Sally Fingerett
One bitchin' babe with a life of her own
by Stephen Ide
Sally Fingerett has big hair and
bangs, dislikes her thighs, believes she was a nomad in another life and
loves writing songs.
"I also feel
more comfortable in my skin than I did when I was younger," said
Fingerett, who turned 39 on Christmas Day. "But, thank God, that's what
comes with the territory... I'd give anything to lose the thighs, but in
lieu of that, it doesn't stop me from putting on jeans." The Ohio-based
singer-songwriter, part of the singing troupe the Four Bitchin' Babes,
is also feeling more comfortable after rebounding from a bout of vocal
chord paralysis, a condition that leaves many of those it touches
virtually voiceless. The so-called "idiopathic nerve paralysis" began
with tracheal bronchitis in February. Fingerett's voice didn't return
until July. "It was just one of those fluky, unlucky,
no-one-could-explain-it, no one-knew-what things. I was out of work for
four or five months, and now I'm back," she said. "They thought it was
cancer. They thought it was MS (multiple sclerosis). I had all the CAT
scans... They said there's a 50-50 chance it will come back. It's either
nerve damage or just nerve paralysis based on a virus. And I sat it out
and waited."
As she waited, she still performed with the Babes, though she had to
cancel solo shows. Members Megon McDonough, Christine Lavin and guests
Patty Larkin, Mary Travers and others sang her songs. Fingerett played
guitar and piano.
"The Babes were just fabulous during this time. Chris had broken her
finger, and I played all her songs while she sang, and then I played and
then she sang my songs. We were the cripple chicks," Fingerett said.
"And, please, if you print that, make sure everyone knows I say that
lovingly and with big heart."
Fingerett recalled one performance in which Cheryl Wheeler filled in.
Wheeler declined to be paid for her work. "She wouldn't take a dime. And
so I sent her dog a box of dog toys... If you're not going to show your
affection to someone, you show your affection to their children. She has
no children; she has like three dogs or something. So I sent her dogs
all kinds of presents. I'll show her. I'll love her no matter what she
thinks."
After much therapy and care, Fingerett is again singing, though she
doesn't expect to be in full voice until September. "It was scary and it
was awful, but it's over and I'm not looking back. And all my friends
were just wonderful."
Despite her setback, Fingerett displays the same kind of fortitude that
has kept her career strong. Married, with a daughter (who's now 8),
Fingerett is as busy as ever. "There's no reason (to slow down)," she
said. "When the roots of the tree are strong, the limbs of the tree
nourish. And if I am, as a mom, satisfied with my life's work, my
daughter's going to be the beneficiary of that."
Fingerett says she gains strength from watching her daughter, Elizabeth
Julian, grow. "She's the light of my life," she said. "She's the window
that I see life through. My childhood was conflicted. It was the '50s.
It was different. I'm having the childhood that anybody would want with
my kid."
"Home Is Where the Heart Is" (being recorded now by Peter, Paul & Mary
and sung by other groups) from her 1991 album Unraveled, and "When I
Wake Up From This Night" and "Mama Ghetto Rose" from her latest album,
Ghost Town Girl were envisioned through the eyes of a child, she says.
Fingerett has always carried a certain strength to her writing. She
sings about relationships and vignettes of everyday life, with a voice
that moves from delicate whispers to deliberate passion. Though many
know her engaging, accepting look at lifestyles in "Home Is Where the
Heart Is" (which she sings at every performance), Fingerett's
thoughtful, enriching ballads and topical songs place her among today's
most important contemporary folk singers.
But Fingerett, who's sung kids' voices in jingles for White Castle and
Wendy's, and others for Sears and Hallmark, doesn't take all the credit
for her career's successes. New York singer-songwriter Christine Lavin
included Fingerett song "Wild Berries" on a 1990 compilation On A
Winter's Night and later went on to bring Fingerett in with Patty Larkin
and Megon McDonough as members of the Babes.
"Christine Lavin handed me a career on a silver platter," Fingerett
said. "We've just become really good close women friends,
contemporaries. She treats me like a peer, not an underling. She's
offered to walk with me side by side... The Babes thing took on a life
of its own. If I had said to myself, 'I want this and this and this to
happen,' I could never have choreographed my career the way it's
happened. It just happened. And that's the beauty of it. I had no
expectations and I've been nothing but pleased and honored during this
whole thing."
