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Local singer-songwriter Angi West releases debut album
By Justin Goble
A singer-songwriter with local roots has released a debut album that features classical melodies mixed into an alternative country style.
Angi West, who grew up on Brown Mountain in Caney Fork’s Johns Creek community and studied music in Asheville and Boston, co-produced her CD, “Orange Thread in a Blue Sea,” in addition to writing its songs.
“Orange Thread in a Blue Sea,” is the debut CD from local singer-songwriter Angi West, who’s the daughter of Tom and Dona West of Cullowhee, West, who has studied music in Asheville and Boston, wrote all the songs on the CD.
“It was released in New York earlier this month,” West said. “I didn’t really plan it that way. It was one of those things that just happened.”
West has been studying music for much of her life. She started violin lessons at age 7, and added classical voice training at 13.
“A lot of people from Jackson County really helped me along,” West said. “(Music teacher) Diana Fisher at Camp Lab and Cullowhee Valley School, and then (choral director) Bob Reid at Smoky Mountain High School and (voice professor) Mary Kay Bauer at Western Carolina University were big inspirations. My violin teacher, Cathy Arps, was also a big help. In my formative years, those people were able to make me feel like I had something special. They helped to instill a sense of confidence in me.”
After receiving a degree in music from the University of North Carolina at Asheville, West said she began concentrating on her piano playing and song-writing skills. To help with that, she spent a year at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.
“I went to Berklee to focus more on arranging and song-writing and hone those chops,” she said. “I’d sung in church and could do old-style Appalachian music, but I wanted to branch out a little. My classes at Berklee helped a lot with that.”
Cullowhee native Angi West sits at the recording deck while working on her debut album, “Orange Thread in a Blue Sea.” West, who earned her bachelor’s degree in music from The University of North Carolina at Asheville in 2004. A CD release party is set for Thursday, Aug. 30, at the Grey Eagle in Asheville. Copies are available locally at In Your Ear on Main Street or online at www.cdbaby.com.
The results are evident on “Orange Thread in a Blue Sea,” which has songs that display wide-ranging influences from classical and bluegrass to funk and ambient music.
“The piano-led pieces are all classically derived,” West said. “I love classical piano, but the instrumentalists I worked with are so capable and talented that I just couldn’t stick with that one style when playing those songs. The Dobro player plays his instrument to where it almost has a classical ring to it, and the pedal steel player is doing more ambient sounds than the usual ‘whine’ you hear from the instrument on country records. It was nice working with talented people.
“I was really lucky, because this region secretly has a lot of great session players,” West said. “They’re as flexible as any Nashville session player I know. I found people in Asheville that I’ve seen play in bands, and they were all really able to do creative things with their instruments. They never really had too many questions. The hardest part, really, was reining in our bass player – he’s a 19-year-old prodigy from Berklee, He wanted to play too many notes and we had to hold him back. But it’s fun to be around people that talented.”
All 12 of the songs on “Orange Thread in a Blue Sea” are original compositions, and the CD includes some of the first songs West ever wrote.
“‘Home’ was the first song I wrote by myself,” West said. “I probably wrote that seven years ago. But the first song on album, ‘It’s Fine to Lie,’ I wrote only a couple months before recording. So it runs the whole gamut. There were so many songs, it was tough trying to figure out what the album wanted to be. That’s a nice problem to have, though.”
In addition to the CD’s lead vocals, West arranged all of the music and produced the album with Joshua Carpenter and Jayro Rockola.
“Throughout this whole process, I had to wear a bunch of hats,” she said. “I had to be the manager and make sure everything got done. We only had a short time in a great studio, so I had to get talented musicians who work with well with me and know how I arrange music. That made things go really fast.”
Though this is West’s first album, she gained studio experience through working on other people’s projects. That background helped her feel at ease while she was recording her album, she said.
“I ended up feeling comfortable in the studio,” West said. “I’ve spent a lot of time working on other people’s projects, so I felt good going in to record my own stuff. I think I shocked a lot of people with how at ease I was. I know a lot of people who walk into a studio and don’t feel comfortable at all. But I went in knowing what I wanted. I spent a lot of time with my friend Chris Hamilton in pre-production talking about sounds and arrangements we liked and the albums we thought sounded good. So I knew what I was going for.”
Now that the recording is done, West said she has to focus on promoting her work. While up for the challenge, the difficulty of trying to market and promote an independently-made album is something that took her by surprise.
“It’s crazy,” she said. “It’s the most work I’ve ever done, and it’s not the fun, creative part. The way the record industry works, independent musicians are only as good as they are strong. They have to do a lot of the promotion work by themselves in addition making the music. I have a ton of respect for people that are doing it and on their 10th album.”
To make some sense out of the whole process, West said she took courses at Mountain BizWorks to sharpen her business skills.
“It’s really daunting, and sometimes I want to give up and not do it anymore,” West said. “But with every little thing I learn to make it easier, I get really excited. I think it all falls into place.”
Despite the difficulty, West said she is happy to be playing music for a living.
“The only people who are crazy enough to do something like this are the ones who will be living on a prayer,” West said. “But I love the fact I chose this as a job. You have to do something with your life, and if you can do it making music, I say ‘heck yeah!’ It’s all really exciting. It’s exciting because it’s hard. You work real hard just to have one new person hear it. Right now, the album feels like an egg that just hatched, and I hope it has a great life on its own.”
West, the daughter of Tom and Dona West of Cullowhee, will celebrate the release of “Orange Thread in a Blue Sea” with a party Thursday, Aug. 30, at The Grey Eagle in Asheville.
Copies of her CD are available locally at In Your Ear on Main Street and online at www.cdbaby.com.
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