Grey De Lisle

In a shimmering crystal-blue trill that conjures up visions of an antebellum Dolly Parton fanning herself on some plantation porch, SoCal songbird Grey De Lisle warbles gorgeous Gothic originals on her fourth album, The Graceful Ghost, that practically stop time in its tracks. She explores Southwestern themes (“The Jewel Of Abilene”), sea chanteys (“Katy Allen”), rustic Carter Family simplicity (“Sharecroppin’ Man”), even a hymnal or two of traditional Gospel (“Sweet Savior’s Arms”). Naturally, the one cover she captures is classic country—“This White Circle On My Finger,” an obscure chestnut from the legendary Kitty Wells. It’s a voice to die for. But it’s not De Lisle’s only one.

For the past eight years, De Lisle (who recently married longtime beau/collaborator Murry Hammond of the Old 97’s) has made an unusual living from her vast vocal abilities; she’s one of the animation industry’s most in-demand voiceover artists, with such cartoons to her credit as The Powerpuff Girls, Codename: Kids Next Door, Clifford The Big Red Dog, The Fairly Odd Parents and What’s New Scooby-Doo?, where she plays the coveted role of Daphne (once popularized by Heather North). What’s an average shift like for her? It begins each weekday morning at 9 a.m., De Lisle sighs. “And I go to not one, but all different companies, mostly Disney, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network and Warner Brothers, because I’m doing 13 different shows. And I tape two to three shows a day, sometimes four. Like, this morning I did a pilot called Firecracker, sort of an Our Gang type of show, where I played a little Mexican girl named Aura. And I got to work with Pamela Siegel, who plays Bobby on King Of The Hill. And she’s a little Jewish lady, so Bobby Hill is actually the mother of three kids. After that, I did an audition, playing a little black boy in this crime-fighting family.” And she breaks into a torrent of squeaky ghettospeak to demonstrate, then chuckles. “A very politically incorrect voice, I know. After that, I went to Cartoon Network because the Powerpuff Girls creator Craig McCracken has this new show called Foster’s Home For Imaginary Friends, about an orphanage for imaginary friends, and I play Frankie, the young girl who kinda runs it.”

Each evening when De Lisle returns home, the next day’s stack of messengered scripts and storyboards is already waiting by her door. “Just like homework,” she mock-grumbles. But she’s grateful for all this moonlighting. She had some fairly odd parents herself—after her mother got Pentecostal religion in their native San Diego, she burned all of her daughter’s Cure and Depeche Mode records and enforced a strict maxiskirt dress code. De Lisle would still draw spooky spiders on her wrists before she got to school, so as to maintain her budding Goth profile. “Anything that could be washed off before I got back home,” she recalls. In her late teens, she high-tailed it to Sin City Hollywood, fell in with some voiceover coaches and never looked back. Now, she says, she’s grown so popular in those small circles that it’s often difficult to concentrate on her music.

It’s a hectic life, De Lisle explains. “But I’ll take Fridays off when I can and go play places in other cities. When I can. And I’m actually going to Europe in June on a promotional tour for The Graceful Ghost, then going back for a full-blown concert tour in October.” And how have her bosses received the news? They become very, er, animated, to say the least. “I’m gonna be on this new Stephen Foster tribute record, singing ‘Willie, We Have Missed You,’” De Lisle says. “I had to record that last week, so I said ‘Hey, I have to leave—I’ve gotta be at my music session in half an hour.’ And one of my directors said ‘We’re always making allowances for your music—your music should make allowances for us once in a while!’”

If only De Lisle were Daphne—she could whistle for Scooby-Doo and that goofy Great Dane would fix everything.