A Conversation with Erika Luckett (continued)

PM: I loved, too, the interplay that was captured between the string section and your fabulous guitar playing on that song. [check out the clip of "Deepest Deep" on the Listen page]

EL: Thanks.

PM: That was masterfully mixed. What guitars did you cut that on?

EL: I cut that on--well, actually, I did it on two. I did that on the Taylor, 812-CE. And I also did it on a Guild hollow-body.

PM: Yeah, I heard a hollow-body in there.

EL: Yeah, that's what it is.

PM: Is it a new or an old Guild? That's a sweet sounding guitar.

EL: Yeah, it's actually pretty new. It's like a '90s-some-odd...

PM: A fat one, or a skinny one?

EL: It's a fat one. But also what is really nice is that I have flat wound strings on it. So it's just a really nice beefy sound.

PM: Love it. I knew, obviously, that you're a native Spanish speaker and also I think a native Portuguese speaker, to some degree.

EL: Yeah.

PM: But I didn't know you were a French speaker.

EL: [laughs]

PM: When did you learn to sing and to speak that language?

EL: I first went to France when I was fifteen. I had a gig as a nanny. I was an au pair in Paris.

PM: Wow.

EL: And I had been a Francophile for while. I ended up studying for a couple of years over there. I was young and I was out of high school early, and I started in college studying...well, I thought I'd go into international law. [laughs]

PM: That's funny, I fancied that myself at one time.

EL: I think I was so scared at the thought of trying to make a living through music, I thought that I'd better do something more secure, you know. So, anyhow, I was in Paris studying at The Sorbonne, and that's how I got the French.

PM: Well, that's the way to get it, all right. Singing as you do in these languages, is there anyone in place, or anyone in the wings, who'll take this record to foreign markets, especially the red hot Latin market?

EL: Not in place at this moment, but it's certainly part of my intention with this record.

PM: We do have a couple of friends in that part of the record business in Miami, we must get this CD in front of them.

EL: Absolutely. I mean, it's been a great four years, five years, traveling so much around the states and getting to know this country. And doing so as a singer/songwriter, and falling into the folk world. And yet, where I came from [Wild Mango, the international jazz ensemble], prior to doing the singer/songwriter thing, was much more international and multicultural. My intention is still to bring my music to a larger global context.

PM: Definitely. I mean, it's kind of miscast, the way that just being a great solo artist and a fine guitarist kind of landed you in folk world in America. You're really not only a lot more, but you're a lot different than that.

EL: Yeah, yeah. And with everything that makes us unique, there's the blessing of it, and then there's the challenge of it. And I know that the blessing of it for me, of course, is that I love that I get to reach into so many different wells of influence, so many different styles, and so many different genres that flow through me. And I know that the challenge of it is that, in the live arena that I'm in, it's not exactly a hand-in-glove fit.

PM: You are a very fearless person, it's one of the things I admire about you.   continue

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