Fran Smith

Fran Smith (born 25 January 1986) is a singer, songwriter and pianist from Hull, UK. Influenced by strong, female rock performers such as Joan As Police Woman, Martha Wainwright, Stevie Nicks, and Deborah Harry, Fran claims that she has harboured a fierce desire to be a singer for as long as she can remember. Her earliest childhood memories are of avidly watching Top of the Pops and listening to the BBC Radio 1 Top 40 show with her parents as a toddler, and they encouraged her interest in music by arranging for her to have classical piano lessons from the age of six. However, Fran only developed the confidence to sing in public when she audition for a place on the first and only degree in Folk and Traditional Music in England at Newcastle University, and was accepted. During the four-year course, she studied under many luminaries of the British and Irish folk scene, including: Alistair Anderson, Kathryn Tickell, Tim van Eyken, Frankie Armstrong, Stewart Hardy and Bellowhead's Paul Sartin. She also had intensive vocal tuition from the respected traditional singer Christine Coe, and studied songwriting with the award-winning Scottish musician, Karine Polwart. Fran eventually graduated in 2008 with a BMus (Hons) in Folk & Traditional Music. In recent years, Fran has performed alongside acclaimed songwriter Thea Gilmore and revered English folk musician Chris Wood, and her work has been praised by Karine Polwart, Devon Sproule and Catherine Feeny. Her songs betray a lifelong love of pop, rock and blues music, but the folksong influence is still evident in her lyrics and delivery. She counts Bob Dylan, Josh Ritter, and Leonard Cohen amongst her favourite songwriters, and loves the mystical and natural-world imagery used by Laura Veirs, Joanna Newsom and Stevie Nicks. But it is the real human stories of life and love found in the old ballads that inspire Fran to keep telling her own stories in her own words. Fran began performing professionally with her first band, the folk trio Franana, in 2007. The trio featured Fran on lead vocals, plus Amy Thatcher on piano accordion and fiddle, and Chris Meredith on acoustic guitar. The group performed together for a year, completing a short tour of English folk clubs and supporting the Mercury Music Prize-nominated Rachel Unthank & The Winterset, before disbanding in June 2008 to pursue individual projects. Fran still lives in Newcastle Upon Tyne, where she is active on the local music scene. Her reputation as a live performer is growing rapidly, with a tour of the north of England planned for 2009. She recently recorded a new E.P. ("Bee-Lines") but has no immediate plans to sell this commercially or record an album - instead she says she will spend the next year writing more songs and performing live at every opportunity. You can access Fran's MySpace page here - www.myspace.com/fransongs