Rorie Kelly is on fire. Her neural pathways crackle with the electric sizzle of creative impulses. A prolific writer, she’ll tell you she never gets writer’s block. If societal or personal issues move her, she seems capable of writing catchy, compelling lyrics and melody almost at will. Completing the package is a powerful alto that she uses in a variety of ways. She can sing softly for a lament or she can shake the walls like a rocker. All this comes from a pixieish 5-foot-3-inch redhead. No wonder, some have exclaimed: “That voice came out of that body?!!! [click link and scroll down for a demonstrative video] To date, she has released three full-length albums. I reviewed the first two, Wish Upon a Bottlecap (2010) and Sincerely Live (2013), in our December 2015 NERFA wrap-up issue CD review section. Her third, Rising Rising Rising (2016), was reviewed in the December 2016 issue. We also provided a link to a video of her live performance of her signature song, “Don’t Give In,” from Rising Rising Rising. This author’s continued enchantment with her talent made an interview and subsequent cover feature mandatory. Roots Rorie was born in 1984 on Long Island (Lake Success) and grew up in Bayville, N.Y. Her mother was a singer/songwriter/professional musician and her father is a professional bass player sideman with a passion for engineering and recording. He had a recording studio for a time and presently does side projects at home. He has taught sound recording at Nassau Community College (SUNY) for the past 25 years. Rorie has a younger sister with a beautiful voice, who didn’t pursue music as a career. Rorie always sang, but didn’t apply herself until she was around 13. That’s when it crystallized into a force to fill a void in her burgeoning self-image. She taught herself guitar using books and OLGA, the internet’s now-defunct online guitar archive. She also began writing songs. Her website states: “Growing up I was listening to Liz Phair, Alanis Morissette, and Ben Folds Five alongside Joni Mitchell and The Beatles. That’s where my foundation comes from as a musician.” Career She began playing in public when she was 15 or 16, busking in Bayville’s town square on Saturday mornings and playing at open mics. Rorie got serious around the time she turned 20, singing and playing in rock and pop bands and writing constantly. Although her rock and pop sensibilities channeled her into rock bands early on, she evolved into a solo act with an acoustic guitar (she plays the guitar with absolute command). “I mostly do the girl with a guitar thing. It’s easier.” (She still has a backing band she uses on occasion.) Drifting into the folk singer/songwriter community, she found acceptance. Their stance being, as she characterized it, “If you’re here, if you share our values, if you want to make music together, you’re in.” All three of Rorie’s albums are worth owning. Bottlecap’s infectious folk/rock contain both anthem-like declarations and introspection, as in her song “Quick Diagnosis”: but I like the rain so it must mean that I’m lonely / and the need for pain must mean that it’s the only / thing that I wanna feel like it was an addiction / because self-exploration is sometimes an affliction. Sincerely Live juxtaposes her two sets with solo guitar and with a full band and electric guitar. She introduces her father (playing bass) with: “I met the bass player 28 years ago in a hospital.” Rising continues her spiritual growth with many songs about women’s empowerment, such as the aforementioned “Don’t Give In,” plus “If You Teach A Bird To Sing”: You think you’ve got a cage of brass and a lock and key / you think she’s too dumb to set herself free / but the fact that you’re lockin’ her up shows that you’re the dummy… She craves self-empowerment for all women. As she told me: “I was lucky to be raised by a strong, feminist woman. She taught me when I was really young to not make certain choices or not do certain things just because I’m a woman. I’m really grateful for that. In my 20s, I received the same slights that my mom had gotten 20 years before — being the only woman in the room with a guitar — that I didn’t know what I was doing; that I couldn’t do my own sound hookups, [among other negative male assessments].” When Rorie spoke about these issues publicly, she found other women hungry for answers. “We needed to share what we’re going through and really connect as women. It became a rallying call for me. Now it’s a goal of mine to hear women by communicating with them — and use an encouraging form of communication.” Toward that end she began a series in 2016 called “Songs to Start a Fire.” She said, “It’s still at a grass-roots level. I let it take shape on its own. It’s one part performance [by Rorie] and one part empowerment circle — talking and feeling and sharing.” She has also performed at two LGBT pride series in the past year and projects it to be a recurring series at a Long Island library in 2017. She encapsulates it like this: “Music is about healing and learning to befriend yourself. It’s about finding self-empowerment.” Upcoming shows include: Rorie will be performing at the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan on January 27, will also take part in the Mt. Sinai Songwriters Showcase, Mt. Sinai, N.Y. on Feb. 25, and will be a featured performer in John Platt’s “On Your Radar” series at Rockwood Music Hall, also in Manhattan on May 9. Website: http://www.roriekelly.com

