William Dart reviews Inara George’s new album Dearest Everybody, which acts as a tribute to her father Lowell George of the band Little Feat, who died in 1979 when she was only four.
Inara George. Screenshot from her video for 'Release Me'. Photo: Release Me Records
It’s not every singer who sails into an album on the crest of a Van Dyke Parks overture. And what a delicious tinglefest it is — a little bit of bijou Broadway, with high-flying Hollywood strings and, eventually, the strains of a sentimental if rhythmically tangled old-time waltz.
Inara George enjoyed that introduction of a lifetime on her 2008 album, An Invitation.
You may know her work as one half of The Bird and The Bee with Greg Kursten.
Their debut self-titled album came out in 2007.
In 2010, as part of a whole album paying tribute to the sleek blue-eyed soul of Darryl Hall and John Oates, George gave the ballad 'Sara Smile' an elegant gender shake-up
Inara George had a quiet year in 2017, with just a few guest spots. She contributed vocals to albums by The Foo Fighters and the newly formed Superfruit, a duo created by Mitch Grassi and Scott Hoying of the a cappella group Pentatonix.
Superfruit’s debut album, Future Friends, handed George the perfect popsicle in the song, 'Everything'. I’m imagining her as an older simpatica sister with her favourite brothers, and I’m sure that all three cherish the ideal of finding just the right gentle, sentimental man. And in the break, just before we leave them, they flaunt their a cappella prowess, so familiar from their work with Pentatonix
Inara George’s other 2017 project was taking part in a tribute album for her friend Eleni Mandell. In fact, Mandell is more than just a friend – she’s a regular musical collaborator as part of the Living Sisters. But the Los Angeles-based singer is also a musical force in her own right, with two decades of CD releases to prove it.
The line-up for the 2017 tribute disc, titled Unsung Heroes, features 17 friends and associates who have cheerfully registered for a worthy cause — the internet-only release has all profits going to the Plastic Pollution Coalition.
As her contribution to the Eleni Mandell tribute, Inara George chose the song 'Yellow Light'. It’s very much a West Coast lazy afternoon number and, whereas Mandell infused it with a pretty regular laid-back country style, George notches up the intensity rather, with faux classical strings and a definite attempt to turn Mandell’s melody into one that’s more teasingly abstract than easily lyrical.
This year has found Inara George producing her fourth solo album with the welcoming title Dearest Everybody. And for an artist that I’ve always considered first and foremost a slightly impersonal stylist, this is a much more personal affair. You can sense the rewards that she must have found in creating just the right musical vehicles for some pretty serious emotions.
George was born to be a musician, being the daughter of Lowell George, guitarist and songwriter with the group Little Feat who died in 1979 when Inara was just a week away from her fifth birthday. It's a heritage that she joyously accepts, right from the opening track, 'Young Adult'.
The key song of the new album is 'Release Me'. Key, I think, because she plays down all the surreptitious clevernesses that we’ve come to expect of her music. Keen ears, of course, will pick up some bitter sweet tangs towards the end of the song and the there’s a few frissons in the vocal clusters that lace the choruses. Otherwise it veers towards straight-from-the-heart gospel feel, with piano and organ to the fore.
Listen to all these songs and more by clicking on the "Listen" link at the top of this page.
Music Details
'Song title' (Composer) – Performers
Album title
(Label)
'Overture' (George/Parks) – Inara George/Van Dyke Parks
An Invitation
(Ever Loving)
'Night Happens' (George/Parks) – Inara George/Van Dyke Parks
An Invitation
(Ever Loving)
'A Christmas Compromise' (George/ Kursten) – The Bird and The Bee
Safety Harbor Kids Holiday Collection
(Safety Harbor)
'Sara Smile' (Hall/ Oates) – The Bird and the Bee
Interpreting the Masters Vol 1, A Tribute to Daryl Hall and John Oates
(Blue Note)
'Everything' (George et al) – Superfruit feat. Inara George
Future Friends
(RCA)
'Sun’s Always Shining (in Rome)' (Mandell) – Van Dyke Parks
Unsung Heroes: Songs of Eleni Mandell
(Yep Roc)
'Yellow Light' (Mandell) – Inara George
Unsung Heroes: Songs of Eleni Mandell
(Yep Roc)
'Of Missing Persons' (Browne) – Jackson Browne
Hold Out
(Asylum)
'Young Adult' (George) – Inara George
Dearest Everybody
(Release Me)
'Release Me' (George) – Inara George
Dearest Everybody
(Release Me)
'A Bridge' (George) – Inara George
Dearest Everybody
(Release Me)
