Deborah Martin-Lemmon’s new CD is as country as a tearful shot of whiskey in a broke-down Chevy.
It’s called “Old Habits are Hard to Break,” and Martin-Lemmon said she was thinking about the fortunes of her hard-living collaborator, Howard Salmon — and of America in general — when she wrote the title song.
“Everybody gets stuck in things they do and everybody’s trying to do something different,” said Martin-Lemmon, a newcomer to Hazel Dell. “Howard has had his ups and downs in life.”
Martin-Lemmon met Salmon, a military veteran and long-haul truck driver, when she was hired to direct choirs on military bases in California. They hit it off immediately, she said, and always joked that they’d have to make a super-straight country record together, “one of these days.”
That moment finally came after Martin-Lemmon spent decades pursuing many musical dreams. When she was an ambitious young singer living in Oklahoma, she said she found herself hanging out with a galaxy of local greats — from country legend Merle Haggard to jazz cats such as Barney Kessel and Lionel Hampton to rockers such as Foreigner bassist Bruce Turgon.
“They all loved having a young woman to teach and take under their wing,” she said.
She sang jazz and pop and blues. She was almost signed to Capitol Records, she said, but instead moved to Southern California and made a name for herself — Deborah Martin, her maiden name — making ambient New Age sounds with guitar and voice and Indian drums.
“I was doing music however and wherever. I don’t care about styles, I just love all of it,” she said.
After 20 years in California, Martin-Lemmon, 57, and her husband fell in love with the Pacific Northwest and wound up just last year in Hazel Dell, near the 78th Street Heritage Farm. That’s where she has set up a new pro-level music studio called Dreaming Edge. She’s bursting with plans for new music projects, from gospel extravaganzas to quiet singer-songwriter introspection.
But first she wrote and recorded “Old Habits are Hard to Break” at Bruce Turgon’s California studio with Salmon, whose voice has that classic country croon. They were joined by a stellar cast of musicians whose résumés include gigs with Haggard, Ricky Scaggs and Tanya Tucker.
No local gigs are scheduled to support the 2013 release of “Old Habits are Hard to Break,” but you can check out the sound — it’s as country as a hound dog howling through the honeysuckle at your ex-wife’s shotgun — and order a copy via http://dreamingedge.com. (You can also find Howard Salmon, and his previous release, “These Trucks are Made of Gold,” at http://howardsalmonmusic.com).
“I’m planning to do another album with Howard, too, because this was so much fun,” Martin-Lemmon said.
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