The Babes have been pursuing individual careers, though recently have
begun negotiating a recording contract with Shanachie Records, Fingerett
said. Fingerett is planning a fourth solo album, which she hopes to
release by December or January. While her voice was out of commission,
she says, she had contacted Lavin, McDonough, Larkin, Cliff Eberhardt,
The Story (Jonatha Brooke and Jennifer Kimball), Pierce Pettis, Jonathan
Edwards, Janis Ian, Cheryl Wheeler and others. "I was going to do a
record of all my own songs and call it One Heart Many Voices: The
Lemonade Project. As in, when God gives you a lemon, you make lemonade.
And they were all going to sing on the record. I would just be the
player and the writer, and it would be on our label (Amerisound)... I'm
so glad to not have to do it. It would be a lot of fun, but I really
want to do my own thing." Now she hopes she can get many of those
artists to perform backup on her next project.
Through the months when she had no voice, Fingerett says she also did
not write any songs, a process that she finds therapeutic. "Writing is
kind of like cleaning the house," says Fingerett. "Once you start, oh, I
just can't stop... Once you jump into a creative process, I find myself
caught up in it. I love it. I've always enjoyed the writing. It's funny
because when I was a kid, a little kid, I was like this pathological
liar. I'd just like, lie. And now I think, I'm a writer. When I was a
kid I'd make up stories and they were true, and now I realize that
make-believe is very important to me."
Some of her writing is spontaneous. Such was the case with "10-Pound
Bass," a song about a man who'd rather catch a fish than a woman. She
wrote it while in the middle of writing another song. "Men get a charge
out of it because it's a very loving song to men who just love to fish,"
she said. "My husband watches those bass shows on TNN. It's like
watching golf, you know, I don't get it."
Fingerett, who's performed at clubs and colleges since the late '70s,
says she hopes her audiences come away from her music with a fresh look
at issues and at themselves. "Folk music has always been about politics;
it's always been about self, personal rights," she said. "And because
our issues have changed, we can march on this and we can march on that,
but until we get it straight in our own back yard, we can't go much
further."
Her song, "Save Me a Seat," for example, written for a friend who died
of cancer, sends the message that it's OK to let suffering people know
you support their decisions. She sings: "They don't laugh at white girls
who love their r&b when you're homeward bound." "In other words," she
explains, "you go where it's going to be OK with whatever your choices
are, and just save me a seat. I'll be there someday, and I'll see you
there. That song has made a lot of people who have lost close loved ones
to AIDS and cancer, it's made them realize that we have a responsibility
to those people to let them off the hook, because they take that sorrow
with them, and they don't have to," she said.
Fingerett doesn't like to hawk her politics, however, though topics
about abusive spouses or environmental issues creep into her repertoire.
"I'm a woman with a job and a family, and anything that has to do with
that will be my issues. If it means singing about dishes, or singing
about being too tired to have sex, those are my issues," she said. "I'm
an advocate for just letting everybody off the hook. Tomorrow's another
day."
What does she like about performing
and being out on the road? "I like getting dressed up and eating out. I
like that part a lot. I am a gypsy. No doubt about it, in a former life,
I was a nomad, because I do love it. I could do without having to hold
my stomach in and looking thin under lights... I don't have the need to
be a big star. I just like making a living doing what I enjoy, and I've
always done music. It's just what I do."
Meanwhile, Fingerett stresses that
she wants people to know that she has recovered from her vocal paralysis
and is doing just fine. "The hardest part of this whole thing was I
couldn't go out in public because I couldn't hear me over white noise. I
couldn't stand up and talk because air flew out of me without vocal
chords to stop the air. When you'd go to vocalize, air would fly out and
I'd pass out because I'd lose all my oxygen. So it was pretty ugly for a
while. But so many people were so worried, and there was nothing they
could do. And that was the worst part. I couldn't stand seeing all their
concern and their heartache. I knew I'd be fine. It wasn't cancer. I
wasn't going to die. I could still read my kid a story as long as she
was quiet, but so many people heard about it and so many people are
worried, I can't take that they 're uncomfortable or worried about me."
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