Singing isn’t just a natural talent for Sallie Ford. Her voice, a mix between vintage and modern, is something she fine-tunes every day.
“I fell in love with singing because it seemed like the best instrument for me,” said Ford, the front woman of Sallie Ford & The Sounding Outside. “I was listening to Tom Waits at the time, and he consciously changed his voice in a way that he was in control of the sound … It allowed me to change my voice to make it sound how I wanted it to sound.”
The band will take to the main stage at 9:15 p.m. Saturday at the 8th annual Nelsonville Music Festival. Ford will also give a special performance 6 p.m. in the No-Fi Cabin.
Ford started the band in Portland, Ore., but when Avett Brothers guitarist and vocalist Seth Avett asked Ford to open several shows they were doing in the area, Sallie Ford & The Sound Outside garnered more attention.
“We were lucky that we actually had a real relation with the Avetts,” Ford said.
“Seth was very inspirational in telling me to really go for it and giving me advice about not going for overnight success.”
She added that The Avett Brothers have always tried to be helpful about finding opening acts that are good but could also use a leg up in gaining a national following.
The group has since grown from performing their 2009 opening acts with The Avett Brothers to signing a record deal with Persian Records, releasing their first full-length album in 2011 and performing on Late Night with David Letterman.
The band was also featured in USA Today. When introducing the band’s video for “I Swear,” a song that questions today’s mainstream music, USA Today wrote, “Sallie Ford’s voice recalls a simpler time, when our lives weren’t interrupted by iPhone chimes and 200 e-mails an hour.”
“It’s a mixed bag,” Ford said. “Mainstream radio in America just sucks. There seemed to be trend back into auto-tune music, and it really bothered me around the time that I wrote that song that people’s voices aren’t even real anymore.”
She added that there is a lot of great music coming from underground bands that are “making art that is honest and real.”
Tim Peacock, executive director of Stuart’s Opera House and the Nelsonville Music Festival, said he was excited to bring a band with such a unique sound to the festival.
“I never know how to describe them exactly; they’re just awesome,” Peacock said. “You can tell they are influenced by old stuff but they make it new and contemporary.”
wh092010@ohiou.edu
