Interpretations - Alice Di Micele

Reviews of the album:

Interpretations Vol 1 is an adventure, an exploration at the very heart of sun, the radiating heat melting away the past whilst holding on to integrity, and it is a marvellous addition to Alice Di Micele’s huge and entertaining catalogue of music.

"It’s never easy to take someone else’s song & produce a viable replica of the original or better, reinvent it. But that’s what Alice did with her authoritative satiny tones."

"To kick off, these are definitely her interpretations of these classic songs. She doesn’t tear them apart and present something unimaginably different from the original, rather she represents them in her style and with subtly different emphases...If this is Volume 1, I cannot wait for volume 2.

"This is an exceptional choice of songs to cover and Alice Di Micele treats them and arranges them with the reverence only a true music lover can exude."

She serves up a heady mix of folk, jazz and blues that not inspires and entertains as well. FolkWales verdict: Thumbs up!

Singer/songwriter/guitarist Alice Di Micele (DeeMissEllie) has released 16 albums of her original “organic acoustic groove” music since 1988. Born in New Jersey but firmly transplanted to Oregon in 1986, Di Micele has spent the last 35 years touring, singing, writing, playing, and learning. During the pandemic lockdown, she started learning songs that she had always loved but had never had time to work on and arrange. Her seventeenth album, Interpretations Vol 1, pays homage to writers and songs that have long inspired her. The collection includes songs by Neil Young, Kate Wolf, Rev. Gary Davis, Christine McVie of Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty, Abbey Lincoln, the Grateful Dead, and Sting.

This diverse collection of songs reflects her love of varying styles of music. “My first concert was the Grateful Dead in 1982. Two weeks later, I saw David Grisman Quintet at Carnegie Hall. I came home that night and dug out my mom’s old guitar that had only five strings and called the guitarist of the band that I sang in and told him to teach me to play. I learned Neil Young’s Sugar Mountain that night. Soon after, I found country blues listening to late night NYC radio. I love jazz and sometimes feel like a jazz singer in a folk singer’s body. I have spent most of my life writing songs, but these influences run deep.”

Di Micele (vocals, acoustic guitar, shaker) is joined by Rob Kohler (bass), Skip Edwards (all keyboards on the record and pedal steel on track #4), Nick Kirby (drums –tracks #1,3,7 & 9, electric guitar–track #3), Andy Casad (acoustic guitar-track #4,8&9), Bret Levick (backing vocals-track # 1,4,5,7 & 9 and electric guitar track #4)), Dirk Price (electric guitar –track#3), Artie Watson (drums –track #4) Gene Black (electric guitar-track#5), Mimi Fox (acoustic guitar –track #6), Joe Diel (electric guitar –track #7) Tracks were recorded at Di Micele’s Tiny Wonderland Studio except for track #7 (lead vox, guitar, bass, drums) recorded by Denis Dragon at The Studio at Pacifica in Williams, Oregon. All other tracks were recorded by the musicians playing at their home studios except Joe Diehl, who was recorded by Rick Roppolo, New Orleans, LA.

On Interpretations Vol 1, Di Micele brings her vocal prowess and emotional depth to each song she covers, capturing the essence of the material and making it her own through a wide range of genres from the folky Give Yourself To Love to the bluesy Death Don’t Have No Mercy, to the folk-pop Over My Head to the jazzy Throw It Away.

Alice states, “There is a reason that singer comes before songwriter, and singing these songs reminds me that although I strive for originality, my music has been influenced by a long legacy of incredible writers and singers. I am but a small link in a long chain of music.”