Ashley Cleveland

Item: You Are There
Author: Chris Parks

You Are There

(1998)

Reviewed by Chris Parks

Discogs Apple Music Spotify

Label CadenceThe Phantom Tollbooth1999

blues rock gospel roots rock soul

It's always hard to know what to expect from a live album. Live recordings have the potential to be very good or very bad. A good live album will capture the performer's energy, spontaneity and interaction with the audience, showing depths to the performer that the rehearsed, overdubbed, choose-the-best-take environment of a recording studio will never show. The best live albums allow the listener to imagine being at the performance.

On the other hand, the uncontrolled environment of a live performance means that even the best engineer may not be able to make a recording that will capture the energy and intimacy of the concert. There is also a downside to not being in the studio: not all the bad notes, unintended feedback, etc. can be taken out in mixing. Indeed, many live recordings must be extensively re-engineered to make the sound more listenable.

So it is that I approached Ashley Cleveland's latest album, You Are There, with some uncertainty. Would the recording truly capture all that makes an Ashley Cleveland concert worth attending? Would the limitations of live recording overpower the energy and spontaneity of the performance? Does having her own label mean that she will be able to do her best work without worrying about the bottom line?

I am pleased to say that this is an album worth owning and hearing. The assembled performances capture Cleveland's ability to write and sing from the heart. The tracks include songs which she sings with only her own guitar accompaniment, songs backed by Kenny Greenberg's guitar mastery, and songs with a full band complete with keyboards and harmony vocalists.

There are different ways to sing the blues, and Cleveland handles them all well. There are the simple acoustic settings of "There Goes My Baby" and "You Don't Have To Take This From Me." Greenberg adds soulful National (slide) guitar licks to "Your Saving Grace." There is the full band groove of "Gimme Shelter" and "Lucky Never Had It So Good." Cleveland does a good job of fitting her vocals to whoever is playing behind her.

Cleveland wrote most of the songs she performs, and the album provides a good sample of her writing over the last eight years. Cleveland writes very personal lyrics about the ups and downs, joys and fears of her life. On the up side, there are the songs "Big Town" (paired with Andrae Crouch's "Soon and Very Soon") and "Lucky Never Had It So Good." "Big Town" is remarkable in that this version is played slower than the original version on her album of the same name. But that is not to say that it is played with less energy. Instead, the slower tempo highlights the lyrics ("I'm in no hurry now/ I've got a pretty good ride/ But it's good to know where I'm bound") and suggests that that last eight years have taught Cleveland that the journey to the big town requires endurance rather than headlong flight.

Cleveland's honesty extends as usual to acknowledging her struggles and fears. As a counterpoint to "Lucky Never Had It So Good," which focuses on her marriage as a gift from God, the album finishes with a song from before her marriage, "You Don't Have to Take This From Me," recounting the end of a relationship. The anxieties of a parent come through in "There Goes My Baby" and "Henry Doesn't Care."

At the heart of Cleveland and Greenberg's life, though, is the grace of God, and she sings clearly about her faith. "Your Saving Grace," "He Is," "Revive Us Again," and "You Are There" make her gratitude to God for all the blessings in her life crystal clear to the listener. But God and faith figure strongly in other songs she sings as well.

The album suffers from the sonic limitations of the recordings. Kenny Greenberg does his best with the mix, but on the full band tracks the vocals and instruments don't mesh as they would if recorded under controlled conditions. The quality of the performances does a lot to overcome the weaknesses. The tracks where Cleveland sings with just a guitar or two backing her sound good.

Cleveland's talents deserve wider recognition than she has yet gotten. With the direct control over her work that having her own label affords her, I hope that she will continue to provide listeners with the quality work that marked her previous albums. In her recent interview with the Tollbooth, Cleveland expressed her hope that this album would provide seed money that would allow her to make her next studio album. Since she expressed her belief that the songs she had written for the new album were among the best she has written, I hope that the live album succeeds in doing so.

3.5 tocks