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Written by jay
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Tuesday, 26 February 2008 05:25 |
We remember Baby Dee in New York, riding her tricycle-mounted-harp around the East Village, looking a bit like John Lithgow in The World According to Garp and hustling for a solo show anywhere she could get it. She's come a long way, having taken some time running a tree-removal service in Cleveland, and returning to New York where she now had some indie music cred and connections enough to produce her latest album Safe Inside the Day (Drag City Records). Pitchfork reviewed it last week and the write-up is pretty glowing, with comparisons to Tom Waits and Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons, who Baby Dee also claims as a friend.
From the review:
As with Antony, Baby Dee gets over on her total, naked sincerity, the
kind of presence and honesty that pushes right through any preconceived
notions. She shares this quality with a host of fellow outsiders and
eccentrics, everyone from Tiny Tim through Tom Waits, artists who
approached cabaret and vaudeville in a manner that transcended
categorization.
We guess Antony was the closest they could come to referencing another tranny performer they've heard of, but we're sure she's pleased with the comparison.
Ms. Dee also got interviewed by Radar last month, and our favorite quote comes where she answers the question about how she got her name:
"You know the Pyramid Club in New York? Back in the '90s there was a
party there run by a tranny named Gloria Hole, who had, at one point in
her life, a neighbor with a retarded child named Baby Dee. I guess
Gloria liked to think of me as her retarded child. That's sort of how
it came about."
We admit we haven't heard the album, and we doubt it's on iTunes, but here's one track to tide you over - "Teeth Are the Only Bones That Show" from Safe Inside the Day.
RELATED:
Review: Baby Dee, Safe Inside the Day (Pitchfork)
No One Puts Baby in the Corner (Radar Online)
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