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After a packed performance at The Bitter End in New York, singer/songwriter Alyssa Graham was sure she was on the verge of a breakthrough. At the show’s conclusion, she was approached by a major-label A&R rep who wanted to put her in the studio to turn out a demo. Graham enthusiastically agreed, and as far as she was concerned, her meal ticket was about to get punched.
But the devil was, as they say, in the details. During each recording day, a label flunky would show up to coach Graham on which famous singers she should be emulating. Then, after tracking three songs, a meeting followed. The agenda? Choreography. As Graham puts it, “They wanted me to dance, and I mean that both literally and figuratively!”
“I basically walked out of that meeting, never looked back and decided to go study music at the New England Conservatory,” she recalls. “It really was a moment of clarity for me and thus, my ‘big break.’ I realized then that I had to make a choice—between being the artist I wanted to be or being the creation that the industry could make of me.”
Graham has been aiming for authenticity ever since, peeling back the layers on a quest for her truest voice. It’s a road that’s led her to Lock, Stock & Soul, her latest outing and one that bravely dispenses with many of the jazz trappings that flavored Echo, her Sunnyside Records debut. While Echo was focused on travel—indeed, it functioned as a musical travelogue—Lock, Stock & Soul represents coming home, a full circle return to Graham’s longtime musical loves: Neil Young, Nick Drake, Bob Dylan and others capable of delivering heartfelt emotion in the simplest of packages.
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