“Sometimes it’s hard to know who my biggest fans are,” says Mia Doi Todd, settling into a phone conversation from her home in Los Angeles. On the line to discuss her latest release, Songbook, a record that finds the singer focusing on some of her favorite songs by other writers, Todd remains curious about the divides in American popular music. Her eclectic range has seen her release albums that have found critics placing her in the world, folk and indie categories though any one record easily defies easy classification.
“Numerically," she says, "I have the most fans in the United States but I've also spent a decent amount of time in Brazil." Her version of Lô Borges' "Grassol da Cor de Seu Cabelo,” a collaboration with Jose Gonzalez which appeared on the Red Hot + Rio2 compilation, connected with the Brazilian market and became the kind of song that people fell in love to and attached strong memories to. "When I went there to perform people came to me with a lot of stories about how important it was to them," she says. "I really do identify strongly with Brazilian music. There's less of a racial divide, I think. It's just Brazilian music, not urban music, etc. I feel like I've fallen in between in American music and maybe I've fallen in between to world music," she adds.
The story of Songbook begins, in some ways, with Brazilian music. Upon the release of Floresta (which emerged circa 2014), a collection of Brazilian songs, she was asked to record a collection of tunes by (mostly) American artists for a new record. The selections were to come primarily from the last century and were to be primarily tunes that almost everyone would know. The finished effort features songs written and/originally recorded by Joni Mitchell, The Cure, Prince and Elliott Smith.
A number of the pieces were songs that she’d been singing for years either in private or in public, including Sandy Denny's "Who Knows Where the Time Goes.” She’d known Neil Young’s “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” quite well for some time, though On The Radio's "Careful You" was freshly-minted when Todd began tracking it. Since seeing the group perform the song live she has become friends with the band's vocalist, Tunde Adebimpe. "We've worked on some stuff together," she says, "we actually have a really similar vocal range. I can sing an octave above his voice perfectly. His songwriting style is also very similar to mine, so it was very easy to jump into that song and make it my own even though it was still new to me."
Her take on Smith's "Between The Bars" is as much a celebration of the song as it is a tribute to her memory of the singer-songwriter, who she shared several bills with. Her appreciation for him remains strong more than a decade after his death. "He could captivate an audience by himself," Todd offers, "he didn't need a band. He was a perfect songwriter and the emotion always came through. You could easily feel what it was like to be in his shoes when he would sing. He could tap into the profoundness of human experience, the sadness and joy." She continues, "When I sing 'Between the Bars,' I see myself on the streets of New York City, walking between the bars on the Lower East Side and I'm so immediately transported there, no matter where I am at the time."
Prince's "When Doves Cry," which was tracked while the singer was still alive, may have been one of the most challenging undertakings on the record. "That was probably the most taboo," Todd says, "not many people would try to cover it. It's quintessentially Prince, almost off limits. No one can compete with Prince anyway. It's just honoring him and honoring the song."
She held a similar reverence for The Cure’s “Close to Me.” "Robert Smith is one of my ultimate musical heroes," she says, recalling a stunning Dodgers Stadium gig she took in in her younger years. "My mom took five of us to go see them. We were all extreme Cure fans and we all dressed up like Robert Smith. His vocal style is amazing and he is among my top favorite singers along with Nina Simone, Sandy Denny, Gregory Isaacs, Joni Mitchell."
Mitchell’s “Circle Game” appears on Songbook and reminds Todd of the veteran singer’s individual style. "That song is difficult to sing: You need incredible breath capacity, that was astounding. She's in with the gods," Todd says. “But 'Circle Game' is one that I think anyone can sing."
With Songbook released late 2016 and continuing to find its audience, Todd has turned her attention to a number of other projects, including completing music for a new film adaptation of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
She’s also embarking on new project with Dntel (Postal Service), “We’ve been friends for 20 years, so it’s nice to finally do a project together. Eventually there’ll be a new Mia Doi Todd acoustic world music album,” she says. “But in the meantime you’ll get a new electro album.”
Learn more about Mia Doi Todd and Songbook at http://www.miadoitodd.com/.
