Victoria Vox | |
---|---|
![]() Victoria Vox in 2015 | |
Background information | |
Birth name | Victoria Davitt |
Born | Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, US | October 17, 1978
Genres | Pop, jazz, singer-songwriter, chanson |
Occupation(s) | Singer, songwriter |
Instrument(s) | Vocals, ukulele, guitar, mouth trumpet, trumpet |
Years active | 1999–present |
Labels | OBUS Music (independent) |
Website | victoriavox |
Victoria Davitt (born October 17, 1978), better known by stage name Victoria Vox, is a singer, songwriter and musician specialising in the ukulele. A native of Green Bay, Wisconsin, [1] Vox now resides in Costa Mesa, California when not on tour.
The Baltimore Sun notes her influences as including The Cranberries, Madonna, Cyndi Lauper, Patty Griffin, Sting, and Peter Gabriel. [2] Other influences include Laurie Anderson and Chet Baker.
At age 16, Vox spent a year living in France, living with a French family and becoming fluent in the French language. She began playing the guitar at age 17, a year before entering the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts., [3] where she lived in the same dorm as singer-songwriter John Mayer who said he wrote the song Victoria from his 1999 EP Inside Wants Out about her. [4] While at Berklee, she recorded her first record collaboration, performing with a band in Victoria and the Ultra Pink Bicycle Incident. In 2000, she graduated with honors from the Berklee College of Music with a degree in songwriting. [5] After her graduation, she moved briefly to Nashville, Tennessee. Shortly after, she moved to England where she released an acoustic record of emotional material entitled Still.
After moving back to Green Bay in 2003, she committed herself to a career as a professional musician and in 2004 formed a group called Tres Femmes with singer/songwriters Kellie Lin Knott of Minneapolis and Stolie of Chicago. They released a self-titled acoustic cd and toured nationally. [6] Vox began to add bass and ukulele to the group's music and in 2004 she recorded In Between, an acoustic EP that began to experiment with more pop sounds than her previous work. Following this release, the ukulele became her primary instrument and fans requested an album focusing on the uke. [6] In 2006, after moving from Green Bay to Baltimore, Maryland, she released her first album of ukulele music through Obus Records. The album was entitled Victoria Vox and Her Jumping Flea [7] because "jumping flea" is the literal translation of the Hawaiian word "ukulele". Though her professional, performance repertoire contains little traditional Hawaiian ukulele music, with the 2008 release of Chameleon, Vox gained renown for her use of the ukulele with pop music. [8] Vox is featured in a short segment in the extras on the DVD release of Mighty Uke: The Amazing Comeback of a Musical Underdog, a 2010 documentary on the ukulele.
Victoria Vox has toured the US, [9] and plays over 125 performance dates annually, [10] including ukulele festivals across the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Italy, France, and England. She has been featured on NPR, and her song "America" from Jumping Flea was featured on the A&E show Random 1 .
Vox was the runner-up in the International Acoustic Music Awards for 'My Darlin' Beau' (Jumping Flea), and later won First place for 'C'est Noyé' ("Chameleon") in the same competition. She has been profiled in Relix magazine's "On the Verge: 5 Artists You Should Know" section. [11]
In December 2009, Victoria Vox performed mouth trumpet in the "Meal or No Meal" segment on The Jay Leno Show . After being discovered by producers on YouTube.com, she auditioned over the phone, performing Lady Gaga's "Poker Face". For The Jay Leno Show, Vox performed a cover of Europe's "The Final Countdown" despite her own preference for her original music. Vox was awarded a gift certificate for eight to the Japanese restaurant Benihana for her performance in the segment, which included a solo performance of the "mouth trumpet" which she produces by singing through slightly parted lips, on the right side of her mouth. [12]
Sony BMG and Austrian artist Valerie Sajdik recorded "Noyé" ("C'est Noyé" penned by Victoria Vox) on her 2010 release, Ich Bin Du Bist.
Other recent awards (2010–12) include six Washington Area Music Awards (Wammies) (for Folk – Contemporary Vocalist, Contemporary Album of the Year, and Fan Favorite) and the people's vote for the "Vox Pop" award for Adult Contemporary Album of the Year (Exact Change) in 10th Annual Independent Music Awards. [13] She is also a member of 1% for the Planet.
Vox married musician Jack Maher in 2016 and the two perform as Jack & the Vox. Their honeymoon was spent on a tour of Belgium, Denmark, France, Great Britain and Ireland where they participated in the Grand Northern Ukulele Festival.
While on tour in Hawaii in 2006, Vox was offered an endorsement with KoAloha Ukuleles of Honolulu, Hawaii. [14] She later became non-exclusive and accepted sponsorships by Mya-Moe Ukuleles and Petros. [15] In 2017, Vox signed an exclusive ukulele sponsorship with Kala Brand Music Ukulele Company, based in Petaluma, California (USA). Since 2020, Vox is again non-exclusive and plays Kala, Mya-Moe, Petros, Romero Creations, and Motu.
The ukulele, also called a uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings.
The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Styles like slack-key guitar are well known worldwide, while Hawaiian-tinged music is a frequent part of Hollywood soundtracks. Hawaii also made a contribution to country music with the introduction of the steel guitar. In addition, the music which began to be played by Puerto Ricans in Hawaii in the early 1900s is called cachi cachi music, on the islands of Hawaii.
