Susan Werner

Susan Werner combined exceptional vocal talent with strong command of guitar and piano to approach wider recognition before growing crowds across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Private Music issued her first major-label recording, Last of the Good Straight Girls, in 1995, and adult alternative album stations nationwide embraced it. In early 1997 BMG folded the label without ceremony into its Windham Hill subsidiary, removing the album from circulation.

She spent her early years near Manchester, Iowa, where she first appeared in public at age five, accompanying herself on guitar and singing at church. Piano lessons began at eleven. High school found her performing on saxophone in jazz groups and singing in school plays. At the University of Iowa she completed a degree in voice, then continued at Temple University in Philadelphia with additional opera training. After setting aside her developing opera ambitions, she drew fresh direction from a performance by Texas folk singer Nanci Griffith. Already working with a jazz trio, she began carrying her guitar into coffeehouses on the folk routes through Philadelphia, New Jersey, and New York City.

Midwestern Saturday Night appeared in 1993 as her first self-released recording, marking the start of a rising career in contemporary folk music. An uncommon blend of sources set her apart from other songwriters on the Philadelphia coffeehouse circuit. She has named Griffith, Jacques Brel, Thelonius Monk, Joni Mitchell, Sting, and jazz diva Shirley Horn among her influences. Once she secured management in Philadelphia, she cut the 1994 album Live at the Tin Angel, which attracted the interest of Private Music/BMG executives.

Produced by former Lou Reed bassist Fernando Saunders, her strong but brief Private release Last of the Good Straight Girls featured Mitchell Froom, a noted producer in his own right, on keyboards, along with Zachary Richard and Marshall Crenshaw. The tracks offered social commentary, reflective personal accounts of relationship difficulties, and a striking version of Paul Simon’s “Something So Right.” Time Between Trains followed in 1998.