Didi Stewart is an Associate Professor in the voice department of Berklee College of Music in Boston, but she is perhaps better known as the lead singer of two dynamic area bands, Didi Stewart and The Amplifiers and Girls Night Out. She has released many recordings over the years, most notably Begin Here on Don Kirshner's CBS distributed label as well as One True Heart on the local Northeastern imprint. The phenomenally popular Girls Night Out released a 4 song E.P. in 1985, a follow up to a previous 4 song cassette tape which featured the WBCN hit "Matter Of Time", but the group never got the opportunity to record a full-length with a major label, though they certainly deserved the opportunity.
In 2010 Stewart gets the opportunity to be heard singing the songs and harmonies Grace Slick performed with The Jefferson Airplane and The Jefferson Starship on a recently released DVD "Marty Balin: Live At The Boston Esplanade, June 14, 2008." The concert was part of the Oldies 103.3 Summer Concert series and featured the group/duo America and the founding member of The Jefferson Airplane, Balin. Stewart saw the original line-up of the Airplane perform in Central Park around the time of the Woodstock era, and that her versions of Grace Slick's classics was released on the 40th anniversary of that iconic festival is an impressive achievement for the Cambridge resident.
Currently Didi is helping Berklee College of Music set up an online vocal course, the at-home learning paradigm in vogue as many universities offer this along with traditional teaching on-campus. The Berklee website quotes the Associate Professor:
"I think of myself as more a mentor than a teacher, and I'm teaching the kids everything I learned through trial, error, and pain. For instance, it doesn't matter if some really great singer happens to go on right before them. I'm finding that a lot of my voice students want to belt like Janis Joplin, and I used to be that way. I used to love screaming my guts out. But if you're going to do that for five or six weeks on the road, you have to know how to survive it.
"Working with the students has made me more of a risk taker. I thought that teaching was like finally becoming a grown-up, but it's just the opposite: reconnecting with my adolescence. The only problem is when the students come to a show and I start thinking, 'Whoops, better not grab the mike cord while I'm singing. I just told the class not to do that.'"
Notes
http://www.berklee.edu/faculty/detail/didi-stewart
Direct link to this article here: http://tinyurl.com/thedidistewartcollection
Legendary New England area singer Didi Stewart has a long and illustrious musical resume. In 2009 she appears on the DVD MARTY BALIN LIVE AT THE HATCH SHELL, BOSTON ESPLANADE 6-14-08 performing backing vocals and singing lead on "Somebody To Love" and "White Rabbit."
 | The urban legend has it that Didi Stewart walked into Don Kirshner's office with a demo tape in hand and got herself a record deal. A Boston delight with her band, the Amplifiers, this brilliant and underrated songwriter/vocalist might have been better off releasing some of the original demos here, since producer Stephan Galfas was unable to bring a hit record out of a woman who is full of potential million-sellers. But isn't that one of the major traumas of the record industry: incredible talents getting lost in the translation? Read more here: |
Her e.p. The Summer We Spent in China features four original tunes released on vinyl in 1987. "A Problem With Gravity"
Two years after the Girls Night Out EP debacle and two years before her classic One True Heart album, Didi Stewart issued this four-song EP, The Summer We Spent in China, on her own label, much like that other Boston diva Robin Lane's 1984 post-Warner Bros. four-song EP, Heart Connection. These talented women have a lot to say and would not be denied, crafting more music after the heady times had subsided. "Problem With Gravity starts things off with a bang; a determined and revitalized Stewart, if shellshocked by the tough breaks of her profession, hides it well here.
1) A Problem With Gravity 2:59
2) Jeremy 4:20
3) Rational World 3:20
4) The Summer We Spent in China 3:25
45 RPM Angry Young Woman
| One True Heart is considered the legitimate sequel to Didi Stewart's brilliant but under-produced Kirshner/CBS debut with her group, the Amplifiers, Begin Here; people must be somehow forgetting the important work she did with the band Girls Night Out, whom she founded and who rocked Boston to the core during the '80s. The singer of New England's most influential and popular female group, a cross between the power pop of the Go Go's with classy frontwoman/power vocalist Didi Stewart, who resembled Janis Joplin with all the sweetness and none of the growl. There is a Girls Night Out standard here, "When You Were Mine," concluding the album (actually performed better than the band did it), Read more here: |  |
 | Harmonyville has vocalist/songwriter Didi Stewart sounding very much like a former bandmate of Harriet Schock than the lead singer of Boston's legendary girl group Girls Night Out. Stewart eases her fans into her Jackie DeShannon-style New Arrangement by opening up the disc with the most rocking' tune, "Love and Learn," chock-full of Stewart philosophy and elements of her regional hit, "Matter of Time," in the thumpa thumpa Cars riff. Stephen Sadler plays lap steel, mandolin, dobro and fiddle on the album, and if you think it's GNO (Girls Night Out's nickname for the non-Bostonians) meets Swinging Steaks you're not that far off -- Jim Gambino of the Steaks is on keyboards and adds much to the experience. Read more here: |
GIRLS NIGHT OUT
One of the greatest tragedies in Boston rock & roll history, and something the world is the worse for, is this difficult document of one of the best '80s bands from New England, Girls Night Out. For a group who approximately grossed over a quarter of a million dollars in a two-year period, they were saddled with arguably the worst cover art in Boston history, substandard production by the usually reliable Chris Lannon, and evidence that radio-station politics, mismanagement, and too many cooks can do more than spoil the stew; politics can stand in the way of important art. Read more here:
Didi's song "Matter Of Time" became the name of this group that covered it:
She appears on Marty Balin's DVD LIVE ON THE BOSTON ESPLANADE
Direct link to this article here: http://tinyurl.com/thedidistewartcollection
Last Updated on Sunday, 22 November 2009 20:38