Alexa Woodward | |
---|---|
Born | Alabama, United States |
Genres | Indie/folk |
Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, lawyer (previously) |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, banjo, guitar |
Labels | Constant Clip |
Website | Alexawoodward.org |
Alexa Woodward is an American indie/folk singer and songwriter.
Alexa Woodward was born in the state of Alabama, but later on moved with her family to be raised in South Carolina and Virginia. She attended college at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts and was a law student for three years in New York City. She made the transition into music after finding an old banjo her father, documentary film maker Stan Woodward, had bought but had never taken much interest in. In an interview, she spoke of the moment of inspiration saying (quote), "It really wasn't until I found the banjo that I got serious about it. I was home one Christmas and I found this banjo under the bed. I just started playing it and fell in love with it." The banjo's make was a Gibson from the early 1960s, and Woodward describes it as her main instrument she writes (her music) on "exclusively".
The early roots of Woodward's career began in Boston, where she performed her first shows in Cambridge and Somerville. However, personal issues conflicting her new music career led to her moving to New York and applying for law school there. After settling down in a community house in Manhattan, she started performing at small-time gigs around town. The "Sidewalk Cafe" restaurant/bar was where she frequented and participated in the open mic nights held there. She later ventured out to perform at other public venues such as Banjo Jim's, the American Folk Art Museum, Pete's Candy Store, and The Living Room.
After completing a year of law school, Woodward headed down south to perform the Kerrville Folk Festival in the Texas hill country. It was at that time she decided that she would make a full career out of her music. At the festival, Woodward met with other music artists who now comprise the record label Constant Clip Records, and she continues to collaborate them in producing new albums and singles to this day.
Woodward's very first studio album, "Speck," was released in the spring of 2009 through Constant Clip Records.
She set out on her first tour a day after graduating from law school. It was a three-month-long journey across the United States with three friends and musical comrades. The tour covered New York, Texas and Seattle.
Since the release of "Speck", she has performed across the United States and in other countries such as Denmark, Germany, France, and Switzerland. In 2009, she signed on to YNM management, and has performed on radio shows (NPR, college radio, and Adult Album Alternative stations), for video blogs, and festivals (SXSW, Old Songs Festival, and the Oregon Country Fair).
Woodward's music has been played by over 200 college radio stations in the United States and Canada. Her songs have been featured on season six of Fox's, "So You Think You Can Dance" as well as on national television in Australia. The title track of her album, "Speck", is on the soundtrack for The Fat Boy Chronicles, a feature film by Tin Roof Films. Her song "Secrets" is in the closing credits of the Twilight (film) series documentary "Twilight in Forks". "Secrets" has also been featured on a number of commercials for the National Geographic channel.
Official albums released | Year |
---|---|
1) Speck | 2008 |
2) An Early Dream | 2009 |
3) It's a Good Life, Honey, If You Don't Grow Weary | 2012 |
4) Might Nigh | 2014 |
5) Voyager | 2021 |
Angela Maria "Ani" DiFranco is an American-Canadian singer-songwriter. She has released more than 20 albums. DiFranco's music has been classified as folk rock and alternative rock, although it has additional influences from punk, funk, hip hop and jazz. She has released all her albums on her own record label, Righteous Babe.
Judith Marjorie Collins is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning seven decades. An Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, she is known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records, for her social activism, and for the clarity of her voice. Her discography consists of 36 studio albums, nine live albums, numerous compilation albums, four holiday albums, and 21 singles.
Gillian Howard Welch is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, bluegrass, country and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms."
Laura Pauline Veirs is an American singer-songwriter based out of Portland, Oregon. She is known for her folk/alternative country records and live performances as well as her collaboration with Neko Case and k.d. lang on the case/lang/veirs project. Veirs has written a children's book and hosts a podcast about parenting and performing.
Old Crow Medicine Show is an Americana string band based in Nashville, Tennessee, that has been recording since 1998. They were inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on September 17, 2013. Their ninth album, Remedy, released in 2014, won the Grammy Award for Best Folk Album. The group's music has been called old-time, folk, and alternative country. Along with original songs, the band performs many pre-World War II blues and folk songs.
