Fashion Design by Tete by Odeltte at the Madrid Fashion Week
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Fashion Design by Tete by Odeltte at the Madrid Fashion Week Photo Courtesy of image.net protected by copyright ©, All Rights Reserved |
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Heidi Newfield -- New Album!
She explains why, “The light is still on and
those of us who are still here, are still looking for great music.
Regardless of if I get to tour it or not, I feel it is my duty to put (The
Barfly Sessions) out. Putting a record
out like this has been such a labor of love, with so much time and
effort by a multitude of people, not just myself. To make a record like
this and without having put music out for a while and then boom you go
okay I am going to jump. I am going to put this thing out and then this
happens. I had to search my
heart and ask am I prepared for what may or may not happen when you put
a record out and you cannot tour around it? That is a whole new world
for all of us when we are putting music out. It is like stepping off a
cliff and you don’t know if you are going to fly or not. I pray that is
the case. I hope that is the case. I hope it catches on and if it is a
slow burn that is fantastic. If it catches on fire that is great too.
The world of uncertainty that we live in right now is very difficult. We
are calling it the year that never happened.” We pointed out to
Heidi Newfield there have been many Country music artists who embarked
on their careers without ever having set foot on a ranch or a farm, but
how her story really reflects the music she writes and the stories she
tells. “It is true. Country Music from its first
incarnation with Jimmie Rodgers and the Hank Sr. stuff, from day one it
has always been about real-life stories from the narrator to the
listener. That has been what has always drawn me in. No matter if you
are from Manhattan and you are a city person who wears a suit and tie to
work and you never ever wore a pair of rubber boots or gotten on a
horse, I don’t think it is difficult for good and well-written Country
Music to resonate with you. It is the narrator telling you about what it
is like for them to be so lonesome they could cry or to be cheated on or
to be in a celebratory mood. It is them making you want to dance, making
you want to move, making you want to make love or whatever the situation
may be. It is all about
evoking those emotions from the listener and
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Katie Ferrara - Break Free
It had been more
than three years since we last sat down to chat and this time the nature
of our conversation focused on Katie Ferrara’s current album Break Free,
her tours in Europe in recent years and whatever happened to that cute
little dog from a previous music video, and finally where does she find
all those cute guys that are now appearing in her videos. Break Free is an
album amply populated with love songs, but not the kind of mushy Pop
songs that substitute hooks for substance, but rather missives that
cause you to reflect on relationships you may have experienced in your
own life. We wondered if perhaps we had forgotten love songs she had
previously written. “I did write some
love songs before (she laughs lightly), but they weren’t romantic
songs,” she replies.
That brings us to the song and video “Living in Black and White,” and
she laughs a lot when we ask her where she keeps finding these great
looking male actors.
“Yeah, Anthony is really good looking. He is a musician and he acts as
well. He played guitar with me on a couple of gigs and I thought he is
very charismatic, so I asked him if he wanted to be in a music video
with me.
We
shot the video at the Riverside Festival of Lights in December. Louie
Gooey (That really is his name folks!) shot (the cinematographer) that
one as well. I wrote the song,
before the New Year of 2018 and I was feeling a little sad, but happy at
the same time. I was nostalgic and I felt like everything was moving
quickly. I wanted to capture that feeling in a song. I had the melody
first and then the chords. I then brought it to my friend Tom.
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Modern Wedding - Designed by drezz2imprezz
Models: Sandra Scheack (L), Vanessa Vinson (R) Drezz2Imprezz website |
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Doug Clifford's Magic Window
“The mid-eighties is when I was most active as
a songwriter and when I had material that I thought would be an album’s
worth and then I started working on my vocals. I am not really known for
either one of those things and it is kind of fun. I have been getting
really good reviews (and you can
add Riveting Riffs Magazine to the list of good reviewers Doug!). It
makes you feel good, because at the time you put your heart and soul
into it,” he says. He goes on to talk
about why the record is only seeing the light of day now, “We were in a
huge drought situation up at Lake Tahoe. I had a biological background
and I had a firefighting background, minimal, but enough. I put together
a program that would deal with fuels and what to do with a forest to try
to get it back to a normal environment. Fire is a culling factor in a
forest, but when you put the fires out the fuels continue to build up.
That is why we have cataclysmic fires when they hit now, because the
fuels
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Actress - Kika Child
Kika Child, we
should point out, in addition to being a wonderful actress is also a
trained translator. “When the pandemic
hit in March I was already working in the courts, with attorneys,
physicians, within the medical and entertainment (fields). Mostly
though, I was focused on writing my television series. I also was cast
to star in a play in Washington, but when the pandemic hit everyone
stopped working and the courts closed. I couldn’t travel
to Colombia to go and be of service, which is what I wanted to do. I
wanted to be there for my parents. Colombia has stricter rules right now
than the U.S., but they don’t have the financial help that people in the
U.S. receive. Because I stayed
in New York I was wondering what to do with my life. Everyone was hit
with shock and (experienced) trauma. I was praying and meditating,
asking what should I do with my life? One day when I
woke up, I went in front of the computer and I started recording
Governor Cuomo’s briefing. I have a producer here,
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Poco - Rusty Young
We were doing a
show in California and this guy Kirk Pasich came up to me afterwards and
he said have you ever thought of doing a solo record? I said not really.
