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celiasongs
Celia
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Like You
Celia’s music is indie soul pop and she, as singer/songwriter, will put a spell on you with her major voice. With elements of funk and R&B, the music is a paradox of acoustic guitars with drum loops, haunting keys and hip bass lines next to her raw toasty voice. She is passionate and moody and quirky…a powerful performer who disarms you with an authentic feel. She’s Fiona Apple meets Mary J. Blige, according to some reviewers, and she’s tying her influences together with sharp and evocative lyrics, and an aching compelling voice.
Why this name?
Well, it's my name. I've been leading bands with stand-in players for a while....when the right configuration comes along, when, you know, it seems like the band's married...perhaps we'll give us a band name.
Do you play live?
Playing live is what I live for. Without it I wither and fade...Finally, with this latest release "Break", I have relinquished the instrument playing, for the most part, to my band, and have set my voice free. I just go off at the mike.
How, do you think, does the internet (or mp3) change the music industry?
It makes my music available to folks who would never have heard or cared about the one good song I wrote, or perhaps two good songs. Now all the one-off gems can be found if you just search for them.
Would you sign a record contract with a major label?
Well, yeah. If it made sense. I would sign a contract that gave me more support to create more good music, and made money for me and someone else.
Band History:
From a gospel upbringing, a South London adolescence, and Midwest hootenannies comes Celia and her debut album, "Break". This acoustic soul pop album has got East Coast audiences and D.J.’s talking about her voice and sound. Celia began her career singing gospel choruses in her preacher-father’s church. Someone told her then she should make a life of singing/performing. It was years later that Celia started singing her poems she'd set to music at various clubs. After a bit of incubation, Celia taught herself piano and guitar and began gigging regionally in New England. She was selling a 9 song demo and performing in NYC and Boston clubs... Celia met Robby Baier from soultube.com and asked him to produce her next album. Celia’s raw elements of blues and funk-folk and gospel were emphasized in this fresh setting of sampled and live drums, hip bass lines and acoustic grooves. Released in July the album already has DJ.’s saying things like "Break sits firmly in my top ten releases of the year" (Donny Moorhouse, WRNX) and "Cool and entrancing" (Music Director Johnny Memphis WRSI). Gigging with a band in Massachusetts called "a veritable super-group" by local reviewers, Celia is looking for more opportunities to showcase her voice and sound.
Your influences?
Stevie Wonder
Etta James
Nina Simone
Billie Holiday
Rickie Lee Jones
Meshell Ndgeocello
Etta James
Nina Simone
Billie Holiday
Rickie Lee Jones
Meshell Ndgeocello
Favorite spot?
Goshen Gorge, Goshen MA
Anything else...?
PRESS EXCERPTS
Celia's new CD Break is cool and entrancing, wonderful-strange-fascinating-speaking-in-tongues
pop.
Johnny Memphis-Music Director, WRSI
...Celia has quite the band, a veritable super group of local veterans that includes Jim Weeks (guitar), John O'Boyle (bass), Sue Burkhart (guitar), and Chris Ryan (drums). It's no wonder she'd prefer to have them around.
She just as likely would prefer to have every weapon available to re-create the brilliant sound of "Break," the 10- song set of Celia originals that has to rate as one of the more compelling local releases of the year.
Celia has the ability to float above genres with her ethereal voice. While the music touches on folk, jazz (Norah Jones fans will love this), and electronic pop, Celia's voice soars above it all, worthy of a descriptive phrase that has yet to be spoken.
Donny Moorhouse, Springfield Republican
Celia's music is soulful and sensitive. Her voice is flexible and her songs resonate.
"Like You" is a groovy number. Celia blends folk with r-n-b and it works well.
"Magical" is a sultry song where Celia sings like Lauryn Hill. "Hell is in Your Mind" is a rockin' song that sounds rather like PJ Harvey. It puts the emphasis on Celia's extraordinary voice.
"No Good Man" is a classic blues belter. Celia puts her heart into this song of a bad man. "You mistook me for your ma" she chides.
"Don't Dance" shivers with rage. It's one of the singer's more folksy songs.
"Break" is the work of a gifted artist.
