Aug. 2, 2010 - Front Page of NewOrleans.com with the success story of the KickStarter.com fan-funded project. 50 hours left to make your pledge & take part: CLICK HERE to join!
One game that all sound seekers, culture vultures and Jazz Fest aficionados like to play is “First!” The point being to lay claim as the first among your friends to “discover” a new act at the Fair Grounds, to stake proprietary interest upon a heretofore unknown.
It’s a local version of what, perhaps, was one of the most famous of such boasts, when famed music critic Jon Landau, upon witnessing the stage and antics of a gruff young ax slinger out of the Jersey Shore, proclaimed, “ I saw the rock and roll future and its name is Bruce Springsteen.”
And so, we play the game ritualistically at Jazz Fest. No suture Bosses here, but still, there’s always a Eureka moment or two to be had. (Of course, what generally happens is that you lay such claim and everyone else tells you they’ve been a fan of so-snd-so for years.)
With that that risk in mind, I call “First!” on Kristin Diable.
I was simply looking for a place to sit down for a few minutes to chill out after rocking to the heavens in the Gospel Tent, and wandered into the Fair Grounds paddock, location of the Lagniappe Stage at the festival.
OK, I’m not pronouncing the arrival of a new rock messiah, but I am telling you, there’s a young woman out of south Louisiana who has got some serious chops, a peroxide, leggy crooner with the a soul like Lucinda Williams, the confidence of Grace Slick and the voice of a decades-ago Bonnie Raitt.
Yeah, those are big shrimp boots to fill out here in the muddy fields of play. But that’s my story and I’m sticking with it. Says me: First!
This Kristin Diable, strapped in a hollow body electric, laid out a mix of ballads, heart-breakers, travelin’ tunes and the barn burner - a slow burn a capella number started slow and rose to gripping crescendo and I think it was about love, but aren’t they all.
The song – don’t ask; each tune was new to me – brought the famously chatty Lagniappe stage to a silent stand-still; one of those “moments” we all seek at Jazz Fest, where everyone stops speaking and cell phones ring unanswered and the she belts and wails and breaks your heart, a lamentation of love and sex and hope and dreams and then everyone just stares and then……and then looks over at the sign on the side of the stage to tell them just what it is they’re witnessing.
It was Kristin Diable. Devil in a white dress. The biggest thing out of Baton Rouge since rush hour.
Kristin Diable defines "lagniappe" at New Orleans Jazz Fest
By Alison Fensterstock
April 30, 2010, 5:39PM
Leaving the Allison Miner Heritage Stage after Elvis Perkins' interview, I was only going to stop for a second at the Lagniappe Stage to check out Kristin Diable. It turned into almost the whole set.
Diable is a bluesy country songstress with a touch of Lucinda Williams' chewy delivery. She's also armed with a killer organ player - who sometimes double-teams with the pianist for a layered, semi-psychedelic two-fisted keyboard groove - and guitar chops of her own, plus rhythm from Happy Talk Band bassist Steve Calandra.
Diable has the raggedy, long-limbed sexiness of Laura Dern in "Wild At Heart," with a messy blond mop of hair and short white lace dress that were almost a bit Riot Grrl. As the wind picked p, she commented, "Well, at least I wore nice underwear today. But it's not that kind of show, is it?" (When the band left the stage for Diable to shimmy alone through a "Black Betty"-like a cappella, accompanied only by hambone-like handclaps and foot stomps, it almost became that kind of show.)
Diable led the band on spooky, dense, organ-and-guitar waltzes and honky-tonk romps that wouldn't have been out of place coming from a roadhouse band in a David Lynch movie. More and more fans wandering through the heavy-traffic Lagniappe Stage area, roped in by her slightly skewed, slightly dark country rhythms, took seats.
"Drawing from musical touchstones that range from Nina Simone to Son House, Neil Young to Louis Armstrong, Diable's music features a songwriting maturity that reveals her influences, but belies her scant age."
