Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Nadine Vega (née Peck; born July 11, 1959) is an American singer-songwriter of folk-inspired music.[1][2] Vega's music career spans almost 40 years. In the mid-1980s and 1990s she released four singles that entered the Top 40 charts in the UK, "Marlene on the Wall", "Left of Center", "Luka" and "No Cheap Thrill".
For the album, see Suzanne Vega (album).
Suzanne Vega
Suzanne Nadine Peck
July 11, 1959
Santa Monica, California, U.S.
New York City, U.S.
- Singer-songwriter
- musician
- Vocals
- guitar
1982–present
"Tom's Diner", which was originally released as an a cappella recording on Vega's second studio album, Solitude Standing (1987), was remixed in 1990 as a dance track by English electronic duo DNA with Vega as featured artist, and it became a Top 10 hit in five countries. The original a cappella recording of the song was used as a test during the creation of the MP3 format.[3] The role of her song in the development of the MP3 compression prompted Vega to be given the title of "The Mother of the MP3".[4]
Vega has released nine studio albums to date, the most recent being 2016’s Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers.
Early life[edit]
Suzanne Nadine Vega was born on July 11, 1959, in Santa Monica, California.[5] Her parents divorced soon after her birth.[6] Her mother, Pat Vega (née Schumacher), is a computer systems analyst of German-Swedish heritage. Her father, Richard Peck, is of English, Irish and Scottish origin. Her stepfather, Edgardo Vega Yunqué, also known as Ed Vega, was a writer and teacher from Puerto Rico.[7] When Vega was two and a half, her family moved to New York City. She grew up in Spanish Harlem and the Upper West Side.[8] She was not aware that Peck was her biological father until she was nine years old. Vega and Peck met for the first time in her late 20s, and they remain in contact.[9]
She attended the High School of Performing Arts[10] (since renamed Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School) where she studied modern dance and graduated in 1977.
Career[edit]
1980s[edit]
While majoring in English literature at Barnard College,[11] she performed in small venues in Greenwich Village, where she was a regular contributor to Jack Hardy's Monday night songwriters' group at the Cornelia Street Cafe and had some of her first songs published on Fast Folk anthology albums.[12] In 1984, she received a major label recording contract, making her one of the first 'Fast Folk' artists to break out on a major label.
Vega's self-titled debut studio album was released in 1985 and was well received by critics in the U.S.;[8] it reached platinum status in the United Kingdom. Produced by Lenny Kaye and Steve Addabbo, the songs feature Vega's acoustic guitar in straightforward arrangements. A video was released for the album's song "Marlene on the Wall", which went into MTV and VH1's rotations. During this period Vega also wrote lyrics for two songs ("Lightning" and "Freezing") on Songs from Liquid Days (1986) by composer Philip Glass.[13]
Vega's song "Left of Center" co-written with Steve Addabbo for the 1986 John Hughes film Pretty in Pink reached No. 32 on the UK Singles Chart in 1986.[14]
Her next studio album, Solitude Standing (1987), garnered critical and commercial success, selling over one million copies in the U.S.[15] It includes the international hit single "Luka", which is written about, and from the point of view of, an abused child.[10] (Not until many years later did Vega reveal the song dealt with the abuse she herself had suffered from her stepfather.[16]) While continuing a focus on Vega's acoustic guitar, the music of her second album is more strongly pop-oriented and features fuller arrangements. Following the success of the album, in 1989 Vega almost became the first female artist to headline the Glastonbury Festival.[17] Female fronted UK band "All About Eve" headlined on Friday night due to a short notice headline switch. Vega performed her set whilst wearing a bulletproof vest, her band having received death threats from an obsessed fan ahead of the festival.[17]
The a cappella "Tom's Diner" from Solitude Standing became a hit in 1990, having been remixed by two British dance producers under the name DNA.[10] The track was originally a bootleg, until Vega allowed DNA to release it through her record company, and it became her biggest hit.
1990s[edit]
Vega's third studio album, Days of Open Hand (1990), continued in the style of her first two studio albums.
