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Chicago Tribune
9 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Chicago Tribune
Young singer-songwriter Alyssa Allgood makes the Jazz Showcase Wall of Fame
Alyssa Allgood started singing when she was in the sixth grade and she is singing still, as she was last weekend at Jazz Showcase, that South Loop treasure. She and her band — Greg Ward (alto sax), Ryan Cohan (piano), Ethan Philion (bass) and Jon Deitemyer (drums) — spread their music over four nights. 'It was very special. [Club owner] Wayne Segal hung my photo on the Wall of Fame Sunday night,' she said. 'There was a great turnout of warm and engaging audiences. I could feel the love in the room. My band brought such beautiful energy, sensitivity and joy to my original songs and arrangements. We created honest and open music that was truly in the moment, in every set.' She now shares that aforementioned wall with some of her heroes, such as Betty Carter, Sarah Vaughan and Carmen McRae. And she can remember the many times she has played the room. One of the earliest was in July 2017. In the audience was my then-colleague, the astute Tribune jazz critic Howard Reich. He wrote that 'there's nothing more encouraging in jazz than hearing a young musician asserting herself. … Though she has plenty of room for growth, she clearly has learned a great deal quite early in her career.' She was 24 then and had just released her first CD, 'Out of the Blue,' which Reich lauded for the 'creativity of her songwriting,' ending his review with these prophetic words, calling her 'a young singer of unusual accomplishment and extraordinary potential.' The great singer Paul Marinaro had joined Allgood on stage for a couple of songs that night and then told Reich that Allgood was 'one of the most fully formed young vocalists I've heard in a long time.' Allgood came to music early, growing up in suburban Westmont, supported and encouraged by her parents and allowed to sing with local bands. 'I never had a thought of doing anything else,' she says. 'When it came to what I would study in college, well, of course, it would be music.' And it would be North Central College in Naperville where she earned Bachelor of Arts in Jazz Studies & Organizational Communication, and she followed that up with a Master of Arts in Jazz Studies from DePaul University. 'I learned so much. I learned from folks in the business that jazz does not make for the easiest life,' she says. 'I was told by more than one person, 'If you can see yourself doing anything else, do it.' But I could not do that. Music is who I am.' She has performed in clubs across the country and aspires to international clubs and concerts. Now she has four CDs, the latest titled 'From Here,' with all original songs. If you want to be of the moment, her sensitively stirring version of Frank Loesser's 'I've Never Been in Love Before' from 'Guys and Dolls' is being released on various platforms this Friday. Many singers, of course, do not write their own songs, but Allgood has been exploring that creative road for some time. 'I just decided that I had to give myself permission to try,' she says. 'At first, it was hard. In doing this, was I comparing myself to Cole Porter and other great songwriters, to the people I'd been hearing and singing and studying? But I kept at it, and followed a philosophy that another musician imparted. He said, 'Everything you write is good because it comes from you.'' Thus free of intimidation, she tells me that her songwriting is 'taking the forefront,' and you can hear the confidence in her latest CD. She also plans to continue teaching, as she has done for some time, at Loyola University and the University of Illinois at Chicago. 'Teaching,' she says, 'makes me a better musician.' Accolades have come at a steady pace. A couple of her songs were finalists in the 2023 John Lennon Songwriting Contest and the 2023 International Songwriting Competition. She was voted best individual jazz musician in the 2024 Chicago Reader poll. She was recently named, for the second year in a row, a 'Rising Star Female Vocalist' in the 2025 DownBeat Magazine Critics Poll. She has lived for a decade in the Lincoln Square neighborhood and has been married since October to Jon Podulka. 'He is a very creative person who has brought a lot of adventure to my life,' she says. He worked as an advertising copywriter for 10 years before becoming a narrative game designer at Hasbro. He recently went out on his own and will soon launch a board game publishing company. He also knows his way around a stage, regularly performing improv comedy. 'He always has a good joke ready,' Allgood says. 'He is incredibly supportive of my career and I love that we share a passion for the creative process.' He was in the showcase audiences last weekend and she was glad. 'I realized that I grew up on that stage,' she says. 'This weekend felt like an important marker and celebration of the work I've done over the last decade, to hone my craft as a performer, songwriter, and bandleader. I'm so grateful and inspired.' She remembered too. 'That night almost a decade ago. Joe Segal [Wayne Segal's late father and the founder of the Jazz Showcase] was there. He sat on the couch and listened to me sing and then gave me a nod of approval. That was a moment I will never forget.' No doubt there will be more to come. Goodness, she's only 32. rkogan@
