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LINDA EDER
It’s Only Natural
 A strange thing happened to acclaimed singer Linda Eder on her way to recording her latest CD.
She found herself in the other side of the tracks.
Long established as one of America’s premier interpreters of pop standards and classics from the Broadway songbook, Eder took an 180-degree turn and made her Verve debut with her 12-track collection “The Other Side of Me.” As apropos as it may sound for an artist who came to prominence in the Broadway production of “Jekyll and Hyde,” the truth is that this album, which was just released on September 30, takes Eder back to her overlooked country roots and to a natural musical road for her.
“This is really me getting back to my natural musical self, the person I was before Judy Garland and Barbra Streisand entered my life and I went the Broadway route,” says Eder, who will be performing at the Suncoast October 10-12. “It’s a reflection of who I really am inside. This is the kind of music that moved me as a kid, when I first started playing my guitar and learning how to write songs, so it’s a natural direction for me. There was no record of past performances to measure up to -- just my own words, my own history, and my own voice. I have finally been given the chance to strip away the costume and sing without the voice of others in my head. I've traveled a long road to find my way back home and I have found it. “’The Other Side of Me’ is my voice.”
“This is the album I would have made 20 years ago if I hadn’t met Frank Wildhorn, who wrote ‘Jekyll and Hyde,’ and gone Broadway,” she continues. “It’s Adult Contemporary with a Country inflection – I lean towards pop country. When I have always loved the theater, when I sing Broadway and standards, it’s like I’m putting on a persona. If people could see me at home, they would know that it really doesn’t jive at all.”
Taking a very different approach to gathering the right material for the project, Eder has included personally charged, instantly infectious tracks like “Pieces,” the gospel influenced pop/rocker “Make Today Beautiful” and the beautiful and poignant, parent-to-child ballad “If I Could.” The passionate mid-tempo declaration “Back To Life” was written by mega-hit pop songwriter Kara DioGuardi, who has penned smashes for Christina Aguilera, Celine Dion, Pink, Kelly Clarkson and Avril Lavigne, among many others.
On Eder’s own composition “Waiting For The Fall,” the singer tackles her own innermost thoughts and insights gained after her divorce and while raising her child as a single mother. Eder also delivers sensitive and soulful interpretations of Joni Mitchell’s “Both Sides Now” and Emily Saliers’ (of the Indigo Girls) “Ghost.” Unleashing her deepest emotions, Eder makes it easy for both female and male listeners to relate to the hardships and life lessons she has experienced.
If to those who have been watching Eder since her “Star Search” days this all seems to be a horse of a different color for the singer, it certainly fits in with her personal life, as she says. Eder resides on a horse farm in North Salem, New York, with her 9-year-old son. Divorced for five years from Wiildhorn, whom she met after she won Star Search, and worked with for 17 years and was married to for six years, Eder had been searching for a new musical direction in which to go. For years, she had been singing Broadway, standards and original material in that vein that Wildhorn had written for her. She spent a lot of time thinking about what she wanted to do and how to compete with other artists out there and then set about trying to make it happen.
“The only Broadway show I have ever done is ‘Jekyll and Hyde,’ which is why it’s so funny that people think of me as a Broadway singer,” Eder explains. “My last album, which I recorded about two years ago, was a tribute to Judy Garland, which my record label approached me with. I first heard Judy singing on TV when I was 8. She made me want to sing in the first place and she’s really the reason why I am a singer. It was a fun album to make – it was my take on a lot of her original arrangements. I also made a Christmas album, which I came up with the concept for, that was probably my most critically acclaimed successful record.”
“I don’t look to Judy or Barbra as role models anymore,” she continues. “When I sing Broadway or standards, theirs are the voices I hear in my head – that’s the problem. When I’m criticized, it’s because I sound too much like them and I agree with the critics. I can’t divorce myself from their voices because I grew up with them. That’s why I think it’s important to get to the bare roots of who I am. I’m a very harsh critic of myself and I generally don’t like what I do. I think this album is coming at the right time of my life. I think that I’ve grown. I couldn’t grow with Frank because I was a vessel of his music – he controlled so much. I’ve never had confidence in anything like I have in this album.”
“The Other Side of Me” was produced and arranged by Eder with veteran songwriter/keyboardist Billy Jay Stein She feels that the new CD is a nice mix of some songs written by young songwriters she knows as well as some cover tunes and the song she wrote.
“When I was younger, I wanted that fame, which comes out of wanting to sing and have people hear you,” she sums up. “I’ve had a taste of it and now I want my life and freedom. I just want to be happy and do music that I enjoy. “
Hopefully, that’s what being the new kid in the country “neigh”-borhood will bring her.
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