Evelyn Rubio has drawn attention in the United States playing saxophone with various jazz and blues bands. But she started her career in Mexico as a singer.
“I started my career singing; I have been singing all my life and saxophone came later just for fun,” she said.
On her new CD, she shows off both her saxophone playing and her vocal talents.
Although record labels have shown interest in her, Rubio preferred to produce this CD independently in order to maintain artistic control.
She says going the independent route is demanding and expensive; she has to pay for her own photo sessions and publicity campaigns.
“Before you used to think that somebody is going to discover you. I don’t think it works like that anymore,” she said. “Well, maybe for some people. But right now, you need to do, as an independent artist, a lot of work.”
Part of her promotion effort includes a music video shot by a professional crew in New York that is now drawing viewers online and introducing many of them to her music.
One of her crowd-pleasing new songs is called “Hombres,” Spanish for “men,” and she says she wrote it to counter the many blues songs that portray the male sex in a bad light.
“Most of the blues songs that talk about guys, they talk about the bad stuff, the cheating, the running around, the brawls, blah, blah, blah," she said. "And I really think there are so many good guys out there that they deserve to have a nice song talking about them.”
Evelyn Rubio recorded her songs in Spanish as well as English, producing a separate Spanish-language CD for Hispanics here in the United States as well as Mexico, where she says blues has a small, but growing audience.
“Mexicans like and enjoy jazz and blues…blues is about your soul, about your heart and everybody can relate with that,” she said.
And she hopes her effort to spread the blues message will help her broaden her fan base both in the United States and in Latin America.
