The sound of Success

Sometimes you have the privilege of hearing a story that makes you feel like a schmuck for ever feeling sorry for yourself.  Here's one of them.  Mandy Harvey was heading into her Freshman year as a vocal major at CSU in Fort Collins, Colorado.  Obviously being a vocal major you can probably place a safe bet that singing was her main passion and love.  That year at CSU she gradually started loosing her hearing to the point where a couple years later she is now legally deaf.  You can imagine what a dent that could put in your dreams of becoming a singer when you can't hear the notes you're singing.  Mandy gave up for a while, as most of us would.  It's so easy to fall into the victim mentality when you're going through something that is so tough like that.  Unlike some of us though, Mandy got back up and started doing what she loved again, whether it was going to be hard or not.  Now, because of her tenacity the rest of the world has the honor to be open ears for this beautiful story and her beautiful music.

Mandy does a lot of Jazz covers and has a CD called "Smile" in which she does many of these covers.  It's such a treat to hear classic jazz songs sung by such a young soul with such emotion.  That's the amazing thing with Jazz that can get lost in some other genres is the raw emotion in each song.  A good Jazz singer lets that emotion take them over and pours it out onto the audience.  Mandy's rendition of Smile definitely does that.  She takes an amazing Charlie Chaplin song and puts a velvet layer on top that is rarely heard or felt. 



Mandy is getting to release her newest album "After You've Gone" on November 27th.  I am very excited to hear some new songs as well as some originals that will hopefully be all over this album.  I honestly don't have a ton to write about Mandy that hasn't already been said.  She's so many things all in one: an inspiration, motivation to continue to challenge myself, proof that love for something can't be taken away, proof that you use your struggles to touch people even more than you did before, and more than anything she's a beautiful singer!



Please visit her website and buy her album on cdbaby.com!
http://www.mandyharveymusic.com/

- Kev

Danielle Ate the Sandwich

So, I wish the title to this post was something witty that I came up with to describe this artist, but it's not...it's actually the name that this girl goes by.  It's pretty apparent by her name that she has a sense of humor, but I don't think that does it justice.  All of her videos have some weird little intro/outro to them that doesn't really make any sense, but does make me laugh a lot.

The more that I watched and listened to her music the more I realized how important her humor was to her sound.  One thing that it does is keep the mood of her music upbeat and light.  She has a very childlike quality about her and her music and I think the humor is a big part of that.  Even more importantly though, the humor really helps counteract the sincerity in her songs and make them that much more genuine.  I feel like listening to songs these days is like putting every singer through a lie detector.  You never know which of the artists actually wrote their music, actually went through the things their singing about, or are a 16 yr old boy who has no idea what love is, yet sings about it in every song. (No offense Biebs.  I love you, but come on)  With Danielle I think the honesty is oozing out of her notes, lyrics, and voice.

I also love that she rocks the Ukelele in most of her songs.  That instrument adds such a unique sound and feel to music when it's used well, and she is a pretty darn good Ukelele player.  The simplicity of her and her Uke is a beautiful thing.  For some groups like Arcade Fire the craziness of all sorts of different voices and sounds is a huge asset, but for Danielle I think it's the simplicity that really shows her talent and rawness.  Anyone can autotune or layer tons of stuff so their singing is covered, but if you can sit, play, sing and it still sounds good...you've got some talent.



She also does some cool covers:


Danielle does tour some.  She was just at the Hotel Cafe her in Los Angeles and I know she lives in Denver, so I'm sure you can catch a show of hers if you are interested.  If nothing else it will be fun and keep you in a great mood!  To finish it off here's probably my favorite song by her:



Here are some links for her:
danielleatethesandwich.net/
Danielle Ate the Sandwich Myspace
-Kev