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Becky Fox

About Me

Becky Fox may only be 24 years old, but when she sings it’s as if she’s channelling the emotion and perception of a whole lifetime.
She has one of those voices that sends tingles down your spine: it is pure, exquisite and such a sheer joy to listen to that you can’t help but crave more.
And her ability to take a song and draw out the layers of emotion and meaning within it is a rare gift — one that Becky values and cultivates.
“I regard myself primarily as an interpreter of songs,” Becky said. “There is so much extraordinary music out there, and the thrill for me is in taking that and making it my own.
“Over the past few years, I’ve learnt that my real strength lies in arranging and recreating a song so that it both reflects my own style and personality, and becomes accessible to a whole new audience.”
Becky has just released her second album, Allure, on ABC Music’s Jazz label. It is in fact her first solo outing: her debut recording, Music for a While, was a collaborative effort with one of Australia’s leading young classical guitarists, Leonard Grigoryan.
Becky discovered her remarkable vocal talents in the early years of secondary school, when she began taking singing lessons in order to appear in her high school musical. She quickly realised she wanted to take singing seriously, and enrolled in the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) Secondary School, where she was able to develop both her vocal and performance skills.
She has since gone on to graduate with a Bachelor of Music Performance from the VCA, majoring in Classical Voice.
Despite her classical training, however, Becky resists being pigeonholed as a classical performer. She believes that music is about expressing emotions, and connecting with audiences, and thus transcends boundaries of genre and style.
“My musical directions at the moment are more in the areas of jazz and contemporary music, but that doesn’t mean I’m a jazz singer either,” Becky said.
“My musical training has enabled me to create a complex, multi-layered sound that is influenced by everything from folk and jazz to Latin American influences.”
One powerful influence is French music, particularly the Gallic torch songs performed by artists like Edith Piaf and Nina Simone. She spent some time in France honing her language skills, and says she has a real passion for interpreting and performing songs in French.
But Becky is not only talented: she is determined to take her music as far and wide as possible. She recorded and financed her first album independently, doing the rounds of bookshops and music shops to sell it, until the album was snapped up by ABC Music and re-released. The incredibly positive reaction from both broadcasters and the listening public to its sublime sounds and style led to the release of Allure.
Becky is now poised to take her career to a whole new level, with the fresh, powerful and enormously appealing sounds of her new album to pave the way.
Ultimately she says she’d love to take her music on to the international stage, and there is no doubt that the sheer class and style of Allure, and Becky’s own talents as a performer and an arranger and interpreter of great music will ensure that happens in a very short time.
Photography by Pierre Baroni & Georgia Fox

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Music:

Member Since: 2/8/2007
Band Website: www.beckyfox.com
Band Members: Vocals- Becky Fox
Guitars - Leonard Grigoryan, Simon Patterson, Peter Pertrucci
Piano - Tony Gould
Keys/Piano - Luke Howard
Bass - Kim May, Ben Robertson, Jeremy Alsop
Percussion - James Lewis
Drums - Andrew Gander
Accordion - Joe Chindamo
Backing Vocals - Marcia Howard, Tobias Cummings

MANAGEMENT
James Lewis @ ARJAY MUSIC
T: +61 409 238 234
E: [email protected]
W: www.arjaymusic.com
Influences: Al Jarreau, Rufus Wainwright, George Benson, k.d lang, Jamie Cullum, Eva Cassidy, Edith Piaf, Sting, Jill Scott, Indie Arie Nina Simone, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Oleta Adams, Randy Crawford, Jacques Loussier...
Sounds Like: ALLURE PHOTOSHOOT & RECORDING SESSIONS

Check out this video: ABC TV COMMERCIAL - ALLURE PREVIEW

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LA VIE EN ROSE - CD Launch Live @ The Famous Spiegeltent Melbourne 2007

La Vie En Rose

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Allure: the quality of being powerfully or mysteriously attractive or fascinating.

Sometimes, the title of an album says it all. Becky Fox’s stunning second album, Allure, is not only fascinating and enormously appealing: it draws you in with its layers and nuances, subtleties and emotional light and shade.

Since ABC Music released Becky’s debut album, Music for a While — a collaborative effort with classical guitarist Leonard Grigoryan — in 2004, this talented and dynamic young woman has attracted attention for her exquisite voice and skills as an interpreter of wonderful music.

Those talents are very much in evidence on Allure, which Becky describes as a more contemporary and accessible album than her previous recording.

“The album draws on all the influences of artists I love listening to, and focuses on reinterpreting and rearranging some of the world’s great songs in a way that reflects who I am and where I’m coming from musically,” Becky said.

“But most importantly, it also conveys the spirit of the song to a whole new generation of listeners, who may never have listened to this music before.”

The tracks on Allure are an engaging mix of the old and the new, the well known and some surprise gems. For instance, Becky discovered Charles Trenet’s “Que reste-t-il de nos amours” while rummaging in a CD bargain bin in Paris.

However, songs like Sting’s “La belle dame sans regrets” and Edith Piaf’s exquisite “La vie en rose” were always going to be included.

“Reinterpreting such well known songs can often be more difficult than writing a new composition,” Becky said.

“After all, songs like these are so perfect to start with — how do you make them better?

“But for me, that’s the ultimate challenge and what I enjoy most: reinterpreting and arranging a piece to make it more contemporary while retaining its essence — after all, the messages are still relevant today.”

And the result is nothing short of breathtaking, as is shown by track after track on Allure, from Cole Porter’s “I Love Paris” to the James Brown classic “Si tu m’aimes encore” (It’s a Man’s, Man’s, Man’s World) and Becky’s sublime interpretations of “Je t’appartiens (Let it Be Me)” and “Belle du jour”.

