Renée Geyer Sweet Life

Renée Geyer's new 'Sweet Life' album is an important moment in Australian music.

Mushroom, 01/03/99

After years of living and working in America, Renée - this country's most admired, most respected, and most awarded female singer - has come back to Australia. Two years ago she started work on 'Sweet Life'. Now we can hear the finished result.

It was partly the prospect of coming home, and partly the prospect of working with Paul Kelly which finally brought Renée back to us. She's never been far away of course, always toured, always kept in touch with her vast Australian audience. It's hard to find an Australian who doesn't have a memory of hearing Renée on the radio, or seeing her in performance. Her nine years in America earned her reputation amongst fellow musicians and singers, but Renée decided to work the other way from now on. Live in Australia, and go over there whenever her career demands.

Renée and Paul Kelly first worked together on the ABC-TV series "Seven Deadly Sins". Paul had this song called 'Foggy Highway', and on a hunch suggested Renée sing it. Like every other Australian, he knew Renée was a great singer. Her performance of his song showed him how great she was. Paul says Renée "revealed" his own song to him. Since then Paul Kelly has become Renée Geyer's mentor and champion, wanting to write songs for her and produce her records. They worked on one album together, 'Difficult Woman'. The prospect of working on another, in Australia, with Australian songs and Australian musicians was something that excited both Paul and Renée.

The minute word was out that Renée Geyer was recording another album, the top musicians knocked on her door to offer their services and songwriters sent songs. Joe Camilleri offered his studio, and became the album's co-producer with Paul Kelly. Work started on what became 'Sweet Life' without a record contract. The music was what mattered. The rest would follow and did. Like Australia's leading musicians and the songwriters, Mushroom came to the party too, keen to release Renée's music again. 24 years since her first Mushroom release, 'Sweet Life' returns Renée to her position as Mushroom's longest serving artist.

There's so much to be enjoyed on this album. We can hear everything Renée Geyer has learned and accomplished and become in all those years. Even Renée, her own harshest critic, has to admit that 'Sweet Life' brings her to a new point in her career: "In the end, a good musician sings or plays for themselves. My music's starting to have a life of its own now, not compared to anyone else, not better than, not like... just my own sort of style. It's only now I'm saying to myself it's alright".

THE ALBUM

HEAVEN
"This was written with John Clifforth, who's my doctor. He used to be in a band called Deckchairs Overboard. He's a great musician, and not a bad doctor".

YOU BROKE A BEAUTIFUL THING
"Paul Kelly wrote that for me. Paul's a great writer, but in my opinion when he writes for someone else it's even more beautiful than his other stuff. For me anyway".

I'M GONNA MAKE YOU LOVE ME
"The is a song I've loved for 30 years. It was a duet between the Temptations and the Supremes. I could never do it, because it's a hard song to sing. I finally got to do it on this album with CDB".

FROM NOW ON
"It's a reggae kind of groove on which Ross Hannaford chicken plucks his way to heaven".

PLAY ME
"Paul Kelly's been sitting on this song for a long time. When we were looking for a duet we tried it with him and me and it worked out, and turned into this hypnotic thing".

KNOWING YOU WERE LOVED
"Paul called Dave Graney for songs. He's got a head for great stuff and he sent a tape which included this song by Peter Milton-Walsh from The Apartments. It's a dark kind of pop song, not the kind of thing I've recorded before. It's like a Monet painting, sort of blurry".

CAKE AND THE CANDLE
"Had this song come from anyone else but Paul Kelly I probably would have dismissed it. There's always been a big balladeer lurking within me".

DON'T BE SO SAD
"It's a musical version of the Jewish mother going 'It's going to be find, don't worry, you'll get someone else'".

KILLER LOVER
"Spencer P Jones did his guitar thing on there. I think it's a song Paul Kelly was writing and finished with me in mine".

MY BACK ROOM
"When it was sent to me it was in almost a dance funk mode, and faster. We tried it a few ways".

"The most important thing about this album is that it's a very, very Australian-made record. The playing on it is all Australia, the production, the studio, the arrangements, the strings all done in Melbourne, Australia.

"There was a time, when solo artists went to America or England to make their records. I'm one of those people who used to do that. Some still do. In fact, I was one of the first, so I know what that's like. But you can make beautiful music in Australia in almost any genre with the musicians and the tools we have here. That's what this record proves. I'm proud of that. It sounds like a million bucks".

'Sweet Life' brings us the complete Renée Geyer. Renée, the incomparable singer. Renée, the ultimate interpreter of song. Renée the experimenter, never resting on her laurels, 24 years since her first Mushroom release, still pushing her music in new directions.