Johnette Napolitano – CRIB GIRL

Labels: Joshua Tree Recording Company
Number of Tracks: 1
Total Time: 4:20
Formats: Triple A, Specialty, AAA, Non-Commercial, NPR
Available Date & Time: November 11, 2017 11:00 AM ET
Impact Date: November 11, 2017
Country: USA

The second release from Johnette Napolitano’s Joshua Tree Recording Company label, CRIB GIRL was inspired by, written and recorded in the high California desert.

" I had a friend visiting from England" says Napolitano, "Miranda Gavin, an artist and photographer I’d known since the 80’s. I was really into a book called "Soiled Doves" about the prostitutes of the Old West, and the TV series ‘Deadwood’ was a big deal at the time. It was Spring, and we’d driven through the National Park so that Miranda could photograph the blooms. People come from all over the world to photograph the desert blooms, and it is pretty spectacular, these gorgeous, delicate little spots of otherworldy beauty and color against the harsh, sharp, dry desert environment. It’s pretty Martian. I knew I wanted to write a song about these girls/women, they were from every class, from everywhere in the world. I was fascinated with their names, ‘Poker-Faced Alice’ ‘Sadie The Sow’…and played Miranda a demo I’d been working on.

When Miranda got back to the UK, she sent me a folder of the photos from the Park, but she’d overlaid the delicate, watercolor blooms over the antique black and white images of the Crib Girls. I was blown away, the juxtaposition of the fragile flowers over the roughened, wise, knowing faces of the women nailed it.

It’s very physical living in desert conditions, and the way these women got through life – and what they accomplished — blows me away. Frozen water, intense heat, just such a physically demanding existence. Abuse. Miranda and I both really thought someone should give them a nod. The metaphor of the blooms really touched me."

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