If the Capitol debut of Lisa Germano – serving at that point as the violinist for John Mellencamp – found you perhaps longing for something along the lines of her old boss’s Lonesome Jubilee, sorry. Not even hardly.
Only Germano’s “You Make Me Want to Wear Dresses” had any semblance of that familiar deep roots feel. Instead, she had a more wide-ranging, if just as intimate, goal: “I wanted this album to be like whispering in someone’s ear,” she said back then.
Produced by Malcolm Burn (Neville Brothers, Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop) in the way-cool French Quarter home studio that Daniel Lanois has since departed, Germano’s Happiness arrived in 1993 as something like a romance novel but penned by a great writer. It remains an album that is dimly lit, boldly direct, and yet accommodatingly enigmatic.
The atmospherics here, as with any of the Burn-Lanois-Eno collaborations, end up being another instrument in the sound palette – from the stealthy, ethereal pedal steel on “Cowboy” to the gripping guitar on “Everybody’s Victim.” Best of all, Germano – an Indiana native, like Mellencamp – would prove to be as much girl as she was grrrl: “Happiness,” as its name implied, was both tough then tender. “The Darkest Night of All” might be as delicate as an egg shell, but then the title track nearly grinds.
All but one of the tunes here was written by Lisa Germano, divorcing her completely from the role she once inhabited as simply another Mellencamp band member. In fact, the fiddle was more often gingerly avoided. In one fell swoop, it became clear that Germano had always been more than an accompanist.
Even after a subsequent hiatus, she went on to release many more recommended full-length albums and EPs since 1994 – and that’s not to mention appearing on projects with David Bowie, Indigo Girls, the dBs, Sheryl Crow, James McMurtry, Jewel, Simple Minds and Crowded House, among others. Happiness is still my favorite.
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