Riveting Riffs Magazine Pop AC and Dance Section

POP - Crossover

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Front Page Interview Archive

Interview with Lisa Dondlinger

You would be hard-pressed to find an iconic music figure with whom violinist, arranger, composer and singer Lisa Dondlinger has not performed with and / or recorded with during the course of her career. To name drop for a moment, Lisa Dondlinger has performed and / or recorded with Lady Gaga, John Legend, Andrea Bocelli, Beyoncé, Stevie Wonder, Rihanna and Tony Bennett. That is barely scratching the surface of her musical resume. Perhaps you have seen her appear as a soloist or concertmaster on the Grammy Awards, American Idol, The American Music Awards, The Voice, The Ellen Show, The Tonight Show or The Academy Awards, Dancing with the Stars, The Emmy Awards and the Latin Grammy Awards.

The former Miss America beauty pageant contestant who represented the state of Iowa (Miss Iowa) sat down with Riveting Riffs Magazine recently to talk about her current album Movies & The Masters, as well as her career.

In talking about her album Dondlinger says, “I have always heard melodies together in my head and I know that sounds really weird, but I always hear things that lend themselves to something else. One of the things on the album that I am the most proud of and sounds the most weird is I was hearing Stravinsky’s Firebird Suite and especially two of the movements Infernal Dance (Of King Kashchei) and the Finale. I was trying to figure out what could go with them? What would sound really cool with them? The thing I came up with was Jai Ho from Slumdog Millionaire. It is definitely a Pop tune (originally recorded for the movie by Sukhvinder Singh, Mahalaxmi Iyer and Vijay Prakash). The Pussycat Dolls recorded it Read More

Mindi Abair Interview

“We always joke that our band is a sport. Some people just stand there and play or play quietly or play nice little Jazz, but with what we do we are dripping wet by the second song. It is a sport and we all believe that you are supposed to give a pound of flesh and that you are supposed to give a piece of your soul every night to (your audience) That is the deal that you make when you step on stage. I think it is good for us. It is a great catharsis. I don’t need therapy, because I have a band (she laughs) and an audience,” says singer, songwriter and saxophonist Mindi Abair, while talking about her band Mindi Abair and the Boneshakers.

Abair’s comments were part of a conversation when talking about the song “Whose Going to Save My Soul?” from the new album No Good Deed released on June 28 (2019).

About the song she says, “It is a hard song to sing, because you have to give your all. It is one of those songs that you can’t pretend. Every ounce of your being has to emote. This will be one of the songs in the set that takes it out of us.”

Mindi Abair both sings and plays a lengthy saxophone solo during “Whose Going to Save My Soul?” and we wondered how much that is going to sap her energy.

“I think that it is really helpful to have songs that I am singing and then songs that I am playing sax on (both for the same song). It breaks it up. Sometimes if you are just playing Read More

Hayley Sales - "Like Never Before"

Rarely in this century has an individual come along who possesses the ability to equally amaze others with her acting and her musical talent to the degree that American / Canadian Hayley Sales does. It has been an incredibly busy late summer and early fall for the affable Hayley Sales, as she recorded one album, is recording another, shot a film and a television episode and in the midst of all that she also got married.

Sales, took time out from her busy schedule to sit down with Riveting Riffs Magazine to discuss at length her album Slightly Out of Tune, which will be released in the spring of 2019 (She has posted some songs on YouTube), her twin careers and to share a little bit about her life.

The self-described romantic co-produced her album (and yes she really does know her way around a recording studio) with her father Richard Sales, known for his work as a producer and sound engineer with the Grateful Dead, The Ramones and Miles Davis. The songs on Slightly Out of Tune range from those that invite the listener to dance, such as the opening track “I Don’t Believe,” and the retro infused “Waiting It Out,” backed by a stellar horn section and the soulful “Out of Tune,” to her romantic love letter “Like Never Before,” co-written with Sharon Stone.

