Just a singer -songwriter and poet with lots of stories to tell.
Musics always been a powerful healing tool for me. I began playing flute in elementary school and it soothed me through my confused adolescence. Its always been a big part of my life but, it wasn't until I picked up the guitar and started writing songs that I truely discovered how much I needed, music
As a child my mother, a jazz vocalist and graduate of the NY School of Performing Arts, gave me a love for the classics, for jazz, rock, and motown, She got me involved in musical theater and choral singing at an early age. She never pushed, she had a love of performing and I wanted to follow.
I think in many ways I fell so deeply in love with music because of that shared experience, that "aha - I feel that!"
I feel that shared experience is what helps us to grow emotionally knowing that we've connected with someone else, that someone else understands our feelings. Early on I was drawn to introspective writers, At 16 I heard Cat Stevens and though it would be years before I sat down and wrote my first song, I remember thinking how amazing it was that he had shared such deep feeling so beautifully. How he'd gone below the surface of the feeling. There's an intimate connection that happens in songs like those. They reassure us that we're not alone.
I live in South Florida now, used to live in California, grew up in North Carolina. I play locally, but I also travel. I play mostly as an acoustic single though I've worked with bands. I like the intimacy of small venues and attentive audiences, I've played theaters, living rooms, festivals, small bars, coffee houses, restaurants, parties, parks and sidewalks, just about anywhere people are willing to listen.
I've never been one to judge my taste in music by its style, I like everything from old time standards to modern rock. For me it's always been about the melody and the lyric, the rest is just icing on the cake. I love a good story or a clever twist of phrase. I want to be moved to laugh or cry. I want that aha moment. I want a song that takes me there, on a trip into your head. It may be the very reason I am drawn to artists like David Wilcox, Ray LaMontagne and Dar Williams, John Prine, James Taylor, Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell.
My husband engineers for me, We were using a BR-8 to record, even though I have 16 virtual tracks available I still have yet to use more than 2. I record live in stereo. I don't mulit-track, I tryed it and I always felt like my performance became too mechanical. And I don't cut and paste, if I'm not happy with something I just start over, I figure its good practice, eventually i'll get the right one.
I do most of my writing on a Tacoma parlor model that Sananda Matreaya gave me back in 98.
I just got a vintage Gibson folk guitar - like Bob dylan played at Newport Folk Fest, its all mahogany and it has a beautiful tone. I have a Tacamine Jumbo play live with, I love that it has the built in tuner, I use a couple of alternate tunings so its a plus, to not worry about whether I forgot to put the tuner in my gig bag. I use a regular ol' Shure 58 for shows, used to use the beta but its too bassie for my voice.
