| Event to celebrate local songwriter's life, music
by Sarah Rodman
Thursday, December 12, 2002
In 2000, John Rapoza was working part-time at an HMV
record store when he overheard a customer asking about a song he had heard
on WERS-FM (88.9).
The song was "Purple
Ray Gun'' by local singer-songwriter Alexis Gewertz Shepard, and the
customer wanted to know where he could buy it.
"I approached him and told him the whole story,'' said
Rapoza, "and said if he could wait a little while, there would be a record
he could buy.''
By that time Shepard was two-years gone from this world,
killed at age 28 in a traffic accident in 1998 while bicycling to work.
Shepard, her bassist Rapoza, guitarist Jerry O'Hare and drummer Mike
Aiello were four days away from the recording sessions that would've
yielded the first Alexis Shepard Band album.
The whole story Rapoza told the customer that day is one
of strong ties, both musical and emotional, and comes with as happy an
ending as is possible: On Saturday night, Shepard's bandmates and friends
will celebrate her life and music with a CD release party at the Lizard
Lounge.
The well-liked Shepard, who was the niece of Herald folk
and blues columnist Daniel Gewertz, was very much looking forward to
committing her songs to tape. Rapoza recalls that at her memorial service
her mother wondered if there was any way to get her music out there, so
people "could hear her singing her songs.''
That question made O'Hare think about an in-studio
performance the band had given on the Brandeis University radio station,
WBRS-FM (100.1), in January 1997.
"Her voice was recorded beautifully that day,'' recalls
Debra Wood, the singer's best friend and, along with Shepard's bandmates
and parents, a major motivator behind a 1999 tribute show and the CD
release.
Although Wood is an acupuncturist, not a musician, she
was determined to see the project through. "I'd lost my best friend and I
wasn't ready to lose her, and this was my way to still be her friend and
keep her alive,'' she said.
But, "We had no idea of the quality of this tape, which
was pretty rough. So we brought the music to Zippah Studios and (engineer)
Pete Weiss just really did a remarkable job,'' she said.
Working with Rapoza, O'Hare and Aiello, Weiss layered
full instrumental arrangements over the scaled-down radio recording.
Shepard's friends and fellow singer-songwriters Faith Soloway and Kris
Delmhorst lent backing vocals and cello.
"There were so many emotions involved in that on all
levels,'' said Soloway of harmonizing with her late friend, whom she
describes as the "warmest, sweetest, most generous, buoyant, supportive
person.''
"There's an eeriness because you feel in the studio that
she's there,'' said Soloway, "and then there's an honoring and a
privilege. I feel privileged to lend myself to what she's doing and
getting it out there.''
Rapoza agrees it felt like Shepard was in the studio
helping to guide their actions, recalling with a laugh mysterious
fade-outs on vocals that he guesses she might have judged substandard.
Four and half years after her death, and two years since they began work
on the album, he believes she'd be pleased with the results.
She should be. Sonically you'd never know that the warm
sounding "Alexis Gewertz Shepard'' was born of so much cutting and
pasting. Her voice has both a husky, haunting low end and a brassy Rickie
Lee Jones-like upper register. The record collects 16 songs, 13 from the
WBRS show and three from other sources, which illuminate what a promising
young artist she was. She wrote of others with real empathy and of herself
with self-effacing cleverness.
On Saturday night, Shepard's bandmates will be joined by
14 others - including Soloway, Jenny Reynolds, Franc Graham, Deb
Pasternak, the Gone Boys and Paul Kearnan - in sharing her unique and
often witty worldview.
"I would really like it to be as close as it could be to
what a CD release party would've been like for Alexis,'' said Rapoza,
who's expecting both tears and laughter.
Wood believes the project has had a healing effect on
all involved and when asked what Shepard might think of all of it, she
replied, "The idea that so many people love her and want to celebrate her,
I think she would dig that to the max.'' |