Chelsea Saddler

Debut

Chelsea Saddler will celebrate her 21st birthday and the release of her first album on Thursday at European Street in San Marco. It's part of the acoustic songwriter's circle that shows up there from time to time. Larry Mangum will host and John Longbottom will join them. That's a pretty good lineup. I've been listening to an early version of Saddler's CD, and it's pretty impressive. A strong, haunting voice with a great feel for her songs.

roger.bull@jacksonville.com,

- Florida Times-Union

This Week's Featured Artist

Chelsea Saddler at European Street

By Rick Grant

Last Thursday, Chelsea Saddler showcased songs from her debut CD, A Good Woman at European Street as part of the Songwriting
Circle with Larry Mangum, and John Longbottom. It was also Chelsea's 21st birthday. Before this momentous gig, I was deluged with E-mails from musicians proclaiming Chelsea possessed an extraordinarily songwriting talent This unusual praise was coming from songwriters I respect and who rarely extol their peers. It was a love-fest that symbolically anointed Chelsea the second coming of Joni Mitchell--the queen of women songwriters-past and present.

Yes, I was excited to finally witness Chelsea perform live. From her first
song, she exceeded my expectations. Chelsea is an old soul trapped in a young body. Her songs are concise emotionally deep chronicles of her life and experiences set to catchy melodic structures. Her mature insight into life far exceeds her age. Although she is only 21, her spirit is on fast
track to enlightenment.

More significantly, Chelsea's raw talent at writing songs that exactly
express the mood and tone of her lyrical poetry is uncanny. Rarely does a talent like Chelsea come along. Looking back over the years, she could be compared to Joni Mitchell or Carol King, who have the knack for writing memorable songs that express joy, sorrow, love, betrayal, and even moral
turpitude without waxing gushingly sentimental. As an interesting paradox, Chelsea's songs bring out her mature spirit, yet when she speaks she comes across as age appropriate. Clearly, she was in awe of her stage partners, Larry Mangum and John Longbottom. Remember, she is just getting started as a professional singer/songwriter, so she has many years of creativity ahead of her.

Although there have been many famous songs written about cocaine-pro and con, Chelsea's haunting ballad sent shivers up my spine. It may be the most poignant drug song ever written because of its subtlety and insigt. In presenting this song, Chelsea lays bare her soul, which catches the
audience off-guard in moment of stunning honesty. Her other work is equally engaging.




- Entertaining U

By Rick Grant

A year ago at the European St. Café in San Marco I lauded Chelsea Saddler in print and on rickatnight.com on her 21st Birthday. Last Saturday, I covered her 22nd Birthday performing her new songs from her second album due to be released soon. Chelsea has come a long way in just a year as a confident performer and exceptional songwriter. Her songs are eclectic and inspired by various stories and events, not just unrequited love. Uh, well, she does sing songs about romantic entanglements, (which at her age are many) but it does not dominate her repertoire.

Chelsea’s voice has matured into a strong, unwavering vehicle for her creative expression of her soulful songwriting. Her guitar playing has advanced and is always interesting. Her rhythm stylings are cleverly patterned to compliment her songs.
Yeah, this is coming from a grizzled old guy–a veteran of past music wars-- whose standards are high. My car CD collection contains albums by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, and Tom Petty as well as blues artists such as Buddy Guy, Koko Taylor, and Johnny Winter. I’m very selective about female songwriters. I love Joan Armatrading and Joni Mitchell, and a few other modern singer/songwriters such as Fiona Apple and the avant garde music of Kate Bush.

My point is, I listen to Chelsea Saddler as part of my female artists’ collection–she’s that good. Her material holds up to legendary comparisons. And, man, I’m not spewing hyperbole. This Chelsea chick has got major juice, baby. If I was still in the biz, I’d would sign her in a heartbeat. And, this is not a reaction to the testosterone gel my doctor gave me to rejuvenate my “energy.” Okay, I’m old but not dead. I’m still a dedicated female ogler.

- Entertaining U/Rick At Night

Chelsea Saddler | Songwriter
“I never really chose to sing,” says Chelsea, a 21 year-old Jacksonville-native with her album, A Good Woman, under her belt. “I wanted to write songs,” she clarifies. She performs regularly at European Street Café and Twisted Sisters, where she can ease into her laid back sound without much interruption. “It’s all happened really fast,” she says. “I never sought out to be on CD, or to get promoted. I just kind of fell into it,” she says. The former FCCJ student worked in the corporate world before becoming engrossed in her music. She never thought she could make money from writing songs and playing guitar. “It was kind of heartbreaking working at a desk,” she admits. But as any musician will tell you, she doesn’t write songs for the money. “To see the look on the faces [in the audience] is awesome,” she says.
- Skirt Jacksonville

The Florida Times-Union
March 21, 2008

Writing their way to musical success

By ROGER BULL -- The Times-Union,
The Times-Union

It is the most basic of music presentations: One musician on stage, armed only with an acoustic guitar, playing a song that he wrote, that she wrote. Nothing more, nothing less. There's no place to hide.