The opportunity has never presented itself. He said, I have a label Blue
Élan and we would love to have you make a record for us. I thought about
how everybody who has ever been in Poco have done solo records, Paul
Cotton and Richie Furay, Timothy B Schmit and Randy Meisner. I thought
it might be an interesting thing for me to do at the end of my career.
It was the best way for me to illustrate my part in the sound of Poco.
If you listen to Richie Furay’s records you can hear what he contributed
to the band and the same with Paul Cotton (and the others). They all
have their style and their songs. It was a chance for me to show what I
brought to the scene. I thought it was a really good challenge at that
point in my life.” Continuing to talk
about the album he says, “The first song that I wrote was “Waiting for
the Sun.” After I wrote it, I called Kirk and I said listen let’s do
this record. We live in a cabin
or a log home in Missouri in the Mark Twain National Forest and it was
the perfect environment to start writing songs and
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Silvia Marsó and Felipe Ansola
The accomplishments of both Ms. Marsó and Felipe Ansola speak for
themselves. Silvia Marsó is one of Spain’s and in fact the countries
that comprise the Spanish speaking world’s most celebrated and widely
respected actresses. Silvia Marsó just completed the ninth and final
season of the daily series or soap opera
El Secreto de Puente Viejo (The
Secret of the Old Bridge). Time and space here does not permit us
to list all of her accomplishments, but we will list a few, in recent
years she appeared in the critically acclaimed television series
Gran Hotel (as Adriana) and
Velvet (as Julia
Lagasca), both of which cannot be viewed on Netflix. She was Elvira
Prieto in Gran Reserva. El
Origen Noelia for three years in
Manos a la obra and in
2019 as Esther in Merlí Sapere
Aude. She has also appeared in numerous
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Pear Duo - No Boundaries
Curtis notes the
fact that they do have such a vast genre palette to choose from is what
led to the title No Boundaries for this record. “We are not going
to limit ourselves to a particular style,” he says and Julie adds, “Much
to the chagrin of every platform on the internet that wants to
pigeonhole you in a single genre.” Our conversation
wanders in another direction for a moment as we ponder whether or not
the music industry still wants to pigeonhole artists into specific
genres. Julie Ragins says,
“The first question everybody asks you is what kind of music do you
play? They want an elevator pitch answer. They want to hear Country.
They want to hear Blues; they want to hear Rock and Roll. They do not
want
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Alta Mar - Final Season on Netflix
The insertion of
two British spies on a ship where everyone else is Spanish simply does
not work. The role of Fabio is stilted and that is not on actor Marco
Pigossi and the responsibility is entirely with the writers. It is
obvious that Mr. Pigossi if given the opportunity had much more to bring
to the role of Fabio. The actor who intrigues us is Eduardo Blanco as
Capitan Santiago Aguirre. No matter how misguided the writing is for
season three Aguirre brings authenticity to his role, as he did in
seasons one and two. Ignacio Montes as
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A Little Magic from Belfast, Ireland
“My birth name was
Nicola and that is the way my mum spelled it. It is quite a
controversial name in Ireland, because it can be spelled Nichola, so a
lot of people here in Ireland try to spell it that way and I don’t like
that. When I was coming up with my stage name, I wanted to keep it as
Nicola, because it is an unusual name and not very many people have it.
My mum also gave me the name Nicola, because I was a December baby born
on December 21st. My mum named me Nicola after Saint Nicholas. Arkane came about
in a strange way too. I needed to have a stage name and I wanted my name
to represent storytelling, because I’m Irish (Oh and we can tell you
this lady can weave a story and pull you in waiting to find out what
happens next!). I wanted something like Irish folklore or something
archaic. My boyfriend who is also a magician is into comics and one day
we were talking about comics and he told me about Swamp Thing, which is
one of his favorite comics. There is a character in there called Dr.
Arcane. I thought it was a really interesting name and so I wrote my
name as Nikola Arcane. I thought if I was changing my name Nicola to
Nikola, I thought I would change Arcane to Arkane. It just fit together.
That is the story |
Chicago Band - The Claudettes
The new album is
not a theme or concept album. Johnny Iguana explains, “I am always writing
and I got on a really good streak. I read a really great quote once in this book
called Listen to the Stories
by Nat Hentoff who was a great Jazz critic. There is a quote attributed
to Duke Ellington and when he was asked how he managed to write all of
those chart hits he said, I just always looked around me and at what
particular musicians I had in the band at that time then I asked what
can these guys do well. I think that is really smart. A lot of people
just write and they have types of songs they want to do and whoever
happens to be in their band right then is charged with playing them.
