By Elly Murray
Todd’s Summer Music Concerts return for one of their very last performances of the summer this Saturday night from 6 to 8 p.m.; the incredibly eccentric and rocking Melissa Reaves! This whirlwind of a woman brings an air of spontaneity to her performances, and the crowd is never sure where she will take them next.
Reaves has accomplished many things in her musical career, including having one of her songs, “New Rock Song” nominated for a Grammy. She has garnered a lot of attention with her unique sound of music, which she describes as, “A lot of different types of music. So it can go from starting out experimental and ambient to like full on rock n’ roll. I cover a wide variety of genres…People have come to expect the unexpected because I’m so prone to improvisation. I just try to stay with the energy of the moment, so whatever I’m feeling I try to go with that….It’s pretty exciting and that air of unexpectedness is really exhilarating to me, and I think people have come to know that that is a distinct possibility, instead of just getting a typical show.”
She went on to say that, “I do experimental work, I do pedal work….So I’ll probably dabble in some of that. It’s kind of atmospheric and groove and funk oriented. The tunes off the album are as a band, so I’ll be doing some of them solo, and they range from soul music to full on rock n’ roll and maybe a folk tune.”
However, she seems to feel closest to rock n’ roll, and she says, “At the end of the day, I’m a rock n’ roll artist.”
Reaves is known popularly as “The Queen of Action”, a concept that an old friend of hers, Will Poteat, came up with years ago. He was drawing some performance art at the time, and he drew a picture of a comic book hero with a guitar called the Queen of Action that was supposed to be Reaves, because she always stays busy and loves rock n’ roll. It has since become a poster, a backdrop, and a T-shirt design, as well as an overall image for Reaves’ performances.
Reaves has been working on her upcoming CD for the last two and a half years, and she says, “It’s in the mastering stages, which is the very last stage before it gets actually put into the case…I’ve been hard at work with that, and it’s finally at the end, so I’m really excited about that. So that’ll be coming out; it’s called Bitter Pear.”
She’ll be performing some of her incredible music from that CD at the Cook Memorial Park this weekend. Admission to the concerts won’t cost you a cent, and food is available for purchase. Large tents will be set up for protection from rain or the sun’s hot rays.
Half of the fun of going to these concerts is the enjoyment of the stunning drive there. Reaves has performed at these concerts four or five times, and she says that, “It’s a great time out there, I encourage people to come because they really know how to party out there. They just have a good time, and they love to rock…I’m so thrilled that they’ve jumped through the hoops to continue to provide live music to the community. It’s really awesome.”
For more information on Melissa Reaves and her awesome mix of music, please visit http://www.melissareaves.com/
For more information on the Todd Summer Concert Series, as well as the schedule, please visit http://toddnc.org/events-activities/summer-concerts/
You must be logged in to post a comment.