Tuesday, September 23, 2008

An Interview With Theresa Andersson

Meet Theresa Andersson, a multi-talented Swedish born musician from New Orleans. I can't find the words to describe this artist. You will just have to see and hear for yourself. But she's an authentic musician (independent artist) with talent that surpasses her celebrity. It's a damn shame that we are constantly bombarded with the likes of Britney Spears, Jessica Simpson and a slew of others with little or no talent... while real musicians aren't given much coverage, can't get major label support, and fall under the radar. The race-to-the-bottom culture, and the "I want everything right now"/microwave mentality is killing art and music in this Country.

I'm not aware of too many other musicians out there today who are doing anything like what Andersson has been doing. I know that Prince actually recorded a few of his early albums in a similar way back in the late 70's... He's a genius and one of my favorite musicians of all-time and I have all of those early recordings on cassette (still can't afford to change collection to CD). But I'm not aware of many artists doing this today. There are, however, performers and producers who use loops, and take prefabricated sound from fancy computer programs to make music... but there aren't too many who can actually play the instruments (violin, guitar, drums, offer vocals, etc) to loop their own material. They typically use beat machines and other computer generated sound thrown together in a studio... or they lift it from other recordings.

Andersson is a combination of Norah Jones, Diana Krall, & Dusty Springfield... A mishmash of Pop, Soul, Folk, Jazz, & Classical. I detected a little bit of Teena Marie DNA in there as well. It's no surprise that she calls New Orleans home... only New Orleans could produce that kind of mixture.

Hear an Interview from the Public radio program Studio 360.

Bonus Video: "Na Na Na" (amateur vid shot in her kitchen)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

she's good!

check out ruthie foster. she's a 40-something blues/soul singer from the south.