Sittin' on top of the world

Marshall discovers hidden talents on second CD

By DAVID VEITCH -- Calgary Sun

 Amanda Marshall's sophomore CD doesn't hit stores until Tuesday but, in her mind, it's already an unqualified success. 

"I'm just thrilled to death about it," says the big-voiced Canadian singer about Tuesday's Child, the much-anticipated followup to her 1996 self-titled debut, which sold more than two million copies worldwide. 

There are many reasons for Marshall's pride and confidence. 

Produced in large part by Rolling Stones-Bonnie Raitt boardman Don Was, Tuesday's Child features some of the best musicians (including Bon Jovi's Richie Sambora, Benmont Tench of Tom Petty's Heartbreakers and perennial sessioneers Steve Jordan, Waddy Wachtel and Kenny Aronoff) and songwriters (including Carole King, Desmond Child and Eric Bazilian) that Sony Music's money can buy. 

Interestingly, Marshall doesn't use Christopher Ward or Marc Jordan, who wrote many of the songs on her debut, possibly because the 26-year-old singer blossomed as a writer just before the recording sessions. She co-writes 12 of the album's 13 tracks, most with Bazilian, whereas she only wrote a handful of tunes on her first record. 

"What I noticed during the touring of the first record was that the songs that seemed to elicit the strongest reaction on a night-to-night basis were the songs that I had written," says Marshall, who plays the Jubilee Auditorium on June 24. 

"I didn't consider myself a songwriter. I really believed at the time that writing was something exclusive to professional songwriters.... I started to seriously think about the fact that maybe I owe it to my audience and maybe to myself to at least be willing to find out if there's anything here." 

After the tour, a mutual friend introduced Marshall and Bazilian, a former member of '80s pop group The Hooters who helped write Joan Osborne's breakthrough album, Relish. The two hit it off and arranged to do some writing at Bazilian's Philadelphia home. 

"We went in his living room, I played piano and he played guitar, and most of the songs just evolved out of conversation about love, experiences, life, sex, religion philosophy.... I was supposed to stay for three days. I stayed for three and a half months," Marshall says. 

Sounds almost, shall we say, romantic. 

"Oh no!" Marshall exclaims, laughing. "Not even close!" 

Fans of Marshall's hits such as Dark Horse, Birmingham, Sitting on Top of the World and Let It Rain will be glad to know the new album offers more slightly rootsy, well-polished Sheryl Crow-ish pop, although a song like Shades of Gray (about Marshall's mixed-race lineage) reveals more about the singer than anything on her debut. 

"When you make your first record and you're 19 or 20, oftentimes you don't have much to say," she explains. 

"The bulk of my life experience came out of touring that first record. It was toward the end of touring that first record when I started to feel like maybe I do have a contribution to make; maybe I do have something to say." 

Though Marshall says she "looks forward to garnering everybody's reaction" to Tuesday's Child, she disagrees with this writer's assessment that some songs -- particularly Best of Me, which echoes The Rolling Stones' Bitch -- could more snarl than what her session musicians provide. 

"I had no aspirations of making a stripped-down, raunch live record," she points out. "What I really wanted to do was make a produced piece of work." 

Mission accomplished, then.