Lipstick Tomboy by Lisa Bouchelle stands out while it lays back.
Patrick O’Heffernan
(Los Angeles) Lisa Bouchelle sees herself as a lipstick tomboy; I see her as a renaissance woman – who is also a Lipstick Tomboy, the title of her new EP. She is one of those rare artists whose songs can make you cry, laugh and put them on repeat. Her music sounds loose and casual, but it’s actually very precise – aimed exactly at your heart, your mind, your feet, and sometimes your funny bone– the product of playing and singing from a very early age. And she is an unstoppable workaholic – maybe that’s the tomboy part: she averages over 200 shows a year.
Lipstick Tomboy, which has seen two million streams on Spotify, is short, simple and endlessly entertaining. She kicks it off with “Heart v. Mind”, a song that follows the country form, but with an ease and comfort that makes it stand out while it lays back with her perfectly modulated voice. She then takes on “If You Could Read My Mind”, the 1970 Gordon Lightfoot classic, making it her own while completely respecting the original. She slows down the tempo, drops her voice an octave and adds some emotional breath and once again makes the difficult seem natural. Play it with the original and you will triple your pleasure.
But Lipstick Tomboy is not all country and iconic covers. “Love Is Supposed 2b Fun” is as much fun as its title. A bouncy, sexy dance-track that deserves a second listen so you hear lyrics like makin’ love on shaky ground/I might be crazy/But your theory is unsound delivered with a grin in a voice that it sounds unleased but is actually perfectly pitched.
She wraps the EP with my favorite song, “Only the Tequila Talking”, a duet with John Popper. Pure country form with layers of twang and a two-steppable tempo, you can hear the big wide smile in her voice and almost see the laughter in her eyes as she and Popper swap clever, knowing lyrics. Look for it high up on Billboard real soon and maybe the CMA’s.
Bouchelle loves performing and has dueted on stage with many A-listers, including Jon Bon Jovi, and she has sung backup for Bruce Springsteen, among others. And somehow, even with a gig almost every other day, she has found time to appear on TV’s “Gossip Girl,”, place songs in TV shows and movies, and host her own top-rated TV show Rock Star Kitchen – a cooking show with music stars who joke and jam after they put dinner in the oven.
Stardom is the product of much more than talent – looks, luck, connections, stand our creativity, hard work. New Jersey native Lisa Bouchelle has them all – she is a star and this EP and her other albums and songs make her a star to the millions of people who stream her songs, listen to her radio play, and watch her TV program — and to the thousands who flock to her live shows. With the release of Lipstick Tomboy, 2019 should be the year the music industry catches up to her fans and spreads her music across the world. We could all use it.
Patrick O’Heffernan. Host, Music FridayLive!,
Lisa Bouchelle. https://lisabouchelle.com
Lipstick Tomboy is available on the website, Spotify, iTunes.
Only The Tequila Talkin’ (Lisa Bouchelle featuring John Popper)