“Sweet, funny,
tastefully arranged vocal-jazz disc about same-sex romance,” out now; Sidley
plays L.A on Jan. 20th, three-night NYC stand Feb. 6th-8th.
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Samantha
Sidley as photographed by Logan White
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Samantha
Sidley’s “I Can’t Listen,” written by Inara
George, is about struggling with depression. But the Los Angeles-based jazz
singer is positively ebullient about the black-and-white,
noir-styled video.
“I love that video,” Sidley gushes
to Billboard. The clip was
directed by Nigel DeFriez, a friend who also helmed the clip for “I Like Girls,” another track from
Sidley’s debut album Interior Person. “It feels like a movie, an old French
film, this woman riding in a car, gonna get the fuck out of town, she can’t
look at herself anymore...
“(DeFriez) said, ‘Can I just film you singing the song
with a handheld camera?’ I said, ‘Sure, of course!’ We did it two days later.
Barbara (Gruska, Sidley’s wife and album producer) did all the lighting, just
switching things on and off. It was a real DIY thing, but I think it came off
beautifully and it tells a really beautiful story.”
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Samantha
Sidley | Live
01/20/2020: Los Angeles, CA @ Zebulon (w/ Alex Lilly, RSVP)
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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Los Angeles
Times | Best Albums and Songs of 2019
See the video for “I Like Girls” and read
an in-depth interview with the Los
Angeles Times here.
“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.”
“Something
you might not have realized you needed (though this L.A. native certainly knew
she did): a sweet, funny, tastefully arranged vocal-jazz disc about same-sex
romance.”
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Samantha Sidley
Interior
Person
Out Now
(Release Me Records)
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 (VIDEO)
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
“Ms. Sidley
has a sweet, girlish voice, so light that at times it almost disappears. But
that vocal weightlessness is somewhat deceptive. She holds in reserve an airier
version of the wail deployed by Rickie
Lee Jones and Laura Nyro, which
injects blushes of emotional color into her mostly playful singing.” — The
New York Times
“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
“Sidley’s
voice in ‘I Like Girls’ is playful
and velvety, a perfect mood-setter for a cocktail hour. This song does not
disappoint.” — AfterEllen
“Puts plenty of pop into the jazz world’s ears...
Offering a shot in the arm to the genre, the song (‘I Like Girls’) will be in your head for days after just hearing it
once.” — Closed Captioned
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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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