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September 2018




  

The Legendary
Evie Sands
Article By: Samantha Byrne Leyte



 Evie Sands hails from Brooklyn and she has currently been living in L.A. for years. She is self managed. She is the very type of singer who both preceded and influenced punk rock. Evie fell into the spectrum of the 60's girl groups and solo female singers... Evie Sands who is a veteran of The Brill building music business team got her start cutting a few singles for Leiber and Stoller's Blue Cat Records. She was then in her early teens. Evie had lots of near hits in the mid sixties such as "Take Me" "I Can't Let Go" "Angel of The Morning". Call it bad timing but Merilee Rush released her hit version of "Angel Of The Morning" a week after Sands. Her label folded soon after that release scheduling mistake .


"I Can't Let Go" had an almost a Phil Spector like sound.

It's the same song The Hollies recorded two months later. Plenty of people heard The Evie Sands version and it was a beautiful pop record. Sadly, the Evie Sands version didn't get the sales or notoriety that The  Hollies version received.


She eventually landed a Monster hit record called "Any Way That You Want Me". Which stayed in the charts for 17 weeks and it sold half a million copies. Her A&M debut album is regarded as a masterpiece. The album included one of Evie's own compositions called "In This I Am". The success of this track opened up songwriting opportunities . Dusty Springfeild and Johnny Cash both cited Evie as one of their favorite singers. She appeared on the Tonight Show, Hullabaloo, American Bandstand, Shindig, Where The Action Is, TheEverly Brothers, The Johnny Cash Show and Glen Campbell. A succession of Capitol/Haven mid chart hits followed. "You Brought The Woman Out of Me" "I Love Makin' Love To You" from her mid-seventies album "Estate of Mind". In 1979,an RCA studio studded album called "Suspended  Imagination" was released. Evie was co-producer. More people were noticing Evie Sands and her work,such as a single for a movie soundtrack called "Maybe Tomorrow". her career was running into a "Ball of Confusion" Actually,her creative control was being interfered with. So she stepped back and wrote songs and produced records for awhile.. I'd like to point out that Evie Sands is about music and she's never generated a single scandal in the press. She's petite with long black hair and she wears either a leather jacket or a Levi Jacket or a Blazer. And she's very cordial to fans. There's something very natural and easygoing about Evie Sands. She's never tried to play the celebrity and she is her own boss! She has a facebook page and a fan club. Evie often plays an acoustic 12 string Guitar and she gives off a sound very much like Keith Richards' playing on Marianne Faithfull's 60s hit singles. And the guitar sound on The Rolling Stones' songs like "Sittin' on a  Fence"."High and Dry" "Think" "Blue Turns To Grey". I think that Ms.Sands is one dynamo singer/guitarist and her playing,particularly on the acoustic 12 string is magnificent.


Chip Taylor was gigging at a club in L.A.in mid-1996 and he brought Evie Sands onstage. She was enthusiastically received. The people she that she was writing songs for and producing weren't punk rockers but it's a testimony to Evie Sands abilities that her writing and production were in demand. Evie has worked with the likes of Barbara Streisand, Cher/Gregg Allman, Frankie Valli,Karen Carpenter, Shirley Bassey,Tom Jones,Beck,Dusty Springfield, among others. Following the Capitol/Haven releases came the 70s album "Estate of Mind" and in 1979 RCA "Suspended Animation". A 2000 Evie Sands CD was "Women In Prison". Sand's most recent recording is "Shine For Me" a 6 song E.P. on R spot records. It's in vinyl. Evie Sands experienced a resurgence in popularity in the UK where people think of her as an example of "Northern Soul". So she returned to performing live. Evie and her band are kind of stripped down in live concert. There's 5-6 people at most and it's definitely high energy. Evie Sands is on a roll and shows no sign of slowing down.Check out Evie Sands in You Tube and in Spotify or I-tunes and you'll find a wealth of titles going back to 1964 up to the present,


 








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