Deborah Crooks - Performing Songwriter
"Deborah Crooks is a vibrant artist carrying on the San Francisco tradition of powerful female singer/songwriters with literate lyrics and progressive musical attitudes; well respected within the music scene and increasingly so outside of it."
I was born in Watsonville, CA, and grew up listening to showtunes, Tom Petty, disco, Led Zeppelin, Roxy Music, The Eurythmics, reggae, ska, punk, Bonnie Raitt and the Police. After earning a degree in Environmental Studies from UCSC, I moved to Colorado where I covered sports, studied writing in the Jack Keroauc School of Disembodied Poetics and got turned on to the power and possibility of songwriting via seeing many great female songwriters including Michelle Shocked, Shawn Colvin and Ani diFranco. I'm admittedly somewhat of a mutt regarding influences, but I continually gravitate towards literate, roots-based songwriters who can rock ala Lucinda Williams, Patti Griffin, Alejandro Escovedo and Buddy & Julie Miller.
Over the past 10 years, I've recorded two EPs (a track from The Roberta Donnay-produced EP '5 Acres' was included on the RockerGirl Discoveries compilation CD) and two full-length CDs, Adding Water To Ashes (2008). 2010 saw the release of two EPs, which were repackaged into one CD '2010,' (made possible by a Bay Bridged Grant). I've also traveled to India four times to study yoga and returned to California to make the San Francisco Bay Area my home. I'm currently working on a third full-length CD of original music.
I love to play, and regularly collaborate in the studio and onstage. Additional projects include a 5-song CD with Alex Walsh, ‘The Crooks/Walsh Blues, (2009)’, touring the Northwest as part "Indie Abundance™ Music, Money & Mindfulness" with two other artists, touring the Southwest with fellow songwriter and yogini Jean Mazzei on The Great Idea Tour, co-hosting the local chapter of Songsalive! as well as the High Street Station Open Mic, and participating in an ongoing Bay Area Song Collective. I've also written with Pop Tuna’s B.Z. Lewis, resulting in the tracks "You Are Home" (chosen for both the Java with Jahvalin Indie Artist CD 2005 and the Indie Music for Life), "The More I Know" (2005) and "All This Love," (2006); with Stefan Gustafsson (Luminous Family Trust) and regularly contribute content to Deborah Slater Dance Theater in San Francisco.
I've also spoken about community and creativity at SXSW in Austin, Texas, and MacWorld in San Francisco, led writing groups in India, and continue to write for websites, blogs and print publications on a variety of topics.
Please email me at DeborahRCrooks @ gmail . com for more information and to book me for private events, house concerts, and writing gigs.