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Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
Like Tracy Chapman’s 1988 debut, it is an album so full of ideas and potential that it is hard to know how to properly frame a description of its contents. It is a collection of songs that is far more than the sum of its influences. Emma-Lee is just starting out on her career, yet one can hear that she is clearly charting an exciting musical course that is all her own. Never Just a Dream is an epic debut that sounds better with every listen. Emma-Lee may be the voice to remember from 2009. Highly recommended.
Like Tracy Chapman’s 1988 debut, it is an album so full of ideas and potential that it is hard to know how to properly frame a description of its contents. It is a collection of songs that is far more than the sum of its influences. Emma-Lee is just starting out on her career, yet one can hear that she is clearly charting an exciting musical course that is all her own. Never Just a Dream is an epic debut that sounds better with every listen. Emma-Lee may be the voice to remember from 2009. Highly recommended.
- No Depression, May 2009
Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
After too often hearing what so many major label producers consider to be a “retro” sound, it’s nice to hear someone who actually gets it right. And on the first try, too. Toronto-based singer/songwriter Emma-Lee is a torch singer in the very best sense of the word, effortlessly shifting between country, big band jazz, bossa nova, and 50s pop in her debut CD, Never Just a Dream. It appears to have beamed in from some alternate dimension where the rock n’ roll revolution never happened, and we’re glad it did. The centrepiece of this CD is Emma-Lee’s stunning voice, which conjures Patsy Cline, Norah Jones, Brenda Lee (hmm) and k.d. lang. Most remarkably for a younger performer, she knows when to let loose with the vocal fireworks and when to hold back, slowly bending those blue notes into line. Her harmonizing on the 50’s ballad/bossa nova crossover ‘Isn’t It Obvious’ is a show-stopper, and her ability to hold back until a critical moment really comes into play on her ode to May-December romance, ‘An Older Man’. Fans of slow-burning ballads and music with an old soul will find a lot to like in Emma-Lee’s Never Just a Dream. A stunning debut; let’s hope we hear more from her.
After too often hearing what so many major label producers consider to be a “retro” sound, it’s nice to hear someone who actually gets it right. And on the first try, too. Toronto-based singer/songwriter Emma-Lee is a torch singer in the very best sense of the word, effortlessly shifting between country, big band jazz, bossa nova, and 50s pop in her debut CD, Never Just a Dream. It appears to have beamed in from some alternate dimension where the rock n’ roll revolution never happened, and we’re glad it did. The centrepiece of this CD is Emma-Lee’s stunning voice, which conjures Patsy Cline, Norah Jones, Brenda Lee (hmm) and k.d. lang. Most remarkably for a younger performer, she knows when to let loose with the vocal fireworks and when to hold back, slowly bending those blue notes into line. Her harmonizing on the 50’s ballad/bossa nova crossover ‘Isn’t It Obvious’ is a show-stopper, and her ability to hold back until a critical moment really comes into play on her ode to May-December romance, ‘An Older Man’. Fans of slow-burning ballads and music with an old soul will find a lot to like in Emma-Lee’s Never Just a Dream. A stunning debut; let’s hope we hear more from her.
