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Patricia Vonne
Patricia Vonne
Bandolera Records
By David Pilot
 Most
women who've done what Patricia Vonne's accomplished would be
happily resting on their early-30s laurels now, bestowing small
favors upon the supplicants at each appearance they deign to
make. A successful modeling career, after all, more often creates
a diva than a hard working songstress. For Vonne (born Patricia
Vonne Rodriguez) however, things played out differently. That
modeling career in the Big Apple was a self-realization journey,
not a girlhood dream. And while in New York, during the time
when the Rodriguez moniker officially was dropped due to agents'
repeated proclamations that Patricia doesn't look Mexican, Ms.
Vonne was ignoring the troglodytes while playing bass in local
bands and beginning to pen songs of her own. Inevitable, perhaps,
for a child of Spanish descent on her mother's side and Mexican
on her father's. There may be no two cultures on earth more
musically immersed and more agonizingly haunted. A tradition
of such nature, ingrained deeply during childhood and intertwined
with American mindfucks like Hitchcock, can hardly spawn anything
less than shimmering tantalizing and at times achingly unattainable
glimmers of greatness. Vonne's brother, Richard Rodriguez,
for example, is a legend in the film community based on the astonishing
and completely unpredicted, decidedly non-mainstream success
of his stunning films El Mariachi and Desperado.
And Patricia? Listen to her music and hear the agony and ecstasy
of centuries forged in a cauldron of New York minutes and central
Texas independence. Get swept away so quickly you never realize
you haven't the first clue what kind of music this is, whether
it's a genre you like, or anything else. No, just get lost in
the haze and the tapestries and hope you never find your way
out.
From simmering and beautifully haunting ballads like "Soldedad"
through the seductive and sultry in a Belinda Carlisle sort of
way potluck of songs like "Won't Fade Away" and "Shine
A Light" Vonne clearly signals her arrival as a vocalist
with fully developed vision and astonishing control. If she
trips up at all here it's on the tonk-rockers like "Mudpies
and Gasoline" - - on another album this song might astound
but here, sandwiched between "Soledad" and "Devotion,"
it throws an odd and perhaps jarring arrangement into the mix.
It's a barnburner, though, and makes one wonder what Vonne would
unleash if she set her sights on a pure country record. Tracks
like "Bandolera," however, with their soul-inhabiting
and intoxicatingly threatening yet appealing flamenco beat seem
in Vonne's capable hands like the product of three centuries'
distillation. For all of their linguistic similarities, the
descendants of Spain and Mexico in many ways simply cannot be
more distinct and dissimilar. Here, however, their common anguish
and faith meld in a dance that swirls about the senses like a
bottle of Casta tequila on a humid summer night. Other cuts,
"Morning After," for example, mine the vein of American
history and love in a manner some of our foremost rockers would
envy. Vonne's sultry and intoxicating lead vocal couples with
husband Robert LaRoche's harmonies to simmer atop Scott Yoder's
bass in a driving rush of fear and love and courage that evokes
the West and the future simultaneously.
Run through the fire, run through the trees
Would you run through the desert just to be with me
Run across the river swept to the sea
Or will you try and bury me
If you lead me to the water will you save me if I drown
Will we see the morning after or will our tears melt the ground
 "El Cruzado"
and "Severino" find the listener transfixed once again
by the desert and the border and the legends and the ghosts of
faded love. The latter, the one track here delivered entirely
in Spanish, is a dance of love and anguish in tribute to Vonne's
mother Severina Rodriguez. Anyone who inhabits still this mortal
plane and holds their mother close in memory alone will cherish
this song, regardless of their ability to understand the language
itself. The piercing aching joyfully longing delivery tells
the tale full well on its own. And if you do speak the language,
you'll enjoy it all the more.
Patricia Vonne, simply put, is an astonishing record
from an astonishing artist. Records this full, this bursting
at the seams with music and lyrics and vocal mastery, are generally
reserved for the old masters who've honed their craft in the
public eye for what seems like generations. Ms. Vonne, just
barely into her prime, obviously drank deeply through the years
at the wells of Espana and Old Mexico. She learned from New
York how callous and shallow a life can be, and now back home
once more in her ancestral San Antonio she's put all of that
anger and fury and love and loss and longing out on a market
table for the world to see. Her previous incarnations and careers
gave her the financial backing to do it right, and no one in
their right mind can listen to this record and say that she squandered
the opportunity.
Pay attention, Texas. The land that gave birth to legends
as disparate as Townes and Stevie Ray has birthed what may turn
out to be another. Patricia Vonne can pen a lyric. Can deliver
it with an earnestness that with practice can reach Nanci Griffith
proportions. And has surrounded herself with musicians who bring
it all to life exactly as it should be. Forget that she's an
unparalleled beauty, that's the least of the equation. And perhaps
that fact alone, the idea that the looks should step aside and
make way for the substance, is the one key thing Patricia Vonne
has set upon to separate herself from the raging sea of the lowest
common denominator crowd. Her talent, amazingly, transcends
her more than substantial physical beauty. And that, boys,
is a mouthful.
www.patriciavonne.com
Contact David Pilot at: tailgunner-at-rockzilla.net
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