Annie Gallup  Swerve  Prime CD PCD75 
--Richard Cuccaro


Annie Gallup is a rare original talent who has learned well the lessons of her forbears. 
Describing herself as a "beat poet songwriter," who had listened to a lot of Doc Watson, Mississippi John Hurt, 
and Dave Van Ronk while in high school, she also took some cues from Woody Guthrie's "Talking Blues."

In Swerve, the rap/sung lyrics, delivered in a soft alto, looking unflinchingly into the dark corners of life, 
also bring to mind singer/songwriter Suzanne Vega. Her nervy honesty reminds one of Joni Mitchell.
The tumbling, flying poetry that spins its way to the listener's gray matter brings to mind the work of Jack Kerouac, 
as other reviewers before me have noticed.

While she acknowledges the steady pull of her own heart's needs, much of Annie's work here 
is a declaration of independence from and intolerance for the inconsistencies of its male counterpart.
In the opening track, "Money,"  she sees evidence of a lover's infidelity, and, after sweeping 
his belongings off a dresser, hits the open road. Her flight is interrupted,
 
When my right front tire blew out just past the turnoff for LaSalle 
I coaxed her to the shoulder
and the first car passing stopped to help 
It was a guy named Gordon in a two-toned Pontiac 
Who said he was a poet and proved it while I ratcheted the jack against the undercarriage

After a few more examples of his myopic inward gaze, Gordon's metaphoric use is over and she proceeds onward:

As I kicked up gravel on the shoulder then accelerated on the blacktop shifted up to speed and
joined the wave of traffic flowing 
I think I understood for the first time in my life I 
really don't know where I am going

In "Georgia O'Keefe", there is no violent tangle of words, just a sad, sweet, but unsentimental lament for 
the transitory nature of love: 

Tonight I walked into the sunset 
Wild blazing sky 
Then walked on by
Until color shaded into black and white
I told you I'd write 
But how could I say
The sky goes on forever.

The way she wields the scalpel, slicing cleanly into the lonely places reminds me of Charles Bukowski's 
brutal but (when he chose), tender skills.
It also comes to mind that in the poker game that is songwriting, successfully going mano a mano with the blank page 
and coaxing a matching fluid melody from an empty, silent guitar requires nerves of steel. 
Annie Gallup, can deal a winning hand, against the odds, without a flinch.

This CD rocks where it should and delivers a quiet telling punch where it ought to.

Swerve  can be found in record stores or ordered directly from Prime CD at www.primecd.com