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ACL 2009 Preview: Alela Diane
Tom Menig worked as a dental laboratory technician in Nevada City, a sleepy, artistically inclined former mining community in Northern California, but music was always his real passion. The guitarist performed in regional folk festivals, had his own studio and played in a Grateful Dead cover band, the Deadbeats. Today, at 52, he has at last abandoned his day job, touring across Europe and living his dream — as his daughter’s guitarist.
Menig is the father of up-and-coming folk chanteuse Alela Diane Menig, a skilled acoustic purveyor of dark, spare Americana awash in chilly imagery and evocative lyricism. He and his then-wife reared their daughter on bluegrass music and brought her along with them to festivals and community radio station performances. Now, in the wake of Alela’s increasing success after the release of two haunting, powerful albums — 2006’s “The Pirate’s Gospel” and this year’s “To Be Still” — she’s returned the favor, calling on her father to play in her touring band and on her albums as she works her way through Europe.
“He’s a really easy-going person, and he always has a positive attitude. When you’re in really close quarters with a lot of people it’s nice to have someone who is always looking on the bright side,” said Alela, 26, by phone from Berlin “And he watches over me, in a sense. It feels more like home when Dad’s on the road.”
Music surrounded Alela throughout her childhood and adolescence. And though she participated in choir at an early age — an experience she now credits for her ability to recognize and parse the kind of harmonies and vocal complexities she’s mastered on her albums — she never quite shared her parents’ affinity for performing or songwriting. Though she experimented with the acoustic guitar in high school, she had no commitment to the instrument.
All of which changed after she left high school and set out for college in San Francisco. The tumult of her first brush with independence, paired with her re-discovery of the guitar, set off a creative chain reaction, and Alela found herself relying on songwriting as a way to cope with a rapidly changing life.
“Something about that experience of suddenly being out in the world on my own and being in a big city and having all my possessions in a dorm was very challenging,” said Alela. “And right when I moved away, my parents went through a divorce and sold my childhood house. So all that loss of home led to me writing songs in the first place. Everything was just kind of insane and songwriting became my way of getting all that off my chest.”
She eventually returned home to Nevada City, with a set of deeply personal songs in tow. She began to record in her father’s studio, and the result was “The Pirate’s Gospel,” a stark and intimate debut that quietly won her widespread acclaim. She opened for the Decembrists and Iron and Wine.
Newly settled into a quieter life, her follow-up album, this year’s “To Be Still,” was written during a period of relative personal tranquility. In contrast to her debut, it featured more instrumentation, more backing vocals and a fuller sound.
“It came out of a completely different experience than the first record. I did a lot of the writing for that album while I was living in a little log cabin in Nevada City, and I think a lot of it was about the experience of going back to the hometown and working regular jobs and not being able to leave town and being tied down by all the jobs and responsibilities of one place,” said Alela. “And a lot of it was about finding love and all the domesticity that came with that.”
The release of “To Be Still” has been accompanied by extensive touring throughout the United States and Europe. It’s a challenging, ever-changing lifestyle for the young musician — her eagerness to return to the United States and, soon thereafter, home is palpable. She will release the six-song “Alela and Alina” EP, recorded with longtime touring partner and vocalist Alina Harden, on Oct. 6, before a U.S. tour with similarly folk-minded singer/songwriter Marissa Nadler. But if any woman can handle the constant presence of the stage in her life, it’s Alela — after all, to her, it’s been a fixture since childhood.
“I remember when my dad would be up on the stage, when he was tuning or between songs, and I’d go to the front of the stage to ask for five dollars to go buy an ice cream or whatever,” said Alela. “That made the stage a realistic place. I was never scared by it. That made it just a normal thing for me. So going up there doesn’t seem too strange.”
Of course, it doesn’t hurt having that same dad around to play with her these days. And although she helps pay his bills, she’d rather not be reminded of that. “I’m officially his boss at this point. It’s a little nerve-wracking, but it’s good,” said Alela. “Although I really don’t like it when he calls me boss.”
Alela Diane will perform on Sunday, Oct. 4 at 11:45 a.m. at the Dell stage.
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