Julie C
Toronto, Ontario, Canada | MAJOR | AFM
Music
Press
Her new CD is an exquisitely crafted collection of original material (...) Crochetiere's debut CD demonstrates a sophisticated approach to her material (...) - Hamilton Spectator
Bigre ! Voilà une jeune québécoise (à peine plus du quart de siècle !) qui a de la voix,
du talent, de la classe et publie un premier album très captivant. Comment la situer ?
Quelque part entre la pop music "de charme" et la chanson jazzy...
Dans ses
influences, on entrevoit sans doute les grandes dames du rythm’n’blues (Roberta
Flack...), le gospel (une chorale sur plusieurs titres) et à coup sûr des monstres
sacrés comme Bob Marley dont elle reprend Mellow Mood (fort bien !), Paul Simon
(Slip Sliding Away), Lionel Ritchie (Stuck on you)... 14 titres qui flirtent de près ou de
loin avec les musiques commerciales, certes, mais sans faiblesses.
Pourquoi se
refuser ces petits plaisirs : une belle découverte !
- culturejazz.net
La toute jeune songwriteuse canadienne Julie Crochetiere signe dix des quatorze titres de son premier album, qu'elle complète de reprises très personnelles de Bob Marley, Elton John, Lionel Ritchie et Paul Simon. Une pop douce, nostalgique et soignée qu'elle interprète d'une voix nonchalantes et sensuelle, à la puissance maîtrisée.
Un album à écouter au coin du feu... - Prima
Full page article:
(...) her material ranges from the melodic lament of "Precious Love" to the jaunty, up-tempo rhythms of "The Only Thing I know For sure". It's all buoyed by musicians Crochetière has recruited over the years (...)
A consummate performer. Crochetière exudes both grace and intensity through a voice that is subtle, seductive and (even though she's only 26) sophisticated. In person, Crochetière is warm and enthusiastic, but she clearly demonstrate a singular determination to do things her own way, and to take the time to get it right. - Inside Entertainment
Julie Crochetiere
"A Better Place" Review
Let me just say this right off the bat - she is my favorite find (so far) of 2007. A blend of Norah Jones and Sade, with a dash of Corrine Bailey Rae thrown in, Julie Crochetiere has the soulful, honied voice of a bona fide star in the making. Her debut CD - A Better Place - recorded "live off the floor" with her band, showcases not only her sultry delivery, but also her songwriting prowess and her ability to cover past hits with unique aplomb. The lead-off single - Precious Love - begins with a simmer and erupts into full-blown boil in the most seductive way. "Rich Girl" is quite possibly the sweetest love song ever written. And check out her covers of "Stuck On You", "Slip Sliding Away" and "Someone Saved My Life Tonight". I am willing to risk life and limb here to say - they are all better than the originals. Magnificent.
Julie is opening for Spyro Gyra at the Danforth Music Hall in Toronto April 28, and performing on stage at the Smooth Jazz Awards (Apr. 27), singing backup for David Pack. I'm willing to bet that next year, she'll be a nominee! - Wave 94.7 Fav Record
Julie Crochetiere- If you watched Popstars, you know that she's the Sugar Jones member who can sing. - NOW magazine
(...) Singer Julie Crochetiere is breaking out on her own. She has already done some recording as a solo artist; most notably "How Many Reasons" which was chosen to be the theme song for he Body Shop's Violence against Women campaign 2003. - ChartAttack.com
Sexy.
I don’t mean in any kind of trashy or lustful way. I mean this is a sexy piece of work because of its strength, confidence, beauty and style. My ears found this EP highly sensuous in a way I hope to describe adequately.
(...)
Along with hip and heavy string arrangements this back to basic approach has produced, ironically, a timeless appeal.
(...)
The fact that Julie was formerly part of the Canadian Popstars group Sugar Jones, is eclipsed by what she is now doing musically. Whether you liked S.J. or not is irrelevant. It has no correlation to the talented work this young woman is bringing to my ears on this debut EP. She has moved on in a brilliant way from her past work.
- www.newrotation.com
Julie then decided it was time to make her own way. She released, Independently, along with her management companies support, her debut solo EP, "Cafe"(...)
She has also co-produced the whole EP, and had a big say in how the EP should be recorded. She wanted as much of a live feel as possible, and made sure it was all recorded live in the same room. And by god does it work! - QUEEP MUSIC
"The best newly discovered talent since Robin Thicke."
"Smooth & extremely expressive & moving, Julie's voice can stop a conversation in an instant."
"I decided that this was going to be a cd that I gave as a gift to my friends, but I truly felt it was a gift to myself when I bought it. I went back to the mall and bought the last 4 remaining copies, to send to my friends. I even recommeneded to the cashier and told him to buy it for his wife and he did. "
"BTW, the way she recorded this was very motown, she had a live band in the studio playing the instrumentals while she sang, makes for a better sound to her songs and it's a perfect balance of music and lyrics."
- AMAZON
Discography
August 2010 Julie's single "Tomorrow" was serviced to all AC and Hot AC radio stations in Canada. ALREADY ADDED: The River Kamloops, Q92 Montreal, The Wave Hamilton
Tomorrow EP is available on iTunes worldwide, Amazon, ZipDJ, etc.
Sophomore album "Steady Ground" set to be released on March 1, 2011
A BETTER PLACE (30 000 copies sold in North America and Europe)
Julie Crochetiere
Available on iTunes and in stores everywhere in Canada.
With this record, Julie raises the bar as a songwriter, a producer, a singer and a musician. A Better Place features collaborations with artists such as Jacksoul's Haydain Neale, and musicians such as Kevin Breit (Norah Jones).
A soulful combination of her original songs (10) and interpretations of her favorites by Lionel Richie, Elton John, Bob Marley, and Paul Simon.
-----------------------------------------------------
EP CAFE
Julie Crochetiere
Independently released
Julie surprised the Sugar Jones fans with this debut EP. A clever and introverted record full of musicianship introduced Julie's new sound.
Recorded "Live off the floor" in Montreal
Tony Albino on drums
Joseph Marchand on guitar
Adrian Vedady on double bass
Julie Crochetiere on piano
Menasen string quartet.
----------------------------------------------------------------
SUGAR JONES (Platinum sales)
Sugar Jones
Universal Music Canada
Platinum selling album.
"Days Like That" and "How Much Longer" singles were released on all radio stations across Canada (2001-2002) and in the UK (2002)
Photos
Bio
When people hear Julie Crochetiere’s music for the first time, their reaction is universally the same…”wow, how come I don’t know about this?”Second time, they often say…“it’s about time, she should be huge!”. But it’s also about a different kind of time, a deep pocketed soul, a vocal groove that weaves a web around the listener and then delivers a message…a message so thoughtful, so spare and so right that you shake your head…”how come I don’t know about this?”
COUNTING DREAMS
Julie's 4th studio album Counting Dreams is up for Best Vocal Jazz Album of the Year at the 2015 JUNOs. This album is about another time; the live off the floor recordings of the 60’s, the time before auto tune and vocal pyrotechnics. A time when all it took to make a killer hook was five fingers carefully placed on a piano, when a song was a craft that was built to carry a message raw with emotion, with joy, with sadness and with a moving human story of want, love and loss.
Julie’s various projects over the years have sold over 400,000 albums making her unquestionably one of the top selling artists you never heard of. “Those sales”, says Crochetiere “come with what I call ‘ the chorus of advice’…everyone in the music business has counsel…’you’re too jazz for pop, too pop for jazz, soul is over, you should do a French record, you should do an English record, your hair would look better in an up-do it goes better with your music’. The refrain of ‘you shoulds’, is always amusing but for a very long time now I knew exactly what I should do and it was a very powerful feeling to know, so deeply, what needed to be done.
THE BACK STORY
Julie Crochetiere is a veteran, and while it’s hard to think of such a young woman in those terms, she has been practicing her craft since she was 7, playing classical piano and then trumpet. She spent hours in a bean bag in her parents Montreal basement listening to LPs of Roberta Flack, Bill Withers, Carole King and Nina Simone and begging her parents to buy her the sheet music. She would listen to a record for a year, not off and on for a year mind you, but twice or three times everyday for a year. She was trying to unlock it’s code. Her parents are both engineers, (albeit engineers who love to dance), so science and rational thought are close to home.
When Julie was growing up in the age of Platinum Blonde and Duran Duran searching for her music, she knew it wasn’t what her friends were listening to and she kept returning to the bean bag chair and the old vinyls in the basement.
When she was 17 her music teacher swung her an audition with a society band. She got the gig, quickly learned a repertoire of 200 songs and how to walk in heels for five hours a night pretending it didn’t hurt. By the time she was 18 she was doing 100 dates a year.
At 18, after a gruelling audition process in Montreal and Toronto, Julie won one of five places in the band Sugar Jones for the 1st Canadian reality TV show Popstars. The group signed to Universal, had a number of radio hits including “How Much Longer” and “Days Like That” and tours took her from Canada to England and in the process the group went platinum. When it all ended, as these things invariably do, Julie remembers finding herself dead broke in a tiny apartment in Toronto far away from home thinking about selling her keyboard, when her manager and friend Chris Bennett told her, “that’s not a keyboard it’s a song writing machine, I wouldn’t sell it if I were you.“
Julie started writing with serious intent. She befriended the late Haydain Neale leader of Jacksoul and he became a mentor and sounding board for Julie, constantly reaffirming his simple rule, “if it feels good, do it!”
In 2007, she released her first full-length, soul-jazz album, “A Better Place,” which included the hit single “Precious Love” which climbed to #18 on the Canadian AC charts and made A Better Place the top downloaded album of April 2008 on iTunes Canada’s Soul/R&B charts. “Precious Love” was a finalist in the category of “Best Song at the 2009 Canadian Radio Music Awards.
In 2011 Julie released her third solo CD Steady Ground and the ground shifted from the soulful intimacy of her previous works to a tougher more impactful hooky dance groove, recalling Chic and the work of Nile Rogers. Laden with one soulful hook after another Steady Ground was indeed fertile ground for music supervisors and was licensed for numerous films and television shows in North America and Europe.
Band Members
Links
