Hard to believe that our last Women in Entertainment feature was published in November 2016. So much has happened since then, and we have some great upcoming features for you on some of today’s best female entertainers. We start today with the continuing saga of four-time LA Music Critic Award winner Alice Wallace, who also won the Female Vocalist of the Year award at the 2017 California Country Awards.
We last interviewed Wallace in August 2016 as part of our Getting to Know the Winners of the 2016 LA Music Critic Awards series. At the time, she was an up and coming country artist who had recently signed with California Country Records, the label created by Manda Mosher and KP Hawthorn, formerly of CALICO the band. Mosher has now gone solo and Hawthorn has created a new label, Rebelle Road Records, along with bassist Adrienne Isom and industry executive Karen Rappaport McHugh, an integral part of the successful Stagecoach Festival. Wallace is the first artist signed to the new label and her album, Into the Blue, drops on Friday, January 18.
Rebelle Road is a newly founded entertainment company dedicated to strengthening the California country music community and expanding the role for women in the Americana/roots genre. Launched in March 2018, the trio have combined their longtime experience in music marketing, festival production, visual presentation and life as touring artists and record label owners. They’ve already produced showcases at SXSW and AMERICANAFEST, industry panels and two one-day festivals.
This past October, the trio produced a benefit concert at the legendary Palomino Club, which hadn’t been open for 23 years. “We realized that we needed to create what doesn’t exist right now in the music industry — both for women and for artists living outside of Nashville. There is a strong history and legacy here in California; the Palomino spirit lives on and we’re going to bring it back,” says Hawthorn. Wallace was a featured artist that night, and Pollstar called her stellar moment on the famed stage (which has been described as the Grand Ole Opry West) as “shot through with Crystal Gayle’s ache and Linda Ronstadt’s country essence.”
Wallace has a truly distinctive style, which she explains evolved from growing up surrounded by the music of artists like Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt. “I really taught myself to sing by mimicking their styles,” she says. “The powerful belt that Linda has, the emotive lilt to Emmylou’s voice. Trying to navigate those different elements helped me find my own voice nestled in between all that.”
These days, Wallace performs as many as 200 dates a year, both solo and with a band. “In some ways, I wish I had done it sooner,” she says of her decision to pursue her passion for playing music. “But I’m also glad I have the life experience to help fuel my songwriting and survive life on the road.”
When asked the question, “What inspires you?” she responded: “In writing this new album, I took so much inspiration from California and the southwest. I have spent the last three years touring across this region, soaking in the atmosphere of the ocean and the desert and the mountains and the canyons. And I think you can hear that in these new songs.”
When asked if she considered herself a country or Americana artist, she told us that she thinks she is more Americana these days. Although she still sings with a twang, she only used pedal steel on two of the songs on the new album, which has a grittier edge than her previous country release. Check out our review of the new album in Friday’s Get it or Forget it series.
We also asked her about her future plans. She told us: “Once the album is out, it will be back on the road to play these songs as much as possible. We are talking about another European tour, plus dates all across the country. I am so looking forward to sharing these new songs with audiences.”
She also plans to attend SxSW in March, where her label is sponsoring the California Country Social, a concert featuring about 30 bands. She said she will likely return to AMERICANAFEST in September as well.
You can keep up with Wallace by visiting her Facebook page, following her on Twitter and Instagram, subscribing to her YouTube and Spotify pages, or just clicking on her website.