Often punctuating our conversation with light laughter Hayley Sales talks about her musical influences, “I have always been in love with Judy Garland who was my first influence. When I was Read More

Interview with Brad Cole

When you listen to Brad Cole speak, the casual way in which he talks about his own accomplishments and the gratitude that he expresses would lead the uniformed to conclude that he is just a guy trying to find his way in the music world. That is unless, you already know enough about Cole to ask him about being the musical director and keyboardist for Phil Collins for twenty-eight years or his work as a musician, sound engineer, arranger and producer with a star studded array of artists that includes Paula Abdul, Gino Vanelli, Dave Koz, Michael Bolton, Darlene Koldenhoven, Rita Coolidge, Brenda Russell, Peabo Bryson, Al Jarreau and the late Natalie Cole, as well as numerous others. Brad Cole who as we write this is in the midst of a North American tour with Phil Collins, took time out recently just prior to his leaving for the tour, to talk about his career.

Brad Cole grew up in a suburb of Philadelphia and despite the fact it was a burgeoning scene for Doo Wop, Pop Music and Rhythm and Blues in the late 1950s and throughout much of the 1960s, Cole was drawn to music far removed from what most people his age were listening to at the time.

“That is a somewhat amusing part of it, because when I was a kid after a certain time I had no interest at all in listening to AM radio and bubble gum Pop music. Even The Beatles and stuff I became a real snob about. I was a Jazz purist and a Classical purist and I was that way for much of the rest of high school. By the time The Beatles’ Abbey Road came out, which was 1969 that is when I started getting reacquainted with mainstream Pop and Rock. I also Read More

Fiona Joy Hawkins Interview

Fiona Joy Hawkins is the owner of Q Pop Up Gallery in Australia, but you know her best as being an amazing Neo Classical / New Age and Contemporary Instrumental Music, pianist and composer, who doubles as a member of the ensemble FLOW and in collaboration with musician (also a member of FLOW) and producer Will Ackerman co-produced an award winning debut album for American artist Jennifer DeFrayne. Fiona Joy, as she is sometimes referred to is also a visual artist and some of her own paintings are featured in the gallery.

Elegant while seated in front of her piano, vivacious while doing this Skype interview and giving us a tour of her gallery and down to earth enough to have become the mother to numerous orphaned Joeys (baby kangaroos), one immediately recognizes the deep connection between nature and her music.

“The love for nature and animals has always been there from when I was a little girl. I used to bring home strays all of the time. I would land at home with a cat or a dog. I would find a dog with a broken leg or a bird with a broken wing or that was starving to death. I have always had a lot of animals. When my kids were growing up I was a wildlife information and rescue officer. I took some courses about kangaroos, so I was able to hand raise joeys (baby kangaroos). When the mother is killed and the joey gets thrown from the pouch someone has to raise it and that is something that I did. It was a volunteer job, but I loved it, because I love animals,” Read More

Christmastime Is Here

On Thanksgiving day you will hear laughter in the background and it will continue throughout the holiday season and continue until Christmas. It is not the ghost of Christmas Past, Present or Future, but it may very well be the ghost of singer, composer, musician, arranger and actress Charleene Closshey. I am going to borrow a sentence from Charles Dickens and with artistic license change Scrooge’s name and the gender, “And it was always said of her, that she knew how to keep Christmas well, if any woman (or man) alive possessed the knowledge.”

Christmastime Is Here is the title of Charleene Closshey’s brand new album and yes you have heard most of these songs before, but you have not heard them this way. Charleene Closshey’s tremendous musical gifts as an arranger and composer are in the forefront, as she weaves together lyrics and melodies from different songs. The incredible beauty of the Bulgarian choirs (including a boys choir) from Sofia, Bulgaria and the accompanying orchestra recorded at Four for Music studios in Sofia. Masterful conducting by Lyubomir Denev, Jr. (orchestra), adult choir (George Elenkov) and boys choir by Dr. Adrianna Blagoeva.

The album was produced by six time Grammy Award winner, American Brent Maher (As a producer: The Judds, Ike and Tina Turner, The 5 th Dimension, Tanya Tucker, Shelby Lynne, Jo Dee Messina) and we have not even talked about his six times being awarded Song of the Year by the Academy of Read More

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