Rebecca Loebe | |
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Background information | |
Birth name | Rebecca Ann Loebe |
Born | Arlington, Virginia, US |
Genres | Singer-songwriter, indie rock, pop |
Occupation(s) | Singer-songwriter, musician |
Instruments | Vocals, guitar |
Years active | 2004–present |
Associated acts | Raina Rose, Ellis Paul, Nicky Bluhm and The Grahmblers, Steve Poltz, Dan Navarrao, Gregory Alan Isakov, The Civil Wars |
Website | www |
Rebecca Ann Loebe is an American musician, singer-songwriter and guitarist currently living in Austin, Texas. She tours frequently in North America and has also performed in Japan and Europe. She is known for releasing independent albums as well as her performances on the NBC television show The Voice in April 2011. In 2013, Loebe was #9 on Alternate Root magazine's annual listing of the 30 best female singers in America.
Loebe was born in Alexandria, Virginia and moved with her family to Atlanta, Georgia at the age of eight. She performed in public school choruses and musicals and began playing guitar at age 11. In her sophomore year of high school, her father took her to Eddie's Attic in Decatur, Georgia where she began to play at the Monday night open mic. Loebe graduated high school at the age of 16 and was accepted to Berklee College of Music as a vocal principal. She graduated with a degree in Music Production and Engineering.
After college Loebe worked at a recording studio in South Boston, where she began recording demos of her early original songs. In 2004 she released a 10-song collection of these demos under the title Hey, It's a Lonely World and went on her first tour of the east coast of the US. She continued to work as a freelance audio engineer while performing at colleges and coffee shops. In 2007 she wrote and released an acoustic EP entitled The Brooklyn Series. In 2008 Loebe was a finalist in the Grassy Hill New Folk Songwriting Competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival.
Loebe has said in interviews that she worked as an assistant engineer at Gallop Studios in Atlanta in between tour dates for over a year to barter time for the recording of her second full-length album Mystery Prize. In 2009 Loebe was again a finalist in the Grassy Hill New Folk Songwriting Competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival. This time she was chosen as one of the winners by judges Jon Vezner, Amilia K. Spicer, and TR Ritchie. In January 2010 Loebe released Mystery Prize, her second full-length record. The album was produced by Will Robertson and recorded in Atlanta, Georgia at Tree Sound Studios and Gallop Studios, and was funded by donations from fans who pre-ordered the record. The album spent nine weeks in the Top 40 of the Americana Chart.[4] In the summer of 2010 Mystery Prize was released in Europe by Continental Record Services, and spent eight weeks in the Top 10 of the Euro Americana Chart. At the end of the year, Mystery Prize was included on the Americana Music Association's List of the Top 100 Albums of 2010. In the summer of 2010 Loebe performed in the Emerging Artists showcase at the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival in upstate New York. In the fall of 2010 Loebe launched www.rebeccaloebe.net, a website where a live album is released every month to subscribers who choose how much they pay for the service. In February 2011 Loebe released Bees & Zombies, a B-Sides EP including out-takes, early demos and fan remixes of songs from Mystery Prize. A team of young independent film-makers in Atlanta produced a music video to compliment the EP’s zombie-themed single “The Bees.” The video was later screened at the Atlanta Film Festival. Later that spring Loebe was invited to audition for the first season of NBC's "The Voice," where she sang Nirvana's "Come As You Are" in the auditions, making Adam Levine's team and charting on iTunes in The US, Europe and South America. In the Battle rounds, she sang "Creep" against Devon Barley, at which point Barley advanced and Loebe left the show. Her version of “Come As You Are” was included on the Universal-release The Voice: Season 1 Highlights. Hers was the only recording by a non-semifinalist included in the release.