Singer and poetic composer Serah creates music that explores many of the most important aspects of our lives including love, peace, harmony, success/failure, relationships, religion, nature, culture, connectedness, healing and emotions. On her seventh album, Late Harvest, she continues to explore these and other important themes with contemporary adult music that showcases her own unique folk-pop style that also blends together elements of new age, jazz and African world music.
“My songs relate my deepest thoughts,” Serah states. “I can say what I feel best in song lyrics. I like to use imagery and metaphors so that there are layers of meaning for anyone who wants to do a little thinking or dig a bit deeper. In that way, a person can either relate the song to their own life or enjoy it like a short story, and its meaning will be somewhat different for every listener.”
Late Harvest contains nine original compositions plus stunning interpretations of four classic tunes -- Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me,” Van Morrison’s “Crazy Love,” Christopher Cross’ “Sailing” and the Carole King-penned Shirelles’ hit “Will You (Still) Love Me Tomorrow.” “Crazy Love” and “Sailing” have already become Top 20 hits on the national Adult Contemporary radio charts, and “Stand By Me” is the latest single (the radio remix features keyboardist Billy Preston).
Serah’s music draws from her experiences of having lived on both coasts of the United States as well as in Canada, France and Africa’s Kenya. She works closely with a wide variety of musicians from around the world (including several from Africa) which helps give her music an international flavor. Serah, who plays some guitar and piano on the album, co-produces and co-arranges her music with some of the musicians she works with, but most often with vocalist and Senegal-native Wasis Diop. Several years ago she heard his tune “Everything (...Is never Quite Enough)” that he contributed to the film “The Thomas Crown Affair.” Serah was so impressed she tracked Wasis down and suggested they work together.
All the musicians on Late Harvest have impressive credits including keyboardist David Sancious (Bruce Springsteen, Eric Clapton, Santana), saxophonist Andy Snitzer (Rolling Stones, Paul Simon), guitarist Michael Landau (Joni Mitchell, James Taylor, Celine Dion), drummer Vinnie Colaiuta (Sting, Joni Mitchell, Frank Zappa), percussionist Steve Shehan (Sting, Paul Simon, The Gipsy Kings), percussionist Mino Cinelu (Miles Davis, Weather Report, Sting), bassist Richard Bona (Pat Metheny, Joe Zawinul, Bobby McFerrin), keyboardist Bertrand LaJudie (Francis Cabrel, Michel Sardou), guitarist Vincent Nguini (Paul Simon, Ladysmith Black Mambazo), bassist Bernard Paganotti (Magma, Amina, Khaled), and drummer Manu Katche (Sting, Tori Amos, Joan Armatrading).
The title for the album, Late Harvest, comes from the lyrics to the tune “Dolce” based on an ancient European fable of a winemaker who was away at war when his grapes should have been picked, but his workers delayed the harvest until he returned. They picked the crop just before it spoiled when the grapes’ sugar-content was at its highest so that the resulting wine became a very sweet, dessert wine. “Sometimes the late harvest, or one of the later seasons in one’s life, turns out to be the sweetest and most meaningful,” explains Serah.
The song “Catching Fireflies” emotes dreams of childhood and eventual transcendent reality. “Forgive The Moon” is about realizing that love bathed in moonlight-promises doesn’t always last. “Joined At The Wing” is a “romantic fantasy” while “Inner Voice Dialogues” explores those yin-yang arguments deep in the conscience. “Pieces of Dreams” explains that “something shattered -- a broken heart or crushed ideals -- can become something positive later.” “Psalm Song” is “a prayer partially taken from the Old Testament. Serah made it multi-cultural by including background singing with Buddhist chanting, some Native American Lakota prayers, and vocals sung in a Senegalese dialect.” The album concludes with “Breathing Desert Air,” which Serah says “is a song about resurrection and how your own special essence always stays with you.”
