Anne McCue

Inspiration comes from many sources for Anne McCue

Courtesy Anne McCue’s latest release is “Koala Motel.”

By KAREN SHADE World Scene Writer
5/1/2007

Growing up Irish Catholic in Sydney, Australia, Anne McCue knew she was onto something good the first time she heard a now unmistakable voice furl from the speakers.

She was 5, the daughter of a milk delivery man with a deep love of American blues.

"When I first heard Billie Holiday, . . . I couldn't believe that was a person. It was like such an incredible sound, and you'd never hear that around (Australia, then)," she said by phone from her base in Nashville.

Australia, she said, is a rough place, vast and open, sort of like the soundscape she's created in her latest CD, "Koala Motel."

American blues, rock and country take a steep dip south of Dixie and past the equator in McCue's work, reflecting a style that is a little bit of many things and eccentrically her own.

"My guitar, to me, is just as important to me as the vocals. I try to say the same things with the guitar as I say with the lyrics," she said.

McCue will take the stage Tuesday night at Cain's Ballroom opening for the inimitable and equally uncategorizable Lucinda Williams, who has been quoted praising McCue's work as "eternally fresh"

and inspiring.

While she's played all over the United States, in Australia, even in Vietnam for a year, this performance will mark McCue's maiden sojourn to Tulsa.

But "I've heard about it in a Gene Pitney song, 'Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa.' . . . Looking forward to it," she said.

Holiday is but one of the greats that would leave an impression on McCue. She learned to play a guitar when she was 16, learning at about the same time her late father did.

"I think he would've been a musician if he could've," she said. "He played guitar, ukulele, piano and harmonica. And he really encouraged me to learn the guitar."

What he left was his approval to venture across all musical fronts -- she counts jazz guitarists Charlie Christian and Django Reinhardt as well as Neil Young, Leonard Cohen and Jimi Hendrix as some of her strongest influences, but you get a feeling she has many more.

McCue came to Nashville after several years in Los Angeles. She writes of the seedier side of L.A. in the first track off the "Koala Motel" CD -- "Driving Down Alvarado." John Doe, who was a herald of L.A.'s punk scene in the late '70s and has since stayed ahead in both pure rock and alternative routes, lends his vocals.

Williams also adds her distinctive nuance in the ball-and-chain elegy "Hellfire Raiser." They met about five years ago when Williams visited the Nashville bar where McCue was playing. McCue has joined Williams on two tours since.

She said she always enjoys playing to Williams' audience.

"Lucinda's audience is a really great audience. They're really smart and open-minded. That's what struck me about the last two tours I've done," she said.

People may claim they hear a little Fleetwood Mac, the Doors and Stevie Ray Vaughan in her music, and McCue would be pleased. But there are certain notes from her full-throated voice and the Gibson Les Paul electric she plays that only she can accurately translate.

McCue wants to set the human condition to music whether or not she ever makes it into the mainstream.

"I think I hear the search for meaning in my songs," she said. "I'm not a person who has any answers, that's for sure, but I do think people have to take risks. You can't hide who you are or what you are. It's not healthy. I think people pretend they're a lot more normal than what they are."

---

Karen Shade 581-8334
karen.shade@tulsaworld.com