Listen Up: Grace Askew
Instead of singing, Grace Askew could be unearthing a tyrannosaurus rex.
“I wanted to be a paleontologist, digging up dinosaur bones,” said Askew, 21.
That was at age 8 after she saw “Jurassic Park.” “It was scary, but I love scary movies.”
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Listen Up Artist Grace Askew sings " Gotta Be Real" from her new CD, "Wasted Lipstick." Watch »
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Joni Mitchell changed all that. Askew began listening to lot of Mitchell after getting a guitar at age 13. “I’d never heard anything like her. I could identify with her kind of writing. Her sense of imagery — I loved that.”
That same year Askew wrote her first song, “My Retreat.” Recalling the chorus to the poppy folk song, she said, “Something like ‘Good luck will start smiling on me and you’ll still be stuck in that same tree.’”
She considers 17 a “huge transition stage” for her. “That’s when my sister moved to New York City. I used to go visit her. And seeing that music, that culture, there. She would just take me out all night long with her friends.
“We were staying with one of her friends in his loft in Brooklyn. He handed over this CD and said, ‘You’ve gotta hear her.’ It was Cat Power’s first cover album. That changed my life.”
She began to emulate Power. “She’s so guttural and real. That’s who I could truly identify with more than anybody I ever heard.”
Askew was a different person after she returned from New York. “I know it sounds cheesy, but I was.”
She adopted an even hipper style of dress after observing what New Yorkers wore. “I’ve always been quirky in the way I dress. I didn’t care what people thought. I would just throw together things. I used to make purses with my hot glue gun and tear apart clothes.”
Askew began performing her original songs at Memphis venues. One of them, “In the City,” was about New York. “The chorus is, ‘I think I lived here my past life. Maybe on a mossy park bench or a swanky high rise. But either way it’s all the same. My life will be fanciful in every way in the city.”
She participated in the Berklee College of Music summer program in Boston when she was 18. “There was a songwriting competition. Only 10 people were picked. I was one of the 10.”
Askew attended Loyola University in New Orleans. “That’s when I started playing out a whole lot more and got into the jazz scene. There’s a bunch of open mikes that I would do. And just play out on the street corners.”
Last Spring, she released her five-song CD, Wasted Lipstick, at Ardent Recording Studio. The CD is the title from one of the songs, which is about “Oh, you know, being disappointed in someone. Just being let down in love.”
Describing her love songs, Askew said, “I can’t say that I’ve ever been in true love yet, but (they’re about) just wanting someone to be there for you.”
“One Two Three” is about Memphis. The chorus is, “It’s July in Memphis, but I’m so cold without you next to me, so I wish you’d get on back here in one, two, three.”
“When I was away in New Orleans, that’s when I went back to my Stax Memphis soul. Being away for a year made me appreciate Memphis much more.”
Askew is still working on that Stax soulfulness. And, she said, “I’m trying to transition into more of a bluesy kind of thing. So, I’m listening to Black Keys a lot.”
Grace Askew at 10:30 p.m. Wednesdays at Neil’s at 1835 Madison. No cover charge.
Listen Up spotlights area performers. Michael Donahue can be reached at 529-2797.
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