Grace Weber Enlists Gospel Choir And Gets Dirty, Gritty, Real On 'The Refinery' (Oct 7)

Grace Weber always knew her calling was to be a soul singer, from a time before she can even remember. When the Brooklyn-based, Milwaukee native began to record her latest album, she had another singular vision - this album would need a gospel choir. Growing up singing in the church, Grace pulled from her roots and set out to define her own raw, gritty and emotional sound. The result is 'The Refinery' (October 7).

The album captures Grace blending smoky, rootsy soul with elements of modern rock and electronic percussion. Her album opener "Perfect Stranger" fuses a cappella vocals, handclap choruses and dance-worthy beats into such a funky barnburner that it earned Grace a spot on NPR's SXSW Playlist earlier this year.

The album also spotlights Grace's emotionally charged writing and singing style on "Til I Hurt You", a heart wrenching piano-and-string ballad about recovering a damaged relationship and "Oil & Gold", a horn-fueled lament with vocal fireworks that was written in response to the Gulf spill, with Weber asking "Who's gonna save our souls / When you're gambling with oil and gold?"

Tutored in music through total immersion, Grace developed her smoldering voice into a singular powerhouse that belied her young age, early on. She performed on the famed "Showtime At The Apollo" in Harlem by the time she was in her early teens, was selected out of 7,000 applicants to become a Presidential Scholar in the Arts, and at the age of 18 found herself performing for the President, on The Today Show and at historic venues like The Kennedy Center and the Ziegfeld Theater. By 2010, a YouTube clip of Grace singing "Natural Woman" won her the chance of a lifetime to perform on the final season of Oprah.

From there, Grace worked with producer Mike Mangini (Joss Stone, David Byrne) and released her debut album "Hope and Heart" in 2011. The album reached #8 on the iTunes Singer/Songwriter chart and her songs were featured in Starbucks, Walmart, Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, and on US Airways in-flight radio.

For her current album, Grace found inspiration while on the road. "When I was touring with my band from Milwaukee to SXSW, we were talking about things that were soulful and describing them as 'oily,' just dripping with soul and raw and nasty grit. Then we passed this huge refinery and we said that the most soulful thing would be a refinery. The name stuck with me and I started to think about how a refinery turns something raw and dirty into something of value. On this album I tried to take my own honest and sometimes painful emotions and stories and transform them into music."

If soul and oil are synonymous, then Weber is sitting on one of the richest wells out there, and on 'The Refinery', she's tapped a rich, infectious vein that's at once both classic and modern, and entirely her own.

Grace Weber On The Web:
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