Holly O'reilly

Sign Up On Holly's Mailing List And Get Show Dates Touring Updates And Much Much More Go To Http //www.Hollyoreilly.Com. All Info Taken From Artists Sonicbids Page Http //www.Sonicbids.Com/HollyFigueroaOReilly ** HOLLY FIGUEROA O'REILLY "One Of Modern Folk's Criminally Ignored And Unjustly Under Appreciated Artists." Apple Itunes Essentials "I Love Your Sound. Great Work." Brandi Carlisle "Excellent Songs Amazing Voice." John Mayer FAST FACTS Leonard Cohen Cover "Everybody Knows" Picked Up By Sony Pictures For The Last Scene Of The Last Episode Of The FX Show "Damages" April 2010 Featured Three Times On NPRs "All Things Considered". Selected For Grammy Nomination For "Gifts And Burdens" 2007 Gifts And Burdens Hit Number 26 On The Americana Music Association Charts Number 6 On The EuroAmericana Charts Number 6 On The Roots Music Report And Was In Rotation On Hundreds Of Stations Including KEXP All Over The US And Europe In 07/08. Founder Of "Indiegrrl" An Organization For Women In The Independent Music Industry 1998-2003 5 000 Members Internationally . While Organizing Indiegrrl Worked With Mary Gauthier Erin McKeown Girlyman Laura Gibson Ingrid MIchaelson Kyler England And Adrienne Gonzalez Of "The Rescues" And Thousands Of Other Women Equally Talented But Not As Well Recognized. Competitions And Conferences International Songwriting Competition Finalist 2007 Telluride Bluegrass Festival Songwriter's Competition Finalist 2005 Rockrgrl Conference Performance Review Committee And Panelist 2005 JPF "Album Of The Year" "Gifts And Burdens" 2009 NACA West Coast Showcase 2004 Mountain Stage NewSong Contest Finalist 2006 Discmakers Independent Music World Series Finalist 2003 2nd Place Durango Songwriter's Expo Showcase 2002 Durango Songwriter's Expo Panelist 2002 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival 2002 AMG Music Pick "Dream In Red" 2001 Featured On KMTT's "Local Access" Seattle's AAA Radio Station In 2007 And Did 4 On Airs At KMTT Before They Stopped Supporting Local Artists. Rockrgrl Music Conference Showcase And Panelist 2000 On Panel With Wanda Jackson And Amy Rigby Played Over 1000 Tour Dates Between 1999 And 2003. Lil' Factoids Finalist Acoustic Live Songwriting Contest 2002. I Came In Second. Sarah Bareilles Came In First. I Asked My Friend Laura Veirs To Open For My CD Release Of "Dream In Red" At The Tractor Tavern In Seattle 2001. Showcased At The Durango Music Conference In 2002 With Colin Brooks Band Of Heathens . He Introduced Me To Tony Levin And Jerry Marotta Who Comprised The Rhythm Section On My Record "How It Is". Sponsorships With Luna Guitars And Lee Oskar Harmonicas. Sisters Folk Festival Songwriting Contest Finalist 2008 And 2009 BOTH Times I Got Sick And Couldn't Perform. One Of These Days I Am Going To Sisters! DISCOGRAPHY One More Time Live From The IMC 2010
Gifts And Burdens 2007
Live In NYC 2004
How It Is 2003 Featuring Tony Levin Jerry Marotta Danny Barnes Dream In Red 2001
Three Chord Plea 1999 Currently In The Studio Recording A Cover Record And A Record Of Original Music...Both Will Be Released Before The End Of The 2010. Compilations Remembering Rachel The Rachel Bissex Tribute Album Also Featuring Dar Williams Catie Curtis Patty Larkin Jennifer Kimball The Kennedy's Sloan Wainwright And Many Others. First Last And Deposit A Benefit For The Noel House 3 Indiegrrl Compilations Guest Performances Holly Has Performed As A Guest On The Following Records According To The All Music Database 2000Lucy Mongrel Lucy Mongrel Harmonica Vocals Bckgr 2003On The Mend Kym Tuvim Vocals Bckgr 2005Shimmer Shimmer Skip Peri Vocals Bckgr 2006Change David LaMotte Vocals Bckgr 2008 City Of Refuge Rachel Harrington Vocals Bckgr 2008 Democracy For Lovers Paul Lippert Vocals Bckgr 2008 The River Grace Jenee Halstead Vocals Bckgr 2008 Giving Up The Ghost Julie Loyd Vocals Bckgr 2010 Roads Jeremy Serwer Vocals Bckgr SELECTED VENUES Bluebird Cafe Nashville TN
Passim Boston Cambridge MA
Lizard Lounge Boston MA
The Triple Door Seattle WA
Tractor Tavern Seattle WA
Slim's San Francisco CA
Genghis Cohen Los Angeles CA
Knitting Factory Los Angeles The Big Room Sweetwater Mill Valley CA
The Bitter End NY NY
The Living Room NY NY Before And After It Moved. Falcon Ridge Folk Festival
Missoula Women's Festival
International Women's Festival
National Women's Festival **
Biography Special Thanks To Bob Doerschuk Here’s What We Learn From Holly Figueroa O’Reilly’s Unforgettable New Release Gifts & Burdens.
