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"Rarely, if ever, does a voice as fresh and clean as Olivia West's come along. She possesses the soul of an artist and the passion of one of the great storytellers of our time." - Cashbox Magazine "Comparable to the way chocolate mousse tastes…dark, and rich, light and airy, smooth and tasty. The kind of thing that you just can’t get enough of…ever!" - Country Music Tattle Tale "Elvis in a skirt!" - Murfreesboro Pulse
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I've been working a lot with Mark Oliverius of OMG Nashville. We started writing together in March. I remember the day well because it was the day after my emergency room visit with pnuemonia. I showed up with a box of kleenex and an awesome song idea and Mark and I went to work. Since then we've written several songs we loved for various artists and a few we couldn't bear to hear on anyone but me. "Worth Fighting For" started a new project. We're creating an entire album around it and getting ready to launch it on the national level. Big things are on the way for Olivia West and Mark Oliverius. Or as I like to call us, the Ollies.
We raised $20K for Haiti at the Stars Shine for Haiti Benefit! This is my favorite pic of the show!
In the aftermath of the fundraiser, our headliner and her valient producer (my cowriter & producer) Mark Oliverius jumped into rehearsals for Lorrie's Christmas show at Opryland. They needed more singers so they called on me to call on my friends. My children are in it too. We're all celebrating the holidays with Lorrie Morgan and her family.
I wrote some blogs with the funny and awesome details on my new blog site, www.liviwest.com, and more pics will be available soon!
Anyway, Candy made me up a few times and Mark took pics and we keep doing that, so there's always fresh shots for our collective websites. Gee, we got a lot going on in Hendersonville TN.
I mean a completely blank canvas. Ever seen a redhead without makeup on?
So, Candy Lucchesi needed tutorials and new photos for her website CandyBombBeauty.com. Mark had a new camera and a hankering to take up photography. I had a history of modeling for my father's photographic ambitions and a blank canvas.
"Why do we have to pick a genre anyway? Can't we just love to make great music and forget where it fits if everyone likes to listen?" Spoken like a real songwriter-turned-diva. "I listen to it all and I'm influenced by it all. I don't think in genres and I don't sing in them either."
Olivia West has been influenced by everyone and everything. "But I mostly write about life. Mine and everyone else I know. It's kinda dangerous to know me if you don't wanna hear someone sing about you." Or blog. Olivia's blog about raising her children while pursuing her career (Livi's Life Story - A Single Mommy's Adventures In Becoming An Overnight Success) is an intimate, interactive and humorous look at the way her mind works.
Olivia earned her first paycheck singing Country music at the Truman Lake Opry in Tightwad MO. Since then she's waited tables, torn off roofs, cleaned houses and ended up "begging from stages with my tipbucket and my guitar" in Nashville's competitive and underpaid music scene. She's played everywhere from the Hard Rock & Tootsie's (in Nashville and Florida) to the Bluebird Cafe and shared a bill with John Rich, Lady Antebellum, Jerrod Neimann, Lee Brice, and even Casting Crowns and Reliant K. No one in Nashville is working harder at climbing that ladder to the top of the charts.
"Once I even won a karaoke contest so I could drive home from Nashville for a weekend. Ha ha! I think it's supposed to go the other way around" quips Olivia whose humor developed well as a defense mechanism against "more heartache than you can fit in a whole career of Country songs, that's probably why it ends up sounding more hard-edged like Rock."
Growing up under the poverty line, a supportive father's early and unexpected death, a failed marriage, the hardship of struggling to raise two boys alone, and the typical aches and pains of a growing artist career. It makes for a lot of material to write about.
"Nothing's off limits for my songs. I write about it all. I think music reaches more people if it's honest, and I can't afford a shrink, so I hold nothing back. I put it all in my music."
You can hear it in every note. It gets it out of your system just to listen.
Olivia can play at your venue, party or wedding!
For booking information contact Olivia@OliviaWest.com
Mark's piano, a prominent part of our recordings
Singing with Lorrie Morgan to raise over $20K for schools in Haiti
The Lady Godiva look. I'm wearing an awesome red dress under all that hair.
I'm not really bad. I'm just drawn that way.
Mark's close-up lens and my makeup!
Taking a break from writing and modeling
Getting Candy Bombed in the situation room!
Me and Candy Lucchesi showing off my makeup!
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"Olivia works the stage like Elvis in a Skirt"
- Kristina Outland, Murfreesboro Pulse
"Rarely, if ever, does a voice as fresh and clean as Olivia West's come along. She possesses the soul of an artist and the passion of one of the great storytellers of our time."
- Christopher Llewelyn Adams, Cashbox Magazine (May 5, 2010)
"Comparable to the way chocolate mousse tastes…dark, and rich, light and airy, smooth and tasty. The kind of thing that you just can’t get enough of…ever!"
- Trigger 183, Country Music Tattle Tale / 95.7 KKAJ (Apr 24, 2010)
"Olivia West is exactly what country radio has been waiting for"
- Dallas Rogers, Cafe Nashville, Clear Channel Radio
T-shirts, mp3s, ringtones and more available on Olivia's Reverb store. All profits go toward making more music, so buy away!!!
All Songs copyright 2012 Olivia West, Luminous Blues Publishing SESAC, OMG Nashville SESAC
Pics by Mark Oliverius / Makeup by CandyBombBeauty.com
Art & Web Design by ProsodyDesigns.com
