Singer-songwriter seeks a break
Valerie Orth teams with pro musicians
to launch CD
Few young and aspiring musicians catapult from anonymity to stardom overnight. Most struggle for years, waiting tables or working other jobs to pay for rent and food. They play gigs wherever found, climb onstage whenever opportunities arise, hone their musicianship, refine their lyrics and distinctive rhythms until one day, maybe tomorrow, the world gives them a precious opening known in the music industry as a "break."
Singer Valerie Orth has made music her primary job for about five years, but still has to supplement her music income serving food for a catering company. She plays her own songs regularly at clubs in San Francisco and the East Bay. Orth can pack a room. Her music and stage presence command attention. Her songs resonate with the pain of relationship struggles to which everyone can relate, and she delivers them with a sexy vulnerability. Orth sets lyrics to diverse rhythms of rock, jazz, reggae and folk that grow more sophisticated each year.
On December 9, Orth releases her first CD—Faraway City—crafted with superb backup musicians. One cut called "Relinquish" carries a reggae beat. In the leadoff piece called "Better Than Reality," she sounds like a folk artist. "You make it sound better than reality when you tell me I'll be just fine," she sings.
Although still in her twenties, Orth has been onstage hundreds of times. "I've been singing since I was born," says Orth, a New Jersey native. "Before I could talk, I was singing." She performed in musical theater productions from age four until 20 then joined an all-women a cappella group on the East Coast before migrating to San Francisco. "I was the only white woman," Orth recalls, and the group performed African harmonies. "It was all done by ear."
All her new songs have multiple harmonies. She overlaps tracks of her own voice to create layers of complexity. Her sister in Maine sang harmony for one, and a group of friends harmonized for another.
"I picked up the guitar in college," Orth says. She majored in women's studies, creative writing and English. "I didn't really know how to write a song or play the guitar until about five years ago. My strength was lyrics. Recently I have focused on rhythms and harmony, with looping and drum tracks."
"If you're doing it for the money, you should do something else. I would love to have a house someday, but I'm not going to put that in front of being a musician."
Orth has coordinated several band incarnations to perform her music. "It's hard to get a band of professional, full-time musicians together for rehearsals," she says. Her current band has a drummer, keyboard player, bass player and violinist who thrives on intricate string parts.
"It's challenging. Even when an artist sells an album for $10 or $15, co-writers, producers, managers and distributors may take a cut. It costs a lot to reproduce CDs. My album might pay for itself in a couple of years." She'll tour on the East Coast to promote the CD.
Orth has little trouble landing gigs, usually about 40 a year. "They just want to know how many people you can draw," she says. "Most of the bookers know me. The club takes a huge percentage off the door. Then the manager takes a percentage. It's low profit." She laughs. "Actually it's non-profit. It can't be about the money. If you're doing it for the money, you should do something else. I would love to have a house someday, but I'm not going to put that in front of being a musician." She has played at Dolores Park Cafe as well as Slim's and the Great American Music Hall, a 5,000-square-foot concert venue.
"I don't like having to spend so much time on email," Orth says. "It drains my creativity. Facebook might be worse, but I have to do it. Twitter I can't yet figure out. I did this so I could work on music and perform a lot. I spend time on emails to get people to shows in order to keep performing." A job she had as a grassroots organizer for labor rights causes gave her training in promotions. "I have experience in marketing campaigns," she says. "It's similar. Except the cause is my music."
"There is so much music out there," she says, with hundreds of thousands of competing artists. "It's about making yourself stand out. Very few overnight successes last long. If I were to break now, I would have something to sustain it. I could use support from a label. A hit song would help, too."
Getting a hit song on the radio can create a huge marketing opportunity, according to Orth. Much of her music tends to be more personal than commercial. "I don't like a lot of songs on the radio," she says.
"I love being onstage performing. It's a total high, a sober high. It's a proud feeling."
"When I sit down to write a song, sometimes it's really frustrating," Orth says. "When I finish a really good song, I feel like I'm on top of the world. Then I wonder if I'll ever write a really good song again."
"I love being onstage performing," Orth says. "It's a total high, a sober high. It's a proud feeling."
To pull together the Faraway City CD, Orth hired professional musicians, artists so skilled that they could listen to her music without ever having heard her, do three or four takes and then record. "It was really cool," Orth says. "It opened my eyes to a different level of musicianship. When somebody plays my own music, I can see the difference between what amateur musicians do to it and what professional musicians who have been working for 30 years on their craft can do with it. I started striving to be a better musician. It was intimidating but amazing, an incredible learning experience."
—James Dunn
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