“It’s vital for me to have an emotional connection to the songs I record, and what I love about all the tracks on this album is that they are complex, multilayered love songs which capture a moment in time, an emotion, a universal experience,” Becky said.

“If I can convey those emotions, and people are touched by them and by my music, then I’ve achieved my aim.”

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THE AUSTRALIAN Saturday 24th November 2007, Anne Lim ALLURE CD Review **** Four Stars

Francophiles will be captivated by this clever mix of old and new French torch songs by classically trained Melbourne singer Becky Fox. For her first solo album (following a collaboration with guitarist Leonard Grigoryan), the 24-year-old channels chanteuses such as Edith Piaf and crooner Charles Trenet with a spicing of the romantic side of Sting. Featuring a classy backing line-up, including Grigoryan, Tony Gould, Joe Chindamo and John Hoffman, this is an album for all those people who love falling in love. Fox is blessed with a spine-tinglingly pretty voice that soars and caresses lyrics and melodies that she obviously loves. She displays a gift for drawing out the layers of feeling and longing in familiar songs such as La Vie en Rose, Belle du Jour and Sting’s La Belle Dame sans Regrets. Her facility in French is commendable but my favourites happen to be in English: her exhilarating arrangement of Cole Porter’s I love Paris and her sublime version of Let it be Me.

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THE AGE A2: 48 Hours Saturday 17th November 2007 Jessica Nicholas

For many people, there’s something instantly alluring about the French language – especially in the arts. Becky Fox discovered her affinity for French music at the VCA and spent time living in France to absorb the language’s nuances. Now the gifted 24-year-old has recorded a CD of Gallic love songs, Allure. The repertoire is an imaginative blend of classic and current material, from Charles Trenet and Edith Piaf to French-language tunes by Sting and James Brown. Fox hopes to reintroduce once-popular songs to a new generation. Her voice is tempered by a pop sensibility and her love of jazz reveals itself in the musicians she works with.

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ARTS HUB Monday 19th November 2007 Liz Seymour

Allure CD Launch @ The Famous Spiegeltent

Having already cast an anticipatory ear over Becky Fox's second album, the expectations were lofty as I settled into a steamy Spiegeltent on this heat-slowed Sunday afternoon. It was about to get steamier.

Allure, a jazz collection clad in the finest Parisian couture, is billed as "a glorious French indulgence" of Fox's passion for contemporary interpretation of classic French music. It seemed fitting, then - puns aside - that upon entry into the debauchery-friendly surrounds of the Spiegeltent, we should have been regaled with notorious French culture shock-absorber Serge Gainsbourg's Couleur Café. A hard act to follow, but Fox grasped the baton unflinchingly.

Her delivery of the opening number, Pour Toujours, was so disconcertingly flawless, her French accent so enviably and delicately refined, that were it not for her evident emotional presence, I might have felt justified in storming the stage in sweaty outrage to declare that Fox had gone all Milli Vanilli on the Spiegeltent.

Fortunately for the assembled company, I was not justified. Aside from a slight, humble tension in stance and speech, Fox appeared every bit the Left Bank chanteuse.

At an accomplished 24, it is not surprising - but it is exciting - that Fox has not yet utterly relaxed into her formidable talent, and it will be some indulgence indeed to witness such talent succeeding in sweeping its possessor along as swiftly and thrillingly as it does its audience.

Along for the impassioned ride were a band and backing singers of no less vigour and confidence in their beautifully balanced support. Their admiration for Fox is clear in a rich yet restrained presence, remaining strong without threatening to eclipse.

The heady atmosphere and rising heat conspired to encourage me to discontinue note-taking, yet each time it seemed that Fox could do no wrong and conjure no more right, another song would reflect another facet of her skill our way and I'd have felt a Scrooge in denying it record, particularly when the much-implored encore was bestowed as a rollicking, seductive reworking of Edith Piaf's Padam, Padam - it turns out that a multi-tasking Fox plays a mean cabasa, too.

Mastery and effortlessness in arrangement and delivery cast new light where the old Pont Neuf lamps shone. Fox's talent is powerful, stylish and captivating, a combination which fit like the proverbial round peg into the chosen repertoire.

I have wired this missive through from a one-person dinghy bound for Paris, and will be out of the office until further notice. Bon voyage me!

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THE AUSTRALIAN Saturday 12th February 2005 Anne Lim **** Four Stars

Music for a While: Becky Fox and Leonard Grigoryan

What to make of an album that opens with what can only be called baroque jazz – a plangent rendition of Purcell’s 17th Century Music for a While?

These young virtuosos, singer Becky Fox and guitarist, Leonard Grigoryan, both classically trained, obviously relish their versatility, making free with genres as diverse as Latin, folk-pop, Gallic torch song and musical theatre.

Though the album also covers cool jazz, with smooth arrangements of Sting’s Fragile and Feuilles Mortes (Autumn Leaves, sung in French), each of the offerings informed by the same intelligence, wit and élan.

Young they may be, but Fox, 21, and Grigoryan, 19, (younger brother of the more famous Slava) have the sophistication and sense to surround themselves with smooth-as-silk musicians such as jazz legend, Tony Gould, whose emotive piano playing occasionally overshadows even the stunning vocals.

This re-release is a reminder that Fox and Grigoryan are clearly stars on the rise.

Record Label: ABC Jazz
Type of Label: Major

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ALLURE IN TOP 20 ARIA CHARTS THIS WEEK!

ALLURE entered the Top 20 Jazz & Blues ARIA Charts this week at no. 19!
Posted by on Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:46:00 GMT