New Orleans has given birth to a plethora of songwriters—Fats Domino, Dr. John, Dave Bartholomew, Allen Toussaint and countless others—but is not commonly hailed as a songwriters’ haven. This year, Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) will be making efforts to bring attention to, and support, the flourishing songwriting community in the Crescent City...... (click on headline for the full article)
Stephen Speckman deseretnews.com blogger | Jan. 24, 2010 at 8:41 a.m.
So soulful. So sweet.
And Kristin Diable only played one song live Saturday at the Gibson guitar lounge on Main Street in Park City.
click image to enlarge
But I got a chance to chat with her for a while. She's from Baton Rouge and now lives on Jackson Square in New Orleans. She'll be playing the massive New Orleans Jazz Festival in a few months.
In April Diable will be live at the French Quarter Music Festival - my wife and I were already planning to bring our family there for the festival. We love New Orleans and it was fun talking Saturday with Diable about her hometown. And now I'll get to hear her live again.
True to my task at hand, I took several photos of her playing and many more of her with people in the lounge who wanted their photo taken with Diable. Maybe they know something about her - like how how her star is about to rise, perhaps. I think she's that good.
Diable shared one funny story about how she scored a free pair of cool looking boots at some celebrity gifting lounge in Park City. Someone swore Diable was an American Idol contestant as they fitted her for the boots. Diable just laughed, explaining that she has only thought about trying out for Idol.
I say, Diable is too good for American Idol. For more on Diable, visit the Web site www.kristindiable.com.
I took a photo of the CD Diable gave me pictured above. You can find it on the Internet. She's also on Facebook, Myspace and Twitter and her songs are available on iTunes.
Diable be playing here and there throughout the 10-day Sundance Film Festival. If you get the chance, go hear her.
Performers take their dreams to Park City and Sundance
By Larry D. Curtis Published: Wednesday, Jan. 27, 2010 10:03 p.m. MST
PARK CITY — The famous and the beautiful hog all the headlines from Sundance worldwide.
Robert Redford explains every year that he wants more focus on films, and then a bunch of films starring the famous and beautiful roll into town, and those in the media can't seem to help themselves and write or broadcast all about the jet-setters.
But the actual Sundance Film Festival, rather than the media that cover it, is certainly as much about the anonymous artist as it is about veteran actors turned rookie directors or "A-list" stars making a foray into "independent" film. There are hundreds of actors, directors, cinematographers, writers and musicians all trying to use Sundance as a launching pad. In the cinematic world, Park City — not Disneyland — is where dreams come true.
At least three films, including last year's "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' By Sapphire," have gone on to compete as Oscar best-picture nominees and lots of less obvious careers have used the festival as a launching pad, which inspires hope.
Kristin Diable is launched, at least a little. A 25-year-old musician from Louisiana, she makes her living as a musician — but that doesn't mean she knows where next month's rent is coming from. She arrived in Utah with her guitar on her back to play and make new fans while hoping that some of those fans would be film and television decision makers.
"Right now making it as an independent artist is not about selling $10 CDs, it's licensing," she said.
Diable (and no, that isn't a stage name) has landed her songs in a couple of commercials (a reel is available at www.youtube.com/watch?v=ulRRSzroTAU) but those fade away and like anybody else, she wants to be in pictures.
"It is one thing to tell people about your music but to show them, you really get in their archives," she said pointing at her head. "Half of the narrative of film is music."
She played as part of the Rescue Haiti Acoustic Series, but that meant that she kicked off an event that was by its nature put together in only a few days and was trying to gain traction as it, and she, started. Crowds, designed to consist of celebrities and media only, were sparse to start with. But she stood at a microphone with her electric six-stringed traveling companion and played her guts out.
Like most "starving" and starting artists, living on her music isn't easy. She went to school and worked in New York City and participated in the cliched struggles to break out and eventually settled in New Orleans where she found joy as a musician. She has a following in both places but she wants to move beyond being a regional musician.
