Amanda Marshall Is Tuesday's Child

By: Nick Krewen


	Amanda Marshall has come  out  of  the  closet.  After dazzling two million record buyers (including 900,000 Canadians) with passionate, leather lunged singing on her self-titled debut she discovered a number of other things to share with the world - namely production, songwriting and piano-playing prowess on her new Epic/Sony album, Tuesday's Child.

	Marshall co-wrote 12 of the 13 songs on Tuesday's Child, a sterling
collection of blue-eyed pop that will be released on May 25 in Canada and Europe and on June 15 in the U.S.

	Recorded over seven months at Hollywood's Ocean Way Recording, and primarily produced by Don Was (Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan), Marshall says Tuesday's Child was more a happy accident than contrived notion.

	"I didn't really mean for this to happen," she says in the office of her Forte Productions management company a day after completing the video for the album's first single, Love Lift Me.

	"I didn't set out to write this record.  I didn't set out to be as involved in the production of the album as I was, and I didn't set out to play on it. There were a lot of firsts on the record.

	"Stuff that I hadn't done before, like songwriting and production, I had passed off as things I couldn't do. I came to find that it was stuff I hadn't gotten to yet. It makes me think that maybe all of life is like that. I'm not a jet pilot, but maybe I could fly a plane someday. That's the best kind of growth you could have."

	Marshall says that touring behind her first album encouraged her as a writer "I noticed that the songs eliciting the strongest reactions from people were the ones I'd written.

	"I'd never thought of myself as a songwriter I'd always thought that Sitting On Top Of The World was a fluke, and I was never sure about my contribution to Dark Horse because it was really a matter of shaping the song. But those songs were the ones that people gravitated towards."

	Marshall decided to start keeping a journal during the last 12 weeks of her tour, and took it with her to Philadelphia when she sourced out former Hooters singer Eric Bazilian as a song-writing partner.

	"When you're 19 or 20, it's hard to write songs if you don't have any serious life experience," Marshall, now 26, explains. "But touring that record for two-and-a-half years really gave me a good chunk of what my adult life experience was, certainly up until now. It gave me some-thing to say."

	Marshall  and Bazilian wrote and cut 35 demos, but when it came time to record the album, Don Was was the man for the job. Marshall had previously worked with him on This Could Take All Night, which appeared on the  soundtrack to the Kevin Cosiner film, Tin Cup.

	"He's a remarkable, remarkable guy," says Marshall. "His strength is in the fact that there's no Don Was sound. All the artists sound like them-selves.  He doesn't aspire  to  put  a thumbprint on your work. He really preserved the integrity of the material."

	Bon Jovi axeman Richie Sambora, Heartbreaker Benmont Tench, ex-Expensive Wino drummer Steve Jordan and legendary songwriter Carole King with whom Marshall penned Right Here All Along - are among those contributing to Tuesday's Child.

	When it came time to choose a piano player for the sessions, however, Was wanted to use the pianist on the demo. "He didn't know that was me," chuckles Marshall, who also co-produced Believe In You.

	"He said, 'You know, we should really try to get the piano player who played on these demos.' I said, 'Oh, we can get me! But it'll cost ya!"'

	Marshall is currently in rehearsal with a five-piece hand for upcoming appearances at a pair of high-profile German rock festivals over the May 24 weekend. Her 22-date, Core Audience Entertainment promoted Canadian tour runs from June 7 to July 10.

	"She's now a priority with Sony worldwide, which wasn't the case when we  started,"  says  manager Tom Stephen. "The game plan is to consolidate Canada. Then we're off to the States (touring is tentative for the fall) and back into Europe. Asia is involved too.

	"Hopefully all of this is going to result in greater worldwide sales and take Amanda to the next step as a major star in all these markets."  Sony Music Canada's Epic product manager, Bruce Mactavish, figures Tuesday's Child will surprise many people. "The fans of Amanda's powerful singing voice have been there from day one. But I think what fans are really going to he enthralled with this time is her writing voice."

	Mactavish's aggressive advertising campaign began sharply on April 22 with "Amanda At Midnight," an online weekend promotion that included the premiere of Love Lift Me.

	Long-term marketing plans include a multi-pronged attack, combining elements of TV, outdoor, print and online advertising," says Mactavish. A national television campaign is built on 15-second spots commencing a week before street date and focusing as much as possible on the season finales of various popular TV series'. Billboards, transit shelters and subway advertising are also in the six-figure mix.

	"The great thing about Amanda's audience is that it's very broad," says Mactavish. "It goes from teenagers to people in their forties. Amanda connects with that audience, and her radio-friendly songs and her energetic performing style give her wide appeal."

	European markets will be serviced with Believe In You as the album's first single. "The strength of Believe In You in Canada has been amazing," says Stephen, "especially since it was released in October and it's still top five at pop adult.

	"Europe tends to mirror the Canadian market, and there was a sense of Sony Europe feeling really good about it and wanting to go with it." Everyone concerned is stoked about If I Didn't Have You, a powerful ballad and potential second single that has smash written all over it.

	"It was an eleventh-hour song that came in and floored everybody," says Stephen. "The consensus is that that will be a worldwide release."