One day en route to work, I was trudging up some subway steps when an impatient lady behind me grumbled something about “all the slowpokes.” I remembered something a friend once said: “It’s the slowpokes who need the lovin’.” And that turned into the song “Comfort You Up.” Slowpokes as the new album title fits in a bunch of ways: although I’ve been singing and writing songs since I was a kid, it took me until my early 30s to actually stand up in front of people with a guitar; and making my first album (Land Of My Baby) took a couple of years. Certain things can be pretty sweet when you let them bloom to their full potential.

Slowpokes features the talents of many folks, including: Rod Hohl (Mary Lee's Corvette, Yarn), Andy Hess (Gov't Mule, The Black Crowes, Tina Turner), Steve Goulding (Garland Jeffreys, The Mekons, Elvis Costello), Rob Clores (Colin Hay), Rob Jost (Imogen Heap), Boo Reiners (Demolition String Band, Klezmatics), and Scott Anthony (Daniel Lanois, Lloyd Cole). Robert Scheffler is an amazing NYC singer-songwriter who helped me push some of my unfinished ideas into real songs, and we ended up writing (and singing) a beautiful duet. Slowpokes was produced by Scott Anthony, Rod Hohl, and me, and was mastered by Grammy-winning engineer Gene Paul (son of Les Paul).

Slowpokes is my usual casserole of styles...kind of Americana, kind of rock, kind of folk. I grew up in L.A. and soaked up the whole California rock thing, pretty much memorizing every Linda Ronstadt song. Right before I moved east, there was the whole Bangles/Plimsouls thing; I wrote a poem for the school paper about how Peter Case sweat on me from the stage. In college in NYC I sang with an a cappella trio...everything from settings of Edna St. Vincent Millay poems, to raucous gospel tunes. Somehow it all came to a head in the late '90s, when I was listening to a lot of Jane Siberry and Liz Phair, and indulging my country music fanaticism, with Nanci Griffith on one end of the spectrum and Trisha Yearwood on the other. (That's when I started to write.)

I began playing places like CBs Gallery and the lovable but now-defunct Baby Jupiter; eventually met my bass player/producer/husband Scott Anthony; and started making records. Land Of My Baby was about winding down the stressy young adult years and inching into true grownuphood (and suburbia). Slowpokes is basically, "Hang on, I'm almost done growing up, and I've made some amazing discoveries along the way."

Some of my favorite gigs have been at Jalopy in Red Hook; the Happy Ending reading/music series (I played the night the amazing Jen Trynin read!); the truly wonderful Banjo Jim's in the East Village; and the Parkside on the Lower East Side. I'll always miss CBs Gallery, where I had my first real gig, and Baby Jupiter, where my friends and I threw a benefit concert in 2000 at which we did all of George Harrison's All Things Must Pass from start to finish (except the jams).

So, let's meet one day in a sweet little club (one that's also a used bookstore?), or outside in the summer playing in a barn that's not too sweaty...or at the Saturday Afternoon Song Swap, the songwriter's circle I run in NJ with Deena Shoshkes. In any case, I hope to see you...but come at your own pace; it will make it that much better.

rebeccamo34@gmail.com

photo by Paul Turner