Marshall Stance
By PAUL CANTIN
Ottawa Sun
Way back in 1991, Amanda Marshall was a teenage protegee of Jeff
Healey, and her first big break was opening for the guitarist at
Ottawa's National Arts Centre.
Friday, she returns to the NAC with Canadian singer Chantal
Kreviazuk, but this time, Marshall is the headliner, riding the
remarkable success of her self-titled debut album.
"It feels great. We're really excited by it. The irony is
definitely not lost on me," Marshall says from Chicago,
where she is opening for John Mellencamp.
"Things have evolved, which is very nice. We've come to the
point where we can play the NAC ourselves. That's really
gratifying. Really nice."
If Marshall sounds a little blase about reaching this milestone,
it's understandable. The accolades and rewards have been piling
up around her like sandbags along the Red River.
In the past 18 months, her album has gone platinum worldwide,
thanks in no small part to a gutsy live show that has left even
the most jaded skeptic slack-jawed with wonder at the power of
Marshall's voice -- a full-throated roar that seems to know no
limits.
Along the way, Marshall has collected some high-profile boosters,
too. Elton John, Jon Bon Jovi and Rosie O'Donnell have all heaped
praise upon the singer. You'd think that might be intimidating
for an artist just finding her footing in the music business, but
guess again.
"You can be endorsed by the Pope, but if you get up in front
of an audience and you can't deliver, you are going to be found
out immediately. It doesn't matter," she says.
"On a certain level, it helps a great deal when someone with
a certain celebrity status, whether it is Elton John or Jon Bon
Jovi or Rosie O'Donnell or whoever, takes an interest in you. It
helps on a certain level with the media, because the media loves
that kind of story. They love when one celebrity takes another
budding celebrity under their wing.
"I always found that to be the case, from my association
with Jeff Healey up to this thing with Elton John. On one level,
it is incredibly flattering. But no matter what kind of
expectation might be created by him saying that, the bulk of
anybody's interest in you depends on you. If you can't deliver,
people know."
Naturally, her debut success will bring increased expectations
for her sophomore effort. Marshall says the one drawback of her
hellacious touring schedule has been little time to ponder what
the future will bring.
"I listen to the (first) album now, and I think I sound
really young and I know the arrangements have matured and changed
and evolved over the last year. That's the great thing about
being a performer and that's why I tour. It gives you the
opportunity to continue to work on your craft and continue to
grow.
"I would be appalled if I walked in to make the next record
and hadn't matured or changed at all as a performer and human
being. One thing that experience gives you is the opportunity to
grow and change. Every album you make is only going to reflect
what you have done."
Marshall Art Slays
The Songs
Display of vocal fireworks thrills sold-out jubilee crowd
By MIKE ROSS
Express Writer
If they gave awards for being a show-off, Amanda Marshall would
clean up.
Well, actually, they do - Celine Dion took them all last year.
But rest assured, Marshall's turn is coming.
She's certainly got what it takes: Like Celine, the songs
Marshall picks are less important than the way she slams them
into the ground with her unbelievably huge voice - which was
proved by her jaw-dropping, awe-inspiring power at the sold-out
Jubilee Auditorium last night. With 2,700 fans cheering her on,
Marshall absolutely killed those poor tunes.
After a little opening medley of sounds and songs from the '60s,
the curtain dropped and the 24-year-old firebrand bounded onto
the stage like the flyweight champion of the world to wail Fall
From Grace, from her self-titled debut album. The crowd loved it.
Backed by a competent yet somewhat generic rock band, Let's Get
Lost followed, an otherwise bland song elevated to epic heights
by bombast alone.
And she was just getting warmed up.
It doesn't matter what tune Marshall sings, or what they're
supposed to mean. Why segue from Tina Turner's Can't Stand the
Rain into Marshall's breakthrough hit, Let it Rain? There's no
point - it was just a clever play on words, with the benighted
songs being the sacrificial goats, so to speak. Marshall made
every song into a dramatic production, riffing relentlessly to
the extremes of range and power at every opportunity. I was
afraid she might pop a vein, so over-the-top were her
histrionics, especially in songs like Closer to the Ground, where
Marshall sang circles around herself (now that's a good singer)
during a jazz-like improv bit.
Here is a woman who does not know the meaning of the word
subtlety.
To be fair, it was a rock 'n' roll show.