In 1992, she released her fourth studio album 99.9F°. It consists of a mixture of folk music, dance beats and industrial music. This record was awarded Gold status by the RIAA in recognition of selling over 500,000 copies in the U.S.[15] The single "Blood Makes Noise" from this album peaked at number-one on Billboard's Modern Rock Tracks. Vega later married the album's producer Mitchell Froom.
Her fifth studio album, Nine Objects of Desire, was released in 1996.[10] The music varies between a frugal, simple style and the industrial production of 99.9F°. This album contains "Caramel", featured in the movie The Truth About Cats & Dogs (1996), and later the trailer for the movie Closer (2004). A song not included on that album, "Woman on the Tier", was featured on the soundtrack of the movie Dead Man Walking (1996).
In 1997 she took a singing part on the concept album Heaven & Hell, a musical interpretation of the seven deadly sins by her colleague Joe Jackson, with whom she had already collaborated in 1986 on "Left of Center" from the Pretty in Pink soundtrack (with Vega singing and Jackson playing piano).[18]
In 1999, Avon Books published Vega's book The Passionate Eye: The Collected Writings of Suzanne Vega, a volume of poems, lyrics, essays and journalistic pieces.[19]
Songwriting[edit]
At the age of nine she began to write poetry. She was encouraged to do so by her stepfather.[40] It took her three years to write her first song, "Brother Mine", which was finished at the age of 14.[41] It was first published on Close-Up Vol. 4, Songs of Family (2012), along with her other early song, "The Silver Lady".[40]
Vega has not learned to read musical notation; she sees the melody as a shape and chords as colors. She focuses on lyrics and melodic ideas; for advanced features – like intros or bridges – she relies on other artists with whom she works.[40] Most of her albums, except the first one, were made in such cooperation.[42]
Vega finishes 80% of the songs she starts writing.[41] She got the melody of "Tom's Diner" while walking down Broadway in New York. She was thinking of French New Wave films.[43]
The most important artistic influences on her work come from Lou Reed, Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. Some other important artists for her are Paul Simon and Laura Nyro.[41]
Theater[edit]
Vega and Duncan Sheik wrote a play Carson McCullers Talks About Love, about the life of the writer Carson McCullers. In the play directed by Kay Matschullat, which premiered in 2011, Vega alternates between monologue and songs.[47][48][49] Vega and Sheik were nominated for Outstanding Music in a Play for the 57th annual Drama Desk awards.[50]
The album Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers, based on this play, was released in 2016.[37][38] Vega considers it to be a third version, because it's rewritten, and she made the first version in college.[9]
In early 2020, Vega played the role of "Band Leader" in an off-Broadway musical based on the 1969 movie Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, directed by Scott Elliott and produced at The New Group in New York City. She replaced Sheik, who wrote the show's music and co-wrote the lyrics with Amanda Green.[51] In his review for The New York Times, critic Ben Brantley called the "brandy-voiced" Vega "a delightful, smoothly sardonic presence."[52]
Amanuensis Productions[edit]
Vega established her own recording label after the 2008 economic crisis. From that point, she stopped working for Blue Note Records and started thinking about re-recording her back catalog with new arrangements and gaining control over her works (which she eventually did with the 2014 Close-Up Series).[40]
The name "Amanuensis Productions" was meant as a private joke about "servant" (amanuensis) owning the "masters" (recording masters), also a pun at A&M still legally owning her previous master tapes.[42]
Running the label proved to be harder than she expected. In 2015, it barely "broke even", but new licenses were coming for "Tom's Diner".[53]
Personal life[edit]
On March 17, 1995, Vega married Mitchell Froom, a musician and a record producer (who played on and produced 99.9F° and Nine Objects of Desire). They have a daughter, Ruby Froom (born July 8, 1994). The band Soul Coughing's debut studio album Ruby Vroom (1994) was named for her, with Vega's approval.[54] Vega and Froom separated and divorced in 1998.
On February 11, 2006, Vega married Paul Mills, a lawyer and poet, "22 years after he first proposed to her."[55]
Beginning in 2010, Ruby has occasionally performed with her mother on tour.[56][57][58][59]
Vega practices Nichiren Buddhism and is a member of the American branch of the worldwide Buddhist association Soka Gakkai International.[60]
Studio albums