Priscilla to record xmas & Sinatra song

Getting into the Christmas spirit early
Tom Harrison, The Province

It's probably hard to get the Christmas spirit in Los Angeles in December. Harder still to get into it in August.

This is the challenge Priscilla Ahn faces. She's due to record a Christmas song for a forthcoming CD and hasn't completely made up her mind about what she'll do. Likely, it'll be a version of "Silent Night," for which she's shaping in her mind a concept of how it should sound and be arranged.

"It's not an easy task to do a Christmas song," she allows and giggles quietly. Later, she's also contributing to a Frank Sinatra album. For this Ahn has decided on "I'll Never Smile Again," but unlike "Silent Night," for which she'll mould her voice to an idea, for the Sinatra song she'll just sing in her own style.

Her own style is an unaffected singer-writer, almost folk approach. Signed to Blue Note, Priscilla Ahn could be the label's next Norah Jones. The singers aren't remotely alike but if Jones sneaks up on you, so does Ahn. In that respect, they are alike.

Ahn isn't a lifelong fan of Sinatra. What she knows of old baggy eyes has come from going to her neighbourhood record store, Counterpoint, and buying vinyl long players that look cool for a dollar each.

"I buy a bunch of them," Ahn exclaims. "I love them so much and I listen to them all the time."

Now a Los Angeles resident, Ahn has done a little bit of moving about. Born in Georgia, as Priscilla Hartranft, she was raised in various Pennsylvania towns and lived for 10 years in South Korea, eventually taking Ahn as her last name as an acknowledgment of her Korean mother's maiden name. She toured and sang with Amos Lee and Brandi Carlisle before making the Joey Waronker-produced A Good Day album. It's a sparse-sounding record built around Ahn's acoustic guitar over which her light, easy voice floats. It's notable for its judicious details such as the singing saw, which sounds so much like a theramin, that appears on "Find My Way Back Home."

"There is a sort of interlude at the end of 'Astronaut' [another song from A Good Day] that gave me an idea," she explains. "I sang it like a theramin. We ended up not using it on 'Astronaut,' but the idea was there. When it came time to do 'Find My Way Back Home' I thought of theramin but Joey said, 'I know this musical saw player.' I thought that would be awesome. So it was his idea.

"When it was all done," Ahn continues, speaking of the finished album, "I sort of looked at it objectively. It was hard to see it, pragmatically. I'm really proud of it but I had a lot of trouble deciding what songs should be on the album. It's impossible to put them all on. And I'm really bad at making decisions, even simple ones, like, where to eat lunch."

Debut album hints at good things

By Andrew Gilbert for the Mercury News

For Priscilla Ahn, choosing a stage name raised complex questions of identity and ethnic solidarity.

A rising singer-songwriter based in Los Angeles, who just released a lovely debut album on Blue Note, "A Good Day," Ahn has gained considerable attention over the past year or so through network television appearances and the use of her music on "Grey's Anatomy."

She makes her Bay Area debut Saturday at the Independent, opening for bayou soul singer Marc Broussard; then on Sept. 4, she opens for Willie Nelson at the Mountain Winery in Saratoga. She returns to San Francisco Oct. 10 to open for 21-year-old British jazz singer Adele at the Regency Center's Grand Ballroom.

Ahn grew up with her father's daunting last name Hartranft (pronounced hart-raft), but as she started performing at open mikes around L.A., she eventually decided to adopt her Korean-born mother's maiden name.

"My real name is long and heard to spell," says Ahn, 24. "I didn't want to shorten Hartranft, and I didn't want to go by just Priscilla. For six months, I performed as I Am a Girl, but it was too vague and awkward to announce. I thought, maybe I can use my mom's maiden name. It's a lot prettier and simpler."

For her first extensive U.S. tour, Ahn is traveling with her acoustic guitar and ukulele, and performing with Gus Seyfrett on bass and guitar.

Along with San Francisco-based Chinese-American singer-songwriter Vienna Teng and Dengue Fever's Cambodian-born singer Chhom Nimol, Ahn has quickly emerged as one of the most visible Asian-American women in pop music.

"I wasn't sure if I wanted to put that out there so blatantly, so that before you listen to me you know I'm Asian," Ahn says. "But I thought it was sort of cool to embrace the Korean half of me, which I love."

Actually, there is another beautiful young woman of mixed Caucasian and Asian heritage who has attained a little bit of fame in recent years, Norah Jones. Rather than shy away from comparisons with Jones, Ahn quickly invokes the name when explaining why her exquisite CD ended up on Blue Note. "It's not just a jazz label," Ahn says. "They do folkier stuff like my music. I thought Blue Note had a lot of integrity, and so far it's been really good."

Ahn is no Jones clone, however. She's a folkie singer-songwriter with a sharp ear for British Invasion pop hooks. Ahn has soaked up music from her father's record collection, listening to Neil Young, the Beatles, Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd. Later, she fell under the sway of Radiohead, Sparklehorse and Juana Molina.

Raised since adolescence in a rural southeastern Pennsylvania town, Ahn headed to Los Angeles in 2003, not long after graduating from high school. She first gained attention outside of L.A. touring as a backup vocalist for singer-songwriters, particularly Josh Radin. Collaborating with film composer and drummer Joey Waronker, best known for his work with Beck and R.E.M., Ahn created a striking debut statement with "A Good Day."

