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Mar. 17--Though she'll perform under her own name March 24 at the Hideout, singer-songwriter Megan Reilly has occasionally been billed as Lucynell Crater, a character in the Flannery O'Connor short story "The Life You Save May Be Your Own."
In the story, Lucynell is a retarded innocent who is sold to a drifter by her cold-hearted mother, also named Lucynell.
Reilly laughs when queried about any connections between herself and one of 20th Century fiction's more vivid personalities. "I don't necessarily relate to the character, but it's a great sounding name," she says. For Reilly, a Memphis native who now lives in Brooklyn, O'Connor's dark narratives opened up a side of the South she rarely saw.
"I felt pretty sheltered [growing up in Memphis], and O'Connor helped me find something out of the normal," Reilly says. "Because 'normal' is the way to go down there."
Her latest album, "Let Your Ghost Go" (Carrot Top), finds the poetry in the everyday. Her deceptively gentle alto voice values understatement, but it's also capable of cutting through the contemplation with a wail.
Reilly escaped Memphis in 1999 to move north, but not before crafting a demo with producer Doug Easley. The recording opened some doors for her in New York, and she soon had a band of all-star musicians accompanying her: guitarist Tim Foljahn (Two Dollar Guitar), drummer Steve Goulding (Mekons) and bassist Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu). They were like protective older brothers to Reilly, and they surrounded her delicate folk-pop songs in empathy on her stellar 2003 debut, "Arc of Tessa."
But Reilly says she felt some pressure trying to write and record a follow-up. That's where the input of another veteran musician, Sue Garner, proved crucial.
"I was censoring myself, editing too much, wondering if what I was doing was worthwhile or any good," Reilly says. "I went through a paralysis of activity and it prolonged the making of the record. Then Sue came in and she helped me see a few things more clearly."
Garner ended up producing "Let Your Ghost Go," which will be released next week. "A lot of music ended up on the cutting-room floor: ripping guitar solos, harmonized vocals," Reilly says. "A good song doesn't need all that."
The sonics suit Reilly's intimate subject matter. The death of her grandmother hangs over the intense lullaby "On a Plane."
"She was a musical person, though I didn't know that 'til after she died," Reilly says. "She played accordion and sang with her sister, but when her sister died a long time ago, while my mom was still really young, she stopped. That was her way of guarding herself from that sadness, and yet it's crazy to me because she knew how much a part music plays in my own life."
A similar sense of longing pervades the title song, a tribute to Thin Lizzy's late singer, Phil Lynott. Reilly also covers one of Lynott's songs, "Little Girl in Bloom." "I loved Thin Lizzy's music and that song in particular blew me away," she says. "He was this tough guy who wrote great rock songs. I used to dance around to 'The Boys Are Back in Town' when I was 9. But he also wrote these beautifully sensitive and poetic lyrics."
Reilly's got the sensitive, poetic thing down, but it's the unexpected toughness that makes "Let Your Ghost Go" a keeper. The song "Tropic of Cancer" is an agitated folk-rocker, split open by a wailed curse. Then it drifts away on a bed of guitar feedback and clarinet, a respite after the violence.
"That's one thing I've always liked about singing," Reilly says. "It's a really good outlet for any frustrations I might be having. Otherwise, I'd be running down the street screaming at people."
10 p.m. March 24 at Hideout, 1354 W. Wabansia Ave.; $8, call 773-227-4433.
gregkot@aol.com
Greg Kot co-hosts "Sound Opinions" at 7 p.m. Saturday on WBEZ-FM 91.5.
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