Rorie Kelly is on fire. Her neural pathways crackle with the electric sizzle of creative impulses. A prolific writer, she’ll tell you she never gets writer’s block. If societal or personal issues move her, she seems capable of writing catchy, compelling lyrics and melody almost at will. Completing the package is a powerful alto that she uses in a variety of ways. She can sing softly for a lament or she can shake the walls like a rocker. All this comes from a pixieish 5-foot-3-inch redhead. No wonder, some have exclaimed: “That voice came out of that body?!!! [click link and scroll down for a demonstrative video]

To date, she has released three full-length albums. I reviewed the first two, Wish Upon a Bottlecap (2010) and Sincerely Live (2013), in our December 2015 NERFA wrap-up issue CD review section. Her third, Rising Rising Rising (2016), was reviewed in the December 2016 issue. We also provided a link to a video of her live performance of her signature song, “Don’t Give In,” from Rising Rising Rising. This author’s continued enchantment with her talent made an interview and subsequent cover feature mandatory.

Roots

Rorie was born in 1984 on Long Island (Lake Success) and grew up in Bayville, N.Y. Her mother was a singer/songwriter/professional musician and her father is a professional bass player sideman with a passion for engineering and recording. He had a recording studio for a time and presently does side projects at home. He has taught sound recording at Nassau Community College (SUNY) for the past 25 years. Rorie has a younger sister with a beautiful voice, who didn’t pursue music as a career. Rorie always sang, but didn’t apply herself until she was around 13. That’s when it crystallized into a force to fill a void in her burgeoning self-image. She taught herself guitar using books and OLGA, the internet’s now-defunct online guitar archive. She also began writing songs. Her website states: “Growing up I was listening to Liz Phair, Alanis Morissette, and Ben Folds Five alongside Joni Mitchell and The Beatles. That’s where my foundation comes from as a musician.”

Career

She began playing in public when she was 15 or 16, busking in Bayville’s town square on Saturday mornings and playing at open mics. Rorie got serious around the time she turned 20, singing and playing in rock and pop bands and writing constantly. Although her rock and pop sensibilities channeled her into rock bands early on, she evolved into a solo act with an acoustic guitar (she plays the guitar with absolute command). “I mostly do the girl with a guitar thing. It’s easier.” (She still has a backing band she uses on occasion.) Drifting into the folk singer/songwriter community, she found acceptance. Their stance being, as she characterized it, “If you’re here, if you share our values, if you want to make music together, you’re in.”

All three of Rorie’s albums are worth owning. Bottlecap’s infectious folk/rock contain both anthem-like declarations and introspection, as in her song “Quick Diagnosis”: but I like the rain so it must mean that I’m lonely / and the need for pain must mean that it’s the only / thing that I wanna feel like it was an addiction / because self-exploration is sometimes an affliction. Sincerely Live juxtaposes her two sets with solo guitar and with a full band and electric guitar. She introduces her father (playing bass) with: “I met the bass player 28 years ago in a hospital.” Rising continues her spiritual growth with many songs about women’s empowerment, such as the aforementioned “Don’t Give In,” plus “If You Teach A Bird To Sing”: You think you’ve got a cage of brass and a lock and key / you think she’s too dumb to set herself free / but the fact that you’re lockin’ her up shows that you’re the dummy…

She craves self-empowerment for all women. As she told me: “I was lucky to be raised by a strong, feminist woman. She taught me when I was really young to not make certain choices or not do certain things just because I’m a woman. I’m really grateful for that. In my 20s, I received the same slights that my mom had gotten 20 years before — being the only woman in the room with a guitar — that I didn’t know what I was doing; that I couldn’t do my own sound hookups, [among other negative male assessments].” When Rorie spoke about these issues publicly, she found other women hungry for answers. “We needed to share what we’re going through and really connect as women. It became a rallying call for me. Now it’s a goal of mine to hear women by communicating with them — and use an encouraging form of communication.” Toward that end she began a series in 2016 called “Songs to Start a Fire.” She said, “It’s still at a grass-roots level. I let it take shape on its own. It’s one part performance [by Rorie] and one part empowerment circle — talking and feeling and sharing.” She has also performed at two LGBT pride series in the past year and projects it to be a recurring series at a Long Island library in 2017. She encapsulates it like this: “Music is about healing and learning to befriend yourself. It’s about finding self-empowerment.”

Upcoming shows include:

Rorie will be performing at the American Folk Art Museum in Manhattan on January 27, will also take part in the Mt. Sinai Songwriters Showcase, Mt. Sinai, N.Y. on Feb. 25, and will be a featured performer in John Platt’s “On Your Radar” series at Rockwood Music Hall, also in Manhattan on May 9.

Website: http://www.roriekelly.com