Suzanne Vega was among the first major figures in the bumper crop of female singer/songwriters who rose to prominence during the late ’80s and ’90s. Her hushed, restrained folk-pop and highly literate lyrics (inspired chiefly by Leonard Cohen, as well as Lou Reed and Bob Dylan) laid the initial musical groundwork for what later became the trademark sound of Lilith Fair, a tour on which she was a regular. Moreover, her left-field hit singles “Luka” and “Tom’s Diner” helped convince record companies that folk-styled singer/songwriters were not a thing of the past, paving the way for breakthroughs by Tracy Chapman, Michelle Shocked, Shawn Colvin, Edie Brickell, the Indigo Girls, and a host of others. Vega’s early commercial success helped open doors for a wealth of talent, as she scored a platinum album with 1987’s Solitude Standing, and she would maintain a strong and dedicated cult following. Her association with — and marriage to — experimental producer Mitchell Froom during the ’90s resulted in two intriguing albums, 1992’s 99.9 F and 1996’s Nine Objects of Desire. Following their painful divorce, Vega returned in 2001 with her first album in five years, Songs in Red and Gray, which was greeted with her strongest reviews in a decade. She explored jazzy arrangements on 2007’s Beauty and Crime, and wrote a musical one-woman show that was documented on the 2016 album Lover, Beloved: Songs from an Evening with Carson McCullers.

In early 2019, she performed a residency at New York’s Café Carlyle, singing a mix of originals and covers informed by life in New York City. A live album from the Café Carlyle engagement, An Evening of New York Songs and Stories, was slated for release in 2020. ~ Steve Huey, Rovi