Jadea Kelly

Jadea Kelly (* 1986 in Whitby , Ontario ) is a Canadian singer, songwriter and guitarist .

Biography and artistic career

Jadea Kelly grew up in Whitby near Toronto. As a child she started playing different instruments but eventually concentrated on the guitar. She also appeared on talent shows or sang in choirs . During her school days, she moved to Toronto, where she made contacts with the local music scene. After graduating from high school, she completed several internships in the music industry, mainly at record labels : “When I moved to Toronto, I basically built my school life around music in the city. When I graduated I started working in the music industry with different internships and that's how I kinda got started in the music industry. "

Before she released her own songs with the EP Down Wave (2006), she was active as a guest singer for other bands and artists. a. for the progressive metal band Protest the Hero , also from Whitby , whom she met during high school . She can be heard on their debut album Kezia (2005) as well as on the later productions Scurrilous (2011) and Volition (2013). She also went on tour with the band and can be seen in their official video for "Divine Suicide of K." (2007). This collaboration brought her her first small fan base at an early stage, although musically extremely far from her own style.

Kelly's first album Second Spring (2008) won the "Toronto Independent Music Awards 2008" in the category "Best Country Album".

The period between the release of Second Spring and the second album Eastbound Platform (2010) was largely filled with tours (including with Ramblin 'Jack Elliott , Melissa McLelland, Catherin McLellan and Luke Doucet), mainly in Canada and Europe , interrupted by short periods at home in Toronto.

After another lengthy period of touring following the release of Eastbound Platform , Kelly felt burned out and exhausted. She retired to her grandfather's farm in Ontario, where she gathered strength for a new album. The retreat to the roots of her family also opened up new perspectives on her self-image as a musician: “I started to realize the similarities between being a farmer and a musician because in both professions: there's zero degree of retirement, zero degree of make money; it's all a gamble. The most powerful similarity, though, what that you have passion for it. My passion for playing music, making music, and having a life in music is in many ways the same as the passion my dad, grandfather, great grandfather, and great-great grandfather have felt about farming. It was these sorts of feelings that really inspired the record. "

On Clover (2013), the ambiguous title song - “Clover” is also the name of her grandfather's farm - reflects this self-image: “Hard wind is blowing strong / Aren't you tired of moving on […] The clover still grows / round the meadow though it snows ".
The album, financed in part by fundraising , was released as the first release on Kelly's new label "Darth Jadea Music". It was nominated for the “Canadian Folk Music Awards 2014” in the category “Contemporary Singer of the Year” and received very positive reviews: “Jadea Kelly has definitely found her four-leaf clover [with“ Clover ”].”
The concert tour that followed also led her to the United States for the first time .

In June 2016 Kelly's fourth album Love & Lust was released , again financed by fundraising, again on her own label "Darth Jadea Music". After a period of personal crises, which it reflects, it is shaped by the search for happiness and hope: “I've spent much of this past year trying to find beauty and light again.” For this album she was named “Contemporary Singer of the Year "at the " Canadian Folk Music Awards 2016 " .

Kelly has announced a new album for October 2018, entitled Roses , which will again be funded through fundraising and which reflects the experiences of the past two years. ^[obsolete] Kelly lives in Toronto .

Musical style

" I want them to feel powerful, I want them to feel passion and I want them to feel happiness ", is how Jadea Kelly herself formulates the intended effect of her music on the audience.
The most striking characteristic of her musical style is the interplay of high melodies and her bright, warm and clear voice, which - partly supported by harmony singing - ensures a great emotionality in her songs: “ Above all of this, the impressive voice of Jadea Kelly hovers ethereally. The bright sounds of their bell-clear timbre really breathe life into the compositions. “After two albums strongly influenced by country influences, Kelly has found her own tone with her third album Clover at the latest , which oscillates between melodic, guitar-oriented folk rock with pop elements and emotional and powerful ballads , which are sometimes carried by a dark, elegiac texture. The mostly dynamic arrangements with classical instrumentation - electric and acoustic guitar , drums , electric bass , keyboard , sometimes subtle string arrangements - prevent their songs from slipping into fat, with the guitar playing with sometimes angular chords setting counterpoints to Kelly's voice. Kelly herself describes the new style coined on Clover together with her band - "a blend of everything that inspires us" - as "creepy country".

