Artist Category: R&B

Gail Ann Dorsey

Gail Ann Dorsey is a multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, songwriter, and recording artist with a unique and impressive career in mainstream and independent music spanning more than three decades. Widely known as one of the music world’s most influential bass guitar players, Gail Ann is equally revered for her outstanding vocal talent, contributing her dynamic voice as well as her bass skills to many projects from the music industry’s top artists as well as her own solo recordings and live performances.

One of the most notable GAD vocal pairings is her show-stopping duet with music legend David Bowie on the Queen/Bowie classic “Under Pressure”. Dorsey occupied the bass guitar/vocalist chair in David Bowie’s touring bands from 1995 to 2004, also contributing to Bowie albums ‘Earthling’, ‘Reality’ and ‘The Next Day’, and including the posthumous releases of Bowie studio recordings ‘Toy’, box set ‘Brilliant Adventure (1992-2001) and Bowie live at ‘Glastonbury 2000’. Aside from her long tenure with David Bowie, Gail Ann has recorded and toured the world with artists whose music spans an impressively wide range of genres. From folksinger-activist Dar Williams to British crooner Seal, soulful songstress Joan Osborne to pop icon Gwen Stefani, Brit post punk pioneers The Gang Of Four to the sophisticated pop stylings of Tears For Fears, celebrated indie band The National, and one of Dorsey’s personal favorites, the iconic Olivia Newton-John, GAD has contributed her solid, signature bass and vocals as a prominent feature to these artists and many more around the globe, including holding the bass chair in the touring line-up of soul-pop-rocker, Lenny Kravitz from 2011 to 2021.

Gail Ann most recently recorded, toured, and collaborated with the artist -M-; the “alter ego” symbol of French superstar guitarist, singer-songwriter, producer, and award-winning composer, Matthieu Chedid. Dorsey was a special featured guest on the -M- ‘Rêvalité’ Tour of 2022-2023 which consisted of 150 sold out concert dates throughout France in one year! As a solo artist, GAD has released three albums; ‘The Corporate World’ (WEA Records 1988), ‘Rude Blue’ (Island Records 1993), and the independent released ‘I Used To Be…’ in 2004, the first and last releases can be heard on most streaming platforms. Shifting gears from musician-for-hire, Dorsey is once again focusing her time and talents on her own music, writing and recording music for a long-awaited and much anticipated solo release, as well as taking to the stage with her captivating voice, an acoustic guitar, and songs with maturity, a message, and spirit that touch the heart.

Melo Green

Melo has appeared all over the New England music scene across nearly two decades with Kids On A Hill, The Umass Doo Wop Shop, The Frotations, The Velcro Soul, Freddy and The Yeti’s, and The C.O.M.P.

Melo’s debut album Laminar Flow is all about ease, love, living in the present moment and accepting that just because it looks like we’re frozen in time doesn’t mean we’re not moving through life gracefully.

Haasan Barclay

Haasan is a songwriter, producer and visual artist from Boston, MA who has built a name for himself with a style unbound by conventional labels. His unique blend of psychedelic Shoegaze with hip hop and RnB has been featured in Complex, VFILES, Allston Pudding, and NPR affiliate WBUR, as well as through exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art and Boston Center for the Arts and brand partnerships with Giphy, Topo Chico and ARP Instruments.

Ella McDonald

Ella McDonald is a Boston-based musician and songwriter whose thoughtful, intimate lyricism glides from haunting to healing in the same breath. Their 2018 debut album, February, is a lyrical exploration of their growth in friendship, self love, and queerness, and musically melds folk and R&B influences into a cohesive body. In 2022, Ella suffered a brain injury that left them unable to read, write, or play music for several months. Now, as they heal, Ella is returning to music and offering us their most vulnerable and moving work yet, reminding audiences that hope is a discipline.

Solaya

Solaya is a young artist and producer based in Boston, Massachusetts. She first fell in love with music as a dancer in childhood, eventually gravitating towards songwriting and poetry as a primary art form. Growing up in a family of percussionists and singers, her natural influences came from folkloric Latin music styles like bomba y plena and rumba, and various West African forms. She was always inspired by R&B and neo-soul music growing up in Atlanta, and started to write in a way that combined these ideas. Working with her own family members to create this sound, Solaya has developed a unique lyrical flow and experimental production style that pays homage to her upbringing and her culture. She seeks to represent her home countries, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, to stay true to her identity, and to honor the new generation of Caribbeans making waves in the American music industry.

