Samantha Sidley
SAMANTHA SIDLEY | INTERIOR PERSON | RELEASE ME RECORDS | SEPT. 13TH, 2019
Bio:
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 (Sept. 13th, 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 (more on that later.)
“She is such a badass,” Sidley says. “My record sounds exactly like what I needed it to sound like – the old records I grew up on, mixed with now and the future.”
“I’m gay and I’m proud, and I want to sing songs that are about being gay and proud,” Sidley explains about “I Like Girls,” but also about actually liking girls. She is content in her skin, in her relationship, and about how her marriage is not just personal i.e. it includes building a recording studio in her childhood bedroom (we’ll get to it!)
“I saw her and was completely blown away,” Sidley says of first seeing Gruska’s band perform over ten years ago. “I thought, I understand that person. I can take care of them.” It wasn’t until Sidley heard Gruska’s voice on MySpace (MySpace!) that Sidley got up the nerve to message Gruska that she was “smitten.”
It’s a testament to Sidley’s life-long love of vocalists that her actual love life was sparked by a voice.
“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 an 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.
Unfortunately, the universe slapped back when Sidley’s father became terminally ill. She moved back to Los Angeles to be with him until the end, and then to grieve with her mother and sister whom she considers her best friends. They all lived together in the home Sidley grew up in, a mess of a structure in Silverlake where every light in the house had to be unplugged before using the microwave. Sidley fell into a depression.
“And then Barb came into our life.”
It’s a good thing that the arcane electricity situation didn’t keep Sidley off of MySpace, because Gruska eventually moved in and became part of Sidley’s family.
“All of us together in this falling down house in Silverlake!”
Two years of living in a house under renovations later, and Gruska had transformed Sidley’s childhood bedroom into her music studio. See, we got there!
The couple now lives in an apartment just down the street.
“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.”
“All of these women have been a huge part of my artistic livelihood,” Sidley says, referring to Gruska, George and Lilly. “They have given me the stories to sing and the opportunity to share and be vulnerable. I have found strength through of all my deep sorrow by singing. Before this record, I was still just doing standards and covers but now I have a wealth of material to choose from.”
Interior Person does include one nod to this era of Sidley’s career when she covers the 1968 Beach Boys song “Busy Doin’ Nothin’”. “I love doing covers,” she says. “It’s like doing a rendition of an old play.”
It’s not hard to imagine others artists, gay or straight or otherwise, covering “I Like Girls” someday.
“We’ve been able to relate to songs that come from straight perspectives our whole lives,” says Gruska, who co-wrote the song with Lilly. “We have to have faith that straight listeners can relate to songs that are written from gay perspectives.”
Gruska further explains, “It’s as if Sam is saying, ‘I’m gay. I love being gay. If you’re cool with that, listen on, because I’ve got a lot more to say!’”
Samantha Sidley likes girls and it’s easy to like her back.
Interior Person is the debut album by Los Angeles-based jazz vocalist, Samantha Sidley. The album arrives Sept. 13th from Release Me Records, preceded by the single “I Like Girls” on June 21st.
News:
Press QUOTES:
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“‘Interior Person’ is startling not because she’s radically experimenting with new sonic ideas but because the proudly lesbian L.A. vocalist upends romantic jazz-pop tradition by infusing it with long-missing tolerance and empathy.”
“Open and vulnerable, vivacious and calming. ”
“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.”
“The Los Angeles-based jazz singer is positively ebullient.”
“An exciting, emerging voice.”
“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.”
“Sidley’s voice in ‘I Like Girls’ is playful and velvety, a perfect mood-setter for a cocktail hour. This song does not disappoint.”
“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.”
PRESS RELEASES:
On The Web:
Assets:
Samantha Sidley as photographed by Logan White. Click for hi-res.
Samantha Sidley as photographed by Logan White. Click for hi-res.
Samantha Sidley as photographed by Logan White. Click for hi-res.
Samantha Sidley as photographed by Logan White. Click for hi-res.
Samantha Sidley as photographed by Logan White. Click for hi-res.
Samantha Sidley as photographed by Logan White. Click for hi-res.
Samantha Sidley as photographed by Logan White. Click for hi-res.
Samantha Sidley as photographed by Claire Marie Vogel. Click for hi-res.
Interior Person cover art. Click for hi-res.
“I Like Girls” single cover art. Click for hi-res.
“Busy Doin’ Nothin’” single cover art. Click for hi-res.
“Listen!!” single cover art. Click for hi-res.
“Drive Like I Never Been Hurt” (Ry Cooder) single cover art. Click for hi-res.
“A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes” (Disney Cover) single cover art. Click for hi-res.