Described as a sassy singer, virtuoso guitarist and beguiling songwriter with an imposing stage presence, Nashville-based Melissa Greener is the next artist to visit Acoustic Avenue.
Greener began singing at a very early age and began taking her music on tour as early as she could.
Greener taught in Jingdezhen, China, where she began writing songs for what would become her first album.
Four albums later she is making her debut in Salmon Arm. With an original blend of quirky lyrics and distinctive voice, Greener describes herself as a folk crooner.
Whether fronting her all girl folk-rock power-trio, duo, or solo-electric, she is at once magnetic, delicate, fierce and tender. Her voice lulls and soothes all the while soaring over the cinematic effects of a sometimes raucous electric hollow-body guitar.
At the root of Greener’s expansive sound are her songs which summon their truth from mountain ranges, holy places, deserts, oceans and forests, or the lonely stretch of blacktop from Old Route 66, to the Golden Gate, to the Tappan Zee.
Musically, Greener’s influences are as vast as the high desert plains before there were borders, before the west was won.
Greener was first enamoured with the jazz vocalists that crooned on late night radio. Beside those standard torch balladeers, other early inspirations were the Laurel Canyon and Greenwich Village songwriter scenes of the 1960s and ‘70s, and then later, Texas poet-writers like David Rodriguez, Townes Van Zandt and Lucinda Williams.
Years living in Austin left a permanent mark on Greener – in psyche and in song – so much so that Guy Clark took her under his wing as a co-writer in the last years of his life. A combined love of modernist poetry, bohemia, and the modal D tuning on her guitar gives Greener her unique approach.
Greener tours throughout North America and Europe. She sings truths she’s come to believe in – stretching some, in the name of art. She performs at 7:30 p.m. Saturday, May 13 at The Handmade Shoppe, 2090 10th Ave. SW in the Old Canadian Tire. Tickets are available online at acousticavenue.tickit.ca or at Acorn Music. Tickets can also be reserved by calling 778-489-5048.
