USA: BRITISH SINGER SONGWRITER SHEILA NICHOLLS GOES ON TOUR WITH HER BAND

Record ID: 389171

  • Title: USA: BRITISH SINGER SONGWRITER SHEILA NICHOLLS GOES ON TOUR WITH HER BAND
  • Date: 3rd April 2000
  • Summary: (REUTERS- PERFORMANCE CLEARANCES FOR RESALE) NICHOLLS PERFORMING
  • Embargoed: 18th April 2000 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES AND VARIOUS LOCATIONS
  • Country: USA
  • Reuters ID: LVA7K7SL0O69IPE7ZTJAUYFTD8Z2
  • Story Text: Sheila Nicholls is a singer-songwriter-pianist from Essex, England currently on tour in support of her critically acclaimed debut release, "Brief Strop".Nicholls' music is also featured in the movie and original soundtrack of actor John Cusack's new film "High Fidelity", in cinemas this month.
    After several intimate coffeehouse and cafe performances across the United States Sheila Nicholls is experiencing a career path similar to that of another independent-minded female musician, Canada's Ani DiFranco.
    Currently in the middle of a US tour that has likely touched every coffeehouse from New England to New Orleans, Nicholls has been writing songs since she was 14 but didn't really do anything about it until she relocated to New York City at age 24, forming a band called "Sheila Nicholls and the Splendid Frock".
    She grew up in Colchester, Essex, England, a town fifty two miles east north east of London where her two brothers still live and her mum runs a pub.Yet to perform in her native country, Sheila owes her career direction to her diary and the fact that singing and writing songs was "better than being a nanny".
    Since quitting New York and the nanny business, Nicholls has been spending all her time on her career.
    She has song on the soundtrack for "High Fidelity", a film starring John Cusack based on the highly successful novel of the same name by British writer Nick Hornby.
    She also has developed a label for like-minded artists called Essexgirl Records, which is fully funded by Hollywood Records, a division of the Walt Disney empire.
    The lyrics from "Brief Strop" initially raised a few eyebrows at the image-conscious, ultra-conservative conglomerate, but luckily for Nicholls she has a chief executive in her corner who not only believes in her music, but is supportive of its varying directions whether nice or naughty.
    According to Nicholls, a closer look at the tracks reveals sentiments that she has experienced or observed, and are true to the emotions she went through during the time between their composition and actual recording.
    "I was living on the seventeenth floor in the maid's quarters at the back of an apartment in a large building opposite the park.I was a nanny," she explained.
    "I had a small window that looked all the way over the Hudson and into New Jersey.One rainy night my reflection in I was on the precipice of permanent distraction.You know, when you put your dreams and desires on hold for sufficiently long enough you eventually forget what they were.I knew I wasn't doing what I wanted and was hiding myself away".
    It didn't take long for her to get back to the artist within.After settling her affairs in New York, Sheila headed for Los Angeles, hoping to make a career writing and singing her own songs inspired by the ever-present diary.
    The piano-based songs are very personal, and others are just musings on certain events from daily life.
    Life for Nicholls and her bandmates has been one big road trip that started in January in Los Angeles and won't conclude until the last drop of java is sipped in Atlanta, one of the final locales to host her show.
    Lest one think that all hopes are tied into the success of this album, Nicholls is ready to pleasantly surprise her growing fan base with a second recording in the near future.
    "I would say that the next album is already written, I would say the next one after that is already written too," she says.
    "I'm trying to stay nicely ahead of myself, I've been doing this for a while so I have a grip (lot) of songs, not like millions, but I definitely have enough."
    Nicholls and her band are currently on the road performing in addition to keeping an eye out for the next artists to be signed to her label, Essexgirl Records.
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