Search - Penelope Torribio :: Headed for a Good Time

A poet friend of mine dubbed Penelope a "country" Edith Piaf?the Parisian operatic street singer who wove stories out of the lives she sawaround her. What distinguishes Penelope's songs from most pop and country alike is that they are not general lamentations or love songs, from anyone to anyone. Each spring from a specific moment in a woman's life- a specific woman. Or actually they are an assortment of specific woman: One has car trouble: "I love my man, my man loves his car, but neither one of them is gonna get me very far. I've got the flat tire, stick-shifting, broken transmission blues." One is unrecovered from a recent divorce. One is cheating again?on her diet. Musically her songs run a pretty good gamut: from country blues, to country folk, to country pop, to hard country. She "crosses over," then crosses back, then crosses somewhere else, and it is clear no boundary line is gonna fence her in. Suzanne Lummis Poet, playwright, and director of the Los Angeles Poetry Festival? Songwriter, Penelope has been called a female Jimmie Rogers and a country Edith Piaf.