Leslie Avril will be playing a the Pascoe Vale RSL for the Country Music Guild on Friday November 11. The talent of this highly versatile artist spans a broad spectrum of music. From Broadway and French love songs to blues and jazz. And, naturally, to country which is her favourite genre. Raised in Eltham, in Victoria, Leslie Avril has taken this talent all the way north to Scandinavia, the rest of Europe, the United States and the South Pacific!
Leslie has honed this talent with the best of the music breed. She has worked with Skyhooks legends Ross Wilson and Greg MaCainsh, James Joseph Paulsen aka Joe Sun, outlaw country singer Billy Joe Shaver, the Southern rock/country band Ozark Mountain Daredevils and Texas Country artist Guy Clark. They've all been bowled over by her voice and her music and she has been likened to Streisand, Piaf, Sarah Vaughan, Janis Joplin and Bette Midler.
This Jill of all sounds from Smiths Gully performed with her 90's band the Melbourne Blue Healers who ushered her into country music. Avril was a Nu Country DJ, featured in the album New Country, movie soundtracks and in ABC's “Something in the Air”. She has written songs with Keith Urban and Heather Field. Leslie played the role of Polly Garter in the Athenaeum Theatre production of Dylan Thomas' “Under Milkwood”.
The talent has not gone unrecognized. A regular mainliner at Tamworth, she was nominated in the Judges' Top 10 for the Golden Guitar as Female Entertainer of the Year in 2000 and went onstage as a headliner in a recent Whittlesea Country Music Festival. At the Victorian Awards in Kyneton, Leslie was a dual finalist for Album of the Year and Best Female Vocalist. The CMAA also nominated her as Independent Entertainer of the Year in the Country Music Achiever Awards.
Her sound has been described as “a voice laced with vinegar” (The Age), “a voice full of power, style and class” (Northern Daily Leader), “ a sense of rhythm, melody and lyrics second to none” (Toorak Times), “one of the gutsiest voices around” (Capital News), “as much bluesy rock as country, can be raunchy, gutsy and sensitive” (Art Streams).
Now, how much more versatile can one get?
Check the gig guide to see when Leslie Avril is playing next at The Country Music Guild at Pascoe Vale
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