Kelly Flint (Dave's True Story Related)

Kelly Flint - Drive All Night - 2007 - BePop Records

"It seems like someone will have an entire popular music collection — and then they'll have all three of our albums. It seems to transcend age." — Kelly Flint
"Kelly's warm, sure singing is the album's glue. Her voice is a warm hug, a dear companion on a lonely day. Drive All Night is a touching album that really can help keep shadows at bay while it plays" © Michael Tearson 2009 Sing Out Corporation http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-168918725.html

Kelly Flint is the singer, and interpreter of the songs of songwriter/guitarist David Cantor of the band, Dave's True Story who have released five critically acclaimed albums. If you are familiar with DTS, you will recognize Kelly Flint's voice. Her singing style has been described as "a femme-fatale's alto, unornamented except for a judiciously applied burr which she uses like a drummer uses his brushes". "Drive All Night", Kelly's first solo CD includes 13 excellent Kelly Flint originals and an unusual but beautiful cover of Justin Hayward's (Moody Blues) "Story in your Eyes." All the songs revolve around her acoustic guitar, and the album is very much in the "indie folk" mould. The album is very different from the sparse, cool, sophisticated cocktail jazz sound of DTS, but it is a brilliant album, and just as enjoyable as any of the DTS albums. Production is top notch, and David Cantor (DTS) has said that "Her melodies are beautiful one moment, then, in the next, as pop as anything you might ever hear. And sung with that voice! She is engaged with the world and her take on it is truly unusual and insightful. Though wry and funny at times, her words come from deep places, and she finds the emotional truth in the everyday event, the heartbreaking core in simple acts and moments." "Drive All Night" is HR by A.O.O.F.C. Watch out for Kelly's next release, and check this blog for other DTS releases. Read a great article about DTS @ http://www.offoffoff.com/music/2003/davestruestory.php/

TRACKS

Blood and Bone
Drive All Night
Story in Your Eyes
The Letter, 1974
Cartoon
Never Unless
Song to My Soldier
Waiting For the Weather
Are You Blue?
Snow Angels
Deep Freeze
Bottle Rocket (The Truth Hurts)
Marilena
Alchemy

All songs written by Kelly Flint except "Story in Your Eyes" written by Justin Hayward

MUSICIANS

Kelly Flint - Guitar, Vocals, Vocals (Background)
Gerry Leonard - Guitar (Acoustic), Guitar (Electric), Mandolin
Carmen Yates - Guitar, Vocals (Background)
Jeff Eyrich - Bass (Acoustic), String Arrangements
Jon Dryden - Organ (Hammond), Wurlitzer
Steve Rossiter - Organ
Jacob Lawson - String Arrangements, Violin
Libby Johnson - Vocals (Background)

