Heather McCready
Arlington, Texas, United States | SELF
Music
Press
Heather sings on Good Morning Texas, WFAA Channel 8, Dallas Fort Worth songs from her Christmas album, "Christmas, the way I Hear It". - WFAA Channel 8 Dallas/FortWorth Good Morning Texas
"The songs are sunny and positive with spare, melodic instrumentation."
- Mario Tarradell, Guide Live, Pop Culture (Feb 08, 2013) - Mario Tarradell, Guide Live, Pop Culture (Feb 08, 2013)
"The songs are sunny and positive with spare, melodic instrumentation."
- Mario Tarradell, Guide Live, Pop Culture (Feb 08, 2013) - Mario Tarradell, Guide Live, Pop Culture (Feb 08, 2013)
Heather McCready's song, " Give It a Day" is addicting!"
Pegusus/ Dallas Newsletter (Feb 09, 2011) - Pegusus/ Dallas Newsletter (Feb 09, 2011)
"Heather McCready makes music to calm the chaotic soul. The Arlington-based folk singer-songwriter zeroes in on lovely melodies, thoughtful lyrics and the comfort of uncluttered instrumentation. " - The Dallas Morning News, Music Critic, Mario Tarradell
"Heather McCready makes music to calm the chaotic soul. The Arlington-based folk singer-songwriter zeroes in on lovely melodies, thoughtful lyrics and the comfort of uncluttered instrumentation. " - The Dallas Morning News, Music Critic, Mario Tarradell
"Bluebirdy" is a cool album!"
- Mario Tarradell , Music Editor, Guide Live, Pop Culture (video) (Feb 08, 2013) - Guide Live Pop Culture , Dallas Morning News
"Bluebirdy" is a real cool album! It's a conceptual album. You always seem to have a cheery element about you even on he sad songs. - Mario Tarradell, The Dallas Morning News
"Bluebirdy" is a real cool album! It's a conceptual album. You always seem to have a cheery element about you even on he sad songs. - Mario Tarradell, The Dallas Morning News
"The delicate purity of fiddle, mandolin, cello, dobro and tin whistle elegantly dances with the resilient sturdiness of drums, banjo, upright bass, and acoustic guitar. Then the voice comes in, a wistful and lovely instrument. The lyrics are thoughtful, displaying a whimsical and deeply spiritual nature. That's Heather McCready..." - Mario Tarradell, Music Critic, The Dallas Morning News (Aug 11, 2011) - The Dallas Morning News
"The delicate purity of fiddle, mandolin, cello, dobro and tin whistle elegantly dances with the resilient sturdiness of drums, banjo, upright bass, and acoustic guitar. Then the voice comes in, a wistful and lovely instrument. The lyrics are thoughtful, displaying a whimsical and deeply spiritual nature. That's Heather McCready..." - Mario Tarradell, Music Critic, The Dallas Morning News (Aug 11, 2011) - The Dallas Morning News
Heather McCready delayed her musical career until her children were old enough to sorta, sometimes take care of themselves, then got back into it in a hurry.
She released her second and third albums in 2010. A song, “Neverland,” on the CD of the same name one took her to the West Coast in November with a nomination for a Hollywood Music in Media Award. She didn’t win, but the newest CD, Give it a Day, is more than enough consolation.
Putting out two CDs of original songs in the same year certainly isn’t unique, but it is unusual. They came in a rush.
“I got married at 19 and was 22 when I had my first child,” McCready said. “I was a stay-at-home mom for 12 years and didn’t do anything else but focus on being a mom. But I have all this creativity inside of me. I started writing when I was about 11, and always had vocal training and was in musicals” growing up.
McCready grew up in Fort Worth and now lives in Arlington with the kids – Marshall, who’s almost 15, and Ruthie, who is almost 12 – and her husband, Mark, who is a business analyst manager.
“I withheld that creativity because I know my nature. I pour my whole self into whatever I do, and it’s hard to balance things well,” she said. “I’m trying to balance that now that my kids are old enough now. I still give my all as a mom, but I also allow myself to do what I always dreamed of doing.
“Once I started letting it out and began making these CDs, it just came out like an explosion.”
As she was preparing to record Neverland, someone stole her binder of all the songs she’d written over the years.
