Parlour to Parlour, Episode 8: Correatown

Back in February of 2008, I was covering a show at the Hemlock Tavern in San Francisco for West Coast Performer Magazine. I had a friend helping out with photos, and second on the bill was another friend, none other than Chris Robley. Following Chris’ set, I was expecting a full band called Correatown, but what I got instead was a solo acoustic set by one Angela Correa.

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Performing either with a band or solo, Angela Correa is Correatown, and as she told stories and exchanged jokes and banter with the audience in between songs at my first Correatown show — even pausing to acknowledge the medium sized red ball bouncing between members of the audience — Angela proved she was much more than just a singer/songwriter/guitarist with some fortunate connections.

Angela herself made as much of an impression on me at the first live performance of hers I witnessed as her songs. Granted, songs like “Racing Tides” were certainly earworms that are still with me more than a year later, and her down home country-ish vocals have just the right touch of twang to keep her feeling at home in more musical settings than one would otherwise expect. But it was the woman herself who made it all stick.

Speaking with Angela after her set, I found her to be warm and friendly, and invested in her work to the point where her pride in not just the music, but the packaging surrounding her discs, was unmistakable. She appeared tired and ready to retire for the evening, but she never said as much, and seemed really happy to have an open ear to talk to.

Angela’s Echoes EP had a regular place in my iPod, so I had her in mind for Parlour to Parlour from the very beginning. Working the shoot into my travel schedule also turned out to be perfectly in sync with life itself — I was helping a friend move to South Pasadena that weekend, so when I was finished there, the rest of the afternoon was dedicated to two shoots nearby, Angela’s being the first.

She greeted me with a hug when I made it to her Los Feliz home, and offered me some snacks before we began our shoot. She was a little nervous at first, but that feeling quickly evaporated after I goofed and forgot to turn on the camera during the first pass at our interview. From there, we were in business.

And when it came to business, there was much to talk about. Among the topics we touched upon were Angela’s placement of her song “All the World” in an episode of Grey’s Anatomy, and her most recent claim to fame — singing Jenna Fischer’s character’s parts in the Judd Apatow comedy Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.

Since this interview was taped, Angela finally did release her full-length album Spark Burn Fade, which contains all three tracks that appeared in the Echoes EP, as well as the striking artwork by her friend, Alexandra Wiesenfeld.

Correatown “Shine Right Through”
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Correatown – All The World (I Tell Myself)
Correatown – Glorybelt
Buy Spark Burn Fade

www.myspace.com/correatown
www.angelacorrea.com