Suzanne Vega is one of our favorite singer songwriters. Wade first became an admirer of Vega's music when he heard her first album "Suzanne Vega" in 1987. When he bought his first CD player in 1987 he simultaneously bought 5 CDs, one of which was "Suzanne Vega."
Maybe most famous for her single "Luka", Ms. Vega has released six albums of original material in the U.S. and a complilation of "greatest hits" in non-U.S. markets. Vega's recorded output is very consistant in terms of quality and if you bought and liked "Solitude Standing" because of "Luka" you are very safe in buying any of her CDs (though we particularly recommend "Suzanne Vega" and "Songs in Red and Grey"). Wade saw her live for the first time in 1991 during the "Days of Open Hand" tour in Los Angeles. He remembers it as a good show though the details are getting quite fuzzy (it is Hell getting old!). He remembers that she was sitting during part of it and told a couple of stories that got good laughs but he has no longer any idea of what the stories were about!
In 2001 Wade and April attended a concert on her tour for the album "Songs in Red and Grey" at Fermilab in Illinois. It was a strange (but good) show coming on the heels of the September 11th attack complete with a lot of extra security at the laboratory. At that concert they also were introduced to Bob Hillman who was her opening act, and did a very nice job. He is a very intelligent and talented singer-songwriter with a lot of wit. (They have since bought Hillman's album "Welcome to My Century" which is also highly recommended.)
In August of 2002 we saw her perform at the Belleayre Music Festival concert in New York and she was excellent again. The photos on this site were taken during that concert (without a flash). After the Belleayre concert she was kind enough to sign a couple of CDs for us and to allow April to take a picture of Wade and Suzanne. In 2003 Ms. Vega released an album reviewing her career called "Retrospective." Even if you have all the Suzanne Vega albums, it includes some worthy additions not on the albums and is worth buying for them alone. There are two important Suzanne Vega sites on the web and this is a link to one of them. You may also link to it by clicking on the picture above. Columbia has also set up a very nice official site for Suzanne at SuzanneVega.com.
Photos by Wade and April
Click on any of the pictures to see a larger version.
