Abby Bernstein
Abby Bernstein is a twenty-two year old NYC singer-songwriter hailing originally from a tiny farm town in Western Massachusetts. The daughter of old hippies, Abby was named after The Beatles album "Abbey Road" and grew up listening to the best blues, folk, soul, and rock n roll had to offer: Joan Baez, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Joni Mitchell, Aretha Franklin, The Rolling Stones ... you name it! Music runs in Abby’s blood—her grandparents were classically trained pianists and her great-great grandmother was a singer who immigrated to America from Russia to find a doctor when she lost her voice. It was only a matter of time before Abby began putting on performances in the family living room. When she turned ten, Abby started studying with a blues/gospel singer who had a strong influence on her musical development. Blues women laid it all on the line and she was really captivated by the stories they told through their songs. In high school, Abby had the chance to perform at music festivals and radio stations across New England and also at the Jazz in July program at UMASS run by renowned jazz pianist Billy Taylor and vocalist Sheila Jordan.
While attending Barnard College in New York City, Abby was selected to be the vocalist for Grammy award-winning producer/trumpeter Don Sickler’s Columbia University Jazz ensemble and performed with her band at historic NYC landmarks like BB King, Bitter End, Living Room, and Iridium. Though Abby had the opportunity to train with top jazz artists, she ultimately realized that she wanted to explore other musical styles and to tell her own stories through her music. Abby had been songwriting her whole life but it was always something she did in secret; she thought the jazz cats would find her style “too poppy” and that the mainstream crowd would think her writing was “too bluesy.”
Abby’s music works to fuse those two genres – to make blues more mainstream similar to how Norah Jones put jazz back on the pop charts. Although Abby’s style is heavily rooted in the blues sentimentality, some of her songs, such as “Gentle Ben” – a heartbreak song inspired by the late sixties television show of the same name – take on a folkier, americana vibe. For that reason, many have called her music "the female version of John Mayer." What is consistent about Abby’s songs is that they are open, honest, and conversational in feel, and particularly reflect the experiences of young women. A writer in her own right – she won several writing competitions both in high school and college – Abby grounds her musical stories in vivid imagery. Two of the songs on her album, “Even Lovers Drown” and “Ivy,” were inspired by the poems of William Butler Yeats and Octavio Paz.
Since graduating college in 2009, Abby has spent the past year immersing herself fully into the music and songwriting scene in New York City, getting accepted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame workshop where both Lady Gaga and John Legend got their starts, and traveling across the country for showcases and music festivals such as the Millennium Music Festival and the BMI showcase in Orlando, FL. She just wrapped up her album with Adam Blackstone (The Roots, Joss Stone, Jill Scott, Usher) and is now working with several publishing companies including Primary Wave Music and Universal Music to license her songs to film/TV. Abby is also the featured artist on campaigns for ArtistShare for Songwriters and Grooveshark.
“It’s always a rare treat to stumble upon a singer/songwriter like Abby Bernstein, a New York-based former farm girl who has as much of an affinity for beguiling hooks as she does for honest, emotionally-charged phrases” – Joe Lynch, New York Magazine, Entertainment Weekly
RIYL: Norah Jones, Joni Mitchell, Joss Stone
TRY: #1, 2, 5, 9
Full Album Available Here:
https://www.piratepirate.com/downloads/
http://www.abbybernstein.com/
http://www.myspace.com/abbybernstein
http://twitter.com/abbybernstein
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Abby-Bernstein/167987753323