“That was traumatic,” she said. “It was like my life was in that binder. I searched in dumpsters and put out a huge reward. Then I did a random thing. I bought a pawn shop guitar and started trying to figure out how to play. It felt natural to me, and I wrote all the songs on Neverland. They just started rolling. The CD just flew out, and then the new one kept coming.
“Now I’m brain dead. It’s like at the time I had to do it but I didn’t really have to try. I’d held it in so long. It’s been a big change for me. I’m still a mom and I don’t diminish that at all, but there is the ‘me me’ too. That needs to be expressed. I want to have years and years of getting to do it. I know how much I’ve grown.”
McCready’s Give it a Day, features her somewhat delicate, retro voice that reminds of Alison Krauss. The performances are passionate, and the cover shows a pixie-ish face even from a 37-year-old mother of two.
A one-word description would be folk. There’s a fairly strong country element, too, although McCready said her influences come mostly from music of the 1960s and 1970s including Peter, Paul, and Mary; Simon & Garfunkel; and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
“Harmony is my favorite thing,” she said. “I love good harmony. Most of my inspiration comes from that. But I’m molded by many different sounds, a full spectrum of sounds. I can appreciate the talent in most any genre except heavy metal; my nerves can’t take that.”
Among the 10 mostly upbeat songs, favorites include “You Came to Me,” a love song that asks, “What’s a question with no answer, what’s a lyric with no tune;” the hymn-like “Clarity,” that claims “I am blinded by the dark in me;” and the poetic “Freefalling,” told from the perspective of a man who sees a woman “who was like a little girl from another world in the place she’d always wished she had been.”
McCready co-produced with Milo Deering, who added guitar, fiddle, mandolin, Dobro, and tin whistle. Other musicians on the project were George Anderson (upright bass), John Landefeld (cello), and Bob Gentry (drums and banjo).
“I think Give it a Day is a lot more cohesive than the other ones,” she said. “We – the band and I – have developed in our artistry together. I feel like I’ve grown a lot from working with people like Milo and everybody else.”
Her emphasis changed just a bit on the most recent CD with its emphasis on mental health.
“I’ve figured out my own identify,” she said. “I left off a lot of the religious music because I was going through my own soul searching time and I just wanted to focus on the mental health thing. I’m not moving away from God, but from religion. That’s not what people would notice, but behind the scenes what I wrote was coming from a spiritual place.”
Musically, McCready and the band added some bluegrass and Celtic elements – and a bit of cello – to the 1960s and 1970s elements.
“I’m a hippie at heart. I’m 37 now, closing in on 40. We’re all growing as human beings, and we should be proud of our age; in other cultures, they are,” she said. “We’ve developed our own style as a band. Every time I ask somebody how they’d describe our CD, most people say it’s something like they’ve never heard because it is a new sound.”
McCready focuses on the details when she’s writing a song.
“I feel like things get over produced,” she said. “I get tired of hearing the repetition in so - Buddy, The Original Texas Music Magazine
Heather McCready delayed her musical career until her children were old enough to sorta, sometimes take care of themselves, then got back into it in a hurry.
She released her second and third albums in 2010. A song, “Neverland,” on the CD of the same name one took her to the West Coast in November with a nomination for a Hollywood Music in Media Award. She didn’t win, but the newest CD, Give it a Day, is more than enough consolation.
Putting out two CDs of original songs in the same year certainly isn’t unique, but it is unusual. They came in a rush.
“I got married at 19 and was 22 when I had my first child,” McCready said. “I was a stay-at-home mom for 12 years and didn’t do anything else but focus on being a mom. But I have all this creativity inside of me. I started writing when I was about 11, and always had vocal training and was in musicals” growing up.
McCready grew up in Fort Worth and now lives in Arlington with the kids – Marshall, who’s almost 15, and Ruthie, who is almost 12 – and her husband, Mark, who is a business analyst manager.
“I withheld that creativity because I know my nature. I pour my whole self into whatever I do, and it’s hard to balance things well,” she said. “I’m trying to balance that now that my kids are old enough now. I still give my all as a mom, but I also allow myself to do what I always dreamed of doing.
“Once I started letting it out and began making these CDs, it just came out like an explosion.”
