Four years ago I was living in a vampirical state. I was hostessing at an upscale Cuban restaurant in the center of Philadelphia and living in a terrible apartment that maintained the temperature of forty degrees for the five months I was living there. I worked nights, slept days, and knew there was something I wanted to do to get to where I belonged, which really is just wherever I am but with this addition: I would have something that gave me endless vitality, something that helped me through joys and sorrows, a constant through inconsistency and a blessing to pass on to everyone else. I made the executive decision that this something would gather itself in song and started telling my life’s experiences through words and melodies, rhythms and rhyme. I started to scrappily pick up the guitar and opened my mouth to sing. The bio then came a little later….
The music of Birdie Busch is natural. There isn’t pretense, nothing forced or processed, just delicate melodies and deceptively simple lyrics that resonate upon further discovery.
Born amidst a great wealth of talent residing in Philadelphia these days, Birdie just finished her first studio recording in the spring of 2005 entitled The Ways We Try and the recording has all the warmth, atmosphere, and feeling of the best of the classic records in your collection. The album, recorded in a converted auto garage in the marshlands of South Jersey, was created somewhat the opposite of how songs are usually recorded, with two guitars leading the rhythm, bass and drums chasing off-kilter meters, and piano and organ coloring the lyrics and adding width and depth to the melodies.
With radio play from WXPN, and the song ‘South Philly’ just included on the station’s new “WXPN Philly Local-Right On Track” album produced by station programming veteran Helen Leicht, the media support is taking her and her band into the best clubs and halls in the city, including the Tin Angel, the Theatre of the Living Arts, World Café Live, and the North Star. She has shared the stage with a diverse group of artists including Regina Spektor, The Mosquitos, Dar Williams, and Amos Lee.
Her natural writing style, open public emotions, and family influences are the character of The Ways We Try, and also the invitation to share these experiences with Birdie Busch. May she leave you feeling a little less troubled and a little more comforted,
her crackled rosiness drawing you into her songs as would a painter’s smallest strokes.