Songs from an open heart
The first time I listened to the voice of Dayna Kurtz it made me think of chanson française and old blues and jazz singers. That was the time of her debut album Postcards from downtown (Kismet Records, 2002). The first song was called Fred Astaire, but the sound had nothing to do with the musical films from the thirties. Although, its influence was there, like a beautiful shadow that helps us to survive hard world. Dayna Kurtz is growing musically as well as her soul is becoming more and more sensitive. The current album American standard (Kismet Records, 2010) is invoking our spirit of humanity from her personal intimacy. I’ll open my heart and i’ll learn how to pray, she sings in the opening Invocation. Her music is always an open heart full of passion for life that doesn’t stop her fight for human rights. She’s a song of life and freedom.
How does a postcard from downtown look like?
In downtown New York City clubs there used to be racks of free postcards in all the bars. They had all these arty snapshots on them. I imagined a rack of snapshots of all my lovers’ entry doors to their apartment buildings. That was almost the cover of the album.
Your debut album was received as a wonderful gift. Did it represent a hard pressure for the second one?
I don’t recall so, no. I always worry after finishing each record that there’s going to be no more inspiration. That any minute now I’d get too old to access passion, that my best songs are behind me. Until I start writing again. But I never felt pressure from the outside, no.
Jazz, rockabilly, French song... and your second album arrived under the title of Beautiful yesterday. Nothing better than past times?
The past is more knowable and more interesting for mining than the present. And no, I don’t think my generation or the generation coming of age has produced or will produce anything close to a Bob Dylan or a John Coltrane. Or a Chuck Berry or a Nina Simone or a Rolling Stones or The Beatles. The cultural/social and economic soup that created them no longer exists in America.
Parlez-moi d’amour...
The only thing that really matters, outside of good food and a cocktail at 5.
You’re in the city and you’re looking for desert, then you’re in the desert and you’re wishing for rain. Another black feather is an album that walks on the doubt land, confused minds and some religious concepts like miracle and sin. Do you believe in sin?
Sin is too subjective to pin belief on. I’ve got my own personal ethics code and lines I likely won’t cross. But there’s very few sins I can name don’t come with a small print extenuating circumstances clause.
Four years, some parallel projects, concerts and a fourth album has finally come true. Have you found the beauty of time going by?
It’s like looking out the window on a bullet train. I can barely make out the details.
Are you an American standard?
I’m a standard American.
Invocation opens your new album in which you return to the religious images. Imagine no religions...?
Religious images are potent. The song itself is addressing the muse, who I decided on that day was a sort of maternal, benevolent goddess. I have a hard time imagining no religion, living in America. But I was raised by atheists – and atheism/agnosticism makes more logical sense to me. But I’ve always been fascinated by true believers of religious dogma. I used to ask my religious friends from school to take me to their churches and temples. I tried praying when I was a little kid, and my heart was pounding in fear of doing something terribly wrong – kind of like a religious christian kid looking at porn.
Election day is inspired by Barack Obama’s election. All the hope he represented then, is still alive two years later?
Probably not. But that kind of feeling of being released from bondage after the Bush/Cheney years, that explosive rush of happiness and feeling like we might actually survive our worst instincts as humans – I’ll remember that feeling for the rest of my life. I’m back to thinking that a huge chunk of humanity if not all of us is not going to make it to the next century. But at least my president doesn’t make me cringe with revulsion every time he speaks.
Have you some literary references as a writer?
I read a lot of beat writers when I started out writing. I was a huge Allen Ginsberg fan. Most of my big writing influences are songwriters and poets. the obvious – Dylan, Tom Waits, Joni Mitchell, ¾ of The Beatles, Leonard Cohen, Hank Williams. But also the great Nashville and southern songwriters. Harlan Howard. Hank Cochran. I admire craft as much as artistry.
You use to play with a Blue mountain surrounding you. How is that blue highlight experience?
The Blue Mountain tour was one of the most fun tours I've ever done. I love hanging out with southerners. They're more easy going than yankees, have a better sense of humor, generally. I'd never toured with a southern band before. I'd like to make that happen more often.
Sex, drugs and rock’n’roll ? What does rock music mean to you?
Freedom. joy. I listen to more and harder rock and roll the older I get. When I was young it was all singer-songwriters and jazz. I was a serious kid. This morning I cranked myself up for the day listening to Motorhead’s ‘ace of spades’ followed by some Chuck Berry and the Stones.
Do you really think good guys sometimes win?
Yes.
Could you tell me a dream?
I once dreamt that tom waits was in a star trek episode, he woke up in a kardassian prison, half drunk, half hungover and had no idea where he was or who these lizard people were or why they were interrogating him. He started yelling out the bars – ‘is there anybody out there? Is there anybody home? ‘I woke up laughing. That became part of the end of my song ‘somebody leave a light on’.
An interview by Juan Carlos Romero
Dayna Kurtz website www.daynakurtz.com
Photos courtesy of Dayna Kurtz