As she was preparing to record Neverland, someone stole her binder of all the songs she’d written over the years.
“That was traumatic,” she said. “It was like my life was in that binder. I searched in dumpsters and put out a huge reward. Then I did a random thing. I bought a pawn shop guitar and started trying to figure out how to play. It felt natural to me, and I wrote all the songs on Neverland. They just started rolling. The CD just flew out, and then the new one kept coming.
“Now I’m brain dead. It’s like at the time I had to do it but I didn’t really have to try. I’d held it in so long. It’s been a big change for me. I’m still a mom and I don’t diminish that at all, but there is the ‘me me’ too. That needs to be expressed. I want to have years and years of getting to do it. I know how much I’ve grown.”
McCready’s Give it a Day, features her somewhat delicate, retro voice that reminds of Alison Krauss. The performances are passionate, and the cover shows a pixie-ish face even from a 37-year-old mother of two.
A one-word description would be folk. There’s a fairly strong country element, too, although McCready said her influences come mostly from music of the 1960s and 1970s including Peter, Paul, and Mary; Simon & Garfunkel; and Crosby, Stills, and Nash.
“Harmony is my favorite thing,” she said. “I love good harmony. Most of my inspiration comes from that. But I’m molded by many different sounds, a full spectrum of sounds. I can appreciate the talent in most any genre except heavy metal; my nerves can’t take that.”
Among the 10 mostly upbeat songs, favorites include “You Came to Me,” a love song that asks, “What’s a question with no answer, what’s a lyric with no tune;” the hymn-like “Clarity,” that claims “I am blinded by the dark in me;” and the poetic “Freefalling,” told from the perspective of a man who sees a woman “who was like a little girl from another world in the place she’d always wished she had been.”
McCready co-produced with Milo Deering, who added guitar, fiddle, mandolin, Dobro, and tin whistle. Other musicians on the project were George Anderson (upright bass), John Landefeld (cello), and Bob Gentry (drums and banjo).
“I think Give it a Day is a lot more cohesive than the other ones,” she said. “We – the band and I – have developed in our artistry together. I feel like I’ve grown a lot from working with people like Milo and everybody else.”
Her emphasis changed just a bit on the most recent CD with its emphasis on mental health.
“I’ve figured out my own identify,” she said. “I left off a lot of the religious music because I was going through my own soul searching time and I just wanted to focus on the mental health thing. I’m not moving away from God, but from religion. That’s not what people would notice, but behind the scenes what I wrote was coming from a spiritual place.”
Musically, McCready and the band added some bluegrass and Celtic elements – and a bit of cello – to the 1960s and 1970s elements.
“I’m a hippie at heart. I’m 37 now, closing in on 40. We’re all growing as human beings, and we should be proud of our age; in other cultures, they are,” she said. “We’ve developed our own style as a band. Every time I ask somebody how they’d describe our CD, most people say it’s something like they’ve never heard because it is a new sound.”
McCready focuses on the details when she’s writing a song.
“I feel like things get over produced,” she said. “I get tired of hearing the repetition in so - Buddy, The Original Texas Music Magazine
http://www.azstarnet.com/allheadlines/309203.php
[Regarding te ninth annual KIIM-FM Country Music Festival in Tucson Arizona on September 19, 2009].
