- User:
- koralee
- Is a:
- Artist
- Lives in:
- Los Angeles, CA/Winnipeg, MB
- About:
- When you're a Canadian singer-songwriter and you want to live in California but you don't have a Green Card, what do you do? Some people stay north, cross their fingers and wait. If you're koralee, you go back and forth across the border to make contacts, book a tour, get a P2 Visa and play live in cities like Los Angeles and Seattle over and over again to build your audience, until the powers that be grant you permission to stay for as long as you like.
But it's not like koralee just came out of nowhere - she already had a substantial performance background to draw on. Starring in what is considered the world's first viral video helped some fans find her. So did appearing in Namaste, an instructional yoga television show still airing daily in seventeen countries. Modeling for Lee Jeans put her in front of millions of people. Working with names including Curtis Armstrong (Ray, Revenge of the Nerds) Eliot Sloan (Blessid Union of Souls) and Richard Sanders (WKRP) didn't hurt either. Needless to say, koralee has multiple talents and many fans of her past work are now fans of her music.
http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/scene/music/2011/08/03/koralee/
Originally from Winnipeg - the heart of Canada and three hours north of Grand Forks, ND - koralee left home young and travelled around looking for a place where staying long-term would make sense. She stopped in a list of cities including: London, Vancouver, New York, a small island near Seattle and Chicago. When she arrived in the Los Angeles Westside in 2010, it felt exactly right. “The only problem was”, says koralee, “that I legally couldn’t do what I needed to do, which was sing in public”.
Thanks to her determination, help from many talented people and the careful guidance of a manager who has worked with 'names' such as Chaka Kahn, Stevie Wonder and Whitney Houston (and who refused to believe that was koralee's voice coming out of her little body upon hearing her first demo track) koralee has found herself a (legal) place in the sun and a musical niche: Avant/Soul. Coined by her LA guitarist in 2011, combining the terms Avant Garde and Soul, it finally gives name to her unique combination of edgy instrumentation and vocals that hit you right in your chest. Called the 'Joan Armatrading of the 21st Century' by an audience member in 2009, koralee's performances inspire a loyalty in her fans and her players. Says percussionist Rasheed Ali (Rain People, Atlantic Records): "Some people only sound that good on record, but I'm on stage with her and she sounds that good, every time."
koralee spent 2011 honing her live sound in the United States and Canada (including a packed house at Aqua Books in Winnipeg and wall to wall fans in an art gallery in Vancouver), experimented in the studio and stopped in New York to make a music video with up and coming Canadian director Ryan William White for her soon to be released song 'On and On". (http://youtu.be/l97zmVXJCTo). 2012 will bring much of the same, culminating in a long-awaited, full-length album, finally allowing fans from far off places hear the songs that her dedicated LA show-goers know so well.
"koralee isn't just an artist, she's an experience." - Eliot Sloan, Blessid Union of Souls
http://www.koraleemusic.com
soundcloud
