Lil' Dynamo

Lil' Dynamo
Carmel singer-songwriter Chris Stone is carving a new niche with her first original CD
Current in Carmel

After years of performing seemingly everyone else’s work, a diminutive performer with a powerful-yet-polished vocal prowess that belies her physical stature is about to debut her first CD.  And this one is all her.

Carmel resident Chris Stone – “lil' c” to her friends – relentlessly dedicated nearly every spare minute of the last year to writing and recording the project, Leftover Grooves, which is due out in the next few weeks.

Stone, for now, perhaps is best known on the greater Indianapolis music scene for fronting any number of local cover bands, including her own Jayne Bond & the Pink Martinis. She currently works with up to a dozen bands. That’s how this thoughtful, engaging and rascally woman with a ready smile and a quick belly laugh makes her living. One may try, but keeping pace with her nearly is impossible. Consider it this way: Another night, another stage. It’s her lifeblood. It’s who she is and what she does, and, by all accounts, she does it very well.

Born to musicians Tom and Bea Berry, Stone was raised on music. Her father may be gone, but his music lives on in a clip Stone sampled for her own album. The influences of her childhood can still be heard in Stone’s soulful tunes; she says she favors the stylings of Aretha Franklin, Joss Stone and The Pretenders, among others.

Stone says she can remember all the way back to singing in the back seat of her parents’ car. Her career as a cover singer began straight out of Carmel High School, when Stone answered her first classified ad seeking a vocalist.

“I was first trained as a classical singer, but as I began answering ads I eased into rock,” she says. “Rock was new to me, and my voice teacher would always say he could tell I’d been ‘singing that rock music,’ because my voice was raspy.” 

More than 20 years later, Stone still is singing other writers’ songs. While she has no intention to send her cover work to the sidelines, Stone says the monotony of it spurred her to try something different.

“I was bored out of my mind with cover material,” she says. “I think I’ve sung ‘I Will Survive’ so many times I’m almost resentful.”

If she is, it’s not nearly evident. Only someone truly passionate about music and singing can do what she has for so long.

“I think I would be bitter if I were trying to make it big,” Stone says. “But the reality is I’m just going to be another artist out there, because the music business is so hit-and-miss. There are so many talented artists out there who deserve to make it and never will.” Many would put her in that class.

With “low expectations,” Stone began work on her original album in the time she had between preparing for working other gigs. She also had to work around the schedule of her collaborating musicians on the project, including her husband of 20 years, Jeff Stone, a bassist for the highly regarded Healing Sixes. It was a discarded bass line from one Jeff’s other projects that became the start of Stone’s title track.

“I’m just really happy she’s finally getting around to her own original project,” Jeff says. “She has wanted to do this for a long time, and it’s gratifying that she was able to latch on to something I wrote and like it.”

But Stone says she believes her new endeavor won’t change her day-to-day routine. She’ll continue fronting her own band and other cover bands, but she says she hopes to perform her original work with the Chris Stone Band as well.

Stone is finishing the final mixing of her eight original tracks and two covers. Then the album will be ready for mastering and printing of 750 to 1,000 copies. The CDs will be available locally at Indy CD & Vinyl and Karma, or online through CD Baby and iTunes.

 “It just seemed like everyone else had a CD,” she says, “so I wanted one, too.”

Can't wait for the CD?

Chris Stone’s CD project, Leftover Grooves, can be heard on Myspace.com/ChrisAStone, on Facebook under Chris Stone Band, or at her Web site, ChrisStoneBand.com.

Where is Chris?

Among the bands Chris Stone fronts or lends her considerable vocal talents to include: Jayne Bond & the Pink Martinis; The Band ETC; Steve Allee; Filter Kings; Barometer Soup; Coldfusion; The Meatball Band; Tastes Like Chicken; Festival; Keith Claghorn; Jaz Deco; and Henry Lee Summer.

Parental influence

In her own words, here’s signer-songwriter Chris Stone on how her father and mother play key roles in her upcoming CD project, Leftover Grooves: “My father, Tom Berry, sang and recorded at Capitol Records with jazz great (drummer) Gene Krupa.  A portion of one of the songs he recorded, ‘Dreams are a Dime a Dozen,’ fades out of one of my songs on the CD. … My father is no longer with us, so it means so much to hear his voice on my project.  My mother, Bea Berry (Carmel), comes out to every open-to-the-public gig to hear me sing. She enrolled me in classical voice lessons at a young age, and I learned how to breathe properly so I don't blow my voice out singing rock music.”