Cheryl Cormier Batter's CD "Wonderful" is Exactly That - Wonderful, February 23, 2000 Reviewer: Peter Correnty-Yale University
This sensational masterpiece of harmony and thought-provoking lyrics blends contemporary country, pop, and soft rock to create a unique, completely enjoyable aural delight.
Anyone who has lived and loved will relate to the reflective, intelligent, meaningful lyrics of the beautiful ballads and vivacious, upbeat tunes.
Songs about life, love, friendship and spirituality are executed with musical precision, distinguished by top-notch production values and Cheryl's powerful voice.
Cheryl's vocal range, strength, and clarity are simply astounding! The title cut, "Wonderful," easily deserves to be a number- one smash hit.
It's a love song, it's a song about spirituality.
It's an inspirational song that, when you listen to it after a rough day at the "office," seems to make all of your stress and woes dissipate.
The first cut on the album titled "I Wonder" is about losing touch with special people from the past.
Many of us become so wrapped up in our busy "daily" lives that we are no longer able to maintain a relationship with those who have meant so much to us in the past.
Yet, often we wonder how our past friends are doing and if they think of us, too.
The last song "I'm Not Letting Go" is yet another opportunity for Cheryl to display her musical talents.
Her voice is delicate, yet so powerful.
The song employs some beautifully, intelligently placed strings accompanied by a sweet piano melody.
Six more songs are just as beautiful as these three.
If you pass on this CD because you are under the impression that it's just for country music lovers, you'll be missing a real treat.
It's that "wonderful"!
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August 15, 2000
Listening to your album was a pleasure from beginning to end! You have a great and warm voice, show a good hand at songwriting, and the production is strong and clean.
If you're not a big star yet, here are some songs that should help; they are clear indications that you will become a major player...I will be playing the following songs on my show: I Wonder, Diamonds and Pearls, Wonderful and the beautiful and terribly catchy "Don't You Want Me Now"...
... Thanks for your time, help and support and keep making good country music!
Raúl J.Tejeiro, DJ
Cabildo Mas FM 106.7
Top Country Music
Uruguay, South America.
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Artist Bio:
"I've been looking through my old photographs
Seeing you again brings back memories of the past
Our Battles great and small, they're all silent now
Things we worried about don't seem so important somehow."
"I Wonder" by Cheryl Cormier and Jeff Batter
You might say Cheryl Cormier Batter has spent her whole life preparing for this moment. For as long as she can remember, she's been singing.
As kids, Cheryl and her three sisters formed their own band, a group her father called the "Lemon Sisters". Cheryl, of course, was the lead singer, using an ashtray for a tambourine. Music was in her blood, but it took a long time for her to discover that her blood pumped faster singing country.
She grew up in Van Buren, Maine, "potato-pickin' country... I've picked my share," she says. In high school, she played the trumpet in the band. But trumpet wasn't really her thing, although she played it for seven years. Her love of music, all kinds, continued into college. But the University of Maine, in Orono, while close to her family, wasn't the place to study music. "I asked for an audition with the school's music department," she says. "One of the teachers at the time looked at me and said, 'There is nothing we can do for you here.' I guess that was the moment the gong would sound, had there been one. Then he said, "you need to go to a professional music school..
a really good one." Her talent would drive her, but there were a few detours on the road before she found the way home.
Cheryl picked the Hartt School of Music in Connecticut, because she had family in the area, and a private music school seemed a long way from her roots in rural Maine.
But while she developed a love of classical music and opera, singing opera didn't stir her soul. Neither did her first band, The Commuters.
Playing bubblegum pop and new wave, ducking beer bottles tossed from the audience (a sign of enthusiasm in those post-punk days) wasn't exactly what she had in mind.
She went to Los Angeles and recorded a few songs for Screen Gem Studios. The experience was wonderful, but again, she felt there was something missing. It was when she started listening to the likes of kd Lang, K.T. Oslin and Bonnie Raitt that she began to realize that country music was the music that spoke to her soul. "Country was expanding so much at the time and including so many styles of music for me, that was the clincher," she says. "I felt my singing and writing style were much more at home. It was like finally fitting pieces of a jigsaw puzzle together." She was right.
She's shared the stage with some of country music's biggest names. Opening for Willie Nelson in 1993 was her first big gig, and when she sang her rendition of Roy Orbison's "Cryin'", she brought the audience to its feet.
She's been doing that ever since, paying her dues in local country bars, playing all the music festivals and country fairs up and down the East Coast, opening up for Patty Loveless, Ricky Van Shelton, Brooks & Dunn, Alabama, Pam Tillis,Vince Gill, and many others.
Her hard work has paid off.
On stage, Cheryl is a consumate professional, but she never loses that all important contact with the audience. She performs to each person, making that connection that has everyone feeling she's singing directly to them, whether it's a few hundred people at a local country bar or 25,000 at a music festival.
And now she's no longer just singing other people's songs.
She's singing her own. The words written straight from her heart and paired with music written by her partner in life and music, Jeff Batter. Their songs stick with the listener long after the last note has faded.
Cheryl Cormier's first CD was released in December of 1999, and has been eagerly anticipated by her many fans.
Her music has long attracted the attention of WWYZ-92.5 FM, one of the nation's most prominent country radio stations, which does not normally play unsigned artists, but has made an occasional exception for Cheryl.
It's a tribute to the strength of her talent as both a singer and a writer...and her big break has been a long time coming...
Cheryl and her husband Jeff are currently working on their second album, a Christian Music project. They are most active in their parish, Sacred Heart Church, where Cheryl is a cantor and Jeff is an organist. Their next album is sure to contain some of today's finest praise and worship songs. We will all just have to wait a bit to be inspired...
TO BE CONTINUED... ---- by Jayne Keedle with Cheryl Batter
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