REVIEWS

There are fifteen reasons you should check out Drive All Night. Fourteen of them are songs. Kelly Flint can write them (well, thirteen of them anyway, the fourteenth being an excellent cover of Justin Hayward's Story In Your Eyes). Boy, can she write them. Lucky for her (and us), she can sing them as well, and she does so in such an unassuming and understated way that you know you're getting the real Kelly Flint, in the musical flesh. The fact that the flesh is, in many instances, shall we say, exposed makes for some truly outstanding moments. One of those moments is Cartoon, an almost science fiction look at relationships through the analogy of animation. With a line in the chorus like "It's a cartoon, where the guy falls off the cliff and he's flat", you can't help but get the mental picture. It's Wiley Coyote and the Roadrunner in love (with cartoon effects), except that it is real and the effects are obviously a bit more than stated. In this case, Flint took a good idea and turned it into folk/pop gold. The lightly upbeat and country rocking Drive All Night is deceptive in its simplicity. With shuffling beat, Flint rides into a promising sunset, or so you think, but instead rides just to be riding because in spite of the positive tone, something is wrong and someone is gone. It is a song of survival. If you don't pay attention, you won't even know. The Letter, 1974 is as straightforward as Flint gets, a young girl writing to an absent father while watching her mother disintegrate. A child left behind, with her mother and yet alone. "And daddy, I don't know how you feel," she sings, "I fill in the blanks and I'm always to blame, but come home soon, there's no one at the wheel, and I can't figure out how to explain." A magnificent but devastating song. She lounges it up with Deep Freeze, Wurlitzer piano laying out a slow, bluesy background while she squeezes just enough out to capture the blues. When you're in a bar drinking and a song like this comes on, you stop. If you're not drinking, you start. Flint flashes back to the fifties and sixties on Marilena, the shuffling brushes and the guitar riff out of a Ricky Nelson song like Poor Little Fool but taken in a different direction. And the chorus is a great example of what she does so well—adding a couple of words onto the ends of certain lines, giving the chorus a unique twist, a different rhythm. This is not the only time she does it, but it is the most obvious. As for Story In Your Eyes, the only borrowed song, bongos and semi-jazz acoustic guitar offset Flint's voice so well it might take awhile to realize where you heard it before. It is a Moody Blues song, of course, but the treatment here is in another dimension altogether. Flint slows it down and uses phrasing to make it her own. For straight pop fans, there is a bit of a mid-period Brit rock feel to Are You Blue?. One and a half minutes of Beatles-inspired pop, maybe? The following track, "Snow Angels", has a hook and a half as well as a catchy chorus. The package itself is very well done, though the layout is more Nashville than it should be. Kelly Flint barely skirts modern country on this CD and Nashville is only a whisper. It is much more folk, pop and rock than country, but you can label it what you want. Flint is a solid songwriter, a good vocalist and a superb lyricist. One of those is a good thing. Two is a score. Three, my friends, is a hat trick. [A review written for the Folk and Acoustic Music Exchange
by & © Frank Gutch Jr. - Edited by: David N. Pyles - © 2007, Peterborough Folk Music Society. http://www.acousticmusic.com/fame/p04155.htm

The very direct Kelly I would say.Is filled with passion when you talk about the musical road she has taken to get where she is today. CELEBRITY KELLY FLINT sits down with CEO-JOEL CRAFTON: (Joel Crafton) The CD of KELLY FLINT titled (DRIVE ALL NIGHT) on BEPOP RECORDS falls nothing short of pure genius, after hearing Kelly’s CD I was taken in on a musical ride of melodic riffs that compliments every strum and cord on her acoustic guitar. The very direct Kelly I would say.Is filled with passion when you talk about the musical road she has taken to get where she is today. Although she has made a modest living, Kelly is sincere when she credits those who have set the pathway in her development in music, like Joni Mitchell, who is the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 1969-2002. (KELLY) I would perform at the New York Club (“THE LIVING ROOM”) frequently, when the (“THE LIVING ROOM”) had its 10th anniversary that lasted for three weeks. Kelly Flint was invited to open up for Nora Jones. Before Nora Jones was famous she would open up for Kelly. Kelly gives great respect to the success of Nora Jones. Kelly has also opened up for Patti LaBelle, as Kelly traveled performing about eighty gigs per year. The world has not forgotten the full life size cutouts of Kelly Flint you would find in music stores of her past hit CD/Album. (KELLY) How I learned to sing, I would put the needle on the record listen to the vocals until my pitch was correct. From that point on I started developing my skills as a singer, song writer and performer, singing some cover tunes as well as creating my own songs in search of the perfect story line song idea. (Joel Crafton) If I were to summarize the CD of KELLY FLINT titled (DRIVE ALL NIGHT) on BEPOP RECORDS produced by JEFF EYRICH, it would surely get four stars. Kelly’s other works were “Dave's True Story”. Kelly made five albums, and was the toast of The New York Times. Some of the well known talk shows that have superstars or even up and coming artist might have slept on this one. It is never too late to undo what they have not done. Get Kelly on your show for this CD is hot! © CEO - JOEL CRAFTON Of Craftone Music aka/ Black Pinoy © CraftoneMusic.com 2008 http://www.craftonemusic.com/kellyflint.html