The themes in Kelly's texts are of a very personal nature: emotional vulnerability, courage and hope after crises, relationship grief and happiness. This is also expressed in her artistic credo: “ To be a songwriter is to be courageous, vulnerable, transparent, honest and uncensored. “After her retreat to her grandfather's farm and the experiences that went with it, her verses are noticeably enriched with nature metaphors (“ Clover ”,“ Lone Wolf ”,“ I'll Be ”,“ Violet ”).

Their music combines folk , country , rock and pop music . She counts Canadian singer / songwriters such as Shania Twain , Martha Wainwright and Hannah Georgas among her greatest musical influences .

In her home country she is one of the most promising songwriters of her generation: “ Canada has turned out a number of strong female vocalists in recent years. If there's any fairness in the world, Jadea Kelly will soon be added to the list. "For Tom Power from CBC / Radio-Canada Kelly is already " one of the shining jewels in the crown of Canadian songwriters ".

Albums

Second spring

Kelly's long player debut (2008) was produced by Ross Hayes Citrullo and is still an album largely arranged with acoustic instruments, even if the opening song "Back Down" comes along as lively country rock with melancholy undertones. In addition to classic country ballads (“When You Go”, “Old Girl”), Kelly brings bluegrass songs (“Lonely Too”), slightly jazz blues- influenced ballads (“Doe”) or a cappella pieces in “hand clap” groove "(" Deidre ").

Eastbound Platform

As in Second Spring , Kelly chooses an energetic start for her second album (2010). But despite the massive chords of “Never Coming Back”, Kelly's Eastbound Platform is an album that is heavily influenced by country influences , especially in the melody and instrumentation ( mandolin , fiddle , stand up bass ), for which songs like “Roisin” and “Elevator” in particular ”,“ Hazel ”or the melancholy ballads“ Walking Wounded ”,“ The Sound ”and“ All Wrong ”. There are also compositions influenced by bluegrass (“Heavy Heart”) or the slow rockabilly rhythm of “North of 42”. More than in Second Spring , on this album she finds a balance between the sometimes rocking, sometimes funky , sometimes ballad-like arrangements and her bright voice. The album was produced by David Baxter, who is also involved in some compositions ("The Sound", "Roisin").

Clover

The album was named after her grandfather's farm, where she composed most of the songs. After a break, which was due to exhaustion after extensive tours, Clover (2013) marks a new beginning with the first, this time gentle and ballad-like song, which draws its strength from a slowly overcome crisis: “It's a hard hard line / that we cross from time to time / It's a thin divide / Hold me down while the dark subsides " (" Wild West Rain ").

This time Kelly is responsible for all songs. Some of the compositions include: a. Guitarist Tom Juhas, keyboardist Jason Sniderman, the French-Canadian songwriter Melanie Brulée, who is friends with Kelly , and again the producer of the previous album, David Baxter. Recorded with a completely new band except for Sniderman and produced by Stew Crookes, Kelly takes another development step in her music with Clover . The album seems more balanced in its musical forms of expression and, for all the diversity of styles, far more mature and compact in production than its predecessors. Keyboardist Sniderman and guitarist Juhas, whose nuanced playing is an enrichment, play a major role in the new quality. In addition, Kelly emancipates herself as far as possible from the country structures that shaped many of the songs on the previous album, towards a very melodic folk and pop rock (“Saintly Stare”, “Lone Wolf”, “Hour North”) and very powerful and soulful, for Partly melancholy ballads ("Powell River", "Mary Don't Go", "Clover", "I'll Be"). “Violet”, which she wrote together with Melanie Brulée, increases towards the end of the album into a psychedelic guitar crescendo underlaid with harmony vocals .

In his review, Kerry Doole particularly emphasizes the contribution of Produktion and Kelly's musical colleagues: "It goes without saying that her instrumental accompanists step out on the tracks, and Crookes production adds gloss and sheen to an album that sparkles front to end."

