Cee Cee Michaela (pronounced MICK-KAY-LA) has really what I would call an impressive bio. After singing as a little girl in the church, she took some voice lessons, learned four languages and later got a Bachelor Of Fine Arts in Musical Theater.
And then she decided to leave Boston with her last 40 dollars for New York where she got the role as Viola in Jelly's Last Jam straight away. But she didn't stop there, she also got roles in All My Children, The Steve Harvey Show, Chicago Hope, The Prince Of Bel Air and Girlfriends. Besides Cee Cee is also a singer/songwriter and set up her own record label Driven By A Vision on which she has released her first album Everybody's Talkin'.
And to top all this she wrote, arranged, performed and produced (almost) all the 12 songs on her own...very impressive indeed!
Cee Cee cites artists like Ella Fitgerald, Sarah Vaughn, Mahalia Jackson, Rachelle Ferell, Anita Baker or Angie Stone as her main influences. So it's no surprise that her album contains many styles of music. There's the organ driven nu soul of So Much Love, the soulful Everybody's Talkin' with it's funny intro, the funky Yield To The Light or the dramatic Corrupt (where Cee Cee switches languages, sings French and rolls the r of corrupt like a young Eartha Kitt).
Lyricwise very interesting is Harriet, a song about Harriet Tubman, known as Moses of her people, and her involvement in the Underground Railroad...good to see an artist telling us something more than the ubiquitous love issue. Musicwise Harriet is equally interesting, with the use of harmonica and a banjo (I guess it is one) Cee Cee creates a bluesy feeling with a slight country undertone just to turn the song into Wade In The Water towards the end...very impressive.
Darkness Upon The Face is a fine jazz song with a muted trumpet and finds Cee Cee telling us her name and the name of her musical heroines.
Blue In F Minor is of course a blues song and very funny since Cee Cee sings about her No-Record-Deal-Blues. It reminds me of old days when artists like Bessie Smith recorded a blues for every opportunity like Hateful Blues, Any Woman's Blues, Frosty Morning Blues or Easy Come, Easy Go Blues.
Add to all this some ballads like O.K., Be Strong Be Wise Be U or Live Your Life and you get a very pleasant and musically diverse album.
Everybody's Talkin' is an impressive debut album by an artist from whom we certainly will hear more in the near future.