Friday, November 15, 2019

Samantha Sidley covers a Ry Cooder classic, chats about her “quietly radical” debut with Los Angeles Times; Announces early 2020 NYC residency.

“Interior Person” LP, out now on Inara George’s Release Me label, “addresses the pleasures and torments of romance from an explicitly gay point of view.

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Samantha Sidley as photographed by Claire Marie Vogel

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Samantha Sidley | “Drive Like I Never Been Hurt” (Ry Cooder)

“I heard ‘Drive Like I Never Been Hurt’ for the first time on a long drive out of town. One of my favorite places to listen to music is on a long drive. It got stuck in my head and I wanted to listen to it all the time. I felt I needed to sing it. It was something I needed to talk about. This song to me is about saying ‘f*** you’ to all and any oppressive obstacles life throws at you. You don’t forget pain, but you learn to accept and move through it. Sometimes that feels like you are driving down the road in a convertible, tears streaming down your face, you don’t even know where you are headed but that doesn’t matter. You trust the destination. Even when you can’t see it.”


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Samantha Sidley | NYC Residency


02/06/2020: New York, NY @ The Green Room 42 (TIX)

02/07/2020: New York, NY @ The Green Room 42 (TIX)

02/08/2020: New York, NY @ The Green Room 42 (TIX)

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Sidley’s quietly radical debut album, Interior Person, is premised on the idea that a listener in 2019 shouldn’t have to decode a love song to hear herself in it.”

See the video for “I Like Girls” and read an in-depth interview with the Los Angeles Times.



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Samantha Sidley
Interior Person
Out Now
(Release Me Records)

Streaming Link:


Track Listing:

01. I Like Girls (STREAM | MP3 | VIDEO)
02. Only You Can Break My Heart
03. Naked To Love
04. Butterfly In My Ass (STREAM)
05. I Can’t Listen
06. Listen!! (STREAM | MP3)
07. Rose Without Thorns
08. Busy Doin’ Nothin’ (STREAM | MP3)
09. Easy To Be True
10. Interior Person

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Samantha Sidley | In The Press

Samantha Sidley turns ‘Singing In The Rain’ into a pro-lesbian anthem. It’s her take on the black and white era of catchy songs from movie musicals but updated to be inclusive and reflect her take on the world.” — Refinery29

“Feels like a breath of fresh air. But it is also its meticulously crafted sound, which blends vintage jazz with more modern pop elements, that makes it such an outstanding debut.” — JAZZIZ

“It takes us back to the speakeasies of the 20s, with flirtatious saxophones and crisp, expressive vocals. The song (‘I Like Girls’) is a sophisticated and delicious ice-breaker, serving anthemic lyrical content for an evolving culture.” — Grimy Goods

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Samantha Sidley | About

Samantha Sidley is a jazz vocalist, born-and-raised in Los Angeles, and she likes girls.

The words “I like girls” are the first thing you’ll hear when Sidley’s debut album Interior Person (Out Now, Release Me Records) opens. The song is an unassuming anthem, a future standard for an evolving culture. It’s also a fun and funny ice-breaker that you’ll sing along with.

“I Like Girls” is a peek into what plays out as a meticulously crafted debut album featuring Sidley’s beautifully trained voice taking confident ownership of songs written for her to sing by some of the most important women in her life.

These other “girls” include fellow musicians Inara George, Alex Lilly, and Sidley’s “Top One” favorite musician of all-time, her wife, Barbara Gruska.

Inara and Alex and Barbara wrote songs that are all very personal to my story – they literally are my story – and from my lesbian perspective, which I appreciate so much,” Sidley says. In addition to co-writing many of the songs here, and playing drums (masterfully) on many of the tracks, Gruska also produced Interior Person in a studio constructed in Sidley’s childhood bedroom.

“My whole life was a song,” Sidley says of her childhood. “If I looked at a tree, it was a song. If I felt happy, sad, joy, it was a song. When I first heard Judy Garland in ‘The Wizard of Oz,’ I remember thinking: ‘I understand.’ I’ve always considered myself an interpreter, which is sort of and undervalued art form. I like to take a song and make the story true for me.”

Sidley soon discovered Aretha Franklin, Billie Holiday, soul music in general, and her own personal “soulfulness” itself. You know, like all seven-year-olds do. Later, considering how annoyed 11-year-old Sidley was when her vocal instructor wouldn’t allow her to sing Holiday’s “Lover Man (Oh Where Can You Be)” at her first recital, it all made perfect sense.

A decade later, Sidley got to sing whatever she wanted, performing at NYC’s legendary Oak Room at the Algonquin Hotel, where she lived in Dorothy Parker’s room, listened to a lot of Anita O’Day and Ella Fitzgerald, and landed a rave review in The New York Times.

“She knows exactly how I express myself and what my intentions are,” Sidley says of her working relationship with Gruska. “Collaborating on this record has actually been a much longer collaboration of us getting to know each other.”

Interior Person, the debut album from Samantha Sidley is out now featuring the single “I Like Girls”.  Samantha Sidley is available for interviews. Contact Josh Bloom at Fanatic for more information.

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Samantha Sidley | Links


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Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact

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