Seeing the Light with Claire Holley

Claire Holley’s a Jackson, Mississippi-born singer-songwriter whose music makes you long for someplace you’ve never been, which sounds supernatural, if not impossible. And where exactly might that place be? Where muscadine grow deeply green, where scuppermongs hang heavy and golden? Even if yours is not anywhere near The Magnolia State, Holley’s heartful songbook of originals, covers and hymns will make you yearn for home.

She shows up at our Toluca Lake coffee shop rendezvous with a Fender Telecaster strapped to her back but otherwise seems to channel Bob Dylan’s 1962 artfully scruffy fashion statement with a fleecy jacket and a snug cap. And she rips into her Reuben sandwich, extra pickles, with an urban transplant’s zest.

“When my husband Chad and I moved to Los Angeles in November 2003, I was pregnant, with my son in my belly. We had been living in North Carolina, and we were both feeling a little restless, like it was time for change. We didn’t really have a plan. I actually was holding out for Nashville, but Chad was already in love with Southern California. Sometimes I still can’t believe we’re actually here,” she says as we discuss her upcoming Advent candlelight gig at Knox Presbyterian Church in Pasadena later in December.

This sense of expectancy – of waiting and vulnerability — permeates Holley’s live performances and dozen studio albums, which offer sharp contrasts as Holley’s multi-octave voice skates between the pure crystalline and Lucinda Williams-esque grit and flint. She plays piano as well as acoustic and electric guitar and says that sometimes ideas for her songs bubble up when she’s practicing scales or doing something equally repetitive.

Perusing the recorded tracks, many are deliberately left dirty, meaning that the occasional squeaks as Holley’s fingers climb the fretboard are left in situ. On a track called “Dandelion,” she leaves in a spontaneous giggle as she tells the crew, “That’s all you need.”

“For better or worse, I’m not a perfectionist,” she says. “I know so many creative people who get tripped up that way. They freeze up because they can’t get past the fear of creating, so they’re afraid of making a mistake.” She cites the book “Art & Fear: Observations On the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking” (Bayles/Orland) as helpful.

“I didn’t do a whole lot of research when I was starting out. I just jumped in. I wrote a lot of really bad, really earnest songs, but I was already in it and decided just to do it anyway.”

She credits her parents, dad being a professor and an ordained pastor, mother being a gifted visual artist, with giving her confidence walking through the world. A passage in Greek from the Gospel of St. John (“In the beginning was the Word”), in her father’s handwriting, appears as album artwork on her CD “Every Hour.”

She says, “They gave both me and my sister a lot of encouragement. We had records and instruments all around the house. They never planted those terrible seeds that can really diminish a child, stuff like saying, ‘Oh, don’t wear that,’ or ‘Your hair looks terrible,’ you know, little things that can embed themselves in your psyche and stay there forever, preventing you from trying new stuff. They just never did that.” 

And on the subject of trying new stuff, she’s now taking tango lessons. “I’m not real good at it,” she laughs, “but it’s such a gorgeous feeling.”

She also credits her grandmother, a jazz pianist, with guiding her hands to the keyboard. She’s got a whole passel of originals that reference family, home, whether heavenly or terrestrial, and the whole lotta road between here and there. Note: your mileage may vary.

Many of the songs in her repertoire reference Christian faith, ranging from “Corde Natus” written by Aurelius Clemens Prudentius in the 4th century C.E. (“Of the Father’s Heart Begotten” which Holley performs under the title “Begotten”) to more familiar mentions, with phrases like his eye is on the sparrow, lay my burden down, my shepherd will supply my need, what wondrous love is this. 

Maybe it’s the easy glide of Holley’s Dixie accent, but there’s no religiosity in the house. Her lyrics, like her conversation, remind us of the hundreds of figures of speech, now accepted as secular public domain, that find their source in the Bible, often in the King James version.

Don’t believe it? O, ye of little faith.

How about “the writing on the wall” (Daniel)? “The apple of his eye” (Deuteronomy)? “A drop in the bucket” (Isaiah)? “Salt of the earth” (Matthew)? “Wolves in sheep’s clothing” (Matthew)? “Bite the dust” (Psalms)? “The skin of my teeth” (Job)? “A labor of love” (Thessalonians)? “A man after my own heart” (Samuel)? “An eye for an eye” (Exodus)? “To cast the first stone” (John)? “To fall from grace” (Galatians)? “Turn the other cheek” (Matthew)? “Out of the mouths of babes” (Psalms)? “The blind leading the blind” (Matthew)? Even the most staunchly atheist among us will concede that these phrases form an essential component of the vitality of spoken and written contemporary English.

