Locals Only: : ‘Time’ Peace

Pity the stock manager at Tower Records who has to figure out which bin to put All This Time, the new album by Cincinnati-based singer/songwriter Tracy Walker. A wildly diverse affair, Walker’s follow-up to 1998’s more stripped down solo debut, Naked, is built around the emotional lyrics, stirring vocals and anchoring acoustic guitar of Walker. Instead of just filling in the blanks, the impressive guest list of ace backing musicians (including Mike Wade, Ricky Nye and Ed Cunningham) adds multiple dimensions to Walker’s sound.

The results are a soulful, gripping blend of Contemporary Jazz (the torch-song title track), rootsy Folk (“If You Were Losing Her To Me,”), Soul/Pop (“I’ve Been Looking Around”) and even head-bobbing Reggae (“Love Will Make You Happy”). Engineer/co-producer David Kuhn — who has worked with Fourplay, George Benson and many others — helps pull together the range of influences and guest input to construct a cohesive flow that is singular to Walker. While she gives ample credit to the guests for breathing life into her songs, it’s Walker’s revealing, highly personal lyrics — informed, in part, by her mother’s cancer-related death — and mesmerizing melodies that make the album such a rousing success.

As Walker prepared for this weekend’s CD release party, she chatted with CityBeat (where she has a day job as an advertising coordinator) about All This Time and her career in general. If she had to file her own CD, where would she put it? “New bin, new category,” she jokes. “I’m working on it.”

CityBeat: There are some direct references to your mother’s death on the album, but I also got an overall sense of “searching,” in regards to personal and familial relationships.

Tracy Walker: Relationships — whether romantic, friendship, work or familial — always come with challenges. Human interaction occurs on many different levels and is both beautiful and trying. So I suppose there are several different kinds of relationships I was contemplating on this record. Losing my mother caused me to evaluate my life and relationships in a way that I had never done before.

CB: Did you find peace in creating these songs? Was there any weight lifted off of you by writing such personal songs?

TW: Absolutely! Getting things out of your head and heart and into the world, even if only on paper, is liberating. It opened me up to feel other things and think about other things. It’s easy to get emotionally and mentally clogged. Sometimes I solve my own problems just by putting something down in writing or singing it. It’s great to hear or see your own thoughts. And also, many songs just come to me. I don’t sit down to write a song about this or that, or this or that person. The idea presents itself and I follow it.

CB: Is it ever difficult to be so emotionally invested in your art, laying things bare for the world to see? Do you ever go, “Maybe that’s revealing too much”?

TW: Yes, sometimes it’s difficult. I wonder, “Why would anyone want to hear this, or care about it.” There is something I can’t define that pushes me to do it anyway. Perhaps a few years of therapy will cure it … I don’t know. I know that music helps me to transfer emotions. Both (the) music I make and (music) that is made by others.

CB: Have you ever had to deal with issues like misogyny or racism as an artist?

TW: I have certainly experienced my share of those issues in my personal life, been called “Nigger,” cross burnings, denied housing, lost my job, etc. As far as the music goes, it’s been more subtle. There was a club in Cincinnati that I decided not to play because there were some issues of racism that they were not putting a stop to. Although the racism was not directed at me — they still wanted me to play there — I was not comfortable performing in that environment. There have been a lot of shows and festivals that have very few or no women on the bill. In most cases this is probably not a “No Chicks Allowed” mentality, but rather a response to what has been done before. So I think that will continue to get better.

CB: Where would you like to see yourself in five years?

TW: Standing in front of a mirror saying, “This isn’t where I thought I’d be, but THIS is cool!” No matter what my plans are, the end result is always different (and) usually better.

This article appears in Nov 5-11, 2003.