Heather Marie Philipp

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It’s no wonder Heather Marie Philipp creates music that seems to come from her bones. It does. Born and raised in small towns across Michigan by her rock guitarist father and poet mother, and a host of their colorful friends, Heather, the second of four children, came by her passion for performing naturally. Thinking about the first rock concert she remembers from age 3, Heather says, “I remember seeing my father up there shredding a Strat like he was plugged into a high voltage wire, red Peruvian shirt flapping, long hair flying, and women around me screaming - some anonymous blonde cooing to me about how god-like my dad was... It is burned into my memory. I don’t know if I caught some sort of bug that night to be bigger-than-life like he was, or if I was just so enamored and awed, that I wanted to recreate it every chance I could… whatever it was, it made me a little ravenous for the stage – theatre, dance, music, all of it! I’ve been in love with performing all my life.” And perform she did. Her love for movement, especially, led her to Boulder where she earned a degree from the improv-based InterArts Department of Naropa University. Though initially relocating to Boulder from Lansing for the Buddhist-inspired College’s dance therapy program, Heather soon settled on the theatre department which proved a perfect place to marry her modern dance background and vocal experience with a deep desire to express herself fully.
Her time at Naropa with eclectic faculty, including renowned jazz pianist Art Lande, combined with studies abroad in Nepal and India, opened her mind to a bigger musical world. Though she toyed with a folk singer/songwriter identity, playing a few coffee shops here and there, Heather eventually realized “the girl-with-a-guitar thing” wasn’t for her and began to be drawn into jazz, soul, and avant garde voice work. “I was really inspired here in Boulder, writing a lot, and enjoying the opportunity to get my songs out there - so much so that it took me awhile to realize that I couldn’t really express myself the way I wanted to with a few guitar chords. I just wanted to sing and write, write and sing, and couldn’t quite keep up with my guitar chops anyway. My heart was elsewhere.” After putting away her guitar, Heather settled into a few years of writing new material, traveling abroad, reinventing old songs, and nurturing her modern vocal jazz leanings. After acquiring executive support and connecting with talented young composer and producer, Paul Fowler in Taos, New Mexico, she began compiling material for what would eventually become the Under the Apple EP. But progress came slowly, and soon came to a hault.
A little over six months into the project, Heather was involved in a devastating car accident that left her with substantial neck and back injuries and a temporary, but debilitating head injury. It took nearly a year for Heather to get her life back. “My life went from a clip to a shuffle, practically a standstill. I had all these great people putting me back together and amazing support from friends and work, but it was rough. I stuttered for months and was restricted to the bare necessities. Eat. Sleep. Work a little. See the doctors. Sleep. I was forced to decide what was truly, truly important to me.” Early in the recovery process, Heather felt a new fervor to finish the CD project and waited to be well enough to get back into the studio. “I wanted to write and sing so badly and really couldn’t, not for months. I didn’t realize how crucial it was to me until it was taken away. That was scary. Thank god I got my head back… and in a way, I guess I’m thankful to the guy driving that big truck! A forced pause sort of did me good because I got my priorities straight, you know? It became the people I love and my music.”
Though it took months to recover fully, recover she did, and with a CD in the works, no less. Fowler had auspiciously relocated to Boulder and with his expert attention, Under the Apple was complete in less than six months. The end product is an intimate, original work of seldom heard breadth and depth from a debut effort. The album builds on a foundation of contemporary acoustic jazz the likes of jazz/pop darlings Norah Jones and Madeleine Peyroux, but takes agile strides into the soulful sides of art pop and R&B groove. You can find remnants of Billie, Ella and Chet alongside a little Mariah Carey, Bette Midler, and Natalie Merchant, pulled together with a freshness seen in the likes of present-day soul artists Amel Larrieux and Joss Stone. The track Love Blind even gives a little nod to trip-hop mainstay Portishead. “Paul and I really wanted to treat this album like a constellation, a few little lights with their own personalities, but with a thread of colors throughout.” The result is a collection of tracks that show off a warm, sensual and stunning voice, a knack for inspired prose-style songwriting, and stellar musicianship from an up-and-coming producer. Together, Philipp and Fowler have created a jazz-inspired album that is listenable, current, and artsy - mature well beyond what you’d expect from a first-time-out.