Sheryl Hunter

It's a rainy Thursday afternoon and I'm waiting for Susan Angeletti in the Amherst Starbucks. When she arrives she's soaking wet, but grinning from ear to ear. The blues rocker has just left the office of her manager, Katie Wright, where the two were busy mailing off copies of her new CD, Bittersweet, to radio and press across the country.

Angeletti is thrilled that the CD, which was recorded in Nashville with acclaimed producer Tom Hambridge, is finally getting released nationally.

Beyond the release of the new CD, which was two long years in coming, Angeletti's good mood stems from the fact that she is glad to be home. Six months ago, in an effort to broaden her career, she made the decision to move to San Francisco. But after living in the Bay area for a while, a bit of homesickness kicked in and she decided to return to the Valley. She's only been back for a couple of weeks but is ready to rock the Iron Horse with a CD release party for Bittersweet on saturday, Aug. 30, at 7 p.m., and this show is guaranteed to sizzle because the one-and-only Monster Mike Welch will be on hand to handle guitar chores for the evening.

"I'm glad to be home," she said. "I missed my friends, family and my two kitties. Besides, I really love it here. I never meant to stay out in California for long. I guess I thought I'd be there longer than I was, but I always knew I'd be back."

It was her adventurous spirit, as much as her ambition, that motivated the singer to make such a big move in the first place. Angeletti, who has lived in New York and Boston, loves living in new places, but the Valley will always be home. She grew up in Southampton, where she was bitten by the music bug at an early age.

The big-voiced singer started playing the piano and writing her own compositions while in elementary school; later, in high school, she switched to the trumpet. She was playing trumpet with a high school band when she was asked to step in for an ailing singer and discovered a new talent.

"That's when I knew I could sing," she said. "At that point, I lost interest in the trumpet because singing felt even better."

Angeletti didn't just discover that she could sing, but that she was blessed with a full-range powerhouse of a voice that's capable of singing everything from country to rock to soul to the blues.

Her college years were spent in Manhattan, where she studied liberal arts with a concentration in music at the New School for Social Research. It was while living in New York that Angeletti first heard the sounds of Janis Joplin and Etta James. She recalls that hearing those amazing singers caused "all hell to break loose." She was hooked in a big way and immersed herself in the sounds of Muddy Waters, Aretha Franklin, Nina Simone, Otis Redding and others. She even took guitar lessons so she could write her own songs. It was clear that a degree in liberal arts wasn't going to do her a lot of good, because this woman was headed for a career in music.

After college, Angeletti moved back to the Valley where she started fronting her own band, and it didn't take long for her wailing vocals and versatile musical style to get noticed. Local guitarist/songwriter John Sheldon played a major role in her musical development, playing guitar in her band and writing many of the songs and producing her first CD in 1998, Next Year's Model of the Blues, an album that showcased her love of the blues and singers like Joplin.

The disc won local raves and airplay and Angeletti started packing area venues like Silent Cal's and the Bay State. Her big break came in 1999 when she opened for blues legend Johnny Winter at Pearl Street. Her dynamic show won over more than just the audience that night -- Winter's manager, Teddy Slatus, took her on as a client, which led to more shows with Winter.

"In fact, my first trip to San Francisco was when I played the Fillmore with Johnny. I fell in love with the place and I knew I'd be back," Angeletti said.

In the spring of 2001, Angeletti got another nice break when Tom Hambridge agreed to produce her next CD. Hambridge has worked with an array of artists but is best known for producing Susan Tedeschi's Grammy-nominated breakthrough disc, Just Won't Burn. Angeletti worked with Hambridge down in Nashville where they recorded a disc that included some of Angeletti's compositions alongside work by Hambridge, John Sheldon and others.

"The nice thing about this record is that it has more of a diverse sound and it's more of what I've always been like, but it had never been captured on CD before," said Angeletti. "The great thing about working with Tom is he listened to the songs I wrote and heard that my influences go from Bruce Springsteen to Muddy Waters and Etta James, to Waylon Jennings and Johnny Cash."

Hambridge declared the finished product sounded like "Janis Joplin fronting the Rolling Stones." As for Angeletti, she knew she had a polished and professional recording in her hands and she was ready to bring it to an audience. But it wasn't that easy and for various reasons the release of the disc was stalled. This was a source of great frustration, but Angeletti wasn't about to give up on this project.

