Young singer finds anchor in some classic blues artists

As Gina Sicilia recalls it, she was barely into her teens when she set her musical course.

"About the time I was 12 or 13, I saw an infomercial on TV for a soul and blues compilation CD, Solid Gold Soul," Sicilia says in her Newtown Township, Bucks County, home, a few weeks before her show coming up Saturday night at World Cafe Live. "They previewed some of the songs and I ordered it right away - I had to have it.

"For the next year that's the only CD I listened to. I studied it over and over. . . . On that CD were Bobby Bland and Jackie Wilson and B.B. King. They were my first influences in terms of the blues. Just hearing Bobby Bland sing 'Cry Cry Cry' - I knew immediately that that's the kind of music I wanted to sing. It just felt so familiar to me. When I started singing, it really felt like the kind of music I could express myself through."

Now, one decade and two albums later, the 23-year-old Sicilia is a fast-rising talent in the world of blues, one who shows the potential to transcend that world. Her first album, Allow Me to Confess, was nominated for best-new-artist debut at the 2008 Blues Music Awards. Her second, Hey Sugar, was released in October.

Both albums reveal a multifaceted singer and songwriter who blends emotional maturity with youthful dynamism.

"Gina Sicilia is the most exciting new blues singer to come around this decade," says Richard Rosenblatt of the VizzTone Label Group, which has licensed Sicilia's albums. Rosenblatt obviously has a vested interest, but as a veteran blues performer and record-label honcho, he also has worked with a lot of dynamic young blues and blues-rock artists, such as Susan Tedeschi and the late Sean Costello.

Rosenblatt marvels at the way Sicilia already has learned to harness the power of her smoky alto. His VizzTone partner Bob Margolin, a veteran blues guitar great and onetime Muddy Waters sideman, also is taken with Sicilia as both a singer and a writer.

"As soon as you hear that voice, you go, 'Oh!' There's a womanliness and a girlishness both at the same time," he says.

As Margolin sees it, Sicilia has the ability "to put really, really deep emotion and what must be parts of herself into her singing. It's not just good singing technique. It's a spectacular tone of voice and a lot of passion and emotion. . . .

"I'm really impressed with her songs, too," Margolin adds. "They're not the standard thing. She knows how to tell a story and build the power of the song. There's no explaining how she and Dave Gross [her guitarist and producer, and a solo artist in his own right] are as deep and powerful as they are."

Sicilia never had formal voice training. "My teachers were Aretha Franklin and Etta James and Bobby Bland," and her "all-time favorite," Sam Cooke, she says. And she already has shown that her abilities extend beyond the blues. Hey Sugar, for example, contains superb versions of two country classics, Dolly Parton's "Coat of Many Colors" and Jimmie Davis' "Nobody's Darling But Mine."

The eclecticism reflects her upbringing in a musical home where her parents, John and Patricia, were always playing various kinds of records. The youngest of their three children took in all of it.

"I've always loved older music," says Sicilia, who professes a particular passion for doo-wop. "I never thought of it as older music, even as a younger girl."

After graduating from Council Rock High School North in 2003, Sicilia wanted to pursue music full-time. Her parents persuaded her to go to college, and she's glad she did. She graduated from Temple University in 2007 with a journalism degree, but her real education, she says, came at the Tuesday night jams at Warmdaddy's, the Philadelphia blues club. That's where, in her sophomore year, she sang in public for the first time.

"I did suffer from stage fright," she says, "and that really helped me to build my confidence."

Those jams eventually led to her getting her own first gig as a solo artist at Warmdaddy's in August 2005. In January 2007 she released Allow Me to Confess on her and Gross' SwingNation label. Rosenblatt heard selections on her MySpace page a few weeks later and quickly signed her to VizzTone. By the end of 2007, she had the Blues Music Award nomination and a contract with Piedmont Talent, a top booking agency. And now, with the World Cafe Live date, she's preparing for her biggest hometown show - so far.

Down the road, Sicilia would like to open a blues club, maybe start a blues magazine or music Web site, and write songs for other artists. Meanwhile, she wants to continue to branch out stylistically, even though she figures her music always will have a blues base.

Since September, she has been on a songwriting binge, penning more than 100 numbers. She says they reflect her many sides.

"I sing the music I love, I write the music I love, I record the music I love," Sicilia says in a no-nonsense manner that reflects her ambition and resolve. "Whether that's country, blues, soul or gospel, folk or singer-songwriter, that's what it's going to be, because that's who I am."