Annie Wells dwells on three songs near the end of her new CD, Tell Me, including one written by her guitar-guru friend, Phil Marshall. "I told Phil," she says, "I'm the queen of grief and loss."
Maybe so, but she does it so beautifully. Wells celebrates the release of Tell Me at the first of four straight Monday-night appearances at The Little Theatre Café. It is — to borrow a title from one of her previous three albums — sad and beautiful.
Wells' songs like "Beautiful Voice" and "Rosary," and one written by Marshall, "I'll Guide Your Sweetest Dreams," all explore the idea that you can continue to speak with loved ones you've lost through prayer and remembrance.
It's not all grief and loss, of course. In "Perfect," the pianist scoffs at "the idea that someone says, 'It's hard to live with you, because you're too perfect,'" she says, dropping the slightest of hints that that's how one of her own relationships came to an end. "Perfection, I think, doesn't exist."
And cynicism creeps in with "Ice Age" — Wes Smith's cool tenor sax is a real treat throughout the record — when Wells sings, "I think it's an Ice Age, there are so many cool cats." It's easy to buy the look, she says. But, "It's important when you're playing music and when you're writing music that it's coming from your heart. Some musicians and some people don't always approach their music with sincerity and with heart."
Tell Me ends on a light note. "Be" is a seven-line poem from the children's magazine Highlights, brought to Wells by one of the developmentally disabled patients that she works with. "I thought, 'Wow, that is beautiful, I could definitely put music to that,'" Wells says. Written by an 8-year-old girl, Wells went through the magazine to track down now 12-year-old Megan Hall in Maine to get permission to use her words.
But perhaps Wells' finest moment is "Little Sparrow," a tribute to the waifish French chanteuse, Edith Piaf. Wells played it for Marshall, saying she needed an accordion player for the right mood. Marshall immediately thought of Ed Marris, who played an 1958 Sonola accordion with Lumiere, the local trio that specializes in that Django Reinhardt style of Parisian café jazz.
"When we rehearsed that song in my house, on the night before we recorded it, it was magic," Wells says. "It sounded so beautiful that I couldn't come in on my vocals. My jaw dropped, my mouth hung open. It was so exciting to see that song go from something I plinked out on my piano to that beautiful accordion part." Drummer Dave Tedeschi and bassist Jesse Breheney were similarly impressed, says Wells. "They were, like 'Wow, instant band.'"
For more, check: www.anniewells.com.
