Christine Marie: Press

Your profile is adorable! Good luck w/ your music!

Besides being compared to Kelly Clarkson (wow!), Mr. Bradford states Christine "...certainly has the pipes to validate her solo status, and her music feels more honest than other squeaky clean starlets.  The beautiful pedal steel doesn't hurt either."

Watched you perform live in San Francisco a short time back.  You sounded great and I look forward to the day a label picks you up with a recording contract so that the rest of the world can hear you too!

W. Steven Martin
CMA Personality of the Year, and member of the Broadcasters Hall of Fame

Christine Marie is on her way to becoming a country star...with brains, talent and a voice that will surely rock the radio.

Thank YOU both for all of your assistance and cooperation.   Christa Fletcher, [Program Director], tells me it was wonderful speaking with you! We wish nothing but the best to you in your continued success, and hope that Channel One will continue to help and bring attention to such a great young talent.  Please keep in touch and let us know when a full length album is in the works!

Christine Marie is a California girl with southern intentions.  A singer/songwriter not yet out of her teens, Christine Marie is already a member of the Nashville Songwriters Association International and BMI, and is planning to move to Nashville as she starts college in 2011.  In 2009, Christine Marie released her self-titled debut EP, a 3-song collection of pop country inspired by the likes of Garth Brooks, Leanne Rimes and Keith Urban. 
Christine Marie opens with delicious pop/country of "Boy Behind The Radio", tracking the dreams of a young girl with a crush on a singer making her own dreams come true by becoming the girl behind the radio and someday meeting the voice.  Incredibly catchy, Christine Marie works the song for all its worth.  The song is universally appealing as there isn't a person out there who hasn't entertained a similar dream at least once in their life.  "Let's Do Somethin' About It" comes from the same country/pop lineage.  Christine Marie offers up a dynamic vocal performance, singing lead and harmony vocals on the EP.  There's a bit of a Jackson Browne-meets-Shania Twain aesthetic here that's hard to ignore.  Christine Marie closes with "It Starts Today", a musical resolution to go out and grab life by the horns and take what the world has to offer.  Once again a highly catchy turn, all the more appealing as the song (and the rest of the EP) hasn't been glossed over with the sort of high production values that steal life from the music. 
There's so much to consider in thoughts of who will "make it" and who will not.  Who you know and luck are big components of bridging the gap between being great and being famous, and such things cannot be predicted.  From a talent standpoint, from voice to sound to affability, Christine Marie displays the tools it takes to become a household name.  The songs offers on Christine Marie are catchy and accessible, with the sort of energy that tends to light up the request lines at country radio.  It might not happen right now, but don't be surprised if Christine Marie makes it big someday.
Rating: 4 Stars (Out of 5)

Christine Marie, 16, is an up-and-coming country singer who hopes to one day make it as a country music star.  She recently released a three song country music EP, “Christine Marie,” that she recorded in Nashville, Tenn. 

 Marie left her hometown of San Diego, Calif., and flew to Nashville to work with producer Jimi Whitelaw, who owns and operates Studio 515 on Music Row.  Whitelaw’s biggest client is Jeffrey Steele, a country singer and songwriter.  Steele has written numerous number one hits for artists like Rascal Flatts, LeAnn Rimes, Tim McGraw, Faith Hill, Billy Ray Cyrus and Miley Cyrus.  Marie and Whitelaw recorded three original songs together during one eight hour recording session.  She recorded them under her stage name, Christine Marie.

             “Recording in Nashville was a dream come true,” said Marie.  “Country music has always been a big part of who I am. Being in Nashville really felt like being home.”

 She says that recording in a professional studio like Studio 515 was an eye opening experience and it showed her how things are really done in the music industry.  Marie was impressed with how quickly her studio musicians picked up her music.  Her band consisted of six or seven studio musicians who had experience playing with stars like Taylor Swift, Keith Urban, LeAnn Womack and Dolly Parton.

 “Boy Behind the Radio” is the first track and single off “Christine Marie” and it is about a girl with a crush on a pop star.  Marie sounds similar to country star Taylor Swift as she sings the chorus over the catchy pop-country background music.

             “Wait in line ten hours for tickets to see your show,” sings Marie.  “My friends tell me that I’m wishful thinking, but I’m never going to stop believing that some day I’m gonna know the boy behind the radio.”

             The two other tracks are “Lets Do Something About It” and “It Starts Today” and all three songs are available for purchase on iTunes for $2.97 or $0.99 each.

 Marie has been performing ever since she was nine.