She released the disc locally under the title, Feel Like Rockin' Tonight in 2002. That appeased her local fan base, which had been clamoring to hear it, but this was a hot rockin' disc that deserved a much wider audience.

Angeletti strived to reach that wider audience and had a chance to do just that when Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson hand-picked her to perform a song with him when he played the Colonial Theater in Keene, N.H., last October. Like so many others, as soon as he heard the way she could tear into a song, Anderson was a fan. After hearing a recording of Angeletti singing her composition, "All Gassed Up," the famed flutist invited her to play the song with him in Keene. It was the hit of the show.

Anderson later posted the song on his Web site, www.jethrotull.com, and allowed Angeletti to release the recording (the CD single can be purchased at the Iron Horse show).

Singing with Anderson provided a nice boost and, more than anything, fueled her determination to get her music out there.

She eventually parted ways with her manager and took matters in her own hands. Hope finally arrived in the form of a radio promoter in San Francisco named Christine Vitale, who heard and loved the album. She urged Angeletti to redo the artwork, change the order of the songs and remix some of the vocals. Angeletti followed her advice and started making some changes on the disc. The singer also needed to make some changes in her life and decided to move out west and try to make a name for herself out there.

In February, during one of the snowiest winters of recent memory, Angeletti quit her day job, sold her car, gave up her apartment in South Deerfield, and left her beloved cats, Otis and Felix, in the care of a friend and left for California.

One of the first things she did when she hit the West Coast was look up Sam Baker, the guitarist from Janis Joplin's original band, Big Brother and the Holding Company. Angeletti had met Baker a couple of years back when he was performing at the Iron Horse with Big Brother. At the time, the two chatted and Baker said if she were ever in San Francisco to look him up. Thanks to famous hippie Wavy Gravy, who provided her with Baker's phone number, she did just that.

"Sam and I spent some time together and he played me some of his songs and I played him some of mine. He told me he'd play at any gigs I had in San Francisco so he played with me at a club called the Biscuit and Blues," said Angeletti. "We had fun. He writes some really good songs and I hope to do a couple of them in the future."

During the period that she worked with Baker, the discussion naturally came about of Angeletti fronting Big Brother and the Holding Company, as the band continues to tour using various vocalists to fill the slot that Janis held so many years ago.

"I was seriously considering singing with Big Brother, but I'm trying hard to do Susan Angeletti music and to have my own style and with Big Brother, even though you come in as your own person, you are still filling someone else's shoes ... someone who had such a big impact."

Missed opportunity? Maybe, maybe not. Either way Angeletti is not the type of person to look back with regrets.

While out west, she played some clubs, made some great connections and sure enjoyed the sunshine. But she was feeling the economic pinch of living in such an expensive part of the country and also the struggle of being one musician in a sea of many. San Francisco had its benefits, but it was clearly time to come home.

"I went there, I made a bit of a dent, and I can go back there and play. I'm really glad I tried but I'm glad to be back home," reflected Angeletti. "I'm feeling like I have a lot of pieces to put together but that will come."

The release of the CD is one of the big pieces that have already come together.

The assembling of the superb band that will accompany her at the Iron Horse is another.

Playing with Angeletti on Saturday will be Doug "Fresh" Morton on bass, Drably Wolf on Hammond B-3 organ and piano, Dave Lincoln on drums, Stuart James on harmonica and the aforementioned Monster Mike Welch on lead guitar.

Welch is a familiar name for blues fans who know him from his work with Susan Tedeschi, James Cotton, Sugar Ray and the Bluetones, as well as his own Monster Mike Welch Band.

This is one singer who knows that making it as a musician is a tough, long haul, yet Angeletti remains optimistic about the future. She feels that, once she gets settled back here in Western Massachusetts, she can really focus on moving her career forward.

"I know I have a lot to do and for now my main focus is on getting Bittersweet heard," she said. "I want to play more. I love it here but I want to hit the road and do it the good old-fashioned way where you go out and kick ass, so people talk about you and come back for more. I've always worked hard but I'm prepared to work even harder to make it really happen.

Tickets for the Aug. 30 show are $10 in advance and $13 at the door. Advance tickets can be purchased at the Northampton Box Office located at Thorne's Marketplace in Northampton or charged by phone at 586-8686. Bittersweet can be purchased at local independent record stores or at www.susanangeletti.com.

This column by Sheryl Hunter was first published in the Greenfield Recorder, Greenfield, Massachusetts, on Thursday, August 28, 2003.

www.susanangeletti.com

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