By StephanieLee Elliott
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Anna Christine Nalick (/ˈnælɪk/ NAL-ik; born March 30, 1984) is an American singer-songwriter. Her debut album, Wreck of the Day, featuring her first radio hit, “Breathe (2 AM)“, was released on April 19, 2005. Nalick left her label under Sony in 2009 after a falling-out surrounding the release of her second album. Nalick’s second album, Broken Doll & Odds & Ends, was released on June 5, 2011. On October 19, 2017, Nalick released her third full-length album, At Now. Nalick’s fourth album, The Blackest Crow, was released December 6, 2019.
EARLY LIFE AND START OF CAREER
Nalick was born and raised in Temple City, California, and attended Holy Angels Grammar School in Arcadia before moving to Glendora with her parents at age 14. Nalick’s Jewish paternal grandfather and his family came from Kyiv, then part of the Russian Empire, emigrating to the United States to escape the ongoing anti-Semitic pogroms.
A key memory of her childhood is the fifth grade math class where she would stop paying attention to the teacher, and instead rewrite the lyrics to a Cranberries song. She grew up in a family where two of the grandparents had performed on Broadway, and where her parents exposed her to a number of different artists, including Elvis Presley and Led Zeppelin. Nalick says she draws more inspiration from poetry, literature, psychology, human behavior, and history than anything else. Her musical influences range from ragtime to folk to trip-hop and everything in between.
In another interview, Nalick recalls showing off her talents to her third grade teacher, who then remarked that she’d end up “one day on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” Nalick did perform in 2005 on The Tonight Show, making sure to invite the teacher to the audience.
Nalick initially decided to go to college before pursuing her dream of music, continuing to record her songs on a Rainbow Brite cassette recorder. But she soon met a photography professor, who had a student with parents in the music business. Nalick agreed to pass along a low-fidelity six-song demo tape, and soon enough, was introduced to Christopher Thorn and Brad Smith, the founding members of Blind Melon now turned production team, as well as Eric Rosse, best known for his production work for Tori Amos. In October 2003, putting her college plans on hold, she signed on with Columbia Records. Nalick went into the studio with Thorn, Smith, and Rosse as producers, together with mix-engineer Mark Endert (Fiona Apple, Maroon 5, and Gavin DeGraw). She recorded with a group of musicians that included Smith on bass, Thorn on guitar, Rosse and Zak Rae on keyboards, Lyle Workman and Stuart Mathis on guitar, and Joey Waronker and Matt Chamberlain on drums. The result was her album Wreck of the Day, released two years later.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Puzzle of the Day
Born
- Moses Maimonides (rabbi) –
- Anna Sewell (author) –
- Vincent van Gogh (Dutch artist ) –
- Sean O’Casey (playwright) –
- Jo Davidson (sculptor) –
- Warren Beatty (actor) –
- Eric Clapton (musician) –
- Tracy Chapman (musician) –
- Celine Dion (singer) –
- Secretariat (racehorse) –
- Norah Jones (singer) –
- Scott Moffatt (musician, of The Moffatts) –
- Anna Nalick (musician) –
Died
- Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother (Britain’s beloved “Queen Mum” was the mother of Queen Elizabeth II) –
- Timi Yuro (singer) –
Events
- President Washington proclaimed boundary of new capital city on Potomac River–
- Dr. Crawford Long of Jefferson, GA, placed an ether-soaked towel over the face of James Venable and removed a tumor from his neck. This was the first recorded use of anesthesia–
- H. L. Lipman, of Philadelphia, patented the first pencil with eraser–
- America bought Alaska from Russia due to pressure from Secretary of State William Seward (Seward’s Folly). The price was $7.2 million, or slightly more than $0.02 an acre–
- Impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson began–
- Texas readmitted to the Union–
- Queensboro Bridge, the first double-decker, opened in New York City–
- Official opening of Canada’s first subway (Toronto)–
- Woody Guthrie’s song This Land is Your Land copyrighted–
- Jeopardy! game show made its television debut–
- The last rum ration was issued in the Royal Canadian Navy–
- President Ronald Reagan was shot and wounded outside a Washington, D.C., hotel–
- An anonymous buyer paid over $39 million for Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers–
- Possible UFO seen, Little Fox Lake, Yukon Territory–
- Superathletes Kirill Shimko and Pavel Soroka pulled five railway cars more than 20 feet–
Weather
- Hurricane-force winds uprooted trees and brought high tides to the coast and heavy snows inland from Pennsylvania to Maine–
- In North Dakota, heavy rain and snowmelt around Fargo produced severe flooding–
- A line of thunderstorms and tornadoes tore up homes and knocked down power lines in Kansas, Missouri, Iowa, and Nebraska–
COURTESY www.almanac.com
