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Photograph by Jacqueline Ramseyer
Sweet Voice: Charsette, a former model who enjoys the Campbell scene, is ready to begin a professional music career with a CD and 10 songs. She's busy teaching voice lessons, taking yoga classes and working.
New area singing sensation gets ready to go professional
By Susan Wiedmann
To the public, she is "Charsétte," a musically talented woman who is getting ready to make her mark in music. Her exotic looks fit her name, which is actually her middle name, which her mother created when she was born. Charsétte calls herself a "vocal connoisseur," but when she was growing up in Del Rey Beach, Fla., she was so shy that she was afraid to sing in front of anyone except her family and in church.
"To me music is so personal, and so spiritual because it comes from within," she says. "I think that's why I was always shy. One day I woke up, and I just realized it's a God-given talent. Everybody can't sing."
She began singing in public, first at small functions, and was encouraged when people would mistakenly say, "That was really good lip-synching." Charsétte now has a large archive of songs she's written. Some come into her head as musical tunes, others as prose just waiting for her music. She calls her musical style a mix of R& B, contemporary and standard jazz.
Charsétte currently has a "cover CD," which she uses for marketing purposes, but she is now confident enough of about 10 songs to pursue a record company deal with a professional demo. To that end, she is using the home studio of a local friend to record the songs prior to getting them remastered, or radio-ready, at The Final Mix in Campbell.
"For the most part, it takes just me sitting down and doing it," she says.
That is sometimes hard to do because of her life outside the recording studio. On Jan. 28 she sang at the grand opening of the Leiko Custom Design Studio in Campbell, and she now is discussing possible bookings for upcoming events in the area. On June 28 she will perform at Willow Glen Coffee Roasting Company's "Java 'N' Jazz." Charsétte also gives singing lessons to children and adults. She has taken regular singing and opera lessons in the past and uses that training to teach her students, while continuing to train her own voice.
"You always need to be honing your craft," she explains. "I think it would be kind of weird if I didn't keep it up myself."
She also works part-time as a loan officer, which allows her flexibility in a schedule that increasingly focuses on her music. Her energy comes from an early morning yoga routine and staying away from "wild carbohydrates," she says.
At nearly six feet tall without heels, Charsétte has also had a career as a print and runway model, initially because her father took her to a modeling agency to give her self-confidence as a young teenager. When she was almost through with college, she left to become part of a modeling tour for Ebony Magazine. Along with a dozen other models, she promoted the work of fashion designers all across the country. She even did a few runway shows where, at the request of the producer, she sang on stage in front of nearly 600 people.
Charsétte fell in love with California on one of the tours, and moved to San Francisco in 1992. She also fell in love with and married Tony Powell, an engineer. Today the couple lives in Willow Glen with "Taho," their 125-pound Alaskan malamute.
She says she really wants to push the musical envelope in 2002, both in writing and in recording music. From all appearances, she is ready.
Charsétte can be contacted at Charsette@dellmail.com.
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Campbell, California