ITV News
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- ITV News
The era that never evolved: Pete Waterman gives his verdict on Black Sabbath and E.L.O's legacy
As rock giants Black Sabbath and E.L.O prepare for their last ever concerts, Pete Waterman wonders why Birmingham didn't become a major music hub. The two bands will both perform for one last time in the city this weekend. Some of their biggest fans won't have witnessed the rise of their bands more closely than the vastly-successful record producer and TV personality, Pete Waterman. The former Pop Idol judge knew members from both bands since the 1970s, when he bumped into them regularly doing gigs around the West Midlands. Black Sabbath are led by their frontman Ozzy Osbourne, and E.L.O are headed by Jeff Lynne, but it was actually the latter who wowed Waterman first. He said: "I always knew Jeff was an exceptional talent. I was there at the Locarno Ballroom in Coventry that night when Roy Wood turned up to form E.L.O. I was there at the very beginning. "Everybody knew Ozzy, I used to do the Robin Hood club in Brierley Hill and he was a legend in that part of the world as well. "It's hard to put into perspective what they've both achieved in the last 50 years, but it's amazing." Despite the band's distinctive tones, neither band's success translated into a definitive sound for the bands that followed, according to Waterman. He said: "It's funny, but it [their success] never spurred the rush that Liverpool or Manchester had. "There was never that urgency for groups in the West Midlands to emulate the success those cities had. "There was obviously Boy George. There were lots of great bands and if you add in Led Zeppellin (Robert Plant), the success the Midlands had individually outweighed other areas, there was never the collective movement. "You don't hear people talk about 'the Birmingham sound'." Their final gigs taking place this weekend and are a testament to the band's longevity, but also their success. He said: "Two individuals who are absolutely brilliant and unique at their job. Time doesn't change that. People who are brilliant at something don't just not become brilliant at something. "The E.L.O situation. Out of the Blue is one of the outstanding albums of all time. Jeff Lynne could've been in The Beatles any time he would have wanted to have been." The lack of a "Birmingham sound" could be made-up for by the two bands. As Pete puts it, their upbringing in the West Midlands was prominent throughout their music. He said: "Jeff Lynne, you can see my childhood, our working class families, how they were brought up, what they listened to on the radio. It was a unique place to be born. "The West Midlands is quite unique, it was at the end of the war. "We saw it [West Midlands] at the end of the war when it was pretty run down. People were working Saturday mornings. "Music was part of our lives, it was the one thing that was important to us."
Perth Now
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Perth Now
1980s pop legend Debbie Gibson reveals 'terrifying' career move
Debbie Gibson has found it "terrifying" to write her memoir. The 54-year-old singer has told her life story for the first time in her tome Eternally Electric: The Message in My Music - which is due for release on September 9 - and has found it all "cathartic and exhausting process" but ultimately hopes to "inspire" others. She told PEOPLE: "I mean, listen, it's terrifying, the idea of putting out a book. Somebody said, 'Is it harder than writing a song?' "I'm like, a song is four minutes, and a book is 90,000 words. "It has been such a cathartic and exhausting process. The motivation behind everything I do is to hopefully inspire people." The Foolish Beat hitmaker thinks that readers may be surprised at what she has been through in her life but hopes that they will learn that they too can "turn it around" like she did. She said: "I always felt like the girl who was like, people would say, 'Well, if you could do it, I could do it.' I hope they read this book and they say, 'Oh my God, you went through that? I went through that. And you turned that around. Great, I want to turn that around." Debbie - who shot to fame as a teenager with her debut album Out of the Blue and later branched out into a career in TV and film as well as Broadway theatre - has been on a US tour recently and reflected that the whole experience has been "very, very profound and meaningful" because it has informed how she has written the book. She said: "I actually kind of set certain things around being at certain shows, and I've tried to take the reader on the journey with me with stops in the present and looking back at the same time. "It's very, very profound and meaningful."
