- Cindy Lee Berryhill
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Cindy Lee Berryhill is a singer-songwriter. Berryhill was born in LA's Silverlake, and grew up in various parts of California. Her debut album, Who's Gonna Save The World (Rhino/Capitol) came out in October 1987 and was followed by the Lenny Kaye produced, Naked Movie Star (Rhino/WEA)[1] in 1989. In Allmusic's online Cindy Lee Berryhill Biography entry (2008), Richie Unterberger wrote, "The San Diegan's 1987 debut, Who's Gonna Save the World?, may be her best simply because it is her most straightforward. Then as now, she was most effective, ironically, at her most basic and serious".[2] By contrast, Stewart Mason in his four and a half star review of her third album calls it her "first completely solid and intriguing effort".[3]
Berryhill like Brenda Kahn, Paleface, Beck, Michelle Shocked and John S. Hall were early proponents of the New York City Anti-folk movement.[4][5]
It would be another 6 years before her third album Garage Orchestra (Cargo/Earth) would be released. Garage Orchestra was a tin-can-pop inflected departure from her earlier folkier albums and garnered a 4 star review in Rolling Stone. In 1995 her boyfriend and husband to be, rock-writer Paul Williams suffered a brain injury and Berryhill put off the making of her next album until 1996's, Straight Outta Marysville.
In 1999, Berryhill's novel, Memoirs of A Female Messiah was released along with a live album entitled Living Room 16. After the birth of Berryhill and Williams' son in 2001 she began a song-cycle that included a song Beloved Stranger that was inspired by her experiences with her husband's brain injury and the awareness that many soldiers were coming home from war with similar injuries. In 2008 the album Beloved Stranger (Populuxe) was released.
Berryhill currently lives in Encinitas, CA with her husband Paul Williams (who is now suffering from early onset of dementia due to the brain injury and lives in a nearby nursing home), and their young son Alexander Berryhill-Williams. She is at work on her seventh album.
References
- ^ Naked Movie Star description at Amazon.com
- ^ Allmusic biographical entry for Cindy Lee Berryhill
- ^ Allmusic review of Garage Orchestra
- ^ J. Bessman, "Rising singer/songwriters redefine folk in the '90s", Billboard Jul 16, 1994, vol. 106 (29), pp. 1 and 36.
- ^ D. Kimpel, How they made it: true stories of how music's biggest stars went from start to stardom! (Hal Leonard Corporation, 2006), p. 7.
External links
Categories:- Anti-folk musicians
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