Valentine’s Day has always been a special day to me. Maybe kind of because my birthday is the day after Valentine’s, I have felt a special affinity with a day to celebrate LOVE. I always thought it would be neat to release an album-á for Valentine’s Day. I know lots of artists do Holiday CD’s at Christmastime, and that’s great, but I thought it would be nice to do an album of Love songs to get folks in the mood for Valentine’s.
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Sometime around October of last year, I was looking at a 2012 calendar and noticed that February 14 would fall on a Tuesday. Since Tuesday is the standard release day for albums here in the U.S., I realized that this might be my only chance in several years to actually release an album ON Valentine’s Day. Fortunately, I already had just the project in mind.
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Back in 2009, my friend Marianne Bessy and I started collaborating on writing a handful of songs in French. Not only is Marianne a talented writer, she is also a native of France and an assistant professor of French at Furman University, here in Greenville, SC. She was the perfect person to embark on this project with me. I know many of you are probably wondering “WHY” I would want to record in French. The answer is: I love the French language; I think it is so beautiful. The words flow into one another with a musicality that begs to be sung. I wanted to make this album to celebrate the beauty of that. Singing in another language is such a pleasure. It’s like a different flavor.-á Imagine if all you ever ate was spaghetti, wouldn’t you want some tacos or sushi or a steak sometime? To me, language is like that. I think that here in America, we sometimes deny ourselves the joy of experiencing other languages. For me, trying to communicate my ideas in French seemed to open up a whole other part of my brain. It made me think of different ways I could have expressed myself in English. I think and I hope it will make me a better writer overall, in the long run. And I also felt that the combination of Southern-Americana style music with the lovely French language would be an interesting and unexpected idea.
But it was already late in the year and we had to scramble to make my release date goal. With Marianne’s help. I practiced the songs every day before heading into the studio, to try to get the pronunciation right. I had lots of aid from some great folks who worked very hard with me on this project to get it done on time, especially Brandon Turner and Matthew Knights Williams here in SC, David Henry in Nashville and Eva Crawford, who turned out a beautiful package design, practically overnight.
And we did it! I am so very proud of this project as it represents something I would have never thought I would be able to do. A whole album of original love songs, all in French, titled “Mon secret” (My Secret). And the “Secret” is that I really am a sentimental and romantic person, although I try to keep that part of myself hidden because I feel sheepish about it. Singing in French gives me an opportunity to share things about myself that I would probably be embarrassed to say in a language my parents could understand! 😉 This is probably my most personal and intimate album, overall.
“Mon secret” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com and will be up on CDBaby shortly. If you order now on Amazon, you will get the CD shipped in advance so you will receive it in time for Valentine’s Day! I hope it will make a great Valentine for you or gift for your Valentine.
And so you won’t be in the dark about the lyrics, I also have English translations of all the songs posted and available for free download on the homepage of my website-á
Here is the Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Mon-secret-Angela-Easterling/dp/B006ZCGWMM
I also have two of the songs posted online on Youtube. Click on the links to check them out!
“Mon secret” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1lKu5i8Jjc
“La mer” (The Sea) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-nY01_xsQwI
Don’t forget to reserve your FREE tickets to our full band CD Release show at the Mauldin Cultural Center, February 17!
I hope you will enjoy this new CD and that you will have a wonderful Valentine’s Day! That would be the best birthday present for me.
XO,
Angela
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