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The powerhouse soul singer known as Adrian Adel was brought into being in the sunny state of California. She has since spent time in Florida, Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, Texas, Oklahoma, Nevada, Ohio, New York, Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama meanwhile being raised barefoot on country rock, country fairs, Mardi Gras parades and Nascar races. The desire to sing has been with her from the start. As a young thang she went through the pop-star-wannabe phase, dancing around the house and lip-synching to Janet Jackson, Madonna and the Pointer Sisters with pantyhose on her head. I used to take my walkman to bed and sing Whitney Houston songs with my feet up on the walls until my Mom would yell from the other room, she says. My Mom bought me a karaoke machine when I was fifteen because I was desperate for SOMETHING to sing on.
Her career got its official start with the elementary school choir in 1985; by the following year she had her first solo. The same year - 5th Grade - she joined a church gospel choir at the recommendation of her school choir teacher but only stayed with the group for a couple months. "I kind of felt out of place there, for whatever reason." says Adrian. She also played clarinet, flute, and bass drum in the school band. I didnt play the flute so well because no one told me to take the damn cleaner thing out of it. She auditioned for Star Search at 13 and sang two years in a row for Walt Disney Worlds Candlelight Christmas. She continued with choir straight through high school, where her choir teacher, who clearly knew talent when she heard it, provided crucial support and mentorship, hooking her up with professional voice lessons and even secretly paying for them out of the school choir fund when Adrians family came up short. As a result, Adrian consistently came out on top in statewide vocal competitions, overcoming crippling stage fright to wow judges and audiences alike. (Nowadays its hard to imagine her suffering from stage fright.) During high school she sang with a white Southern Baptist church that toured churches in the southern states each summer. I had a lot of solos because I was the only sista in the choir, she explains. As Adrian got older and her musical exposure widened, she gravitated toward Contemporary Christian music and R&B, which welcomed her with open arms. "I struggled for some time to sing R&B and I blame it on the pop music I was exposed to as a child," Adrian says.
Things got a little rocky after high school, as Adrians aspirations of taking a BA in music to attend Julliard and blossoming into an opera singer gave way to the reality of working in a video store in Portland, Oregon. She sang with a group called Off the Streets briefly and with a band that performed Top 40 with the help of a dat machine every weekend at a moose lodge in Camas. They had the nerve to bring their own instruments and pretend to play live music, Adrian recalls. They had me sing all of the Tony Braxton and Ace of Bass. I really hated it but something was better than nothing. I ended up walking off stage one night and never turned back. When she turned twenty-one Adrian got a job hosting karaoke night at a bar, which she still does parttime, Thursday and Friday nights at Legin on SE 81st. It keeps my chops up, she says of the karaoke gig. I usually don’t compete nor do I go out to the karaoke bars, because I hate waiting for my turn to sing. I’d rather get paid instead!
In the same year she became legal Adrian joined a 16-piece funk band called Fatman as a backup singer, a situation she describes as instant love. She played the Portland scene with them from 1997 to 99 and in that time learned to sing soul. A friend introduced her to Etta James and Erykah Badu, and in a flash her youthful pop and opera yearnings fell away: soul was it. It was with Fatman that she conquered her stage fright, describing one memorable experience this way: They often had Tahoe Jackson, a local soul singer, sit in with us and one night at the Kennedy School, she put the mic in my face and I let it out. I freestyled! With Fatman Adrian played every conceivable venue: festivals, conventions, parties, celebrations, holidays, whorehouses, truck stops, lemonade stands. High points included playing LaLuna (when it was LaLuna), singing on the Crystal Ballroom stage, and traveling out to the middle of nowhere to play on a generator made for a lawn mower for a bunch of hippies having a Frisbee competition. Of this last event she says, I sang until my voice went hoarse. It was one of the best experiences of my life.
After Fatman dispersed, Adrian dabbled in solo performing around Portland, heating up stages like the famed Luv Jonez and freestyling with Michael Franti and Spearhead. In 2001, she moved to Los Angeles in search of a bigger pond of musicians. "There weren’t a lot of musicians in Portland that were interested in creating a project from scratch, which was what I needed." Adrian says. A freak car accident in LA slowed down her ambitions, and then pregnancy ended them. After becoming a mother, my time was not as free as in the past and I became discouraged and didnt try to get into anything.
She returned to Portland and kept a low profile until 2004 when she met the emcee Ms. Suad and the Ramsey Bros., which rekindled her desire for music. She began making guest appearances with the Ramseys for about a year and through networking managed to land a guest spot with Portland’s own Hungry Mob and Adair Village providing smooth and souful backup in 2006. All the while, heating up stages opening for Dead Prez, Guru and Pete Mizer.
Adrian retired from being a Karaoke DJ over the summer of this past year and split ways with Adair Village earlier in 2007 who are now lovingly known as Basic Shapes. At the end of 2007, she parted from Hungry Mob and is now focusing her talents and energy on her newly found photography and graphic design career and of course, her beautiful son. As of 2008, she is not performing anywhere but in the privacy of her bathroom and car. You can catch her live 7 days a week through her backyard window. Times may vary. However, you can hire her for studio background vocals by the hour. Please contact her at [email protected].
There are many things to love about Adrian. There is nothing little about her: not her voice, not her personality, not her hair. She could probably intimidate a grizzly bear or immitate James Brown on cue. In fact, she is one of the loudest, funniest people you or I have ever met. But you can only laugh when she talks, not when she sings.
Bio written by Anthony Schlottman (with some ending tidbits and updates added by Adrian Adel), Portland OR
