boundless talent making a tremendous return to the music he loves.
-Tom Clarke
Pearl Heartbreak and Canyon Revelry (Station House) Back in those
“oh so long ago” days before Face- book and Twitter came to dominate
the online universe, I was one of the early members of the My Space community. Re- member them? They were kind of the “open- ing act” for Facebook. I recall not having a lot of my real friends on there. Most of my buds did not yet own a home computer. What I did have was about 60 celebrities as my “friends.” And most of the time, it was really them writ- ing to me! Not an assistant, but a bonafide fa- mous person. Among them was Ashton Kutcher, the actor who played the nerdy guy on That Seventies Showopposite future star Mila Kuntis. Ashton married the “older woman,” super babe Demi Moore, later to di- vorce and hook up with Mila. At the time I followed him, Ashton boasted the largest number of followers on My Space. Then again, this was pre-Taylor Swift, so. . . Also on my friends network was the pretty “I don’t know why she’s famous” Paris Hilton, whom I actually wrote a Mojo Nixon type song about; and a young lady named Pearl Aday. Being one of the biggest (in more ways
than one) fans of Meat Loaf ever to sit through Roadie three times in a row, I knew that Meat was in fact Marvin Lee Aday and that Pearl was his young adopted daughter (her biological dad was the drummer for Janis Joplin’s Full Tilt Boogie Band) , who was just breaking into the singing thing, tour- ing as a backup singer in Meat’s Neverland Express band. From my perch in South Car-
olina I began writing to Pearl and asking about when her debut album would come out. We wrote back and forth several times. I did mention being a fan of her pops, but didn’t want to look like another shnook trying to get to the Loafster via his daughter so I laid low. I was truly interested, and when her debut fi- nally did come out in 2010, I liked it! A lot. Flash forward eight years and Pearl
has released her third album, Heartbreak and Canyon Revelry, her very best work yet. Pearl has taken a decidedly country turn, and it suits her voice well. This highly listenable album stands in stark contrast beside her husband Scott Ian’s work in his band An- thrax. It’s all good. And Scott plays some fine guitar on his wife’s album. Two sides of the coin.
Pearl opens with a short but sweet “Be
Your Own Horses,’ which sets the stage for all of her original songs that follow, eleven in all. From the melodic “All I Got (Gina’s Song)” to the gorgeous acoustic melody of “Who Am I?” Her voice is pure, and you can just hear the heart in it. Yes, it leans toward country or Americana, but without all of the bullshit that we are subjected to by a huge cross section of country music “artists” these days. Fact is, Pearl is at her best when deliv-
ering her ballads straight from the heart. I haven’t had these emotions well up since the earliest days of Linda Ronstadt or Karla Bonoff. “Sleepless Night” is another simply beautiful tune. “Revel Young” is pretty as well, underscored by pedal steel magic, and Pearls co-songwriter Jim Wilson duets on the lovely “Nothing Like Romance,” with lead guitar by Phillip Sayce, sounding an awful lot like the late Toy Caldwell (Marshall Tucker Band) on the break.Wilson also duets with Pearl on “Let it Go,” the set closer that leaves us wanting more. Please, Pearl. More! Pearl busts out a few times to rock her
socks off, as on “Mama,” but it all fits. It’s all Pearl.”Living a Lie” kicks it up a bit as well as does “Levon Song.” There is not a doubt in
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