Catchin' The Sun With Susan Calloway

Catchin’ The Sun With Susan Calloway

Bruce Von Stiers

She has been heard in songs on commercials, in films and on TV. She even was the featured vocalist for Distant Worlds: Music From Final Fantasy and this year’s Distant Worlds II: More Music from Final Fantasy. Her name is Susan Calloway and she has recorded a breakout album called Chasin’ The Sun.

Susan started out as the lead performer in the Detroit based band Red C in the early ‘90’s. After college Susan began working on both coasts as a session vocalist for film, TV shows and commercials.

But never quite satisfied to be one of the crowd, Susan began to work on original material. She writes a song from start to finish, with all the notes and instrumentation included, which sets her apart from the general pop music vocalist population. Susan has showcased her music at venues like The Bitter End, Rockwood Music Hall and L.A.’s Genghis Cohen.

Susan licensed some of her songs to be played on shows like One Tree Hill. So she isn’t totally unknown. But with Chasin’ The Sun, Susan should become more of a household name.

For the album, Susan had some pretty good help. It was produced by Gerard Smerek, who has worked the gamut from Aretha Franklin to Kid Rock. Greg Suran played guitar for the album. He is a session and touring musician. Suran has toured with the Goo Goo Dolls and Jewel as lead guitarist. Tony Levin was the bass player. He’s known for his work with King Crimson and as being Peter Gabriel’s favorite touring bass player. Tony also played on Connect, an album by Dave Schulz that I reviewed a while back. Lee Levin has played drums on albums by artists from Barbra Streisand to Pink along with a lot of Latin based albums. He plays the drums on this album for Susan.

Jeff Dittenbar and Mark Chu provided additional guitar music. Known for her work with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra, Sarah Cleveland play cello on one song on the album. Detroit area model and musician John A. Madison plays viola on that same song. Noted violinists Alicia Doudna and Alice Sauro play violin on the song also.

Susan plays the piano, keys and guitar besides singing on the album.

For the first song on the album, Susan chose the title track, Chasin’ The Sun. It is a good pop tune that has solid, powerful vocals. The song has nice music, especially the guitar.

The second song is Divided. It has a sound that kind of reminded me of the music of Christian artist Natalie Grant.

Safe is the third song. It has smooth vocals that are a bit sultry at times. The song has some cool pop music.

The song Learning To Live is the one that has all of the string instrumentation. It has a touch of aching vocals and terrific music.

Don’t Fall In Love has a kind of Country styling. Kind of like a light Taylor Swift or maybe Amy Grant.

The album ends with a solid piece called Lay It Down. The song is a terrific pop ballad.

Susan Calloway is an artist that I will definitely be keeping an eye on. I think that with her songwriting and vocals, Susan should soon be a name that is as prominent as some of the artists I’ve compared her music to.

To find out more about Susan Calloway and Chasin’ The Sun you can visit her official site or her MySpace Music site. These sites can be found at http://www.susancalloway.com and http://www.myspace.com/susancalloway.

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