- Dominic von Riedemann, SceneandHeard.ca, March 3rd 2009
Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
Most folks exposed to the music of Toronto, Canada's Emma-Lee will likely have the same initial reaction we did. It is truly difficult to believe that this enchanting young lady is (at least at this point in time) is an unknown...?!? When you hear her voice, you'll see what we mean. The last time we recall hearing a new female vocalist who sounded this smooth and sultry was when we were first turned onto K.D. Lang many years ago. Never Just A Dream is a super slick, super polished collection of soft melodic tracks that recall the 1950s and 1960s when female vocalists were all the rage. But Emma-Lee's voice is just the beginning. She is also an incredible...totally incredible...songwriter of the highest callibre. All ten tracks on this album sound like classics from the past that you have never heard before. If you haven't heard of her yet, you can bet your socks that you will be hearing a lot about Emma-Lee in the coming months. This girl is a total knock out. Killer tunes include "Bruise Easy," "Never Just A Dream," "Mr. Buttonlip," and "Until We Meet Again." Recommended. (Rating: 5++)
Most folks exposed to the music of Toronto, Canada's Emma-Lee will likely have the same initial reaction we did. It is truly difficult to believe that this enchanting young lady is (at least at this point in time) is an unknown...?!? When you hear her voice, you'll see what we mean. The last time we recall hearing a new female vocalist who sounded this smooth and sultry was when we were first turned onto K.D. Lang many years ago. Never Just A Dream is a super slick, super polished collection of soft melodic tracks that recall the 1950s and 1960s when female vocalists were all the rage. But Emma-Lee's voice is just the beginning. She is also an incredible...totally incredible...songwriter of the highest callibre. All ten tracks on this album sound like classics from the past that you have never heard before. If you haven't heard of her yet, you can bet your socks that you will be hearing a lot about Emma-Lee in the coming months. This girl is a total knock out. Killer tunes include "Bruise Easy," "Never Just A Dream," "Mr. Buttonlip," and "Until We Meet Again." Recommended. (Rating: 5++)
- babysue.com, March 1st 2009
Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
Emma-Lee's debut, Never Just a Dream, sounds like it could have been born somewhere between San Antonio, Texas and Sao Paulo, Brazil. It's a big, luscious album with a touch of Patsy Cline's country heartbreak set against Astrud Gilberto's ease-and-flow bossa nova. We love it.
Emma-Lee's debut, Never Just a Dream, sounds like it could have been born somewhere between San Antonio, Texas and Sao Paulo, Brazil. It's a big, luscious album with a touch of Patsy Cline's country heartbreak set against Astrud Gilberto's ease-and-flow bossa nova. We love it.
- iTunes Canada Indie Spotlight, October 21st 2008
Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
Emma-Lee is the talk of Toronto with her stunning debut "Never Just a Dream", and rightly so - the girl's got it all. Her gorgeous vocals, in part influenced - as are so many singers these days by Feist - strike you immediately. But her songwriting is the real star. Varying tempos, feels and styles ranging from pop, blues, jazz and alt-country are at play, and personal introspective lyrics populate the fully-realized tunes. All 10 tracks are strong, but the ones I can't seem to get out of my head are the beautiful, open-wound, break-up anthem Flow, the angry yet breezy That Sinking Feeling with real strings (!) and glockenspiel (!) and Until We Meet Again with its contrast of shimmery strings and driving rhythm. The Brazilian-influenced guitar and percussion married to lap steel guitar (courtesy of Christine Bougie) on Isn't it Obvious make for a sort of Blue Rodeo goes to Rio trip. The agile core band - guitarist Devrim Eldelekli, acoustic bassist Steve Gotlib, drummer Kevin Mendes and piano player Tyler Yarema - stick-handle the style shifts with skill and sensitivity.
Emma-Lee is the talk of Toronto with her stunning debut "Never Just a Dream", and rightly so - the girl's got it all. Her gorgeous vocals, in part influenced - as are so many singers these days by Feist - strike you immediately. But her songwriting is the real star. Varying tempos, feels and styles ranging from pop, blues, jazz and alt-country are at play, and personal introspective lyrics populate the fully-realized tunes. All 10 tracks are strong, but the ones I can't seem to get out of my head are the beautiful, open-wound, break-up anthem Flow, the angry yet breezy That Sinking Feeling with real strings (!) and glockenspiel (!) and Until We Meet Again with its contrast of shimmery strings and driving rhythm. The Brazilian-influenced guitar and percussion married to lap steel guitar (courtesy of Christine Bougie) on Isn't it Obvious make for a sort of Blue Rodeo goes to Rio trip. The agile core band - guitarist Devrim Eldelekli, acoustic bassist Steve Gotlib, drummer Kevin Mendes and piano player Tyler Yarema - stick-handle the style shifts with skill and sensitivity.
- Cathy Riches, Wholenote Magazine, October 2008
Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
It would have to be startling ordeal, if you were a singer, to have surgery on your instrument. You would seek assurances, or some fake placating at least, prior to going under. "Doc, will I be able to sing again?" would be a valid question. But was it the chloroform or a trick of the light, or was that a twinkle in the sawbones's eye you noticed just before drifting off?
