Deborah Crooks on Late Night

Deborah Crooks

On Wednesday July 13, 2011, 8pm-11pm/PST on Swoop’s World Late Night our guest is singer/songwriter Deborah Crooks. Then we’re taking on all topics, as well as any other news of the day. Tune in at Swoopsworld.com.

Deborah Crooks is a seeker. The San Francisco Bay Area-born and bred singer/songwriter grew up at the nexus of two tectonic plates; close to a city known for its history of social, musical and political upheaval. These underlying conduits of tension seem bred into those from The Bay Area, but few more so than Crooks. As a performer Crooks wasn’t born until her twenties, though she remembers writing songs as a young child. Something in those early songs spoke to Crooks’ future , illuminating a self that was yet to be. These days Crooks is a vibrant artist carrying on the San Francisco tradition of powerful female singer/songwriters with literate lyrics and progressive musical attitudes; well respected within the music scene and increasingly so outside of it.
The lid came off of Crooks’ creative self during her studies at Colorado’s The Naropa Institute. The ecumenical Buddhist-based educational philosophy of the school inspired Crooks to take up Buddhist practice, begin studying yoga and to see her creative side as a spiritual outlet. Around the same time Crooks experienced the Telluride Folk Festival, and was inspired to walk in the footsteps of artists such as Michelle Shocked and Shawn Colvin. Little did Crooks know that she was embarking on a new life path. If yoga became the rock upon which Crooks life was built, music became the lifeblood.

Having built a worldview through the lens of opportunity and tragedy, Crooks sees in her surroundings the opportunity to make the world a better place. She has lived through earthquakes, personal loss and even the 9/11 attacks in New York City. As a songwriter, Crooks reflects the contradictions she sees in the world in song, unveiling in her lyrics truths that are simultaneously pragmatic and mystical. The Blues/Americana musical blend that is her canvas is simply the base from which Crooks’ songs grow. Ultimately, her music is a cultural ecotone born of her California roots, her spiritual development, her transcendant instinct and the quest for enlightenment that is both of and divergent from the disparate influences that bore it.

The various tensions that swirl about the life of Deborah Crooks have catalyzed a songwriting talent that is soul-wise and edgy. Combine this with Crooks’ distinctive voice and you’ve discovered an artist capable of owning a room. Deborah Crooks doesn’t so much blow you away as she creeps into the questing places in your soul and insinuates herself as the reflective voice that sheds wisdom on a worrisome world. It’s this quality that first gained Crooks the attention of RockerGirl Magazine for her 2003 debut EP 5 Acres. The Roberta Donnay-produced EP landed Crooks on the RockerGirl Discoveries compilation and gained Crooks a national audience for the first time. In 2007 Crooks followed up with an EP entitled Turn It All Red, a stepping stone to her first full-length album Adding Water To Ashes, released in 2009. 2010 has seen the release of two EPs from the prolific singer/songwriter. It’s All Up To You was made possible by a Bay Bridged Grant and shows Crooks’ social conscience in full force, while Other Halves displays some of Crooks’ most focused songwriting to date alongside a powerful cover of Neil Young’s “Heart Of Gold”.

Her work is fueled by periodic returns to India to further her yoga and vocal studies and write. Considering that Crooks and her band have recently begun to find the sort of magic that is born of chemistry, talent, hard work and time spent together, such personal rebirth could be the charge that leads Deborah Crooks onto the national stage to stay. Crooks will spend the winter of 2010/2011 in India, another leg on her socio-artistic journey. From there the sky is, quite literally the limit. Deborah Crooks walks the path of musical enlightenment. She invites you to come along.

After our interview with Deborah Crooks we’ll be up to all of our usual fun including beer tasting, sports and food during “Brewskis” Beer Tasting sponsored by DrinksWinesSpirits.com, Taylor’s segment of T-Bones Timeout, and Chris’ CLiv’s Late Night Snackins.

This week on “Brewskis” Beer Tasting sponsored by DrinksWinesSpirits.com, we are tasting Hefeweizen from Lake Placid, New York based Lake Placid Brewing Co.