''Life on a String'' is the sixth studio album by American

performance artist Performance art is an artwork or art exhibition created through actions executed by the artist or other participants. It may be witnessed live or through documentation, spontaneously developed or written, and is traditionally presented to a pu ...

Laurie Anderson Laura Phillips "Laurie" Anderson (born June 5, 1947) is an American avant-garde artist, musician and filmmaker whose work encompasses performance art, pop music, and multimedia projects. Initially trained in violin and sculpting,Amirkhanian, Cha ...

, released in 2001 on

Nonesuch Records Nonesuch Records is an American record company and label owned by Warner Music Group, distributed by Warner Records (formerly Warner Bros. Records), and based in New York City. Founded by Jac Holzman in 1964 as a budget classical label, Nonesuch ...

. One of Anderson's predominantly musical (as opposed to

spoken-word Spoken word is an oral poetic performance art that is based mainly on the poem as well as the performer's aesthetic qualities. It is a 20th-century continuation of an ancient oral artistic tradition that focuses on the aesthetics of recitation ...

) albums, ''Life on a String'' was recorded at the Lobby Studios in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

under the musical direction of

Skúli Sverrisson Skúli Sverrisson (born 23 October 1966) is an Icelandic composer and bass guitarist. He has worked with musicians Wadada Leo Smith, Derek Bailey (guitarist), Derek Bailey, Lou Reed, Jon Hassell, David Sylvian, Arto Lindsay, and composers ...

, and produced by Anderson and

Hal Willner Hal Willner (April 6, 1956 – April 7, 2020) was an American music producer working in recording, films, television, and live events. He was best known for assembling tribute albums and events featuring a wide variety of artists and musical sty ...

. Guest musicians on the album include

Van Dyke Parks Van Dyke Parks (born January 3, 1943) is an American multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, arranger, record producer, singer, and former Warner Bros. Records executive whose work encompasses orchestral pop, elaborate recording experiments, Ame ...

Mocean Worker Mocean Worker (pronounced "motion worker") is the recording alias of jazz musician and producer Adam Dorn. Philadelphia native Dorn, son of jazz and R'n'B producer Joel Dorn, studied at Berklee College of Music. He adopted the Mocean Worker mon ...

Mitchell Froom Mitchell Froom (born June 29, 1953) is an American musician and record producer. He was a member of the bands Gamma and Latin Playboys, and is the keyboardist for Crowded House. He has produced albums for several artists, including David LaFl ...

and

Lou Reed Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942October 27, 2013) was an American musician and songwriter. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. Althoug ...

. The first three songs, "One White Whale," "The Island Where I Come From," and "Pieces and Parts," were taken from her show ''Songs and Stories from Moby Dick''. The song "Slip Away" is about the death of her father. "Washington Street" is about Washington Street, Manhattan.

Track listing

All tracks composed by Laurie Anderson, except where indicated # "One White Whale" – 1:58 # "The Island Where I Come From" – 4:08 # "Pieces and Parts" – 3:36 # "Here with You" – 2:22 # "Slip Away" – 5:50 # "My Compensation" – 2:28 (Anderson,

) # "Dark Angel" – 3:22 # "Broken" – 3:19 # "Washington Street" – 4:41 # "Statue of Liberty" – 4:24 # "One Beautiful Evening" – 5:05 # "Life on a String" – 2:57 Some copies have "Rumba Club" as a bonus track.

Personnel

*Laurie Anderson –

vocals Singing is the art of creating music with the voice. It is the oldest form of musical expression, and the human voice can be considered the first musical instrument. The definition of singing varies across sources. Some sources define sing ...

violin The violin, sometimes referred to as a fiddle, is a wooden chordophone, and is the smallest, and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in regular use in the violin family. Smaller violin-type instruments exist, including the violino picc ...

