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AboutBasia Trzetrzelewska *
* Her name is pronounced Basha Tshetshelevska
The Polish Anglophile with a penchant for Brazilian rhythm has returned. The Sweetest Illusion is the long-awaited new Epic album by Basia: the third installment in a solo career that soared to international success in 1987-88 with Time And Tide, and hit cruising speed two years later on London Warsaw New York. Each album sold more than one million copies in the U.S., and made Basia a major star in Japan and France as well. Now she's ready to expand her impressive following worldwide with the eclectic song styles, captivating rhythms and sophisticated vocal performances of The Sweetest Illusion.

Basia was raised in Jaworzno, Poland in the industrial province of Galicia but has been an adopted Brit for the past dozen years. Since the success of London Warsaw New York, the singer has spent some time rediscovering her roots - and the results are there to hear in the grooves of The Sweetest Illusion. Basia's longtime musical partner Danny White notes that the February 1990 release of London Warsaw New York was followed by a solid year of international touring. "The first year after that we spent writing the album: going 'round to each other's houses, exchanging ideas, developing the songs. Then for the next year and a half, we were in the studio."

Basia ruefully admits that she is "the most responsible" for the unusually long gap between albums. "I'm very slow, I must say. Danny's a workaholic -- if he'd had his own way, the album would have been finished much earlier.

"But you know, to have something to write songs about, you have to live through something," she continues. "I spent a good deal of time with family and friends in Poland. With people getting married and their babies being born, I had to be there - and really, without those experiences a song like "Perfect Mother" and "Yearning" wouldn't have happened."

"Yearning", says Basia, "is my favorite song on this album, I think, the one we are most proud of. It puts across emotions that were building up in me for years. Danny and I really try to write songs which will make people feel something. Everything - the instrumentation, the singing - is done with that aim". She calls The Sweetest Illusion "the most live album we've made".

"This is the first album where all of the drums are live, the bass is live, and where most of the keyboard parts are played by Danny without any sequencing. Though we are still quite faithful to our favored style of music, there are some things quite unlike anything we've done before, songs like "More Fire Than Flames" or "My Cruel Ways" or "Simple Pleasures"". Produced and arranged by Basia and Danny White, The Sweetest Illusion was mixed by Dave Bascombe, known for his productions for Oleta Adams, Tears For Fears, Depeche Mode and many others. (Basia: "We haven't got enough praise for Dave.")

One of four children, Basia's Polish upbringing allowed for all manner of musical information to influence her future style. As a teenager, she worked with an all-female Warsaw band called Alibabki, who performed across Eastern Europe. Moving on to a group called Perfect, Basia received an education in American music when the band was offered a six-month residency at a club in the Polish section of Chicago's South Side. She snapped up the chance to work and play, visiting local blues clubs and watching her soul favorites perform live.

January 1981 brought another (and so far permanent) relocation when Basia arrived in London in order to reduce the distance from her family. After some early jingle sessions, she answered a Melody Maker ad and joined a jazz-funk band called Bronze. This group was led by Danny White, with whom Basia formed an unbreakable musical bond which has lasted ever since. Upon the demise of Bronze, Danny spent time with jazz experimentalists Blue Rondo A La Turk before enlisting Basia in his own pop-jazz project, Matt Bianco. The new group's debut album Whose Side Are You On ? sold some 1.5 million copies around the globe and spun off the hit singles "Half A Minute" and "Get Out Of Your Lazy Bed". In 1986, Danny helped Basia record the new demos that secured her deal with Epic Records.

Basia's debut solo album, Time And Tide (Epic), was released in August 1987. The album topped the Billboard Contemporary Jazz chart for eight weeks and spun off two Number One Adult Contemporary hits, "Promises" and "New Day For You". The title track, "Time And Tide", was a Top Five AC and Top 25 Pop hit. Time And Tide was certified gold in November 1988 and platinum in December 1989. Basia and her band, directed by Danny White, toured the world with Time And Tide, an international bestseller.

Basia's second Epic album, London Warsaw New York, was released in February 1990 - and sold over 500,000 copies (gold) within two weeks. "Basia's follow-up album... surpasses the first one", wrote The Los Angeles Times, "boasting more elegantly-crafted songs - most floating along on those sleek, intoxicating Brazilian rhythms". Featuring the #1 AC/Top 30 Pop hit "Cruising For Bruising" and the loving Aretha Franklin tribute "Until You Come Back To Me", London Warsaw New York was certified platinum in August 1992.

By that time, Basia had completed a solid year of live concerts around the world, including two separate tours of the US. The reaction of the reviewer from the Baltimore, MD Evening Sun was typical: "Armed with an impressive backing band, superb accompanying singers and crisp arrangements, Basia held a nearly full house in the palm of her hand".

Her long hiatus from the road has made Basia eager to tour with her new material. "I feel at home on stage", she says. "For me, it's like singing for our friends in my living room. We're doing for a living what we love, Danny and I, and that's a very privileged place to be."

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