Jennifer Warnes
The Well

Jennifer Warnes has had a solo career with a path that's nothing short of bizarre: she managed to achieve some success on the American pop scene in 1977 with her "Right Time Of The Night," at the not-so-youthful age of thirty, and in 1979, she proved to be not only a superb interpreter but also a musician of considerable talent with the album "Shot Through The Heart," where, besides splendidly covering songs like Bob Dylan's "Sign On The Window" and Stephen Foster's "Hard Times Come Again No More," she writes and composes gems like the ballads "I'm Restless," "Frankie In The Rain," and the triumphant pop-gospel of the title track. Unfortunately, "Shot Through The Heart" did not reach the hoped-for sales success, and Reprise Records unceremoniously dropped her. In the '80s, she still managed to place two more hits, "Up Where We Belong" and "Time Of My Life," from the soundtracks of "An Officer and A Gentleman" and "Dirty Dancing"; too little, quantitatively and qualitatively, for one of the most beautiful and intense female voices ever.

If the public and record companies have never been able to fully appreciate her, the same cannot be said of Leonard Cohen, who wanted her almost as a second voice: songs of the caliber of "The Smokey Life" and "If It Be Your Will" would never have been the same without Jenny's contribution, and Cohen, almost returning the favor, would in turn duet with her in a wonderful "Joan Of Arc," on the album "Famous Blue Raincoat" from 1987, marking the singer's return as a solo artist and the beginning of a second youth, crowned in 1992 with the album "The Hunter," which resumes the interrupted discourse from 1979 with greater maturity and awareness. "The Hunter" is a great record, in which Warnes expresses the best of herself in her pieces, such as "The Light Of Louisianne," "I Can't Hide," the title track, and "Way Down Deep," written in collaboration with her friend Leonard Cohen. Further connecting these two artists is a singular coincidence: "The Hunter" was released in the same year as "The Future," and neither Jennifer nor Leonard would release an album until 2001, when their silence was broken respectively by "Ten New Songs" and "The Well," each going their own way, both guided by the same inspiration.

"The Well" is the album of definitive consecration for Jennifer Warnes: like the previous "Shot Through The Heart" and "The Hunter," the singer, born in Seattle but raised in Anaheim, presents herself in a dual role as performer and author, with two great fires in her heart: the poignant sweetness of folk ballads and the energy, the lightheartedness, but also the more sensual and darker nuances of soul/rhythm 'n' blues. Much of "The Hunter" drew heavily from the sound of black music, and in "The Well," this tradition continues with the perfect interpretation of "You Don't Know Me," a Ray Charles classic dueted with guitarist Doyle Bramhall, co-author of the album's original songs, and especially with the superb cover of a piece like Tom Waits' "Invitation To The Blues," transfigured by Jennifer Warnes' fascinating, silky-soft voice, which is expressed in a sensual and dreamy register, managing to soften the original while maintaining its charm, aided by well-chosen interventions of piano, trumpet, and hypnotic and muffled synthesizers. Another breathtaking interpretation is "And So It Goes," with Steve Porcaro on keyboards, where she leaves Billy Joel, the original interpreter, light years behind, illuminating with pure light what was originally just a more than decent tear-jerking ballad. However, the most beautiful and intense cover is undoubtedly the concluding "Patriot's Dream" by Arlo Guthrie, a great singer-songwriter himself and highly underrated interpreter: the original was a simple piano and voice piece, in my opinion, comparable in every way to John Lennon's "Imagine" in terms of its message and the relationship between beauty and simplicity of melody; Jennifer Warnes, with the participation of Guthrie himself, transforms it into an epic-breathed folk ballad, where Celtic bagpipes meet an operatic choir and the military march cadence of Vinnie Colaiuta, a renowned and reliable collaborator of the singer since the days of "Famous Blue Raincoat."

Besides being a performer, in "The Well," Jennifer Warnes also acts as a re-interpreter, drawing from the popular tradition to give life to another two gems of the album, a poignant anti-militarist ballad like "Too Late Love Comes," a reinterpretation of the Irish classic "The Dawning Of The Day" and "The Nightingale," which in its original version was already performed by Joan Baez in her beautiful album "Gracias A La Vida" from 1974 with the title "El Rossinyol," a traditional Catalan song transformed into a powerful gospel anthem. Even as a full-fledged author, the artist confirms herself to be on the exceptional levels of "The Hunter," with songs like the moving "Prairie Melancholy," where the superlative voice of Jennifer Warnes touches high peaks of pathos and emotion, interpreting a splendid text, perhaps loosely inspired by Cohen's "Ballad Of The Absent Mare" for its "western" setting and the concept of love expressed therein, "The Panther," a shadow of darkness in an album as luminous as this, a piece with night-time and restless atmospheres, marked by unconventional percussion like maracas and bells, as well as the bluesy phrases of guitarist Doyle Bramhall, and the title track "The Well," a lively and not perfectly classifiable piece that gives the idea of a gentle frenzy, like that of a gushing mountain stream thanks to the insistent bass line, imposing itself as a decisive opener but with a more subtle and elusive charm compared to the rest of the album.

With this 2001 album, unfortunately her last to date, released unsurprisingly by an independent label, Music Force, Jennifer Warnes achieves her definitive consecration, from every point of view, managing to easily exceed the already excellent standards of "The Hunter," and giving life to what I believe is one of the most beautiful and moving pop records ever, a unique, powerful, and expressive voice like few others, that you almost wouldn't expect from a small woman, not particularly beautiful nor showy like Jenny, combined with musical wisdom and an almost absolute awareness of her value and potential: the choice of songs to interpret is simply perfect, the reinterpretations and originals are all, without distinction, shining examples of high, pure, and uncontaminated auteur pop. If I think of the concept of beauty and innocence expressed in music, Jennifer Warnes' "The Well" is one of the first things that comes to mind, an album that deserves to become a classic, even if for me, it already is.