I always try to zero in on people whose ships have crossed my
path and at that time in life and ask what do they really do well? Where
do they really shine?
The more you work
with someone you get a (better) sense for that. I got in a really good
zone for the songs that I could write well for
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Design by Ojalá Paloma del Pozo
Photo Protected by copyright © - Designer website |
Pam
Tillis - New Album
“Looking
for a Feeling, is as personal as anything that I have done, maybe
ever. I am in a lot of ways a really private person, which kind of runs
counter to what an artist is supposed to be. You know cut a vein and
bleed on the page. I am very private and so it takes a lot for me to do
that. I think in some ways I am understated with my feelings. In a lot
of songs I am just trying to process the craziness that is life and the
craziness that is our world and I am trying to put it into context. I
(want) to understand it. There is an underpinning and in some ways it is
a little bit philosophical. If you listen long enough you will hear it
in there,” says Pam Tillis. As for why she co-wrote the title song with Waylon Payne she says,
“Because it said write me (she
laughs lightly). You don’t always get a choice. Some days you pick
up the guitar and you get out your laptop or your yellow legal pad and
you might as well be digging a ditch. Some days you pick up the guitar
and it talks and the words are just coming through you. That’s what
happened that day. It was kind of a moody gray day. I had never written with my friend Waylon Payne, but I am a big fan of
his and he is an incredible artist. There was something that happened to
me and I was naming all of these things that I was seeing and they just
started flowing into a song. All of these people in the song you can
relate to them. They are kind of spiritually adrift and they are
struggling. They are trying to find their (way) and some kind of
satisfaction. It is like a
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Ada Rovatti & Randy Brecker
In
proper journalism practice first names alone are seldom used when
referring to the one being interviewed however, in this situation when
conversing with the husband and wife team of Randy Brecker and Ada
Rovatti and our familiarity with them it somehow would not feel right to
refer to them by their last names, so we are going to cast protocol
aside. Their daughter Stella also appears on this album, but her demands
for a significant appearance fee could not be met by Riveting Riffs
Magazine and before anyone takes us seriously, we are joking folks, but
we did want to give Stella a nod for her singing performance on the
opening track "Sacred Bond," as well as making a debut on her mom and
dad’s album.
When this writer opens the conversation by saying the songs on this
album seem to create a peaceful vibe and a calming effect for the
listener, Randy replies, “I have to agree. Usually, when I do records,
after I am done I never want to hear them again, but this one I really
enjoy
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Sagrario Salamanca's Star is Rising
Sagrario Salamanca
lives in Madrid, Spain, the city in which she grew up. “My father was a military man. When I began to
sing he wasn’t very pleased (she
laughs lightly). We talk about it now and he only wanted the best
for me, because he didn’t think at that time that it was a good future
for me. I think that is why he didn’t make it easy for me. He always
said this was not something serious, but it was just something that I
liked to do. Every time that I sang or did something related to singing
I felt more and more that this was something I wanted to do. I am sorry
for my dad (she laughs, poking fun at the memory). Now he is very
pleased and he is very proud of what I have (accomplished),” she says
and it is obvious as we talk more that she loves her mother and father
and she is appreciative of the support they have given her through the
years.
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By Swedish Designer
Swedish television personality Kattis Ahlström
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Electronic Firefly from Spain
The pandemic and for almost three months having
to stay inside their homes, put the debut Electronic Firefly album on
pause. Sylvia and Charlie have recorded music together aside from
Electronic Firefly. Silvia begins by
talking about their music, “We do different types of music and some
covers, because people want to hear something that they know like
electronica, Frank Sinatra, Amy Winehouse and AC / DC are our favorite
types of music. This music is for events and concerts, because people
want to hear something that they know. We also do our own compositions.
We work with a pianist (Rebeca Nayla) and we do a mix of electronic
music and music for films. We are doing our first album and it will be
an album with our songs.” Charlie continues, “We have quite a lot of songs recorded, but this
project with the electronica is new. There are three of us in the group
and it is completely different than anything we have done before.
We have recorded five or six songs already.” Silvia says, “With this quarantine we went out to do some filming for
one of the new songs that we composed with Rebeca Nayla but we haven’t
been able to edit everything, because we have to meet with the cameraman
and when this thing finishes (the quarantine) we are going to show them
to the world (Editor’s Note: As
we publish the interview, most of Spain is entering the final stages of
returning to a more normal state).” |
| All written material, all photographs and all designs are protected by copyright © and patents by the writers, photographers, editors, designers, musicians, songwriters musicians and filmmakers who contribute to Riveting Riffs Magazine. None of the material contained in this magazine may be redistributed, posted on any website or transferred through any electronic means without the written consent of Riveting Riffs Magazine. Any attempt to profit from the material in Riveting Riffs Magazine will be prosecuted, as will the infringement of copyright. All Rights are reserved. |
