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Title: Red
Release date: 4 January, 2004
Record label: Roc-A-Fella
Single: Pull My Hair Out
Official website: Samantha Ronson
Buy at: Amazon
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Samantha Ronson: Rock-A-Fella's First - Red
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Send to a FriendSamantha Ronson was destined to find herself at this nexus of time and space. It was written, they say. This is not just because of her familial connection, though it may seem like it. Her step-father is Mick Jones of the band Foreigner, giving her at least the benefit of a musical household. Her older brother is Mark Ronson, famed New York DJ and, with the release of his debut album, Here Comes The Fuzz, an artist in his own right.
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(Her twin sister, too, has the splash of imagination - designer, Charlotte Ronson). But those are only the roots: the nourishment of that burgeoning talent is Samantha's own creative drive and spirited, energetic push.
Ronson turned a love of playing guitar as a young teenage girl living in New York into a launching point for her own artistic ambitions at the age of 19. She showed an instinctual habit for the instrument and soon just fooling around on the guitar had evolved into thoughtful, fun songwriting. "I used to write poetry, so I'd start putting these words to my chords in a half-ass sort of way," Ronson remembers. Feeling that her songs were starting to take shape, melodically and lyrically, Ronson gathered some friends to form a band to play out and record music.
A live show in New York led to a chance meeting with singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik, who invited Ronson over to play with him the next day. Ronson remembers traveling to his house to visit him but being somewhat paralyzed at the door. "A lot of people are usually full of it when they invite you over," she says. "And when I got there, it took me half an hour to ring his bell because I was mortified that I was going over there. He writes really great music, you know?"
Some of what fuels Ronson's standing as an artist is her versatility. At the same time as she was molding her style, sound and songs, she was also DJing quite a bit in New York and Los Angeles. It was a simultaneous, parallel career - and also meant she had an ear for the connection between music and moving bodies.
Encouraged by her collaborations with Sheik and the progress she was making by her own standards as both a singer and songwriter, Ronson put together a demo of some songs. A run-in with Damon Dash, the entrepreneur and head of Roc-A-Fella Records, would be the next major
step in her career.
"I was friends with Damon already, just from DJing," Ronson explains. "He kept asking for a mixtape so I let him hear my demo - it was on my iPod. He kind of bugged out, invited me to his office the next day. I figured he'd be like, 'What was I thinking?' when he heard it again in the sober light of day."
Dash wasn't joking and he was just as firm in his convictions the next day as he was when he first heard it. Dash would sign Ronson to a record deal with Roc-A-Fella, making her the first rock artist on his label.
It's a feisty position to be in but one that fits Ronson well. "I'm a Leo so I'm weirdly not afraid sometimes," she says. "If I had really thought about it at any point, I would have probably gone and hid under my bed for three years."
Many of Ronson's demo songs would make her self-titled debut album. In addition to the songs she wrote with Sheik, Ronson worked with acclaimed songwriter Damon Elliott (Pink, Destiny's Child) on the songs TK. Ronson met Elliott in the Los Angeles studio she was recording in and he was drawn to her punky pop spirit. Dallas Austin (TLC, Monica, Brandy) also produced several songs ("TK"). "Dallas is a really great person - and he's a rock guy, too, which a lot of people don't realize," says Ronson.
Another collaborator, on the song "TK," was Ronson's own brother, who was finishing up his own album at the same time. "He's a really great musician and has a really great ear. And I love him to death."
"Pull My Hair Out," the first single from Ronson's album, embodies the kind of confectionary, fun spirit that is present throughout the album.
Lyrically, Ronson draws from her own love of writing but also visceral feeling of her surroundings. "I can write lyrics in a second if I catch a vibe off of something," she says. "I usually write when I'm depressed and I put myself through depressive situations. Or neurotic ones, too. All the songs are basically about my ex-boyfriend."
In the end, Ronson is everything you want in fun music: a sense of reality, a bubbling pop spirit and a stylistic ear that finds no boundaries among genres. "Why would you ever restrict yourself with how you want to sound," Ronson asks. Why, indeed.
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