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Addie’s

gift

Shelbyville girl

goes for a life

in music

t’s surprising that 17-year-old Addie Upfold is able to make it through kinda got me started. He showed me a couple of chords if I needed help
school days at Central High School in Shelbyville. Presumably there is but for the most part I taught myself.”
Ino music playing in the classrooms and Upfold is adamant about her Uphold decided to make a go of music at age 12, but she held off
music. from performing in public until her freshman year of high school, two
“If I get in my car and I’m not playing music, I can’t drive,” she years ago.
said. “I listen all the time. I always have a pair of headphones on. When “It really hit me hard this year,” she said. “I’m about to be an adult
I’m bored at home in my room I’ve got a keyboard and a guitar and a and that’s kinda scary. It hit me that you are more marketable when
ukulele.” you’re young. I’m just trying to get out there and do what I love doing for
Upfold had just completed a set at the Wartrace Music Fest on June 2 a living. That’s the most important thing, to love what you do.
when she took a few minutes to talk about her music. “My main goal is to be happy with what I do and even if I’m not uber-
“I think this is the first interview I’ve ever done,” she said, “but I’m famous that’s totally fine.”
always practicing in the shower.” Upfold is willing to live without fame but she’s going to make the
She categorizes her genre as “acoustic rhythm and blues” and it’s effort to attain success. “I’m definitely going to shoot for it and work as
folded in with influences from folk and Indie. At least that’s how she hard as I can,” she said. “I want to take care of my mom and my stepdad
described it in the Wartrace festival program. and my brothers so they don’t have to do anything.”
Her vocals are pure, with a touch of Indie angst and country twang When asked what role music plays in her life – Therapy? Addiction?
layered on the Mississippi blues of singers like Lucille Bogan (aka Bessie Expression of joy? – Upfold did not hesitate to answer. “It’s everything,”
Jackson). she said. “I like music in the background of everything, all the time. It’s
Upfold’s guitar skills are emerging: her left hand is finding some comfortable for me; that’s how I grew up, blasting jazz or blues through
unusual harmonic chords; her right hand – her strumming hand – is still my house. Listening to my dad rehearse. It’s always been around me.”
a little tentative. Upfold conveys authenticity when she performs. With some
However you want to classify her music, Upfold is fun to listen to. A musicians, especially younger ones, the performance seems contrived.
lot of joyous, authentic music comes from this young person. Not so with Upfold, she seems to be fully engaged with the emotional
Music is art, and free association is a fair way to appreciate it. “Soft content of her songs. “Sometimes you get separated from it when you’re
as a breeze – easy as an old swing,” are the phrases that emerged trying to remember the lyrics or get the chords right,” she said, “but
spontaneously from the subconscious mind of one listener, through the there’s a moment when you’re singing when you just go on autopilot.”
“intentional and irrational juxtaposition of images.” Upfold has been working on recording and arranging her music with
Addie’s dad, Steve Upfold is a professional guitarist. He makes his local artist Big Smo in his Unionville studio. l Story by Terence Corrigan
living in Nashville. “He’s an older dude but he’s still got it,” she said. “He

Summer 2018 l Bedford Life 17