Suzanne Vega Biography
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Suzanne Vega
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| Suzanne Vega | |
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 Suzanne Vega in 2006
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| Background information | |
| Birth name | Suzanne Nadine Vega |
| Born | July 11, 1959 in Santa Monica, California, USA |
| Origin | New York City, New York, USA |
| Genre(s) | Alternative rock Folk Experimental rock |
| Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter, record producer |
| Instrument(s) | vocals, guitar |
| Years active | 1982 - present |
| Label(s) | A&M, Blue Note |
| Website | SuzanneVega.com |
Suzanne Nadine Vega (born July 11, 1959 in Santa Monica, California) is an American songwriter and singer known for her highly literate lyrics and eclectic folk-inspired music.
Record companies saw little prospect of commercial success in the beginning; Vega's demo tape was rejected by every major record company—twice by A&M. In 1984 she was finally signed by A&M, and she is now a Grammy nominated artist.
Two songs of Vega's (from her second album – Solitude Standing 1987) that were very popular are "Luka" and "Tom's Diner." The latter has been covered by many artists.
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Biography
Vega's mother, Pat Vega, is a computer systems analyst of German-Swedish heritage. Her father, Richard Peck, is of Scottish-English-Irish extraction and works in graphics. Her stepfather, Ed Vega, also known as Edgardo Vega Yunque, was a writer and teacher from Puerto Rico.1
When Vega was two and a half, the family moved to New York City. She grew up in Spanish Harlem and the Upper West Side.2 At the age of nine she began to write poems; she wrote her first song at age fourteen. Later she attended New York's prestigious High School of Performing Arts, now on Amsterdam Avenue between 65th & 66th Street in Manhattan. (This school was seen in the film musical Fame). There she studied modern dance and graduated in 1977.
While majoring in English literature at Barnard College3, she performed in small venues in Greenwich Village, where she was a regular contributor to Jack Hardy's Monday night songwriters group at the Cornelia Street Cafe. In 1984, she received a major label recording contract.
Vega's debut album, Suzanne Vega, was released in 1985 and was well received by critics in the U.S.;2 it reached platinum status in the United Kingdom. Produced by Lenny Kaye, Steve Addabbo, the songs feature Vega's acoustic guitar in straightforward arrangements. Vega's writing often featured vignettes of characters and even inanimate objects, such as in Small Blue Thing. A video was released for the album's song Marlene on the Wall, which went into MTV and VH1's rotations. During this period Vega also wrote lyrics for two songs on Songs from Liquid Days by composer Philip Glass.
Her next effort, Solitude Standing (1987), garnered critical and commercial success including two hit singles: Tom's Diner, and Luka, which was an international success. Luka is written about, and from the point of view, of an abused child—at the time an uncommon subject for a pop hit. While continuing a focus on Vega's acoustic guitar, the music is more strongly pop-oriented and features fuller, more sensual arrangements. The a cappella Tom's Diner was later a hit again, remixed by two British dance producers under the name DNA, in 1990.
Tom's Diner
Vega's song Tom's Diner was used as the reference track in an early trial of the MP3 compression system, earning her the distinction of being "The Mother of the MP3". It was chosen because her a capella vocal with relatively little reverberation was used as the model for Karlheinz Brandenburg's compression algorithm.4 Brandenburg heard Tom's Diner in a radio playing the song. He was excited and at first convinced it would be nearly impossible to compress this warm a capella voice.
Tom's Diner takes place in Tom's Restaurant at 112th Street and Broadway in New York City. Exterior shots of the same restaurant appear in the television sitcom Seinfeld as the eatery where Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer hang out. There have been multiple songs released featuring Tom's Diner; a complete list can be found.4 Nick at Nite did a re-make of the song in the mid-90s for a commercial advertising "I Dream of Jeannie", in which the chorus is set to the theme from the show. The remixed version of "Tom's Diner" was later sampled by hip-hop artist and the first lady of Def Jam, Nikki D in her hit single titled "Daddy's Little Girl" which appeared on her first album titled "Daddy's Little Girl".
Luka
Luka was covered by The Lemonheads on their 1989 album Lick, shortly before the band was signed to Atlantic Records, and was a minor college-airplay hit. On a 1987 Swedish television special, Vega said this about the song Luka:
A few years ago, I used to see this group of children playing in front of my building, and there was one of them, whose name was Luka, who seemed a little bit distinctive from the other children. I always remembered his name, and I always remembered his face, and I didn't know much about him, but he just seemed set apart from these other children that I would see playing. And his character is what I based the song Luka on. In the song, the boy Luka is an abused child—in real life I don't think he was. I think he was just different.5
Also, in an ASCAP interview, she responded to a question about Luka:
Interviewer: When you can touch so many people with songs like Luka, it must be pretty rewarding.
Vega: Yeah. It’s an amazing feeling. Especially since that particular song is a very special song. It’s a song about child abuse, so therefore it does touch a lot of people in a different way than if it were, say, a love song or some other kind of song.6
Later work
Vega's third album, Days of Open Hand (1990) signified a change in style: the music became more experimental, and the lyrics expressed greater emotion.
