Warm and soothing like the lazy after glow of summer. Bluesy and
poignant, fore warning the painful chill of winter. Autumn, the season.
Autumn, the artist.

The perfect moniker for a singer/songwriter whose soulful expression
embodies the full gamut of the constantly changing elements around us.

A vivacious caramel skinned, golden haired beauty, 23 year old Autumn’s
debut album, “Love Child” is as striking musically as the artist is
visually, spanning the gamut of live musicianship, from
classic/neo-soul/jazz-funk to folk inflected pop and alternative. Its
diverse grooves, stunning melodies and overall musicianship provide a
vibrant, compelling backdrop over which Autumn weaves her vivid urban
songbook. A deeply personal collection of songs, “Love Child” is a
musical treasure trove packed full of raw emotions: joy, pain,
heartbreak, confusion, ecstasy, love and betrayal. The stories and deep
soul held there in are culled from the colorful and fractured past that
make up this talented artist’s life.

Sheltered from the rough and tumble neighborhood of her native South
Bronx, by her family's nurturing musical influence, Autumn's, earliest
memories are of a small apartment where sounds, rhythm and soul
literally bounced off the walls day and night.

"My dad played the piano and I tried to play, too when I was about 3.
But what I really remember was standing on a milk crate in the middle
of the room, singing for the family while he played" remembers Autumn.

"Also my grandmother who I lived with until I was 4 was a gospel
singer. She sang in the Cotton Club with Nat King Cole. She was a truly
amazing singer. My dad also played the flute and my mom played the
guitar, so I think music just seeped into me by osmosis!"

However, even at such an early age, unbeknownst to Autumn, her fragile
world had already begun to unravel. The bottom line is this: Autumn’s
mother is Jewish, her father is black. The relationship caused Autumn’s
mother’s family to disown her. When the marriage eventually collapsed
because of her father’s drug problems, Autumn’s mother found herself as
a poor Jewish single parent living in a South Bronx tenement building
with a biracial daughter to support and no family or close friends to
help her make it through.

A whirlpool of conflicting emotions spun around Autumn even in her
formative years: abandonment, the need of a father figure and not
belonging. However, overpowering those were the unbreakable bond she
shared with her mother, her strong sense of self and an almost
spiritual devotion to music.

Selected for the gifted student program at the S. Bronx's Elijah D.
Clarke school, Autumn, excelled in creative writing in the class room.
Out of it, she excelled in soaking up the smorgasbord of musical
delights her mother steeped upon her.

"My mom was heavily in to Stevie Wonder, Carol King, Aretha. All the
good stuff. It's funny because I wouldn't listen to the current songs
on the radio. As for MTV forget it. That didn't exist in the ghetto! At
least not when I was growing up, so all I heard was my mom's records
and these great singers and songs."

Out of the house Autumn's musical education continued unabated as she
sang with a slew of top rung gospel choirs in the New York area. It all
contributed to mould the emotive, soulful instrument that is her voice.
Her alto, warm and thick like molasses, her soprano, fluid and agile
like a hawk on a cushion of air.

With a rare ability that allows her to sail effortlessly between
octaves, her tone, inviting and expressive, makes believers out of
cynics.

As a member of the NYCHA choir, Autumn performed the British Rock
Symphony with the Who’s Roger Daltry, Phoebe Snow and Peter Frampton
and Radio City Music Hall and the Beacon Theater. Her backing band for
the shows were the famed Ray Chew and The Crew. Her solo was Lisa
Lisa’s “All Cried Out”. Ironically, Autumn would end up writing songs
for her five years later, while doing session work for dance music
producers.

Enmeshed in the constant flurry of activity that is the New York
session scene, Autumn met and befriended DC musician/producer Tyrone
Johnson. The two additionally taught an after school program near
Ground Zero. In between classes they started writing songs and formed a
band with a tight knit crew of talented downtown musicians, becoming a
regular fixture in the city’s highly competitive live R&B music scene.

“I had a very distinct vision of how the music we wrote should sound”
says Autumn, in soft, laid back tones. “I knew that I couldn’t do a
bunch of demos and simply present them to a major record company only
for them to say, ‘well you need to sound like Beyonce or Ciara or
whoever happens to be hot at the moment and we need you to work with
this name producer or that name producer’. That would have totally
killed the vision I had artistically for myself. I knew I had to
finance recording my own album. The only problem was, in order to do it
right in the proper studios with the right producer and mix engineer
would cost a lot of money. Money I didn’t have! I guess that’s where
fate stepped in.”

In a plot twist worthy of a fiction bestseller, Autumn’s estranged
(Jewish) grandmother, now seriously ill had made an attempt to heal old
wounds with her daughter (Autumn’s mother) and as the slow, painful
process of forgiveness began, Autumn became aware of a family she had
never known. Upon her grandmother’s passing Autumn’s mother found
herself with an inheritance. It was part of that which financed “Love
Child”, which was produced by noted neo-soul producer, Scott Jacoby and
mixed by the veteran Grammy winning engineer, Dave Darlington (Whitney
Houston, Patti LaBelle, Wayne Shorter, Masters At Work).

“I guess “Love Child” in part represents our mutual acceptance and
forgiveness of one another” says Autumn referring to her grandmother.”
Her passing has allowed my music and career the chance to live. In many
ways I myself am a love child and also this album is a love child, the
love between family.”

As for the music itself, as with the artist, it’s undeniable. From the
infectious jazz-funk of melodic dance floor gems such as the go-go
laced “You Don’t Know”, the Chicago stepper inspired “Sunshine” and
“Backseat’ to the neo-soul of “”You Loved Me”, “A Song For You” and
rock/alternative vibe of the socially conscious “Hey Sir” and quite
brilliant “Video Star”. Throw in the melancholy folky soul of “Desert
Highway” and the innovative take on Carol King’s “You’ve Got A Friend”
and it’s not hyperbole to suggest that “Love Child” is an instant
classic.

Says Autumn: “I believe that if I'm staying true to who I am, being the
best singer and songwriter I can, then the rest, whatever that may be,
will fall in to place. I put my heart and soul into “Love Child” and I
believe in the lasting power of great music. Trends, and fashions in
music tend to change like the weather."

And rest assured, like the season after which she's named, Autumn, is
destined to stick around.