Music Review: Erika Chambers

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It used to be that you had to go into a record store - or have a buddy with more disposable income than you - in order to hear a wide range of new music. (And when I say record store, I mean a real, brick-and-mortar, physical place you go to buy music, not a web portal named after a river.)

You either stuck to buying music you already knew, or took a major risk. It was during this time that you could - and often would - buy an album without having heard a solitary note of the music. Even if you had heard a single on the radio, there was no guarantee the rest of the album was any good at all.

The proliferation of file sharing services and the digital song previews that now accompany virtually every song on every album for sale means those days are over. It is rare to buy a CD which contains music you haven't heard at least 20- or 30-seconds of.

But even better, the Internet has opened up whole new worlds of music. It is as if there is a whole ocean teaming with fish where there used to be a desert. Any musician with even basic computer access can now make their music available to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Artists who once would have been regional favorites can now command an international audience, even if that audience is made up of two guys in Taiwan, a teenage girl in Quebec, and the drummer's aunt Linda who spends her winters in Miami.

But even I am amazed, sometimes, at the ways we find music these days. I made a phone call this afternoon in response to a possible freelance writing lead. I had an extremely pleasant conversation with the young lady on the other end of the line. (Although, there was no "line". I was on my cell phone.)

During the conversation she mentioned that she wrote songs. "You live in Nashville," I thought. "Of course you write songs."

Having been to Nashville just recently, it is safe to say that everyone there either writes songs, or has had a song written about them by the neighbor next door who writes songs. I meant no disrespect to the young lady when I thought my somewhat-sarcastic "of course you do." But there are more "songwriters" in Nashville than you can imagine, and I am confident in saying that while my own songwriting ability is - in my most humble opinion - weak, I could actually out perform a few of those who think penning songs is their calling.

But I'm a nice guy. If someone tells me they write songs, I at least want to give them a chance. Out of curiosity, I asked if she had a web page. "The obligatory MySpace page," she told me. I jotted down the address and didn't think too much more about it.

Until I heard Erika Chambers sing.

I was blown away, and an instant fan. She has a voice and a style very much like Mindy Smith, who she credits as a major influence. But I think in some ways her songwriting outshines even Mindy's. She has an "old soul" quality to her music, to use an already over-used cliche. Several of the tracks she has available to listen to are listed as "works in progress" but their quality - in the sense of pure musical grab-you-and-dont-let-go - is outstanding.

Only in this digital age could you have a phone conversation with an unsigned artist, hundreds of miles away, and walk away with a new "must have" music recommendation.

Check out her MySpace page.

And her first EP