ABOUT
With the release of EVERYTHING UNSAID, Texas-born artist Beth Black has returned to doing what she loves best: writing songs that touch listeners with their deep life stories and singing them for loyal, supportive audiences at her dynamic and dramatic live shows.
Black’s musical journey — from studying at Walnut Hill Performing Arts High School in New England to formal vocal training at the American Musical Dramatic Academy in New York to performing as a cast member of Second City in Santa Monica — ultimately brought her to Austin in 1994.
“I wasn’t introduced to any rock until I went to boarding school in Boston. I heard ‘Freebird’ for the first time in 1982,” she says. “I really came late to rock ’n’ roll and still had a limited exposure since I was in a musical theater high school program; I knew more Rogers & Hart and Andrew Lloyd Webber than Zeppelin or Hendrix. And while the lyrics and musicianship of Steven Sondheim are extraordinary, it was rock that captivated me, and still does.”
Black’s new album of contemporary pop-rock originals is on Shrike Records, like her four previous releases: 1996’s self-titled debut, 1998’s SEND ME ON, 2000’s SEMI-ACOUSTIC ALWAYS ELASTIC MONDAY NIGHT BAND, named for her regular Monday night gig at Saxon Pub, and 2002’s 9 STORIES.
Music lovers and music writers have watched and listened as Black has evolved into an artist unabashedly bold and personal, authentic and welcome — even though she doesn’t read music and the only instrument she plays is what she refers to as “the big mouth.” She was named one of the “Top 15 Female Vocalists in Texas” in The Austin Chronicle readers’ polls in 1999, 2000 and 2001.
The new EVERYTHING UNSAID is dedicated to the late Jon Crosby Schultz, devoted music fan and co-founder of Texas Music magazine, who Black says prompted her to start writing songs again, provided unwavering support for her as an artist and who would have been most unhappy had her musical hiatus gone on indefinitely. Her first time back onstage was at his memorial service.
That hiatus, caused by health challenges, provided time for the singer to refine a collection of one-of-a-kind jewelry, named Beth Black Jewelry, with signature features such as fossils embedded with gold and gemstones, long sterling silver chains with heavy-gauge toggles, and Moroccan ammonites and Mexican geodes that she discovered growing up with geology as the daughter of a West Texas oilman.
At a gig one night, Black was approached by a buyer for a major retailer and asked who had designed the jewelry she was wearing. She had. That was the beginning. Her collection is available on the artist’s Web site, at trunk shows and by appointment, and like Black, is bold, unabashed, personal, authentic and one-of-a-kind.
Media Contact: Jill McGuckin, 512.217.9404; jill@mcguckinpr.com
