"The Secret of Her Success"- Jam!Music May 23, 1999

Some recording artists go to India to find their muse (Thank U, Alanis). Amanda Marshall went to Philadelphia.

The City of Brotherly Love is less glamourous than the Far East, perhaps, but it's the home of music biz heavyweight Eric Bazilian, who wrote Joan Osborne's One Of Us, among other hits. He's also famous for the Hooters.

He was No. 1 on the list of writers Marshall wanted to work with on an album to follow up her blockbuster 1995 debut. And she got her wish. Her new album, Tuesday's Child, mostly written by the Marshall-Bazilian team, is out Tuesday.

In a recent phone interview, the 26-year-old singer says she would've been happy being a "singing head," doing songs written for her by other people. It works for Celine Dion. And it worked for Amanda Marshall. From a powerhouse Toronto nightclub singer discovered by Jeff Healey and frequently likened to Janis Joplin, she became a star after her Sony debut. It ended up selling two million copies worldwide. Most of the songs were written by people like Christopher Ward, David Tyson and Marc Jordan. Marshall herself had credits on three songs.

"A lot of the songs that seemed to be eliciting the strongest reaction with fans were the songs that I had written or co-written," she says, "which wasn't a lot: Sitting on Top of the World, Dark Horse and Let's Get Lost. It told me that perhaps people are connecting with me on a level outside my role as an entertainer.

"But I didn't really know anything about songwriting. I never considered myself a songwriter and I never really had any burning desire to write."

She considered Sitting on Top of the World a "fluke," knocked off in 10 minutes on guitar, an instrument she barely knew how to play. But fans were digging the tune, so she tried an experiment. She certainly didn't have anything to lose. "I thought, well, I'll just get a notebook and start writing stuff down. I'll write down everything that seems like it might be a moment of inspiration. And maybe by the end of the tour, I'll have - I don't know - stuff, songs, I'll have something."

She brought the notebook to Bazilian. "I said to him, 'I don't know if I'm any good at this, but I'd like to find out. If I suck, I'll go home, but I have all this stuff and I think some of it might be songs.' And I showed him what I had and he said, 'Well, if you got all this, you probably got something to say.' "

So they talked - "about life and love and sex and religion and philosophy" - and hammered out ideas on the piano. What was supposed to be a three-day sojourn turned into three months. When it was over, the bulk of Tuesday's Child was written. All they needed was a finishing touch or two - including sessions with songwriters Desmond Child and the great Carole King, with production polish by Don Was. Voila! Not only did Marshall prove herself as a writer, she found out there isn't anything she can't do.

"I used to think, oh, I can't write, I can't play, I can't produce, but they were just things I hadn't gotten to yet, as it turned out. The earlier you make that discovery, the better. It renews your whole sense of yourself. It makes you understand, hey, I'm not really a jet pilot either, but I guess maybe anything is possible."

Fasten your seatbelts. After listening to Tuesday's Child, it would be easy to assume Marshall is mining painful experiences to be a confessional singer-songwriter - like Alanis Morissette, say. If I Didn't Have You, for instance, is a portrait of classic co-dependent behaviour. Lines include "I'd cut my hands off just to touch you" and "I wouldn't be me if I didn't have you." Get this girl into therapy!

Other tracks evoke a sense of heartbreak and loss, but it doesn't necessarily come from personal experience. Marshall says she's maintained a strong relationship with her bassist/boyfriend even through the transition between being unknown and being famous. Although it's hard to keep any relationship healthy when you're in the circus-like atmosphere of the major recording artist, Marshall seems as well-adjusted as anyone.

"I'm not hip to the whole songwriting-as-therapy thing and I'm not so much into listening to someone else's therapy session," she says. But even so, Tuesday's Child "is who I really am. What you try to do with any record is you try and take experiences that mean something to you and impart them to people in a way that's going to hit them on a universal level. I think those are the records that move people, not only to buy the record, but to feel something.

"There's a reason why people buy records that are perhaps not critically acclaimed, records that are important to them nonetheless. I don't know why. I can only assume that it means something to them. That's what songwriting is: You try to find the core of whatever the message is and try impart it to people in a way that's interesting.

"I think this is a slightly less anonymous record, a slightly more personal album, if only because I was more involved in making it."

She's only written a handful of songs in her short but busy career, but Amanda Marshall seems to have found the secret of success.