Evening Standard
29-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Evening Standard
Neil Young at Glastonbury review: the 'ghost' show rocks hard for the lucky few
He plays My My, Hey Hey (Out of the Blue), with its famous line 'rock n roll is here to stay, it's better to burn out than fade away,' the latter half of which was quoted by Kurt Cobain on his suicide note. Cobain sprang to mind again as Young stripped it back to acoustic again for The Needle and the Damage done, where 'every junkie is a setting sun.' Cobain was one undone by heroin but he was a true believer in rock, despite all the angst he saw survival and glory in music, and some kind of answer to the pain. No wonder he looked to Young, one of the true greats, even if he took the wrong message from it.
New York Post
16-06-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Post
Debbie Gibson on her late mother being the 'original music momager'
It didn't start with Mama K. Most people think of Kris Jenner as the O.G. momager savvily guiding the careers of daughters Kim, Kourtney and Khloe Kardashian, and Kendall and Kylie Jenner. But Diane Gibson — mother of late '80s teen-pop sensation Debbie Gibson — had the Kardashian/Jenner matriarch beat by a couple of decades. 5 'My late, great mom, Diane, was really the original music momager,' said Debbie Gibson. Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame 'You know, my late, great mom, Diane, was really the original music momager,' the 'Only in My Dreams' singer exclusively told The Post on the red carpet of last week's Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Years later, other momagers would make like mama bears pushing and protecting their showbiz kids, from Brandy's mom (Sonja Norwood) to Lindsay Lohan's mother (Dina) and Miley Cyrus' mom (Tish) to Selena Gomez's mother (Mandy Teefey). Diane, who passed away in 2022, was the force behind taking her daughter Debbie, now 54, to history-making heights with her 1987 debut album 'Out of the Blue,' released just before her 17th birthday. In addition to 'Only in My Dreams,' the LP featured the hits 'Shake Your Love,' Out of the Blue,' and 'Foolish Beat.' When the latter topped the charts, it made Gibson the youngest female artist ever to write and produce a No. 1 single — a record that still stands. It was her mother who fought for Gibson to have the creative control to do that. 'I remember my mom pounding her fist in the conference room on that,' she said. 5 Debbie Gibson sang Tony Macaulay's 'Build Me Up Buttercup' before inducing him into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame 'And she's like, 'Well, listen to the demo. Deb has a vision. She's the only person who should produce this record,'' Gibson told The Post in 2022. Gibson looked back on how she and her mom made a pioneering pair in the male-dominated music industry as she worked on her upcoming memoir, 'Eternally Electric: The Message in My Music,' which will be released on Sept. 9. 'I really speak a lot about that male-dominated music world we were in together,' said Gibson, who wrote all of the songs on 'Out of the Blue.' 5 Debbie Gibson holds the record as the youngest female artist to write and producer a No. 1 song, 'Foolish Beat.' Redferns 'Yeah, I mean, it was a party trick to kick those doors down … and to convince the label. They believed pretty early on in my writing, Atlantic, but I'm a producer too.' In addition to producing 'Foolish Beat' all by herself, Gibson co-produced three other tracks on her debut LP. It has been 'therapeutic' for Gibson to relive and reflect on the early days of her career while writing her memoir. Now she is happy to see the progress that has been made in the music industry 'to have someone like Gracie Abrams here today [at the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction ceremony, where she received the Hal David Starlight Award] in this landscape that is, you know, wide open now for young female songwriters.' 5 Debbie Gibson inducted British tunesmith Tony Macaulay into the Songwriters Hall of Fame last Thursday. Getty Images for Songwriters Hall Of Fame 5 Debbie Gibson made her debut with her album 'Out of the Blue' in 1987. picture alliance via Getty Image And Gibson was thinking about her mom — and the momager moves she made in the face of male doubters — at the Songwriters Hall of Fame induction. 'To be the mother manager, there was such a stigma attached to that, and she knew that she had to know 10 times more than any of the men knew to be taken seriously,' Gibson told The Post in 2022. It's a mother-daughter legacy that Gibson upholds today: 'She and I started that together, and it's still going on.'
