Album Notes

“Girl, you sound like a neat glass of single malt in a world of Michelob Ultra.” Those were the words of Grammy award-winning songwriter Mike Reid (“I Can’t Make You Love Me”) when he heard Kira Small sing. This sultry, soulful siren combines the smoothness of Norah Jones, the rawness of Bonnie Raitt, the hip-ness of Alicia Keys and the flat-out-wailing of Aretha Franklin to her mix of spellbinding original material and R&B classics. While Nashville (her current home base) is most known for country music, there is a deep vein of southern soul and R&B running through it that Kira has tapped into, and it has become her lifeblood. Her latest CD, Love In A Dangerous World, was produced by Bruce Dees (James Brown, Ronnie Milsap) and features numerous Motown and Muscle Shoals R&B veterans. How does this white chick from Wisconsin sound like anything but a white chick from Wisconsin? Who knows, who cares…it’s working. Maybe it was the gospel, jazz and R&B she discovered in high school. Maybe it was Berklee College of Music's many and varied influences. Maybe it was her years of soaking up soulfulness in Austin, TX. Maybe it was the position of the moon and stars at the precise moment of her birth. Whatever it was, this is an old soul speaking through a vibrant and powerful new voice. Kira has followed her muse to many musical and geographical destinations. She sang and danced in production shows in San Antonio, witnessed Mardi Gras from behind the piano at Pat O’Brien’s, became a fixture in the Austin music scene, returned to Boston as a member of Berklee’s voice faculty in 1999, and finally (for now) landed in Nashville in 2001 where she has worked with Wynonna Judd, Martina McBride, Gretchen Wilson, Radney Foster, Alan Jackson, Ray Stevens, the Jordanaires, Jimmy Hall, Wayne Jackson of the Memphis Horns, and the Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section, among others. **************** PRESS ***************** "Nashville-based Kira Small has just released Love In A Dangerous World, and our guess is that it won't be long before the world, dangerous or otherwise, takes notice. The title track kicks things off with a laid-back Latin-flavored groove. Things get funkier with "Not Me Without You," a mid-tempo piece in which Small channels the Queen of Soul herself. "Miss You Bad Tonight" practically drips with longing, while the forbidden affair in "Not Supposed To Love You" makes being bad sound oh so good. Small will woo your ears with stratospheric vocal runs and then dive down to sexy, Earth-mama lows. She may be loving in a dangerous world, but she's certainly giving it a seductive soundtrack." - Mare Wakefield, PERFORMING SONGWRITER "Kira Small is a songstress able to transcend her Midwestern upbringing into a sound that is multidimensional and timeless...hers is a voice that gently and at times spiritually strokes the senses like the hairs on a feather, but can still whollop you like a Rocky Balboa knock-out punch. She jokes that she doesn’t sound like a regular white chick from Milwaukee, and she is dead-on...that girl can 'sang.'" - Yolanda D. White, SHEPHERD EXPRESS (Milwaukee, WI)