Quick Q and A with LUCY KAPLANSKY
 by Kathy S-B  ·  23 September 2007

Lucy Kaplansky is a vital component on the contemporary folk music scene. She is much beloved by fans and critics alike. Her strong vocals and introspective lyrics are captivating. Check out this video of Lucy singing “Ten Year Night,” a love song for her husband. Also included on Lucy’s MySpace page are several clips of songs from Lucy’s latest CD, “Over the Hills.”

A recent review of your new CD “Over the Hills” suggests that you’ve been overlooked amidst the Adult Oriented Radio “stars” like Mary Chapin Carpenter and Shawn Colvin. Do you feel overlooked? It seems to me that you have a pretty large base of devout and devoted fans. Not all artists are that lucky.

I feel very lucky to have the audience I have, people who keep buying my CDs and coming to my shows. I certainly don’t feel overlooked, I feel lucky!!

I have always been impressed by the fact that your fans not only love your music and adore you, but they take their love for you and put it into such amazingly proactive and wonderful projects like a scholarship in your father’s name and donations to adoption agencies. It must make you feel extra warm and fuzzy when you hear such accomplishments that you inspired.

It’s amazing to me how giving some fans are, it has meant so much to me that they have donated to causes I think are wonderful, several times I’ve actually been in tears when they’ve told me. I’m so honored to have played any part in all of that.

Your song “Land of the Living” is one of the most compelling Post 9/11 songs I’ve ever heard. The image of the New York City taxi drivers praying on the sidewalk is seared into my mind and I consider that a good thing. Your song reminds the listener of just how many people of different races and creeds were affected by the events of that horrible day. I understand that you could actually see the towers crumbling. Is that correct?

Yeah, we were living downtown in a high rise facing the towers and I saw a lot that morning. We were terribly lucky, we weren’t hurt and no one we knew was. But what a horrible, horrible day. And that song, which I wrote with my husband, is really the account of a witness, it actually lays out some of what we saw in the days after the attacks.

On the other side of the aural spectrum, your songs about your little daughter, Molly, are so joyous and so sincere. It’s more than obvious how much she has brought to you and your husband’s lives. Do you find that your songwriting process and the way you develop your songs has changed a lot since you became a mother? Do you have any time management tips to pass along to other parents who are also creative artists like you?

I think I’m tending to write about family more, not necessarily about her, but about my own family of origin. I’m not sure why, maybe family is just much more important to me now that I’m a mom. I can’t say the writing process has changed, I’m just not getting to do it as often!! I wish I had time management tips, now that my daughter’s in school I’m trying to write every day. We’ll see how that goes. The best advice I can give is to try to set aside time every day to write.

You are to be commended for the eclectic mix of cover tunes that you do in concert and on your recordings. Roxy Music’s “More Than This” is absolutely inspired. I am not aware of any other “folk” artist who covers Bryan Ferry. Are you working up any new and unusual covers that we can look forward to some day down the line?

I’m always doing new covers, I love singing great songs, and there are so many. I’ve got a couple right now I’ve been trying out, so I’m sure I’ll have more!