[Sidebar] The Worcester Phoenix
Dec. 7 - 14, 2000

[On The Rocks]

| reviews & features | clubs by night | bands in town | club directory |
| rock/pop | jazz | country | karaoke | pop concerts | classical concerts | hot links |



Family album

Walter and Valerie Crockett sing about Garth and home

by Brian Goslow

If you've spent more than a few months living in Worcester over the past two decades, you've been a regular visitor into the lives of Valerie and Walter Crockett, either through their music or Walter's writings in the pages of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Worcester Magazine, and Worcester Phoenix. During his 15-year-long journalistic career, Walter regularly documented his love af- fair with wife Val, his devotion to his canine pals, and more recently, the Crocketts' ongoing support of their 15-year-old daughter Emily, who was diagnosed with an irreversible brain tumor nine years ago.

Emily's Angel (Big Bark), their third CD, is a culmination of those experiences. It's a document of their perseverance and growth as a family and as musicians that's highlighted by Emily's singing debut and a performance by the Crocketts' son, Jackson.

The title track describes how in 1998, during a period when Emily was suffering from painful headaches and severe problems with light-sensitivity, she mentioned to Valerie that she would like to one day meet her hero, Garth Brooks. Soon afterwards, she and her mom were in New York City meeting the country superstar. Then, what was to be a short one-night stay in the Big Apple turned into a three-day holiday at the expense of Brooks, who put them up in a ritzy hotel and invited them to watch the traditional tree lighting at Rockefeller Center. Emily and Val hung out with the Brooks family and Trisha Yearwood backstage, where Brooks had arranged for the lighting to be kept low. After their final meeting, Brooks gave Emily the guitar he had been playing throughout his tour.

Emily's love of all things Garth caused a huge shift in the music heard in the Crockett household. "She's listened to nothing but country, almost exclusively, for five years," says Valerie, who found a silver lining in the exercise. "Listening to WKLB," she says, almost apologetically, "I have to say the singers are just great -- they give me something to aspire to -- and the songs have great hooks and we write songs with hooks." Even the usually proud Walter admits, "I feel a little sheepish about it, but I feel inspired by his songs."

The Crockett daughter played a key role in getting her parents back into music after an extended absence from performing.

"When she was first diagnosed, it was very difficult for me," says Valerie, "but she asked, `Aren't you going to play music again?' and I said to myself, we can't have her in a world without music." So once a week, the Crocketts gathered their musical friends and began holding weekly practice sessions in their kitchen. Some offspring might rebel against having to listen to their parents practice; not Jackson and Emily.

"The kids have been very supportive at that," says Valerie, "but trying to get better in our music has been a tremendous battle. When we have to practice for a gig and the dishes are piling up, we have to ask to ourselves, `Is this the musical life we want?'"

Area music lovers should be thankful the answer was yes, as the resulting Unbutton Your Heart, Moonbone, and now Emily's Angel have been among the most enjoyable albums ever released by local performers. The Crocketts, as with husband-and-wife duo Chuck and Mud, have benefited by having a great crew of musicians helping them realize their song-writing visions. The Oxymorons -- mandolinist Francis McConville, bassist Bob Dick, and keyboardist Mark Manuel (who also played accordion and saxophone) -- were joined in the studio by drummer Bill MacGillivray to give the disc a full sound.

"We've really gelled and had the same lineup for two years, and it's starting to pay off," says Walter. "Now we have five singers with such a mix of styles," Valerie says. "We're huge fans of our band." At various stages on the disc, each musician becomes the star of the show. It makes you wonder what could happen if it was a permanent gig.

"We could have them full time," says Walter, "but there are no gigs. Bob has to play in a whole bunch of bands to survive, Billy plays in six bands and teaches . . . whoever has the gigs, gets the musicians." This Saturday, Walter and Valerie play a CD-release party for Emily's Angel at the Steeple Coffeehouse in Southborough. On December 30, they perform three smoke-free sets at Gilrein's, and appear as part of Worcester First Night 2001 the following evening at the United Congregational Church.

On Emily's Angel's opening track, "You've Had Your Chances," which is fueled by McConville's mandolin, you can't help but do a double take when Val sings "You turn in my direction/And you lock your eyes on mine/But I will not take this fall for you/There's no more one more time." It's more surprising to learn that Walter writes most of the songs Val sings so convincingly. "That's why I'm married to him," she smiles. "He writes songs that feel so much like I wrote them that I forget I didn't."

