If a pop singer was ever gutsy and gusty at the same time it is Carrie Manolakos. She can belt out long notes and switch in a nanosecond to a tone that ends with a breathy whisper—or vice versa.
The twenty-something musical actress is doing something else gutsy in striking out on her own as a singer/songwriter following two national theatrical tours, one as bride-to-be Sophie in Mamma Mia! and the other as Elphaba in the second national tour of Wicked. Her cover of the Radiohead song “Creep” jettisoned her into an Internet sensation with 1.5 million hits on YouTube since last year when her friends persuaded her to upload it. It was no surprise that she saved her powerful rendition as the encore.
Manolakos’s debut album Echo came out in April. She played a rolling piano introduction to the title song , singing, “I want to wake when I’m done sleeping / give up the chase of whatever I’m trying to be… I wanna go to a place where the echo can ring out…”
The echo definitely rang out at Signature Theatre Saturday night with her renditions of “Just Be,” “The Best One,” “Red,” “Got to Go,” “The Nothing,” “Still,” “Stranger,” “Last Video Store,” “Good Love,” and Leonard Cohen’s popular “Hallelujah.” The strength of her naturally gifted and seriously trained vocals (at Tisch School of the Arts at New York University) were matched by the band, with Sergio Ortega on guitar, Adam Jackson on drums, and Julian Pollack on synthesizer/keyboards.
With Manolakos in the lead, they really rocked her new song, “Little Warrior,” which should go straight up the charts in my opinion. With the dobro-sounding guitar and church organ-sounding synthesizer, it could even be the country charts, especially considering that she writes about love, relationships, goodbyes, loneliness, and the search for self. One member of the audience called it “the musical equivalent of the TV show Friends.”
Running Time: One hour, with no intermission.
Carrie Manolakos played on August 10, 2013 as part of Signature’s Sizzlin’ Summer Cabarets – 4200 Campbell Avenue, in Arlington, VA. For future Sizzlin’ Summer Cabaret tickets, call the box office at (703) 820-9771, or purchase them online.
LINK:
Carrie Manolakos’ website.
https://youtu.be/Rvl-9H2ppJo
