MARIA OLIVERO - Singer / Musician
Maria A. Olivero was born May 1983 in Italy. She is an Italian singer/songwriter and also plays acoustic guitar, keyboards, harmonica and dulcimer. She currently plays in the Baton Rouge Band, a polyinstrumental country-pop-rock trio that plays banjo, guitars, dobro, mandolin, fiddle, fisa, keyboards, saxophone, harmonica and dulcimer.
Maria was raised in a small town in Italy, by a family very much interested in music and cinema. Her mother is a pianist and her father is a photographer. This early exposure to the arts provided Maria the opportunity to hear many different artists on the radio. When she first heard Tina Turner sing, she thought: "when I grow into a woman, I'd like to be a rock singer like Tina!" Maria took steps to make this dream a reality when she turned 18 and began entering many music contests. These contests enabled her to meet and collaborate with many Italian artists, singers, writers and musicians.
In 2003, Maria played in a prestigious band that was a tribute to Sandy Denny (singer/songwriter of the classic folk-rock band Fairport Convention).
The year 2005 saw many important milestones for Maria. Early in the year, she performed with a 6 piece blues-rock band called Six Wheel Drive. During her time with Six Wheel Drive, she recorded an unplugged version of the Village People hit "Y.M.C.A.".
Working with Six Wheel Drive also allowed Maria to venture into more styles of music. They performed songs made famous by Sheryl Crow, Joni Mitchell, Bonnie Raitt, Rod Stewart, B.B. King and James Taylor. At this time, Maria also developed a love for the Canadian singers Alanis Morissette and Avril Lavigne, and the punk band Green Day.
Late in 2005, Maria met English writer Matt Lindsay. She considers this a very fortuitous meeting that has enabled her to write music and sing with a renewed inspiration.
In 2006 and 2007, she worked to record over 50 songs of the extensive collection the 2 had written together. One of the songs - "Dreams Behind the Tears" - was chosen by the International Labour Organization (ILO) to represent the spirit against child labor in agriculture.
Maria unveiled the song publicly for the first time at the ILO annual event World Day Against Child Labour on June 12, 2007 at the Olimpic Theatre in Rome. Her voice and acoustic guitar were accompanied by flute and violin to round out the song.
Early in 2009 she met Marco Sasso (vocal, guitars, dobro, banjo, mandolin, fiddle) and Max Bove (vocal, keyboards, fisa, fiddle, saxophone) They formed the Baton Rouge Trio, a polyinstrumental country-pop-rock trio. The style of music played by BATON ROUGE ranges from Bluegrass to Modern Country
while also incorporating Irish folk tunes, traditional Country and Country-Western styles.
They cover songs originally recorded by Garth Brooks, Shania Twain, Sheryl Crow, Vince Gill,
the Dixie Chicks and Ronan Hardyman. Recently, they have played acoustic versions of the
top-selling international hits "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" (by Cyndi Lauper)
and "Thank You" (by Alanis Morrissette)
in addition to songs written by music writer and BATON ROUGE
vocalist Maria Olivero and English lyricist Matthew Lindsay.
Eventually, the band hopes to also complete covers of songs by Chuck Berry,
the Rolling Stones, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Rod Stewart and the Eagles.
The first CD produced by BATON ROUGE contains 12 tracks.
Three of these tracks are written by the songwriting collaboration of Lindsay-Olivero,
in which Maria Olivero writes the music and Matthew Lindsay pens the lyrics.
MATT LINDSAY - Writer
Matthew J. Lindsay was born February 1967 in England. He is a British writer of lyrics, poems, short stories, and various "pieces of thought". Contrary to Maria's background, Matt was not raised with a direct exposure to the arts, but rather acquired it during his adolesence.
Matt's primary interest is arts related to creative writing, but he has also dabbled in more visual arts like painting. His love for self-expression lead him to begin recording some of his written pieces with several friends and acquaintances in the early 1980's. Some of these recordings featured Matt himself ..boards, bongos or the occasional three-string guitar.
In 2005, Matt entered into a collaboration with Italian musician Maria Olivero. The fruitful partnership consists of music written by Maria and lyrics written by Matt. The order of the collaboration varies, with ideas from one inspiring the other and vice-versa. This has enabled Matt to reach further in his writing topics than before, which has resulted in several stunning songs that the pair are very excited about recording professionally.
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