Indiana Gregg

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Indiana Gregg

Indiana Gregg (born Melissa [1] in Terre Haute, Indiana) is an American singer-songwriter. Her music blends pop, soul and elements of folk into one mainstream sound.

Early years

As a child, Indiana's mother taught dance and her father worked in the aluminium industry. Her musical introductions stemmed from a rather rigid religious upbringing, because of this there are obvious gospel influences in her music today. Indiana suffered from a strong speech impediment in her youth. She underwent years of speech therapy where her therapist would ask her to write poems at home for her to practice singing to help overcome this condition. This is where her love of songwriting began and developed. Between the ages of 12-16, she wrote and recorded hundreds of songs on a Panasonic tape-deck with a friend. The Sunday Herald quotes Indiana saying, "I was five when I wrote my first song, about my cat, Herbert, who was hit by a train".[2]

At university, Indiana studied music and physiotherapy. In 1991, she won an all-American title and National Dance Association dance championship in Dallas, Texas.[1]

Career Stages

The roots and beginnings of Indiana's professional career began in 1994 when she moved to southern France and lived for 12 years (amongst other countries such as Germany, Finland and England). During her time in France, she worked in various bands exploring progressive rock, jazz, and dance music. She recorded several studio demos at Marilyn Studios, Cagnes-sur-Mer over a period of three years revealing the songwriter's deeper retreat into her music exploring jazz and soul music and penning a number of songs. In 2003, she joined a progressive rock band and the musical influences turned to a more aggressive tone mixed with both alternative and gospel influences.

In 2004, she was invited to appear on the track "Tonight" from Kool and the Gang's album, The Hits Reloaded In 2005, she formed a record label called Gr8pop with her later to become husband Ian Morrow; a Scottish-based independent label. Ingenious VCT and Scottish Enterprise supported the project alongside Gr8pop investors. Her debut album, Woman at Work, was released to the UK in April 2007. The diversity of her music has been explained as an artistic well or "stew". "It's like a stew that has been cooking for a long while: well blended and tasty. Ms. Gregg has achieved a rare feat in the world of music outside of jazz: she has created something organic. And it didn't happen overnight."[3]

In 2005 some Songs from the 2007 release of her album Woman at Work have won critical acclaim[weasel words] in the UK Songwriting Contest where "Sweet Things" and "For Life" placed in finalist in the pop category.[4]

Tours and "Home Concerts"

Indiana has received a host of media attention[weasel words] in early summer of 2007 surrounding her "home concert" competitions where fans entered from all over the world to win a chance at having her play in their home for their friends. Various news aritcles in the Evening Times, Daily Record, Daily Mirror and a multitude of regional newspapers in the UK have taken wide-spread interest in these events over the past months. Videos of her home gigs were viralled via 'word-of'mouth' out to millions of internet users world-wide via Youtube, Myspace, MSN and various other websites with a message about the free competition details. In April 2007, a video was viralled out primarily via myspace asking people to forward the video onward. Winners for the series were announced on Myspace and subsequently, UKgigs TV began filming the new series in May 2007 which drew even more attention to the project since the videos of the home gigs were streamed on the front pages of Bebo and over the UK gigs and theatre networks.

The Home concerts first appeared in the press when the Express (September 10, 2005) wrote about a surprise concert she performed for a fan's fiancee home in 2005 after he saw her live in Exeter supporting Wet Wet Wet (Romesey Advertiser September 10, 2005). Indiana Gregg announced home concerts in the fall of 2005 which took place primarily in October. In December 2005, she embarked on Starbucks coffee house tour in every major UK city playing intimate acoustic sets in the coffee houses throughout 2006 whilst recording her debut album in the same year (Manchester Evening News March 14, 2006). In February/March 2007, she played 22-date support tour with Lemar. Indiana married Ian Morrow during a 22-date arena and theatre tour with Lemar on March 22, 2007 in Gretna Green's Famous Blacksmith's following her concert at the SECC in Glasgow (Sunday Mail, April 8, 2007). Immediately following the Lemar tour, in April, 2007 she began a third "House Gigs" tour which led to UKgigs.tv taking interest in filming the home concerts. The first filmed home concert took place in her own Glasgow home on May 21, (see The Evening Times May 23, 2007), on May 23, she played a concert in Finchley North London for the Ovarian Cancer Support group. On May 25, she played a home concert for young fashion designer Hannah Marshall in Colchester (gazette-news May 22, 2007). Subsequent gigs were scheduled and filmed across the UK in Birmingham, Newcastle, Manchester, Glasgow, and Edinburgh the week beginning June 10. Scotland's Daily Record featured the Indiana Gregg Home gigs on June 12th along with a contest for Father's Day where contestants could win a home concert for their father by texting or phoning The Daily Record in Scotland. On Wednesday, June 13, The Daily Mirror ran a feature on the front page of the "Your Life" section about Indiana Gregg's house gigs featuring a home concert she did in Clare O'hagans front room in support of Ovarian Cancer.[5] The internet impact of the feature catapulted the artist into the top rankings of youtube and in the early hours of the same morning, Indiana Gregg was ranked in the top 4 musicians viewed on Youtube world-wide. [citation needed] The Sunday Herald published an article subsequently on June 17, 2007.[2]

The general awareness at this early stage of her career led to performances at various festivals throughout the UK in summer 2007.[6][7]

Discography

  • Woman at Work (April 2, 2008, Gr8pop) (Full-length)
  • "Sweet Things" (11 June, 2007, Gr8pop) (Single)
  • "One of Us" (October 8, 2007, Gr8pop) (Single)
  • "Sweet Things" (November 6, 2007 Gr8pop/Playground Scandinavia)
  • "Woman At Work" (November 12, 2007 Gr8pop/Playground Scandinavia)

References

  1. ^ a b "Indiana Gregg: In the mainstream but a long way from the scantily-clad pop singer". Cross Rhythms. Retrieved 2008-07-22.
  2. ^ a b "This Life: Indiana Gregg finds time to run a music label, bring up a family and go touring on the concert circuit, and says she'd die without music". The Sunday Herald. Retrieved 2008-07-13.
  3. ^ "Following Indiana Gregg Down The Yellow Brick Road". MusicDish. Retrieved 2008-07-13.
  4. ^ "UK Songwriting Contest 2005 Results". The UK Songwriting Contest. Retrieved 2008-07-22.
  5. ^ "Cancer victims' anthem of hope". The Daily Mirror. Retrieved 2008-07-13.
  6. ^ "Kilsyth International Carnival 2007". efestivals.co.uk. Retrieved 2008-07-23.
  7. ^ "5th & 6th May 2007". Big in Falkirk. Retrieved 2008-07-23.

External Links

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