Kellylee Evans is confident that fans will follow her to another place.

Good girl gone… good?

On her latest album, Kellylee Evans questions the concept of ‘good’ and channels her alter ego

BY: Lenny Stoute

Most artists who drop a well-received album tend to want to build on that by serving up more of the same. Kellylee Evans is confident that fans will follow her to another place.

The Scarborough-born singer came out of nowhere in 2007 with her debut album fight or flight?, a recording that went on to win the Best Female Artist award at the Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards. Evans recently released her follow-up, The Good Girl, and a listen reveals it’s not at all a jazz recording. Instead, the album’s 12 tracks are a blend of pop, urban, R&B and rock — all given a full working by Evans’ rich and soulful tones. The songs leave listeners with an overall impression that Evans has grown into a strong, self-confident songstress.

“I fell into the jazz thing as a dare. I didn’t think the material I was writing at the time was jazz, but it seemed like all the people around me were jazz players,” she says. “One thing led to another.Somebody dared me to try out for this jazz combo needing a singer and I liked it. I was making music surrounded by jazz people. So when I thought to make a record, my jazz friends were the players I turned to and the album came out sounding jazz.”

This time around, Evans decided to let the songs find their own voices, hoping that the freedom of her artistry would result in music both new and familiar to her audience. “The songs on the first album covered a lot of historical issues, things in my background I had to deal with. This one is me asserting myself, making my own decisions, dealing with things in the present. [It's also me] wrestling with love, lust and longings, and the realization that when a relationship changes, those feelings just don’t go away. Thematically, The Good Girl is questioning the entire concept of ‘good.’ What is good? What good is it? Who decides what’s good? Is what is good for society always good for the individual? You could say The Good Girl is partly a persona exploring ideas.”

The dynamic nature of character and persona play an important role in Evans’ music, and Evans says she sees the trend of female pop artists taking on alter egos as a sign that women have discovered an entirely new way to participate in and dominate the entertainment industry, without having to give up their femininity.

“We’re in a period now in the music business when a lot of strong, capable women are coming to the fore. Singers like Beyoncé and others at the top share a similar stance in that they are strong, in charge and moving forward while, at the same time, maintaining their feminine vulnerability and need to be loved. It’s like now, young women don’t have to make a choice between those attitudes and I identify with that. So, yes, I think The Good Girl and Sasha Fierce would get along fine.”

Aside from personal exploration, the album covers a lot of intricate ground, lyrically and musically. It, however, never loses the plot — a tribute to the deep emotional bonds generated by the process of making the album. “On tour we listen to a lot of the same music, sometimes on loop. Afterwards, when I hear those songs, I immediately remember where I was and what I was doing. Those songs sort of form the soundtrack of my life at that time. That’s what I’d like people to take away from The Good Girl, a sense of where and how they were when they first heard the songs, that those tunes become part of the soundtrack of their lives.”

- The Good Girl is available at local music retailers and iTunes.ca. For more information on Kellylee Evans, visit kellyleeevans.com