Media
In full bloom
By Susan Jarvis
Capital News August 2007
It was a life-changing trip to Africa that led ROSE CARLEO to record her debut album, Everything I Need, after almost two decades in the music industry.
“That trip changed my whole perspective on life - it made me realise just how lucky I am, and how I have to make the most of every opportunity in my life. I’m aware of that every moment now,” Rose said.
The trip resulted in the album’s title track, Everything I Need, but it also led to Rose deciding to step into the unknown and record the album she’s always wanted to make. “I was chatting to an African friend, Peter, who’d grown up there then gone to study in the USA and become a successful doctor. He simply said to me, ‘Rose, I didn’t know I was poor until they told me …’” Rose said.
“As soon as I heard those words I told him to stop while I wrote them down - they affected me so profoundly. I suddenly understood what really matters - that it’s not what you have but who and what you are inside that counts.
“Through everything, Peter never lost sight of who he is and where he belongs. We all need to follow that example.”
It’s that universal human experience which Rose has explored in such a powerful and perceptive way on Everything I Need. She set out to put together a strong songwriting team to create songs about real people and real emotions - things we all feel as flawed and vulnerable human beings.
With the help of writers like ALLAN CASWELL, DREW MCALISTER, MICHAEL FIX, GEOFF BURTON, BRENDAN RADFORD, CATHY CARR, CASEY WATT and PIPPA GARNER, Rose has come up with 12 amazing original songs, 10 of which she co-wrote.
This is an album with both style and substance, an album written and sung by a real woman who’s experienced a whole lot of life.
“I’ve been through a fair bit in my life. My mum became ill when I was very young, and I spent a lot of my childhood looking after her. I had to grow up fast, and I guess I experienced things early on that many people never do. Because of that, I’m grounded way beyond my years, and have a real appreciation of and respect for life,” Rose said.
“But through all those years, Mum really encouraged me to pursue my dreams. She passed away when I was only 19, and in a way this album is for her.”
Rose explores the complexities of love and loss on songs like the evocative Scent of Another Woman — a track that’s hard to forget — together with Eyes Don’t Lie, the raw Someone’s Second Best, and the gutsy It’s Not Me It’s You.
These are far from being songs about being left behind. Instead, they are contemporary tales of taking control, of accepting that things aren’t always what you hoped, and moving on.
“When I’m writing songs, I look for catalysts - maybe things that have happened to me, but often stuff I’ve observed in other people’s lives. The crucial thing is to find a universal message in the song, something everyone can relate to,” Rose said.
That’s the message of the first single, ’Til I Find Me Again, co-written with Golden Guitar winner Drew McAlister.
Drew also joins Rose for a sublime duet on Sometimes You Just Know (which he wrote with Allan Caswell), that Rose describes as one of the best love songs she’s ever heard. It’s also one of the most exquisite blendings of voices heard for a long time.
Other highlights include the sensational bluegrass track Do You Ever Think About Me? the funky I’ve Just Got The Blues and the exquisite Under My Skin.
On songs like these, Rose demonstrates that she has a huge breadth of musical talent, able to express the most subtle emotions on Under My Skin, capable of great musical understanding on Do You Ever Think About Me?, and able to really belt out the blues on I’ve Just Got The Blues.
Another wonderful track is Some Kind Of Miracle, celebrating the sheer joy and exhilaration of new love.
“I see Everything I Need as a really positive album, even though it explores a wide range of emotions,” Rose said.
“It’s about taking control and living live to the fullest - about making the most of where you are and what you have.”
Rose launched Everything I Need in Perth in July, followed by an industry launch at Brisbane’s Chic Boutique bar. The official public launch will take place at this year’s Gympie Muster, where she’ll appear on Main Stage for the first time, as well as performing several other shows.
Rose Coloured Spectacular
It is always a thrill to see a new performer take the stage and make a half-hearted audience sit up, shut up, and take notice. That is the mark of a commanding singer, and I saw Rose Carleo deliver just such a showstopper earlier this year. Her voice is a big asset. It is sultry, tone-perfect and powerful. It is the voice of a no-nonsense woman with a can-do attitude to life, and no illusions about what she wants out of it.
Everything I Need is the end product of the yearning that yanked Rose Carleo out of her home in WA – the burning desire to give a solo career in music everything she had, or forever regret a failure to follow her dream.
Rose packed up her WA life lock stock and barrel, moved to the Gold Coast hinterland, scouted herself enough gigs to survive, found out who was who and what was what, and instigated the BIG plan. She wrote non-stop, and co-wrote with anyone who let her get a foot in their door, and has writing credits on ten of the twelve tracks on Everything I Need.
With admirable deter-mination, she scrimped to finance her own album, engaged Brendan Radford to produce the project, ultimately recorded with Jeff McCormack as engineer, and spared no expense on players; employing a top-shelf team of muso heavyweights.
Everything I Need is a solid and most impressive first offering. It boasts a maturity and cohesiveness uncommon in debut albums. A deft tapestry of multi-textures of a life set to words and music, that is both deeply personal and utterly familiar to anyone who has “gone a few rounds” in the contest of life.
There are outstanding songs, but the overall calibre of storytelling is the winning feature of the work.
Compelling grown-up lyrics that naturally ebb and flow without artifice, managing to canvas intimate themes of love and loss without going over old ground.
Rose’s writing style is conversational yet uncomprom-ising; it is no-holds barred, honest and gritty.
This charming woman writes with her rose-coloured glasses and romantic notions polished clean by the checks and balances of the everyday dramas of real life-any topic is grist for the mill, and she processes it into fine art.
‘Scent of Another Woman’ and ‘Someone’s Second Best’ are strong and unapologetic songs without a trace of self-pity – usually an inevitable ingredient with titles like that! ‘Sometimes You Just Know’, a duet with Drew McCallister, is just beautiful and rates with great collaborations in any genre, and the swinging ‘I’ve Just Got the Blues’ sizzles with the roll of every rrrrr...
On ‘Its Not Me- Its You’, one could easily mistake the singer for a scorching Trisha Yearwood, and the acoustic nostalgia and understated simplicity of ‘Under My Skin’ mark it as probably the most countrified track on the album.
The cleverly crafted title track was written after an African friend recounted to Rose how, when he’d gone to America to study, it was the first time in his life he’d realised he was poor-until they told him he didn’t know; all he knew was he had everything he needed. Finessing the emotional weight out of every line with practised ease is the forte of an excellent vocalist-free from having to worry about how it should best be sung, Rose seems able to shape every note and nuance for maximum relevance. Rose described the collection of songs on the CD as being “about love, standing up for what you believe in, and self-preservation”.
I applaud the emergence of a significant new contender in the singer/songwriter stakes. The eminently enjoyable Rose Carleo is an earthy and intelligent listen. Everything I Need is as smooth and velvety as a Margaret River Merlot – and that bouquet won’t be the last for this artist – I believe she has many more wonderful stories to share and will be around for a long and lucrative career.
Country Update – August 2007
