Fans of Ally McBeal can more than likely recall the melody of the show’s theme song, “Searchin’ My Soul,” sung by Vonda Shepard. The singer-songwriter, who played a fictionalized version of herself on the hit TV show as the performer at the bar where McBeal and her fellow Boston lawyers drank, still sees the show’s star Calista Flockhart regularly.
“I just actually saw her two nights ago,” Shepard told Yahoo Entertainment. “She’s a dear friend. I love her.”
Long before she became instantly identifiable with Ally McBeal, Shepard was just another New York kid growing up in an unorthodox household. Convincing her parents to allow her to perform in the city’s music clubs was far from a challenge.
“It was not hard. They were total bohemians. It was a very unusual childhood,” said Shepard, whose father worked as a mime and theater director. When a music journalist was crashing on their couch for about a year, he got Shepard her first club gig at age 14. “My dad recognized I had this propensity for songwriting and singing, and my obsession with music. So it was a natural progression.”
In her 20s, Shepard paid her dues in the industry. She spent several years doing artist development with Warner Bros., and scored a break on the adult contemporary charts with 1989’s “Don’t Cry Ilene.” Her first album, which was self-titled, came out when she was 26 and featured “Ilene” alongside another one of Shepard’s cult hits, “Baby, Don’t You Break My Heart Slow.” (That one went on to be covered by Taylor Swift many years later.)
During a bit of a career lull in 1995, she took a job singing backup for Jackson Browne. When Browne heard her singing songs from her 1996 album It’s Good, Eve, he invited her to open for him on tour the following summer. It was through a trail of “serendipitous” connections that her time with Browne led Shepard to McBeal creator David E. Kelley, who cast her on the series in 1997.
“I got Ally McBeal because of that album,” explained Shepard. “David Kelley was listening to those songs. So it was just all connected.”
While Shepard spent about five years working on McBeal (she cites “You Belong to Me” as her favorite cover performed during those Ally years), she always performed live during her hiatus, flying to Europe for seven weeks at a time. She was exhausted by the end of the show’s run in 2002 but admits she “kind of loved” its nonstop nature.
These days, Shepard is based in California and married to musician Mitchell Froom, who plays keyboard with Crowded House. But traveling the world to perform her music is still a top priority.
“I have to do it for my soul. I have to go play music for people and feel the energy coming back and hear what they have to say,” she explained.
She calls making a setlist a “balancing act,” weaving a few covers along with plenty of originals off her nine studio albums. It can be a bit confusing, wondering if most of the people in the crowd are there because of her years on Ally McBeal.
“Weaving those songs in and introducing people to my other songs has been imperative. Sometimes I look out on the audience, and I go, ‘Is that just like 100% Ally [fans]? Is that like 95% Ally [fans], and nobody knows my stuff?” Shepard said.
“I always do ‘Searchin’ My Soul,'” says Shepard, who will perform at the 20th Annual Cape Cod Jazz & Arts Festival at Wequassett Resort and Golf Club in Harwich, Mass., on July 30. “It’s pretty much the last song in my set all the time, and I’m happy to do it, because I wrote it, and because people just jump out of their seats.”
