Singer Gaby Moreno Finds Her Voice Through The Blues
Matt Sayles / Invision/Associated Press
Music contributor Mara Davis attends dozens of shows every year and she is always consuming new music, looking for the next big thing. So when she told “City Lights” that Gaby Moreno’s recent performance in Atlanta had her in tears, we knew there was something special about this artist.
Moreno is a Guatemalan singer and songwriter who has been performing since a very young age. The New York Times compared her to Édith Piaf, and in 2013, Gaby Moreno won a Latin Grammy for Best New Artist. Her newly released solo album “Ilusión” mixes her love of blues, vintage R&B and the music of her homeland.
In conversation with Mara Davis following a performance at Smith’s Olde Bar, Moreno recounted how she discovered the blues while on a trip to New York City.
“My first experience that I had was this lady singing in the streets and she was singing blues music,” she said, “which at the time, I had no idea what it was, so I went up to her and asked her, and she was like ‘Oh yeah, this is the blues!’”
Moreno had never heard anything like it in Guatemala. She immediately made a trip to a record store.
That initial purchase opened up an entire world of music, leading to jazz through Ella Fitzgerald to soul through Aretha Franklin.
“That changed my whole perspective of how I wanted to do music, how I wanted to write, how I wanted to sing” Moreno says.
Gaby Moreno performs at Smith’s Olde Bar on Nov. 2.
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