Amanda Abizaid

Last updated

Amanda Jo Abizaid is an American Lebanese model, actor, and singer/songwriter best known for her vocal performance on the theme song of the USA Network/Sky One science fiction TV series The 4400 .

Contents

Early years

Amanda Jo Abizaid was born in Beirut, Lebanon to an American mother and a Lebanese father of partial Mexican descent. She traveled the Middle East and Europe with her family before the age of ten, when she moved with her mother and brother to the United States. With her four elder sisters, she formed a band and developed a talent for harmonies. Her first exposure to music was Middle Eastern music combined with the late 1970s American influences of Alice Cooper, Elton John, Crosby, Stills and Nash, and The Beatles.

After moving to the U.S., she lived in Poughkeepsie, New York until moving to Great Falls, Virginia for high school. She later attended the Corcoran School of Art in Georgetown and then transferred to the Catholic University of America to study drama and music, while pursuing a career in hairstyling. She dropped out of college to work as a runway model with designers such as Jacques Fath, Nina Ricci, Oscar de la Renta, Alberta Ferretti, Badgley Mischka, Chloé, and Bill Blass. She traveled to Paris and Germany and modeled for London designer Zandra Rhodes in the UK. Afterward, she returned to the U.S. to live in Miami, Florida, where she met musician/songwriter Shane Soloski in the late 1990s and decided to move to Los Angeles to form a band with him. [1]

Their first gig was an open mic at Molly Malone's where she met and played with Todd Sucherman (drummer for Styx). After several open mics around Los Angeles, she and Soloski formed a band called Blue which included musicians Eric Dover (guitarist for Alice Cooper), Ron Dziubla (guitarist/saxophonist for Ricky Martin), Brian Head (drummer for Foreigner), Mike Mennell (bassist for Tom Jones), and Taylor Mills (singer for Brian Wilson). They played a series of shows in Los Angeles at The Gig and The Mint and broke up in 2001 just before releasing their first album. She then recorded and performed as a backup vocalist for Jennifer Stills and as a backup vocalist for Kathleen Bird York (known for her Oscar-nominated song "In the Deep" from Crash ). Abizaid began recording vocal sessions for several TV shows with writers Stephen Phillips and Tim P. from Bosshouse Music, as well as two songs for the 2002 film Devious Beings. She was also the voice for Ally Sheedy and Charisma Carpenter on the TV show Strange Frequency (2001), singing a vocal recorded duet with Sebastian Bach. Due to the success of The 4400 , New York Post columnist Adam Buckman wrote on August 28, 2005, "I'd like to thank two singers — one named Sia and the other named Amanda Abizaid — for making TV all the more memorable this summer."[ citation needed ]

Solo years

Now an established artist in Los Angeles, Abizaid has performed as a solo artist releasing a single, two EPs, and one LP working with musicians Eric Dover, Ron Dziubla, Mike Mennell, Thom Gimbel (keyboardist/saxophonist for Foreigner), Brian Head, and Brian Tichy (drummer for Ozzy Osbourne).[ citation needed ] Abizaid has played shows at venues around the Los Angeles area. She played at the Indiegrrl festival in the Blue Ridge Mountains in 2012 and remains an avid supporter of women in music. She was on a compilation CD called Females on Fire.[ when? ][ citation needed ]

She has written and sang songs for several independent feature films, 3 Below, The 13th Alley , Dark Ascension, and wrote the theme song and starred in the short film Facing the Lion (directed, written, and edited by her husband Joe Plonsky). [2]

Discography

Albums:

EPs/Singles:

Related Research Articles

Massachusetts is a U.S. state in New England. The music of Massachusetts has developed actively since it was first colonized by Britain. The city of Boston is an especially large part of the state's present music scene, which includes several genres of rock, as well as classical, folk, and hip hop music.

Mindi Abair is an American saxophonist, vocalist, author, and National Trustee for the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, the organization that puts on the Grammy Awards show.

The Wrecking Crew (music) Loose collective of session musicians based in Los Angeles

The Wrecking Crew was a loose collective of Los Angeles-based session musicians whose services were employed for thousands of studio recordings in the 1960s and 1970s, including several hundred Top 40 hits. The musicians were not publicly recognized in their era, but were viewed with reverence by industry insiders. They are now considered one of the most successful and prolific session recording units in music history.

Carol Kaye is an American musician. She is one of the most prolific recorded bass guitarists in rock and pop music, playing on an estimated 10,000 recordings in a career spanning over 50 years.

Lynda Laurence American singer

Lynda Laurence is an American singer.

Cindy Blackman Santana American drummer

Cindy Blackman Santana, sometimes known as Cindy Blackman, is an American jazz and rock drummer. Blackman has recorded several jazz albums as a bandleader and has performed with Pharoah Sanders, Sonny Simmons, Ron Carter, Sam Rivers, Cassandra Wilson, Angela Bofill, Buckethead, Bill Laswell, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Henderson and Joss Stone.

