Album
“Susan gifts us with a beautiful song cycle full of both heart and humor. These ten original songs brim with feeling.” – Melissa Block, longtime NPR host and correspondent
Susan Rakov is a theatrical singer-songwriter based in Santa Barbara, California. Her first album, To Here From There, digs into the large and small of life, from dodgeball to death to leftovers, exploring the gifts and tradeoffs of choices, aging and love. Susan’s unique Broadway-inflected style evokes genres ranging from country to 70s pop to piano balladry to jazz standards. Over full band arrangements or solo piano, listeners note that her “brazenly vulnerable” lyrics land with “a punch, or a laugh, or sometimes both.”
Listen to and/or purchase the new album “To Here From There” for download on Bandcamp:
Shows
In addition to being an album, “To Here From There” is a live, dynamic, one-woman show. Using storytelling and songs, Susan and her piano weave a chronologically-ordered story of real life, with all its comedy, tribulations and milestones. Performance song lists may vary. Check back here for performance dates near you.
About
After 40 years as a professional advocate for the environment, Susan Rakov has learned something about bumps in the road. Her first album, “To Here from There,” is the gift that resulted from one of those bumps - a chronic illness that forced enormous life changes. Together, the songs on this album delve deeply into what it is to be a woman, a parent, a professional and a creative in the 21st Century. With humor, honesty, and gratitude, Susan invites us into the places in life where emotions echo across human experience.
Song List
- Go For Miles (4:21) An anthem for just keeping going, with full band and soaring vocal harmonies.
- Definition of Love (3:03) Thirty years of marriage collapsed into one country song, with delicious guitar work.
- My Own Room (3:59) A piano ballad of midlife creative angst.
- Dodgeball Day (4:13) Little girl meets adversary. And what happened later.
- Leftovers Again (2:17) A jazzy ode to doing things differently from our parents. Again with the great guitar.
- 3AM (3:48) How we feel in the middle of the night when we shouldn't be awake. Wait for the harmonies.
- To The Beach (3:44) Jazz standard-style ditty of illness and the first hint of recovery, with full band.
- Without You (2:13) Moms and daughters. Piano ballad.
- Turn Down The Moon (4:17) A waltzy investigation of unconditional love.
- Jan's Prayer (3:09) What we really want, in the end. Piano ballad.
