It's Cree Summer Time With Kravitz And The Living Is Easy

04/21/1999 4:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Craig Rosen

(4/21/99, 1 a.m. PDT) - It's not every day that a new artist debuts with an album produced by and featuring a platinum-selling artist, but such is the case with Cree Summer's bow, Street Faërie, which was released yesterday.

The album, issued on Sony's WORK label, is produced by Lenny Kravitz, who duets with Summer on the bluesy song "Mean Sleep," co-wrote "Miss Moon" and "Still Heart," and lends instrumental support throughout the 13-track album. Kravitz has also enlisted Summer as an opening act on his spring tour with the Black Crowes and Everlast, which kicks off Friday (April 23) in Irvine, Calif.

The Kravitz connection came courtesy of the rocker's former wife, Lisa Bonet, who Summer knew from her days as an actress on the NBC sitcom A Different World. "She's an old and dear friend of mine," says Summer, who is also known for her work as a voiceover talent on such animated TV shows as The Rugrats and Inspector Gadget. "I've been sharing music with Lisa since I started writing music. I gave her some songs that I have written and she gave them to Lenny just to listen to, and he was like, 'Oh my God, give me her number.'"

The two musicians had known each other in the past, but fell out of touch following the marital split between Bonet and Kravitz. "Sometimes when people get a divorce, you either go with the wife or the husband, and I went with the wife," Summer explains. "Lenny and I hadn't really spoken in years, but then I got this call." Kravitz asked Summer who was producing her album. When the singer replied that she hadn't found a producer yet, he volunteered his services.

It was with that sort of casual spirit that the eclectic Street Faërie was made. "Everything with this record has been so organic and so effortless. All my friends have contributed," she adds. "It's really a grassroots, homegrown kind of journey, and a straight family affair."

Those family ties extend to Bonet directing the electronic press kit to the lyric sheet calligraphy by Summer's father, actor/ musician Don Francks.

As for Kravitz's vocal participation, Summer admits that she baited the producer into lending his voice to the project. "I told him 'Mean Sleep' was a duet, but I couldn't sing it with some pansy ass," she recalls. "I told him that it had to be a real strong manly voice, and he said, 'I'll do it,' and I was like, 'Score.'" The situation also allowed Summer to turn the tables on her producer. "It was nice to be on the other side of the booth and say, 'Do it again,'" she laughs.

The album, recorded in the Bahamas, also allowed Summer to make a unique connection with her longtime friend Bonet, who is the subject of the song "Miss Moon." Says Summer, "We had been in Nassau for so long that we were cycling together, as women do when you spend time in a place, close." During a stop on a moonlight drive, Summer, Kravitz, and Bonet parked on a beach to listen to some of the work in progress. "Lenny and I were in the jeep listening to some of the songs and Lisa jumped out and was dancing on the beach under the full moon and she looked so beautiful."

Upon their return to the studio, Kravitz started "playing this cool-ass riff, which sounded like gypsy hip-hop funk," she recalls, "and he asked me to write some words." Instead of going back to her room to write, Summer was invited on a visit to a local nightclub where she was introduced to Jagermeister for the first time. "They poured me back into the room and I had like 10 minutes to write the lyrics and I was immediately hit by this lovely image of [Bonet]," Summer adds. "When I woke up the next day and I got sober, I still liked the lyrics."

For a list of Summer's tour dates, click here. Features on Lenny Kravitz, the Black Crowes, and Everlast are available on LAUNCH.com.

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