Love & Lust

Kelly's fourth album (2016) was mostly produced and composed by herself in collaboration with Stew Crookes and guitarist Tom Juhas (only "Good Girl" was produced and co-composed by Robyn Dell'Unto). Jason Sniderman, Zoe Sky Jordan, Jeremy Fisher , Peter Katz and Ryan O'Reilly are also involved in the compositions . It is the concentrate of no less than 65 demo recordings that had accumulated over the past three years. She herself describes it as a difficult but also liberating project: "Love & Lust was difficult to complete and write but also the most profilic and rejuvenating experience of my life".

Overall, it consistently continues the path and style mix of "creepy country" taken on Clover . On the previous album, however, dynamic-rhythmic guitar-folk-rock dominated the scene. In her compositions on Love & Lust , Kelly builds even more on dark and atmospheric sounds, often underlaid with ambient keyboards, which contrast with her bright, clear voice . "Make It Easy", which was also released as a video single in two versions, and "On The Water" make this fine adjustment of the sound clear right at the beginning of the album. The same applies to the psychedelic “Mariah”, “Paper Thin Heart” or the concluding “Beauty” written together with Peter Katz. Juha's guitar playing, used atmospherically even more differently due to various alienation effects , remains all in all just as decisive as the highly melodic basic orientation of the songs.

This time, her lyrics are mainly about the dark side of love: "I made it for the women and men who have faced the same uncomfortable truths of love and lust". And even if “Beauty” strikes a hopeful note at the end of the album (“I'm not a child but I believe there is beauty. We're alive, so I can see beauty.”), It still appears emphatically childlike - naive arrangement not without an ironic break.

Discography

Albums

• Second Spring (2008, CD Baby) no longer available
• Eastbound Platform (2010, True North Records)
• Clover (2013, Darth Jadea Music)
• Love & Lust (2016, Darth Jadea Music)

EPs

• Down Wave (2006) no longer available

With other artists (selection)

• Protest the Hero: Kezia (2005) vocals
• Protest the Hero: Scurrilos (2011) vocals
• Catherine MacLellan: Silhouette (2011) vocals
• Protest the Hero: Volition (2013) vocals

Awards

• Toronto Independent Music Awards 2008: Best Country Album for Second Spring
• Canadian Folk Music Awards 2016: Contemporary Singer of the Year for Love & Lust

Web links

• Jadea Kelly's website

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1. ↑ ^{a b} Interview by Nathaniel Schmidt, July 24, 2014
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Giving a modern twist to country folk: An interview with Jadea Kelly by Daisy Komujuni, June 29, 2013 .
3. ↑ Artvoice Interview with Protest the Hero by Cory Perla ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @ExitMusicCory, February 15, 2013  
4. ↑ Kelly in House Concert ( Memento of the original from September 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , BC Local News, April 7, 2011.  
5. ↑ ^{a b} Toronto Independent Music Awards - Winners ( Memento of the original from October 19, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Fundraiser on kapipal.com ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Canadian Folk Music Awards 2014 - Results
8. ↑ ^{a b c} New Canadian Music 2013, album review by Kerry Doole ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
9. ↑ Jamie Roussos: Album review ( Memento of the original from September 25, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , Confrontmagazine.com, May 24, 2013. 
10. ↑ Album review by GRTR! HQ , getreadytorock.me.uk, October 7, 2013.
11. ↑ Günther Klößinger in "Rocktimes" October 14, 2014.
12. ↑ Brian Martin: An Interview with Jadea Kelly , Circus Magazine, May 24, 2014.
13. ↑ ^{a b} Jadea Kelly Album Fundraiser
14. ↑ A Woman of A Certain Age , May 26, 2016
15. ↑ ^{a b} 2016 Canadian Folk Music Awards recipients announced
16. ↑ Jadea Kelly Fundraising Campaign on Indiegogo
17. ↑ Interview in the Place des Arts de Montréal, October 2013
18. ↑ Snob's music Jadea Kelly: "Clover" (album review)
19. ↑ Jadea Kelly. CBC / Radio-Canada , accessed October 15, 2016 . 
20. ↑ ^{a b} Biographical notes on the homepage ( memento of the original dated February 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
21. ↑ Album information on Love & Lust
22. ↑ Official video for "Make It Easy" on Jadea Kelly's YouTube channel
23. ↑ Official lyric video for "Make It Easy" on Jadea Kelly's YouTube channel
24. ↑ quick before it melts , April 27, 2016 ( Memento of the original from May 22, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.