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Holly is a natural singer. She was born with the music in her. She has an innate sense of melody, form and rhythm, especially for the blues. You only need listen to her sing to realize she has a feel for blues way beyond her years. She is a proficient jazz, traditional country and contemporary folk stylist, but the blues is where she really shines. You can tell it is at the root of all she sings and what better place to come from than the root of all modern music.
Holly actually began singing and composing blues based melodies at the age of five and got her start in the entertainment business at the tender age of nine as a special guest vocalist on some of her dad, Jon’s, solo shows. She began playing bass in elementary school, played bass and sang in various jazz combo's and sang jazz, swing and blues fronting a big band in high school. Holly studied voice for two years with jazz/blues vocal instructor, Laura Landsberg after winning a vocal scholarship. She later enrolled in a post secondary music program where she continued to study voice under the tutelage of Cheryl Hodge and majored in performance and voice. During this time she was involved with the “Music Feeds” project and toured with an ensemble that paid tribute to Canadian music from the 60’s to the present day, played a nationally televised concert and appeared on stage with Jazz greats, The Brubreck Brothers (sons of the legendary, Dave Brubreck. “Take Five”) and with the amazing young American jazz pianist, Taylor Eigisti.
While still in high school Holly performed at the Lionel Hampton International Jazz Festival in the US - which featured the world’s greatest bass player, Brian Bromberg – and opened for jazz/blues virtuoso, Carlos Del Junco (multiple Maple Blues Award winner) in Canada. Since then, she has appeared on stage with artists as diverse as bass playing virtuoso, Russell Jackson (Matt “Guitar Murphy”, Charlie Musselwhite) at the Calgary Stampede 2003 and alt/country singer/songwriter, Linda McCrea (Spirit Of The West) in 2004. Holly and Linda performed a very moving version of John Prine’s, “Angel From Montgomery” which brought the house down. Holly also helped promote Merle Haggard’s 2004 Canadian Tour which featured special guests, Blackie and The Rodeo Kings (Colin Linden, Stephen Fearing and Tom Wilson).
Although the blues provide the building blocks for her vocal approach, you can tell she has listened to and studied vocal techniques of singers in other genres of music, especially jazz. You can hear hints of Billie Holiday and Dinah Washington and more contemporary artist’s such as Bonnie Raitt, Eva Cassidy and Susan Tedeschi. A good example of Holly’s vocal style can be heard on the song 'Train Wreck Blues' from Holly and Jon’s 'Big Wind on the Way' album. This successful combining of blues feel with jazz phrasing is what Holly is all about and forms the basis for her unquestionable talent.
Holly’s voice has been described as “soaring from deep inside the well of Aretha Franklin and Eva Cassidy”
“Holly is one of the most promising young female emerging blues singers on the scene today and can look forward to a long and rewarding career in the music industry”.
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