From Queen of Me to Queen of Indy Music, Blue-Eyed Soul Singer Natalie Brown Finds Success Doing it Her Way – Part II

Part 1 located at: http://flipsidetomusic.com/?p=2137

Natalie Brown’s journey, taking her from singing Christian worship music like a choir angel to where she is now—an enigmatic, naturally sexy and savvy voice of blue-eyed soul—hasn’t been a direct or easy adventure. She has had side trips along the way which have made it quite the roller coaster. Yet Natalie has always known she was on the right road. She has been certain of her main focus.

As was brought to light in Part I of this article, Natalie Brown got her start in music as a Christian worship leader. It was difficult for an attractive young lady, in love with the spirit of the music and focused solely on sharing the message through the use of her God-given talent, to follow in a mold which never seemed to fit her. No fault of her own; it was simply that Natalie was an attractive young woman who naturally appealed to the opposite sex.

Natalie explains, “I would travel to churches all over British Columbia and lead worship. Always a song or two before the sermon… . I didn’t need to do much outreach because at that time, a white girl singing the way I did was kind of a novelty.” Natalie’s unique voice—unique because of the dichotomy of the sound she produced coming from an image such as she portrayed—put her in a position that brought her a lot of attention in a short period of time. She laughs as she remembers. “Word kinda got around.”

It wasn’t long before Natalie was asked to record. “I sang a song called, ‘I Am Not My Own,’ written by my dear friend, Warren Holstrum … my first serious musical mentor. He was music pastor at my church and we did a tape called, ‘Songs of Calvary.’” Natalie pauses in her recollection, a smile in her voice. “It was a recording that … didn’t end up on the CD because it was too ‘raunchy,’” the word stresses with sarcasm, “for worship.” She laughs now but it wasn’t all that funny at the time.

How is it that a Christian worship song could be seen in any way as raunchy? “This was my problem!” Natalie is animated. “They opted, after seeing it [on tape], not to include it on the church album because it was a little too much… . I was always getting hauled in for putting my leg out the wrong way on stage … or I didn’t cover down to my wrists. That was one of the reasons I had a hard time with it because it was like I was always wrong, like I was always being bad.”

This is a crucial point in the evolution of Natalie Brown’s musical styling, as well as her life. She still has just-under-the-surface emotions behind this period, the point where she began to come into her own as a musical talent, and as a woman. That evolution came at a high cost—close friends, lifestyle, even home life—but in the long run, it was necessary for her move toward a more natural and fitting musical career and lifestyle.

She continues to explain. At the time this was going on, Natalie had to dig deep inside to try and understand why the elders of the strict, Pentecostal church scene reacted to her as they did.

“I was thinking, ‘It’s not me. Y’all need to stop lusting.’ It really bothered me. I’m still hurt by it, to this day.” She hesitates, carefully weighing her words. “Growing up and becoming a woman … I was not a trashy dresser, I was very conservative. Ask anyone who knew me growing up. I did not dress in an inappropriate manner but you know, I was a cute girl.” Her words held a certain resolve. “I’ll be honest … that very much pushed me towards secular music. I remember Jessica Simpson having something similar happen … that’s so not fair. It’s so wrong. It’s damaging … growing up with that experience … That definitely pushed me away.”

The Natalie Brown we know now, the one that sings of deeply personal issues, emotionally spiritual mindsets, and light, happy moments, this Natalie began to form an individualistic style out of those early experiences.

“Basically, that was my first recording experience.” From there, Natalie moved to the States, settling in San Francisco. The Christian community in the US didn’t react in the same stifled fashion, which was encouraging. “I auditioned for Ron and I got that gig.” Ron was internationally acclaimed Gospel recording artist Ron Kenoly, and the gig was his “Welcome Home” tour in 1996. Natalie saw the US with Kenoly and his group. “I found a lot of liberation coming to the States. The Christian scene was different… . I preferred the US scene but still, I knew there would always be problems.”

When the tour ended and she returned to California, Natalie studied with world-renowned vocal instructors Seth Riggs, who worked with Stevie Wonder, among others; and Dave Stroud, (Terry Ellis of En Vogue). Not only did these experiences form the basis for a career that has exploded in ways Natalie could have never expected, she has matured in her personal philosophy, as well.

“My spiritual beliefs changed one hundred percent but I’m very blessed for having had that time. It taught me a lot. I’m connecting with the Spirit to deliver whatever message I deliver. I’ll never knock it [that period] but it was grueling.”

Natalie is a people person. She feels she has become the artist she is because of her continuing desire to connect on a personal level. “I’m still the same crazy person I was. I’ve always had a good heart and loved people, and that’s why I do what I do, because I love people. I feel that the gift I’ve been given is to use that and hopefully bring some joy into their lives, regardless of faith.” She is determined. “Life to me is bigger than what denomination you are.”

