Allison Geddie videos
Artist |
Video |
Album |
|---|---|---|
| Allison Geddie | Fixing Me | Express Video March 2011 Week 4 |
Facebook biography: "CHARMAINE BLACKMAN has been singing for 28 years professionally. Her versatility, superb range and exceptional talent have helped to establish her as a leading voice in the field of music in Guyana. In an era when Guyana’s music had sunken to its lowest ever, Charmaine must be considered a pioneering voice in our nation’s musical rebirth. Charmaine sang with many of Guyana’s top bands and her voice and features have been associated on Radio and Television commercials for some of the major companies in Guyana, the likes of Mings Products & Services Ltd, Courts (Guyana) Ltd, Wireless Connections, Guyana Lottery Company, Banks DIH Ltd, Caricom, Demerara Distillers Ltd, Geddes Grant (Guyana) Ltd, UNESCO, Guyenterprise and Creative Advertising Agencies and more recently The Mayor & Councillors of the City of Georgetown, just to name a few. She was also contracted to work on assignments for the Guyana Government periodically. Charmaine has appeared on stage with the cream of top Caribbean and International Artistes that include, Eddie Grant, Shabba Ranks, Buju Bantan, Allison Hinds and Square one, Krosfayah, Gregory Issacs, Beres Hammond, Machael Montano and Xtatic, Shadow, Calypso Rose, Boris Gardiner, Super Blue, Lord Kitchener, Dobby Dobson, Manuel Obregon, Dub City Renegades and others. Touted as Guyana’s most recorded voice with over 300 recordings featured on Advertisements and 14 CDs ranging from Ballads to Hip-Hop, Disco, Reggae and Soca, 8 of which are Solo Albums. She was crowned Road March Queen in 1997 in Guyana’s Mashramani Celebrations with a song entitled “Soca Music” and has the most popular tracks on the Yoruba Singers Reggae Albums “CONSCIOUSNESS” and ‘CONSCIOUSNESS 2” that were listed on the top 20 most played Reggae Albums for the years 1999 and 2003 respectively on the US Island of Guam’s KPRG 89.3FM plus in 1993, two of her tracks contributed majority to the album “Consciousness 2” reaching No 1 on the same Island. She has to her credit over 35 music videos some of which was featured regularly on the CMC’s program ‘Riddim Express’ reaching over 22 countries of the Caribbean, CVN International Music Television, City TV’s Much Music Television and Rogers Caribbean Channel - Canada, Radio-TV Africana, Asian TV, Boston’s Riddim & Soul BNN-TV in the USA, STVS Suriname and Ben Television London. This extensive airplay has cause Charmaine to become the most talked about home-based artiste. Charmaine Blackman is a fine cultural ambassador touring several countries and has attended Toronto’s Caribbean Festival ‘Caribana’, Ottawa’s ‘Urban Music Festival’ and ‘Labor Day’ in New York, Rainforest Aid Music Festival in Costa Rica among others, but her biggest musical experience has been the RINGBANG MILLENNIUM CONCERT in Tobago that was televised by the BBC to 2.5 billion viewers around the world. Charmaine has moved to another level by being the co-executive producer for the locally produced movies ‘THE WILL TO LIVE’ released in 2005, ‘RIGHT CHOICES’ released in 2007, KING OF DRUMS released in October 2009 DECEPTION released, in March of 2011, THE ENCOUNTER from the Presidents endowment fund 2011, WHERE IS EVERY BODY released in 2012, THE UNBELIEVEING MOM released in 2013, THE CONVERT released in 2014 and THE OLE HIGUE released in February 2016 and I WANNA BE MY GIRLFRIENDS CELLPHONE released in December 2017 all of which she is the Producer. Charmaine was contracted to do a stint on the Golden Princess Cruise Line and was very impressive as she belted out songs from the 50’s to the new millennium showing great range, versatility, power and creative choreography. She was nicknamed ‘Tina’ by every single cruise during her nine week stint. In 2013 she received an award from the Guyana Cultural Association in recognition for her sterling contribution to the Guyanese music scene, in 2014 awarded her the Emancipation Trust of Guyana for her dedication to the Creative Arts and in 2016 a Life Time Achievement award by the Guyana/Canadian Artistic Music Award."
Music has always been in Allison Geddie’s blood. At twelve years old she was already sowing the seeds of what has grown into a love of composing and performing music. Schooling herself on artists like Ben Harper, Alanis Morisette, and Rob Thomas, she picked up her father’s guitar and began instinctually writing her own songs. By fifteen she booked herself a gig at a local café in Connecticut, and her music career was born.
Allison’s stunning presence and musical ability is garnering her an ever-growing fan base, which isn’t surprising; serious music fans know a good thing when they hear it. With melodies sometimes delicate and haunting, sometimes raw and unbridled, her lyrics hint at life’s deeper, darker truths – truths that invoke in listeners a powerful and palpable sense of connection, inspiration, and belonging. As a result, she’s constantly booked in clubs throughout L.A and her songs have been featured on ABC’s “The View” and “All My Children.”
At the behest of legendary producer David Foster, songwriter and producer Greg Critchley (whose credits include Miley Cyrus/Hannah Montana, Michelle Branch, and “High School Musical”) enthusiastically took on the task of producing Geddie’s debut album, which features Nelly Furtado guitarist Mike Krompass, and Goo Goo Dolls guitarist Greg Suran.
Geddie’s intelligent, thought-provoking lyrics reveal stunning layers of her vulnerability, and are often reflective of relationships and transitions in her life. She says, “When I was seventeen I played a song for a girl who was a few years older than me, and she had to leave the room because she was crying. And I discovered that people can relate to my music, and I felt honored that someone really got my songs, that she was living inside of my words. I felt heard.”
Geddie’s signature style reveals itself in melodies and lyrics that often take unpredictable and surprising turns, riveting the listener with stunning depth, power, and beauty, haunting them for days and weeks to follow. Her songs range from the self-effacing “Fixing Me” where she writes: “I’m trying to live and let be/ but I can’t control my thoughts./ I want to be true to you/ but the liar calls the shots./ I try to be everything that I know I want to be./ It feels like life is just one long road of fixing me.” to playful lyrics of her generation in songs like “What we Lived For (The Starbucks Song)” where she croons: “We’d always drive our car to Starbucks…/ and we’d look for our fathers in 19 year olds.”
As for her first record, Everything You Don’t See, she says, “I wanted to make a beautiful album. I have a wide variety of songs, and I wanted to keep the beauty theme running throughout. We added cello and chimes and piano. I wanted to make sure that the album stayed close to the way I wrote the songs on the acoustic guitar, organic, yet with all the added elements of the band.” The songs are at times slow and dark, at times riveting and raw. Her refreshing vulnerability takes us to a place where she is willing to courageously bare her naked psyche, like the album’s title suggests, letting listeners in on her most private emotions and thoughts.
The range we see from Geddie in her first album is both masterful and fresh, just like her performances, with a sense of consistency not usually seen in a debut record. With her rare combination of deep intelligence and stunning beauty, she has simultaneously created a classic sound that seems warm and familiar, and yet, is completely original, destined to win hearts from the get-go.