JULIANA HATFIELDHATFIELD Cult-Beloved Trio Blake Babies
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JAN/FEB 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, Seals & Crofts, America—songs that everyone knows. That music really got into my bloodstream and my psyche.” While the bulk of Peace and Love is spare and acoustic guitar-based, Hatfi eld does paint outside the lines on occasion. The piano ballad “Why Can’t We Love Each Other” is the fi rst song she’s ever written on keyboard, while the hot-wired, Neil Young-like electric guitar break in “What Is Wrong” provides the disc with its only plugged-in moment. “There was a period a few years ago when I hunkered down and worked really hard on guitar, learning things like Keith Richards solos in weird tunings,” Hatfi eld says of her approach to the six-string. “I spent about a year doing that, learning how to do certain scales and so forth. But other than that, I’ve been a oenig slacker—although I care very much about my guitar playing. I think one of the reasons I never studied it very much is that I wanted to keep it pure. I didn’t want to be infl uenced by other guitarists.” It’s been more than two decades since Hatfi eld fi rst made her name as part of the JULIANAJULIANA HATFIELDHATFIELD cult-beloved trio Blake Babies. She eclipsed thatthat group’sgroup’s success as leaderleader of thethe JulianaJuliana Alt-rocker strips down old school—and Hatfi eld Three with early-1990s modern-rock fi nds peace hits like “My Sister” and “Spin the Bottle” before going completely solo in 1995. She JULIANA HATFIELD’S 2008 ALBUM recorder, Hatfi eld came up with a ballad- says she’s only now begun to consider the How to Walk Away was a polished effort, driven song cycle centered on strummed musical legacy she has built during her career. recorded in a New York City studio over a guitars, delicate vocal harmonies and “Some of my old records make me long time with a large cast of musicians. For introspective themes. The lack of production cringe,” she admits, “but everything about her latest, Peace and Love, she elected to gloss only serves to emphasize her exquisite them was very innocent and very pure. My take precisely the opposite tack. way with a melody—a gift Hatfi eld attributes body of work has integrity, in the sense that I “This time I wanted to be alone,” she to the impact AM radio had on her when never tried to tailor anything to anyone else’s says. “I wanted to see what would come out she was growing up. “I fell madly in love tastes or to the marketplace. I have nothing of me with no one else involved.” Writing and with ’70s pop songs at a time when I was to be ashamed of, that’s for sure.” recording at home on an analog eight-track very impressionable,” she says. “I loved –Russell Hall team,team, which was behind Omarion’s 2004 hith “O.” “You want the balladeer is all about the quick seduction. In fact, “What Do You chemistry to be right,”right,” Omarion (born Omari Grandberry) says of Say” fi nds the singer suggesting to his paramour that they go on his experience working on the new album. “You don’t want to be in an old-fashioned date and do “normal things.” “There are a lot of the room with someone who has the idea of the kind of music you songs on there talking about love and acceptance, and being able ought to make but it’s not what you want.” to take your time and recognize what it is,” he says. Omarion asserted more control over his musical destiny than Then again, there’s the lead single, “I Get It In,” a pulsing club ever before on Ollusion, his third solo effort following his departure banger featuring rapper Gucci Mane. The song came together in 2004 from the hitmaking vocal group B2K. “This project was the quickly in the studio as Omarion swapped lyrical ideas with most personal to me, because I was the most involved on this one,” producer Tank. says Omarion. “With the other ones, I would get assigned an A&R “He was doing this melody, and it had this 808 sampler in it, guy. He’s doing the job of fi nding records that might be hits but not and we were just going back and forth and it was so dope,” Omarion necessarily songs that pertain to your life. When you make a record says. “That was one of those records, when we were fi nished, I and it’s about you, a different emotion comes out.” called my manager, I called everyone, and said, ‘OK, we’ve got the The songs on his new album that pertain most directly to fi rst single!’” Omarion’s life might surprise fans who think the smooth-talking –Eric R. Danton 19 M mag_HB.indd 19 1/11/10 8:59:19 AM.