And some songs survived Marshall's killer voice. Last Exit to
Eden, which featured Marshall picking out a few notes on guitar,
emerged relatively whole. And Jimi Hendrix's Castles in the Sand
turned out to be a stirring, inspired rendition, despite the fact
Marshall pulled out all the vocal stops - a scary thing indeed -
and thrashed around like she was having a seizure. Yikes!
The Janis Joplin comparison Marshall's been dogged with ever
since Jeff Healey "discovered" her is right on the
money. She's actually more like a sanitized Janis - all the
chops, intensity and raw talent, but with none of the pain or
soul.
Opening act Chantal Kreviazuk is the antidote to Marshall's
mindless vocal fireworks.
Accompanying herself on grand piano, the Winnipeg performer
demonstrated an equally brilliant voice - but one which she put
fully to the service of sensitive and moving original songs.
And that's far more important than showing off for its own sake.
Amanda On The Move
Canuck singer gets a taste of the big time
By MIKE ROSS
Edmonton Sun
Welcome to True Tales of the Road, Celebrity Edition.
Our guest this week is the lovely and talented Amanda
Marshall, who performs tomorrow in the Jubilee Auditorium.
Last year, the 24-year-old singer was touring Norway, of
all places. Why, you ask? Because her self-titled debut album had
become a huge hit over there - as it has in most other countries
where it's been released.
In any case, Marshall recalls browsing through the
concession stand at a little airport in the town of Sandnes
(population 43,000), when all of the sudden she had a strange
feeling.
"I noticed that everyone was looking at me. I could
feel it. I looked up and I realized I was on the cover of every
publication on the newsstand. I was on the cover of all the
newspapers and magazines and stuff. It was really funny. I was
like a big celebrity in this tiny little town in Norway."
It's not just Norway, either.
Since she of the big voice and dramatic hand gestures
stormed on to the scene in the fall of 1995, Marshall has sold
more than 600,000 copies of her album in Canada (and 300,000 in
the U.S.). She'll be starring in her first network TV special,
airing tonight at 7 on CFRN (Cable 2).
She's also had more celebrity endorsements than
Thighmaster.
Elton John called Marshall his "favorite new
singer" on The Rosie O'Donnell Show.
Marshall herself was on the talk show the following week.
"The cool thing about (Rosie)," Marshall notes,
"is she has people on that she genuinely likes."
NYPD Blue's Jimmy Smits is a fan. Jon Bon Jovi said nice
things about her in an interview with Metal Edge magazine - not a
lot of Marshall's fans read Metal Edge, perhaps, but it's the
thought that counts.
Marshall just finished a U.S. tour opening for John
Mellencamp, who would bring her onstage to sing Pink Houses. He,
too, is a fan.
And the list of Amanda fandom goes on: Regis and Kathie
Lee, David Letterman, that new guy from Melrose Place ...
"His name is David something," Marshall says.
"I can't even remember his last name. He used to be on
Baywatch ..."
OK - you get the point. In less than two years, Amanda
Marshall has been transformed from a Toronto bar singer to a
celebrity recording star, taking it all with remarkable aplomb.
She's admits it's hard to be objective about it, but
"it makes you stop and think.
"It's all pretty positive," she says.
"There's moments, like 9:30 on a Saturday morning and you
just want to go out and buy some milk, and you're suddenly very
aware that people are aware of you.
"You do the things that you're comfortable with. I
haven't had any really negative experiences. People are really
cool. They want an autograph or they want to talk to you.
Sometimes you feel bad because you don't always have time and you
don't want people to think that you're blowing them off, because
you're not. But if you're trying to get from here to there and
you've got five minutes, you try and kind of let everybody feel
like they've had their moment."
Marshall certainly didn't plan that her life would turn out
this way. She agrees that she's "lucky" to have had
such a single-minded desire to become a singer - even from
childhood - but like any of her peers, it's more about hopes and
dreams than actual plans.
"You never know how things are going to go," she
says. "I think you hope that people are going to dig what
you do and that you're going to get the chance to do it on a
really comfortable level."
Even so, she's not too surprised how it's worked out for
her. "It doesn't seem like a huge explosion to me.
Everything has seemed fairly logical and normal."
Normal, that is, if you happen to be Amanda Marshall.
Age: 24
Home: Toronto
Musical training: Toronto Royal Conservatory of Music.
Album: Self-titled; released October 1995.
First hit: Let It Rain.
Album sales: six-times platinum in Canada (600,000 copies
sold); 300,000 sold in the U.S. (Following a recent appearance on
The Rosie O'Donnell Show, Marshall sold 10,000 albums in one
day).