When Valerie soulfully sings, "He's slipped away and now he's gone," on "I Thought I Had a Rock," the pained tone of her voice makes it hard to believe she isn't singing from personal experience. "We had some friends of ours who had divorced," says Walter. "You think you have something strong, then bang." The choruses are sung in a nursery rhyme style intended to convey the feeling the mother had being left alone with her little kid.

"It isn't that different writing from a female perspective as it is a song from the perspective of someone who isn't like you," he says, adding, he gets many of his song-writing ideas from observing close friends or people they've known. "It's like being a novelist -- plus she has the voice."

The duo likes the fact that their songs are open to many interpretations. "Sometimes that's a good reason not to put lyrics out," says Walter, while Val adds, "People apply it to their own lives which might be different that your own life. I can see how people can apply it to different situations."

There's no hiding the meaning of "I Want You To Know," which Valerie wrote as a tribute to her mom, who passed away in 1999. It's a reminder on how important it is to say all those things you've been meaning to say before someone's gone.

One of Emily's Angel's most endearing traits is the way it captures the spirit of Louisiana on a number of cuts. It's off to the Bayou for the Zydecoesque "For the Long Run" and the Cajun-styled, Chet Williamson harmonica-driven "Same Train," on which Walter presents the song in a held-back whispering vocal. Asked if his style of singing was intentional, Walter laughs, replying, "No, it's all I've got." While many East Coast acts traditionally fail to capture an authentic Louisiana party feel on tape, the Crocketts and the Oxymorons have captured the Mardi Gras spirit perfectly.

On "I Got the Blues Again," Walter, joined by Manuel on keyboards, goes deeper into the New Orleans theme, sounding a bit like Leon Redbone (Walter says J.J. Cale) as he sings, "I've got the blues over Southern California/I've got the blues over nothing at all." His flamenco-style guitar work drops the listener into a Southwestern café. It may be the best sounding recording they've ever done, and features Jackson Crockett on trombone. "He would never let on that he liked the music," says Walter, of his offspring, who sports a cropped punk-rock haircut, "but he knew all the songs."

Like many of the early R&B and rock acts of the 1950s, much of the Crocketts' material is filled with barely-hidden sexual innuendoes. On "Bubblegum," Val sounds like a young Ella Fitzgerald or Patti Page as she sings about Bazooka Joe and friends as if they were guys lined up at a high school dance. You could imagine her singing the vocals of "Ice Cream Man" in a Western musical, as she swings over a Gold Rush-era bar, tantalizing all the customers. The back-to-the-Bayou number is interrupted by a free-form improvisational jam featuring a wild duel between Duke Levine on guitar and Roger Williams on dobro.

"When it was done, it sounded like everyone was there trading off of each other's ideas," says Walter. "It was great to be able to showcase them."

And then there's "One Special Day," which was written by Emily herself, who gives an endearing performance not unlike that of a budding teen phenom breaking in on the Grand Ole Opry instead of someone living each day one at a time. It suggests that during these past difficult years, she's been the pillar of strength for her parents that they've tried to be for her. It's not even her first song-writing credit -- "My Doggy Ate My Home Work" appeared on Chuck and Mud's It's About Time.

"She really wrote all the words and music," Walter says.

"She didn't let us hear any of it until she was finished," Val adds. "She was away at camp in Rhode Island and called me and said `Can I sing it for you? -- it's in the key of C and in the 1-4-5 chords.'" What's most amazing about the song is how Emily's writing style corresponds to her parents'. If you didn't know it was written as a document of her meeting with Brooks ("Garth is good"), you'd think it was written by a teenage girl describing the details of her first date. And it may be the most uplifting Crockett story of all.

"She has to laugh a lot," says Val. "She's got a very tough life and she always tries to make the best of it."

"She's turned her dogs -- and Garth -- into a religion," Walter says.

Brian Goslow can be reached at bgoslow[a]phx.com.

[Music Footer]

| home page | what's new | search | about the phoenix | feedback |
Copyright © 2000 The Phoenix Media/Communications Group. All rights reserved.