Dallas native Michelle Shocked to perform April 24 at House of Blues

by Catherine Cuellar

There's a beautiful symmetry to the career of Dallas native Michelle Shocked. Her 1986 debut, The Texas Campfire Tapes, was captured live at the Kerrville Folk Festival, and its stealthy release in Britain launched her career as a groundbreaking independent folk artist. ToHeavenURide, released in September 2007 on Shocked's own Mighty Sound label, was covertly recorded during the 2003 Telluride Folk Festival five years ago — in violation of her performance contract.

"I didn't know I was making a record; I thought I was doing a gig," Shocked says by phone from Los Angeles, where she's lived for the past eight years. Had she known her set was being documented for a possible DVD, she might have made a different set list. In any case, "there was — call it grace, or serendipity if you must — but there was some quality to the recording and its discovery. It all looked like the big hand of God pointing, 'No, this way dummy.' The freedom of an independent label will let you follow those instincts. You don't have to do market research."

So release it she did. Her set, like the digital relic of its performance, is chock full o' God talk from her contribution to the Dead Man Walking soundtrack and 2002's sublime Deep Natural. As on Arkansas Traveler, Shocked also interprets others' work — signature secular tunes like The Band's "The Weight" and Billie Holiday's "God Bless the Child"; gospel by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Fred Hammond from the Detroit group Commissioned; and spirituals "Wade in the Water" and "Study War No More."

Arrangements and musicians for ToHeavenURide were inspired in part by Shocked's membership in the West Angeles Church of God in Christ Mass Choir. It's quite a shift for a self-described former punk who ran away in high school to live off Lower Greenville and attend Eastfield College.

"I was perfectly happy being a stealth Christian. If people see me and I seem happier somehow after the failure of a 13 year codependent, dysfunctional alcoholic marriage and find out that it's because I'm a Christian, Hallelujah, Praise God." But thinking of church ladies in sweater sets proselytizing and evangelizing about their perfect lives, Shocked says, "Just shoot me now."

She became more outspoken about her faith after 9/11, "screaming against the Iraq invasion. My vision was so clear, the injustice, the flawed logic. I feel 100% confirmed. At the time there were howling jackals of war baying for blood."

Like the Dixie Chicks, Shocked was told "Shut up and sing. The stage is no forum for talking about your opinions. Freedom of speech is well and good, but this is a time to be unified."

Shocked's response? "What else are we not supposed to talk about? You want to identify other evidence there is not unity behind our administration, but garden variety repression? In polite company you don't talk about religion and politics? I'm going to talk about both. Unity doesn't mean we agree. It means we've all agreed to shut up. Therein lies the ability for powermongers to control the agenda, and we've lost our voice. The consequences are unacceptable."

It's not the first time Shocked has spoken up for the voiceless. In signing her first contract with a major label, she retained ownership of her master recordings. When the corporation later refused to either release her music or release her from her contract, she successfully sued citing the 13th Amendment outlawing slavery.

She's been prolific ever since. During her just-finished five-week tour of South Africa, Australia, and Europe, Shocked penned a full album's worth of new material, which she plans to release in September 2008 under the working title Soul to My Soul. She'll likely preview new songs like "True Story," "Liquid Prayer," "Waterproof," and her favorite of the bunch, "Other People" during her House of Blues set April 24. "I'm like a girl who got a new party dress; I don't want to wear the old one," Shocked says. Soul to My Soul will again be a departure, featuring her first love songs. "I still love God, but in terms of the direction on the new album, it's not an overtly gospel album. I haven't moved on from gospel, anymore than I've moved on from bluegrass or blues or anything else in my body of work."

• Staff
• Verified User
• Anonymous