, keyboards,

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

– musical direction,

bass Bass or Basses may refer to: Fish * Bass (fish), various saltwater and freshwater species Wood * Bass or basswood, the wood of the tilia americana tree Music * Bass (sound), describing low-frequency sound or one of several instruments in th ...

guitar The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted (with Fretless guitar, some exceptions) and typically has six or Twelve-string guitar, twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming ...

, keyboards, sounds, percussion

programming Program (American English; also Commonwealth English in terms of computer programming and related activities) or programme (Commonwealth English in all other meanings), programmer, or programming may refer to: Business and management * Program m ...

Joey Baron Bernard Joseph Baron (born June 26, 1955 in Richmond, Virginia) is an American drummer best-known for working in avant-garde jazz with Bill Frisell and John Zorn. Music career Baron, who is of Jewish heritage, was born on June 26, 1955, in Ric ...

– percussion (1),

drums The drum is a member of the percussion instrument, percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel–Sachs classification system, it is a membranophones, membranophone. Drums consist of at least one Acoustic membrane, membrane, c ...

(5, 8, 9) *Martin Brumbach – percussion

arrangement In music, an arrangement is a musical adaptation of an existing composition. Differences from the original composition may include reharmonization, melodic paraphrasing, orchestration, or formal development. Arranging differs from orchestr ...

(11) *

Vinicius Cantuária Vinicius Cantuária (born April 29, 1951) is a Brazilian singer, songwriter, guitarist, drummer, and percussionist. He is associated with bossa nova and Brazilian jazz. Born in the Amazonian city of Manaus, Cantuária grew up in Rio de Janeiro ...

– percussion (12) *

Mino Cinelu Mino may refer to: Places in Japan * Mino, Gifu, a city in Gifu Prefecture * Mino, Kagawa, a former town in Kagawa Prefecture * Mino, Tokushima, a town in Tokushima Prefecture * Mino, an alternate spelling of Minoh, a city in Osaka Prefecture * ...

– percussion (2) *Tim Cobb – double bass (7) *

Greg Cohen Greg Cohen (born July 13, 1953) is an American jazz bassist who has been a member of John Zorn's Masada quartet and worked with numerous other noted musicians for over four decades. Career Cohen plays traditional jazz and other styles, includin ...

–

arco bass The acoustic bass guitar (sometimes shortened to acoustic bass or initialized ABG) is a bass instrument with a hollow wooden body similar to, though usually larger than, a steel-string acoustic guitar. Like the traditional electric bass guitar an ...

(2) *Danny Frankel – percussion, handclapping (2), box-o-toys (11) *

Erik Friedlander Erik Friedlander is an American cellist and composer based in New York City. A veteran of New York City's experimental downtown scene, Friedlander has worked in many contexts, but is perhaps best known for his frequent collaborations with sax ...

–

cello The violoncello ( , ), commonly abbreviated as cello ( ), is a middle pitched bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), tuned i ...

(3, 4, 5, 10) *

Bill Frisell William Richard Frisell (born March 18, 1951) is an American jazz guitarist. He first came to prominence at ECM Records in the 1980s, as both a session player and a leader. He went on to work in a variety of contexts, notably as a participant ...

– guitar (9) *

–

mellotron The Mellotron is an electro-mechanical musical instrument developed in Birmingham, England, in 1963. It is played by pressing its keys, each of which causes a length of magnetic tape to contact a Capstan (tape recorder), capstan, which pulls i ...

(3, 8, 11),

claviola The Claviola is a musical instrument that was designed in the 1960s by Hohner technician and designer Ernst Zacharias (inventor of the Pianet and Clavinet). The instrument was produced for a few months in the late 1990s before being discontinued ...

(3),

wurlitzer The Rudolph Wurlitzer Company, usually referred to as simply Wurlitzer, is an American company started in Cincinnati in 1853 by German immigrant (Franz) Rudolph Wurlitzer. The company initially imported stringed, woodwind and brass instruments ...

(8) *

Eyvind Kang Eyvindur Y. Kang (born 23 June 1971) is an American composer and multi-instrumentalist. His primary instrument is viola, but has also performed on violin, tuba, keyboard instruments, keyboards and others. In addition to his solo work, Kang has w ...

