BECCA
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Country |
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Country Pop |
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Growing up in Thousand Oaks, California, Becca Hennesy never realized that music should be categorized or pigeonholed. Otherwise she would have known that her favorite singers - Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Dolly Parton, even Kenny Rogers - were considered country artists. Mainstream, COUNTRY artists, and they fit nicely on the radio right next to The Eagles, Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt.
What Becca did know was that those artists were singing honest music straight from the heart. What she heard on her radio station was simply great music. "I grew up listening to what I thought was really cool music," says Becca. "I didn't realize it was what is considered country. It wasn't until I got out in the real world that I discovered there was a label for what I was listening to."
Becca's brand of LA Country draws from a deep well of those early influences on her debut release for Nari Records, simply titled Becca. "I had been singing R&B in different clubs around town," she recalls. "Something just didn't feel quite right though. I mean, I love that style, but it just wasn't me."
So when Becca met producer/manager Rick Francisco, everything just clicked. "Rick and I shared a vision," she explains. Rick knew the songs that worked, and it was just magic."
"We wanted to bring back the warmth and soul of country music, but didn't want to lose the excitement of today's country music and its' expanding fan base," Francisco says. "We didn't want to record old country music songs, but looked for songs that mixed vintage country sounds with a new voice."
In so doing, Francisco, having worked with the blues greats like Muddy Waters and Willie Dixon, found songs written by writers known for their work with blues music and mixed it together with Nashville. Francisco recruited Stan Perkins, son of music legend Carl Perkins to record "Dozen Roses." The pairing was a huge success, and the song was picked up as a single by more than 150 radio stations around the world, sometimes landing on the top of the stations' playlist. "We knew we were on to something special," says Becca. "Hearing the songs Rick brought me was a real epiphany."
Recorded in Los Angeles CA and mixed in Granbury TX, Becca hits her stride with such songs as "Second Chance," "Texas Hurricane" and "In My Dreams," as well as performing a stellar duet with music legend Delaney Bramlett (Delany & Bonnie / "Never Ending Song of Love") on the song, "Blue Note."
Prior to developing her own brand of country music, Becca wrote songs for such major films as Halloween V ("Romeo, Romeo"), Shattered Glass ("Chance For Love") and Kounterfit ("More & More"). She also landed jobs singing numerous TV and radio commercials in Los Angeles.
But it is with her own brand of music she calls LA COUNTRY that Becca is finding her art. Currently more than 175 stations around the world are playing songs from her debut release, and she's playing rooms like the Cowboy Palace Saloon in LA, along with her band 'LA COUNTRY' - Chad Watson (bass), Vern Monet (lead guitar), Chris Cooke (drums), all veterans of the Freddie Fender band. Harlan Spector (Buffalo Springfield and Redbone) on keyboards, Keith Malone on steel guitar, John Peyton (well known Austin TX musician) on harmonica, Cydney Davis and Pam Olivia-Reynolds (well known Los Angeles singers) on backup vocals.
"This is the epitome of what I've always wanted to do," she says. "I've always been doing music, but now I'm doing the music I was meant to be doing."
