Jonatha Brooke

One of this generation’s best singer/songwriters, Jonatha Brooke is an undiscovered treasure. Think Tori Amos without the melodrama and vocal histrionics. Think Ani DeFranco without the anger and abrasiveness. Over the course of 12 years and seven albums, this talented folk/rock poet has amassed one of the world’s largest, and most loyal, cult followings. Brooke’s fans feel an intimate connection with her, often writing her to say her songs have mirrored key events in their own lives. “That’s one of the hugest rewards of this,” Brooke reflects. “In the days when I’m killing myself because I can’t get arrested at radio, or get a break with the press, I’ll hear a story that makes me say ‘OK, I can do it some more. I made an impact somewhere.’” Brooke’s albums — the latest is “Careful What You Wish For” — are released through her own record company, begun after she’d grown frustrated by marginal success on the major labels. “When I started Bad Dog Records, I had to re-calibrate and say “Alright, what is enough? What is gonna be my new version of success? Do I really need to be Christina Aguilera? I don’t think so.’ “Of course, I would love to sell 3 million records. That would be really incredible, and someday perhaps I will. I’ve never given up that little hope, that glimmer in the pit of my stomach. “But I have to be grateful for where I am, and that I have sustained a career for this long. And I do continue to come across people I’d never believe could be fans, and yet they are. And that knocks me out.” The Massachusetts native, who plays guitar and piano, started writing songs during her sophomore year at Amherst College. “And then I took this composition course that completely knocked me over,” she says. “That sort of unleashed the flood.” Brooke and fellow student Jennifer Kimball formed a duo called The Story in the late ‘80s, but by the time they landed on Elektra Records (with the album “Plumb”), The Story was really just Jonatha. And it’s been the story ever since. Along with detailed portraits of loves won and lost, Brooke writes expansive songs about truth, lies, great personal voyages, people she knows and people she only imagines she knows. That’s what a good writer does. “It’s torture every time,” Brooke laughs. “Nothing’s ever easy about writing, I don’t think. It’s always ‘God, I suck. Am I ever gonna write another song?’ “And then somehow another one appears and you’re like ‘Thank goodness,’ and you run to write it down. And hope that you can actually finish it before you lose it.” And unlike other singer/songwriters, not all of her songs are personal journal entries set to music. “I love putting myself in other people’s minds and shoes — and pants, whatever,” says Brooke. “It’s way more fun to have an assignment. And if I’m really stuck, sometimes I’ll give that to myself. I’ll say ‘OK, you are somebody living here, and you just went through this. You gotta write that song today.’ It’s a great way to get out of your own maudlin head-space. “The song I wrote for the Disney movie ‘Return to Neverland’ was just so easy — I had this little assignment to do it in two and a half minutes, describe the emotional state of this 12-year-old girl who has to save Peter and escape the pirates. Those are the easy ones. “So I like to mix it up. It’s just too boring to write about me.”