unless through closed eyes you could see your lover’s face in the low, moaned verses of another
For Eva, Sunny was a pealing bell.
Thank God
, she thought.
Thank God
she felt—a slight shudder through her back and thighs, a desire to stretch her limbs, to think lonely thoughts, and to dance.
I was almost dead. Should’ve known somebody would bring me back. Music
does not
fail Somebody’s song always comes up from the cracks
.
Eva’d been in the music business for what seemed 101 years, seen too many artists chase speedballs of fame and fear with coke and cognac and quaaludes and crank. Seen artists piss away cash so plentiful it seemed as pink and yellow as Monopoly money.
This is work. I’m at work. I can hear her, though
. On the pier, Eva swayed only barely to Sun’s sound, keeping her excitement in check.
Every week, since bands were white and hairsprayed and named after cities, Eva’d perused music trade magazines, burned her irises searching for bullets next to charting singles and watching for bulletsin makeshift discos. She worked for people whose son’s tuition and wife’s new Jaguar depended on how much sadness or glee or anger Eva could milk in the studio and market to colleagues over cocktails. Eva’s own retirement and supersoft Italian boots depended on what MTV did with the video and what mix-tape DJs did with the B-side and what the urban black press did with the sex and “negativity” and what the mainstream white press did with the previous arrests. Eva was tired, had grown up and gotten wise enough to know that unless you were still open to at least the idea of purity, there was only silence from Sunny’s mouth, even as it stretched into a long and long-lasting O.
Eva was grateful, if only for ten or twelve seconds, to be among the lucky ones for whom Sunny bellowed the note. Sunny’s eyes were closed, head tilted to the left like she was listening to her painted shoulder. Like Sunny’s body whispered messages to her soul for interpretation. Fingers curled loosely at her sides, her thick contralto bent the tail end of phrases like petals. Her knees bent slightly. Sunny sang.
Then she collapsed to the floor.
The crowd gasped. Hundreds of necks stretched cobra-curious, hypnotized.
After ten seconds, Sunny got to her knees smoothly and sat on her heels. “Imagination,” Sunny said solemnly. “Imagination! Who can sing your force?” Her face was raspberry-flushed and grime-striped. “Or describe the swiftness of your course?”
Eva didn’t realize then that Sunny was paraphrasing Phillis Wheatley. Sunny was fascinated and inspired by the poet, and within a year, Sunny’s love for Wheatley would be a part of a list of quirks chronicled in newspapers and music magazines, a literary inspiration bolded in the label bio and whispered to reporters before interviews. That Wheatley was Sunny’s muse sparked renewed interest in the poet and branded Sunny as deep and thoughtful and more interesting than more conventional nineties bare-midriffed R & B singers. Sunny would come to be considered, especially by the white press, the kind of guitar-toting black eccentric they could comfortably chat with. Anddue to Sunny’s early vocal rawness, her songwriting ability, and the intellectual value placed on that by the rock music critics that dominate pop journalism, Sunny would be deemed a more light, “pretty,” MTV-friendly version of Tracy Chapman—and so as much artist as product. To the black music establishment and to most African-American critics (before the embrace of her by the mainstream was complete, and so by definition, suspicious), Sunny was regarded as earthy and positive and obviously light-skinned enough to be chosen as special by editors and photographers and fashion designers.
Still on her knees in Monterey, Sunny bent forward and put her forehead on the boards. Then she swept her arms over the floor of the stage and behind her, palms upturned.
On the pier’s planks,
For Eva, Sunny was a pealing bell.
Thank God
, she thought.
Thank God
she felt—a slight shudder through her back and thighs, a desire to stretch her limbs, to think lonely thoughts, and to dance.
I was almost dead. Should’ve known somebody would bring me back. Music
does not
fail Somebody’s song always comes up from the cracks
.
Eva’d been in the music business for what seemed 101 years, seen too many artists chase speedballs of fame and fear with coke and cognac and quaaludes and crank. Seen artists piss away cash so plentiful it seemed as pink and yellow as Monopoly money.
This is work. I’m at work. I can hear her, though
. On the pier, Eva swayed only barely to Sun’s sound, keeping her excitement in check.
Every week, since bands were white and hairsprayed and named after cities, Eva’d perused music trade magazines, burned her irises searching for bullets next to charting singles and watching for bulletsin makeshift discos. She worked for people whose son’s tuition and wife’s new Jaguar depended on how much sadness or glee or anger Eva could milk in the studio and market to colleagues over cocktails. Eva’s own retirement and supersoft Italian boots depended on what MTV did with the video and what mix-tape DJs did with the B-side and what the urban black press did with the sex and “negativity” and what the mainstream white press did with the previous arrests. Eva was tired, had grown up and gotten wise enough to know that unless you were still open to at least the idea of purity, there was only silence from Sunny’s mouth, even as it stretched into a long and long-lasting O.
Eva was grateful, if only for ten or twelve seconds, to be among the lucky ones for whom Sunny bellowed the note. Sunny’s eyes were closed, head tilted to the left like she was listening to her painted shoulder. Like Sunny’s body whispered messages to her soul for interpretation. Fingers curled loosely at her sides, her thick contralto bent the tail end of phrases like petals. Her knees bent slightly. Sunny sang.
Then she collapsed to the floor.
The crowd gasped. Hundreds of necks stretched cobra-curious, hypnotized.
After ten seconds, Sunny got to her knees smoothly and sat on her heels. “Imagination,” Sunny said solemnly. “Imagination! Who can sing your force?” Her face was raspberry-flushed and grime-striped. “Or describe the swiftness of your course?”
Eva didn’t realize then that Sunny was paraphrasing Phillis Wheatley. Sunny was fascinated and inspired by the poet, and within a year, Sunny’s love for Wheatley would be a part of a list of quirks chronicled in newspapers and music magazines, a literary inspiration bolded in the label bio and whispered to reporters before interviews. That Wheatley was Sunny’s muse sparked renewed interest in the poet and branded Sunny as deep and thoughtful and more interesting than more conventional nineties bare-midriffed R & B singers. Sunny would come to be considered, especially by the white press, the kind of guitar-toting black eccentric they could comfortably chat with. Anddue to Sunny’s early vocal rawness, her songwriting ability, and the intellectual value placed on that by the rock music critics that dominate pop journalism, Sunny would be deemed a more light, “pretty,” MTV-friendly version of Tracy Chapman—and so as much artist as product. To the black music establishment and to most African-American critics (before the embrace of her by the mainstream was complete, and so by definition, suspicious), Sunny was regarded as earthy and positive and obviously light-skinned enough to be chosen as special by editors and photographers and fashion designers.
Still on her knees in Monterey, Sunny bent forward and put her forehead on the boards. Then she swept her arms over the floor of the stage and behind her, palms upturned.
On the pier’s planks,
Similar Books
