ZOË LEWIS

When I look at the photo, I can still hear the bleats and tweets Zoë delivered to us—the perfect bit of Rosh Hashanah spirit, from a puckish gentile who just so happened to have this ram's horn in her treasure trove of guitars, ukuleles, harmonicas and keyboards. 

With her boundless appreciation and curiosity over pretty much anything outside of herself, Zoë's rich, ever-loving songbook exudes joyful and generous affection for Provincetown. You could say that Zoë embodies Provincetown—exudes it, actually, through her poetic lyrics that comprise a gleeful, never-quite-finished love letter to this place and its people, which is part of her larger love letter to the world. 

A wash ashore of nearly three decades, Zoë is now and integral part of the community—whether she's playing shows at Herring Cove, Town Hall, the Swim for Life, or her massively popular Speakeasy, a 1920s-themed lineup of local vocalists accompanied by her Bootlegger band and her jaunty, top-hat-wearing self, or biking down Commercial Street with her sights set on a dive off the breakwater. 

I ask her why she thinks she was so unafraid. "Because my mum always said, 'If someone else can do it, you can do it.' Traveling when I was twenty-three was most important to me—I laughed and found my freedom. Each day, I could be whoever I wanted to be. If I wanted to be gay, I could be gay. If I wanted to be a musician, I could be a musician. If I wanted to be a vagabond, a street performer, a traveler, an intrepid adventurer—that sense of freedom is just lovely. If an opportunity arose, I went for it. And so, the boxcar is a lovely metaphor for that. I ran along the side and jumped on. Later on in life I told my mum what I did and she said, 'I'm really glad that you didn't tell me that before! Thank goodness!'"

After driving cross-country—fittingly in an old, beat-up Volkswagen camper, writing songs along the way, and settling for a time in Northampton, Massachusetts, Zoë landed in Provincetown. 

"My first impressions were: it's beautiful, and it's like my village in England, but gay. I used to say all the men have poodles instead of the old ladies. I remember being stunned by the style and beauty of it all, on this teeny peninsula at the end of the land, and I suppose it opened its arms to me and welcomed me in very quickly."

Soon, she got a regular gig at the Post office cabaret with the Lesbian Lounge Lizards. She picked up more gigs around town, "Making more money than I'd ever made in my life, swimming in the sea every day, meeting friends, and just having a blissful full summer."

In 1993 she formed the powerhouse Rubber Band with Kate Wolf, Sylvie Richard, and Roxanne Layton, and they played around town and across the country, making albums together. Zoë has recorded nine studio albums and has a tenth coming out soon called Always a Sixpence, with tunes focused on Provincetown.

Another pivotal person in her life has been Ilona Royce Smithkin, the fiery-haired artist, chanteuse, fashion icon, and poor Richards landing owner who recently turned ninety-nine years old. She’s the inspiration behind Zoë’s feat-of-lyrics song Eyelashes, “Those ocular fringes give me twinges so my knees go weak; the size of the visors around your eyes is simply magnifique.” For years, she’s been Zoë’s dear friend and muse.

“I met her wandering along Commercial Street and there was a glow of color coming towards me, and a flutter of eyelashes. And we looked into each other’s eyes and there was a connection immediately,” Zoë recalls. Ilona, along time artist who had never performed, asked Zoë if she could accompany her on stage. They did some songs by Marlene Dietrich and the duo was an instant hit. “She continues to stun me. She stunned me from the get go,” Zoë says. “She’s a very wise woman, and she’s someone I go to when I need a little guidance.”

Ilona, along with other recognizable townsfolk, will sometimes get on stage at Zoë’s Speakeasy—her 1920’s-themed showcase of local talent in Provincetown. “It’s a marvelous era to explore,” Zoë explains, particularly the “amazing really gay” songs. “I’d always dreamed of doing a Prohibition era jazz night. Event promoter David flower helped develop it that first year. He said ‘Hey why don’t you come down and do some little jazz thing?’ And I knew exactly what it could be! It was this thing that I’ve been dreaming of for all these years, and here was the perfect venue, the Velvet Lounge. Since its 2012 inception, it’s grown and evolved and we’ve now moved the show to the Pilgrim House.”

“Everyone in Provincetown has a voice,” Zoe says. And once you’ve used it on the Speakeasy stage, “you become part of the Bootlegger family. You’re in the game, because you share something special. It’s brave to get up there. I support each crooner and the audience supports them and it doesn’t matter if you mess it up. It’s still perfect.”

On holding onto her whimsical self, Zoë tells me, “I lived in the country side, so, you know, it was all nature and magic things, like prawning with my dad or looking at the stars—just simple things. And for me, if I need to be uplifted, that’s where I go. And kids see that in me.”

She wants to pay that forward. “I feel like it’s my job to bring that to people in a show. I mean, I never have thought of it cerebrally, but as I get older, I realize it’s important to make people feel less harrowed and grab a bubble for a moment, and hang onto it. I think it’s healing.”