Kristin Hersh is one of my very favorite artists. From her work with Throwing Muses and 50 Foot Wave through to her solo material, Hersh continually amazes and inspires and I've greeted every release of hers with excitement and anticipation. In addition to the albums she's recorded she's also proven to be an excellent writer and I've greatly enjoyed her autobiographical work and the perspective she brings to her experiences. She's an impressive talent on a variety of levels, and I think that she's really cool.
In 1994 I was lucky enough to see her at the Opera House on tour in support of her first solo album "Hips and Makers". Where Hersh's music with Throwing Muses to that point was largely based around a quartet with a double guitar, bass, and drum sound, "Hips and Makers" was a much more intimate outing with Hersh singing and playing acoustic guitar over sparse arrangements, a shift in style that presented her work in a new and revealing light, stripping the songs down to their bare essence to show how brilliant and magical they were. That first album is an excellent showcase for Hersh's skill, a showcase for her talent that became a blueprint for her solo career and many other excellent albums she's released since. "Hips and Makers" is an easy choice as a desert island disc for me, and over the thousand and some times that I've listened to it I still get chills when I hear it, I still enjoy it just as much as the first time I ever played it, and the show that I saw in support of that album gave me chills in exactly the same way.
It was a pretty straight forward set up, just Hersh and a guitar and a microphone on stage at the Opera House, casually playing songs from the album. And the songs? They were all intense and raw and resonant but most of all they were honest and real, stories set to music shared in confidence with the audience almost like they were secrets between her and us, something we should keep to ourselves and be grateful for that unique connection.
It was a perfect show, a Top Ten Concert for me for sure. She played almost all of the album, everything except The Letter which was always my favorite, but I can fully appreciate that she'd want to keep that secret to herself. Me and My Charms is a close second favorite, and seeing it played live was everything to me, if ever there was a moment that I wanted to bottle up and save for a rainy day that would be a high contender. And as if all that wasn't enough, she also played a cover of Highway to Hell with opener Syd Straw and Straw's guitarist who had previously played in the Plasmatics. It doesn't get much cooler than that.
Hersh has always been an artist who's work is so personal and honest and intimate that you can't help but feel like she's bearing her soul to you, you can't help but feel like she's giving you everything she has. That kind of honesty and intimacy is a gift for any audience, and I will always be grateful for the gifts that Kristin Hersh has shared with us both on stage and on record. We're lucky to live in a world with a talent like hers...
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