Bascom Lamar Lunsford was a folklorist, performer of traditional Appalachian music, and lawyer from western North Carolina. He was often known by the nickname "Minstrel of the Appalachians."
Alison Brown is an American banjo player, guitarist, composer, and producer. She has won and has been nominated for several Grammy awards and is often compared to another banjo prodigy, Béla Fleck, for her unique style of playing. In her music, she blends bluegrass, jazz, Latin and Celtic influences.
Abigail Washburn is an American clawhammer banjo player and singer. She performs and records as a soloist, as well as with the old-time bands Uncle Earl and Sparrow Quartet, experimental group The Wu Force, and as a duo with her husband Béla Fleck.
The Mammals are a contemporary folk rock band based in the Hudson Valley area of New York, in the United States.
Kristin Andreassen is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, dancer, old time musician and educator. Currently based in Nashville, Tennessee, she started her music career as a professional clogger with Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble and in the early 2000s joined the folk bands Uncle Earl and Sometymes Why as a vocalist, dancer, songwriter, guitarist. She is known for using body percussion and dance in live performances.
Sheila Kay Adams is an American storyteller, author, and musician from the Sodom Laurel community in Madison County, North Carolina.
Jenn Lindsay is an American social scientist, adjunct professor of Sociology and Communications, documentary filmmaker, video journalist and singer-songwriter currently based in Rome, Italy. Her work focuses on the exploration of social diversity, community building, personal transformation, and social change movements.
Lily May Ledford was an American clawhammer banjo and fiddle player. After gaining regional radio fame in the late 1930s as head of the Coon Creek Girls, one of the first all-female string bands to appear on radio, Ledford went on to gain national renown as a solo artist during the American folk music revival of the 1960s. In 1985, she was awarded a National Heritage Fellowship.
Leah Flanagan is an Australian singer-songwriter from Darwin, Northern Territory, currently based in Sydney. She has released two albums and has toured through Australia with her music and as a part of festival ensembles. She has also appeared on the Australian TV shows Spicks & Specks, Faboriginal and RocKwiz.
Cynthia May Carver, known professionally as Cousin Emmy, was a banjo player, fiddler and country singer who was one of the pioneering solo female stars in the country music industry. Although hit records eluded her, she proved to be a major name in personal appearances and on radio in the 1940s and 50s. In the 1960s she gained a new audience on the folk music circuit. Her song "Ruby, Are You Mad at Your Man?" became a bluegrass standard after it was covered by the Osborne Brothers. She started out her career by playing with Frankie Moore's Log Cabin Boys. She influenced the playing of Grandpa Jones. She appeared in two films, Swing in the Saddle and The Second Greatest Sex.
Rhiannon Giddens is an American musician known for her eclectic folk music. She is a founding member of the country, blues, and old-time music band the Carolina Chocolate Drops, where she was the lead singer, fiddle player, and banjo player.
Suzanna Choffel is an American singer-songwriter and musician who has appeared on national television and in film. Known for her distinct voice and reggae-inspired guitar technique, her music has been described as "a unique sound equal parts Beat poetry, smoky soul grooves and indie-pop eccentricity."
William Currie Watson is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, banjo player, actor and founding member of Old Crow Medicine Show. His debut solo album Folk Singer, Vol. I, was released in May 2014; its follow-up Folksinger, Vol. 2 was released September 15, 2017 on Acony Records. He has appeared at the Newport Folk Festival and other major music festivals. He currently resides in the Woodland Hills district of Los Angeles.
Desislava Ivanova Doneva, known by her stage names Desi Slava or DESS, is a Bulgarian singer-songwriter and producer. She was born in Radnevo, Bulgaria. Her first stage appearances began at an early age, when she would win awards at festivals for children. Shortly afterwards, she became the soloist of "Radnevo" orchestra. This led to her being noticed by one of the most famous Bulgarian folklore singers of all time – Valkana Stoyanova, who took her under her wing, coached her and declared Desislava as her possible music heir.
Kaia Kater is a Canadian singer-songwriter, guitar, piano and banjo player.