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Zippy is searching for Victor Ashe in Nepal this week. Eye on the Scene will return, assuming Zippy does. In the meantime, kindly enjoy this week's music story.
Local Louise Mosrie proves that all women musicians aren't identical
by John Sewell
The glut of commercially viable female musicians in the current pop marketplace has created an odd situation for women entering the music business, especially those who choose to create softer, more sensitive sounds. With the huge success of the Lilith Fair and all of the myriad woman musicians in its wake, it seems that any female playing anything except rough and tumble rock is instantly perceived as somehow being part of the quasi feminist singer/songwriter genre presently in vogue.
Now that she's found her place as a contender on the local pop/rock scene, Louise Mosrie has been faced with a lot of comparison to Jewel, McLaughlin, et al. Sure, she's female, writes introspective tunes, and usually performs solo with only an acoustic guitar as her accompaniment, but Mosrie says her music really falls more into the tradition of '70s songwriters like Carol King.
"I do get lumped in with Lilith sometimes, which is not a bad thing," says Mosrie. "Some people have said I sound like Jewel but I don't really hear that. I get a funny response from people because I do ask them what they think I sound like.
"I'm just interested in people's opinions for my career, I guess. So many people want to put you in a category and I don't know what category I fit into. I listen to Joni Mitchell and Maria Muldaur, and Rickie Lee Jones is a big influence—I could only hope to ever be compared to her...
"People want to compare you to somebody so that they can describe you; and that's okay. But I'm happier if people tell me that they don't know what I sound like, that I don't sound like anybody else. I think that's cool."
Mosrie prefers to just call her music pop, which is an apt, if perhaps vague classification. The 12 songs on her self released CD, Crave, feature lush arrangements, strong tunes, and a deep rooted sense of songcraft that could surely appeal to a wide audience. The key to the success of the album, however, is the basic unit of the song. Mosrie utilizes plenty of the available flourishes on the album without overshadowing the basic essence of her expression.
Though some purists in the singer/songwriter genre scoff at the use of expanded accompaniment on recordings, Mosrie feels that the extra sounds enhance the songs, not detract. "I love the production on the CD. And I wouldn't want to do just an acoustic record. I would probably have added more keyboards if I had the time and money. There are lots of different opinions. Some people think that you can be too produced, but I think that if it sounds good it is good. I also think there is a level of taste, and a point where you can say enough's enough. I don't want to cover up the songs with unnecessary production."
Though she one day hopes to employ a full-scale backing band and occasionally adds an extra instrumentalist in her local shows, Mosrie plans to soldier on as a solo performer while she finds her voice as an artist. "One day I might like to work with a full band, but not just yet. I think full bands come with a lot of headaches that I'm just not ready to deal with right now.
"Being a solo performer pushes me to be better. I found that in other bands I've been in, I used the rest of the band as a crutch. Being solo is all you—you've gotta do it all. I think being a solo performer pushes me as a writer. You've gotta be captivating enough without a band. If you have a crappy song, you can make it sound pretty good with a band. But if you don't have a band, you can't do too much for it."
Building a career in the music business is, at best, an iffy proposition. Mosrie recently took the bold step of leaving a prosperous career in ad sales to devote her full attention to her creative muse. She says that her husband, Mark, is also devoted to creating a situation in which her talent can flourish into a full throttle career.
"I am very serious about doing this and he is very, very supportive. I mean, I couldn't ask for more from him.
"Really, I did not spring this whole idea on him until after we were married. I just completely turned my life upside down for the music. I quit my career after 10 years of making a good income. I just sort of tried to prepare Mark as well as I could for this upheaval. But he's just been phenomenal. Sometimes I think he is more excited about my career than I am.
"He's artistic and he understands my need to do this and to not work a 40-hour week anymore. Corporate life was just not working for me."
At present, Mosrie plans to widen her touring radius to include some nearby cities on a regular basis. "My goal is to get to Asheville and play some coffee shops, play other nearby places," she says. "I played in Atlanta at Eddie's Attic open mic one night. There were a whole lot of people there who were a lot better than me—and that was an interesting experience. That was good for me. I plan to go to Eddie's again and I'd like to do some open mic shows in Nashville. There's more competition in bigger cities, but you can learn from that."
Hoping for eventual mainstream success, Mosrie prefers to focus on common experiences of day-to-day life that everyone can relate to. "If I was ever asked to play at Lilith I'd jump on it. But my lyrics aren't particularly feminist in any major way.
"I don't really want to be thought of as 'women's music' per se. I mean, the way Joni Mitchell and Rickie Lee Jones write is so human. Their songs are not about women or not about men exactly, they're just about being human. It's just human emotions being put across with music. I want to touch both men and women. I'm just writing regular stuff about regular people.
"I would not want to be pigeonholed or politicized. I don't want to be 'women's music,' I mean, who cares? They don't have 'men's music.'
"I'm just writing the music that I like and I have no idea how people are going to react to it. I hope they'll like it, of course."
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