Shea Seger is a woman with a story. A story of a career interrupted. At the age of 20, the fragile and slightly dangerous-looking blonde from Texas came over here and made a record which sent ripples across the pond of the Americana scene. Shortly after, however, her father became crippled after a botched operation on an old Vietnam injury and she returned to Texas to care for him. During those 10 years she also brought up a little girl, Luna, and lived in a trailer. And now she’s back in the UK. And she’s pumped all the frustration, disappointments and anger from that decade into a new record, simply called Shea Seger.
Reading the biography I wasn’t sure what to make of it. It’s not as if anyone is owed a second career, is it (although bargain buckets are strewn with acts who think they are)? But Seger’s album isn’t full of complacent expectation at all. It’s full of a real sense of struggle and defiance. It may start off all Norah Jones, with a rather bland, “Dream a day with me/ out of this factory... full of wishing trees”, but then she gets angry: “I’m the piper/ I bleed red ...now I’m left with this hole instead of my heart”, she howls, as if at confession, on the next track. And for those who’ve crossed her: “You got some pieces/ You like to call them a heart...most of it was blown apart". Well, that certainly sounds like the sort of stuff worth traipsing across a wet London in a tube strike to hear.Especially as it turned out she’d had a blazing row with her management that afternoon, and was playing this, her “comeback gig”, with steam still rising from her mobile. Yes, there sure was a sense of drama when Seger, tousled and waif-like, came on looking like one of Gram Parsons' wet dreams. And for the first 10 minutes she brought a real sense of the Deep South with her. "Wishing Tree" blew like breeze through Spanish moss, and then segued into the stomp of "Piper’s Dream" where the guitars crashed as if trying to bust open a levee.
In fact, in the first quarter of an hour Seger covered most of the bases of her versatile and remarkable voice. Although loosely based in Texas, her vocals can conjure up most moods south of the Mason-Dixon line. She does smoky, like a voice you’d like to wake up to, angsty like bad memories, and angry like an argument you don’t want to have. "Drummer Boy", with its mysterious mountain fiddle croaked up images of war and betrayal, and the call to arms, "Wake Up", sounded a bit like PJ Harvey on a shouty day.
The strongest song of the set, for me, was "Dew Drops", which is about dreams and regrets, but more particularly Seger's own dreams and fear of regret. She sang it with a sincerity and conviction only matched by the two unlikely-looking men in black t-shirts at the front, with screwed-up eyes nodding and mouthing every word. The crowd was nothing if not diverse. On one side of the room was a contingent of women who looked as beautiful as Seger herself, and next to them a matching group of guys who looked as if they might have followed them in. But the bulk were an eclectic mix of people who apparently heard about the gig via word of mouth, and felt that they’d bagged the bargain of the month. In fact, they got more animated as the evening progressed. There were closed eyes in the lullaby, "Songs to Forget", toes tapping in the shuffle, "Boston Bound", and full-on rocking-out in "Last Man Standing". The evening ended with the prayer-like "Bending Wood", where Seger built up to a minute-long primal scream. And then, despite cries of encore, she walked off with her band of seasoned session and touring musicians.The crowd loved her, and Seger’s clearly looking to kick-start a new career, but is she good enough to do it? Almost certainly. Will she? Who knows? In this business there’s always someone newer and shinier. This year, theartsdesk has taken great interest, for instance, in fellow alternative country merchants Caitlin Rose and Diane Birch. But none of that stops the fact that Seger’s got a voice like an angel scorned, a clutch of songs that delight and disturb in equal measure, and enough charisma to bring some sunshine to the wettest London evening. And while she’s still making ripples as a biggish fish in a smallish pond, her audiences should feel privileged to see her.
Watch Shea Seger (from her earlier career) play MTV (YouTube):
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