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Folk Bands and Artists

Lauren Housley

Manchester

http://www.laurenhousley.co.uk

Lauren Housley is a singer-songwriter on the move. Born and raised in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, she had a talent for singing from an early age.

Her first move at 18, was from her hometown to Newcastle to study theatre and performance at the university. To pay her way through her studies, she worked as an assistant stage manager at The Sage in Gateshead. This gave her the opportunity to see what she was studying by day, played out on stage every night, by the very best at their craft.

This was to prove invaluable for her in becoming a performer herself.

She was to remark, “You can imagine what it was like to learn how to reach out to an audience in this way“. Studies completed, her next move was to Manchester to immerse herself in the live music scene there. This was to meet the kind of musicians she felt could help her in her ambition to become a singer songwriter. “I sang and played everywhere that would have me” and by doing this she began to become noticed by the very musicians she wanted to work with.

It didn’t take long for her to be able to front her own band, and play the venues that would enjoy her fusion of Country, Blues and Soul music. If Lancashire was to take to this Yorkshire rose, then other cities across the north of England began to take to her as well.

A full date sheet was to encourage her to record and release a limited edition CD of the songs she was playing on stage. The album, Sweet Surrender, was only intended to be sold at her live shows. However it was inevitable that the record would find its way to various journalists and radio producers, who had become fans.

Radio was to play an important part in her next move, as one of the tracks from that album was added to the BBC Radio 2 playlist. When asked what this would mean for her, she replied, “Without radio I would still be playing bars in Manchester“.

This national exposure was to bring her to the attention of the promoters at Live Nation. “An out of the blue phone call and I was booked to play at Bluesfest at the 02 Arena, along with Van Morrison, Tom Jones and Dave Matthews Band. The irony of this was that I was trying to buy tickets to Bluesfest before the phone call.“

London is a tough city for an artist, and following her early performances in the capital she understood what her next move needed to be. This was to record an album that would be good enough to bring her to a wider audience, through a national distributor.

Most of last year was given over to recording ‘The Beauty of this Life´, which is released on 28th July 2017. The album features the best of her limited edition album, and 7 new tracks, which will appear on her own imprint TLC Recordings, through Absolute.

As heard on BBC Radio 2 (Terry Wogan, Chris Evans, Bob Harris.) and BBC Radio London (Robert Elms)