Anna Maria Stjärnell , www.collectedsounds.com
"...'Break' would be worth the purchase just to have the second to last song, 'Tenement Waltz', which is utterly haunting and subtely psychologically disturbing, like some half-remembered Poe tale. The calmly insistent piano melody supports Celia's beautiful breaking vocals and aging-centered lyrics, which are dealt with in such a straightforward manner it's unnerving. This is something to cry yourself to sleep to and could quite possibly be the most bittersweetly depressing song ever written - something only...some obscure Eastern Europan art film...could evoke."
Val Barbaro, Northeast Performer
August 28, 2003 http://valleyadvocate.com/gbase/Music/content?oid=oid:30750
Brontë Rock
Celia , a singer-songwriter based out of Northampton, sings wastrel white girl blues folk rock, along the lines of Fiona Apple but with an odder, janglier inflection. She seems to be one of those deeply introverted people who, rather than write bad poetry, or fall into narcissism, has found a way to tranform her oddly-calibrated perspective into art.
Break , her new album, is pretty great, drenched in a hothouse atmosphere, like something by Apple or Tori Amos, but distinguished by more complicated beats. There's a little bit of Mary J. Blige in there too, and many of her songs could, with little dissonance, accomodate an MC rhyming through the resonant vocals.
If she sounds two-thirds as good live as she does on her album, her show at Harry's on Sunday, the second of what seems to be a series of CD release parties, it'll be worth the five bucks.
Daniel Oppenheimer, The Valley Advocate
Celia's new CD Break is cool and entrancing, wonderful-strange-fascinating-speaking-in-tongues
pop.
Johnny Memphis-Music Director, WRSI
...Celia has quite the band, a veritable super group of local veterans that includes Jim Weeks (guitar), John O'Boyle (bass), Sue Burkhart (guitar), and Chris Ryan (drums). It's no wonder she'd prefer to have them around.
She just as likely would prefer to have every weapon available to re-create the brilliant sound of "Break," the 10- song set of Celia originals that has to rate as one of the more compelling local releases of the year.
Celia has the ability to float above genres with her ethereal voice. While the music touches on folk, jazz (Norah Jones fans will love this), and electronic pop, Celia's voice soars above it all, worthy of a descriptive phrase that has yet to be spoken.
Donny Moorhouse, Springfield Republican
Celia's music is soulful and sensitive. Her voice is flexible and her songs resonate.
"Like You" is a groovy number. Celia blends folk with r-n-b and it works well.
"Magical" is a sultry song where Celia sings like Lauryn Hill. "Hell is in Your Mind" is a rockin' song that sounds rather like PJ Harvey. It puts the emphasis on Celia's extraordinary voice.
"No Good Man" is a classic blues belter. Celia puts her heart into this song of a bad man. "You mistook me for your ma" she chides.
"Don't Dance" shivers with rage. It's one of the singer's more folksy songs.
"Break" is the work of a gifted artist.
Anna Maria Stjärnell , www.collectedsounds.com
"...'Break' would be worth the purchase just to have the second to last song, 'Tenement Waltz', which is utterly haunting and subtely psychologically disturbing, like some half-remembered Poe tale. The calmly insistent piano melody supports Celia's beautiful breaking vocals and aging-centered lyrics, which are dealt with in such a straightforward manner it's unnerving. This is something to cry yourself to sleep to and could quite possibly be the most bittersweetly depressing song ever written - something only...some obscure Eastern Europan art film...could evoke."
Val Barbaro, Northeast Performer
August 28, 2003 http://valleyadvocate.com/gbase/Music/content?oid=oid:30750
Brontë Rock
Celia , a singer-songwriter based out of Northampton, sings wastrel white girl blues folk rock, along the lines of Fiona Apple but with an odder, janglier inflection. She seems to be one of those deeply introverted people who, rather than write bad poetry, or fall into narcissism, has found a way to tranform her oddly-calibrated perspective into art.
Break , her new album, is pretty great, drenched in a hothouse atmosphere, like something by Apple or Tori Amos, but distinguished by more complicated beats. There's a little bit of Mary J. Blige in there too, and many of her songs could, with little dissonance, accomodate an MC rhyming through the resonant vocals.
If she sounds two-thirds as good live as she does on her album, her show at Harry's on Sunday, the second of what seems to be a series of CD release parties, it'll be worth the five bucks.
Daniel Oppenheimer, The Valley Advocate