" album. Coincidently, my first impression of Becca's style was a more somber and tame version of Courtney Love, although she says just because that was once her influence, she doesn't feel that her music sounds like grunge-rock at all.

Becca has been compared to other musical greats like Sheryl Crow, and Chrissy Hynde of The Pretenders. But her personal favorite and biggest influence as far as songs go would be Lucinda Williams.

"There's a divide between country and alternative country, and she kind of lies in between", Becca tells me. Lucinda Williams is best known for her song "Passionate Kisses", made famous by Mary Chapin Carpenter (1992). "[Lucinda Williams] is definitely my favorite now, and I think she'll be my favorite forever. I get compared to her a lot, so I suppose she's a really big influence".

Where it lies now...
Currently, Becca is on a bit of a hiatus, attending the cosmetology program here at Skyline. She and her newlywed husband moved to San Francisco two years ago, just after recording her debut album "One Bedroom Apartment". She tells me about wanting to come off of her musical pause, and once again start playing shows to promote herself, all the while modestly shying herself away from talking about a show she played last summer at the Shoreline Amphitheatre. "I actually played the side stage for the Sting and Annie Lennox show", Becca says, somewhat smiling. "That was kind of a big show!"

She has also played a couple of shows at the 12 Galaxies. Upon asking why she hasn't been performing recently, she explains how the Bay Area music scene is different in comparison to back home in Iowa. We speak about the booming "Indie Scene", and whether or not she would consider entering it.

"I don't think my style suits what I would think of as 'Indie Rock'," she explains. "I hate the term 'Indie Rock', because it's 'Independent Rock', and I feel like if that were taken literal, I would fit into that [genre] really well." Becca tells me a little about her experiences here with the punk and indie clubs, and that, despite my small reassurance that the music scene in this city is of a good variety, she just hasn't quite found a "scene" to come back from her hiatus and rock to. However, if given the opportunity, she would be more than willing to put everything on hold and pick up where she left off.

"I need to feel like [musically] I fit in somewhere, and I just haven't found that here."