•There Is Magic In Music – Magic Enough To Sometimes See The Future Unfold In Song.
•You Can Make Your Debut Starting Fresh More Than Once.
•Life Can Be Generous Even In Its Cruelty.
Begin With The Music. The Melodies And Words Are Magical Enough. They Speak With A Folk-Inflected Eloquence Darkened Only Slightly By Modern Ironies. “Your Sickness Is My Weakness ‘til You’re Ready To Say Goodbye ” She Proclaims On “Lay Them Down ” While On “One More Time” She Ties Passages Of Day And Night Rain And Sun Into Seasons Of The Heart Always With A Lilt That Lifts Each Tune Toward The Light Of Gentle Surprise. It’s Music Like That That Inspired Critics To Call O’Reilly “one Of The Best New Songwriters Around ” Tret Fure “a Force To Be Reckoned With ” Rockrgrl Magazine “incredibly Exciting ” The Recording Academy “criminally Ignored And Unjustly Under-Appreciated …” Apple ITunes If All This Sounds Familiar It May Be Because You’ve Heard These Same Raves Applied To Holly Figueroa. In Fact O’Reilly’s Voice – Alternately Smoky Fragile Teasing And Earthy – Recalls That Of Figueroa To An Uncanny Degree. There’s Good Reason For This Figueroa And O’Reilly Are The Same Person – Yet Also Different In More Than Just Their Names. In This Respect Gifts & Burdens Is Both A Farewell And An Introduction. Much Has Changed In O’Reilly’s Life Over The Past Few Years. And Strange As It Seems She Was Forecasting These Changes In These Songs Without Even Knowing It At The Time. Flash Back To 1996. Holly Figueroa Has Left Her Youth In Ohio Behind And Put A Life Together In Washington State That Combined The Pleasures Of Family With Her Love For Playing Music. Traveling Often With Her Daughter And Younger Son She Grew A Following One Venue At A Time. From The Bitter End In New York To The Sweetwater Saloon In San Francisco She Shared Stages With Dan Fogelberg Barbara Kessler Rose Polenzani And Caroline Aiken Or Headed The Bill Herself. Word Spread Faster When NPR's "All Things Considered" Discovered Her And Twice Gave Her National Exposure. Her Albums – Three Chord Plea Dream In Red How It Is Live In New York City – Inspired Comparisons To Artists Whose Only Similarities Are Excellence And Individuality Lucinda Williams Ani DiFranco Joni Mitchell Emmylou Harris … This Was Her Position Last Year As She Entered The Studio In Tacoma With A Group Of Friends Including Producer Evan Brubaker And Began Cutting The Tracks That Would Become Gifts & Burdens. She Brought The Best Of Her Recent Material With Her And Nestled It Into Intimate Acoustic Settings. The Results Were Beautiful Sometimes Almost Painfully So -- Yet Even Though She Was Performing Her Own Songs She Had No Idea That They Were Speaking To Her About Changes Yet To Come. “All My Songs On Gifts & Burdens Were Written Between 2003 And ’06 ” She Says. “Looking Back On It I Can Only Say ‘Wow How Could I Not Know I Was In Trouble?’ I Had No Idea That In Writing These Songs I Was Writing About My Own Life.” That Revelation Hit In September 2006 One Month After Finishing The Final Tracks As Her Husband Announced That He Wanted A Break From Their Relationship. It Wasn’t A Divorce Nor Was It Exactly A Conventional Separation They Remain Close To One Another And Partners In Raising Their Children. Whatever It Was Though It Changed Everything Overnight. “I Listen Now To ‘One More Time’ And It’s Like … Duh ” She Says Laughing. “I Know That Duh Isn’t The Most Literary Way To Put It But It Says A