"I don't want a career defined by geography," she said, although she plans to stay in New Orleans and soak up its heart and give back by spending her money and energies there, but her ambitions are greater.
"I have been working at it a long time and I am pretty good. Ultimately I want a sustainable career. I want to write songs that will be around for a while, that have some life to it on it own terms. There are great songs yet to be written."
And, Diable and so many like her in Park City hope, great artists yet to be discovered.
Louisiana Cultural Vistas review December 2009
Extended Play (Speakeasy) by Ben Sandmel
Extended Play (Speakeasy Records) is just the second album by Kristin Diable, a distinctive young songwriter and singer with an emergent reputation in both Louisiana and New York. Diable’s full-throated bluesy vocals invite loose comparison to fellow Louisianan Lucinda Williams, although Diable has broader range and a more mellifluous tone. Her unhurried phrasing savors each note with luxuriant sultry power and a dreamy abstracted quality. Diable applies this ethereal twang to original songs that draw equally on blues, gospel, country and swamp-pop aesthetics. Her lyrics likewise evoke a regional sensibility, as heard in particular, on “What We Mean”, and “Gypsy Queen”. At the same time, Diable’s verse structures are atypically elongated, taking unexpected yet pleasing tangents before reaching harmonic resolution. She is a budding talent to watch.
With a look and a sound that is far beyond her years, Kristin Diable tells her story in the purest of folk tradition on Extended Play. Each song showcases her contralto voice that sounds as though it’s been tainted by cigarette smoke and experience, a sound that suits her. You’ve definitely heard this type of voice before, most notably in one of her idols, Lucinda Williams, but Diable, a Baton Rouge native, has been branded with inherent Southern soul, a quality that separates her from the rest.
On the simple blues tune, “What We Mean,” Diable explains with a smirk, “I gotta lover who says he don’t need me. / I guess we don’t always say what we mean.” Her voice soars with extreme confidence over the simple two-chord melody of the guitar as the song takes you back to doo-wop ballads without the call and response.
Though most of Diable’s guitar melodies sound similar from track to track, the words are what make her songs great. On “Holdin’ On” she sings, “He was running down that road so fast / praying God was with him now / and he hoped to God that this don’t last / ’cause just one bad move could break his back.” It’s a simple yet powerful statement of a place all people find themselves at least once in their lives. On “Be My Husband,” Diable channels KT Tunstall on her breakthrough hit, “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree” with the drum as the driving force of emotion and rhythm in this stripped down song about the complications of a relationship.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Remember that name, because one day soon you’ll be able to tell your friends, “Oh I was listening to Kristin Diable before she was ever famous. It’s going to happen. Seriously, and I’ll tell you why after the drop.” audiomonger.com
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"It's remarkable to learn that Kristin Diable is only 22-years of age. Having only started writing songs six years ago everything she embodies screams of a time since passed and her music is the perfect example - her 60's Folk/Blues/Soul influence is immediately distinguishable. Each beautifully conveyed line spills forth from her lips like sweet strawberry wine. A resplendent story-teller without fault, every song is like a hammer-blow to your senses, evoking images of Louisiana traditions and tales. You can take the girl out of the South but you can't take the South out of the girl- and what a wonderful thing that is. Diable has recently signed with The Orchard, the largest digital distributor of independent music, and will soon be releasing a live record." Joel Crane (NME, Q, Mojo)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"You only have to listen to a few seconds of Kristin Diable's 'Sister Sadie' to hear that she sings songs that have roots in the blues, folk, and soul. Just 22, Kristin's been writing her own songs for about six years now. Her songwriting and performing is strong enough to have established her as one of New York City's more promising young artists." Voice of America
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Diable’s is a blend of rootsy rock stirred with spoonfuls of folk, soul and blues and sung with passion and fervor. And although Diable cites artists like Jeff Buckley, Nina Simone, Etta James and many of the classics of our time as personal favorites, any influences one may ‘hear’ in Diable’s music are purely speculative. After all, no one sounds quite like anyone else.” womanfolk.net