As of Tuesday, McCoy had landed the coveted 9:55 p.m. slot for Saturday's festival, which also includes fast-rising Nashville artists Chris Young and Trent Tomlinson; Arizona singer Erin Kalin; and Texas singer-songwriter Heather McCready. - www.azstartnet.cm (Arizona Daily Star)
Discography
CDs:
"Bluebirdy"- 2012 (Travelin'Girl Productions)- 10 songs
"Christmas, the Way I Hear It" (Travelin'Girl Productions-10 songs
"Give It A Day"- (2010- Travelin' Girl Productions)-10 songs
"Neverland" (2009- Travelin' Girl Productions)-12 songs
"Finally Free"- (2008- Travelin' Girl Productions)-12 songs
my songs "Clarity' and "Maybe" have been played on the major BBC2. And many of my other songs are being played around the world, most often I get reports from The Netherlands, Germany, France, and Australia. But it has been reported from as far away as Dubai! (That shocked me! :)
Music streaming:
www.jango.com
www.grooveshark.com
www.lastfm.com
Photos
Bio
I am a singer/songwriter from Ft.Worth, Texas. I hope that you will enjoy listening to my songs. My co/producer and arranger, Milo Deering plays with me and he is an absolute musical genius and highly sought after studio musician. I am fortunate to have him accompany me on guitar, fiddle, mandolin, ukulele, tin whistle, dobro and even pedal steel on my CD's. And when we play live, we adjust and take the songs down to their essence which is actually my favorite way to hear them. I have found that most people cannot describe the sound of my music. They say "you just have to hear it." I wish I had a better band to liken myself to but the best I can do is describe it to you this way until you have a chance to hear it. I have a unique lyrical style and a distinctive vocal tone and style as well. The music is a blend of bluegrass, folk, and celtic, with classical elements woven in throughout. My favorite instrument is the the cello and I incorporate it in my songs as often as possible. My voice has been described as "angelic" and "pure" and is most often likened to that of Alison Krauss, Jewel, Dolly Parton or Norah Jones. On the one hand my lyrics tend to be deep and thought- provoking, with many references to nature, God, depression and finding hope, when on the other hand, "Bluebirdy" is filled with whimsical youthful songs, doused with fun and creative energy!! I am complimented by people who tell me that my songs " open up their heart". I like the way Mario Tarradell, Music Critic from the "Dallas Morning News" said there was a cheerful element to even my most sad songs. That is one thing that is important to me- hope. I try to never write depressing songs. I do write about depression, but I usually have a that little sunshine Mario mentioned kind of sitting in the dark song's room!
I write music for listening rooms and quiet concert halls or corners, whatever quiet spot there is to sing in. My music is based on simplicity and the attempt to make the music's beauty shine with subtle changes and fluid movements to really allow it to flow. I view music as an individual or an experience, each song with a life and personality of it's own. I want it to be the best it can be, and I think very often that means give it space and allow it to BE. More specifically I sing with a soft voice while Milo plays guitar and Brian plays the cello. I move my hands and sway where where the music takes me like a tree blowing in the wind. We sing happy songs and sad, but all are peaceful. I am most often told my music is refreshing and mesmerizing.
Here is my official bio. Thank you for reading!
With touches of bluegrass, Celtic, classical, and folk, Heather McCready has an original and remarkable sound that is all her own. Heather is a uniquely gifted and prolific singer-songwriter from Fort Worth, Texas whose music will reach deep inside of you and touch your spirit. Described as “evocative” and “refreshing”, her music is imaginative, whimsical and spirited. Heather thrives on individuality and bursts with creative expression resulting in profound tracks that will move her listeners. Heather currently has airplay all over the world including in the Netherlands, Germany, France and England.
Since 2009, Heather has released three full-length albums, Finally Free, Neverland, and Give It A Day. Through every album, Heather continues to grow and evolve as a musician. Heather truly understands the art of making music by focusing on detail, simplicity and purity of sound. Heather and her band use a blend of acoustic guitars, fiddles, mandolin, piano, cello, and upright bass, as well as Heather’s own angelic and distinctly pure voice to create unparalleled compositions. She will take you to a place you will never want to leave.
In 2010, Heather garnered attention for her October release of Give It A Day from Buddy Magazine, The Original Texas Music Magazine, and her rare feat of releasing two full-length, original albums in one year. In December, Heather was featured twice on KDFW Fox 4’s “Good Day Dallas.” The first appearance was in celebration of her album release, and she and the band performed the album’s title track, “Give It A Day”. Then, on Christmas Day, Heather and the band performed an original and unique arrangement of “Silent Night”. To view Heather’s “Give It A Day” performance, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM4RcqYZsGc. To view Heather’s “Silent Night” performance, please visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uE6KaMJVXQ0&feature=related.
Heather’s own inspiration for her music stems from her personal platform for mental health awareness. After losing two of her closest family members to suicide and struggling with bipolar disorder herself, Heather aspires to help other mental health sufferers and to fight against existing antiquated stigmas associated with mental health disorders. In support of her platform, Heather is narrating an upcoming documentary produced by the Trauma
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