In 1992 she released the album 99.9F° (ninety-nine point nine degrees Fahrenheit). It consists of an eclectic mixture of folk music, dance beats and industrial music.
Her fifth album, Nine Objects of Desire, was released in 1996. The music varies between a frugal, simple style and the industrial production of 99.9F°. This album contains Caramel, featured in the movie The Truth About Cats & Dogs and, later, the trailer for the movie Closer. A song not included on that album, Woman on the Tier, was featured on the soundtrack of the movie Dead Man Walking.
In 1997 she took a singing part on the concept album Heaven and Hell, a musical interpretation of the Seven deadly sins by her colleague Joe Jackson, with whom she had already collaborated in 1986 on Left of center from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack (with Suzanne Vega singing and Joe Jackson playing piano).
September 2001 saw the release of a new album, Songs In Red and Gray. Three songs deal with Vega's divorce from first husband, Mitchell Froom.
At the memorial concert for her brother Tim Vega in December 2002, she began as the long-term subject of a direct cinema documentary, Some Journey, by director Christopher Seufert of Mooncusser Films.
In 2003, the twenty-one song greatest hits compilation Retrospective: The Best of Suzanne Vega was released. (The UK version of Retrospective included an eight-song bonus CD as well as a DVD containing twelve songs.) In the same year she was invited by Grammy Award-winning jazz guitarist, Bill Frisell, to play at the Century of Song concerts at the famed RuhrTriennale in Germany.
In 2003, she hosted the American Public Media radio series American Mavericks, about 20th century American composers, which received the prestigious Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting.
On August 3, 2006, Vega became the first major recording artist to perform live in the Internet-based virtual world, Second Life. The event was hosted by John Hockenberry of public radio's The Infinite Mind.
On September 17, 2006, she performed in Central Park, as part of a benefit concert for The Save Darfur Coalition.7 During the concert she highlighted her support for Amnesty International, of which she has been a member since 1988.8
In early October 2006 Vega took part in the Academia Film Olomouc (AFO) in Olomouc, the Czech Republic, the oldest festival of documentary films in Europe, in which she appeared as a main guest. She was invited there as the subject of the documentary film by director Christopher Seufert, that had a test screening at the festival. At the end of the festival she performed her classical songs, and added one brand new piece called New York Is a Woman.
Vega is also one of the interviewed persons in the book Everything Is Just a Bet which was published in Czech in October 2006. The book contains twelve interview transcriptions from the talk show called Stage Talks that regularly runs in the Svandovo Theatre in Prague. Vega introduced the book to the audience of the Svandovo Theatre, and together with some other Czech celebrities gave a signing session.
She signed with Blue Note Records in the spring of 2006, and released Beauty & Crime on July 17, 2007. The album was produced by Jimmy Hogarth, which won a Grammy for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical. Her contract was not renewed and she was dropped in June of 2008. 9
In 2007, Suzanne Vega, following the lead of numerous other mainstream artists released her track Pornographer's Dream as podsafe. The song spent two weeks at #1 during 2007 and finished as the #1110 hit of the year on the PMC Top10's annual countdown.
Personal life
On March 17, 1995 Vega married Mitchell Froom, a musician and a record producer. They have a daughter, Ruby Froom (born July 8, 1994). The band Soul Coughing's Ruby Vroom album was named after her, with Vega's approval, though she requested a slight change.4 Vega and Froom divorced in 1998.
