4 minute read
Music
from July 7, 2021
by Ithaca Times
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Q&A: Singer Lisa Rock
Rock takes the stage this week at Cortland Reperatory Theatre to play the music of the Carpenters.
By Bryan VanCampen
Cortland Repertory Theatre presents its first post- pandemic live show when singer Lisa Rock brings “Close to You – The Music of the Carpenters” to Cortland on July 8-9 at 7:30 p.m. and July 10 at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Rock spoke to the Ithaca Times about the show.
Ithaca Times: Tell me about what the show is.
Lisa Rock: It’s 11 years ago now. It’s called “Close to You – The Music of the Carpenters.” The Carpenters had 15 #1 hits on the Adult Contemporary Charts, so we do those, plus some other songs, and then talk about the Carpenters; we have a lot of personal anecdotes of people that we’ve met that knew them: stories that people have told us through the years, and a lot of research, obviously.
IT: When did you first hear The Carpenters?
LR: Oh, yeah, my parents had their first record in 1969, so that was the year I was born. I’ve been listening to them my whole life. I listened to all kinds of great music growing up.
IT: I really miss the variety of radio, the way it used to be.
LR: Agreed. If you listen to a threehour block, you hear a repeat of songs rather than an album.
IT: I understand you can’t go from Mötley Crüe to The Carpenters, but there’s gotta be more variety.
LR: That’s how I feel about country music. The women are at the top of the charts, and yet if you listen to a country station, it’s all the male artists. Even now, even today. And you don’t hear any of those female artists, and yet when they’re on those awards shows, who wins? And yet, you never see them, you never hear that on the radio. So it’s very frustrating.
IT: You could play anybody’s music but you chose The Carpenters.
Why?
LR: No one was doing it at the time that I was aware of. We’ve been on the road actually longer than The
Carpenters at this point. I don’t mean any sass by this, but I do ask, if you can name a female artist today, that it’s about the music, and not about the image or how she looks, and it’s just the music, that’s what The Carpenters were. No offense to people who like to go and watch fireworks and dance shows, but The Carpenters were just a group of musicians playing the music that they wrote, Richard Carpenter and Paul Williams. They were playing music, they were touring musicians that just happened to have that hook and was on the pop chart every time they put something out. We’re musicians. That’s all it is. It’s about connecting to the audience and sharing this incredible, very layered, very complicated music.
IT: There was a lot of sophisticated construction in their songs. They might have taught me the sound of a major seventh chord, or a suspended chord.
LR: It’s that jazz influence, right? You can hear that jazz influence. My guys are a jazz combo on their own, and so you can hear it in their playing, what they bring out and what they hear. But you go back and listen to something like “Superstar,” when it’s just the piano and not the vocal. You can hear that jazz beat to it, those drum rhythms, there’s nothing about that that’s simple. It’s very complicated, and so is the harmony, there’s a lot of sixths in there. We’ve played it over 300 times and we’re not sick of it.
Cortland Repertory Theatre
The Music of the Carpenters” is at the Cortland Repertory Theatre July 8-9 at 7:30 p.m. and July 10 at 3 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $25-36