Regarding the songs Serah chose to cover, she explains, “The song ‘Sailing’ is a wonderful metaphor about getting into a transcendent zone where you move from little ‘r’ reality and connect to big ‘R’ Reality. ‘Will You (Still) Love Me Tomorrow’ I approached with a playful sense of humor and whimsey because this is not a question that looms in my life on a day-to-day basis. I love Van Morrison, and ‘Crazy Love’ always reminds me of that special feeling of what it is like to be really in love. ‘Stand By Me’ became more than just a simple love song for me when I recorded the vocals during the evening of Sept. 11, 2001. On that day of tragedy, the music became a universal prayer for the people of the world to stand together, hold hands, overcome the cruelty, heal the violence and try to live in harmony with one another.”
Serah’s musical background includes pre-teen music lessons from an old cowboy in Wyoming, recording and performing onstage with folk-pop singer-songwriter Jonathan Edwards, and playing music with Cornelius Bumpus (The Doobie Brothers), Andy Pratt and Loudon Wainwright III. Serah’s first album, Rainbow Reign, was only released in Canada. The single “Nova Scotia” went to No. 1 on the radio charts there.
Serah’s life took a dramatic turn after she read books by Laurens Van der Post and Isak Dinesen. Both authors lived much of their lives in Africa and wrote poignantly of the lessons of survival and simplicity they learned there. Prodded by their insights and her own nomadic spirit, Serah went to Africa for a year-long sojourn in Kenya where she became entranced by the natural environment and the people. Most of her time was spent helping families, especially children, caught in draught areas. Serah played her music for people in the rural areas and was pleasantly surprised how they quickly joined in with vocals in their own language and whatever percussion instruments were handy.
After Africa, Serah needed time for reflection, so she moved to France and made her home in a centuries-old abandoned monastery. Here she composed the songs for her first international album, Flight of the Stork, produced by the seminal new age guitarist Friedemann. The album’s concept followed the stork’s annual intercontinental flight between Europe and Africa, and included ancient rebirth myths. Although Serah was coming from a folk-pop background, the themes in the album’s lyrics and her gently ethereal vocals made her an immediate favorite in the new age music world where the album became a bestseller and Serah became one of the genre’s first divas.
She further developed her adult pop sound on her Out of the Wind album, which was co-produced by Fernando Saunders (John McLaughlin, Steve Winwood, Lou Reed). Another musical project came about because each Christmas Eve for more than a decade, Serah sat down and composed an original tune to capture the spirit of the season. These songs were collected into a holiday-orient
ed album, Voice of Amethyst.
Ever since she lived in Africa, Serah wanted to record music with African musicians and finally that dream became reality on Senegal Moon which lyrically, once again, had elements of both Africa (the title track and “The Singing Tree”) and France (“Joan of Arc,” “Desert Woman in Paris,” “French Blue”). Her odyssey of combining styles and sounds from America, Europe and Africa moved forward on her next album, Wing of Mercy, which included 11 originals (such as “Hymn of Peace”) and a cover of the 10cc tune “I’m Not in Love” which became a Top 20 Adult Contemporary radio hit for her. With her new Late Harvest album, Serah continues developing her unique style that blends world and pop music elements.
Serah’s albums are available in stores and at her website (www.serah.com).
The packaging of all of Serah’s international albums have included beautiful paintings and illustrations by many different artists in an effort to meld visual art with the music.
Serah supports many worthwhile causes and organizations such as the Heifer International, the Rainforest Foundation and CALM (Child Abuse Listening & Mediation). Among numerous benefit shows, in 1999 Serah traveled to the Netherlands to perform at the Concert for the Hague Appeal for Peace.
Serah’s captivating, gentle, soaring voice projects her thought-provoking lyrics, which are bountiful with imagery and symbolism, and always offer a positive reaffirmation of life and hope for the world. Each of her songs resonates in the heart, promising new opportunities in various aspects of human experience, especially love.
For the past decade-and-a-half Serah has been on a musical quest to illuminate mankind’s “higher nature” and help people learn to be more spiritual, soulful and sharing.
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