Dana Fuchs Gets ‘Down’ With Brooklyn
“Brooklyn to me is what New York City was when I first came here years ago… …it‘s a place for artists now….it’s a great music scene… its got the funk out there….I mean, musically and vibe wise”. –Dana Fuchs
Dana Fuchs recorded the majority of her six albums in Brooklyn, but her live performances here have been few and far between. In 2010 she headlined a benefit concert at the historic St. Ann’s Church for Brooklyn Community Services and, more recently, in 2015 at the Brooklyn Bowl in Williamsburg. Yet most of her shows have been overseas in Europe and Scandinavia, where she’s toured extensively.
Peter Diamond, Dana Fuchs /photo by Bentley McBentleson /O-Patch
Prior to going on-stage for one of her landmark shows at Manhattan’s Highline Ballroom, Brooklyn Roads asked Dana if she was planning on more live performances in both Brooklyn and the U.S.
“I want to take a little bit of a break from Europe,” she said. “We’ll go over, but not nearly as much. I know we have a West Coast tour in March…Seattle, Portland and LA. In the Northeast, we have a pretty good following, so when we do play in the Northeast, we tend to get a really good draw. We want to expand to the rest of the country and hit the Midwest quite a bit more. This will be our second West Coast tour and we did pretty well out there last year.”
Still, Dana agrees, there’s no place like home. “It’s always exciting to be home and play. We played Brooklyn Bowl for the first time in January on a Sunday. There was an ice storm and we still had a really nice crowd and they asked us back,” she said.
While her fans commute to her Manhattan appearances from all over the tri-state area, Dana expressed a slight hesitation about more Brooklyn shows. “It’s always scary to make the transition when you’ve played a lot in Manhattan.”
Her new album, “Broken Down Acoustic Sessions” was, by Dana’s account, mostly “recorded and mastered in Brooklyn” as was ”Bliss Avenue” and ”Love to Beg”. During recording session breaks, she confessed to having “tracked and trolled the whole neighborhood. The Rabbit Hole was our joint to go to. . . in Williamsburg. A great cozy restaurant, we would always close (it) after recording. And then, there were the great little shops.” When her family came to visit, Dana insisted they explore Billyburg. ”I was like, you gotta see this. It’s a city in and of itself!”
Jon Diamond , Dana Fuchs / photo by Howard B. Leibowitz / B.L.Howard Productions
“Broken down Acoustic Sessions” includes 14 songs curated by Dana and Jon Diamond, her long time guitarist and songwriting partner. Making the final cut are Fuchs’ classics “Almost Home”, “The Lie”, “Baby Loves The Life” and “Misery”. Also included is a heart-wrenching interpretation of Bobby Blue Bland’s “Ain’t No Love In The Heart of the City”.
“Broken Down” should keep Brooklyn music lovers enchanted until she returns to the borough to play live, which hopefully will be soon.