Susan Lynch supplements music with new poetry book
SUSAN LYNCH
Into the All Empty
Chatwin Books
By Warren Kurtz
In 1978, I visited the Belkin-Maduri Management office in Cleveland in the early days of the initial lineup of Jonah Koslen’s post-Michael Stanley Band group Breathless, preparing to write a promotional piece about the newly assembled quintet. I was greeted by Koslen, who I had previously met, and was joined by Susan Lynch, who provided quotes about the other band members. By that time, I had seen the band’s initial concert and wrote, “Susan Lynch plays keyboards, and demonstrates her vocal abilities doing both lead and background vocals. When she plays electric piano, her talent shines through; when she uses synthesizers, it is handled with taste. Her singing can match the powerful sweetness of Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks and, with other songs, the frenzy of Suzi Quatro. Yet, her style, as is the case with the other band members, is distinctly her own.”
1978 promotional photo
In addition to Lynch’s work with Breathless, she, Koslen, and Rodney Psyka also performed with the local entourage, the Euclid Beach Band, supporting the regional hit “There’s No Surf in Cleveland.” On August 7, the Euclid Beach Band performed at the Agora, covering fourteen oldies from the ‘60s, in addition to their hit and flip side, with Lynch singing lead on “Please Don’t Talk to the Lifeguard” and “Navy Blue.” The following year, Lynch was included as a background singer on the Euclid Beach Band’s album on Steve Popovich’s Cleveland International Records.
In 1982, Lynch’s solo album Big Reward was released on Beach Boy Bruce Johnston’s label, Johnston Records. On “Laugh,” the flip side of her “Office Love” single from the album, she sang with a Pat Benatar-like balance of power and beauty.
The following year, Lynch’s composition, “Mr. Persuasion,” was performed by ABBA’s Agnetha Faltskog, with a ‘60s girl group sound in line with Lynch’s Euclid Beach Band delivery.
In 2000, the title tune from Lynch’s solo album was covered as a crisp anthem by Joan Jett & the Blackhearts on the soundtrack of the John Travolta and Lisa Kudrow film Lucky Numbers.
Now Lynch has a collection of 28 poems titled Into the All Empty, with the title coming from a passage in the book His Holiness The Dalai Lama: Advice on Dying and Living a Better Life. Reading a poem of Lynch’s a day for a month, even in the shortest month of the year, can provide a month full of soothing thought-provoking inspiration.
The poem “For the Birds” includes the lines, “Earlier an eagle, not yet white-headed, circled over,” which recalls imagery one might imagine in listening to ABBA’s opening number “Eagle” from 1977’s The Album. Lynch told Goldmine, “I mentioned my observation about birds flying throughout the collection to the book designer, and he came up with putting the birds on a quantum theory equation of Richard Feynman, with the almost-invisible grid underneath.”
“Quiescence” includes, “Like a phonographic needle reaching the end of the side, after the last song,” a comparative observation of a musician, which in reality is true at the end of Faltskog’s Wrap Your Arms Around Me album after Lynch’s “Mr. Persuasion” composition concludes.
“Friction: Evidence” has Nicks-like imagery of dust and doves. “Crickets sawed like string quartets” ends a stanza in “Calling Song.” “Raddling melodies entwine” in “Raddling” and “a quilt of multiverses like with pebbles in the sand” ends “A Brief Explanation of the Fourth Dimension.”
There is even a bit of humor interspersed, including the title, “As to Why I Haven’t Done More with My Life” on this delightful collection of literary artistry, a tasteful treasure during this holiday gift giving season.
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