LISA MARIE PRESLEY

PERSONAL BEST: Lisa Marie Presley finally finds her voice on Storm & Grace

By: MATT ASHARE |
Published: May 18, 2012 http://www2.the-burg.com

Lisa Marie Presley, Storm & Grace (Universal)

REALITY BITES: Presley mines her checkered past for material

When Lisa Marie Presley made her first stab at solo success, she was essentially famous for being, well, famous. And somewhat infamous, too. To be fair, it couldn't have been easy growing up in the shadow of her father's looming legacy. But it didn't help matters when, in 1992, Elvis' only daughter hooked up with Michael Jackson while he was in the midst of a child molestation scandal. Or, when her marriage to Jackson ended in a predictable, if reportedly amicable, divorce four years later. Or, when she later began a tempestuous tabloid romance with Nicolas Cage that culminated in a marriage that lasted just 108 days. Indeed, by the time she entered the studio to record her slickly produced 2003 debut To Whom It May Concern, the then 35 year-old Presley seemed primed more for a career as a reality TV star than a serious singer-songwriter. There was certainly something uniquely alluring about the sultry, bad-girl image she brought to the post-Alanis women-in-rock party. But it wasn't quite convincing enough to carry an entire album. And you had to wonder whether she'd even have been given the opportunity to record a quick follow-up, 2005's aptly titled Now What, if her name had been Lisa Marie Smith, Lisa Marie Johnson, or just plain Lisa Marie.

       Apparently, Presley was savvy enough to realize that the whole celebrified LA woman thing wasn't really her cup of tea. So she got out of Dodge, so to speak; married guitarist Michael Lockwood (the musical director from her touring band); moved her operation to England; and was so far off the grid when she gave birth to twins in 2010 that it barely made headlines. She also, it would appear, took some time away from music to reassess her career and put some serious thought into the sort of songwriting that might better suit her particular talents. Because, just as her father did with his so-called "’68 Comeback," Lisa Marie has wisely returned to her roots — or, at least to a rootsier, more accommodating place for her coyly sung turbulent ruminations on romantic woes — with her third album, the new Storm & Grace.

       Presley may not be a visionary talent. But she's a charismatic presence who, at 44, has plenty of tales to tell, an abundance of attitude, and a strong sense of self that surfaces in her understated yet gutsy delivery, a vaguely bluesy, knowingly demure croon that smolders cooly throughout Storm & Grace. And, in guitarist T-Bone Burnett, a veteran of Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue and the brains behind the multiple Grammy-winning soundtrack O Brother Where Art Thou?, she's found a seasoned producer who's rarely lacked for vision and who understands the art of the sublime.

       Backed by a band that includes both Burnett and her husband on guitar, along with a sturdy group of solid session players who have an instinctive feel for organic grooves, Presley eschews the processed alt-rock posturing of her first two albums for the subtler shadings of subdued rockabilly riffs and countrified comforts. A slinky vibrato guitar riff sets the stage for the disc's first single, "You Ain't Seen Nothin’ Yet," a slowly snaking soul-searcher that finds Presley slyly slurring, "I don't belong, I've lost the plot/Not gullible, can't be what I'm not," before biting softly at a defiant chorus:  "You can think that I'm evil and I'm off the rails/You ain't seen nothing yet." A tub-thumping walking bass and twangy guitars shadow Presley in "Over Me," as she takes a pointed stab at a romantic rival ("I've seen her face/It's okay, it's nothing great/Yeah she's cool in a gap toothed hippy chick way") and then admits, "It's hard to see/You're over me/That when she took my place/She saved the day."

       Presley plays to her strengths by culling through her checkered past for the kind of material that once made her an easy mark for the tabloids. She doesn’t name names. But you get the sense that she’s been there and done that when she makes a weary yet sympathetic observation like, “Too dirty to clean your hands/Too weary for sober/I was your prescription then/But the bottle ran out,” in “Weary,” a sadly sung countrified acoustic ballad that concludes on a hopeful note, with Presley’s mantra-like repetition of the line, “You can move on dear.” And, she’s not afraid to be hard on herself, even as she bids farewell to “fair weathered friends” in the quietly surging “So Long.” “Seems that I was so wrong,” she candidly confesses, “Seems I wasn’t that strong/Dead wrong/And now I’m long gone.”

       Just as Burnett’s production is never too heavy handedly retro in its rootsiness, Presley’s soul bearing doesn’t veer into the maudlin. She’s simply too slyly seductive for that; at times even appealingly sinister. As she reflects with a touch of humor and a bit of twang in the sparely swaying “Soften the Blows,” “Hey man what in the hell do we know/We strike out and then we strike gold/Whoever is running the show/There’s something that I need to know/Could you soften the blows?”