With her girl next door good looks and small town charm, it might be tempting to describe Karla Crawford as just another typical country girl who can sing. But that wouldn’t be entirely accurate. True, she was raised in small town Ontario (Midland), ran the gamut of yearly community talent contests at the local United church, which she entered even after losing her voice, and won after graduating public school. And always the extroverted entrepreneur, she did run the Karaoke at the local bar, but that would be a story you’ve heard before and Karla Crawford is anything but typical!
Karla feels that music is her calling and that her life has been a series of events aligning to reach this point, the release of her third album – Delicious Recipe. She has a somewhat musical family history, both of her grandmothers being pianists and her father a drummer in local bands, and Karla has honed her craft for the past eight years performing professionally around the Muskoka and Collingwood resort scene. But Karla has a determined streak that defines her as much more than merely a by-product of her conventional upbringing and defies expectations.
Her earliest musical influence was Elvis Presley, gravitating towards his country material but idolizing him as an entertainer, and it would be honest to say that the Elvis XM radio station is most likely playing in her car at any given moment. To discourage the impression that her tastes are one-dimensional, she would also admit to being under the influence of Patty Loveless, Anne Murray, Leanne Womack, and Dolly Parton.
8 out of 13 tracks on her new album are written or co-written by Karla herself, evidence of her late-blooming songwriting skills, stemming from earlier forays into poetry and songwriting. The overwhelming positive feedback to her original material on the resort circuit inspired the confidence to look inward for material for Delicious Recipe. The album is completed with the contribution of 3 songs penned by Nashville hit songwriters.
Bassist John Dymond who co-produced with Tom McKillip, plays band leader to a who’s-who of session pros through a collection of polished, contemporary country that would sound as at home in a pickup truck in some rural backwater as it would on major market radio. It’s a long way from the coffee table performances Karla presented for her family as a youngster.
And bigger stages Karla has seen, having shared the bright lights with Vince Gill, Amy Grant, Porter Wagoner, Lee Greenwood and Brad Paisley among others. A tall drink of water armed with pizazz and kinetic energy, Karla injects her performances with her infectious wit and an alpha personality.
Traditional values aside, Karla is very much a modern artist. She might have set out to make the sort of record that a girl from Midland who likes brown gravy on just about anything might make, but inadvertently made a record that can’t be narrowly defined. Delicious Recipe is up-tempo – fun, edgy, exciting, and makes you want to sing along. It’s the sound of a clever girl from the country whose ambition took her from the backroads to the blacktop, and left a trail of gravel dust to follow home.
WiredTogether - Web Design Barrie