Never Just a Dream, is the wondrous full-length debut from Emma-Lee, a sensuous singer-songwriter from Toronto who underwent not one, but two, career-imperilling operations - one for a growth on her thyroid gland, the other for an unrelated vocal chord polyp - before recording a 10-song collection that remembers seventies AM radio as jazzier and plusher than it actually was.
Now, I'm no doctor and I don't play one on TV. But, as far as her voice is concerned, it appears everything turned out fine. Only fine? Okay, spectacular. Spectacular, that's it? All right, they sprinkled gold dust inside her throat, implanted strands of silk and coated it all with gleaming honey. The medical team, with the input of chanteuses k.d. lang and Jolie Holland, worked on Emma-Lee like she was Pavarotti, Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner combined. The surgeries, suffice to say, were a success.
But then there is the matter of using the voice in a sublime manner, on material worthy of such a tool. Here Emma-Lee thrives. The title track has a hazy, waltzing warmth, with heavenly background vocals - imagine the Chordettes nodding on heroin. The singing is stately.
That Sinking Feeling adds strings, lithe guitars, a bossa-nova beat and clapping. The album addresses heartbreak, but not necessarily Emma-Lee's own. Here she offers a shoulder and something more: "That sinking feeling doesn't mean you to have swim alone."
Things are more playful on Jealousy, a jaunty piano-tinkler that advises to "stop treating lovers like goddamn possessions."
The aching vocal jazz of Flow begins a three-part suite that follows a romantic breakup's phases. Isn't it Obvious, with a Hawaiian lilt and k.d.-style phrasing, has the former lovers realizing that friendship is out of the question. Mr. Buttonlip is a big-band swinging kiss-off, where a strong silent type is told to hit the road.
I'm a fan of Emma-Lee's lyrical work. The dramatic country soul of An Older Man, which emboldens better than Viagra, says a man who's been around has "lips like clockwork, because he's kissed a lot of flowers."
Clearly, Never Just a Dream, is an auspicious beginning. The languid Where You Want to Be promises more to come from a singer who is also a professional photographer (specializing in self-portraits). "I won't settle, no not a little bit," Emma-Lee sings, "you don't get me, I'm not the type to quit." Evidently so.
It would have to be startling ordeal, if you were a singer, to have surgery on your instrument. You would seek assurances, or some fake placating at least, prior to going under. "Doc, will I be able to sing again?" would be a valid question. But was it the chloroform or a trick of the light, or was that a twinkle in the sawbones's eye you noticed just before drifting off?
Never Just a Dream, is the wondrous full-length debut from Emma-Lee, a sensuous singer-songwriter from Toronto who underwent not one, but two, career-imperilling operations - one for a growth on her thyroid gland, the other for an unrelated vocal chord polyp - before recording a 10-song collection that remembers seventies AM radio as jazzier and plusher than it actually was.
Now, I'm no doctor and I don't play one on TV. But, as far as her voice is concerned, it appears everything turned out fine. Only fine? Okay, spectacular. Spectacular, that's it? All right, they sprinkled gold dust inside her throat, implanted strands of silk and coated it all with gleaming honey. The medical team, with the input of chanteuses k.d. lang and Jolie Holland, worked on Emma-Lee like she was Pavarotti, Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner combined. The surgeries, suffice to say, were a success.
But then there is the matter of using the voice in a sublime manner, on material worthy of such a tool. Here Emma-Lee thrives. The title track has a hazy, waltzing warmth, with heavenly background vocals - imagine the Chordettes nodding on heroin. The singing is stately.
That Sinking Feeling adds strings, lithe guitars, a bossa-nova beat and clapping. The album addresses heartbreak, but not necessarily Emma-Lee's own. Here she offers a shoulder and something more: "That sinking feeling doesn't mean you to have swim alone."
Things are more playful on Jealousy, a jaunty piano-tinkler that advises to "stop treating lovers like goddamn possessions."
