Maine Songbird, Heather Masse

Heather Masse and her very excellent band played in Portland to a packed house of family, friends and fans. In fact, the MC from One Longfellow Square announced that he went to high school with her. So this is a case of local girl makes good!  If you haven’t heard of her yet, (because I think you will,) she has been a member of the girl band, The Wailin’ Jennys, has been a frequent guest on Prairie Home Companion and has been striking out on her own with Heather and the Barbarians and The Heather Masse Band.

There are a lot of female vocalists out there who have various strengths and talents. Heather’s most notable quality is her impeccable voice. It is imbued with sensitivity and acuity, and is incredibly soothing. She has a great sense of nuance and tone as a song stylist and song interpreter. One example is the old Doris Day hit, “Secret Love”. Doris Day’s version is full of the soap sudsy, unsubtle melodrama of her era. Heather’s version is almost unrecognizable when compared to the original, and takes it into a quiet, thought provoking place. She has a deep cello-like range and then wings her way back up into a very soothing mid-range, with the sultry quiet of Diane Krall and the fluidity of Sarah McLachlan.

Starting off the evening with her own composition, “The River of Red”, she showed us that the girl can also whistle -- a round, warbly, pursed-mouth whistle and a shrill whistle on the back of the teeth like the one people use to summon a cab.

Schooled at the New England Conservatory of Music, she was accompanied by a truly excellent three-piece band of fellow students -- Karl Doty on stand-up bass, Joel Arnow on drums and the very gifted Jed Wilson on piano, glockenspiel and background vocals. The two-hour performance was divided into two sets that featured songs primarily written by Heather.

Heather’s songs were varied in mood and topic. Many of them were the kind of pop compositions that merit universal popularity -- “Time’s a Hoax”, a love song about lovers separated by time and distance, “Our World”, a song about hope for the time we live in, and “A Distant Melody”. Interestingly, that last song sounded to me like something that Doris Day or Patti Page might have recorded. Another very memorable song was “Bathtub” - a sexy song about bubbles and romance that she hoped wouldn’t offend. It didn’t.

I was most moved by “Chosen”, a song about a birth that featured a really atmospheric introduction by the band – a dramatic fusion of sawing on the bass, precision percussion on the cymbals and drums, and versatile and intuitive piano playing by Jed Wilson, who worked his body on the keys like a butter churn.

The original tunes were interspersed with covers of “Angel from Montgomery” by John Prine, “Orphan Girl” by Gillian Welch, and “Dimming of the Day” by Richard Thompson.

They also did two beautiful medleys, one called the Moon Medley, which featured “Kentucky Waltz”, “Blue Moon of Kentucky” and “Blue Moon”; and a cowboy medley of two songs with the same title, “When I Was a Cowboy”, one of them composed by Heather.

The show was a top-notch, tight and professional display of hard work, talent and beauty, graciously presented. I wouldn’t be surprised if she recorded an album of duets with Tony Bennett someday. Heather’s unique and exceptional singing talent will take her far.

You can hear Heather’s music at http://www.myspace.com/heathermassemusic and at http://www.heathermasse.com