Almira Ara

Almira Ara is a captivating singer-songwriter whose music seamlessly blends folk traditions with contemporary storytelling. Known for their captivating voice and evocative lyrics, they draw inspiration from their heritage and personal journey to create songs that resonate across generations.

Kimaya Diggs

KIMAYA DIGGS is a musician and writer, born and based in the rolling hills of Western Massachusetts. The sounds of her childhood included Emily Dickinson, Ella Fitzgerald, Whitney Houston, 70’s soul, and songs around the table with her family.

A fourth-generation artist, Kimaya grew up singing with her sisters, and found her voice across the facets of neo-soul, jazz, and R&B. She’s crafted a genre-defying style that celebrates the power and dexterity of her voice. Slippery and acrobatic at times, earthy and urgency-filled at others, her voice has been called “smoothly captivating” by the Daily Hampshire Gazette. Her songwriting beautifully captures the spectrum of her vocal range, and the singular control she has over her instrument.

Her debut album Breastfed (2018) is a bittersweet chronicle of growth towards the light. Produced by LuxDeluxe bassist Jacob Rosazza, the LP features lush string arrangements and moving harmonies. The single How Am I Sposta Know placed in top 10 in 93.9 The River’s Best New Songs of 2018.

Her EP One More Holiday (2021) builds on her jazz roots for a classic Christmas sound. The title track, about the death of her mother, “captures the way that the season of joy can also intensify the feeling of loss… during the holiday season,” wrote the Greenfield Recorder. She launched the album with a Christmas-themed variety night in her native Northampton.

As a writer, Diggs’ personal essays, short fiction, and poetry has been published widely, earning her a Callaloo Fellowship in Poetry in 2017. In 2020, she headlined the Emily Dickinson Museum’s Tell It Slant poetry festival, performing live from Emily Dickinson’s historic bedroom.

More recently, to commemorate Black History Month in 2022, she released a cover of Solange’s “Cranes in the Sky,” a song that documents a journey towards self-love. Her single They Can Say What They Like, released in 2021 on A-Side B-Side Records, written to benefit Cancer Connection, Inc., raising over $2000 for the organization. It placed #6 in 93.9 The River’s Best New Songs of 2021. Her sophomore album is expected in early 2023.

Kyshona

Kyshona is an artist ignited by untold stories, and the capacity of those stories to thread connection in every community. With the background of a licensed music therapist, the curiosity of a writer, the patience of a friend, the vision of a social entrepreneur, the resolve of an activist, and the voice of a singer – Kyshona is unrelenting in her pursuit for the healing power of song. She lends her voice and music to those that feel they have been lost, silenced, forgotten or alone. Through her organization Your Song, she facilitates therapeutic songwriting sessions with groups and individuals in hopes of reconnecting those who are divided. Of her past releases, one fan reviewer wrote: “Amidst these hard, divisive times this set of songs is a salve for the grief many of us are feeling about resulting loss of family, friends, and community.”

Storytelling is the way we pass information – between friends, colleagues, and family. Stories are how we imprint our culture and give gifts from one generation to the next. Memory is imperfect. It is influenced by emotion, context, our state-of-mind on any given day, our health, surroundings, language, and how we have been socialized. In telling our stories, we not only enlighten one another to our truths, we also call upon our community to practice active understanding and to help us acknowledge, validate, and remember our past. In telling our stories of the past, we shape a collective future informed by all we have all we have traveled, all we have learned, and all we have been.

Every family has storytellers, because we are all storytellers.

In her forthcoming album LEGACY, Kyshona tells the long story of her family’s journey.

“This is protest music for a new generation, a musical treatment for social ills, a unique prescription that only works if you listen.” – No Depression

“Listen highlights Kyshona’s descriptive songwriting and soulful vocals alongside a versatile blend of folk, rock and R&B influences. While Kyshona sings of fear, hope, community, love and understanding throughout the 10-track project, she also finds herself.” – Billboard

“Everyone is making political records. Everyone is making albums that speak to ‘this moment.’ Too few of them are making music that speaks to the people who inhabit this moment. Kyshona does.” -The Bluegrass Situation