Like that of many young songwriters, Ahn's music often focuses on the trials and tribulations of adolescence, with all the attendant feelings of awkwardness, dislocation and angst. Rather than turning to anger or aggression, Ahn looks for shelter, with lyrics that tend toward the dreamy and introspective.

She sets some of her most plaintive lyrics to her most winsome melodies, like her study in shyness "Wallflower." Those songs look back at a difficult small town upbringing. These days, she's loving life in the big city, and her new songs reflect her earlier sense of contentment.

"It did sort of surprise me when I realized what I had been writing about and why," Ahn says. "Now I'm in a place I finally feel like I've made a home I love. My ukulele song, 'Find My Way Home' is one of new pieces, and it's about having this good love that will bring me back home."

source

interview

New Priscilla interview: You recently started your first headlining tour. How is it going so far?

So far so good! I’m actually surprised at the turnout at the shows. I expected maybe 30 people to know me in each city, but around 100 – 200 people have been showing up, which is a really good feeling and a really nice surprise!

A Good Day has such a serene vibe, reminiscent of records that came out of Laurel Canyon in the '70s. How has living in California affected your songwriting?

Well, the reason I moved out to L.A. was because of its vibe. It’s a little mellower to me than living in New York City, and the weather is always pretty calm and nice. I've always sort of written mostly mellow songs. But I have done a lot of growing up since I’ve lived in L.A. and that definitely gives me a different point of view when I start writing a song. I have more confidence; I know what kind of music I really like, and how I like to sing it.

The album's first single, "Dream," seems quite an existential lyric for anyone to write, let alone someone so young. Was there anything in particular that inspired that song?

I think [that’s] just me recalling childhood memories, thinking of myself back then, and then growing up and how I can look back on my life some time from now, hopefully. I like to daydream about my past and my present and future.

What are a few of your favorite novels and/or books of poetry?

I love e.e. cummings. Jack Kerouac was a huge inspiration; one of my favorites of his is The Town and The City. And I love reading David Sedaris. He always makes me smile, while keeping it real, even touching. {More}

Dream video

Priscilla @ Bluegrass Folk Festival

We've added a third full day of intimate performances throughout the Festival in the Wildflower Pavilion - including Gregory Alan Isakov (2007 Telluride Troubadour winner), Priscilla Ahn, Madi Diaz, Dan Craig, and many others. The complete main stage and Wildflower workshop schedules are now available at bluegrass.com.

Takes place August 15-17.

Priscilla Ahn bio

Priscilla Ahn notes
Born: Georgia, raised in Reading and Bernville
(PA)

Age: 26

Graduated: Tulpehocken Junior-Senior High School, 2002

Residence: Laurel Canyon, Calif.

Parents: Harry and Kay Hartranft, Bernville

Achievements: Professional singer/songwriter; touring nationally this year, including appearances with Jakob Dylan, Taj Mahal, Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson. Her debut CD, "A Good Day," was released June 10 on Blue Note Records

In her debut CD "A Good Day" on Blue Note Records (released last month) and in conversation, Priscilla Ahn has a sweet, pure voice and a friendly manner. But underneath is an iron will and a brave spirit that have driven her to take big risks. And for her, taking those risks has led to big rewards.

Ahn, now living near Los Angeles, grew up as Priscilla Hartranft in Bernville, the daughter of Harry and Kay Hartranft. She was born in Georgia while her father served is the U.S. Army, and moved to Reading as an infant, where she later attended Thirteenth and Union Elementary School. She graduated from Tulpehocken Area Junior-Senior High School in 2002.

In a telephone conversation recently, Ahn said her interest in music started early, and was encouraged by her mother, a teacher in the Penn Bernville Elemenatary School as well as a pianist and vocalist.

"I started singing very young," she said. "My mom helped me sing in church. I sang my first solo at 8."

Around the same time, she started learning piano from her mother, but "I didn't like being told what to do, so I picked it up mostly on my own."

When she was in fourth grade at Thirteenth and Union, Ahn started learning violin at school and played in the school orchestra. When the family moved to Bernville, however, the school district had no string program. Instead, she played xylophone and glockenspiel in the school band.

She also took private voice lessons and participated in the school chorus, as well as district and regional chorus.

Her father, a crane operator with a strong interest in classic folk/rock, urged her to pick up the guitar, but it wasn't until she heard one of her friends at school play the guitar that she became interested.

"All I had was a Christmas song book with guitar chords," she said. "So once I learned those, I started writing little tunes of my own to help me learn. I discovered that I really like that. I was always into reading, creative writing and poetry, so this became a new way for me to express myself."

Soon Ahn was writing songs, and performing at open mikes at Borders Book Store in Wyomissing. Her father helped her find gigs at local spots like the Brass Lantern in their old neighborhood, and at the Blue Marsh Canteen.

"I did a mix of my own stuff and covers, because people wanted to hear stuff they knew," she said. "So I did some Neil Young songs, and Jewel - whatever I was learning at the time." {read more}