Jammin' with Carene

I play guitar for a beautiful person who goes by the name of Carene Lydia. You will not find a singer with more heart or soul than Carene, nor a more eclectic song list. And she's doing two sets on Saturday, May 2, starting at 11:30PM, at Mood Restaurant in Kew Gardens. If you're in the area, or even if you're not, come out and give her a listen. You will have a good time and hear the widest variety of songs that you have possibly ever heard. Details, and Carene's bio, are below the fold.

Carene Lydia Lopez will be singing at Mood in Kew Gardens, New York on Saturday, May 2nd at 11:30 p.m. with Morry Campbell accompanying on guitar. After her well-received appearance in November 2008, Carene is thrilled to be performing again for her hometown crowd.

Carene’s eclectic musical tastes began during her childhood. As a very young girl she listened along with her father to folk singers Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, jazz artists including Ella Fitzgerald, Louis Armstrong, and Nat King Cole and big band music of the 1940s and 1950s. For a special treat Sundays were devoted to Latin American music: everything from tangos of the 1930s to the plenas, bombas, and danzas of her parents' native Puerto Rico. At her show you will hear blues, folk, pop, and standards that all have one thing in common: “When I sing I want the audience to believe that every word coming out of my mouth is the truth. I try to sing from the heart – the same as my vocal heroes, Janis Joplin and Billie Holiday.”

When it was time to pick a career Carene chose to work as a live sound engineer because she wanted to be close to music and didn’t think she could cut it as a singer, her true passion. It wasn’t long before she realized that she could do better than a lot of the people she was working for, so she found the courage to get on stage, coming full-circle when she joined Pete Seeger’s NYC Streetsingers. She has also provided powerful back-up vocals both live and in the studio for the blues-based rock band, After One.

Now Carene is back at the place she calls home, the stage, singing old and new songs, and sharing her life through music.