" Abby Ruth 's R&B Music and Bio"

Abby Ruth…A STIRRING OF THE SOUL. Like most humans, she can’t remember life before the age of three. After that she can’t remember life without music. It was as if one day beau coup chords, rhythms and melodies began floating around in her head. Abigail heard voices, too, particularly her own. It told to her sing, listen, discern, practice, be teachable and seek that uncharted atoll of the music world. Then, the voice said, turn it into a stage and don’t quit singing until the world hears your heart.  For once in her life, Abigail obeyed. Why question the air if there’s nothing else to breathe?
  If she had her way (and she often does) Abby would be content just to have you  listen to her music and figure it out for yourself, in your own interpretation;  you know, no judgment, just a private intimate encounter between her original compositions and your ear. For Abby, it’s all about the conundrum of music.  It’s like a subjective planet split into two half spheres:  the dark side, the light side.  Tunes you love and tunes you don’t. Lyrics that move you and lyrics that could bore the hum off a Gregorian chant. ”To me, good music ignites, intoxicates, loosens, arouses, pisses, and gladdens,”  explains Miss Johnson. “Good music should rip you a new one.” Though settled into a soul groove Abby remains open to all forms of good music. In her heart of hearts she loves to sing gut-bustin' soul, more specifically Neo Soul. To hear her sing, you’d swear that’s a sister cranking out those notes. She’s been singing since she was four…“I was probably wailing in E something right out of the womb.”
    She’s not kidding. Her parents have the blackmail tapes of her singing little scats in the bathtub, which impressed them enough to plop her into classical piano at the North Raleigh Conservatory of Music from age 7-12. “I owe them much for laying those first bricks,” she adds. Abigail did the whole sports thing through middle school and high school, but still there was always that song to sing somewhere, somehow. She was trained in gospel before moving into secular music; over time, she developed a virtuosic singing style given over to swooping, flashy melodic embellishments. By age 13 she was singing in church,  along with choruses throughout middle school and high school. There were assemblies, national anthems, a couple of plays, Governor's School, the daily shower. Her senior superlative was: ‘Most Likely to be on Broadway‘. So, Abby took that dream and ran with it all the way through one glorious, half-drunk year in college at UNC-Greensboro School of Music, working on a BA in music with a focus on vocal performance. But for her it was WAY classical; mastering Puccini¹s La Boheme did not inspire an undiscovered, Caucasian soul artist to peel back the layers. And the thought of hacking her way through the jungles of the classical circuit playing someone else’s music felt like a stay of execution.  Abigail’s classic heroes were Mariah, Whitney, Janet, Toni.
 “You can¹t live in the Sahara and expect to harvest mangos.....so at age 19 I moved from Greensboro back to Raleigh, worked my tail off, saved money and in 7 months I was in Nashville.”   During that time, Abby returned to piano and got serious about writing her own music focusing on a new form of rhythm and blues. She arrived in ‘Music City’ on July 1st, 2002,  and began playing all kinds of places: BB King‘s, Bluesboro, 3rd n Lyndsley, 12th and Porter, Rhythm Kitchen, and Mercy Lounge. “I have endured a lot more struggles, shattered dreams and broken promises than most  people my age so I guess I’m a combat veteran. My Christian upbringing taught me to look adversity in the eye and keep the faith, you know, stay strong and live life with purpose.”