Karen Ponzio Photos
Lucy Isabel
“Are you coming on this wild ride with us, even if we don’t know where we’re going?” violinist Kieran Ledwidge asked the Three Sheets audience Thursday night. He and singer-songwriter Daphne Lee Martin took a tour through the new songs they’re working on for Martin’s forthcoming album. They were part of a double bill that included Nashville-based singer-songwriter Lucy Isabel, who was on her own wild ride of sorts playing her 11th of 31 dates on the road throughout the U.S.
Isabel, originally from New Jersey and a former New Havener — “I spent four years in this fine city,” she told the audience at one point. “I’m a big fan” — took to the stage first with a bountiful selection of songs from her latest record, Rambling Stranger, which was released this past June. Armed with her guitar and a voice that combined just the right amounts of longing and hopefulness, Isabel made her way through a 12-song set that enticed more than a few bar patrons over to the stage side of Sheets to hear and see her. Her songs spoke of change, love, leaving, and being strong, with the lyrics like “put on your brave face tonight / don’t let them keep you / you’re out of place” (from “Little Bird”) and “I am bold / I am broken” (from “False Prophet”). She shouted out her husband who was with her at the show and played a song for him called “Something New.” She also mentioned her grandmother, whom she never met but wrote a song about called “Izzy.” Isabel also covered both Patsy Cline and Dolly Parton with a gentleness that honored them. The audience gave her a warm reception throughout.
“I’m a traveling musician. This is what I do,” she said.
Martin is no stranger to the road herself. She completed a tour of the Midwest this past August and is already planning a “big tour” beginning this coming March 2020, when she will make her way through the eastern half of the U.S. and hit SXSW as well. She has been accompanied by Ledwidge, who has been working with her “on and off” for the past four years but is now her regular bandmate and album co-conspirator.
“He’s an absolute joy to work with,” Martin told me before the show. “I’ve been writing folkier stuff this time that lent itself to a more acoustic arrangement and he allows space for that,” lending not only violin but also keyboard and backing vocals to the mix. Martin has already released the name of her next album, The Starter Wife, and one video of a demo of the song “The Little Prince,” written from the point of view of the fox in the classic story.
Martin said The Starter Wife will include 11 songs. She already has basic tracking and demos completed for nine of them, with string arrangements by Ledwidge.
“They’re just as big as the songs on the last record, but with different instruments,” she said.
Martin does not have a release date set for the new record, and she is doing that for a very specific reason. “I’m going to record until I’m happy with it,” she said. “I’m on no deadline to anyone to put anything out I don’t feel good about. Everything is on my terms and only my terms this time. I’m going to be a lot more cautious.”
One thing Martin is not cautious about is her willingness to try new things and give herself and her music room to breathe and grow — as was evident during her 10 song set that included songs new and old. Songs like “Willing Victim” (which had Martin singing “lie to me, lie to me”) and “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down” (which Martin said was about “finding someone at the bar to take home”) were interspersed with more poignant songs such as “Like This,” which she said was inspired by her “getting back into the dating pool at 40.”
She also gave a shoutout and nod to Joni Mitchell with her song “Enough to Kill a Wildfire.” Not unlike Mitchell, Martin continued to make her way through song after song of lyrical prowess that revealed her strength as a songwriter and musician but never undermined her vulnerability and resolve to find her way through troubled times. She unearthed joy in songs like “Worth the Weight,” which she said was about those “really good friends” who help bring you back after having “little faith in humanity.” As you get older, she said, you start to “eschew the pennies and collect the quarters.”
Similarly the song “Gone Are the Days” — which, she noted with a smile, she had “transcribed off of a paper towel a few days ago” — spoke about the “tragic stuff mingled in with the good stuff” and experiences that were “cathartic.” Throughout each song Ledwidge and Martin danced with each other, always musically and occasionally literally, continually complimenting and enhancing each other’s performance and never competing for sound or sweetness. With her final song, “‘Til We Meet Again,: Martin cemented her place as a performer to come back to when one is wandering, perhaps lost, and needs to find compassion. Sometimes all we need is one night and a few songs to connect us to each other.
Isabel’s tour continues through October. Tour dates can be found at her website. Martin returns to the Elm City on Monday Dec. 2 at Cafe Nine. More November and December show dates for her can be found at her website.