Hannah Lucia
London, England, United Kingdom | Established. Jan 01, 2014
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Still working on that hot first release.
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Bio
When 25-year-old British soul singer Hannah Lucia was 17, her father
took her to The Lenox Lounge, a Harlem bar long renowned for hosting
legendary vocalists Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughn. "I was obsessed,"
Lucia says from a Brooklyn coffee shop. "From an early age I was
definitely heavily influenced by the Jazz and soul music my mum blasted
throughout our house, and in the Lenox Lounge the atmosphere
was so thriving and alive. It was amazing. I actually came in to write
an article for my college magazine and ended up telling the manager I'd
work there for free and the next week I started to wait tables."
The lounge is 3,500 miles away from her hometown of Camden Town in
London, where a young Hannah Lucia could be found soaking up her
parents' jazz and soul records"My mom was going to call me Ella," she
says, laughing. Hannah began writing her own music at 14 and by the
time she was 18, Lucia set off for Liverpool to go to school and begin
performing. In an industrial, working-class dock city like Liverpool,
Lucia's sets would stand out, as the singer/multi-instrumentalist
performed sets of standards, changing the lyrics to reflect her own
personal experiences.
Lucia now divides her time between Camden
Town and Brooklyn, as she prepares in 2014 to build a catalogue of
songs for her first album. "I'm not afraid to say how I feel," says
Lucia, reflecting both her lyricism and work ethic. "I know there are
all these rules I have to follow, but the way I've been brought up is to
think creatively about my approach to anything; following in the
footsteps of others has never really been an option or an ideal.
Her raw, honest tracks, blending funk, soul, pop and jazz, prove this.
The soulful "Big Man" is a response to, as Lucia puts it, "someone who
had been pissing me off, I'm not the best at filtering my emotions and I
wanted to make light of the situation and bring the person down to the
level I thought he was at," admits the singer.
One listen to
Hannah Lucia's growing catalog reveals a wide range of influences,
including the sexy cooing of Donna Summer and the funk revivalism of
Mayer Hawthorne and Fitz & the Tantrums. It's fitting that during
our talk, Amy Winehouse's cover of The Zutons' "Valerie" plays on the
coffee shop's stereo. Lucia's blunt lyricism and mix of traditional
jazzy vocal phrasing with breathy, soulful vocals have earned her
comparisons to the iconic singer.
Lucia recently joined forces with NYC-based manager Jeff Rabhan to lead her hand-picked team.
Hannah Lucia has already played for, and amazed, tough crowds on both sides of the Atlantic.
After listening to her powerful voice and emotive songs, it's easy to see why.
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