'Mesmerizing' Judith Owen includes fun on her set list

By Mikel Toombs

Judith Owen may be the best singer you've never heard.

The Welsh-born vocalist moves effortlessly between traditional folk and jazz, adding a theatrical flair that recalls fellow piano woman Tori Amos.

Owen has attracted the admiration of British folk-rock legend Richard Thompson, who tapped her a couple of years back for his ambitious "1000 Years of Popular Music" tour, and acclaimed jazz singer Cassandra Wilson, who called Owen "one of the most passionate, mesmerizing, thoroughly creative vocal artists on the scene today."

And one of the funniest as well, evidenced last December at The Triple Door. Owen and her husband, Harry Shearer of "This Is Spinal Tap" and "The Simpsons" fame, brought their musical-comedy Christmas revue to town, as they will again this year. (Shearer also guests tonight at Owen's Triple Door show.)

Owen might well be playing much larger venues if her projected major-label debut had come out as planned nearly a decade ago. However, a shakeup at her record company shelved the album.

Now (well, next Tuesday), Owen is releasing the CD "Mopping Up Karma" on her own label (Courgette). She said she has cleaned up the hit-seeking, "everything but the kitchen sink" flourishes of producers Glen Ballard (Alanis Morissette) and Clifton Magness (who was soon to launch Avril Lavigne).

Owen, whose often melancholy songs betray a lifelong battle with depression, recalls a fateful afternoon 25 years ago in a London hotel lounge, while "Spinal Tap" was filming nearby. There, she met her future husband, along with "Tap" actor/director Christopher Guest and an extra from the rock mockumentary's mini-Stonehenge sequence.

"I was doing one of these dreadful brunch things that Tori Amos and all of us do when we are trying to make some bloody money," Owen said. "I'm in my fourth hour, cursing under my breath, and I'd already been asked did I know anything from 'Cats'? So, that to me is like the end of the bloody road. That's the end of humanity, as far as I'm concerned.

"And I sing one of my songs, and there's this ripple of very enthusiastic applause behind me. I turn around and it's Harry dressed as ("Tap" bassist) Derek Smalls, and a dwarf from Stonehenge and Chris Guest."

Owen said she was "literally being listened to by Derek Smalls and a dwarf. It was just the greatest thing ever. Then we had a drink and he made me laugh. I just found the whole thing ridiculously funny and surreal. So that's how I met him.

"I met him for one date, a week in New York, and then two months later I sold the few things I had -- I was so broke, I was so unhappy -- and I came out to America with two bags and asked him to marry me."