Label: Trust Issue Records

Producer: Andrea Perry

Release Date: 2000

Andrea Perry should be waking up this morning to the news that her 2004 Grammy for Best Songwriter (on her mantelpiece) will be likely be joined by her 2004 Grammy for Best Producer. Of course, both awards would be standing proudly before a whole wall full of gold and platinum awards for Saturday Morning Sweet Shoppe!

Andrea's January/February recording schedule should include six weeks at Abbey Road Studios in London where her next album will be co-produced with Sir George Martin. All of this should be a reality for Andrea Perry and it isn't... well not just yet anyway! Y'see, Saturday Morning Sweet Shoppe is worthy of all of this.. and more, and if I were ever to recommend an album for you to buy without even listening to it first... then this album would be THE ONE!

Recorded above Jeffries Restaurant in Austin, Texas, and skillfully recorded at Austin's substitute for Abbey Road: Music Lane, Andrea Perry and crew have come up with a fantastic album that is as every bit deserving of a Grammy, and related rocketing international sales, as some of the most successful albums ever to have been produced during the past thirty odd years! Now I know that's a bold statement.. but let's see why all of the above makes perfect sense to any discerning listener and audience..

The album opens with Simple; a truly accomplished recording with Andrea's equally accomplished vocal arrangements set above some of the classiest musicianship ever to grace a little silver CD. What's particularly enthralling is the superb piano and bass playing, and Andrea's masterful songwriting bares those brilliant middle bits that we all aspire too but never quite manage to get near writing somehow. Making her up is brain food for the masses who have been starved of such nutrients for far too long. Thought provoking lyrics and excellent gentle harmonies make your ears stand to attention in a way that would have made Star Trek's Mr Spock look a little out of place! The originality in both the composition itself as well as in the production is spellbinding, and if your gratitude to everyone involved in making this track possible could be weighed.. we'd end up with alot of cracked pavements!

When I'm with you opens with the line: 'I'll come over and see how you are..' and the second verse opens with 'I'll bring beer, we'll smoke by the fire' now these are frighteningly innovative openings in anyone's book of popular music verse and they're the dead giveaways to the realm of this expert songwriter. I'd love to know more about how she writes this stuff... it's very very clever for lots of reasons but perhaps the most important of these is that it is very uplifting music with an innate methodology that guarantees to lift your mood upwards from wherever it's been lying. To have a heart does the same job in a similar lyrical fashion to 'When I'm with you' with a very bright melody that acts like a springboard that places the artist on an equal footing to some of the most prolific and innovative songwriters that would easily include: Kate Bush, John Lennon, Elvis Costello, Paul McCartney, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. Yep.. it's true.. it's a fact!

Wilderness is one of the most beautiful love songs that would have settled quite nicely on 2004 versions of Sgt Pepper, the White Album, or Abbey Road if only that were possible! The musicianship and songwriting here is absolutely excellent and the rich balance between electric piano phrases and Andrea's vocals are remarkably well conceived. Had I produced this track, I would be involuntarily walking on air for such a long time that my shoes would appear to have never been walked in! I don't need this is one of the best tracks on the album for it's sheer originality and for the sheer skill in production techniques. Watch out for the little keyboard inserts that make the outstanding harmonies shine very brightly indeed. It's another classic Andrea tune that deserves much commendation for, at the very least, just existing! 'I don't need this' is followed by Slide out where the lyrics and vocal arrangement is so captivating that you end up wondering how Andrea could have got away with this and you couldn't! By now, the piano appearances throughout this album have triggered thoughts of WOW and perhaps more in this song than in any other so far. The combined bass runs are interestingly running similar paths and that can only have been made possible if either the same fingers did the work or if two separate minds became one in the composition. A truly outstanding track that I could listen to over and over again and still find something equally captivating in.

Saturn lights my way is quite possibly one of the 'cleverest' tunes I have ever heard. The expression in the vocal matches the meaning in the words in the same way that Lennon and McCartney managed to do with relative ease. The girl knows too much about how to write very very good commercially outstanding songs and as we go track by track, that one simple fact becomes more and more evident! How she gets away with it is completely and utterly beyond me! The last laugh is so beautifully sung that Andrea's detailed and often angelic vocal makes her a very very good 'marriage material' candidate simply because it's quite probably the best and most selfish thing I can think of doing with the girl apart from begging her to write more albums like this!

The thing about If I lose you is that, for me, it is one of he best love songs ever to have been written! It's one of the best pop songs ever to have been written, and for me, it's the best song on the album! The song has absolutely every success ingredient ever condensed into one single magical piece of intelligent pop. It's Grammy material Andrea.. whether you like it or not! Now... anyone reading this review might be led to think that I'm completely enamored by the girl... WELL OF COURSE I AM!!!! You can't produce a song like this with it's affluence in colourful lyrics, passionate vocals, and expert musical accomplishment without feeling anything less... unless of course... you are totally and irrepairably stupid!

Feed Me is the kind of song that would have pricked up many an ear when Kate bush first emerged on the popular music scene back in 1978. It's a very clever insight into what love is all about cos we all need to be fed in the way that Andrea espouses. Does the girl not know when enough is enough??? She passed the test at track one and she just seems to keep pushing the songwriting magic boundaries further and further with seemingly relative ease! Y'see, imagine running a record label where you cannot imagine having a more frustrating issue at hand where you'd like to give the girl a contract that states 'Advance: 2,000,000 dollars NON-RECOUPABLE in the legal jargon??? nah... I can't either!

The final track on the album: I rued the day does more wonders for the spirit, the soul, the emotions, the thoughts, and your audio delight, than any drug or vice could ever have achieved in a billion years! I love the bass playing and guitar work almost as much as I love the words and vocals... it's another true Andrea Perry classic pop tune that certifies her alliance with some of the greatest songwriters we know. I honestly don't know how she sleeps at night without having another couple of Andrea Perry albums in her head, in conception and composition all at the same time! A truly wonderful and accomplished piece of music that augurs well for Andrea's continued success as an absolutely outstanding artist. that's what this album is all about.. 'outstandingment, wonderment, and pure unadulterated class in a girl who hails from Austin, Texas, and who really should be recording at Abbey Road Studios this weekend... after her Grammy acceptances have been sorted out of course!

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