We Are Here

Album Review

Though she's well-known nationally as an award-winning choreographer, and as a backing vocalist for Dick Siegel's former band the Na Nas, We Are Here is Whit Hill's debut album as a singer/songwriter. The album collects 14 songs that run the gamut from garagey alt country to raucous hillbilly gospel, bluegrass, blues, jazz, and rock and roll. Musically, Hill's tunes are all over the place. There's the rambling Bill Monroe delight in "Maddie," a tune about Hill's real life growin'-up-pal Madonna, that's genuinely warm and funny, and not a name dropping exercise, the hipster jazz spoken word on "Tone/Shift," the stomping two-step honky tonk country in "Last Saturday," (that Nashville doesn't have the guts to touch), and the Crazy Horse-styled rock and roll of "Valentine." Hill's band, the Postcards, led by husband, backing vocalist, keyboard boss, and guitar slinger Al Hill, smoke. They could back anybody and make them sound like the glorious heart of Saturday night. Because of his guidance, this band takes Hill's words and music, sets them in their appropriate genre, and spices virtually every track with either a dollop or a wallop of rhythm and blues. Hill's tomes are striking, often moving vignettes; they are microcosmic slices of everyday life relegated to the place of story and legend in her personal iconography. And yes, they are beautiful, even glorious in places. She writes about tender, mischievous, circus performers ("Greatest Show On Earth"), gangland barroom massacres ("Valentine,") and broken-love songs ("Oh Well," "50 Miles To Detroit," and "Platinum Girl"). And Hill's "in love" songs are the tastiest and sassiest around. There are the steamy, shimmering lounge blues of "Sleeper Car," and the strutting, tough sensuality that insists at the kitchen table for something other than breakfast in "Please Pass You." In essence, Hill's works infuses both Gothic and funky notions of American life born of personal experience and imaginary realms, and nudges them gently and irreverently into the terrain where they become transcendent myths we can all plug into with either a chuckle, a smile, a nod, or a tear. Ultimately, as fine as this record is, full of energy, delight, and glorious freshness — it is as cool and deftly done as anything to come out of Detroit in the 21st century (this act has plenty of street cred even if they do bathe and have addresses) — it most likely only hints at what a treasure trove their live performances are. Yeah, just get it.