– violin (3) *John Kelly –

backing vocals A backing vocalist is a singer who provides vocal harmony with the lead vocalist or other backing vocalists. A backing vocalist may also sing alone as a lead-in to the main vocalist's entry or to sing a counter-melody. Backing vocalists are us ...

(1) *Liheng – baritone

banhu The ''banhu'' () is a Chinese traditional bowed string instrument in the huqin family of instruments. It is used primarily in northern China. ''Ban'' means a piece of wood and ''hu'' is short for ''huqin''. Like the more familiar ''erhu'' ...

(5) *Tom Nelis – vocals (1) *

– keyboards,

conductor Conductor or conduction may refer to: Biology and medicine * Bone conduction, the conduction of sound to the inner ear * Conduction aphasia, a language disorder Mathematics * Conductor (ring theory) * Conductor of an abelian variety * Cond ...

, string arranger (10) *

– guitar (11) *Ben Rubin – bells (9) *

Peter Scherer Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...

– keyboards (5, 8, 12) *Jamshied Sharifi –

strings String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

, additional keyboards (5) *

Chris Speed Chris Speed (born February 12, 1967) is an American saxophonist, clarinetist, and composer. Early life and career Speed grew up outside of Seattle and studied classical piano and clarinet from an early age. He later began studying jazz, took up ...

–

saxophone The saxophone (often referred to colloquially as the sax) is a type of single-reed woodwind instrument with a conical body, usually made of brass. As with all single-reed instruments, sound is produced when a reed on a mouthpiece vibrates to p ...

(2) *

David Torn David M. Torn (born May 26, 1953) is an American guitarist, composer, and producer. He is known for combining electronic and acoustic instruments and for his use of looping. Background Torn has contributed to recordings by artists as diverse ...

– loops (2) *

Cuong Vu Cuong Vu (Cường Vũ) (born 19 September 1969) is a Vietnamese-American jazz trumpeter. In addition to his own work as a bandleader, Vu was a member of the Pat Metheny Group. He is the first American person of Vietnamese descent to win a Grammy ...

–

trumpet The trumpet is a brass instrument commonly used in classical and jazz musical ensemble, ensembles. The trumpet group ranges from the piccolo trumpet—with the highest Register (music), register in the brass family—to the bass trumpet, pitche ...

(2) *

–

turntables A phonograph, later called a gramophone, and since the 1940s a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogue reproduction of sound. The sound vibration Waveform, waveforms are recorded as correspond ...

(6), sampling (6, 7) *

– beats, keyboards (11) *Fred Zlotkin, Jeanne Leblanc – cello (7) *Judy Witmer, Karen Dreyfus, Sue Pray, Vincent Lionti – viola (7) *Ann Leathers, Barry Finclair, Carol Webb, Ellen Payne, Enrico Dicecco, Heidi Modr, Jan Mullen, Jean Ingraham, Joel Pitchon, Jonathan Dinklage, Richard Sortomme – violin (7) *Elena Barere – concertmaster (7) ;Technical *Produced by Laurie Anderson and Hal Willner *Recorded by Martin Brumbach at The Lobby, New York City *Additional engineers – Bob Brockmann, Dante DeSole, Josiah Gluck, Laurie Anderson *Mixed by Bob Brockman at NuMedia, New York City, except 2 and 10 by Martin Brumbach *Mastered by

Robert C. Ludwig Robert Carl Ludwig (born December 11, 1944), is a retired American mastering engineer. He mastered recordings on all the major recording formats for all the major record labels, and on projects by more than 1,300 artists, including Led Zeppelin, ...

at Gateway Mastering Studios (Portland, ME, USA) *Executive producer – David Bither *Artwork – Barbara De Wilde *Photography by Victor Schrager *Cover photography – Noah Greenberg

References

{{Authority control 2001 albums Laurie Anderson albums Albums produced by Hal Willner Nonesuch Records albums