Photo by Tory Quinn
It was early summer of 2013 when Jill McCracken first heard Lake Street Dive on the radio. She had been driving to her Ithaca apartment when “You Go Down Smooth” came on the air at 91.7 WICB. Luckily, she only had a few more blocks to drive before she could pull over to the curb. She stopped the engine and composed her rapid-fire thoughts. Who was this band? Where did their lead singer come from? What was that rich retro sound doing on a college radio station? The music was similar to McCracken’s recent foray into songwriting, but cleaner, simpler, and more soulful. How could McCracken become a singer like that? McCracken waited impatiently for the DJ to tell her who the hell had just changed her life. The answer was Rachael Price.
Not long before that day, most of McCracken’s singing experiences had been with friends on the floors of their Rochester Institute of Technology dorm rooms. Occasionally she would let loose at karaoke and summon her “worst singing voice” for a rendition of K-Ci & JoJo’s “All My Life.” But that wasn’t serious. It wasn’t until her friends started requesting encores did she start singing louder, and more often. And it wasn’t until she heard Rachael Price’s voice did it occur to her that music could be a career path she could take.
In her hometown of Buffalo, McCracken hadn’t grown up with parents who introduced her to “cool” artists like Bob Dylan. She received her musical education from the oldies radio stations on long car rides. Aretha Franklin and Sam Cooke were staples in her Kazaa and Limewire libraries. She burned her own “Best of” compilations of soul artists on CDs. When it came time to learn new songs on guitar in high school, she perplexed her instructors at the music shop when she asked if they could teach her songs by Three Dog Night.
Courtesy of the artist’s YouTube channel
When Allston Pudding sat down with McCracken, she admitted that her upbringing also included a healthy dose of indie rockers like Rilo Kiley and New Pornographers. Then when Jenny Lewis and Neko Case pursued their subsequent solo careers, McCracken followed them obsessively. It’s no surprise that McCracken latched onto these strong female role models. From an early age, she strove to take on activities that were traditionally dominated by boys. She played baseball and basketball in the boys’ leagues. She picked up the drums in 4th grade. (Her affinity for rhythm ran deep, even then.) As she grew older and her appreciation for music grew more nuanced, she branched out to guitar so she could create chords and melodies. “With Arms Outstretched” by Rilo Kiley was a natural favorite to play, but so were selections by Led Zeppelin and The Beatles.
Now, it’s difficult to imagine McCracken sporting a guitar or sitting behind a drum kit on stage. When she performs, her voice surges through her whole body. Her powerhouse singing inspires a natural choreography that brightens up the stage as much as her mustard yellow outfits. (Though this would appear to be an intentional nod to ‘70s aesthetic, McCracken admits she has been drawn to this color from a young age just like she had been to soul music.) Her liveliness is infectious, and it’s not long before audiences are dancing alongside her. That wasn’t always the case, though. Engaged crowds inspired McCracken to move to Boston four years ago.
When McCracken graduated from dorm room singalongs to open mic nights, she quickly realized there wasn’t really room for soul music where she was living in the small town of Ithaca. Ithaca is often referred to as “a ten square miles, surrounded by reality.” McCracken reflected warmly about its enthusiastically liberal and overall amazing people, but nevertheless, “there’s only ten of them.” Their bubble of a music scene lends itself to folk acts and jam bands. So instead, she trekked up to familiar coffee shops in Buffalo. There, she covered songs like the Fugees’ version of “Killing Me Softly” and stripped down interpretations of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”. Bringing new meaning to pop songs on the small stage helped pave the way to introduce her own vulnerable songs.
Courtesy of the artist’s YouTube channel
During those fledgling days of songwriting, McCracken took observations and packaged them in a saleable format. She wouldn’t spell out how she felt about the subject matter in the lyrics, but she would emote her opinions through her tone of voice. Then McCracken had a chance to intern at Ani DiFranco’s feminist record label, Righteous Babe Records, which served as a huge influence on McCracken’s budding songwriting efforts. DiFranco’s own music planted the seed about how to be honest, intimate, and forthcoming in music, but it took McCracken a long time to give herself permission to grow that seed. By 2014, she asserted that music could be more than just a hobby. To do so, she had to move to a city where people wanted to go out and experience live music. New York City was simply too overwhelming. She had visited Boston a few times, and her friend Kevin Ewer had been pestering her to move there with him. It was pure coincidence that she would move to the same city as Lake Street Dive.
By the end of her first month in Boston, she wrote “Hometown,” the oldest song that appears on her debut album, Shake Me Up. Like her counterpart in the song, she had planted herself firmly in the future, but she couldn’t forget her roots. She learned to defend who she had been, because that version of herself helped her grow into the person she had become. “Hometown” is foot-stomping-ly energizing, much like “1968,” “Lovesick Woman,” and “Whole Wide World”. By contrast, McCracken wrote “Honey” this spring, just before recording the album. It’s slow like molasses, smooth like butter, and a far cry from the album’s upbeat beginnings.
Video by John Doherty
Nowadays, McCracken isn’t afraid to sing exactly what’s on her mind. On the first song of Shake Me Up—“Lovesick Woman”—she admits she doesn’t want to fall in love because she’s “got shit to do” and she doesn’t have time to cater to a romantic partner. “Good Enough” speaks to the Sisyphean tasks of following your dreams, keeping your promises, and apologizing when it matters, but there’s also an underlying insatiability in McCracken’s lust for life. “Whole Wide World” is nothing short of an asexuality anthem. The variety of emotional journeys within each song shows McCracken’s maturity as a songwriter.
Rachael Price unknowingly nudged McCracken’s career forward a second time this past January. Price taught a vocal workshop titled “Finding Your Voice” at the Institute of the Musical Arts in Goshen, MA, and McCracken was one of 75 attendees. Because the workshop was structured as a lecture, Price broke the ice at the beginning of class by asking everyone to sing something they loved. Suddenly, everybody started singing different songs at the same time. It was chaos, it was joy, and somehow Price transformed those disparate songs to one harmonious chorus.
When Price talked about her success with Lake Street Dive, she said she hadn’t given herself any other options. She was a terrible waitress and a great singer, so she chose to be a singer. Those words reverberated in McCracken’s head. Although McCracken has been performing around Boston for the last four years, she works a full-time job unrelated to music. After that lecture, she made a conscious shift to put gas on the things she was good at. She recorded her first album. She went on her first tour across the Northeast. She would not allow herself to feel bad or insecure about pursuing a creative path. McCracken knew how to toe the line. Now, she’s ready to sprint across it.
Jill McCracken is performing at Atwood’s Tavern on 11/29 with The Hats. Tickets are $8 and you can buy them here.