ABOUT KELLY FLINT / DAVE'S TRUE STORY

The story behind the band, Dave’s True Story, is every bit as interesting as Dave Cantor’s lyrics. Dave Cantor, singer/songwriter and the Dave of Dave’s True Story, grew up in New York, (Long Island to be exact), and had a dream of wanting to become a novelist out of college. The novel didn’t work out, nor did the playwriting, so instead he turned to writing songs, where his lyrics are like mini-scripts with dramatic monologues. Kelly Flint grew up in the mid-west, (Michigan City, Indiana) came to New York with $400, a suitcase and like so many people that come to New York, with a dream of becoming an actress or a singer. It was something that she desperately wanted, but she put off going to a club called the Speakeasy for their Open Mike night for a few years, because she said that she knew once she went it would change her life, and it did. She became involved with the Fast Folk Musical Group, which is where she met Dave in 1989. Friends encouraged Kelly to sing Dave’s songs, since she needed material and was not a prolific writer herself, but Kelly didn’t really “get” Dave, and didn’t like his style of jazz. Over drinks one night, Dave taught Kelly one of his songs, and when she sang it, she “got” it, and went on to learn a few more of his songs. Fast-forward, Dave and Kelly went to a Folk Festival that Jack Hardy put on with 33 performers. Although Dave and Kelly were not on the line-up to perform, at the third from the last of the performers, they decided to sing one song, and the audience loved them. At the end of the concert, the audience cheered Dave and Kelly to come back on and sing another song. Ironically, the only other Dave’s song that Kelly knew was a Christmas song, which they performed, so what that it was July! Encouraged by their reception at the concert, they went on to do a couple of gigs. In 1994 they formed Dave’s True Story, released an album, and in 1995 they won the prestigious Kerrville New Music Award. The story gets even better; in 1994 Kelly met Southern California Surfer/bassist, Jeff Eyrich, who was living in Malibu, in an Internet chat session called the Surf Lounge Tijuana Brass Cocktail. Encouraged by their chats, Kelly sent Jeff their album so that he could try to generate some interest for it on the West Coast. When he heard the album, coupled with his growing online relationship with Kelly, he moved to New York and joined Dave’s True Story in 1998. Their first release together was Dave’s True Story (1994, re-released in 2002), Sex without Bodies (1998), followed by Unauthorized (2000), which is when I first became a fan of Dave’s True Story. Their latest release, Nature, from BePop Records was just released on April 19, 2005. The story gets even better! Their song, Crazy Eyes, was featured in the film Kissing Jessica Stein, and the second track, Dog’s Life, from the Nature release is in the documentary, Dog’s Life: A Dogmentary, from Emmy award winning television producer Gayle Kirschenbaum. On June 3, 2005 Edward F. Nesta and I, along with our friend, Tim Garrabrandt, had the opportunity to listen to Dave’s True Story perform at the club, Satalla, in New York, and to interview them to get their “story”. When I asked what inspired Dave, Kelly quickly responded, “he gets his inspiration from Kelly”, to which Dave added, “or else.” Actually, he grew up liking (surprise!) music, which was definitely off the beaten track, which included The Mothers (Frank Zappa) and Captain Beefheart. He also admitted that he was a Steely Dan fan. Jeff was inspired by the Southern California surfer instrumental pipeline music. He said that sometimes people say that he plays “surf guitar.” Hearing Dave’s True Story perform live is about as good as it gets. Joined by drummer, Richard Zukor, the band clearly was in their element. Although Dave may not have written a bestselling novel, his lyrics are clearly bestselling stories; and it appears that Kelly didn’t have to choose between acting or singing, as she captures the audience with her mesmerizing voice and sassy attitude; and as for Jeff, this cool California surfer plays his bass with the ease of a champion surfer coming out of a long pipeline. I can’t wait to hear the next story from Dave’s True Story, as the stories just keep getting better and better. Written by & © Debra C. Argen © August 2005. Luxury Experience. www.luxuryexperience.com All rights reserved http://luxuryexperience.com/music_scene/interviews/daves_true_story_interview.html