Natalie decides to move on from this topic. She has made the point as to what formed her personal life philosophy. “When I started singing with Ron,” she explains, “that was my first professional gig.” During this time, Natalie soaked up every bit of information she could find on the musical sound with which she most identified. She went through a “voracious devouring of all music … I wanted to find out—where did this music come from? I wanted to research Negro spirituals. I got these old records and CDs, and I immersed myself in everything I could to find out what this was.”

The more she learned, the more she found herself in a paradox. In fact, this became for her yet another advancement of lifestyle and personal expression. “There was the whole thing that I’m white. That whole, ‘This isn’t my music’ for me.” She faced opposition—the way she looked didn’t fit the common perception of the sort of person who should sing as she sang. “But it WAS my music,” she argued. “It’s been the thing that’s calmed me; it’s been my expression… . I definitely feel that music, and I’ve always felt it and appreciated it. And of course, I came out of the whole Gospel thing.”

The more Natalie matured, the more she learned of others who resonated with much the same musical spirit as she. She ticked off some who she felt had kindred souls. “… Billy Joel and Elton John—Annie Lennox… . There are singers who sing from the spirit, and there are singers who sing.”

Natalie Brown has proven she is a singer who sings from the spirit. “It’s that, ‘Je ne sais quoi?’ That little thing you can’t define that fits for me personally.” She knows it when she hears it, though. “It gives me the goosebump feeling and I know, yeah, I’m connected to that.”

These days, Natalie has moved into a seriously professional mode. She knows what she wants, she knows where she wants to be in the next ten—fifteen—twenty years … and she is clear on what she needs to do to get there. “I have a side of me that would live as a recluse, I think, on some beach … but then I know there’s a part of me that would get really bored and want the city. So I’m two people.” She laughs happily. “I could see myself recording my albums half of the year there and in the big city the other half to promote it.”

Natalie supports herself solely through her music. She lives in Canada, with her sights set on career moves which will allow her to work between the States and her home base, and even into Europe. To maintain her career, she does what is called in the business, “volumes.” As she explains, “We put out songs that will probably never be released as solo projects. We do five to ten, and send them to publishers. They see if they can place them. Sometimes, we’ll get a call or e-mail about such-and-such show needs to replace this kind of feel for a song—like a Beyonce track… . We create a song and send it. We’re not guaranteed our songs will get placed. We watch TV, listen to commercials, and we do songs that are place-able in terms of what’s out there.”

This is the business side of Natalie Brown. This is her meat-and-potatoes, and she knows what she’s talking about. “When my own solo stuff gets pitched … luckily, it has been license-able enough to get placed. It works both ways—getting the volumes, we do a pop volume or an R&B volume, and then send it out… . Sometimes it can take a couple years. We’re consistently putting out work to be put in the pool.” Insights into the music world are but a slice of the reality Natalie Brown faces as an independent artist who does it all herself. “It can take two or three years to get paid … have to do the show, record it, use the music in it, report it … and then I get paid.”

So chances are, you have heard Natalie singing in the background of your favorite TV show, or on a commercial between music videos on MTV. She works non-stop, and results speak for themselves. “MTV, VH1 … they use a lot of our music. NBC, CBS, we’ve had placements on just about every channel … Someone e-mailed me and she said, ‘Nat, you’re on this CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] documentary. I’m sure it’s ‘Let The Candle Burn!’ [one of Natalie’s releases].” Her friend told her that her music was part of a documentary on the sexual revolution in China.

Natalie continues, “I laughed so hard, I thought it was really funny and it turns out, we did get this song placed on that show.” She’s laughing now. “So I get that all the time.” It continues to amaze and delight her that people can pick her voice and music out from all sorts of venues. “I think that’s so awesome, especially today when there are so many people out there doing their thing … that someone can pick my voice out. Especially considering that I’m an indie artist and I haven’t been plastered all over the radio or television. That’s how I’ve heard of half of my TV placements.”

Make no mistake. While Natalie Brown may not yet be “plastered all over the radio or television” and she is an “indie” artist, her focus and intent are single-minded. Her vision is exactly that—she will become a household name. And when you listen to her planning process, what she has in the queue, there is little room to doubt.

“Value is created with your fame,” Natalie states with conviction, “and I’m very grateful.” In 2001, Natalie and her manager began submitting her music to the pool of “volumes” to be used. “We were lucky because … they never used to let indies into this deal.” But it wasn’t long before Natalie Brown’s contributions were being regularly selected and the checks started coming in. Today, she is a working artist, the realization of a dream she never remembers not dreaming. Natalie believes life is good.

There is no question that Natalie Brown has created her own place in the music world, and she knows how to keep up the momentum, and even raise the stakes. “It’s all done by me.” In the early days of news groups, even before the Internet came to be as it is today, Natalie was one of the first pop independent artists. “There wasn’t such a thing, really, and … it used to frustrate me when people would think I have this huge team of people around me. Yeah, me, myself, and I is my team. And my manager. We do everything.”

