R&B singer Shayna Steele and her band open their Montana tour at The Myrna Loy in Helena Thursday, Sept. 22.
It’s been said of Shayna Steele that she “unleashes enough voltage to light up the West End” of London.
Find out Thursday, Sept. 22, as she lets loose on The Myrna Loy stage beginning at 7:30 p.m., making her Montana debut and launching The Myrna Loy’s 2022-23 season. Her Montana tour also takes her to Missoula Sept. 23, Whitefish Sept. 24 and Bozeman Sept. 25.
“I’ll be singing mostly new stuff from an album I have coming out next year,” she said in an interview with The Myrna. “But I always throw in things from past albums … to show the history of where I’ve evolved as a songwriter.”
Her latest songs she wrote during the pandemic and they deal with the human connection between people.
“I’m so grateful to be able to perform in front of an audience again and to use my music to heal.”
“Is this music healing someone?” she asks herself. “Is this music making someone happy? I get on stage to move people, and if someone is moved then I did my job.”
Steele’s been called “an R&B diva,” as well as being pegged a jazz and pseudo-jazz singer, but she calls herself “a soul singer who literally sings from the soul.”
She also sees herself as a multi-genre singer. “I grew up on Motown and rhythm and blues,” but being exposed to jazz in New York City drastically changed her music. So have life experiences – from living through 9/11, to becoming a parent, to experiencing the pandemic.
Her distinctive and powerful voice can be heard singing background for Bette Midler, Rihanna, Moby and Kelly Clarkson. She’s also spent eight years as a Broadway ensemble member in “Rent” and “Hairspray” and sang on several movie soundtracks.
Steele’s third album, “Rise,” climbed to #3 on the U.S. iTunes jazz charts, and Snarky Puppy chose her and her hard-driving song, “Gone Under,” for the band’s Grammy-winning album, Family, Dinner, Volume 1.
Tickets are $25 and available at 15 N. Ewing St. and online. For more information, call 406-443-0287.