That's the path Chelsea Saddler and Shawn Lightfoot have taken. Two songwriters, two very different styles, playing their gigs around Jacksonville. Usually by themselves, sometimes with another musician or two, just to round out the sound.

They're two of the six finalists, chosen from about 120 entrants, in the annual songwriting contest at Suwannee Springfest. All six will compete for the prize next Thursday, opening the festival.

They'll also play Saturday night at European Street, as part of a continuing songwriters circle.

The two musicians have come to that place on the stage through different routes. Saddler is 21, born and raised in Jacksonville and doesn't weigh much more than her guitar. She's self-taught with no musical training other than a bit of singing in church.

Lightfoot is 28 and grew up all over the place before settling in Jacksonville eight years ago. And he studied opera in college. Opera.

But at East Carolina University, he came to a point where he had to make a decision.

"My professor said I had a nice voice," Lightfoot said, "but that I'd never be Pavarotti."

So that ended opera. He came to Jacksonville, where his father had retired to from the Navy, and started studying public relations at the University of North Florida.

The year was 2000, and it was a good time for someone learning to be a songwriter.

"There was a lot more happening in Five Points, then," he said. "A lot more for a guy who wanted to write.

"They had the old Fuel open mike night, that was the first thing I did. And Starlight Cafe, Boomtown.

"Starlight was great. I'd do a gig and then head back over there to play some of the songs I really wanted to do."

He's had a few bands during the past eight years. The Lightfoot Brigade, the Daeighlies, Cowford Tramps. But it's always back to the solo . . .

For Saddler, it's all happened pretty quickly. She started playing guitar in her early teens, but didn't do much with it until last year.

Then she started going to open mike nights at the House of Jam, London Bridge and Coffee Roasters.

"I didn't think I was anything special," she said.

But Ray Lewis and Larry Mangum, two guys active in the local music scene for a long time, noticed her.

Less than a year later, she's recorded an album (and celebrated its release on her 21st birthday), started a second and is playing out two or three times a week.

Just like their paths, their music is completely different.

Lightfoot's tunes are almost like bits of the classic songbook, from Boy Gone Crazy, which harkens to a bit of light blues swing from the 1930s, to the Japanese-tinged Orange Blossom Tea (Drink your orange blossom tea, I will carry all my caraway seeds . . . Figure that line out.)

His light, lyric tenor is simply prettier than you'd expect. And for him, the songs are all about the music.

"It all starts with the melody," he said. "Once it goes for a while in my head, once it's started to digest, it starts to mean something to me. I may have a song written before I start to write it down.

"If it doesn't stay in my head, it's not good enough.

"But I'm pretty scientific about it. I'm aware that you can only sing certain vowels on high notes."

Saddler's songs are straightforward, personal bits of folk songwriting that seem well past her 21 years: Taste a glass of wine, just to get you off my mind. I guess this is how it feels when a heart breaks.

"It's always different," she said. "Sometimes I'll write a guitar lick and think, 'You know what'd go well with that, an I-hate-guys song.' But mostly, it's about the words.

"With the music that I listen to, it's always songwriters with something to say. I can't listen to rap; it's always 'Let's go to the club and shoot someone.' I can't listen to metal because I can't understand the words."

So she has a shoe box full of napkins, paper towels, receipts with a few words scribbled on them.

"It's horrible," she said. "I bet it's been a month since I tried to go through it. There's so much in there."

Saddler works part time in a retail store. Lightfoot substitute teaches. At night, they place their guitar straps over their shoulders, face the crowd and sing their songs.

But there are not many places for people like them, for people who want to play pretty much their own songs.

"I'd do a Bob Dylan song," Saddler said, "and someone would say 'Do you know any Johnny Cash? Jimmy Buffett?' And I'd say, 'No, I just know that one.' "

"Drunk people," she said, "only want to hear songs they already know."

But she's built up a local following, and now people are starting to request Dirty South and Caroline.

Lightfoot said he's lucky if he can make it 50-50 between originals and covers.

"If you turn it up loud enough and play something they know, they'll listen," he said. "But that doesn't really satisfy the soul. You can only play Blister in the Sun about 100 times."

So they play on, working their part-time jobs, playing music when that works out.

"I don't see myself as a working musician," Lightfoot said. "I see myself as a songwriter who happens to get paid."

"Here's me, here's my guitar and here's what I play," Saddler said. "I really don't play that well, I don't sing that well, but I do have something to say."

roger.bull@jacksonville.com,
(904) 359-4296

SEE them play

Chelsea Saddler and Shawn Lightfoot play at 7 p.m. Saturday at European Street, 5500 Beach Blvd. Admission is $5.

SEE them compete

Chelsea Saddler, Shawn Lightfoot the four other finalists in the Suwannee Springfest songwriting contests - Dean J. Johanesen, Amanda Anne Platt, Steve Simpson and Cheryl Watson - will play for the judges at 7 p.m. Thursday at Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park.




- Florida Times-Union