Cover photo © 2023 James Todd Miller
Blues lovers in Washington DC and the surrounding areas already know about Carly Harvey. The powerhouse singer, (who is also a highly competent multi-instrumentalist), is a crowd favorite around the upper East Coast, and word is quickly spreading across the nation. Blues Blast Magazine had the opportunity to catch up with Carly when she stopped by a local house concert (and where she was, of course, asked to sing by the artist performing). This talented singer’s style often shows the influence of greats such as Etta James, Nina Simone, Bonnie Raitt, and Ella Fitzgerald, most likely because of the varied musical influences she was exposed to as a child.
“My mom was a singer who did a lot of theater in her youth, with a real emphasis on jazz, and my father was a funk bassist, who had a band based in the DC area. They both had to get day jobs and eventually stopped their musical careers, but we always had great music in the house—you know, Cab Calloway, Mahalia Jackson, Tower of Power and even Led Zeppelin and Hall & Oates. My mom’s taste was especially eclectic. She liked the cabaret type of blues that I never liked, so I grew up deciding I would never play the blues. And I didn’t like funk until I got older, but eventually found them both.”
Carly started out playing violin, and then taught herself to play piano despite being dyslexic and having synesthesia, (a neurological condition in which stimulation of one sense leads to involuntary experiences in a second sense). In Carly’s case she sees colors associated with numbers and letters and also experiences odors associated with them.
“It is very challenging, especially when the colors of the letters on the musical staff are different from the colors I would see with those same letters in a book. For example, an “A” in a book is pale yellow, but when an “A” is on the music staff it is spinach green. But as I’ve grown, I have trained myself to adapt and see beyond the colors and see black letters on the page. My violin teacher used to say I didn’t have what it takes to be a musician. But I have a good ear, and I stopped going to that teacher (and stopped playing violin), and just taught myself to play the piano and the guitar. Initially I would play chords and not know which chord I was playing. My parents were musicians, but they took a ‘hands off’ approach and taught me to be autonomous as a musician. I’m grateful that they had the approach they did. I don’t think I would appreciate it as much if it was just handed to me.”
Carly sang in five different choirs plus performed in musicals in her high school. She then attended St. Mary’s College of Maryland where she sang in their concert choir and an acapella group called The Nightingale Acapella. She was classically trained in school, and she found that singing blues songs sometimes contradicted that classical training, so she resisted it at first.
“One day I was singing a Bonnie Raitt song and my friend said there was something in my voice that wants to be expressed. He played me a Susan Tedeschi song from her Live in Austin DVD. I played that DVD every day for five months and watched her interviews to learn about those who influenced her. I realized I did love the blues. She was modernizing it while keeping true to its origins. She was there singing raw and from her soul, and that resonates with me. So, my friend and I started playing coffee houses and people were very receptive to it. I guess you could say I was nineteen years of age when the blues chased me down, even though I was trying to run far from it.”
Carly noted that she was only 19 when she started singing blues songs, but it took a little bit of painful life experience before she could really sing it the manner it was meant to be sung.
“I was a 19-year-old kid and I had this tiny, baby voice. I hadn’t found my voice yet. I had all the runs but no power behind it. Then I got into a very toxic relationship and had my heart broken and suddenly I was singing differently. Everything was coming out raw. You hear it when you listen to Mahalia or Koko sing. When Koko sings one note, you feel the weight of years in that one note. It’s beautiful and powerful, but it’s also heavy. When I first started, my approach to the blues was note-perfect and very rehearsed. Then one time my voice cracked, and someone said to me ‘that’s the first time I really heard you.’ The imperfections and the emotions are what make me feel alive, and it’s to that that others feel a connection. I was trying to sing it perfectly and thereby disregarding its purpose. Koko was not singing on key all the time. Aretha wasn’t either. You learn that their singing was beyond the box of perfect notes because it’s ethereal. It’s other-worldly. It’s a spiritual experience that can’t be in a box of perfection. It took me some years to discover that.”
She noted that the man she had been dating would undermine her confidence in herself and tried to direct her away from her passion.
“He used to say terrible things to me. He would say I was a fine singer, but I was meant to be a teacher and not a famous person. He would discourage me from making a career singing because he wanted a hold on me. The bigger I dreamed and the more I came into myself, the more threatened he felt by that. It was a way for him to dim my light, so I had to leave that person. Then I felt very alone, and it triggered some abandonment issues, so I was just teaching and maybe singing at a few weddings, but I still wasn’t working on my career. I was defeated. My journey to self-discovery felt lonely at times and I wasn’t pursuing my career fully because of those abandonment issues. Then I won the Battle of the Bands in 2016, and Dr. Nick Johnson (of WPFW radio) called me and said ‘no woman has won in ten years. You are DC’s Queen of the Blues. You’ve earned the title.’ I was afraid older people would think I hadn’t paid my dues because I was too young. And some people close to me asked if I was sure I wanted to call myself that. But it’s not my job to please other people. It’s my job to live my biggest and most amazing life. It really motivated me, so I told Dr. Nick that I would accept, and I just started cranking, and the push-back people gave me actually encouraged me. I decided to try to live up to this title, so I did. But it contributed to the dissolution of many relationships in my life. When you start living in your highest frequency, they start interpreting it like you are leaving them behind, or you think you are better than they are. But it was healthy self-love, not selfishness. I learned that it’s ok to want amazing things for yourself and that’s the path I’m still on.”
In 2013, Carly formed her band, Kiss and Ride, a name taken from the signs often seen near metro stations in the Northern Virginia/DC/MD area.