The aching vocal jazz of Flow begins a three-part suite that follows a romantic breakup's phases. Isn't it Obvious, with a Hawaiian lilt and k.d.-style phrasing, has the former lovers realizing that friendship is out of the question. Mr. Buttonlip is a big-band swinging kiss-off, where a strong silent type is told to hit the road.
I'm a fan of Emma-Lee's lyrical work. The dramatic country soul of An Older Man, which emboldens better than Viagra, says a man who's been around has "lips like clockwork, because he's kissed a lot of flowers."
Clearly, Never Just a Dream, is an auspicious beginning. The languid Where You Want to Be promises more to come from a singer who is also a professional photographer (specializing in self-portraits). "I won't settle, no not a little bit," Emma-Lee sings, "you don't get me, I'm not the type to quit." Evidently so.
- ***1/2 star review by Brad Wheeler, disc of the week Globe & Mail, August 19th, 2008
Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
Toronto singer/songwriter Emma-Lee mines that 70s AM radio jazz pop feel that Feist has had such massive success with, but manages to bring enough of her own personality to the recipe to avoid dismissive comparisons. She’s got a strong, emotive voice, and the production is lush and natural-sounding...As a songwriter, Emma-Lee has a lot of potential, giving clever little lyrical twists to songs that initially seem completely conventional. Lots of jazzy vocalists can sing nice, comfortable music, but not many play with the conventions creatively, which is where she shines.
Toronto singer/songwriter Emma-Lee mines that 70s AM radio jazz pop feel that Feist has had such massive success with, but manages to bring enough of her own personality to the recipe to avoid dismissive comparisons. She’s got a strong, emotive voice, and the production is lush and natural-sounding...As a songwriter, Emma-Lee has a lot of potential, giving clever little lyrical twists to songs that initially seem completely conventional. Lots of jazzy vocalists can sing nice, comfortable music, but not many play with the conventions creatively, which is where she shines.
- Benjamin Boles, NOW Magazine, July 31st, 2008
Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
Toronto singer Emma-Lee, 25, is blessed with a delicate yet potent sound that harkens to kd lang and Madeleine Peyroux. Her brand of ethereal pop has doo-wop, country and blues accents bolstered by handclaps, folky guitar and cat-and-mouse strings. And she's a top-shelf songwriter, serving up tunes that explore all things romantic – jealousy, rebounding, May-December pairings – with Rickie Lee Jones honesty, Amy Winehouse sauciness and rapper-slick immortality. The lyrics aren't all easily parsed, but unforgettable lines include: "it's hard to love a girl wearing sorrow" ("Bruise Easy") and "lips like clockwork `cause he's kissed a lot of flowers" ("Older Man"). She's destined for big things. The nominee for Best Female Artist and Best Jazz Artist (by very loose definition) at Thursday's Toronto's Independent Music Awards performs at her CD launch at Revival Aug. 7. Top Track: There isn't a subpar one.
Toronto singer Emma-Lee, 25, is blessed with a delicate yet potent sound that harkens to kd lang and Madeleine Peyroux. Her brand of ethereal pop has doo-wop, country and blues accents bolstered by handclaps, folky guitar and cat-and-mouse strings. And she's a top-shelf songwriter, serving up tunes that explore all things romantic – jealousy, rebounding, May-December pairings – with Rickie Lee Jones honesty, Amy Winehouse sauciness and rapper-slick immortality. The lyrics aren't all easily parsed, but unforgettable lines include: "it's hard to love a girl wearing sorrow" ("Bruise Easy") and "lips like clockwork `cause he's kissed a lot of flowers" ("Older Man"). She's destined for big things. The nominee for Best Female Artist and Best Jazz Artist (by very loose definition) at Thursday's Toronto's Independent Music Awards performs at her CD launch at Revival Aug. 7. Top Track: There isn't a subpar one.