Lot. Or I Listen To ‘What You Wanted ’ Which I Thought I Was Writing About Some Friends Of Mine Who Were Separating. Eventually I Realized That I Was Writing About How My Husband Felt About Me And How I Felt About Him A Lot Of The Time.” With This Perspective These Songs Began To Feel More Like Messages Though At First O’Reilly Was In No Mood To Listen. The Project Gathered Dust As She Reassembled The Pieces Of Her Life. Each Day Felt Like A Step Forward From Trimming Down To The Point That This Summer She Will Run Her First Triathlon. At The Same Time She Pulled Back From Music Focusing Her Energy Where It Was Most Needed. A Feeling Arose That Her Days As A Musician Were Past. “I Couldn’t Even Look At My Guitar ” She Says. “I Just Wanted To Concentrate On My Kids And My Health. I Had Toured So Much Especially With My Daughter Since She Was Little And I Wanted To Make That Up To Them. But Then Evan Kept After Me. He Said ‘You Know You Need To Get This Record Out.’ And Preorders Kept Coming In Around 600 After A While Some Of Them For As Much As $300. So I Had To Do This. It Was Really Difficult But We Took Care Of The Mastering Figured Out The Artwork … And We Did Finish It.” She Finished Something Else Too As She Traded Her Married Name For One That Honors Her Lineage Back To Her Irish Forebears. And With Her Family’s Encouragement She Has Transformed The Difficulties Of 2006 Into A Process Of Rebirth And Reclaimed The Place She Had Once Nearly Left Behind. “I Realized That When I Stop Performing It’s Like I’ve Stopped Breathing ” She Explains. “It’s Like I Have To Eat. I Have To Breathe. I Have To Perform. But If I Had To Choose Between Performing And Writing Songs I Would Definitely Pick Writing. Of Course I’m Fortunate In That This Is A Choice I Don’t Have To Make.” The Seattle Weekly Says Of “Gifts And Burdens” “the Tunes Often Have A Wistful Lonely Late-Night Quality About Them But At The Same Time Are Not Really A Downer ” O’Reilly Is Singled Out As “sounding Both Compellingly Contemporary And Ancient Simultaneously” By The Folk & Acoustic Music Exchange. Gifts & Burdens Has Already Inspired A Flurry Of Praise Though None Closer To The Mark Than Seattle Sound’s Review “a Gentle Moving Example Of Well Played Americana.” For Everyone Who Has Weathered A Storm And Found The Promise Of Peace In The Light That Follows Gifts & Burdens Bears Special Meaning. This Music Is About Us As Much As It Is About The Extraordinary Holly O’Reilly – And That Too Is Magic. “One Of Modern Folk’s Criminally Ignored And Unjustly Under Appreciated Artists…” Apple/ITunes After A Recent Performance At The Legendary Bluebird Cafe In Nashville “almost Alt Country” Cake Records Artist Holly Figueroa Was Contacted By A&R At Elektra And MCA Both Looking For Copies Of Her Latest Record “How It Is”. One Listen To Her Voice Songs And Most Importantly Her Live Performance And You’ll Hear Why She Is A “force To Be Reckoned With”. Rockrgrl Magazine Oct. 2003 Twice Featured On NPR’s “All Things Considered” This Native Ohioan Has Been Wowing Audiences Internationally Since 1998 Logging In Nearly 900 Tour Dates To Date Usually With Her 10 Year Old Daughter And 2 Year Old Son In Tow. A Uniquely American Album That Stands Tall At The Intersection Between Pop And Folk Blues And Country Los Angeles Entertainment Today Proclaims “‘How It Is’ Slays Just About Any Big Company Songster Product That Has Been Coughed Up Over The Past 12 Months.” read less