2020-10-06

Marcella Simien

Marcella Simien (Memphis, Tennessee)

Born into one of the first Creole families to settle in St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, Marcella René Simien took her South Louisiana heritage to Memphis, Tennessee, where she is based. Daughter of two-time Grammy Award-winning zydeco artist Terrance Simien, Marcella grew up immersed in sound and performance. A graduate of the prestigious Memphis College of Art, Simien is now the front woman for her band, Marcella and Her Lovers. Her music is a hybrid of classic Memphis soul and New Orleans funk performed with the help of Creole accordion. As one of only 500 artists in America nominated for a prestigious USA Artists Fellowship, in 2016 Marcella and Her Lovers were also featured on the nationally syndicated radio program Beale Street Caravan. She has been a featured performer on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise alongside greats such as Marcia Ball, Allen Toussaint, and Irma Thomas. She sang lead vocals on a track off her father’s album Dockside Sessions, which won a Grammy for Best Regional Roots Album of the Year (2014). Simien’s first full-length album, Got You Found, with Marcella and Her Lovers, was engineered and co-produced at American Recording Studio by Pete Matthews and Toby Vest.

Interviewed by Holly Hobbs, 10/06/2020.

Holly Hobbs

Music; United States; Covid-19 Pandemic

Memphis, Tennessee

Musicians in America during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Society for Ethnomusicology