By Anne W. Semmes
Audrey Appleby has become a storyteller through music and dance. Her Magic Dance young students of yesteryear, and more, are now being captivated by her songs of romance, as she lives her life as a newly widowed mother of a movie-making daughter and an entertainer through the art of cabaret. This was all spelled out recently at her show intriguingly entitled “Life…A Seduction Tour” at the New York supper club Pangea.
Costumed in black sequin pants and shoulder length earrings captured in her abundant brunette hair, she introduced her show title: “I’m still on this journey, this tour, this seduction of life. Mostly it’s relationships, lovers of course, but also long marriages, children, friends, and the connections born in the sacred collaboration of making art.”
After introducing her six-piece band, her story telling began: “I was maybe three or four years old when my grandparents would spend summers with me in Miami … They allowed me to stroll down the beach dressed the way I wanted to be…I wore my blue tutu. I was swaying on the beach, and Miami cast a spell on me.” That spell became a prize-winning song, “Miami Mosaic,” with Appleby’s lyrics and a Uruguayan’s guitar music.
“Parading wavy path of sand/Little old people walk hand in hand/It’s all so familiar, it’s all so strange / Childhood memories sure can change /Into a love so wild and deep/ There’s no way this music will let me sleep. / I was swaying on the sand. / Miami romance/ My feet found the rhythm of Miami’s dance.”
Appleby continued her story. “As a songwriter, I’m offered the opportunity to remember. I hope I’m never afraid to take those long looks back.” As in those late teenaged years in Italy, as told in her song “Not Really Me.” “Retracing my steps I see/ the girl you tried to paint/ was the woman you wanted me to be/ Chandeliers, red velvet walls/ We danced very close/ You whispered “Bellissima” and gave me a rose/ Our nightclub was called Martini/ I was 17 and fell in our Venice love affair/ Where you cast your Painter’s spell.”
“Retracing my steps I see,” she sang, “the girl you tried to paint/ was the woman you wanted me to be/ Not really me…I refused to be your possession/ You turned and walked away
Thank you for leaving me/ to break out of your frame.”
“I count myself lucky,” Appleby told her audience, “to have met my husband [Jim McNitt] soon after college. I was quickly reassured that wonderful people and excellent things really do happen. My husband and I embodied that – that opposites attract sometimes. Well, after that initial thrill and the magnetic pull, we realized some compromises had to be made…Sometimes the songs I wrote were brutally honest and too revealing for Jim. So, we agreed that when I performed live, he would sit outside the show at the bar. But he was always there with flowers in hand and my date for the after party.” And that song was “Beyond the Velvet Curtain.”
“The lights go down, I hear applause / I thank God and/ I pray then part the curtain as I pause / Wondering if you stayed / As all the people smile at me the butterflies begin / My heart starts pounding and I search the crowd /and hope and then beyond the curtain you / sit there at the bar flowers in hand / Your smile’s all I need/ Now I can breathe…Beyond the velvet curtain,/ It’s just you and me.”
Audrey’s story continued. “I was so privileged to collaborate and write that “Curtain” song with guitarist Sean Harkness. He gave me the tune and it took me two years to figure out the words… Life can be painfully blunt… Jim died in February of 2022. Jim was sipping lemonade on the beach in Los Angeles one minute and the next minute he was leveled with stage four pancreatic cancer…So this song is called ‘Soul Crush.’ “Dearest Jim I remember we’d float on your waterbed /That was then and we had just met – and our kiss made it begin…Dearest Jim, somehow years and time flew by while we stayed young /What tomorrow brings is a mystery but you’re safe with me today/ And we won’t give up – cause we’ve got our love and that’s enough for us my sweet soul crush.”
The next song, also autobiographic and dated 2008, Appleby noted as possibly “the best song in the whole show – ‘Picasso Woman,’” with her lyrics, “and someone famous wrote the music, pianist Shelley Markham.” The song flows like a poem: “My body was once a classic/ Greek, Roman, Renaissance symmetry/ That period of my life is now Jurassic/ As I observe the changes in me/ I’m more off center now/ One part Cubism, two parts lyric flow/ But nevertheless to you/ I’m a Picasso.”
The song’s last stanza mirrors the singer: “I’m not a thin Giacometti/ I just adore eating spaghetti / The grace and flow of Venus De Milo / Will never match my body’s high lows / And most important you prefer me / I’m your Picasso / Your Picasso Woman.”
“For 45 years, Jim called me his joy and his music,” told Appleby. “It doesn’t get much better than that for me. He also left me with a beautiful adult daughter, Eliza. And she is in the audience with six friends. Eliza ‘Lay Lay’ rocks me to the moon and back. She is completely engulfed in her science fiction, filmmaking, imagination, exploration, and countless successes. I’d like to think I had something to do with this stellar woman, but when I take a look back, I think she deserves most of the credits. She is a true original. She very early on showed her unique creativity.”
And then came the song written for Appleby’s daughter, “Lay Lay’s Lullabye,” with help from collaborator Kiara Duran. “When you were a baby you reached for my hand /Just a little girl, but so ready to stand / A tiny voice whispering words so wise /You held every rainbow in your eyes…{Chorus) As you move along, as you’re growing up / Your butterfly lashes will lift you to the moon / If you look up and you want them to/ Lay Lay remember wherever you are/No matter how far/ Wish on every star/ I’ll always be here…
“I want you to know that I know that it’s hard/ Living in this world and being the age that you are/ You’re trying to find the right footsteps for you / Listen inside you, you’ll know what is true./ (Chorus) As you move along, if you trip and fall…Lay Lay remember wherever you are/ No matter how far/ Wish on every star/ I’ll always be here, I’ll always be here… loving you.”
Upcoming La Vie En Rouge Paris French Jazz Music and Swing Dance Evening with Audrey Appleby and Paris Jazz Pianist Ludovic de Preissac on April 16 at Bistro V on Greenwich Avenue. In June Audrey Appleby will perform in Paris.
