Published on Jan 23, 1998
The world made its acquaintance with quirky young attorney Ally
McBeal and soulful singer-songwriter Vonda Shepard at almost the
same instant.
During one of the still, charged interludes early in the pilot
for this TV season’s “It” show, as Ally broods, a piano takes up a
soft, purposeful melody in the background, marking and framing the
moment to perfection. Gradually, the piano is joined by a gently
ascending chant from a remarkable female voice. The chant is
deceptively simple – “La la la LA la la la la”- but the range of
feeling conveyed in its steady rise and fall is fairly astounding.
Melancholy, grit, vulnerability, hard-earned wisdom… Vonda
Shepard packs more emotional evidence into her vocal interpretation
of these eight “la”s than most heavy metal screamers cram into
hundred-minute double albums.
The snippet is from the song “Maryland,” the captivating
lead-off from Shepard’s 1996 album
It’s Good Eve, and hearing it, you’re left wondering how
someone with such an obvious gift could really have spent the
better part of the last fifteen years beating on the doors of
success and not getting an answer (the album is her third, on her
second label, in eight years). The singer-songwriter’s best pre-
Ally gig was singing back-up and opening for Jackson Browne
on his ’96 tour, which isn’t bad until you consider she’s his equal
as a composer and his superior in front of a microphone.
Shepard is something of a vocal athlete whose home field
advantage is clearly a quiet smoky L.A. bar late in the evening. At
least, that’s where rumor has it that
Ally creator/executive producer David Kelley’s wife Michelle
Pfeiffer “discovered” her. As a result, she is now playing a kind
of mirror-game with reality, getting regular air time on the show
as the house singer in the bar where “Ally”‘s cast of attorneys
hangs out after hours, singing her own tunes and a passel of
familiar covers, some of which likely date from her own club act.
(The irony, of course, is that her portrayal of a nightclub singer
on a successful TV show has undoubtedly propelled her into the
medium-sized theater category already.)
Shepard’s specialty – other than a tone-shifting vibrato that’s
remarkably evocative when not overused – is the sharply realized,
even raw slice of romantic life. On songs like “A Lucky Life,”
“Like a Hemisphere” and “Hotel Room View” she matches strong piano
and acoustic guitar melodies with knowing observations that cut
just the right stance to act as a sort of on-screen Greek chorus to
the perpetually flustered McBeal. “Grain of Sand” is equally
observant and quite interesting musically, with its distinctly
psychedelic vocal ascensions and swirls.
“Maryland” is where her gift shines the brightest, though, as
she crafts a starkly honest look at her own pre-“Ally” life or
something very much like it: “Never worry about what I did wrong /
And that I’ll never be what my daddy wanted me to be / And I’ll
never see what my mama’s dreams were / But I will sing…”
It’s been a long struggle for Vonda Shepard, but one that serves
her well as she plays the voice of the wise older sister to the
dazed-and-confused Ally. And when the
Ally McBeal soundtrack comes out later this spring, it’ll
earn her a well-deserved hit album, too.