Gina Sicilia

Philadelphia-based vocalist and songwriter Gina Sicilia has performed and composed blues material ever since her teenage years. Her parents first introduced her to blues and roots sounds, prompting her to begin composing original pieces at age twelve. Several of those early compositions later appeared on her initial album. In 2007 she earned a journalism degree from Temple University. While still a sophomore there, she started frequenting the weekly blues sessions at Warmdaddy’s in Philadelphia. Those nights sharpened her skills as she collaborated with veteran players, a number of whom later contributed to her earliest demo recordings.

When her debut album Allow Me to Confess appeared in 2007, reviewers responded favorably, hailing her as a significant new blues talent whose mature perspective showed in her selections of underappreciated rhythm-and-blues material. That spring the recording received a nomination for Best New Artist Debut at the W.C. Handy/Blues Music Awards in Memphis.

Her follow-up, Hey Sugar, demonstrated that even in her early twenties she could deliver alternative-country and Americana songs with equal skill and confidence. The powerful third album, Can’t Control Myself, reached stores in March 2011 only days before she turned twenty-six. On that release she broadened her approach by blending classic blues, classic R&B, soul, and Americana, incorporating three well-known covers associated with Bobby “Blue” Bland, Stevie Wonder, and Ike & Tina Turner. VizzTone labelmate Dave Gross, a multi-instrumentalist and singer-songwriter, handled the engineering and production at his northern New Jersey home studios.

Much of the 2013 album It Wasn't Real consisted of original songs, a direction she maintained on the 2014 EP The Alabama Sessions, tracked in Muscle Shoals. In 2016 she moved to Blue Elan Records, which issued the Sunset Avenue EP that August.