Stephanie Nilles will be headlining at Dick’s Den on January 20th
Stephanie Nilles is a Bad Ass. Not only do I respect and enjoy her talent and creativity, but I admire her for being fearless in the way she lives her life and pursues her art. She/her music has been described as, “Ella Fitzgerald beating the shit out of Regina Spektor”.
She will be headlining at Dick’s Den on January 20th as part of a special night I’m producing featuring three other local singer/songwriters including Heidi Howes (my little sister), Andy Shaw, and Jason Quicksall. They will each be backed by myself and members of my “Dangerous Band”, i.e. Cedric Easton (drums) and Hamilton Hardin (keys/bass).
She came to my Creative Strings Workshop three years ago as the only pianist among tons of string players, eager to make the switch from classical-music-only to doing some-kind-of-creative-music. I’ve been there and I know how scary it is for a classical musician to jump into doing something different. Some players dip toes in the waters of folk styles, jazz, blues, etc… which is still frightening as it is, but
Stephanie then started writing her own songs and singing them- very gutsy…
What’s more, and I preach to all the players how important it is, if they want to pursue a “creative music career” to take the business into their own hands-something like “independent business begets independent music”, Stephanie followed through on this.
In fact, she WAY-OUTDID-ME on that front, basically living out of her van for the last couple of years, scheduling tours constantly from the road. She’ll play anywhere and she’ll sleep under a bridge if she has to. Girl’s got guts. On top of all this, there’s no hiding in her songs. (I usually don’t notice lyrics, but hers get all in my face). She sings what she means and she doesn’t stutter. I like someone who says what they got’s to say. Mad Props to you Stephanie. You are the shit!
