Shayna Zaid - Rockwood Music Hall, 5/01/08



Shayna Zaid played a great sounding acoustic set last night at Rockwood. Backed by producer Jay Deasel on guitar, Shayna sang a selection of original songs with a subtle soulfulness and a not so subtle stage presence that transfixed the crowd right from her first song. Here's some video from the show, including the beautiful "It's You".





The combination of her vocal, songwriting, and performing talents is a potent one and the show left the audience wanting to hear more, even after the unplanned encore.



Shayna's career began early when she fielded recording contract offers after appearing on a singing competition television show in her native Malaysia, but opted instead to become the youngest ever network talk show host in Malaysian history when she took over the daily prime time show Speak Up and in the process became a household name at age fifteen. A mere two years later she decided to focus on her music, moved to the U.S. and enrolled at Berklee College of Music in Boston.



After establishing herself at Berklee, Shayna decided to move to NYC to pursue a musical career and in 2006 recorded her first album, Beyond Borders, which was successful in Malaysia and spawned a number one single there. After recording a second album, Half a World Away, Shayna returned to Malaysia in early 2007 after a six and a half year absence, for an extended visit to release and promote it and in the process achieved another number one single there. Read Jay Deasel's more thorough biography of Shayna on her myspace page.







Shayna is currently working on a new EP which is almost done and is planned to launch her career here in the U.S. and internationally. Many of the songs in her Rockwood set seem destined for the EP and they all were a pleasure to hear. This is an artist whose future potential is as large as her talent, a great Rockwood find.



If you're in the New York area, mark June 11th on your calendar; Shayna will be back at the Rockwood Music Hall and promises to bring a full band. This is a revised date, come help Shayna celebrate her birthday on the 11th at Rockwood.



Availability of her CDs is very limited unless you live in Malaysia, but all of her work to date is available for download purchase. Beyond Borders is currently available at iTunes. Half a World Away plus seven newer songs are available at Snocap which is easy to find on Shayna's myspace page.


Beyond Borders (2006)


Half a World Away (2007)

Shayna Zaid's myspace.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering the Main Point, 1964 - 1981

Image
WXPN Most Memorable Musical Moment #5 Begining in 1964, The Main Point in Bryn Mawr provided the Philadelphia area with one of its most enjoyable venues for live music. Although it started as a folk based coffeehouse, all styles of music were presented over the years. Financial problems continually plagued the Main Point, and in spite of frequent benefit shows by artists who loved the place as much as the audience, the club finally closed in 1981. The following brief history is contained in an obituary of Jeanette O. Campbell, one of the founders and owners of the Main Point who died on October 22, 2006, written by Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer Sally A. Downey as reprinted on the Save Ardmore Coalition website. Jeanette Orndoff Campbell, 89, former owner of the Main Point, a music hall in Bryn Mawr where young talents including Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor were introduced to local audiences, died of complications from hip surgery Oct. 22 at Stap
Read more

Cream and Blind Faith at the Spectrum, Philadelphia, 1968 & 1969

Image
WXPN Most Memorable Musical Moment #3 (L-R) Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, & Eric Clapton I could not have foreseen it at the time, but looking back on a concert going history now entering it's fifth decade, my first three concerts were absolutely formative in the development of the music obsession that has driven life as we know it from that point forward. Attending a rock concert pre drivers license was no small feat, that I even got to these shows is the first indication that I knew I was onto something even if I couldn't quite explain it. I've already detailed my first concert (The Beatles at JFK Stadium) in my MMMM#1 . My second and third concerts took place at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, they were less than a year apart, and due to the fact that concerts never end at the time predicted, these concert experiences both ended with a very angry driver stuck waiting in the car outside the venue until the last encore had finished. I shot both concerts with the same starter
Read more

And We Danced - Filming the Hooters Video, 7/27/85

Image
WXPN Most Memorable Musical Moment #4 "And We Danced" (picture sleeve above) was released in 1985 as the second single from the album, Nervous Night , the Hooters' major label debut for Columbia Records. Here's the video. The call went out to the Hooters' mailing list the last week of July 1985 that an audience with cars would be needed on the coming Saturday for a video shoot. Participants would report to the Exton Drive-In by late morning and be prepared to stay all day until after dark. This stage set, early in the day, was a warm-up for the crowd and probably a dry run for the production team for the night-time performance to be filmed later. The banner backdrop does not appear in the video. Some of the antique and custom cars that were on hand for the shoot. The production crew prepares the ticket booth for its shot. This is the film crew shooting the acoustic intro part of the song. The acoustic intro was shot twice, first with t
Read more