"Expressive, vivid and at times heart wrenchingly beautiful" lyrics and powerful melodies with musical influences ranging from jazz and American roots, to latin and Lou Reed.

11 MP3 Songs
POP: Delicate, POP: Beatles-pop



Details:
Cady McClain

Biography

A Southern California native, Cady McClain soaked up the sounds of the tumultuous late sixties and early seventies while wondering the then untouched beaches and landscape of Laguna. Her motherâs love of American roots music was introduced to Cady through her collection of songbooks and instruments including the hammered dulcimer, the recorder, the concertina, and the auto harp, as well as a stand up piano and Yamaha guitar.

She bought the full collection of Beatles Albums including âRaritiesâ from money she made dancing in âPennies From Heaven, when she was twelve. Cady was strongly drawn to the experimentation of The Beatlesâ White Album, the dual album described by critics as either âscatershotâ or âsingularly gripping in its musical experienceâ.

âThe album then and now, seemed to express total freedom of thought and creativity,â said Cady, âI loved that they were allowed to explore any direction musically that compelled them, rather than repeating a form or a theme, and most of all, it seemed honest. That raw purity never left me, it became a goal to aim for in all my work.â

McClain picked up that Yamaha guitar at fifteen and became instantly enamored with it. As a teenage actress memorizing lines for national television, she loved writing and performing songs because there were no constraints. âFor the first time it felt like something of my own creation, I could capture a moment in a completely different way than acting, and I was completely uncensored.â

Through the years other musical influences emerged for Cady, legendary female singer songwriters Joni Mitchell, Suzanne Vega, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Joan Baez and Shawn Colvin made an early impact because of the visual nature of their lyrics. Soon after, musicians who boldly liked to experiment began to call to her. âThe Who, , Elvis Costello, Bob Dylan, Bjork, Tori Amos, Kate Bush, David Byrne and Pink Floyd, all seemed to break the boundaries of expectation in their music and create a world both light and dark, where a transcendent experience became inevitable,â said Cady

Cady focused on acting for a living, but continued to evolve as a songwriter and musician. She split her time between New York City, the mecca of live music and New Orleans, birthplace of Jazz. In 1993 Cady began performing in intimate settings that showcased her lyric- driven music. She loved performing at âMimiâs in the Marigny,â a New Orleans neighborhood tapas bar she co-owns known for their live music, and âspecialty nightsâ such as tango lessons upstairs. Over the years she became friends with musical legend and local character Coco Robicheaux. After the devastation of hurricane Katrina Cady invited Coco, along with several of his friends (The Louisiana Swamp Monsters) to stay at her New York City apartment where they put together a series of concerts and benefits from NYC to Westport, to Woodstock. âThe guys arrived devastated by the physical and mental damage of their city and went home with money in their pocket and a feeling of how much they are appreciated and cared about by everyone on the East Coast,â said Cady. âI was overjoyed to help them.â

For her first album, âBlueGlitterFishâ Cady hooked up with multi award winning producer George Petit, whoâs been producing his and others music for over 30 years. Petit brings his great experience and technical knowledge to the project, as well as performing on a myriad of instruments.

âThe very first time I heard Cadyâs music we connected,â said George, âsheâs been writing all this great stuff for years, songs about life, love, loss and the journey, Cady can express her ideas and paint her pictures in so many genres, we thought it wise to pick a dozen or so songs to flesh out, being respectful of all her many influences and musical strengths. Her lyrics caught me first, expressive, vivid and at times, heart wrenchingly beautiful.â

The album, âBlueGlitterFish,â is a compilation of those influences, a series of musical collages and journeys through her inner life. The title is from a painting Cady made of a girl sitting in a café surrounded by swimming fish. âI have often felt as an actress that I was in a fish bowl, that my person was a product, and that (among a few other things) has been difficult to live with, ergo, the girl is blue. Inside, though, that girl has been swimming with ideas and magic-----music is the magic that has been dying to get out.â