New Orleans-inspired local singer and guitarist Nikki Calloway will play a set at MetroWines on Friday, July 24, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., to accompany a beer and wine tasting. The event is free. Free parking is available at the shop at 169 Charlotte Street.
Visit metrowinesasheville.com for more information.
Here is a video of Calloway performing a song called “Wake Me” outside last year:
More about the artist from her website:
Nikki Calloway is a new Asheville, NC artist by way of New Orleans, by way of Atlanta, by way of S. Carolina, Ohio, Germany…. She is a musician, healer, teacher who finds herself guided by Spirit to move around like a minstrel to express what is in her heart, and to inspire others to do the same. A licensed counselor, Nikki has found music to be the path to Peace for many and believes pursuing her musical calling to be an even more important part of her life’s work. Nikki describes herself as “so many things when it comes to ethnicity” and influences. Her original influences in her youth were all R&B but a little later on in life, when friends introduced her to folk music, Nikki was inspired to break her boundaries and to “develop and go beyond what I had been taught I should be.” Her musicianship grew when she began honoring everything that she was interested in and capable of doing. When Nikki really started exploring who she is and what she can do as an artist, she found herself to be “a folk/R&B/acoustic singer/songwriter with a sultry jazz flavor in there.” She credits the Indigo Girls as her biggest inspirations and guides because their music “speaks of compassion and gratitude, and social justice,” all very important themes for Nikki as well.
Nikki began developing a spiritual relationship with music in her youth through her love of spirituals, through practicing prayer and meditation with both sounds and silence, and through learning how to retreat from a world of chaos into one of harmony, and “in between time” when she needed to. But it was three years ago in Atlanta that she really began discovering her role as a musician when asking herself the question, “What do I want to do with my Life?” led her to Law of Attraction classes that helped illuminate the next clues.
All signs pointed her to New Orleans, where Nikki soon moved to “develop her heart and her craft.” It was when she first got to New Orleans that she had a spiritual awakening that it was time to take everything she had learned and apply it to her music and her counseling to create the life she wanted and help guide others to create the lives they want. To Nikki, “ New Orleans became my canvas and the people my muses.” Songs that she had started writing but didn’t work in Atlanta, came together for the first time in New Orleans. Something indescribable about post Katrina New Orleans helped these songs and others come to fruition in “Easy Come, Easy Go, the NOLA Project.” Nikki hopes that her creation on this canvas of New Orleans is “empowering to others to reach their goals and dreams. That it helps people work on whatever they need to work on.”
Just where this artist/musician/healer/teacher/minstrel goes next only Spirit knows. But wherever it is, she will be settling into her life’s role as musical messenger, here to remind us through her art and her example, that we all deserve to heal from our pain and to recognize and create the lives we want to live.
Artist bio written by Natalie Toth
Oooh yes…Nikki Calloway!!
Thank you Rachel!