The Soulcialista: ::UP CLOSE & PERSONAL:: Avery Sunshine-Life Lessons

Avery Sunshine lit up the stage in Annapolis, MD at Ram’s Head Tavern. She opened up for Rahsaan Patterson, to a packed audience. The audience sang with her, as she directed them from behind the keys. Gypsy and I caught up with Avery before her performance and talked about her cd.

Special thanks to Frank Sheffield

Photos by Edith Williams

Shani: So, you have a new, self titled cd out?

Avery: My cd came out last year, and I’m still pushing it. Still touring and doing everything that we can. I’m glad to with Rahsaan.

Shani: You have been having an awesome year. Jet recently named you as one of the top 5 artists to watch for 2011. The cd is being well received. You just won an award with SoulTracks.

Avery: Yes, I won SoulTracks’s “New Artist of the Year”. It’s a really great award, I’m really excited. We were nominated for three awards, and we got one. It was great!

Shani: I was going through your discography, and one of the songs was, “Stalker”.

Avery: (Avery laughs) That was one of the first songs I had done. That was years ago, it’s a house tune.

Shani: How did that song come about?

Avery: I needed to write a song and I sat down, wondering what am I going to do. I came up with this tune, next thing you know, I had hook. I called my partner, Dana and said you have to hear this hook I have. I know it sounds crazy, he called me back thirty minutes later and he had written the rest of the song. We knew it had to be fate, we went ahead and recorded it. That tune ended up taking me to Japan. It was a really interesting tune, a great tune.

Gypsy: Do you play any other instruments other than piano?

Avery: No, I wish! I was talking to Rahsaan about that. It’s hard, it seems that if you don’t learn to play as a kid it becomes harder. But, we can do it! Hopefully the next time I see you, I’ll have a guitar and I’ll be playing it for real!

Gypsy: How did you learn to play the piano?

Avery: I was eight-years-old, one of my class mates was playing the piano. I told my mother , “Mom, I want to do that.” I had never touched a piano before. She said, “Look, If I buy this piano you gonna play it.” So, she brought the piano. Believe it or not, we only have had two pianos. The first one, we had for four years. The second one, we have had God knows how many years. When my parents moved to Atlanta with me, they brought the piano down, so that piano is now in my house. So, that’s how I started playing.

Shani: Some of the other songs listed were “Blessin Me” and “Pinin’”. For those who don’t understand, what is Pinin’?

Avery: (Laughter erupts again) I moved from Philly to Atlanta and never heard of the word before in my life. I was in the church parking lot gossiping and one of my homeys said, “You know that girl is still pining over that man!” I said, “Pining”, what the heck does that mean? Well, I looked it up, it means to long for. I was like, “Oh! I have pined. I’m pining right now!” So, I wrote a song about it, I thought it was great. A lot of people see the title on the album and say, “Is that pinning?”

Shani: So, how many tracks are on the cd?

Avery: The cd has

Shani: If you had to pick your favorites song off of the cd, this very moment, what song would it be and why?

Avery: It would be “Pining” because it pokes fun at that very thing that is so real. It has us up late at night, when your pining and that thing is hurting you. When you’re able to poke fun and look at the bright side. As women, we love hard and we hurt so intensely. Sometimes it’s too intense, let’s laugh about it. That’s why that one has such a special place in my heart and makes me feel good when I sing it.

Shani: What are some of the subjects we will hear when we listen to your cd?

Avery: Parenting, my love for my children, my love for God, my desire to be married again. My utter disgust with the man that I was married to, and coming out and still being ok.

Shani: You mentioned writing a song about the man you want to love.

Avery: Absolutely!

Shani: So, is that going back to pining?

Avery: Not really. The man that God is going to send me, loving him before I even meet him. You know what I mean? Loving everything about him, how about loving me first. I think that’s one of the things we have to go into relationships with, I didn’t do before with my kids’ dad. I used to put a lot of responsibility on him for the marriage dissolving but I had as much to do with it. Did I come into the marriage saying, “I already love you. Let’s make it work”? No, I was like, “Look! You prove to me why I should love you.” You can’t do that. You got to go into it, “I love you like I love myself. We’re going to do this thing together and make it work.” I’m not going to go into it like that anymore. There is a song on the cd called “Like This”, it talks about being in love from the first kiss. Not him making you fall in love with him.