Hello. My name is Rachel. I am the lead vocalist and songwriter with Cyra Elia. I am originally from Cheshire but I have been living in North Wales for many years now. I have been writing songs since I was 9 years old and I have been performing on stage since the tender age of three. I have been in several bands over the years and I am fascinated by unusual vocal styles and harmonies. I love to sing & listen to all genres of music especially folk, power-pop, rock and musical theatre .
I co-founded Cyra Elia with my husband, Vini, in 1996. We started out as a 4 piece band and we focused on writing and performing original tracks with a folky-rock sound. We were originally based in Preston, Lancashire and spent several happy years playing the student music scene there. The original band came together when I first met bass player, Phil Riddell, at Preston College where we were both studying Music Technology. Phil invited me to join his band "Beggars Farm" as the keyboard player/backing singer and through this band I met Dave Sharples who later became Cyra Elia's guitarist & co-songwriter. Beggars Farm played many gigs in the North West of England but eventually the band split up. A year or so later (after I had hooked up with Vini - aka Bluejooz ) Cyra Elia was born. We did seem to have a certain magic together and we were always popular with our audiences. We played together in this line-up for three years until Vini and I decided to get married and move back home to North Wales. This move brought about a change of band members. Our long time friend Ian Marshall joined us as lead guitarist in 1999 and this new line-up brought about a slight change of direction. We played some large gigs including radio roadshows and even managed to get regular airplay on a local radio station as well as the James Whale Talk Show and our songwriting took a slightly more commercial direction because of this.
Ian stayed with us for a year or so but we eventually gravitated towards a different guitarist called kevCeejay. Kev was only 16 when we met him and was full of teenage cheek and tenacity which we loved. He would get up and play an acoustic set in between the 2 halfs of our gigs and although his talent was raw edged we could see that his style would suit us. Kev is pretty much an all-rounder. He is a skilled rhythm and lead guitarist with a beautifully melodic singing voice and he also plays bass, drums and keyboard. He has also written some great songs. He was Cyra's guitarist for about 2 years in total and we played some great gigs during this period...notably, our regular weekend spots at the Cross Keys in Llandudno!...but our "day job" committments and my musical theatre schedule eventually slowed the band down a little and we felt that Kev was being held back so we encouraged him to get out there and strut his stuff as a solo artist. You can hear his music at www.myspace.com/kevCeejay.
Just as we thought Cyra Elia was coming to an end, I discovered out of the blue that my own brother, Greg, had a superb singing voice and was also a really good rhythm guitarist and we decidied that he should have a chance to shine so we taught him our songs and carried on gigging for another 12 months playing locally in pubs, for private functions and charities and finally in 2004, for the Llandudno Fringe Festival. This was sadly to be our last gig to date. I am currently involved with two theatre groups and often perform in two or three large scale musicals a year and my hectic rehearsal schedule makes it impossible for Cyra Elia to continue at the moment. But the good news is that I have started writing again & some of the ex-Cyra members have expressed an interest in recording some new tracks so who knows what good things could happen!!. Although Vini (Blue) has taken a different path writing his own ambient music and running his website www.ambientcollective.com (a website for ambient musicians), he has agreed to help me re-work some of my favourite tracks and produce my new material when I write it. Greg is also writing some material so hopefully in the near future I'll be able to show case some new songs here for you to hear!
My dream is to one day re-form the band and judging from the huge amount of support we have already received from our MySpace friends there still appears to be interest in our music which gives us such a boost! In the meantime I have uploaded some tunes for you to listen to. They are mainly rough demos that we recorded during band rehearsals so the quality is pretty raw but you get the gist. Hope you enjoy listening to them (There'll be many more to follow)
"Privately" (BRAND NEW STUDIO VERSION RECORDED 27/12/06)
Lyrics/melody: Rachel Whittingham
Electric & acoustic guitar & inspired vision!!: Dave Sharples
Arrangement & Production/Backing vocals: Bluejooz
"Dreamcatcher" (Rehearsal recording 1997)
Lyrics: Rachel Whittingham & Dave Sharples
Vocals: Rachel Whittingham
Backing vocals/Synths/Arrangement & Production: Bluejooz
"I Love You Still" (Rehearsal recording 1999)
Lyrics: Rachel Whittingham
Melody: Rachel Whittingham
Guitar: Dave Sharples
Arrangement & Production: Bluejooz
"On My Nerves" (Demo recording 2005)
Lyrics: Rachel Whittingham
Melody: Rachel Whittingham
Guitar: Greg MacDonald
Arrangement & Production: Bluejooz
Although Cyra Elia only gigged for 8 years we had such fun and we had a really good following and I'd like to thank every one of our fans who supported us by coming to gigs and buying our CD's. A huge thanks also goes out to all of the talented musicians that we have worked with over the years (especially Dave & Phil - without them Cyra Elia would never have been born!)