Other recordings: The Don Was-produced This Could Take All
Night, on the Tin Cup soundtrack.
Notable opening gigs: Jeff Healey, Tom Cochrane, John
Mellencamp.
Celebrity endorsements: Elton John, Jimmy Smits, Jon Bon
Jovi and Rosie O'Donnell, among others.
Other education: Says Marshall: "I remember there was
like a week there when everybody was going off to university and
I thought, geez, maybe I should go to university. I went to night
school at the University of Toronto for about a year and I
dropped out to go on the road. I was taking English. And I hated
it. I was miserable."
Amanda Marshall
Counts Elton As A Fan
By BLAIR S. WATSON
Calgary Sun
For a rock performer, writing one's own material is almost
as important as being able to sing it well.
But for Toronto's Amanda Marshall, how one interprets a
song is just as valid; if not more so.
The singer, who performs her brand of steamy blues rock at
the Jubilee Auditorium Saturday, admits her writing credits are
limited; with her self-titled debut album featuring only one
Marshall-penned track and one she co-wrote.
Marshall says she's just not ready to take on the task of
writing an entire album.
"I'm still pretty young as a writer," admits
Marshall in a phone interview.
"For me, at this point, writing is an alternative
creative outlet ... But mostly, writing is a discipline. It's
being willing to hand yourself over to the moment when
inspiration hits you. It's being willing to get out of bed at 4
a.m. and jot down that idea you just dreamt. Often, I'm just not
willing to do that for whatever reason. But I really like
it."
Although the diminutive powerhouse of a vocalist seems
indifferent as far as writing, she's gained the attention of at
least one of superstar.
"It's funny, Elton John phoned me earlier in the year.
He's been really supportive of me," says Marshall, referring
to John praising her on the Rosie O'Donnell show.
"He really likes my record and he called me to tell me
so. Having never met me and not really knowing me, he said `I get
the impression just from talking to you that you are a much
better writer than you think you are.' and I think that's
probably true."
One wonders if John is thinking of Marshall as a future
collaborator.
"I'd never say never. But, I haven't heard from him in
some time or made any attempts to get in touch with him. I would
never dream of over-stepping the bounds of good taste and
tracking him down."
Marshall, now 24, began her professional career at 17; a
career that has led to her opening for such notables as Jeff
Healey, Colin James, Tom Cochrane, Tears For Fears and most
recently on tour with John Mellencamp, which featured the singer
in duet with Mellencamp on Pink Houses.
In actuality, it was Healey who opened the door for
Marshall.
"I met Jeff (Healey) when I was in my last year of
high school ... a girlfriend and I went to his show and we went
backstage to get his autograph and I told him I wanted to be a
singer. He invited me to a jam session at a club. About two
months after meeting him, he offered me the opening slot on his
tour," she recalls.
The singer has often been compared to a host of vocalists
from Bonnie Raitt to Sheryl Crow, to even being referred to as
"The love child of Janis Joplin and Joe Cocker." The
comparisons don't bother her.
"I have always been compared and lumped in with people
that I actually have a lot of respect for what they do.
"If I was being touted as the sixth Spice Girl, well
that would be a little less flattering," she quipped.
Amanda Marshall A
Happy Wanderer
By BEN RAYNER
Ottawa Sun
It's been one of those whirlwind years for Toronto's Amanda
Marshall.
Since her eponymous debut album arrived on shelves amid a
torrent of major-label marketing a little more than a year ago,
the husky-voiced singer has hit the road with such industry
heavyweights as Tom Cochrane and Tears For Fears, had none other
than Elton John rave about her on national television and amassed
a million-strong following around the world.
Marshall arrives at Barrymore's tonight for the first of
two sold-out Ottawa dates -- she returns on Dec. 16 -- that all
but wrap up an extensive, cross-Canada headlining jaunt.
"It's really gratifying that the record's done as well
as it has because it's allowed me to do what I love to do, which
is touring," says Marshall, 24, calling from a date in North
Bay.
"We've been on the road pretty solid for about 11 or
12 months ... We've been pretty much all the way from the North
Pole to New Zealand. We've seen more of the world in the last
year than I've seen in my entire life."
Marshall will likely visit what little remains to be seen
of the world by the time she stops touring in support of the
first record -- something she doesn't expect to do until at least
May. In fact, following a brief holiday break in her home town,
she and the band are off to play in Japan.
Apart from allowing her to see more of the planet than most
human beings, Marshall says her still-brewing success has yet to
spoil her.
