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FYI

Tami Neilson: Manitoba Sunrise At Motel 6

Now a major star in her adopted homeland of New Zealand, the Canadian-raised roots singer/songwriter previews a new album with a killer old-school country ballad that'll hit your tear ducts.

Tami Neilson: Manitoba Sunrise At Motel 6

By Kerry Doole

Tami Neilson: "Manitoba Sunrise At Motel 6" (Outside Music): Now a major star in her adopted homeland of New Zealand, this Canadian-raised roots singer/songwriter is deservedly beginning to have an international impact.


Her next album, Sassafrass! , comes out on June 1, and the first single, "Stay Outta My Business," was a big and brassy R&B romp. Neilson, a stylistic chameleon, returns to her country roots for this second single. A real album highlight, "Manitoba Sunrise At Motel 6" finds her channelling her inner Patsy Cline, delivering a tear-jerking ballad in emotionally convincing fashion.

In a recent FB post, she recalls the origins of the song: "It was a freezing cold February morning in the middle of a cross-Canada winter tour. I was missing my boys terribly and I took a photo of the sunrise upon waking, captioning it with 'Manitoba Sunrise from Motel 6,' and immediately began the lyrics. They sat in my notebook for months until the day I heard the news of Glen Campbell’s death.

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"I was so saddened and felt like I’d somehow lost a part of my childhood, another part of my father, who had died two years earlier. I picked up my guitar and wrote the music and melody in homage to him, a way to express my sadness, celebrate his legacy of music and thank him in my own little way."

Given the Canadian setting, you'd think this would be a natural fit for country radio here, but the sound may well be too old-school to belong on banal current playlists (the video did get a premiere on Rolling Stone Country). Steel and strings are employed judiciously, but Neilson's force of nature voice rightfully holds centre stage. The track showcases her strengths as a songwriter too, via lines like "lonesome prairie wind, won't you blow me home again").

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Neilson plays the Mariposa festival (July 6-8), followed by Ontario shows in Gravenhurst, Burnstown, and Corbyville. Details here

Links

Artist website 

Facebook 

Twitter 

YouTube 

Label Publicity: Stephanie Hardman  stephanie@outside-music.com

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Lou Christie
Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

Lou Christie

FYI

Obituaries: '60s Pop Idol Lou Christie Passes Away at 82

This week we also acknowledge the passing of New York City rock photographer Marcia Resnick, reggae star Leroy Gibbons and South African jazz drummer Louis Moholo.

Lou Christie (Lugee Alfredo Giovanni Sacco), one of the most beloved teen pop idols of the 1960s and the voice and songwriter behind Billboard Hot 100-topper “Lightnin’ Strikes,” died on June 18, after a long illness. He was 82 years old.

ABillboard obituary reports that the Pennsylvania-born singer "Christie soared to fame in the early ’60s with hits such as 'The Gypsy Cried' and 'Two Faces Have I,' the latter of which reached No. 6 on the Hot 100 in 1963. The star’s biggest hit came three years later, when 'Lightnin’ Strikes' ascended to the chart’s summit, but he would still score a top 10 smash years later in 1969 with 'I’m Gonna Make You Mine.'"

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