I wanted my music to take me farther than I'd ever dared hope before. Rose Polenzani

A visitor to Rose Polenzani's website is greeted by a short vignette -- descriptive of a few seconds hanging out with a "busker" friend at the Davis Square T Stop in Boston. "Today a sweet lady with a shin-length puffy purple coat and a pink scarf and hat was coming down ... her steps, slightly akimbo like she had a sensitive hip. She took her hand off the rail in order to wave to Pamela (who wasn't looking), and it was one of those waves that closes and opens instead of waggles."

The woman disappears onto the train, unnoticed. Polenzani is reminded of an encounter a few days earlier: "I was walking down Garden Street in Cambridge and a man with a golden tie gave me such a resounding hello that I replied without thinking -- "Hi...." -- such a wispy, lofty, sigh-ish reply, that I spent the next block trying to recreate it. I was a salutation balloon, hissing all the way down the street..."

When placed under Polenzani's magnifying glass, these seemingly insignificant moments coalesce into intriguing, intimate, and mildly hallucinogenic anecdotes -- much like Polenzani's songs. Her most recent, self-titled record features her trenchant eye for detail and a voice that is both supple and haunting.

The Chicago native with a flair for storytelling has toured with The Indigo Girls, played at the prestigious Lillith Fair and Newport Folk festivals, and joined the popular Voices On The Verge (which included rising talents Erin McKeown, Beth Amsel, and Jess Klein).

Serving her musical apprenticeship around so many accomplished recording artists educated and encouraged Polenzani. "From Jane Siberry, I learned to sit in your artistry when you're on stage. I think Vic Chesnutt inspired me to pay attention to all my songs, and not play favorites too much. Catie Curtis really cares about her audience, and wants the best for them. And the Indigo Girls have taught many things, but possibly the most important are to remember how in debt you are to your audience, and to treat them with respect, and also to remember that the world of music is not a competition." Polenzani added, "That's a very hard lesson to learn for me, but I can enjoy other people's music freely for the first time in years because of this lesson."

And, like her busker friend Pamela, Polenzani still performs on the streets and subway stations of Beantown. "You would think that busking might be on the low end of the spectrum, but it's actually a joyful activity," she said. "It's a healthy, intensely social form of employment. Sometimes I feel like a slacker because I pause to talk to people -- strangers and friends alike. But I'm my own boss..."

Polenzani, who will be appearing at Oona's [Restaurant in Bellows Falls Vermont] tonight, has been compared to the likes of Tori Amos, P J Harvey, Leonard Cohen, and Rickie Lee Jones. She was the standout in a highly competitve field at The Iron Horse's Songwriter Slam a year ago [in Northampton Massachusetts].

When asked to choose a career turning point, Polenzani picked one she called "bittersweet" -- a rainy, windswept opening slot for the Indigo Girls at Red Rocks amphitheater in Colorado. "I remember having to keep my eye on the microphone, because the wind was blowing it off position. I was so concerned about riding the weather and finishing the songs that I never stopped to think about my performance -- or try to make any "magic" happen in the music. At one point the guitar shorted and my accompanist had to take it off stage and I sang a song a cappella. I could barely hear myself for the weather."

The storm subsided and the Indigo Girls took over. "Something about their voices, bolstered by their huge fan-choir that knows all the words, and the glory of that venue, with the barometric intensity -- I started to cry," said Polenzani. "I don't often feel what you might call 'real ambition.' But that night -- I wanted my music to take me farther than I'd ever dared hope before. What those people were sharing was so beautiful, I didn't care how many miles I had to drive and car payments I had to miss, I wanted to live inside of it."

Parts of this column by Dave Madeloni were first published in our local newspaper, Vermont's Brattleboro Reformer, on Thursday, January 23, 2003.