Holly doesn’t go lightly

Music Row
By Brian Rademaekers

Living in a time when making music and delivering it to listeners is easier than it’s ever been, we find ourselves in a strange predicament. There are, naturally, more choices than ever when it comes to picking the bands and musicians who tap into the particular sound you like.
At the same time, that mass of musicians pleading for attention also makes it more likely that some of the best artists go unnoticed. Just about everybody has their own musician who they think doesn’t get enough attention.
That’s all well and good, but I’m going to let you in on my favorite, and — in my opinion — the most under-appreciated musician rambling around out there in the cold world of fandom.
She goes by the wonderful name of Holly Golightly, and she is guitar-wielding, song-spinning dame from England. Over the years, Golightly has carved out a sound rather unique to herself, and one that is defined by her acute and personal sense of cool.
Since emerging as a solo artist in 1995 after debuting as a vocalist in the Billy Childish spin-off band Thee Headcoatees, Golightly has earned a reputation as a prolific songwriter, with 14 albums to date.
They span kitschy takes on 1960s-style pop girl rock to smoking rockabilly to her most recent You Can’t Buy A Gun When You’re Crying, a scaled back but still rocking take on Americana that is so dead on, she makes Loretta Lynn seem like she’s faking it.
What binds Golightly’s seemingly disparate styles and makes them seem a cohesive set of albums is her appetite for the perverse. It is a style where a song that could have been sung by Peggy Lee in the late 1950s takes on a dark and sly edge, supplanting the sweet and naïve with sinister mischief.
Of course, she can be as charming and sugary as any chanteuse, especially in her numerous love songs, but even then there is a sense that she always has the upper hand.
When she doesn’t, she is crushingly honest, singing truths that cut straight to the heart.
Perhaps it is this dedication to her own brand of cool that keeps her from launching to the mainstream, but it also is what made her the object of affection for musical greats like the White Stripes.
My introduction to her, and likely for many others, came when she appeared on the Stripes’ famed 2003 release Elephant, where she joins Jack White in a duet on the song You Know We Love One Another. That song had me searching out her solo works, and the discovery of her diverse discography still has me reeling. Golightly also has a penchant for covering little-known songs by artists like Willie Dixon, Bill Withers, and my personal favorite — Lee Hazelwood.
Hazelwood, who died during the summer, is best known for penning and producing Nancy Sinatra’s hit, These Boots Are Made for Walkin’. But much like Golightly, Hazelwood has a huge body of solo works that get little of the attention they deserve.
In her latest incarnation, Golightly is touring as "Holly Golightly and the Brokeoffs," with the add-on referring to a mysterious fellow named Lawyer Dave. A lanky and long-haired Texan, Lawyer Dave is a one-man band who plays guitar and the harmonica and a two-pedal drum that can alternately smack the bass or snare.
Brooding and slightly cynical, his style meshes with Golightly’s to create a dusty, bluesy feel well-suited to topics like murder, love and whiskey.
At their last show in Philly, Lawyer Dave looked near death with a bad flu, and still managed to join his lady friend in delivering one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen.
Since she has been on tour with Lawyer Dave for some time now, it looks as if they’re in the process of putting out a second album.
Look for a preview of that work and some bourbon-soaked, porch-stomping rock ’n’ roll when Golightly and her legal assistant pull into town tonight. ••

Check it out . . .

Who: Holly Golightly and The Brokeoffs
What: Good ol’ Americana, played rock ’n’ roll style, by one of our generation’s most under-appreciated artists.
Where: The Khyber, Second and Chestnut streets in Old City.
When: Thursday, Oct. 25, at 9 p.m. Tickets, $12.