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Singer/Songwriter Krista Detor
Mudshow
Artist: Krista Detor
Title: Mudshow
Genre: Self released
Website: www.kristadetor.com
CDBaby: 
There are a million singer songwriters out there in the
emotionally naked city. And Krista Detor is one of
them. But her talent and the content of her songs are
what sets her apart. Everyone goes “ohh ahh” over
Norah Jones, but her best and most popular songs are
written by Jesse Harris and Hank Williams.
Krista, however, is
in the tradition of the neo folk revival with its
roots in the coffee shops of the West Village in NYC
in the sixties, and its continuation today. That
tradition states that, while it’s cool to do other
people’s songs and classic stuff, you have to tell
your own stories.
And while Ms. Detor is not as
sprightly and left-field original as Regina Spektor,
she has chops, writes damn good songs, has experienced
something besides a meteoric rise to the top, and has
the courage of her own convictions.
On her previous CD, Ms. Detor was dreaming in a
cornfield. Like a dream, this CD was cinematic, with
odd characters coming in and out. There were guitars
and saxophones, and a drummer hitting hard much of the
time. There were surreal love scenes, wild desire, and
a circus polka tune.
But like most dreams, all the characters are the
dreamer, Ms. Detor. The new CD finds her in other people’s dreams, as a spectral fly on their
walls. She sings the human drama, and like a good
dramatist she takes ordinary people and shows us the
complex myth that all of us humans live. In life we’re
all born, grow, try to make sense of it all, and grab
some truth and happiness before we weaken and die. In
these songs, she explores the whole middle part. Like
a poet and playwright, she makes songs out of
crystalline moments.
Call this album a novel like
Richard Wright’s “Manchild in the Promised Land” or
the musical equivalent of Akira Kurasawa’s “Dreams”: a
collection of short pieces - stories or short films of
dreams - that taken together, form a whole, more than
the sum of its parts.
The title song, "Mudshow," sets the stage with the album's theme:
people sick of it all and getting the hell out. The
character is young and okay, then becomes old: “And
this side of the big top, time moves slow / Stuck in the
belly of a travelin’ mud show.” The character runs but
he can’t hide from himself:
 Started out a sailor, I
got the draft at eighteen / Never got anywhere near
any war like the kind some people seen / Twenty years
later I ran away from home / Long run of bad luck I
found myself all alone . . . / Didn’t leave a note,
left the kitchen light on / Went and joined the circus
to paint a happy face on . . . / Too big for a clown
car/ They handed me a shovel and they didn’t ask
questions / Led me to the trailers, lookin’ at my
future . . .
Don’t we all ask, “how did I get here
and why?”
“Abigayle” is the story of why people pour into Los
Angeles and New York: the epic search for something
else. But most people just wistfully dream and do
nothing and stay stuck in the everyday dramas of the
small towns we live in - in or out of big cities:
I’m
thinking too much about who’s doing what And ‘bout
whom I’m supposed to be still / And sometimes I forget
if it’s her or it’s him or it’s somebody different
still / I’m getting too tired to keep track of it all
And I care a little less everyday / But I’m pretty
sure someone’ll drop by or call With something
clandestine to say.
Other people’s problems are easy
to solve, she seems to be saying, but they only remind
us our own. Or not. Either way, it’s heavy weight and
suffocation.
Some songs on the record show characters that are
drowned or trapped in the prisons of longing and
nostalgia, like “Peach Street,” (ghosts and sadness
and booze and chains to a place) and “Buffalo Bill”:
Nothing new – in the morning light / Nothing new –
‘cept another stop light (on the corner) And all this
time – where did he go - Buffalo Bill and his rodeo?
Others deal with bad relationships like “A Red Bowl”:
Green limes in a red bowl on the table / And I don’t
know what you’re calling for / If I had a dime for
every drop of rain / If I had a million-dollar name /
Would you like me better? / Could it all be better?
And “Dancing in a Minefield:
You’re dancing in a
minefield like Ginger Rogers /Like anybody looking
hard couldn’t see / The sunken eyes and the hands a
trembling / And every step is farther from me
And
there are wild women, too, weird and untamed. Other
characters escape like the woman starring in “Steal Me
a Car”:
Steal me a car and we’ll drive on out of here
/ We’ll stop at the bar to get us some courage and a
cold beer / I’ve seen what happens when people are
stayin’ in this town too long / Steal me a car and
I’ll drive and you can come
along
At least in their minds, if not in real life.
I focus on the lyrics because the music is done in
the piano-based, country-tinged singer songwriter
style popularized by Regina Spektor and Nora Jones.
Her stripped down style, with understated piano by
Ms. Detor , bass, drums, cello, fiddle, guitar, dobro
mandolin and accordion, are solely there to give
musical underpinnings to the lyrics, to the musical
movies it creates. But with the acoustically rich
instruments, her music is technicolor and with a rich
graininess.
Like most good art, her artful craft makes these
little ditties remind me of me, parts of my mind, my
self, that I try to avoid, like other people like
women, like myself. Oh, wait, did I say something
earlier about her making these dreamy songs by being
in other peoples dreams? I think so, yeah, but now I’m
thinking that these people could all be her, too. Maybe that’s why she chose to write about them because
they remind her of her.
Like Mr. Natural would say,
“Wherever you go, you are there.”
Go to her site and get the 411: www.kristadetor.com
and tell her Kirby sent you.
For more information and to contact the author, click on the author’s name at the top of the page.
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