Summer Festival Jazz Concert Series featuring Erika Davies

Join the Library for the 2022 Summer Festival Jazz Concerts. Sponsored by the Friends of the Coronado Library and Hotel Del Coronado, concerts will take place every other Friday from June 3-August 26. Doors will open 15 minutes prior to each performance.

On Friday, July 17, San Diego lounge scenestress Erika Davies will perform jazz standards by the likes of Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald or doing her version of Sinatra or Nat King Cole tunes. She'll also showcase some original compositions in this sure to please concert. She will be accompanied by pianist pianist John Operkuch.

Performer Bio:

Erika Davies was born in Arizona to a military family, her father a career Navy officer and her mother a country singer/guitarist. The first time Davies sang in public was at age 8, appearing on stage with her mom in a Virginia bar. In 1991, her family settled in San Diego, where she has remained (other than a brief stay in Arizona). She first came to local attention singing with former Rugburn Gregory Page, who encouraged her to write songs and strike out on her own as a solo artist.

When she isn't singing, she's busy playing the role of seamstress for Spicy Toast, her clothing company. "Handmade, one of a kind," she explains. "A little one-woman show run out of my home.... I'm responsible for the cutting, sewing, and designing of all my garments. I have been sewing for over six years and work with a Serger sewing machine, plus a conventional stitch machine. "It's quite boring to sew the same thing over and over," she adds. "I do make variations of a design. I currently sell [my work] on eBay."

She says young audiences aren't always receptive to her retro Tin Pan Alley-inspired sound; she recalls "waiting behind stage, witnessing P.O.D., and then stepping out onstage to accompany the glorious Mr. [Gregory] Page in songs reminiscent of 'happier times.' Those P.O.D. fans loved what they were hearing so very much. They threw presents our way -- toilet paper rolls, empty beer bottles, etc. It was nice."

Miss Davies performs original compositions and early-20th-century classics, often accompanied by guitarist John Garner. She has also teamed up with singer Gary Hankins (Scarlet Symphony), with whom she became engaged in early 2011.

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