Naomi Striemer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Naomi Striemer (born October 6, 1982 in Putnam Valley, New York) is a Canadian/American singer. She was raised on a hobby farm in Malagash Point, near Truro, Nova Scotia and homeschooled by strict Seventh-day Adventist parents. At age ten, her family moved to Manitoba where in 1993 the 11-year-old recorded an album of Christian music. Before that point, she had never watched television nor listened to the radio. In 1998 he family moved again, this time to Florida.
In an article in Billboard that ran in February 2007, Striemer told writer Chuck Taylor that her parents "were artistic people, hippies going the opposite way to vegetarian farmland. They did a total 360. I was completely unaware of their previous world, and a trusting child who wasn’t particularly curious. We would play tapes in the car, either classical music or folk bible songs and sermons; that was the only world I knew.”
In April 2001, Naomi Striemer was signed by Epic Records and completed her first album for them in 2003 which was never released following a shakeup at Epic's parent, Sony BMG. The following year she and her family moved to the rural community of Delhi, Ontario. Depressed over Epic's shelving of her album, she nonetheless continued performing in the Toronto area where she met new manager Steven Nowack, a former hedge fund operator, following a performance at an Indigo Bookstore.[1] . Nowack ultimately founded S Records to launch Striemer's music career.
In a November 21, 2006 interview on CBC radio's "Sounds Like Canada", Ms. Striemer revealed that she is very protective of her voice. Her diet excludes caffeine, fizzy drinks and very hot / cold items. Concerning her childhood, she reflected on the close ties she had with nature and animals on the farm. While still 5 or 6 she sang with adults in a group. She further stated that she basically knew from an early age she wanted to sing professionally.
Following Nowack's advice, Striemer moved to Los Angeles in 2005 where she began working on a new album with producer Narada Michael Walden who launched the careers of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey. Her CD Images, which has Carlos Santana's guitar work on the song "Cars," was released on December 19, 2006 on the S Records label and was the No. 1 downloaded album in Canada on Sympatico/MSN. "Cars" was released as a single and in his review, Billboard's Taylor described it as "the year's most promising melodic debut... A standing ovation of an endorsement... Remember the first time you heard Whitney, Mariah or Celine and recognized a star was born?"[2]
Prominent press about Striemer, in addition to the CBC interview, includes a page 1 piece in Canada’s national newspaper “National Post,” features on the CTV national news and “Entertainment Tonight,” a lifestyle front in Canada’s “Globe and Mail,” and multiple items in Roger Friedman’s Foxnews.com “Foxlife” column.
In December 2006, S Records offered “Cars” as a free download on Internet site sympatico.msn.ca. The move thrust “Images” to become the No. 1 downloaded album in Canada for the final two weeks of the year, topping discs by Sarah McLachlan, U2 and the Beatles. She repeated the achievement the week of Jan. 15, 2007—after the free download had expired—beating fare from Justin Timberlake, Josh Groban and Gwen Stefani.
In a subsequent profile in Billboard, producer Narada Michael Walden told Taylor, "Steven [Nowack] is very zealous, so I listened to what he had to say, not taking his pitch overly seriously until I met Naomi and heard her live. I was impressed with her beauty, but more so by her voice. You believe her. She has the chops, the range, the drive—and the humility—to offer a beautiful gift.”
Taylor's description of Striemer's "Images" was described as follows in the article:
Highlights of the album include the haunting piano-driven title track, which opens with the lyric, “I found out today my love has found another/And all the things I did to make you happy won’t make you happy anymore,” as Striemer pleads amid urgent percussion, “If I could fight my way back to you/It would only throw me further away.” “Fall Behind” is Striemer’s intense take on her lost contract at Epic. She sings, “What’s happening/I feel the world slipping apart before my eyes,” amid an inflamed backdrop of electric guitars and howling vocal of defiance. Shimmering power ballad and first single “Cars” uses the lyrical allegory of counting passing vehicles as she waits for her AWOL man—an allusion to universal diligence in the search for love: “In life, we wait for that one person that is meant for us,” Striemer explains. “They may be with someone else now, but you hold out hope that they exist, so you put on a brave face and wait.”
[edit] Discography
- Images (CD) - S Records - 2006
Track List:
- 1. Cars
- 2. Images
- 3. I Know That It's Love
- 4. Three Days Ago
- 5. I Believe (Theme Song For The Hospital For Sick Children)
- 6. Derailed
- 7. Last Chance
- 8. I'm Taking Everything
- 9. Reach The Top
- 10. Fall Behind
- 11. Something to Lose
- 12. Starting Gate
- 13. J’Irai Au Sommet
- 14. I Love You Still
- 15. Go Away
- 16. Wild About You
- 17. United We Stand
- The Demos (CD) - Download Records - 2004 (04.04.2004)
Track List:
- 1. Let Me Go
- 2. Fall Behind +
- 3. Stay With Me (Tonight)
- 4. Live Through You
- 5. Starting Gate +
- 6. Run
- 7. Play Along
- 8. End Of Time
- 9. Waiting
- 10. I'll Catch Up
- 11. Sailing Away
+These songs are also on the Images album. (They had additional editing before being included.)
[edit] References
[edit] External links
 |
This article on a Canadian singer is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |
