For singer-songwriter Bella Canzano, singing was a part of her life from her very first baby coo.
Her father played a huge role in forming her love of music. Under his encouragement, she learned to play the piano and later the guitar, and she would play gigs with him. As a young teenager, she began to write her own music as a way to work through life’s challenges.
Canzano joined The Show for a Tiny Desert Concert out at South Mountain Park. She discussed how the act of creating music is a very cathartic experience.
Full conversation
BELLA CANZANO: Art is a way you can work through unresolved trauma. So for me, that's what music is.
STEVE GOLDSTEIN: The resolve part sounds good. I know you've actually found resolution through that.
CANZANO: I think so. I think because music is a story, just like any type of art that people connect to. So for me it's really important that my story is told but also heard and also taken. And the listeners' point of view.
So I feel that for me, it resolves things for me when I get to release something and someone says, that really reminded me of this experience that I had or whatever it is, that is the way that I create connection with people. So that means a lot to me.
GOLDSTEIN: It's interesting about the musical family aspect of it because I think that inspires a lot of people, but did it feel right to you or did it feel like, OK, there's a little arm twisting? How did you know it felt right?
CANZANO: You know, that's really funny that you say that because there was definitely a little arm twisting when I was young. I remember we had this really old Kimble piano. It was always out of tune and it did not sound good, and it was in this dingy basement, and I grew up in Michigan, so we have basements there.
And I was, I don't wanna say forced but very heavily pressured to practice a lot and be down there, and it was, it was definitely times where I didn't enjoy it, and so I took a long break, but I always found myself going back to it because It's like my language, you know, I was even as a very small child playing in bars with my dad, singing with my dad, so they would know him and they would let me come and sing “Frosty the Snowman” or whatever with him. And so ever since those small experiences, I've learned to connect with people through music. So that is why I always come back to it.
GOLDSTEIN: Now some of your songs are actually directly inspired by your family, yes, and one of them we had a chance to hear, but I want to talk about a couple of those.
CANZANO: So my EP “Love Puddle” is called “Love Puddle” because it's about the different types of love you have in your life. I played “Oh Susanna,” which is about my sister, and she actually has no idea that that song is about her. I've never told her.
We've had, we're very close in age, and we have dealt together with a lot of familial issues. So that song is about how much I love her and that type of connection that you have with a sister or sibling.
GOLDSTEIN: OK, Bella, now what song are you going to play for us now?
CANZANO: I'm going to play “Oh Susannah” from my EP “Love Puddle.”
[PERFORMANCE]
GOLDSTEIN: I mean this in a very positive way. The lyrics are simple, but they're so intimate and loving. You really pick up on that. Does that affect how you sing it, too?
CANZANO: I think so, yeah, I do. There's a couple of parts that are very emotional for me and so sometimes my voice is a little shakier. I find that it's harder for me to sing it, or I might put more power into it to really get that sound across.
GOLDSTEIN: I wanted to ask you about the cover art, the album art of “Love Puddle,” which is really cool, has a couple of bees and what are they doing? Describe it.
CANZANO: So the art was done by someone named Hilary Butterworth. I went to high school with her in Michigan, and she's just a brilliant artist. But she had listened to my music and she kind of absorbed the idea that I had, which was these are different forms of love that we all experience in life, as a daughter, as a lover, whatever that may be.
So the album cover has two bees essentially stuck in their own honey. So they're almost drowning in their own love and they're stuck in that. And when she had shown that to me, I was just blown away because I feel very much, not bogged down, but encapsulated by the love that I have for the people in my life. And, she really was able to show that in the album.
GOLDSTEIN: If I may, I want to ask about your background in terms of your folks come from different backgrounds. But as far as that goes, how did that inspire you or affect your music?
CANZANO: It does affect me greatly because my mother is actually an immigrant from Peru, and so I've grown up listening to all types of Latin music, which is really where I feel very comfortable. I love it.
And my dad is Italian. He's also an Italian immigrant. His whole side of the family is, but growing up in the U.S. in the time of classic rock, and we lived in Detroit, so there's the Motown influence for sure. And then on top of that, like, he's a, he's also a jazz musician. He plays trumpet and I got influenced from his background as an American first generation immigrant with some of that assimilation.
And then from my mother, who has always shown me the music that she listened to as a child and what she grew up with, it's both of those things do influence me for sure.
GOLDSTEIN: So Bella, take us out on a song.
CANZANO: We're gonna play “Not in Love.”
If you’re in a band or know of one you’d like to hear on air, send us a note at [email protected].
→ Hear More Tiny Desert Concerts
