4 June 2004
Raised in the darkest heartlands of Florida, Lari White has drawn deep on her upbringing for the inspiration behind the eleven tracks on ‘Green Eyed Soul’, the debut CD release from UK based Mesmerizing Records.
Lari’s Granddaddy was a true hellfire-hollering Primitive Baptist preacher, while her Daddy was the electric guitar player in a rock and roll band. Surrounded by music – primarily gospel, R & B and the sweet sounds of artists such as Ray Charles, Al Green and Stevie Wonder, the songs seeped into Lari’s soul. Singing in church amidst this fire and brimstone storm, Lari had no doubt about the direction her future would take. A singer and a classically trained piano player from early childhood, she received a full academic scholarship to the University of Miami, at that time the most cutting edge in terms of music technology and training. She opted to major in Music Engineering - a course which gave her free studio time. She started writing her own songs, and being an engineer went a long way towards busting the “chick singer” stereotype that she loathed - one she was determined to avoid.
Immediately after attaining her degree, Lari threw all her possessions into an ancient mini-van and drove North virtually non-stop for twelve hours. She got a speeding ticket just as she crossed the city limit into Nashville, an irony that was not lost on her.
She instantly threw herself into the underground artistic community, studying and performing with several theatre groups (she has subsequently appeared in several films, from independents such as ‘No Regrets’ through to majors such as ‘Castaway’ – she says that the character parts she gets offered tend to be similar “earthy, artistic, confident – the same descriptions just keep coming up…”); a path she took both to help keep the wolf from the door, and more specifically to help her to develop her songwriting skills.
Her tiny apartment was nicknamed ‘The Hang’ as every Sunday evening it was crammed with a motley collection of songwriters, actors, playwrights & artists coming together to share their latest work and chew the fat. Despite eking out an existence somewhere below the poverty line, she remembers those times as some of the richest of her life.
All the while she was working on her own material, which she would play at every chance within the city’s teeming live circuit. Her determination paid off, and Lari was soon snapped up by a major label. In the subsequent few years her sophomore album attained Gold status, her live shows across the country attracted ever-increasing audiences and acclaim, and she won multiple awards. These included three prestigious Grammys, earned over consecutive years, for her lead tracks on both volumes of the ‘Amazing Grace – A Country Salute To Gospel’ albums as well as her standout performance on the soundtrack to Robert Duvall’s commended movie ‘The Apostle’.
But despite these successes, she increasingly felt she was straying from her roots - being pushed towards the Country mainstream and finding herself in an artistic straight-jacket. She explains: “I’ve got a lot of soul music in my history and background, and I didn’t feel really free to give a voice to that in the country market. I felt like I was working my booty off and still nobody knew who I was. I knew I could bring some stuff to the table that was different from anybody else. And,” as she emphatically points out, “I ain’t that Country!”
Lari stepped back from live shows and took time to reconsider her future. Still based in Nashville, she built her own studio – The Holler - behind her home, and when she started writing and recording again, what tumbled out marked a stark departure from her previous work - as far away from Country as it is close to, literally, Soul.
Like her contemporary Shelby Lynne, Lari doesn’t shy away from digging beneath the placid surface into the dark underbelly of life within the insular communities of the deep South. Drawing heavily on her formative influences, she blends classic soul/R&B sensibilities with modern technology to tackle subjects such as love and the loss of innocence, conjuring up heady images of languorous, sultry Southern nights.
Lari had such a clear vision of the mood she wanted to create, that she says she became almost ruthless with collaborators. “I’d never worked like this before – pretty much straight away I’d know whether we had caught the right vibe. If it wasn’t feeling like the song was dead on for “Green Eyed Soul”, I just had to try another song idea.”
Deciding to produce the album herself, she assembled a team of top musicians who she had come to know over the years, including legendary horn arranger Jim Horn - a key Muscle Shoals figure and veteran of countless seminal tracks with artists such as Aretha Franklin, Elvis Presley & The Righteous Brothers.
The sensuality at the core of ‘Green Eyed Soul’ hits you right between the eyes on the first track – and single - ‘Nothing But Love’ as lyrically Lari instantly opens up, laying bare the emotions of a grown woman. The song’s mood, and that of such subsequent numbers as “We Got It Goin’ On’ and ‘Loved Right’, mean that they can be taken simply as soundtracks to seduction; at times recalling the feel of 70’s era Marvin Gaye or Curtis Mayfield.
Yet scratch beneath the surface and different themes emerge; of ‘Loved Right’ Lari says: “I thought it was especially sexy to tell someone “I’m gonna love you, and you’re not going to believe how good it can be!” Sounds simple enough, until she points out that the whole song is about how: “The wrong kind of love can really leave someone damaged, I’ve seen it up close, where one person claims they love someone, but all they do is bring them down and kill their dreams.”
The soaring gospel tinged blues backing on ‘Right Here, Right Now’, belies the currents beneath…“it started out about the frustrations of work and career and day-to-day life getting in the way, feeling like I might never get to have sex with my husband again, and sometimes I just wanted to throw him down in the middle of the kitchen floor and make up for lost time. Since writing it, though, it’s become more about treasuring all the precious people and moments in my life while I’ve still got them.”
Though you may be able to take the girl out of the South, it seems you can’t take the South out of the girl. When Lari delves into her memories, her Church roots show through – whether she’s singing: “I`m sleepin` with the devil and there`s gonna be some hell to pay”, over what she accurately describes as the ‘greasy’ backing track to ‘One More Time’ or crooning ‘Lyin’ on a bed of magnolia leaves, he said I was an angel, Lord, and I Believed’ on the succulent ‘Eden Before The Fall’ – the imagery is potent.
‘Eden…’ could easily be taken as a tale of first sexual awakening, but as Lari explains, the words paint a broader picture: ”I started describing where all my family’s from, my granddaddy’s Primitive Baptist church, the spring-fed creek in Washington County… The first few lines fell out of that description, rhymed and everything. I think it’s a grieving song, mourning the loss of innocence, of unshakeable faith, and of the simplicity of childhood.”
Some of the lyrics however, are way more upfront; the sassy ‘Because I’m A Woman’ makes it clear that White is no shrinking Southern belle as she pours scorn on antiquated attitudes towards the female sex. “I was lucky enough to grow up with parents, especially a Dad, who always told me I could do and be anything I wanted, and while I know that’s more true for girls now than it’s probably ever been, it’s been a long, slow disillusionment to face the realities of growing up as a woman.” She voices concern at the thought of a future where parents can decide the sex of their offspring and is active in supporting an orphanage in India, where 80% of the abandoned babies are female.
The contrasts continue; the music runs the gamut, from the softest, most intimate whispers of instrumentation on ‘Bare’ through to the muscular soul/funk workouts or gospel-style swells of ‘Let’s Keep It Together’ or the Ashford & Simpson inspired strut ‘We Got It Goin’ On’.
In setting out to make music with no higher ambition than to please herself, ‘Green Eyed Soul’ is an album whose hybrid of experience, influences and emotions cuts across accepted genres and speaks directly to the heart.
“This is the most honest music I’ve ever made, it can get down and dirty, but at last I’m comfortable with myself - I suppose now just a little less concerned about what other people are going to think and say.”
Acclaimed by The Sunday Times as “the finest soul album this year”, ‘Green Eyed Soul’ is the debut release on UK based Mesmerizing Records - under exclusive licence from Lari’s own Skinny White Girl Records.
David Jensen Photography:
https://www.davidjensen.co.uk/