 She says one of her favorite performances was at Hollywood’s Best New Talent 2008.  Marie performed the National Anthem at the Kodak Theater in Hollywood, Calif., with two of her closest friends in trio called “Stellar.”  She is going to perform at Hollywood’s Best New Talent 2009, but this time she will be performing solo and singing her single “Boy Behind the Radio.”

 Marie said that the experience was even more special to her because the Academy Awards are held at the Kodak Theater.  The size of the theater itself was enough to take her breathe away.  The history and prestige of the theater had a lasting effect on her. 

             “It was kind of surreal standing on the stage, knowing people like Carrie Underwood, Angelina Jolie, and so many others have had moments of glory standing in that same spot,” said Marie.  “I felt so passionate about music during that experience and I walked off the stage reassured that this is really what I want to do with my life.”

 Her most memorable performance came earlier this month in front of friends and family at a local smoothies and boba café in San Diego called Frubble.  The show was to promote her EP release.

 “I planned, produced, and put on that show on my own, with help from my family and a few friends,” said Marie.  “It was my first “just Christine” show where I called the shots and got to enjoy people being there to see me. I had the greatest time doing that and will never forget the feeling.” 

 Marie has been singing since she was six.  She got the inspiration to sing at the age of five when her parents took her to see a musical production of “The Little Mermaid” at a community theater. 

             “I wanted so badly to be like Ariel who is known for her voice. That was the first time I ever wanted to sing,” said Marie.

             No one else in her family has a good voice, if fact Marie says they all admit they can’t sing.  It was still easy for her to get hooked on country music when she was growing up because it was always playing around her.  She gets her country music love and appreciation from her mom who used to listen to Garth Brooks and LeAnn Rimes.  Brooks is the first country artist she remembers hearing.

 “My mom went to one of his (Brook’s) concerts when she was pregnant with me and I swear that that experience made me a country singer,” said Marie.

             She started getting involved in theater when she was nine and began doing plays and musicals for the Christian Community Theater.  That’s where she met her “big sister” Stephanie Barton, 20,

             “The first show I ever did with her was “Traditions of Christmas” and she sang “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” said Barton.  “She was only nine and I remember thinking how amazing her voice was for such a young girl.”

 Barton and Marie performed together at the Christian Community Theater for five years and acted in plays like “The Secret Garden,” “Traditions of Christmas,” and “Pocahontas.”  Marie played the lead character of Mary in “The Secret Garden.”  Barton says that was Marie’s break-through role as an actor and that she carried the show. 

 Marie’s most embarrassing moment of her young career came during a performance of “The Secret Garden.”  There is a part in the play that calls for her to stage-slap one of her co-stars, where she pretends to slap them and they turn their head away at the right time.  One night the stage-slap went horribly wrong, and then things got worse.

             “One night I fake slapped him and he turned his head the wrong way and it was so obvious to the audience,” said Marie.  “So, instead of just pretending it happened, I yelled, "Next time I slap you, you better turn your face the right way!"  It just slipped out! I was only ten and it was hilarious, everyone was laughing so hard and no one in the cast let me live that down!

             “Christine Marie” grew up thinking that Broadway was the way she wanted to go.  Her love for acting diminished as she grew older because she liked being able to be herself on stage.  She doesn’t act anymore and is only focused on getting her foot into the door in Nashville.

             “The reason I love being a solo artist so much is because I get to be myself on stage,” said Marie.  “I get to write my own music and perform as 'Christine Marie', not a character.”

 She has a strong appreciation and love for country music and she tries to learn from today’s country music’s most successful stars.

 Marie says that she looks up to Carrie Underwood because she feels Underwood has the best voice in country music.  As far as a musician goes, Marie looks up to Swift and it shows in her music. 

 Keith Urban is Marie’s favorite musician.  She thinks his voice is amazing and his stage presence is mind-blowing.  Marie wishes she could one day share the stage with Urban or open for him on tour.

             “Every time I have seen him in concert, I have walked out of the arena thinking, “That was the best concert of my entire life,” said Marie.   “He’s a true musician. His writing has had the biggest influence on my own writing, more than any other artist.”

 Marie’s goal right now is to get a record deal.  She is currently working with producers in San Diego that she writes, records and promotes herself with.  She is still in high school but says that she is planning on attending Belmont University in Nashville to study Commercial Music and Music Business.

             “It would be a dream come true to be signed to a major record label in Nashville,” said Marie.

At least one person thinks that Marie has a chance to make it.

             “She has a really strong drive, she is that one girl that you always knew was going to go far,” said Barton.