Victoria Ginty Takin’ Care of ‘Unfinished Business’ (5 Quick Questions)

“Unfinished Business” (Blue Door Records) is the new album by Victoria Ginty (Release Date: Friday, May 4) and captures the vocalist’s unique, soulful blues style. Recorded at GCR Audio...

“Unfinished Business” (Blue Door Records) is the new album by Victoria Ginty (Release Date: Friday, May 4) and captures the vocalist’s unique, soulful blues style. Recorded at GCR Audio Studios in Buffalo, the eleven tracks (eight originals) on Unfinished Business also fuse R&B, Soul, and Americana, sure to please the palette of the most avid music connoisseurs.

 

Ginty, who hails from the musically-rich region of Apollo Beach, Florida, recently took time to do a ‘5 Quick Questions’ segment with Blues-E-News Editor, Wayne Rinehart.

 

BEN: Let’s briefly discuss the recording process for Unfinished Business. Though you’re from Florida, you traveled all the way to Buffalo (in the dead of winter, no less!) to record the new record. Why?

 

VG: A girlfriend of mine here in South Florida has a son, Rich English, that works as a composer and co-producer at GCR Audio (owned by the Goo Goo Dolls) in Buffalo, an absolutely world- class facility. After consulting with him and producer Justin Rose, I felt I could get a great project recorded there in an environment that felt comfortable, and most importantly, have a good engineer and great musicians. They exceeded my expectations! We communicated for a few weeks before I flew up. They had all the necessary musicians scheduled, (and) the demo tracks and their charts ready when I arrived, so we went straight to work and were there for a whirlwind of two weeks, which was still quite a push.  I was able to engage Richie English (Give It Up Baby) and Grace Lougen (guitarist and co-writer for Hard to Move On) into co-writing two of the last songs I was working on prior to, which gave both those songs a dimension that only co-writing can do!

BEN: You perform as Victoria Ginty and Ladyhawke, but the album was recorded as Victoria Ginty (solo). What’s the back story here?

 

VG: Ladyhawke is my touring band, they helped craft and arrange many of the songs on the record and played on the demos I sent to the studio in New York.  I learned while recording with BMG in Nashville, that for expediency, most artists use some, if not all, studio musicians to record their projects, then utilize other touring musicians to take the project on the road. It saves a lot of studio time, and you get the project completed the way you want it without risk of hurting someone in your band’s feelings over a simple preference or opinion.  Mike Ivey, Ladyhawke bassist and my co-writer on many of the songs, traveled up to Buffalo with me and was very involved in helping to bring the songs to life, and yet, he, too, turned the bass playing on the project over to the fabulous Jerry Livingston. These (studio) musicians spend much of their time in the studio recording, while performing musicians spend more time playing before live audiences. Hopefully my next project will be recorded with Ladyhawke, I love those guys and they are very capable musicians.  In fact, our last album was a live project with my band… and it was amazing to record one concert and have a live CD that we were all happy enough with to press up and sell!

BEN: From your bio, we see your background was first in the country music genre. How did you come to make the segue into the blues? 

 

VG: With the contraction of the recording industry, I had a somewhat early retirement from music, except for an occasional acoustic gig when called on for a Cross Country concert or a gig with some of my favorite people.  I had experienced the “magic carpet ride ” when I was able to obtain the record deal and promised myself that since most commercial music is mainly targeted at young people, that I would not be beating around Nashville talking about what “had been” and wanting to find another record deal. I understand the demographics behind that industry and felt I was past “the standard age” (which is about thirty!).  I had spent a lot of time learning to write in Nashville, but once the label went under, I just stepped away from the music scene and focused on a job, family, and a farm, which was enough to keep anyone very busy.  When I was invited to a blues jam near where I lived in Apollo Beach about eight years ago, I was smitten with the music!  I was “hooked” and inspired to take my writing skills into blues and try to leave a mark in the genre.  I realized that there was a place for artists who weren’t under the age of thirty…and I could get out and enjoy being a part of this big beautiful scene!  For me, I don’t get all that focused on what the title is, or genre, but rather if it suits my taste musically. If I like it, it’s music to me.  I quickly recognized that I couldn’t be bound by an 8-, 12-, or 16-bar progression; being locked into that promotes too much redundancy, and all types of music needs to breath and grow to not become boring.  I’ve heard some people say that there is no way to write original music anymore, but I feel like that is the mission… to try to make things stand alone as much as possible.   One of the things I really embraced about the blues was that I felt like I could express most anything emotionally… Nashville had so many songwriting “rules” as I studied with some of the great writers there, e.g. women shouldn’t sing sad songs or admit to really getting stepped on, but it’s ok for a man to do that… so many things seemed confining… in this genre, it’s about reaching the heart of the audience, who are largely mature adults.  I felt that emotional expression was available again, and there weren’t as many “rules”.   This was the perfect fit for me. Blues offers enough freedom to sing your heart out, or simply have fun with so much expression, there are no limits.

BEN: Today’s music landscape is ever-changing and difficult to navigate. What’s your plan(s) for making Victoria Ginty a full-blown success story?

 

VG: That is the big question so many indie artists wish they had a solid answer for! Hopefully my answer and plans come to fruition!!  I have assembled a team to help promote the music, my publicist Doug Deutsch is doing a really great job, and I am using Rich L’ Hommedieu for radio promotion, he has also been a major help and we are just at the beginning of this journey!  Currently I am shopping for a manager and booking agent to help us with our scheduling and festivals, as it is my intention to continue writing, and upping the game.  Hopefully if I continue to write good music and put it out there, and have the right team in place, we will get good results.  We will continue to tweak the business side of things so that it will allow me to be a musician and writer and let the business guys take care of that end. The music business is just that, a business… it’s tough when you are an indie artist, so for me, I hope that the next level is really to turn the business end of it over to people who I can trust to take care of things like Doug and Rich have done. When I was signed in the past, I didn’t even have to book a flight for myself, so this is a lot more work!  I hope to be touring and performing, and less involved in the business end of it, although I suspect I will never escape that end of things as much as I’d like to. The biggest thing I’ve seen for most artists is putting the right team together so that they can focus on performing, writing, recording and going to and from gigs, which is plenty!   Success is certainly the goal!

 

BEN: How can music fans keep up with all your latest goings-on (website links, Facebook, Spotify, et al)? 
VG: Our web address is VictoriaGintyandLadyhawke.com/, or just VictoriaGinty.com/

on Facebook we can be found at: https://www.facebook.com/LadyhawkeBand/

Our music is now available at Amazon Music, CD Baby, and Apple iTunes

 

AND people can find it streaming on Reverb Nation and Spotify as well as Pandora once the release date has passed.

 

They can order via PayPal through our websites: VictoriaGinty.com (and) VictoriaGintyandLadyhawke.com.

 

YouTube videos hopefully coming soon.

 

 

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