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Concerts in Madrid: Amelia is a Ray of Light on the Local Scene

Concerts in Madrid: Amelia is a Ray of Light on the Music Scene

By Laurie Smolenski
Tonight, I appreciate the absence of the things familiar...

Tonight, I appreciate the absence of the things familiar to most concerts I attend – monster amps, stages, smoke, loud noises. I’ve come to Entredos, a women’s center near La Puerta del Sol, to hear California-born singer and composer Amelia Ray. She takes the stage this evening for an intimate show with her electric guitar and her bass player, Mari-José Estivariz.

Photo: Laura Merayo

This is a chicks-only gig, and the atmosphere is cheerful, laid back, animated. When I catch their gaze, the women smile warmly at me. As a girl in a new city, I don’t realize how high I hold my guard up until I arrive at a place like Entredos and at once I feel welcomed. Table lamps have replaced overhead lights, and forty or fifty women huddle around tableclothed tables drinking Heinekens and wine, eating olives and homemade empanadas. The space is more living room than rock venue, with its mismatched chairs, low couches and rose-colored walls.

There are some spunky gals with cropped ‘dos and colorful stockings, although the majority of the audience are rockin’ more teacherly looks of long skirts, cardigans and turtlenecks. I notice a well-dressed woman in her sixties wearing high heel boots, lace, pearls and a golden grandma perm. She and the ladies at her table remind me of Patricia Hill Burnett, the radical American feminist who wore muffs and pearls to NOW meetings. And such it is tonight – a gaggle of mainly middle-aged, mostly conservatively dressed white women on the edge of their seats as this younger black American woman begins to sing in a language not all of them understand.

Amelia plays guitar with seasoned rhythm and ease, but it’s her voice that I fall in love with. She sings for all of ten seconds before I’m in tears. She speaks to both your heartstrings and your dancin’ feet. The woman has a voice of caramel – strong, sweet, rich. Layering gentle, feminine vocals between heavier, more intense verse, she sings about traveling, loving, and her roots. For a woman who’s been playing on stage in Europe and America for nearly twenty years, Amelia Ray appears ageless. With full lips, dark eyes, and a short buzz cut, her youthful appearance and spirit contrast the mature depth of her vocals.

She seems to gain confidence, and therefore volume, after her first few songs and we respond with our applause. She does a freewheeling country number called “Nova”, with lyrics like “Turning English into cash…Turning pesos into gas” fused over an upbeat guitar rhythm. The song tells a traveler’s tale about the car breaking down in Mexico. Later, Amelia later tells me this references her mom’s joke that “they don’t sell Nova’s in Mexico because ‘no va’ means it’s not going anywhere!” I’m impressed to see some women, including the older dames, dancing in the back. It’s been a while since I’ve seen women with more years than my mom moving their hips like this. Meanwhile, a small woman in a green sweater scurries around serving pasta and more beer – lots of it.

Besides the natural ease with which she performs, Amelia is uniquely appealing in that she rides a perfect balance of humility and assurance. When she plays the guitar solos, she speeds up slightly, moving through them with quick nods of her head as though hesitating with the boldness of her fingers on the strings. Yet each time she finishes a song and the women stomp and clap and yell “Guapa!” at her, her enjoyment unfolds in the form of a wide smile and easy laughter. An incredibly talented and yet visibly down-to-earth woman who tells stories and corrects her own Spanish between songs, Amelia is a real gift to this audience.

Photo: Laura Merayo

Amelia Ray also sings with her eyes. She has this captivating, dark-eyed gaze that lights up when she laughs, which is often, and intensifies when she sings about pain, love, social issues. She estimates that about a third of her songs are threaded with the latter. It is these pieces that truly embody the complexity of her words. For example, during one of the most lyrically intense moments of the evening, a song called Eldoret that appears on her new album, Amelia sings the following: “Don’t burn this building down/ There are children inside/This has the trappings of another genocide.”

A few days later, I’m sitting in Amelia’s apartment/studio, where she claims to have locked herself in to finish the new record, titled “On”. This will be her seventh album, which Amelia has been writing, recording, and producing in her home. We’re rapping about Brian Greene’s account of string theory in the Elegant Universe, and I notice that in addition to lots of books, Amelia has newspapers piled around the place.

She tells me that often, tragedies she reads about in the news inspire her to craft a song, as was case with Eldoret. The title refers to a town in western Kenya where ethnic violence recently erupted after the much-disputed presidential election. It was there on January 1, 2008, that a church was attacked. It was full of people who had taken refuge from the violence when an angry mob poured gasoline around it and set fire to the building. As Amelia’s lyrics reveal, dozens of people burned to death inside.

One of Amelia’s favorite female vocalists, Chaka Kan, declared, “Being a singer is a way for me to get to a platform to do more.” Some of our bravest musical teachers, from Dylan to Lennon, took the responsibility to respond to the world’s violence, prejudice, and inequality with their voices. Amelia’s songs exhibit not only unwavering strength and vocal clarity, they also impart an important message. Her words are laced with honesty and compassion, and cut deep into the hearts of her listeners.

I inquire about whether Amelia, who got her first guitar from Wal-Mart at the tender age of seven, has always played the kind of soulful, bluesy rock she’s playing now and she shrugs. “I mean, did you ever play, you know, heavy metal or something?” I joke. “Yeah,” she answers seriously, “I played in a metal band for a while. We did Poison covers and stuff.” I didn’t detect any metal vibe during her Entredos show, yet her agility for musical cross-breeding is evident. She draws from funk tunes to blues classics to folk, all fused with country-twanged rock and roll. Amelia says that at the root of things, “I’m always trying to make good old finger-snapping music…that makes you move your feet.” A further testament to her diversity and talent, Amelia also plays bass, percussion, drums and organ, but don’t take this girl’s gee-tar away. When I ask if she ever sings without it, Amelia gives me a horrified look and murmurs, “I might feel naked”.

Amelia is a mainly self-taught musician who first began singing in her church choir. When? “As soon as I learned to talk,” she smiles, explaining that she grew up going to church at least once a week. It’s no wonder Amelia’s parents are from the American south, because the girl’s got soul. She was born in San Jose, California, and grew up in the Bay Area before moving around to Washington D.C., New York, Austin, and to farther corners including the Netherlands and France. How did Amelia end up in Madrid? “A friend’s free sofa,” she laughs. That was two years ago, and she hasn’t been back to the U S of A since.

Her new album “On” will be released on April 22 and will be for sale on cdbaby.com, Amazon.com and itunes. Better yet, pick it up at her live gigs – Amelia has one slated for April 23 at the Juglar in Lavapies. She will share the stage with her band, The Conjugal Experiment, which includes Mari-José Estivariz on bass, Jorge Perez on drums and bass, and Alejandro Nieva playing sax. They have been playing together as a quartet since late last year.

What would Amelia be doing if she weren’t one of Madrid’s most interesting new artists, as declared on Spain’s Radio 3 recently? “I wanted to be an astrophysicist,” she confides. Luckily for her fans, Amelia failed pre-calc three times and plans to stay in Madrid “until the good luck runs out.”

Photo: Laura Merayo

I ask Amelia about the benefits of playing music in Madrid as opposed to America and she laughs, “There aren’t one hundred me’s there”. She is humbly referencing Spanish fans’ appreciation for her lyrical depth and originality, especially considering the uniqueness of hearing talented live rock and folk music with so much soul here in Spain. In this otherwise predictable scene, Amelia is definitely a “Ray” of light.