Here is an interview from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel from April 2008.
Lyrics linger on fathers, daughters
Posted: April 8, 2008
Lucy Kaplansky fought off folk-music celebrity for a full decade.
In fact, she went to extremes. She quit music, earned a doctorate in psychology and actually went into private practice, in addition to joining the staff of a New York hospital treating the chronically mentally ill.
That's when Shawn Colvin rode to the rescue of Lucy's muse.
Kaplansky had sung backup on Colvin's Grammy-winning "Steady On," as well as backing such folk luminaries as Nanci Griffith and John Gorka. Despite her freshly minted stardom, Colvin wanted to produce an album, so she turned to her old friend and backup. The resulting disc, "The Tide," earned Kaplansky rave reviews and a record deal with Red House Records. After 10 years, Dr. Kaplansky was out of the hospital and in the clubs.
Twelve years later, Lucy Kaplansky is a respected member of the New York folk community, with rave reviews from such illustrious quarters as The New York Times, The Washington Post and the Chicago Tribune. In addition to seven solo albums, she joined Dar Williams and Richard Shindell in the supergroup Cry Cry Cry. She sang with Suzanne Vega on the soundtrack to "Pretty in Pink" and with Griffith on "The Firm." There was even a "Heartbeat of America" commercial for Chevy.
She is touring behind "Over the Hills," her newest Red House release, and will appear Friday at the Cedarburg Cultural Center as part of its Wisconsin Singer/Songwriter series.
A Chicago native, Kaplansky has turned to themes of family in her recent work. "The Red Thread" from 2004 celebrated her experience as a 40-something first-time mother with the adoption from China of her daughter, Molly. The new album grapples with the experience of losing her father and reflects on the sad story of her grandfather who died long before she was born.
"Ultimately, my father passed away just before I made this CD," Kaplansky said. "Family and the cycle of life were all around me in the last few years. That is the center of my life. Family, in a way that it hadn't been since I was a kid, has been at the center of my life. That's what these songs ended up being about, because that's where my heart has been."
The song "The Gift" is about her grandfather, although Kaplansky admits growing up without a vivid sense of him.
"When he died, my dad was in his late teens. He's been dead since 1930 or '35. He had a very hard life. This is implied in the song," she said. "He was trained to be a Talmudic scholar in Poland. When they emigrated, he had no job skills because he couldn't make a living doing that, and he never really found his way.
"What I don't say in the song is that he actually committed suicide. Looking back, I think he suffered from clinical depression. It's a very, very tragic story. I know bits about him, but it was a very sad thing for my father to talk about, and he didn't talk about it very much."
At 48, Kaplansky finds herself working to balance motherhood and her career. As a result, she usually works on weekends, flying out on Fridays and generally getting back home by Sunday.
She does admit that motherhood has taken a certain toll on music.
"I don't have the time or the energy I had," she conceded, "but I also had a revelation this week that my creative energy now goes into my daughter. It's not just being a mother and loving her and practical issues - it's being creative with her, playing games, playing pretend. That used to go, in an unobstructed way, into my music. I cannot imagine that's not true of any artist that's a parent."
Looking back on it, she admits that Colvin sort of had to drag her back into music.
"I was very, very conflicted, neurotically conflicted," Kaplansky acknowledged. "I told myself I didn't want to be a singer, and I just let (Colvin) completely be the creative force behind that album. It was a passive approach, but, luckily, it was a good album. I finally figured out in therapy that I really wanted to go back to music, and I had this album that Shawn had produced and she was getting famous at this time. It was a huge foot in the door."
Although it was a major wayside, the respected folkie has made her peace with Dr. Kaplansky.
"You know, for a long time, I guess I probably had some regrets," she said. "I wished I had just done music, but through the wisdom of getting older, I know I wasn't ready to do it. I wouldn't have been very good at it back then. I wasn't ready to be a writer when I was 22. I quit when I was 23. Everything I learned in graduate school and working with patients, that's invaluable. It's part of who I am. I guess I wouldn't trade that."
Kaplansky had one qualification.
"I'm still paying back my graduate school loans," she said. "I wouldn't mind being through with that."