Lighten up? Arden? You’ve gotta be kidding!

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This article was published 26/11/2009 (6166 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

At least two years before Jann Arden signed on the dotted line with her manager, the notoriously tough Bruce Allen, the man made her cry.

Arden was recording Uncover Me, her platinum selling album of cover songs released in 2007, and, having heard an early version of the disc, Allen felt comfortable enough with the famed Calgary singer-songwriter to criticize what he heard — harshly.

"He phoned me up and gave me so much s–t," says Arden in an interview at the trendy Hotel Arts in downtown Calgary. "He said ‘This is the worst piece of s–t I’ve ever heard.’

"… It was one of the worst phone calls I’ve ever gotten in my life. And one of the best."

Allen’s complaint? "He was pulling his hair out because I had chosen all these songs that were like ‘I’m going to kill myself today,’ and it frustrated him to the point where I literally had a cry," Arden says. "I’d never had him say anything like that to me."

Allen, who steered the careers of Bryan Adams, Michael Bublé and Anne Murray to great heights, felt that the album Arden initially recorded was overwhelmingly melancholy and he encouraged her to have some fun with it, which she ultimately did, adding sexy covers like Dusty Springfield’s Son Of A Preacher Man and Carly Simon’s You’re So Vain to the mix.

"He was responsible for the success of that record," says Arden. "He made it better."

She adds: "Bruce Allen is always telling me to f–king lighten up."

Which is more or less what I dared suggest, too — although in a far kinder fashion, I thought — when I reviewed Arden’s latest disc, Free, when it was released last September.

The critic in me had to challenge the notion put forth in all the press material that Free was that dramatic departure for Arden.

Free is a record of gushingly emotional ballads about the politics of the heart. That has always been Arden’s stock-in-trade and she works the tear ducts as deftly as an episode of Grey’s Anatomy. That’s her great strength.

But if Arden was out to shake things up, why couldn’t she bring some of the raunchy humour she exhibits in concert, to her songs? Or, some of the feisty toughness she showed when she fired me a pair of scathing e-mails in response to my review.

She said she felt like I dismissed her music as "nothing more than sentimental drivel," which wasn’t my intention. She said my review was "mean-spirited and quite frankly, stupid" and she accused me of being a wannabe Charles Bukowski, which made me laugh aloud even as it stung.

Even when she’s lashing out she’s funny! So why can’t the occasional glimmer of that rough wit make its way into her songs, just to broaden her palette? I think it’s a fair comment.

Considering our exchange, of course I was on my guard when I met Arden at the Hotel Arts for this interview. Would I be sitting down to a hostile diva?

Not in the least. Arden was friendly and open even as she addressed what I wrote.

"I’m sensitive, I’m an artist," she told me. "I can get mad and hot under the collar and fire you off an e-mail… 15 seconds later I’m like, ‘What the hell did I do that for?’

"But I stand up for myself when I feel like I’m being pushed."

As for my idea, that she’d be a stronger artist if she incorporated other facets of her charismatic personality into her songs, Arden shoots me down.

Lightness in a Jann Arden tune? "It’s off limits," she says. "I don’t want to become the Barenaked Ladies."

No one wants that. But consider someone like Bette Midler, I offer, one of Arden’s musical heroes who has, incidentally, expressed interest in recording one of Arden’s songs. Midler’s shown that it’s possible to be racy and scrappy and still be achingly sentimental, all in one musical persona.

"I wouldn’t know where to start," Arden says. "Maybe I just have limiters, literally, on my heart. I just can’t be frivolous… I’m desperate to be taken seriously."

She stresses, however, that a big part of her approach does involve humour — even if it’s only allowed to surface in between the teary ballads. "The polarity of doing songs like Insensitive and Good Mother… and then turning around and telling a story about Maxi Pads at Costco, I think it has worked in my favour," Arden says. "I’m not blowing firecrackers up my own arse, but that’s really what’s made me original. It’s given me legs for the last 20 years, where people will still come and see me."

Allen agrees. "She’s a real dichotomy as an artist," he says. "I love her."

Allen freely admits that he has encouraged Arden to "up her game" and take more chances with her music. But he’s quick to add: "I can’t tell her what to write. I’m not going to change her… her act already has the bottom line. She can only write what she feels and she doesn’t write happy songs.

"But I’m really happy with Free. I think she did a great job on this record compared to her last few… I think the songs are much better produced, and that’s important."

Another big step was dissolving her personal management company and putting herself in Allen’s hands.

"I’d always heard that Jann was unmanageable, and you worry about that," Allen says.

Arden acknowledges as much. "When you manage yourself for (over 10 years), I was very used to saying, ‘I won’t do this or I won’t do that.’"

Without proper management, Arden had begun to flounder. "Nobody was working with her hand in hand to help better her art," Allen insists.

The key thing Allen says he’s bettered, thus far, is the presentation of Arden’s music, beefing up production values on record and in concert.

"When you see her (new) show, you won’t believe it’s the same broad," he says Allen.

As an artist who’s career had gone stale, one can see how Arden found new inspiration in Allen’s grand vision. "I think you’re a treasure to this country… but I want to step this up," he told the Calgary songstress. "I want people to see you like they’re seeing you for the first time."

 

— Canwest News Service