"My own life has been pretty much the same," she
says. "I'm not really home enough to revel in the celebrity
or whatever."
Marshall's brief return home this autumn is giving many
fans recruited over the past year or so their first chance to see
her perform live.
And, as she would prefer to have it, live is where she
shines. Marshall's gutsy, blues-leaning voice earned her a name
on the club circuit and fans like Jeff Healey long before her
album's radio-friendly stable of hits -- Birmingham, Let It Rain,
Beautiful Goodbye -- brought her to radios across the continent.
"I'm incredibly happy when people tell me they find
our live performances different," she says.
"I want people to walk away from our shows thinking
that they got something out of the show that the audience the
night before didn't get, and that the audience the next night
won't get."
Elton John Spreads
Word About Amanda Marshall
By BETSY POWELL
Canadian Press
TORONTO -- Amanda Marshall missed it. But her mother
"and other hysterical sources" relayed the news.
The formerly flamboyant Elton John gave the Toronto singer
a major plug on a U.S. talk show watched by millions.
Host Rosie O'Donnell asked the music veteran "whether
he listens to new, up-and-coming artists and he picked my
record," she explained over the phone from New York City.
"It was really, really sweet and he tracked me down in
Banff to talk about the album and just to check in and say hi, I
guess."
Some 318,000 people in Canada have also picked up
Marshall's self-titled debut album since its October 1995
domestic release. Sales in the U.S., where the disc came out last
spring, are a respectable 238,000.
Marshall, 24, is still touring the 10-song disc across
Canada but flew to New York last week, coincidentally, for an
appearance on O'Donnell's show before returning to Ontario for a
series of gigs.
And guess who she had lunch with while there? Reginald
Dwight (a.k.a. Elton John) himself. The lunch was apparently
spontaneous and took place after Marshall's Canadian interviews
were completed, a spokesman for Marshall said.
Just how the British superstar came across Marshall's
pop-flavored music is uncertain. Marshall thinks he may have seen
her perform in the U.K.
It's apparently just a coincidence that the two likable
thieves in this year's movie Two If By Sea, Sandra Bullock and
Dennis Leary, refer to John as they try on glasses as the film
cuts to Marshall's song Dark Horse.
John is keen on collaborations -- KiKi Dee, John Lennon,
Axl Rose, to name a few -- and he's contributed backing vocals to
many other artists. But Marshall said before their lunch no plans
had been made.
"At this point everything's been kept very loose, it
was very sweet that he called, but anything's possible."
She plans to return to the studio in April or May and hopes
to write more songs for her follow-up. She contributed two tracks
to her debut.
Marshall, whose robust singing voice is as full as her
long, thick hair, said she's surprised that she hasn't grown
weary of singing a limited repertoire.
But fans attending her concerts won't be guinea pigs for
untested, album-bound material.
"As a listener, I'm not really in to that," she
said.
"Especially when it's someone's debut record. You know
what's coming and they preview a song that they're putting on the
second record, and then the record comes out ... I miss the
anticipation of what's going to be on the album.
"For me it's not a great way to hone a song by virtue
of the fact that perhaps an audience didn't get it. Maybe it's
just that audience, maybe the song's not done."
November 25, 1996.
Amanda Marshall wails on
By MIKE ROSS
Edmonton Sun
For a woman so green to the ways of recording artists,
Amanda Marshall has filled the role seamlessly.
After being signed by Sony Music last year on the strength of her
reputation as a fiery bar-room singer, the 24-year-old performer
was asked by the president of the record company what kind of
record she wanted to make, to which she replied, "I don't
know."
But Sony knew what to do. With the input of heavyweight
songwriters like MuchMusic-VJ-turned-Alannah Myles-svengali
Christopher Ward, a self-titled album smack in the middle of the
road between pop and rock resulted, and the lead single Let It
Rain burned up the airwaves across the country. Whether Marshall
was groomed for success by outside forces or not, the album is a
hit (at least 100,000 copies sold in Canada), and the singer has
since thrown herself into the task of promoting it like a
seasoned veteran. She plays the Thunderdome tonight.
`HAD A REALLY GOOD TIME'
"We've had a really good run so far," she says.
"We've been on the road now for 10 months, and we've had a
really, really good time. We've done pretty much everything we've
set out to do. For me, it was a chance to get out and tour and
let people see what we do, and basically, see the world. We've
done that, with the exception of Japan, which is where we're
heading to next."
