Award-winning singer, songwriter performs at USU
Four years ago, Erika Luckett broke away from the jazz group Wild Mango to find her own voice as a solo artist.
Luckett, who pronounces her first name Eddie-kah, has since been touring the country and making albums. Saturday night, she wrapped up her latest tour by performing in the Eccles Conference Center at Utah State University.
Her music doesn’t fit in one group, she tells people. Because of her diverse background – born in Mexico, raised in Brazil and Venezuela, and then moved to France when she was 15 – her music has been placed in Latin, funk, jazz, blues and folk categories.
“I was superconnected to music at an early age,” she sad. “It was constant … it was my world.”
Luckett said her father (“Mexican of Irish descent”) and mother (“American of Swedish descent”) taught their four children a lot, including to love music. At age 8, the family packed up and moved to Sao Paulo, Brazil where Luckett received her first guitar. From then on, she said, it became part of her.
Luckett said she graduated from high school early and moved to Paris. During the two and a half years in Paris, she played her guitar and sang in the subways.
“While there, it was clear my passion was music,” she said.
A few years later, she was accepted at the Berklee School of Music in Boston.
“I’d had no formal music training before that,” she said.
She received a degree in film scoring and was “very fortunate to start working on films immediately after graduating.”
Along with writing music for movies, multimedia and theater, she soon helped form the eight-person ensemble, Wild Mango. The jazz group has toured nationally and internationally and produced three albums while she was with them. In 1999, Luckett said she decided to move to a solo career.
“I realized after awhile I didn’t know what my voice was alone,” she said. “It was so scary. It was like stepping into fire.”
In less than a year, Luckett had released her first album, Tinted Glass. In 2001, My Little Crime was released and last year, The New Orleans Sessions came out.
Luckett performed Saturday for the Bridger Folk Music Society.
Blair Larsen, a board member for the folk music society, said the group brings musicians in once a month to perform.
“We went on someone’s recommendation for Erika,” she said.
Larsen said the society has “an amazing number of regulars” attend each month.
During Saturday’s concert, Luckett used different techniques while playing her guitar including tapping, tuning it an entire notch lower than regular guitars and accenting a base line throughout the show.
“I try to make six strings as big as possible,” she said.
Francesea Ede, who drove from Salt Lake City for the concert after her sister, a USU student, told her about it, said she thought Luckett did really well.
“I think it’s really daring to be putting on a one-man show,” she said.
But, she said, it was working out well for her.
Between pieces, Luckett joked with the audience, talked about the songs and told them of her history.
“They told me I was going to be playing in the Eccles Building,” she said to laughter. “There’s a lot of Eccles buildings here.”
Luckett also told the audience of her recent opportunity to appear in the major motion picture, “The Californians,” that will come out next spring. She played the part of a touring guitarist, starring with actors such as Noah Wyle, Illeana Douglas and Kate Mara.
Most recently, Luckett has co-released a new album, Amaze Me: Songs in the Key of Peace, with several other artists. She said the proceeds go to various peace organizations around the world.
“So many of us are concerned with our world,” she said. “This is a tangible way to create something together. Our greatest asset is our capacity to create.”
Two of the 13 songs on Amaze Me are Luckett’s – chosen out of more than 150.
Luckett is fluent in English, Portuguese, Spanish and French and can “get by very well” in Italian. She sang in the first four languages Saturday, to the delight of a multi-linguistic audience.
-emilieholmes@cc.usu.edu