i sometimes wonder why it can take\ so long to “discover” an artist. great music, talent on guitars and soulful vocals powering amazing lyrics should just step right into my life. it should, shouldn’t it? well, i think it should.
in this case, it took over a decade. you see, it was 2009 when orianthi released perhaps her biggest hit, according to you. her “believe” release that year also had other notables such as “highly strung” and “suffocated”. with according to you and suffocated both on the pop-rock side, its possible i simply glossed over it, if i even saw it at all.
i drank a lot back then. who the hell knows what i missed im still catching up on.
earlier this month, i had ever intention of going to the dallas guitar festival. eric johnson was to play and WAY back when he lived down the street from us in austin, tx. would be cool to see what he remembered form those times. but life came up and i couldn’t make it. damn my luck.
you see, i wanted to go saturday and that was the “ladies rockin guitars” day. i missed seeing orianthi play, unfortunately. to add insult to injury; she jammed WITH eric johnson. but i saw friends videos and the music sounded pretty bad ass. i needed to go check this lady out and see what she can do.
full confession time. since i started listening, i simply can’t stop. i hit the itunes store and bought most all of her own music and just hit play. and then rewind. a lot. here is where i also discovered a time when she jammed with richie sambora. yea, that dude. after some solid releases, she went back on her own releasing “O” in 2020 and “rock candy” in 2022.
from her social media, new music is on the way! YES!
lets go back to the “believe / believe ii” days and see what i’ve missed. i’ll work my way back to the dreaded missed guitar festival.
in the early days (circa 2009), believe and believe ii (pretty much the same release) you’ll find a mix of harder rock entwined with the introspective. some popular type rock followed by “holy hell, who released the gibson guitars”??!!??
the ones i gravitate to in the early years are more the rock styled. bad news and think like a man are a full fronted rock and roll assault. feels like home, well, it does. it feels a bit like all the things i love about music put into one song. home.
the surprise of this release is her complete and total ownership of john waites’ missing you. wow.
time passes, as it often does, and we find ourselves in 2013. new orianthi comes in the form of “heaven in this hell” and lets see what growth came up in 4 years. what i am noticing is a shift to a more mature approach. her amazing vocals are consistent. stellar guitar playing, check. but the depth to which she continues to find her own style is easy to see.
or hear.
so far she has at least one song i can’t stop playing. on this release its if u think that u know me. the whole concept of a song of hers feeling like home has shifted from a few songs to simply her. her style. how she sings, how she chooses to tell these musical stories.
and the guitars that make you closes your eyes and simply feel it. she’s everything i listen to music for. it can’t just be me, however. i mean, there has to be a reason she’s worked with not only richie sambora, but alice cooper and micheal jackson.
jams with eric freakin johnson and carlos santana, holding her own every single note.
ok, skipping the RSO years for now, lets take a look at just O, released in 2020.
she doesn’t mess around much with the first several songs. all rocking in nature, we still cover classic rock, blues. also there is the slower side of her style with crawling out of the dark. another one i can’t stop playing.
a few years pass and in 2022, rock candy comes to life. the first track, illuminate, pt 1 is a great way to get the feel of her guitar stylings. next we have “light it up” and she does. lord, she does. need some help getting going in the morning, play light it up. need to power a small island village for a week? play this song and let the energy do it.
where did your heart go and living is like dying without you are classic orianthi on the quite side; still full of power and raw emotion.
illuminate, pt ii closes out rock candy; giving you a feel for the sheer amount of talent she has with a guitar.
from start to finish, orianthi is the complete package and it seems there’s nothing she can’t do in the world of music. its now a bucket list item for me to see her live and if i can photograph at least the first 3, please sign me up.
however, if i am able to photograph a set, i gotta say there will be several times i put the camera down and simply appreciate where i am.
and it would sure feel like home.
iceberg
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