The irony here is that her live performing - which Marshall's
been honing about six times longer than she's been a recording
artist - don't match her album at all. It's like hearing two
different artists: Dr. Jekyll on record, Miss Wail-My-Guts-Out on
stage.
"I want people to walk away with a more intimate knowledge
of me as a performer," she says. "You can do stuff in a
live setting that you can't do on record.
"Everybody knows that at a quarter to one on a Friday night,
you can get away with stuff that you couldn't really get away
with in a recorded setting. I love those moments, those sweaty,
middle-of-the-night kind of moments where you can do stuff that
no one's really going to want to listen to on a Monday
morning."
ROASTED BY REVIEWERS
What's most remarkable is how Marshall's been handling criticism.
She's been roasted by reviewers on more than one occasion, at one
point getting compared to Skid Row laughing-stock Sebastian Bach
- something that could wither a weaker ego.
But negative reviews just don't seem to affect Marshall - she
ignores them.
"I don't read any of the press," she says. "I
tried to read them, good and bad, and I just discovered you just
get tired about reading about yourself all the time. I've told
the same stories and talked to half the world in the last 10
months - and I know all this stuff now."
Tickets to tonight's concert, also featuring warm-up act Wendy
Lands, are $15 and available at the Thunderdome (433-DOME).
April 4, 1996
Learning the game
By PAUL CANTIN
Ottawa Sun
Amanda Marshall remembers all too well her first
performance in Ottawa.
It was the early '90s at the NAC, opening for the Jeff
Healey Band. Apart from bar shows in her hometown of Toronto, it
was her first-ever concert, so the then-teenage, gruff-voiced
singer was blissfully unaware of the pitfalls of performing.
"My very first tour, very first gig ... I was
17," says Marshall, who returns here tonight to open for Tom
Cochrane at the Congress Centre.
"We come walking on with two acoustic guitar players.
We did cover songs ... It was going really well.
"And there was this pause before I introduced the next
song. And out of the darkness out of the back of the auditorium,
some guy yells: 'WHO ARE YOU? WHY ARE YOU HERE?'
"Had I had more of a clue, if I wasn't so green, I
probably would have realized: 'Oh, they want Healey.'
"But I thought: 'Wow, they really like us. Thank you
for caring.' I thought: 'Wow, we're really winnin' em over. He
wants to know who I am.'
"I was so cocky."
All her hard-earned lessons prepared Marshall for the
making of her self-titled debut album, which has already launched
two hit singles -- Let It Rain and Birmingham.
It's painfully early in the morning, but Marshall is
enviably chipper and chatty as she lounges backstage at CJOH
between on-air performances during a promo swing.
"I'm pretty gregarious. I like to talk, as you've
probably noticed," she says.
"I did a radio thing with Energy-something. Live
performance at 7 a.m. It was very exciting.
"Actually (my voice) was not too bad. I'm lucky,
because the huskier the better. I go into phone sex mode ... 'Hi,
this is Ramona. You're listening to Energy 1200.' "
It's hard to reconcile her relaxed manner with what's at
stake with her album, which -- for a debut record from a Canadian
artist -- received an unprecedented promotional push.
"The amount of attention and scrutiny the record has
received from Sony acted as, frankly, a real kick in the butt. It
was a motivator more than anything else," she says.
"It's not so much pressure as it is a great
motivator. There's nothing like having a group of people behind
you that genuinely like you and support you."
January 14, 1996
The buzz is hot on 23-year-old Toronto singer Amanda Marshall
By JANE STEVESON
Toronto Sun
Tell Amanda Marshall it's a good time to be a female singer
from Canada - the seven million album sales and 10 recent Grammy
nominations of Alanis Morissette and Shania Twain combined - and
she'll tell you that it's a great time to be a female singer,
period.
"I'm as excited for Alanis with her six Grammy
nominations as I was four years ago when Bonnie Raitt got eight
or whatever it was," enthused Marshall, the day after last
week's Grammy announcement.
"It's exciting when people with whom you share certain
characteristics do well because it makes it more obvious to you
that there's potential that you could do well.
"But Canadian, not Canadian, female, not female - it's
good stuff and I think it bodes well for everyone in the business
to see women doing well."
Marshall should know. Her self-titled debut went gold in
Canada (50,000 in sales) within eight weeks - maybe you saw her
picture in the Toronto subway? - and spawned the Top 10 single
Let It Rain. All without a Canadian tour under her belt. That
happens in late February.
