January 2020 Featured Artist
Award-Winning Singer-Songwriter
Monica Pasqual
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Photo Credit: Joshua McClain
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Perhaps best known for her work in the Bay Area "super-group" Blame Sally, of whom rock critic Joel Selvin wrote: “…one of the most powerful word-of-mouth success stories I’ve heard in recent years,” Monica Pasqual has managed to maintain an impressive solo career both before and during the Blame Sally years.
Already the winner of six Independent Music Awards (IMAs) and six Emmy Awards, she took home three more IMAs with songs from her new album release and sixth solo effort, "You Can't Kill Light." In 2017, the new album’s title song and video, “You Can’t Kill Light,” garnered her radio play and views across the U.S. and was performed live by Pasqual at both the 2018 and the 2019 Bay Area Women's Marches as well as throughout Germany, where she toured in the spring of 2017 with cellist Joshua McClain. After taking time off to co-write and produce two award-winning CDs for children's music artist Sara Lovell and to record her own new album, Monica is touring again to promote and share her new solo work. Her songs have been used on numerous network television shows, and she has composed soundtracks for PBS, The History Channel and National Geographic TV. Pasqual's "Bird in Hand" was named the 3rd most popular song of the year by Folk Radio DJ Chart. You can watch Pasqual's other band, Blame Sally, light up the stage in an hour-long special on PBS's nationally-distributed program "Music Gone Public" on PBS.org. |
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"Feels Like Something" garnered a 2019 Independent Music Award
for Best Americana Song. |
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We asked Monica: Was it difficult transitioning from a member of a successful band to a solo career? Is the process different in any way?
Contrary to popular belief, I never stopped playing with Blame Sally, and I actually never stopped recording my solo music. Blame Sally doesn’t tour outside of California anymore, but we still perform quite regularly. A big difference has been with recording schedules. Blame Sally hasn’t recorded any albums since 2012. Since 2016, I’ve released two solo albums (my 5th and 6th), and I also co-wrote and produced three children’s music albums for singer-songwriter Sara Lovell. I get to express different sides of myself as a “solo” artist. I have more creative control when I’m making my own records, and I don’t worry about whether it fits in with the band - if I want to do it, I do it! That being said, Blame Sally has been an incredibly inspiring and fluid outlet. We all learn so much from each other and have enormous respect for the different perspectives we bring. I think my solo work is probably more introspective and perhaps a little more melancholy. I bring a lot of my early classical music influence to it as well as a kind of European sensibility. |
Monica talks about her journey, her illness
and what the songwriting process means to her personally. |
Click Album Cover for a List of Songs & Lyrics
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"Like Joni Mitchell and Rickie Lee Jones, San Francisco's own Monica Pasqual proves that strong songwriting and stirring singing will take command of just about any stylistic setting." ~ Derk Richardson, SF Bay Guardian "Pasqual is a very special artist, exploring love, loss and life in profoundly moving ways. To know her music is to love it. Far more people should get to know it." ~ Paul Freeman, Pop Culture Classics |
Photo Credit: Andrea Scher
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Upcoming Performances
with Blame Sally: February 1, 2020 Hopmonk Tavern Novato, CA May 9, 2020 Sabastiani Theater Sonoma, CA (not listed yet) |