	The secret of her success Amanda Marshall: There's nothing she can't do By MIKE ROSS Express Writer____________________________________________________ Some recording artists go to India to find their muse (Thank U, Alanis). Amanda Marshall went to Philadelphia. The City of Brotherly Love is less glamourous than the Far East, perhaps, but it's the home of music biz heavyweight Eric Bazilian, who wrote Joan Osborne's One Of Us, among other hits. He's also famous for the Hooters. He was No. 1 on the list of writers Marshall wanted to work with on an album to follow up her blockbuster 1995 debut. And she got her wish. Her new album, Tuesday's Child, mostly written by the Marshall-Bazilian team, is out Tuesday. In a recent phone interview, the 26-year-old singer says she would've been happy being a "singing head," doing songs written for her by other people. It works for Celine Dion. And it worked for Amanda Marshall. From a powerhouse Toronto nightclub singer discovered by Jeff Healey and frequently likened to Janis Joplin, she became a star after her Sony debut. It ended up selling two million copies worldwide. Most of the songs were written by people like Christopher Ward, David Tyson and Marc Jordan. Marshall herself had credits on three songs. While on tour to support the record, Marshall discovered she might have more to contribute. "A lot of the songs that seemed to be eliciting the strongest reaction with fans were the songs that I had written or co-written," she says, "which wasn't a lot: Sitting on Top of the World, Dark Horse and Let's Get Lost. It told me that perhaps people are connecting with me on a level outside my role as an entertainer. "But I didn't really know anything about songwriting. I never considered myself a songwriter and I never really had any burning desire to write." Knocked off a fluke She considered Sitting on Top of the World a "fluke," knocked off in 10 minutes on guitar, an instrument she barely knew how to play. But fans were digging the tune, so she tried an experiment. She certainly didn't have anything to lose. "I thought, well, I'll just get a notebook and start writing stuff down. I'll write down everything that seems like it might be a moment of inspiration. And maybe by the end of the tour, I'll have - I don't know - stuff, songs, I'll have something." She brought the notebook to Bazilian. "I said to him, 'I don't know if I'm any good at this, but I'd like to find out. If I suck, I'll go home, but I have all this stuff and I think some of it might be songs.' And I showed him what I had and he said, 'Well, if you got all this, you probably got something to say.' " So they talked - "about life and love and sex and religion and philosophy" - and hammered out ideas on the piano. What was supposed to be a three-day sojourn turned into three months. When it was over, the bulk of Tuesday's Child was written. All they needed was a finishing touch or two - including sessions with songwriters Desmond Child and the great Carole King, with production polish by Don Was. Voila! Not only did Marshall prove herself as a writer, she found out there isn't anything she can't do. "I used to think, oh, I can't write, I can't play, I can't produce, but they were just things I hadn't gotten to yet, as it turned out. The earlier you make that discovery, the better. It renews your whole sense of yourself. It makes you understand, hey, I'm not really a jet pilot either, but I guess maybe anything is possible." Fasten your seatbelts. After listening to Tuesday's Child, it would be easy to assume Marshall is mining painful experiences to be a confessional singer-songwriter - like Alanis Morissette, say. If I Didn't Have You, for instance, is a portrait of classic co-dependent behaviour. Lines include "I'd cut my hands off just to touch you" and "I wouldn't be me if I didn't have you." Get this girl into therapy! Other tracks evoke a sense of heartbreak and loss, but it doesn't necessarily come from personal experience. Marshall says she's maintained a strong relationship with her bassist/boyfriend even through the transition between being unknown and being famous. Although it's hard to keep any relationship healthy when you're in the circus-like atmosphere of the major recording artist, Marshall seems as well-adjusted as anyone. "I'm not hip to the whole songwriting-as-therapy thing and I'm not so much into listening to someone else's therapy session," she says. But even so, Tuesday's Child "is who I really am. What you try to do with any record is you try and take experiences that mean something to you and impart them to people in a way that's going to hit them on a universal level. I think those are the records that move people, not only to buy the record, but to feel something. Personal album "There's a reason why people buy records that are perhaps not critically acclaimed, records that are important to them nonetheless. I don't know why. I can only assume that it means something to them. That's what songwriting is: You try to find the core of whatever the message is and try impart it to people in a way that's interesting. "I think this is a slightly less anonymous record, a slightly more personal album, if only because I was more involved in making it." She's only written a handful of songs in her short but busy career, but Amanda Marshall seems to have found the secret of success. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AMANDA BY THE NUMBERS 26 - her age. 110 - her weight, in pounds. 17 - age at which she joined her first band in Toronto. 900,000 - copies of her debut album sold in Canada. 2 million - copies of her debut album sold worldwide 7 - number of Top 10 singles from that album. 3 - number of songs she wrote or co-wrote on her debut album. 12 - number of songs she co-wrote on Tuesday's Child. 6 - number of co-writers on Tuesday's Child, including Eric Bazilian, Carole King and Desmond Child. 15 - number of Canadian shows she's playing this summer. She's at the Jubilee Auditorium July 4.