- 4/4 Star review by Ashante Infantry, Toronto Star July 29th, 2008
Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
The luscious landscape of “That Sinking Feeling” sets the proper mood for what you’re going to get; a genre-defying balance of songs that are flawlessly produced to compliment one of Canada’s best-undiscovered secrets: Emma-Lee’s voice. “Mr. Buttonlip” may not be as blunt as Alanis Morissette’s “You Outta Know” with its happy-go-lucky toe-tapping big band sound, but this a big fat “F’ off!’ proclamation if ever there was one, and never has a smooth-as-silk voice stung so severely as when Emma-Lee sings, “So why do you stick around just to stay in the picture?/This album closed when you hit the road.” In 42-minutes, on her debut album no less, Emma-Lee accomplishes what most of her forbearers forgot long ago: that you don’t sit down to only watch certain scenes in a movie, so why should you do it with an album? As listeners we’re just as guilty, in this single-driven society we tend to sacrifice quantity for quasi-quality, forgoing the experience of experiencing an album for the convenience of the chopping block to fill our iPod playlists. With Never Just A Dream Emma-Lee spares us the shears, offering instead this top-to-bottom, no-fillers testimonial of someone, who through thick and thin, is learning to feel comfortable in their own skin. Never Just A Dream not only belongs in the discussion for the Best Debut Album of the Year, it can hold its own against the Tidals, Little Earthquakes, and whatever-other-notable-debut you want to compare it to. Emma-Lee isn’t a name that you’re going to remember. She’s a singer you’ll never forget.
The luscious landscape of “That Sinking Feeling” sets the proper mood for what you’re going to get; a genre-defying balance of songs that are flawlessly produced to compliment one of Canada’s best-undiscovered secrets: Emma-Lee’s voice. “Mr. Buttonlip” may not be as blunt as Alanis Morissette’s “You Outta Know” with its happy-go-lucky toe-tapping big band sound, but this a big fat “F’ off!’ proclamation if ever there was one, and never has a smooth-as-silk voice stung so severely as when Emma-Lee sings, “So why do you stick around just to stay in the picture?/This album closed when you hit the road.” In 42-minutes, on her debut album no less, Emma-Lee accomplishes what most of her forbearers forgot long ago: that you don’t sit down to only watch certain scenes in a movie, so why should you do it with an album? As listeners we’re just as guilty, in this single-driven society we tend to sacrifice quantity for quasi-quality, forgoing the experience of experiencing an album for the convenience of the chopping block to fill our iPod playlists. With Never Just A Dream Emma-Lee spares us the shears, offering instead this top-to-bottom, no-fillers testimonial of someone, who through thick and thin, is learning to feel comfortable in their own skin. Never Just A Dream not only belongs in the discussion for the Best Debut Album of the Year, it can hold its own against the Tidals, Little Earthquakes, and whatever-other-notable-debut you want to compare it to. Emma-Lee isn’t a name that you’re going to remember. She’s a singer you’ll never forget.
- review by Justin Holt, Oxyfication.net, August 1st, 2008
Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
Among the influences this Toronto singer-songwriter cites are Ella Fitzgerald, heartbreak and lost souls, a grouping that manages to be simultaneously evocative and evasive – two adjectives that also describe this memorable track. Though there's an undeniable jazz influence at play here, it is probably more to the point to characterize the music as "pre-rock." Think Les Paul and Mary Ford or, more recently, k.d. lang, and you'll have your bearings.
Among the influences this Toronto singer-songwriter cites are Ella Fitzgerald, heartbreak and lost souls, a grouping that manages to be simultaneously evocative and evasive – two adjectives that also describe this memorable track. Though there's an undeniable jazz influence at play here, it is probably more to the point to characterize the music as "pre-rock." Think Les Paul and Mary Ford or, more recently, k.d. lang, and you'll have your bearings.
- John Sakamoto on "That Sinking Feeling", number 6 on The Anti-Hit List in the Toronto Star July 5th, 2008
Emma-Lee: Never Just a Dream
Nice one!! The first thing I noticed about Emma-Lee when I pressed 'play' was her distinguished, yes that's distinguished rather than distinctive, voice; mature and beautifully honed to squeeze the maximum tenderness and emotion out of her lovingly assembled songs, Emma-Lee's delivery is unlike most of her contemporaries. This girl really seems to feel the words and there's a natural sensitivity running through each and every track; Emma-Lee emotes and expresses with such confidence and worldly-wiseness that you start to think she's been looking in to your own world - nice touch!!!
