Artist
Hollie Smith
Ever since she erupted into national consciousness with the now-classic ‘Bathe in the River’
and her number one album Long Player stormed the New Zealand charts and rapidly achieved platinum sales status, Hollie Smith’s extraordinary voice has stolen the nation’s hearts.
Recently, she put her unmistakably soulful imprint onto a New Zealand classic. Hollie has recorded a version of Herbs’ 1987 hit ‘Sensitive To A Smile’, an all-new recording re-interpreting the song for current and future generations. Making the song her own, Hollie’s arrangement includes the Mt Roskill Primary School Choir contributing uplifting vocals, adding a new dimension to the song. ‘Sensitive To A Smile’ is now released
as a single, and is featured on Light Of The Pacific – The Very Best of Herbs, out in November.
Look up “soul” in the dictionary, and dusky-voiced chanteuse Hollie Smith embodies every aspect of the term. The young New Zealand songstress clearly possesses “deeply felt emotion, as expressed by a performer or artist,” is indeed “the moving spirit of some action,” and definitely boasts “spirit or courage.” Those qualities are paramount on her American debut, Long Player. It’s 10 stellar songs, including the laid-back yet warmly funky “Philosophy,” showcasing Smith’s humanistic, empowering lyrical “philosophies,” and also displaying what Amazon.com described as her “considerable talents” that encompass “elements of soul, jazz, reggae and R&B in a distinctive manner.”
In New Zealand (on Smith’s own SoundSmith Records label) Long Player released in May 2007, has sold double platinum. At the 2007 Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards, Smith snagged “Best Female Solo Artist," "Breakthrough Artist of the Year," "Best Aotearoa Roots Album" and “Best Producer”.
On Long Player, Smith is the songwriter, singer, arranger and producer— with input and collaboration from numerous likeminded souls, notably producers Jeremy Toy and James Poyser (Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Lauryn Hill). She recorded with Poyser in Philadelphia in September, 2007 on three tracks (“Miracles,” “Walk Away” and “New Dawn”) for the Special Edition release of Long Player.
Though some might categorize her next to hip neo-Soul talents like Alicia Keys and Amy Winehouse, Smith defies comparison. But the young woman whose voice has been likened to that of a “50-year-old chain-smoking black woman” is happy and humbled to honor her constant inspirations. At the age of 6, the Auckland-born Smith found a James Brown video and watched it “every day for about three years.” She began writing songs at 11, and in her early teens, appeared and won accolades at various national jazz festivals, and got into classic rock thanks to her musician-father. As a growing young artist/poet, she absorbed the inspirational words of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, the stylings of Billie Holiday, and, after moving to Wellington and becoming an integral part of the city’s collaborative music scene, put out her own soulful EP in 2005. It’s been an impressive career already for Smith—who actually got to open for idol Dylan in 2007.
Smith’s writing and recording is at once instinctual and intellectual, visceral but experimental. While Smith is an intimate and earthy vocalist, she confesses, “I try not to write about me. People can take my songs at face value, but I try to put more layers, to have deeper things—political, religious and cultural. That’s what the songs are to me, which gives me the inspiration to sing them over and over again. They remind me of ideas and ideologies that are important to me. A lot of the songs are based on being able to look outside your own reality and being able to understand and be open-minded about what’s going on, things that many people choose to ignore.”
Lending credence to her musical philosophies, Smith, clearly an “old soul”, relates to music almost as an ethnomusicologist. “Soul music came from such a degree of struggle that you can’t help but feel like there’s something more behind and in it,” she begins. “I’m interested in the political and cultural aspect of society and the way that it’s changed and the way it’s similar in every place. The struggle that music came from is very powerful to me. Music has always changed history.”
http://www.holliesmith.co.nz
http://www.myspace.com/holliesmithmusic
Though some might categorize her next to hip neo-Soul talents like Alicia Keys and Amy Winehouse, Smith defies comparison. But the young woman whose voice has been likened to that of a “50-year-old chain-smoking black woman” is happy and humbled to honor her constant inspirations. At the age of 6, the Auckland-born Smith found a James Brown video and watched it “every day for about three years.” She began writing songs at 11, and in her early teens, appeared and won accolades at various national jazz festivals, and got into classic rock thanks to her musician-father. As a growing young artist/poet, she absorbed the inspirational words of Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan, the stylings of Billie Holiday, and, after moving to Wellington and becoming an integral part of the city’s collaborative music scene, put out her own soulful EP in 2005. It’s been an impressive career already for Smith—who actually got to open for idol Dylan in 2007.
Smith’s writing and recording is at once instinctual and intellectual, visceral but experimental. While Smith is an intimate and earthy vocalist, she confesses, “I try not to write about me. People can take my songs at face value, but I try to put more layers, to have deeper things—political, religious and cultural. That’s what the songs are to me, which gives me the inspiration to sing them over and over again. They remind me of ideas and ideologies that are important to me. A lot of the songs are based on being able to look outside your own reality and being able to understand and be open-minded about what’s going on, things that many people choose to ignore.”
Lending credence to her musical philosophies, Smith, clearly an “old soul”, relates to music almost as an ethnomusicologist. “Soul music came from such a degree of struggle that you can’t help but feel like there’s something more behind and in it,” she begins. “I’m interested in the political and cultural aspect of society and the way that it’s changed and the way it’s similar in every place. The struggle that music came from is very powerful to me. Music has always changed history.”
http://www.holliesmith.co.nz
http://www.myspace.com/holliesmithmusic
Sensitive To A Smile from ‘Light Of The Pacific – The Very Best of Herbs’ Play