Tag Archives: singers

Center for the Arts, Community Events

Martin Sexton Coming to the Center for the Arts, Grass Valley

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kzxRdeA-74

Martin Sexton is coming to our local Center for The Arts in Grass Valley this coming weekend, October 1, 2010. Tickets are $30 for information they are located at 314 West Main Street, Grass Valley, California 95945, telephone 530-274-8384.
Box Office hours: Noon to 5:00PM, Wednesday through Saturday

Martin Sexton is one of the most talked-about arrivals on the “new folk” acoustic music scene. The guitarist, singer, and songwriter has an amazing vocal range and makes effective use of it on his recordings and in his live shows. His vocal style can be described as truly soulful, combining the best qualities of singers like Van Morrison, Al Green, Aaron Neville, and Otis Redding.

Sexton, a self-taught guitarist and singer, was raised in a family of 14 and formed his first rock & roll band in eighth grade. In high school he was in a profusion of garage bands, playing the music of the Beatles, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Led Zeppelin. He left his home in Syracuse, NY — and the rock & roll life — in 1988 and headed for Boston, encouraged by what he’d heard about the coffeehouse scene in that city. Despite the ultra-competitive nature of the Boston scene, with too many folksingers and too few coffeehouses, Sexton quickly rose through the ranks. He began playing his brand of soul-filled folk music around Boston’s open-mike nights and street corners in 1989.

His 1992 collection of self-produced demo recordings, In The Journey, was recorded on an old 8-track in a friend’s attic. He managed to sell 20,000 copies out of his guitar case busking. From 1996-2002 Sexton released Black Sheep, The American, Wonder Bar and Live Wide Open (mixed by Jon Alagia – Dave Matthews Band, John Mayer). The activity and worldwide touring laid the foundation for the career with an uncommonly loyal fan base, selling out venues from Nokia Theatre (NY) to LA’s House of Blues.

In 1994, Sexton won the National Academy of Songwriters’ Artist of the Year Award. By 1996, Sexton was sharing stages with Art Garfunkel, Jackson Browne, and John Hiatt on tours. His songs are featured in film and television including recent placements on NBC’s Scrubs and Showtime’s hit series Brotherhood. His latest studio release, Sugarcoating, finds this one-of-a-kind-troubadour doing what he does best: locating larger truths within the specific details of the life he’s living.

John J. O’Dell
Real Estate Broker
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Entertainment

Susan Boyle Wows the Audience

Susan Boyle
Susan Boyle

If you haven’t heard of Susan Boyle by now, you are in for a treat. Appearing on reality TV show “Britain’s Got Talent”, she wowed the audience in a space of a few minutes and won over 3,000 fans. Her video appears on YouTube which I have included a link to on this website. The video has had over 7 million hits already (some say 20 million hits) and she is sure to be cutting some CD’s soon.

Susan is an unemployed Scottish charity worker who is 47 and claims she’s never been married or kissed. She lives in Scotland with her cat Pebbles. She did not play or dress the part of a star on reality TV show “Britain’s Got Talent”- but within seconds of beginning to sing, gasps emerged as she sang the opening lines of “I Dreamed a Dream” from “Les Miserables”

Before she started singing, she revealed her dream to be a professional singer – as big as Elaine Paige – a promise she had made to her mother who died in 2007 at the age of 91. The crowd of 3,000 in the Clyde Auditorium, Glasgow, Scotland, were smirking or even laughing. About five minutes later a standing ovation and the praise of the judges, including the show’s creator Simon Cowell were ringing in her ears.

According to CNN

“Judge Piers Morgan wrote on the show’s Web site: “I watched her performance back again last night, I texted Simon in Hollywood: ‘My god, Susan was even better than I remembered — she’s unbelievable.’ He agreed, and I could almost feel his beady little eyes going ‘KERCHING!’ down the line from his new Beverly Hills mansion.

“For, unless I am a brainless aardvark — which might, sadly, be true — then this West Lothian villager is going to sell a lot of records once this series is over.”
New fans also clogged the message board, many along the lines of Surfer1960’s: “I am just blown away by her voice.”

She was more critical, saying: “They say that television makes you look fat and it certainly did. I looked like a garage.”

And according to the San Francisco Chronicle:

“As a child, Boyle had learning difficulties, struggled in school and was bullied by other children. At 47, she still is.

“She is often taunted by local kids. They think she’s an oddball, but she’s a simple soul with genuine warmth,” neighbor Stewart Mackenzie said. “Not many people these days are devoutly religious or would spend their time devoted to their parents to the point they’d find themselves a spinster.”

A keen amateur singer, Boyle performed in church choirs and school plays and was a regular on the karaoke circuit in Blackburn and the nearby town of Bathgate. She has said her mother, Bridget, encouraged her to enter “Britain’s Got Talent” — but it was only after her death that she plucked up the courage to do it.”

You can see her performance at YouTube Video, Sorry they would not let the video be embedded