Just as her fellow Southern storytellers say, “Bless your heart” (sometimes to disguise displeasure) and “Oh, my word!” when there’s nothing else to say, Holley freely weaves Bible literacy throughout her easygoing catalog. This is why and how covers like Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” and Brian Wilson’s “You Still Believe in Me” blend so seamlessly and naturally into the mix. The latter, from the Beach Boys’ 1966 album “Pet Sounds,” was most likely written about a sputtering human romance. But as Holley sings it, it may also double as the penitent call of a prodigal child, repenting in the arms of a forgiving Savior:

Wilson was probably referencing a troubled relationship marked by betrayals and frequent breakups, but the lyric also serves as a metaphor for losing one’s way in a spiritual sense. This twinning aspect was most succinctly explained by Aretha Franklin, who maintained that all of her musical expression was received from a divine source, regardless of where she was performing. The difference, said the Queen of Soul, “…is that on Sunday morning, I sing it ‘Yes, Jesus,’ and on Saturday night I sing it ‘Yes, baby.”

Many of Holley’s arrangements carry a plaintive Celtic feel that reaches back to plainchant, sanctified in monasteries on the other side of the Atlantic, then blooming as the wildwood flower in the hills and hollers of the American South for another century plus. 

The melancholy feel of some of this reflects personal sensitivity on the part of this artist, who shares that she’s currently writing a one-woman show about her brilliant, bipolar mother.

“My mother was so talented, and she struggled with depression. She was so transparent about it at a time when no one talked about it at all. It took me a while to acknowledge it myself.” 

Her husband Chad is a novelist as well as a musician, and the title of his newly published book, “Shield the Joyous,”  offers further insight. The title, drawn from the evening daily office, Prayer for Mission, from the Book of Common Prayer, may puzzle some. 

The nightly petition asks the Almighty to keep watch over those who work or weep and to guard those who sleep. The prayer further asks God to tend to the sick, give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted…and lastly, to shield the joyous.

Why do the joyous need shielding? One thinks of St. Francis, whose story carries the elements of a salty HBO mini-series since Francis was one of the few saints of antiquity whose existence has been conclusively documented. Much like, say, the Buddha or a Getty grandson, party-boy Francis was heir to a powerful Perugian textile dynasty and had led the profligate life of the aforementioned Prodigal in his youth. His wealthy father, Pietro di Bernardone dei Moriconi, had previously bailed him out of a series of social disgraces with perhaps surprising tolerance.

When Francis was summoned to rebuild the ruined church of San Damiano, he quite naturally went directly to his father’s warehouse of exquisite fabrics for collateral. He snapped up a few bolts of the best stuff, which he promptly sold, along with his horse, with the intention of giving the money needed for the construction to the parish priest. The priest refused the donation, reasonably fearing the wrath of the formidable cloth merchant, Pietro. 

Francis’ father returned from a business trip to find his emaciated son begging in the streets for stones to rebuild the church. He then called upon the bishop to conduct a formal trial of Francis on the grounds of theft, perhaps to teach him a lesson. Francis went willingly and appeared before a gathering of local bigwigs, including his influential father. He stripped off his clothes and handed them, along with the money he had collected for the expensive fabric, to his stunned father and publicly disowned his scandalized family. This story is told in the context of Francis discovering true joy, that everything earned and accomplished by human beings, in fact, belongs to God.  In recognition of this, the bishop wrapped Francis in his own cloak, symbolically shielding him from scorn.

Holley says that her upcoming Advent concert will be neither a meditation nor a boisterous sing-along but will integrate hymns and secular seasonal standards into a thoughtful evening program. She says, “Music has a way of reaching into our hearts, into our very souls and drawing us closer together if we will let it. It’s hard to say exactly why, but I know that holidays are such a mixture of things. For some, it’s a favorite time of year—a chance to celebrate and reconnect with family and friends. For others, holidays can be incredibly difficult. My hope is that the music will speak to folks wherever they may find themselves right now. I believe they will be glad they came.” 

DEETS

• Claire Holley and Special Guests
• Candlelight Advent Concert
• Knox Presbyterian Church, 225 South Hill Avenue, Pasadena
• Saturday, December 14, 7:30 PM (doors open at 7:00 PM)
• Tickets may be purchased online or at the door 
• www.claireholley.com