Jake Shimabukuro is a Hawaiian ukulele virtuoso and composer known for his fast and complex finger work. His music combines elements of jazz, blues, funk, rock, bluegrass, classical, folk, and flamenco. Shimabukuro has written numerous original compositions, including the entire soundtracks to two Japanese films, Hula Girls (2007) and Sideways (2009), the Japanese remake of the same name.
Gregory A. Hawkes is an American musician who is best known as the keyboardist and founding member of the American new wave band The Cars. Hawkes is credited with helping popularize new wave and synth-pop in American popular music as a member of The Cars. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest keyboardists of all time.
The Langley Ukulele Ensemble is a ukulele ensemble from Langley, British Columbia in Canada. The ensemble is internationally renowned and considered to be one of the top ukulele performing ensembles in the world. They were prominently featured in the 2008 award-winning document film, Mighty Uke. The group is composed of 20 musicians, aged twelve to eighteen years, who perform 50-80 concerts a year. The group was originated in 1981 by Peter Loungo using the J. Chalmers Doane's musical program in the 1970s that reached over 50,000 students across Canada and the United States. They have performed in Canada, Florida, Texas, California, Nevada, the Pacific Northwest, Japan and Hawaii. The ensemble was named Langley's Entertainer of the Year for 2005, and Musical Director Peter Luongo was named Langley's Leader of the Year for that same year.
Del Rey is an American blues singer and guitarist. Rey specializes in blues and jazz from 1900 to 1950. She developed a Women in American Music concert/lecture series to provide an historical and cultural look at the contribution of women to music in the early 20th century. She is recognized for her syncopated style of guitar and intricate finger picking.
Julia Nunes is an American singer-songwriter from Fairport, New York. Her career has progressed online through her videos of pop songs on YouTube, in which she sings harmony with herself and plays acoustic instruments, primarily the ukulele, guitar, melodica, and piano.
John Robert King (John) (October 13, 1953 – April 3, 2009) was a ukulele player known for his interpretation of classical music.
Molly Lewis is an American musician who is known for her ukulele playing and who rose to prominence on the Internet. She plays both covers and original songs. Her original music consists of comedic songs that deal with relevant pop culture topics. She is currently signed with DFTBA Records through which she released her first EP I Made You A CD... But I Eated It.
Gerald Ross is a musician specializing in American Roots Music – Swing, Early Jazz, Western Swing, Hawaiian, Ragtime and Blues. Playing the guitar, lap steel guitar and ukulele he has performed throughout the USA and Europe and has recorded seven solo CDs. Ross currently tours as a solo act performing and teaching ukulele and steel guitar at festivals and music camps.
Rebecca Ann Loebe is an American musician, singer-songwriter, and record producer. She has performed and toured with such recording artists as Shawn Colvin, The Civil Wars, Gregory Alan Isakov, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Ellis Paul amongst others. In 2011 she made her international broadcast television debut on The Voice . In addition to being a solo singer she is a founding member of Austin-based band Nobody's Girl.
James Hill is a Canadian classically trained musician who has focused on the ukulele, both as his primary instrument and as a method of music instruction for school children. He earned a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of British Columbia.
Lyle Joseph Ritz was an American musician, known for his work on ukulele and bass. His early career in jazz as a ukulele player made him a key part of the Hawaii music scene in the 1950s. By the 1960s, he had begun working as a session musician, more often on double bass or electric bass guitar. His prominence in the Los Angeles session scene made him a part of the Wrecking Crew, an informal group of well-used Los Angeles-based musicians. Ritz contributed to many American pop hits from the mid 1960s to the early 1980s. Starting in the mid-1980s, a rediscovery of his earlier ukulele work led to him becoming a fixture in live festivals, and a revival of his interest in playing the ukulele. He was inducted to both the Ukulele Hall of Fame Museum and the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum in 2007.
Jim Beloff is an American musician. He is a leading proponent of the ukulele. After working in the music industry in Los Angeles, he discovered the ukulele and became an advocate of the instrument. He established Flea Market Music, publisher of the Jumpin' Jim's ukulele songbook series. Beloff's songbooks and instructional books, DVDs and promotion and marketing of his family's Fluke and Flea ukuleles have contributed to the popularity of the instrument. He is also a singer-songwriter and has recorded several solo CDs as well as two with his wife, Liz.
J. Chalmers Doane is a Canadian educator and musician who spearheaded the use of the ukulele for music instruction in the Canadian school systems.
Mighty Uke: The Amazing Comeback of a Musical Underdog is a documentary film about the ukulele. It combines graphics, photographs, interviews and performance footage to tell the story of the ukulele and its recent resurgence in popularity.
Anne Janelle is a classically trained Canadian musician who has focused on the cello.
Flea Market Music is an American company which publishes and sells ukulele-related books and music.
Zoë Bestel is a Scottish singer-songwriter, who describes her music as Nu-Folk. She started learning the Ukulele in 2011 and released her first EP in 2012. Bestel has released two albums, been nominated for the Scottish Alternative Music Awards under the Best Acoustic category and supported artists such as Nathan Connolly of Snow Patrol, Emily Smith, The Paul McKenna Band, The Peatbog Faeries, Erin Rae, Chris Wood, Paul Brady, Steve Tilston and Bella Hardy.
Brittni Paiva is an American musician, songwriter, and music producer. She is best known for playing the ukulele and has won several Na Hoku Hanohano Awards, including Most Promising Artist of the Year for her album, Brittni x 3, which she won at fifteen years old in 2005. She has performed with Carlos Santana and her 2012 album release, Tell U What, features artists Michael McDonald, and Chuck Findley, among others.