BrightSide Blue
This duo from Nevada City seems to have appeared out of nowhere and landed center stage, but they’ve paid their dues! Playing “live” from Santa Cruz to Southern Oregon, they combine heart-and soul-filled vocals with virtuosic guitar work to create brilliantly colored original musical portraits. Their songs, combining diverse elements of folk, jazz, blues, and world music, are delivered with their unique brand of energy and sensitivity, leaving audiences smiling and spellbound. “This love story has a soundtrack” — as Lindsay Bellows and Ananda Vaughan have found the perfect complements in each other: Lindsay is a soulful songbird who soars and dives over the lush textures of Ananda’s musical landscapes.
If you haven’t yet seen or heard BrightSide Blue, it’s time. Their spring tour leaves a trail through this region, ending at The RelaxPansion Fest in Ashland June 21-22. Their presence and artistry are the real deal.
The couple’s ambitious first release, Between Worlds, takes listeners around the globe and thru inner and outer spaces, featuring guest artists Ayla Nereo, Jacob Aginsky, Beau Askew, Ras Dennis, Shannon Hayden, Gordon Hellegers, Rob Holland, Jason O’Keefe, Justin Purtill, and Lydia Violet. The songs have created their own compass, and whisk us away with them through Northern California forest fires, over piles of earthquake rubble in Mexico City, to surf the cresting waves of a roaring ocean and rest in the secret canopy of a willow tree… a beach in Jamaica, a neighborhood courtyard in Grenada, Spain, anti-war demonstrations in the streets of Detroit, a royal court in Mali…
Ananda trained for many years as a jazz guitarist, and has found inspiration in other guitar masters from rock, folk, and world music. Lindsay grew up with pop and R&B music, and studied the influencers of her childhood idols — the soul and blues singers of the mid-20th century. The pair brings together the best of all these genres to create a sound that is authentically and uniquely their own. www.brightsideblue.com
—LLOYD BARDE (LLOYDBARDE.COM)