Samantha Maloney American musician (born 1975)

Samantha Maloney is an American musician best known for playing in the bands Hole and Mötley Crüe. She has also performed live with Eagles of Death Metal and Peaches.

Ai Carina Uemura, known mononymously as Ai, is a Japanese-American singer-songwriter, rapper, record producer, spokeswoman, and actress.

Roger Joseph Manning Jr. is an American keyboardist, singer, and songwriter who co-founded the bands Jellyfish, the Moog Cookbook, and Imperial Drag. He has also spent several years as a member of Beck's backing band, contributed to several recordings by the band Air, and toured or recorded with acts such as Jay-Z, Blink 182, and Johnny Cash. In 2005, he released his first solo record, Solid State Warrior, followed with Robo-Sapiens, Catnip Dynamite (2008), and Glamping (2018). He is usually credited by his full name to avoid confusion with the folk musician Roger Manning.

Lung Leg were a Scottish indie band, formed in 1994 and disbanded in 1999. They were influenced by Post Punk, C86, riot grrrl and the Fire Engines.

Jackie Ward, better known as Robin Ward, is an American singer, regarded as a "one-hit wonder" of 1963 million-selling song "Wonderful Summer". However, using her real name she was highly accomplished and successful singing in groups. Ward's voice is heard in U.S. television series, motion pictures, advertisements, and pop records. She is one of the real singers of the hits attributed to The Partridge Family.

Garrison Starr Musical artist

Garrison Starr is a Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter/producer. Her major label debut, "18 Over Me" was released in 1997 (Geffen). Starr's shows have been described as "marrying pop smarts and Americana grit with a voice of remarkable power and clarity". Since that initial record, Starr has released over a dozen EPs and LPs while landing numerous placements on shows and movies like Grey's Anatomy, Pretty Little Liars, Nashville, Hart of Dixie, Switched at Birth, Rookie Blue, Army Wives, and Brothers & Sisters, as well as commercial placements that include Pandora, Virgin Mobile, McDonald's, and Fisher Price.

Fruit of Life is the debut album for American Alternative band Wild Colonials, released in 1994.

Lorez Alexandria Musical artist

Lorez Alexandria, born Dolorez Alexandria Turner was an American jazz singer, described as "one of the most gifted and underrated jazz singers of the twentieth century". She became established in the midwest before moving to Los Angeles in the mid-1960s. Jazz critics have compared her to Dinah Washington, Sarah Vaughan, Carmen McRae, and Ella Fitzgerald.

Wild Colonials are an American alternative rock band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1992 by Angela McCluskey (vocals), Shark (guitar/vocals/percussion), Paul Cantelon (violin/piano), Scott Roewe (multi-instrumentalist) and Ian Bernard (drums/percussion). After 1993 members included Thaddeus Corea and Jason Payne on drums/percussion and Skip Ward on bass.

Philadelphia musician Mike "Slo-Mo" Brenner is the veteran of many bands and has recorded tracks on over 100 CDs of both independent and major label artists.

Laura Jansen Dutch-American musician (born 1977)

Laura Jansen is a Dutch-American musician. Before gaining fame in the Netherlands, Jansen became a fixture in the constellation of artists associated with Los Angeles nightclub Hotel Café – a national launching pad for artists as Sara Bareilles, Priscilla Ahn and Joshua Radin. As a daughter of an American mother and Dutch father, Laura has been living in the United States for over 10 years.

Blood on the Saddle is an American country-punk band, though often referred to as a cowpunk band, from Los Angeles, California, United States. Greg Davis formed the band in early 1983 with the original line-up of Ron Botelho and Hermann Senac. Annette Zilinskas joined in the summer of 1983. They released three albums, one EP and songs on one compilation before that line-up broke up in 1987. Band leader Greg Davis has continued the band to present day, with one break to work with The Vandals and Candye Kane. Eventually the band recorded two more EPs and six more albums, getting three of them out officially, which were released in 1993, 1995, and 2001, respectively. A fourth album, The Mud, the Blood & the Beer, was recorded in 2008 and released to all digital platforms in 2020. A fifth album, True Blood, was recorded in 2013, and has since been put out in 2019 on all digital platforms.

Almost Home (Mariah Carey song) 2013 single by Mariah Carey

"Almost Home" is a song recorded by American singer and songwriter Mariah Carey. It is the main track from the 2013 Walt Disney Pictures film Oz the Great and Powerful. Commissioned by Disney, Simone Porter, Justin Gray, and Lindsey Ray wrote the bulk of the record. When Carey signed on to sing the song, she and Stargate's Tor Erik Hermansen and Mikkel Eriksen would later change it a bit and ultimately, complete it. On February 6, 2013, it was announced that Mariah Carey had recorded the song for the Disney film with production team Stargate, and that it would be released through digital download on February 19, 2013.

References

  1. ↑ "MP3 Amanda Abizaid - The Great Plan Vol. l". Tradebit. Retrieved June 21, 2013.
  2. ↑ Bauer, Cindy. "Amanda Abizaid!". Interviews By Cindy. Archived from the original on June 24, 2013. Retrieved June 21, 2013.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.