THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 4, 1996 TAG: 9601040037
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 158 lines
FOUR BITCHIN' BABES is a great gig for moms and mushroom farmers. Travel two weekends a month. Perform feisty material before rapt audiences at name joints like Manhattan's Bottom Line. Sleep in. Eat out. Do a little airport shopping.
In some ways, it's nicer than solo, say members of the Babes, the singer-songwriters performing Saturday at the Virginia Beach Pavilion.
The quartet - all women, circa age 40 - was born five years ago; the midwife was famed folkie Christine Lavin, a New Yorker who wrote the gently sarcastic tune ``Sensitive New Age Guys.''
Lavin's the mushroom farmer. She grows shiitakes in the darkness of her Upper West Side kitchen; she makes mushroom soup.
The other three have one young child each. They live all over: Megon McDonough of Chicago, Debi Smith of Falls Church, Va., and Sally Fingerett of Columbus, Ohio.
Give 'em a call, and they're likely to be fixing supper, or heading out to see a kiddie movie. The Babes vacuum their own houses.
Leading such regular lives ``saves us from being Sylvia Plaths and sticking our heads in the oven,'' said Fingerett, dryly humorous.
They have lots in common that gets reflected in their music: humor, empathy, lack of pretension, a writer's eye for detail. They believe in the mind-body connection.
And they're self-taught wonders. Lavin learned to play guitar by watching some woman on PBS. Fingerett learned piano by spying on her sister's lessons.
The Babes' third album, ``Fax It! Charge It! Don't Ask Me What's for Dinner!'' was released in October on the Shanachie label. Saturday night, they will perform songs from that album - a compilation of offbeat comments on modern matters, including Muzak, TV talk shows, AIDS, big bugs and abused spouses.
For the most part, individual Babes perform their own songs, with the remaining three chiming in as backup singers in glorious harmonies. Their show is silly and serious. They talk some. There is audience input.
On the album, Lavin - the craftiest of contemporary storytellers - sings about ``Energy Vampires'' who take and take. In ``My Mother's Hands,'' Smith croons in a crystalline alto about coming to terms with seeing her mom in herself.
In McDonough's swingin', bluesy ``Microwave Life,'' she sings about a lack of time. Fingerett's gentle vibrato boosts the emotional impact of her own poignant tunes - like ``In Clover,'' about a nostalgic older couple.
Fingerett's saddest songs can send a listener in search of hankies. Quips the composer: ``Why should I be alone with my PMS? Why should I be the only sad sack in the house?''
Fingerett's not alone any more. ``Being in the Babes is like finally being in the sorority I was never asked to join,'' she said, speaking from Ohio.
The Babes' tight bond came in handy in February 1994, when Fingerett lost her voice.
It was really mysterious. One day, she was singing as she always had - from the gut, a self-taught marvel. Then she caught a cold while waiting at the airport.
A week later, no sound would come. Not even a ``choo'' when she sneezed.
``My throat was so inflamed, the doctors couldn't see anything,'' she said. ``When it calmed down, they looked inside and saw I had paralyzed vocal chords.''
Fingerett was given a 50-50 chance of recovery. Seven months later, ``like overnight, my voice came back.''
Meanwhile, she had been living with the realization that she might never speak above a whisper again, much less sing.
``They say when a man has a midlife crisis, he is searching for his soul. When a woman has a midlife crisis, she is searching for her inner voice,'' Fingerett said.
``I learned more that year about life. I would do it again. It changed my life. My friends, the ones who stayed with me, will be my friends forever.''
Count the Babes among them.
``You would not believe what they did for me. We did gigs where Debi and Meg and Chris would sing my songs, so I could play. So I could still make a living, and get out of the house.''
The Babes didn't make a big thing out of it. They simply told audiences that Fingerett had laryngitis.
They held forth with a positive attitude.
``That was painful for all of us,'' said Smith, who joined the group in mid-1994. She had known Fingerett since they were in their 20s, playing the college circuit.
``The voice is the very thing we all rely on. We felt we wanted to do anything we could. We all operated under the assumption it was going to come back. And it did.
``And, man, she is sounding better than she ever has. When I hear her on stage now, it makes me want to cry,'' Smith said.
In the last year, Fingerett received therapy at Vanderbilt Voice Center in Nashville. ``In the past few months I'm feeling really back.''
The effect on the Babes was ``to get a little more on the inside,'' Fingerett said. ``Meg is very, very attuned. She is very spiritual in the mind-body connection. And this turned me into a total convert. Debi and Chris, from watching, became total believers.''
What did she learn? ``That the voice comes from a place, not just the throat. It comes from your toes. What does it mean? We'll never know. That's one of life's mysteries.''
Life's mysteries get mentioned from time to time in Fingerett's songs. ``Looking for the answers is the answer,'' she said. ``I like the process of never knowing, and trying to know.''
``The Babes are a very spiritual group,'' said Smith, who used to perform with her sister Megan in the folk duo, The Smith Sisters.
``I don't mean religious. There's this magic. It's almost like you feel there's someone watching you. I get that feeling with them a lot.''
McDonough is the group's cosmic muffin, the Babe who runs with the wolves. ``I just got done telling Meg last week that I was confused,'' Smith continued. ``And she said, `That's good. When you're very confused, that means you are about to be enlightened.'
``I mean, Meg's into everything. Like irisology, where you study the iris and that tells you about yourself. She's checking it out. She's open.''
Three of the Babes have been with the group since it started. Smith, a Falls Church native, holds a spot with two predecessors - Patty Larkin, and then Julie Gold, whose song ``From a Distance'' won a 1990 Grammy. Both left the group to focus on solo careers.
Smith met Lavin a few years back at a songwriters' convention Lavin started at Martha's Vineyard. When Lavin got sick two years ago, Smith was called in as a sub.
``Oh, no, that wasn't intimidating,'' said Smith, humorously. ``Chris has done so much to help folk musicians along. A lot of people owe her a lot.''
Like Julie Gold. Lavin sent Gold's song to Nanci Griffith, who recorded it, followed by Bette Midler, thus establishing her as a writer of hit songs.
Smith recently released her first solo album, ``In My Dreams,'' and hopes her affiliation with the Babes will spur interest in a solo tour.
Meanwhile, Fingerett's music is panning out like Gold's.
Last spring, Peter, Paul and Mary recorded her ``Home Is Where the Heart Is,'' a heart-opening song about a gay male couple, one of whom dies from AIDS. The trio will perform the song for an upcoming PBS special. Fingerett already has been taped at the piano with Mary Travers.
The song is a genuine tearjerker - even for Fingerett, who performs it at most Babes shows. ``I cried when I wrote it, and for a long time, I cried every time I played it.''
She felt it was an important song that needed to be heard, her own career notwithstanding.
``When you write a song that has political ramifications, and you want people to hear it for its point, and you get a group like that to perform it, you have made your point,'' Fingerett stressed.
She's thrilled that Peter, Paul and Mary recorded it. But what it comes down to for her is contained in a letter Travers sent her.
The note was from a young gay man who was not ``out'' with his family. Last year, he took his mother to a Peter, Paul and Mary concert in Atlanta.
``It was during that song that he took his mother's hand, and squeezed it. And she leaned over to him and said, `I know.' '' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
IRENE YOUNG
Four Bitchin' Babes, from left, Megon McDonough, Sally Fingerett,
Debi Smith and Christine Lavin, will perform Saturday at the
Pavilion.
Photo
IRENE YOUNG
The Babes' new album is a compilation of offbeat comments on such
matters as Muzak, AIDS, big bugs and abused spouses.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE BIOGRAPHY SINGERS
MUSIC by CNB