All About Me by Michelle Shocked
I wasn't born too good. Nobody wanted me, not even my own mother. But I'm here now, so I figure make the best of it. There's gonna be a lot of Jesus talk at the end of this, so get over it now or turn the page. Just don't blame me for wasting your time if you keep reading this then don't agree with how it turns out. Anyways, it's my autobiography, not yours.
People are always punctilious about the particulars in these things, so I was born Karen Michelle Johnston on February 24, 1962. And even that ain't true. But anyways. I was raised in a strict fundamentalist Mormon household and ran away from home at sixteen to live in Dallas with my hippie athiest father. Whatever. I graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in the Oral Interpretation of Literature. That part's a fact. Except I was so stoned most of the time I mostly remember the oral part, not the interpretation, or the literature. I remember it was around the time Luke and Laura got back together, if that helps.
Nobody likes to read much beyond this anyways, so what can I tell you? A guy recorded me in a field and I became a star? I sued my record label because they acted like the 13th Amendment didn't exist? Everybody
knows Franz Kafka wrote about cockroaches, but did they stop to ponder 'The Hunger Artist?' The fact is, I would've cooperated with all those people trying to make me into a nice little anti-commodity commodity except that I never found anything I liked to eat. I didn't like the taste of it. It smelled funny. And besides, I never knew love.
And that, my friends, is where this story ends. You see this man, David? I love him. I love him to my soul. And he loves me. And here's the best part. I know it. I really, really know it. I feel it, I believe it. I am loved.
Where's the Jesus part, you ask? Forget it, you didn't want to know anyway. I did it all myself. Nobody had nothing to do with any of the above except me, a poor bastard. I'm the brightest, smartest, dumbest hillbilly ever to come out of east Texas and if you care about any of the above, thank me. Now stop wasting your time reading this and get on with your day. I'm sure you have more important things to do.
*********************May 2008
Shocked is a traveler and a troubadour; a “picker-poet,†as they say in Texas. As a young feminist, she left Texas to travel, Kerouac-style, a musical vagabond caught up in Reagan-era grassroots politics. Her musical career was ignited by a bootleg recording made around a Kerrville Folk Festival campfire on a Sony Walkman. Released in England as The Texas Campfire Tapes without Shocked’s authority, its success abroad enticed Mercury Records to offer the newcomer a recording contract.
For Mercury, Shocked recorded a trilogy of albums that stand as a captivating primer on American music. Short Sharp Shocked’s spirited folk-rock progressed into Captain Swing’s energetic jump blues, expanding to Arkansas Traveler’s travelogue of minstrel-era country. While songs like “Anchorage,†“Come a Long Way†and “On the Greener Side†achieved popular success, her stylistic iconoclasm frustrated Mercury, particularly since she retained ownership of her masters. Shocked spent several years battling the label before finally “liberating†herself, citing the 13th Amendment.
Following one more foray into major-labeldom with 1996’s Kind Hearted Woman, on BMG’s Private Music, Shocked launched her own Mighty Sound label in 2001. A gospel-tinged debut, Deep Natural in 2002 was followed by reissues of her Mercury albums in 2003-04. In 2005, she defied convention (one of her specialties) by simultaneously releasing another trilogy: the roots-rocking “divorce album†Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Disney-fied western swing set Got No Strings and the Latin/blues blast Mexican Standoff.
ToHeavenYouRide spotlights Shocked where she’s always shone brightest—live onstage, delivering for an audience. The album captures her at her most soulful—in the original spiritual sense of the term. So continues the journey of a true American original.
*********************September 2007
