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Sunday, 6 December, 2009 11:00 AM
CMA New Artist Spotlight: 'Veronica
Bellestrini'
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Photo
by Glenn Sweitzer/Fresh Film & Design
Veronica
Ballestrini |
| By
Bob Doerschuk |
| ©
2009 CMA Close Up News Service |
The widening appeal
of Country Music is exemplified in the music of Veronica Ballestrini.
Born in Waterford, Conn., this young artist, still in her teens,
exemplifies the interplay between traditional and modern musical
values, not to mention the willingness to speak directly to her
peers, that Taylor Swift pioneered and others have embraced.
The candor of this approach
is implied by the title of her TimBob Records debut album, What
I’m All About. Whether on the two songs she wrote on
her own, her four co-writes or the rest of these 11 tracks, Ballestrini
communicates both innocence and a willingness to drink deep from
the wells of life. On her first single, “Amazing,” which
she wrote with her producer Cliff Downs, she spins a tale that begins
with being stood up and ends with a confession of helpless infatuation
— and yet makes it sound like there’s joy even in heartbreak,
or any experience for that matter.
In the five short years
between her first efforts to play guitar and her gutsy move to Nashville
at 18, Ballestrini has achieved a sound original enough to draw
more than 12 million page views on her MySpace page. It mixes Carole
King’s streetwise romanticism (“Don’t Say,”
another co-write with Downs), acoustic folk arrangement (“Destiny,”
which she penned on her own), echoes of late-period Beatles ballad
texture (“Bullet Life,” by Gary Burr and Trey Bruce)
and bits of Swift in the rhythm of her lyrics and occasional banjo-meets-backbeat
grooves (“Small Town Girl”). That one is a cover, by
Tommy Lee Snyder and Dennis Banka, but when Ballestrini affirms
on the chorus that “it’s a great big world, waitin’
on a small town girl,” the message clearly comes straight
from her heart.
IN HER OWN WORDS
Q&A
MUSICAL HERO
“Keith Urban.”
BOOKS ON YOUR NIGHTSTAND
“The Bible and Gossip Girl.”
MOMENT YOU WISH YOU
COULD RELIVE
“All-star softball game in Syracuse, N.Y., summer 2006.”
PET PEEVE
“When you smile at someone and they don’t smile back.”
PHRASE YOU SAY OVER
AND OVER
“It’s OK. Everything happens for a reason.”
SONG YOU’D
SECRETLY LIKE TO COVER
“‘Bleeding Love’ by Leona Lewis.”
CDs IN YOUR STEREO
“Keith Urban, Jason Aldean, Casting Crowns.”
SONG YOU SING IN
THE SHOWER
“Any song that is on my mind that day.”
WHAT PEOPLE WILL
SAY ABOUT YOU IN 50 YEARS
“That I was real and true to myself, and that I inspired and
helped people with my music.”
On the Web: www.VeronicaBallestrini.net
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