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By Kerry Doole
Here’s the scenario. You’re a young singer/songwriter
finally given a chance to make your first record. You’re in a top
LA studio, the president of your record label is on hand as the producer,
and a 70-piece orchestra is there to flesh out your compositions. Nervous
yet?
Well, in the case of Vanessa Carlton, no, actually.
She told Access recently that “by the time I got to the
studio with Ron Fair, my producer, I was so together. I just knew what
I wanted. I was never intimidated. It was always ‘this was what
I was supposed to be doing. I have worked real hard and I deserve my
orchestra, my songs deserve it.’ I never felt any pressure, and
just had a beautiful time recording the album.”
This self-confidence (bordering on smugness) has served
this fast-rising new star well. It seemed you couldn’t go anywhere
this summer without hearing her smash hit single, ‘A Thousand Miles’,
on the radio, and her debut CD, Be Not Nobody, is likely to generate
more hits.
The ambitious Vanessa had earlier sought success in
another creative field, dance. “I became obsessed with ballet,”
she explains. “Dance was never a detour. It was my identity at
that time. I was 14 when I was accepted into the School of American
Ballet in New York. I left home [Milford, Pennsylvania] and moved into
the dorm in Lincoln Center.”
The rigorous discipline and competitiveness of dance
training took its toll. “I flourished when I loved what I was doing.
It was when your heart starts to ache at the thought of going to class
that it became impossible. It became a burden, and I ran to the piano,
desperately.”
Carlton is classically trained on piano, and her own
compositions have an atmospheric and melodic sense that reflects those
roots. “You can’t hear the music of composers like Debussy
and Satie without being moved deeply, and that is what I wanted to create
on my album.”
It’s a long way from Erik Satie to The Stones,
but Vanessa has turned ears with her version of The Rolling Stones classic
‘Paint It Black’, the only non-original tune on Be Not
Nobody.
“I just loved the melody,” she says. “I
didn’t really like the singing on the original, and I wanted to
hear it sung my way. It’s one of those songs where you love it
but have an itch to hear it sung a different way, so I did it myself!”
The road from ballet-school dropout to chart-topping
singer wasn’t always easy. At age 17, Vanessa was waitressing in
Manhattan during the week and recording demos at her parents’ home
on the weekend. These eventually caught industry attention, and she
signed a deal with A&M/Universal.
It was still not plain-sailing. “There were years
of sitting on my label where no-one cared. I know what it is like when
you are not a priority, so when you are, you do appreciate it.”
The writing process gives Vanessa the biggest rush.
“I just love writing. That’s where it all starts, and I’m
excited as I feel I am growing a lot as a songwriter. That is really
where my heart is. Then performing the songs I write is almost like
meditation.”
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