Correction (March 28 10:59 p.m.): Due to an editing error, an earlier version of this story incorrectly stated the date of the concert. It is at 9:30 p.m. Saturday. This story has been updated to reflect this correction. The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.
Making an honest living is a typical ambition of a ripe college graduate, but when it comes to Charlotte folk singer Anna Bullard, honesty is perpetuated through every facet of her music.
“I write songs because I have no other way of expressing those feelings,” she said.
A dedicated artist with high ideals, Bullard quotes author C.S. Lewis in regards to her musical persona and temperament:
SEE ANNA LIVE
Time: 9:30 p.m. Saturday
Location: Nightlight
405 1/2 Rosemary St.
Info: www.nightlightclub.com
“Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original: whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring two pence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of 10, become original without ever having noticed it.”
To Bullard, music is a window for organic expression of true feeling. Less an opportunity for sonic experimentation, her delicate odes bleed warm rivulets of emotion.
Though she only recently infiltrated the Triangle by inclusion on Pox World Empire’s 2008 Pox Compulation Volume III (Songs from North Carolina), music is nothing new in her life.
At 14, Bullard began transcribing her feelings into song as a productive channel for venting the results of boiling teenage hormones. Now, at 30 she has played in the bands Fishmilk and Manhassett (now dissolved), as well as establishing a promising solo career — a major transition from her adolescent trifles.
Grown-up Bullard’s mature, delicate voice magnifies the honesty and depth of her lyrics through pitch fluctuations, bolded high notes and folk sincerity.
Where most records are produced in a studio, Anna Bullard has only one song in her recorded repertoire that isn’t self-produced. She’s used her MacBook to put together the rest of her material which now spans nearly 30 songs.
Using her talents on the keyboard and guitar, Bullard originally intended to create music for fun, until she was found by Zeno Gill of Durham’s Pox World Empire. Bullard is currently working on her first album, to be released on Pox.
“I have 10 songs recorded,” Bullard said. “Five I’m happy with and five that need work. I’m hoping to get in there and finish it up this spring.”
Along with Gill, Nathan Oliver and Schooner and Organos’ Maria Albani have aided Bullard on her debut effort.
Expanding from her routine acoustic guitar, Bullard is looking to amalgamate a number of new instruments into an upcoming release. But when it comes to promotion, Bullard is not one to shamelessly push her own work.
“I don’t look for shows,” Bullard said. “Every show I have done has been because venues have asked me or bands that wanted me to open for them.”
From her first show in 2001 at a Concord coffee shop to her upcoming Saturday performance at the Nightlight, not once has she pursued a gig.
The fact that she maintains regular performances is a testament to her impact on other artists.
With a debut album in the works, this N.C. native is looking ahead to a career in music.
And if Bullard’s efforts mirror her sonic ethic, she’ll establish her name with the same folk sincerity that characterizes her output thus far.
Contact the Diversions editor at dive@unc.edu