On February 11, 2006, Vega married Paul Mills, a lawyer and a poet. They originally met each other at Folk City on West 4th Street in 1981. In their own words, Mr. Mills proposed to Ms. Vega in May 1983, and she accepted his proposal on Christmas Day 2005.11
Discography
Studio albums
| Year | Album | UK | U.S. | AUS | NZ | GER | FR | SWI | Additional information |
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| 1985 | Suzanne Vega | 11 | 91 | 23 | 9 | 54 | - | - | First studio album |
| 1987 | Solitude Standing | 2 | 11 | 7 | 1 | 6 | - | - | Second studio album |
| 1990 | Days of Open Hand1 | 7 | 50 | 74 | 24 | 16 | - | - | Third studio album |
| 1992 | 99.9F° | 20 | 86 | 56 | 38 | 27 | - | - | Fourth studio album |
| 1996 | Nine Objects of Desire2 | 43 | 92 | - | - | 43 | 25 | 25 | Fifth studio album |
| 2001 | Songs in Red and Gray | - | 178 | - | - | 53 | 36 | 47 | Sixth studio album |
| 2007 | Beauty & Crime3 | 127 | 129 | - | - | 81 | 52 | 79 | Seventh studio album |
- 1 Days of Open Hand made #2 in Norway albums chart
- 2 Nine Objects of Desire made #20 in Finland, #23 in Switzerland, #39 in Sweden
- 3 Beauty & Crime made #9 in Estonia, #13 in Finland, #37 in Czech Republic, #49 in Poland, #74 in Italy
Compilations
- Tried & True: The Best of Suzanne Vega, 1998 - UK #46, AUS #96, GER #58
- Retrospective: The Best of Suzanne Vega, 2003 - UK #27
Singles
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| UK | U.S. Hot 100 |
AUS | IRE | GER | SWI | AUT | NZ | CAN | SWE | FR | |||
| 1985 | "Marlene On The Wall" |
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| "Small Blue Thing" |
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| "Knight Moves" |
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| 1986 | "Marlene On The Wall"(re-release) |
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| "Left Of Center"Feat.Joe Jackson |
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Pretty in Pink (soundtrack) | |
| "Gypsy" |
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Solitude Standing | |
| 1987 | "Luka" |
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| "Tom's Diner" |
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| "Solitude Standing" |
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| 1990 | "Book Of Dreams" |
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Days of Open Hand |
| "Tired of Sleeping" |
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| "Men in a War" |
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| "Tom's Diner"(DNA remix) |
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Taste This | |
| 1992 | "In Liverpool" |
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99.9F° |
| "99.9F°" |
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| "Blood Makes Noise" |
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| 1993 | "When Heroes Go Down" |
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- Rusted Pipe (DNA remix), promotional, 1991
- Caramel, 1996
- No Cheap Thrill, 1996 - UK #40
- Birth-day, promotional, 1997
- World before Columbus, 1997
- Headshots, promotional, 1997
- Book & a Cover, 1998
- Rosemary / Remember me, 1999
- Widow's Walk, promotional, 2001
- Last Year's Troubles, promotional, 2001
- Penitent, promotional, 2001
- (I'll Never Be) Your Maggie May, promotional, 2002
- Frank & Ava, promotional, 2007
- Ludlow Street, promotional, 2007
- Unbound, promotional, 2007
- Pornographer's Dream, podsafe, 2007 - PMC #1
Other contributions
- Stay Awake: Various Interpretations of Music from Vintage Disney Films (1988) - "Stay Awake"
- One World One Voice (album) (1990) - "One World One Voice"
- Deadicated: A Tribute to the Grateful Dead (album) (1991) - "Cassidy and "China Doll"
- DNA: Taste This (album) (1992) - "Tom's Diner (DNA Remix)"and "Salt Water"
- Hector Zazou: Songs From The Cold Sea (album) (1994) - "The Long Voyage" (with John Cale)
- Tower Of Song (album) (1995) - "Story Of Isaac"
- Dead Man Walking O.M.P.S. (album) (1995) - "Woman On The Tier (I'll See You Through)"
- The Smithereens: Blown To Smithereens (album) (1995) - "In A Lonely Place"
- Time And Love (album) (1997) - "Buy And Sell"
- Perfect Day (single) (1997)
- Joe Jackson: Heaven & Hell (album) (1997) - "Angel"
- Mitchell Froom: Dopamine (album) (1998) - "Dopamine"
- Celebrate The Season (album) (1998) - "Coventry Carol"
- Bleekerstreet (album) (1999) - "So Long, Marianne" (with John Cale)
- Dan Zanes: Rocket Ship Beach (album) (2000) - "Erie Canal"
- Hear Music Volume 7: Waking (2002) - "Widow's Walk"
- 107.1 KGSR Radio Austin - Broadcasts Vol.10 (2002) - "Widow's Walk"
- WYEP Live and Direct: Volume 4 - On Air Performances (2002) - "(I'll Never Be) Your Maggie May"
- Vigil (album) (2004) - "It Hit Home"
- WFUV: City Folk Live VII (2004) - "Penitent"
- The Acoustic Album (2006, Virgin) - "Marlene On the Wall"
- Dar Williams: Promised Land (album) (2008) - "Go To The Woods"
References
- ^ http://www.suzannevega.com/about/1987/creem.htmdead link
- ^ a b "Suzanne Vega: A Life in Music". Official Community of Suzanne Vega. Retrieved on 2008-05-26.
- ^ "Biography". Official Community of Suzanne Vega. Retrieved on 2008-05-26.
- ^ a b c "Fun Facts Music". Official Community of Suzanne Vega. Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
- ^ "Luka by Suzanne Vega Songfacts". Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
- ^ "ASCAP". Retrieved on 2008-08-22.
- ^ American Jewish World Servicedead link
- ^ http://www.suzannevega.com/bySuzanne/childhoodStolen.htmdead link
- ^ http://www.suzannevega.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?4160/5619dead link
- ^ Doelle, Chris (2008-01-05). "PMC Top10 - 010408 - Top Hits of 2007!!!". PMC Top10. Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
- ^ http://www.suzannevega.com/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=12&post=4291dead link
External links
- SuzanneVega.com – Official Suzanne Vega Website
- Suzanne Vega on A&M Records
- Suzanne Vega at the Internet Movie Database
- Suzanne Vega documentary clips