Now Sony Music Canada is preparing to launch their hot
prospect in Europe next month - with umbrellas that have her name
on them no less - and the U.S. in March. No word yet on umbrellas
there.
"There are very few records that we work on in Canada
or even in the industry that in such a short period of time go
gold," said Richard Zuckerman, Sony's vice-president of
international A and R (artists and repertoire) and marketing.
The buzz on the 23-year-old Torontonian with a
Rapunzel-like head of golden, curly hair and an even bigger set
of vocal chords began five years ago.
After attending a concert by blues singer-guitarist Jeff
Healey, he invited her to come and sing during an open jam the
next night. Healey was so impressed that he invited Marshall to
tour with him and Tom Cochrane.
That's when record companies came calling.
Marshall initially signed a major deal with Columbia in the
United States but later opted out of her contract because she was
unsure about her musical direction.
"The whole grunge movement had just sort of broken and
the world and the music business were both really
distracted," said Marshall, who signed with Sony later.
"It was very male-oriented, garage rock, riff-oriented
music and it wasn't a great time to be sort of a mainstream,
radio kind of artist."
Which is exactly what Marshall is.
She knows it and so does Sony, whose biggest Canadian
female artist is Celine Dion.
"Celine's sold in excess of 10 million units and it's
not as though she's alternative or even hip, it's just she's an
amazing talent and I think we feel the same thing (about
Amanda)," said Zuckerman. "It's not the next thing in
terms of music, but it is in terms of talent of the artist."
Marshall's powerful voice brought such early descriptions
as "Janis Joplin-Joe Cocker love child."
In the studio, however, she's more reminiscent of Melissa
Etheridge, Sheryl Crow or Amy Grant with the bombastic retro
sound of such '80s Canadian rock chicks as Alannah Myles and Sass
Jordan.
Produced in L.A. by David Tyson (Myles, Hall and Oates)
with material from Canadian songwriters Marc Jordan and
Christopher Ward and session musicians whose bosses have included
such rock royalty as James Taylor, Carly Simon, Tina Turner and
Bob Dylan, Marshall's debut has received decidedly mixed reviews
in Canada. The main complaints being the songs are weak, the
album is overproduced and Sony's marketing hands are all over
Marshall.
"All I can say is I made the record I wanted to
make," said the singer. "People's antennae go up when
they suspect that you are associated with as big a money-making
machine as a company like Sony. I think they become suspicious
and they start looking for things.
"But I don't think because you choose a more sort of
commercial or legitimate - if you will - way of making records
that that makes you any less legitimate of an artist."
Marshall also points out that she's just being her
fully-clothed self and not some scantily clad diva on her album
cover and inside on the liner notes.
"Just because it says Sony on the back of the record
does not mean that there is a team of little men - `Don't look
behind the curtain!' - that the Wizard of Oz is controlling the
way I dress and what I say. It's merely a vehicle."
Adds Zuckerman: "It's the voice and the image. She
always had an image. She always had a strong identity about
herself."
Similar criticisms of superstar packaging have been thrown
at Morissette, who began her career as a teenage dance artist
before the scathing, foul-mouthed single You Oughta Know turned
her into the posterchild for jilted women.
But Marshall doesn't understand what the fuss is all about.
"So she made disco records when she was 16? Who cares?
I mean so what? It's a good song. Get up and dance. Shut Up!
"Certainly I'm all for honesty in music, but I mean -
at the end of the day - it's music. This isn't neurosurgery, it's
music. And either you can sing or you can't. Either you can write
or you can't. Either you can play or you can't."
And no matter what you think of her music, Marshall can
sing.
The AMANDA MARSHALL FILE
AGE: 23.
FAMILY: Only child. Father from Canada. Mother From
Trinidad. Grew up listening to classical, golden oldies and jazz
courtesy of her parents, who she still lets listen to her demos
first.
EARLY YEARS: Was enrolled at the Royal Conservatory at age
three. Sang in high school choir but always wanted to play in a
rock band. Got to meet Ella Fitzgerald at age 15 after a concert.
BIG BREAK: Jeff Healey invited her to sing at an open jam
and later tour with him and Tom Cochrane. Columbia (U.S.) signed
her initially.
DEBUT: Self-titled album for Sony Music Canada sold 50,000
domestically within eight weeks. To be released in Europe and the
U.S. in the next two months.
ON MAKING HER FIRST ALBUM: "I didn't really have to do
too too much screaming and yelling and shaping and groping to get
what I wanted."