Susie Glaze tells her story onstage
Burbank-based Americana-folk singer Susie Glaze, acclaimed as one of the best vocalists in the region, took an unusually circuitous route to attain that recognition. “I am originally from Murfreesboro, Tenn., and although I studied folk music as a teenager, country music didn’t appeal to me culturally,” Glaze said. “My parents were from the Midwest and they didn’t listen to it, and growing up in the mid-South in the 1960s, country was all about Nashville which was more like Las Vegas-type show businessy and I just didn’t care for that at all.”
Glaze, who will appear with her virtuoso Hilonesome band at Burbank’s Viva Cantina on Tuesday, eventually had a country-music pedigree thrust upon her in, of all places, New York City. “Theater was my background, and after college I went to New York to be an actor and ended up on Broadway in the original production of ‘Big River,’ the country-western musical co-written by [Country Music Hall of Famer] Roger Miller,” she said. “In New York I got more in country music — I know that seems funny but it all depends on who you are hanging out with, who you’re working with. And Roger Miller performed with us for a half a year. I got to know him a little bit — he was a wonderful person and great talent.”
After Glaze met and married fellow actor-musician Steve Rankin, they relocated to the San Fernando Valley where Rankin started bluegrass group the Eight Hand String Band (which also featured another “Big River” alum Fred Sanders), and fate reached out to Glaze.
“After we moved out here, I realized I didn’t want to be an actress in Los Angeles,” Glaze said, “but I did need a live audience, and I started singing with my husband’s band and eventually I got more and more involved and I became the leader.”
The change was inevitable. Glaze, whose lissome golden-tressed presence, sweet, soulful, honey-toned pipes and clearly evident passion for artful expression, creates an irresistible presentation. Remaking themselves as the Hilonesome band, their albums, “Blue Eyed Darlin’,” “Live at Freight & Salvage” and “White Swan” have been well-received successes in the folk and bluegrass worlds, and the group has shifted gears into an engaging, progressive mix of styles, self-described as a “Newgrass Americana Folk Fusion Quintet.”
“It’s less and less ‘grassy,’ and more Celtic, folk and British balladry. We throw in some Texas swing, some rockabilly, a little jazz. We have a fine writer in the band [Rob Carlson] who loves an assignment, so he will write a murder ballad or a bossa nova song, and it helps keep us awake and lets us shine in other areas.” Glaze said. “It keeps us on our toes, and it keeps the audience interested because they don’t know what to expect. And with the term Americana, that describes it really well. It’s a grab bag, a melting pot and that’s what America is.”
“As an actor, stories appeal to me more. If a song doesn’t tell a story, I’m not interested. People want stories, they are fascinated by tradition — things that don’t change — and also by the moral qualities of the songs. They are truth-telling, and they are transporting. And that’s what I am supposed to be doing.”
What: Susie Glaze & the Hilonesome Band
Where: Viva Cantina, 900 W. Riverside Dr., Burbank
When: Tuesday, Dec. 16, 7:30 p.m.
Admission: Free
More info: (818) 845-2425; www.vivacantina.com
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JONNY WHITESIDE is a veteran music journalist based in Burbank and author of “Ramblin’ Rose: the Life & Career of Rose Maddox” and “Cry: the Johnnie Ray Story.”