Natalie Brown has had a plan since she first began. “When I got into this, and I said I’m going to do this as a business, I said I’m going to read every book I can because it’s a business. And you have to run it like it is. I have to do what’s good for my business. I love this. There are two sides to me. There’s the artist, and there’s the business woman.”

Natalie doesn’t hesitate to give credit to the one person she has allowed into her world to help her move forward with her dream. Jeremy is her manager. She met him years ago when she was in San Francisco. “I was doing session work in the Bay area. It was after a tour and I put an ad in The Bay Area Music Magazine to be a background vocalist. This Kenyan contacted me to sing on his project. It was an interesting session, and he wanted me to come back and work with a friend of his. He had this producer … . By that time, I was so jaded because everyone had a ‘producer’ friend who was going to make me famous. Everyone was going to make me famous.”

Natalie laughs as she recalls those days. An attractive young lady with amazing, unusual vocals—everyone wanted to “make her famous.” She continues with the story, “I reluctantly went, and I met Jeremy there. He told me, ‘I thought you did a really awesome job… .’” Jeremy hesitated at that point as he tried to explain to Natalie what he thought about the rest of the project. “Basically he was trying to say, ‘What the hell are you doing singing for this bleeping guy?!’” She laughs again, a rich, delighted sound. “I said I was trying to get paid, I was trying to get myself out there.” Jeremy told her that he was starting a label, and asked her if she would be interested in a deal.

Natalie clicked with Jeremy from the beginning. Not someone who lets everyone in immediately, she just found something about Jeremy that made her know she could trust him. She agreed to his deal. “I wanted to record an album. That was my big thing. I wanted to record my album so I ended up going to meet Jeremy and another guy.” There were a few false starts in the contract process but eventually everything fell together.

“I was trying to record demos, having a really hard time finding producers. A lot of producers wanted to mold me into what they wanted me to be, and I had my really firm ideas of what I wanted to do. I had a book full of lyrics—melodies, things on tapes. I had all my ideas. I just needed a producer to help me bring them to life. And I needed a studio… . Long story short, we started on this demo … ‘Locked in the Shadows.’”

The smile in Natalie’s voice can be heard as she talks about Jeremy. “He loved my voice, and we worked really well together. I felt totally respected as an artist. I was a young girl, and … it was a very difficult minefield to navigate. He was respectful of me… . He said, ‘You’re so talented and it would be a travesty of justice if this album doesn’t come out.’” With some legal issues going on amidst all this, there was danger of the work not seeing the light of day. So Jeremy stated boldly, “What if we start a label and put this out together?”

And so became the beginning of Identity Records, now Identity Music Group, Inc. “We funded the rest of it ourselves and released it in late 2000.” Natalie’s debut album contained thirteen original songs. Titled “Let the Candle Burn,” the album’s material was enthusiastically embraced by her now-growing audience, and was noticed by industry insiders … quite a coup for an independent artist.

That was a number of years ago, and Natalie has not let the grass grow under her feet. Her credits continue to grow—in number and stature. Through ongoing exposure, as well as being featured on countless Internet sites, Natalie remains a fan favorite. She loves her fans and, in return, they show their love for her by loudly applauding every release.

She has also been well-noticed within the industry. Her single, “Run Away,” was featured with songs from Destiny’s Child, Allure, R. Kelly, Eden’s Crush, Lil’ Romeo, Nelly, Mary J. Blige and more in “Promo-Only’s July Rhythm Radio” series. Her music was selected for the CMJ/Savage Beast Technologies Music Discovery Network. This allowed for her to receive radio play across the US, Canada, South America, Austral-Asia and Europe. Billboard highlighted Natalie three times, and noted her as a Top 10 Emerging Talent.

All of this—and we’re still counting—for a little girl from Canada who in her early years was told by her mother that she couldn’t sing. Good for her, and for all of us, that she was determined to prove Mother wrong. The rest, as the old saying goes, is and continues to be history. Natalie Brown’s history. Independent music history. A successful history, by all accounts.

Natalie sums it up by saying, “I want to be the digital age Ani DeFranco.” If you don’t know who she is, look her up. You’ll be amazed with her career, also. “She did it on her own terms,” Natalie continues. “She puts out her music and her art, and she made it work for her.”

Which is exactly what Natalie Brown has done, and continues to do. “I think it’s definitely possible, and I’d like to be the pop version of that model, if I had my dream, if I had my way.”

You’re having your way, Natalie. You’re the Queen of You … and there is clearly no stopping you. None of us would want to, anyway.

Visit Natalie Brown at: http://www.natalie-brown.com

Interview by: Linda J. Alexander
http://lindajalexander.tumblr.com/
August 7th 2009