whomanfoursays

Biography

Whomanfoursays was the result of Dalbello's collaboration with Mick Ronson, who had seen her exceptional talent and persuaded her to give music a second try after her first attempts. The resulting album is stunning for its musical and lyrical depth. Even after two decades, it is still listenable — which cannot be said for a lot of productions from the '80s with their now quite outdated synthesizer sounds. Sparse but very effective instrumentation, shrewd dynamics ("Gonna Get Close to You"), Dalb...

Whomanfoursays was the result of Dalbello's collaboration with Mick Ronson, who had seen her exceptional talent and persuaded her to give music a second try after her first attempts. The resulting album is stunning for its musical and lyrical depth. Even after two decades, it is still listenable — which cannot be said for a lot of productions from the '80s with their now quite outdated synthesizer sounds. Sparse but very effective instrumentation, shrewd dynamics ("Gonna Get Close to You"), Dalbello's extraordinary voice (listen how she screams out her emotions in "Wait for an Answer"), witty observations with intelligent lyrics ("Devious Nature"), and the combined multi-instrumental capabilities of Dalbello and Mick Ronson make this album one of the records that will stand out as a very sophisticated non-mainstream rock effort with a poppish flavor. If there is a trace of weakness, it might be "Path of Least Resistance," which never seems to develop the strong focus the other tracks do, but this is only a minor complaint given the quality of the remainder of this record. 4.5 Stars & AMG Album Pick ---------- Lisa Dalbello is a Canadian born singer-songwriter who had recorded three albums by 1981, and earned Junos (the Canadian equivalent to a Grammy) in 1977 as Most Promising Female Vocalist and another the next year as Best New Female Vocalist. Having become aware of her through participation in a series of CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) "live TV simulcast concert" which he'd seen on television, Ronson approached Dalbello about collaborating on a project. The two chose to co-produce her new album of progressive music, Whomanfoursays, and to play all of the instruments themselves rather than to use her then current band. The project provided Mick the opportunity to demonstrate his skills not only on guitar and vocals but on bass and keyboards as well (during the period Ronson was working with Dalbello in Toronto, Mick reunited for one song on one night with David Bowie during the latter's Serious Moonlight tour. Using guitarist Earl Slick's prize guitar, Ronson and Bowie performed Jean Genie). The album provided Dalbello the opportunity to transform both her personal image as well as her music from pop/disco to avante garde. In 1984 Ronson and Dalbello traveled to Europe where they appeared for interviews and television appearancesto promote Whomanfoursays. Ronson and Dalbello continued their collaboration, working on a second album. Ronson, however, apparently had a difficult time working with Capitol, Dalbello's label, and left the project. Dalbello ultimately moved to London and finished the album which was released in 1987, a year later than scheduled, under the title She. By 1991, Dalbello had dropped her management and was no longer associated with Capitol. Mick was quoted as saying "she can be her own worst enemy. People have trouble dealing with her on a business and musical level. She wants to know everything, which can annoy managers and record companies. I get on extremely well with her musically and personally. She makes a very good and comfortable living from doing TV adverts; her own career seems like a hobby." She and Ronson resumed working together that year and Mick offered to play guitar with her during a Scandinavian club tour scheduled for that November. Mick's poor health resulted in a rescheduling of the tour for April of 1992 but again, his health resulted in the cancellation of both the tour and planned recording sessions. - mickronson.com Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.