“So, after I got out of the toxic relationship, I was homeless for about three months, and I underwent a spiritual ass-kicking and had to stop feeling sorry for myself. I decided to start my own band—no more excuses. I didn’t have a car because I’m a city girl and I ride the bus and the metro, so I would have these gigs and would always ask my band members to pick me up at the Kiss and Ride. I thought it was a great name—sounds a bit raunchy and dirty and could mean something else. It’s also a very DC thing, because other cities call it ‘Park and Ride’.
In 2021, Carly was nominated seven times for Wammie Awards (The DC area music awards) and won a Wammie for Best Blues Artist/Band. Often, she incorporates music from her heritage that results in a highly unique sound because she believes the blues comes not only from the African-American experience but also influenced by the minor pentatonic melodies found in indigenous music and stomp dance songs.
“Both of my parents are Afro-Indigenous. My Mom’s side is Eastern Band Tsalagi (which is the decolonized way of saying Cherokee), and my dad’s side is Tuscarora (part of the Haudeno Sanee family). My mom is also part Chinese, and my dad is part Mexican, but culturally I grew up with Native and Black as my identity. I started to incorporate the indigenous influence into my music during the pandemic. As a mixed-race person, a lot of people expect you to fulfill some of their expectations based on what you look like. You can get push-back from both sides. Some will ask if I am ashamed of being Native, while others will ask if I’m not content to just be Black. I used to float in the middle, but I’m really growing, coming into myself. And I am deeply connected to my Native background. So, I was sitting in my house alone during the pandemic, having just gotten divorced, and I had a lot of time to reflect. I had recently bought a hand drum and I started drumming and chanting and something different was coming out of me, just naturally. I call it ‘Native Scat’. I was in a meditative space, connecting with the Earth, and it just came out of me naturally. It’s a beautiful fusion of both of my cultures. I don’t do it every time. If I scat while I’m singing the blues and bring in Native vocables, it’s because it’s the right frequency and the right time.”
During the pandemic, Carly also wrote a beautiful and extremely powerful song about social justice entitled “Human Too”. In that song, she discusses three marginalized groups of people, Black Americans, Indigenous people and the children put in cages at the border. The song invites people to heal through increased communication.
“We had huge riots in DC shortly after the incident with George Floyd, so not only were we quarantined from the pandemic, but DC had to go on lockdown because of the crazy riots. And if you looked online, people were saying ignorant things like, ‘well he had a bag’. I wondered if those people would see it as a threat if it was their mother or father. The lyrics just came to me. It’s more about just asking a question. Do you know the deeply seated and ingrained reasons why you jump to these conclusions? I was in a very contemplative and reflective place, being alone in the house. That’s where the lyrics come from—not making accusations and not speaking from a place of anger. The song was actually a lot longer originally, and I shortened it. It used to contain a verse about how the blues industry doesn’t acknowledge that Black people created the blues from having a forced disconnection from their ancestral music. Of course, anyone can sing the blues like anyone can pick up a sitar or a bagpipe or play Flamenco guitar. I could pick up a Sitar, but I would be aware that I was in someone else’s space and be grateful to be in that space and learn from people in that culture. It was mainly because of that song that I received seven nominations and a win at the Wammies.”
When asked about the most therapeutic song she ever wrote, Carly noted that it was likely to be the very personal song, “You Don’t Have to Buy Me”.
“A lot of my songs are therapeutic. Whatever I write is really from a true experience. Sometimes it’s like what you don’t get to say to a person or in hindsight you realize all the lessons you learned and how you grew from an event or relationship. ‘You Don’t Have to Buy Me’ is more nuanced because it explained how I had this complex of not being a woman who was a burden financially. I paid all these bills and ran three businesses to not be the stereotype of a woman depending on someone. In the song I’m begging a person to see that it’s not their money that attracts me to them—I have my own money. The song is about what femininity is and what masculinity is, and how we are impacted by the stereotype of those roles.”
Carly still teaches, including songwriting classes, voice lessons, piano lessons, and master classes about the Native influence on the blues. However, her main focus is currently on performing her music, and she is very excited about some new opportunities happening in the near future. For example, she has been booked for the upcoming Waterfront Blues Festival (and Sail on Sister Cruise that is part of that festival), and also at the Big Blues Bender. In addition, she is about to release a new album.
“It’s really surreal. Last year I went to the Waterfront Festival and the Big Blues Bender as a patron and this year I am booked there. Where I invest my time and energy and currency, it comes back around. And the new album is self-produced and being funded by sponsors. The sound is like the Dap Kings met Otis Redding and had a baby with the Teskey Brothers. It’s going to be a timeline of blues creation, with a blues rock song, a classic blues shuffle, and by the end of the album it will come back to Native space in the blues. We have a horn section and I’m excited because the horn section will help to convey the energy of a live Carly Harvey performance. It’s going to have a version of ‘Worth Waiting For’ with horns. Those lyrics are a testament to me. I’m a queen and I’m worth waiting for. That might be my favorite song because it’s a strong empowering message to myself. We get all these societal messages that loving yourself is selfish. But you have to love yourself to love others, so you can pour your love from a full cup. If you give your love to others when you are half empty, then you’re resentful. It’s more loving to take care of yourself first and then give to others.”
DC’s best blues secret is a secret no longer and Carly Harvey is definitely one of the top blues musicians under 40 to watch. Attend one of her performances and you’ll see why London (Ontario) Hall of Famer, Dawn Tyler-Watson says, “Carly’s got a natural stage presence, a genuine vibe, and she’s definitely got scat skills!” and Dave Keller is also a big fan, noting, “Carly is one of the most soulful people I know, and the way she brings her Indigenous roots into her music is unique and beautiful”. You can find out more about Carly’s new album and her tour dates at www.carlyharvey.com. And you can check out her powerful social justice song, “Human Too” at Carly Harvey – Human Too – YouTube.