Emma-Lee is actually pretty difficult to pigeonhole; she manages to bring swing in close to the blues which she then sits effortlessly against a touch of nu-country with some intelli-pop thrown in and a hint of several other genres for good measure! Her MySpace page says 'Melodramatic Popular Song / Soul / indie' which instantly made me smile coz 'melodramatic' kinda says it all really - Emma-Lee definitely tends towards the dramatic side of whatever genre she might be givin' out. Emma-Lee is quite clearly a polished and gifted performer and she certainly delivers her songs with inherent tenderness, cute breathiness and ballsy finesse.
'Never Just A Dream' is rammed full of 'big' songs that have been lovingly crafted and sensitively performed - sure there are a couple of stand-out tracks but it would be totally unfair to highlight them coz everyone's taste is different and this is very much a case of 'horses for courses' - everyone will find their own favourites over time but, believe me, it's hard to choose!! They say cream rises to the top but as far as I can tell it's all cream! As I listen I am being slowly but surely drawn into Emma-Lee's sensuous world; she's weaving a magic that's damn intoxicating and the more I listen, the more I'm hooked. Although a totally different musical experience, Emma-Lee reminds me somewhat of Janis Joplin because she puts so much of herself into every second of every song but where Joplin took her voice to the edge of reason, Emma-Lee manages to hold it all nicely in check but still gets the emotion out and really lives the songs!
'Never Just A Dream' by Toronto songstress Emma-Lee is quality and class - an emotionally charged journey, a sensitively portrayed trip into hearts and minds - her songs could be about you or me, the emotions within are real, near tangible, you'll feel them too, you've been there! Classy stuff this from Emma-Lee - 'Never Just A Dream' is a piece of gold at a time when real jewels are hard to find.
Nice one!! The first thing I noticed about Emma-Lee when I pressed 'play' was her distinguished, yes that's distinguished rather than distinctive, voice; mature and beautifully honed to squeeze the maximum tenderness and emotion out of her lovingly assembled songs, Emma-Lee's delivery is unlike most of her contemporaries. This girl really seems to feel the words and there's a natural sensitivity running through each and every track; Emma-Lee emotes and expresses with such confidence and worldly-wiseness that you start to think she's been looking in to your own world - nice touch!!!
Emma-Lee is actually pretty difficult to pigeonhole; she manages to bring swing in close to the blues which she then sits effortlessly against a touch of nu-country with some intelli-pop thrown in and a hint of several other genres for good measure! Her MySpace page says 'Melodramatic Popular Song / Soul / indie' which instantly made me smile coz 'melodramatic' kinda says it all really - Emma-Lee definitely tends towards the dramatic side of whatever genre she might be givin' out. Emma-Lee is quite clearly a polished and gifted performer and she certainly delivers her songs with inherent tenderness, cute breathiness and ballsy finesse.
'Never Just A Dream' is rammed full of 'big' songs that have been lovingly crafted and sensitively performed - sure there are a couple of stand-out tracks but it would be totally unfair to highlight them coz everyone's taste is different and this is very much a case of 'horses for courses' - everyone will find their own favourites over time but, believe me, it's hard to choose!! They say cream rises to the top but as far as I can tell it's all cream! As I listen I am being slowly but surely drawn into Emma-Lee's sensuous world; she's weaving a magic that's damn intoxicating and the more I listen, the more I'm hooked. Although a totally different musical experience, Emma-Lee reminds me somewhat of Janis Joplin because she puts so much of herself into every second of every song but where Joplin took her voice to the edge of reason, Emma-Lee manages to hold it all nicely in check but still gets the emotion out and really lives the songs!
'Never Just A Dream' by Toronto songstress Emma-Lee is quality and class - an emotionally charged journey, a sensitively portrayed trip into hearts and minds - her songs could be about you or me, the emotions within are real, near tangible, you'll feel them too, you've been there! Classy stuff this from Emma-Lee - 'Never Just A Dream' is a piece of gold at a time when real jewels are hard to find.