Sierra Black has been gambling since she was 6 years old.
Now she’s gambling on a future as a country music recording star, which looks bright after recording her debut album in Nashville.
Born and raised in Las Vegas, Black is now on the road promoting her debut single, “Heart On Ice”, to radio stations.
“I immediately fell in love with it when I heard the first verse,” Black said of “Heart On Ice”, a song written back in 2002.
On the up-tempo country song, she sings: “Flying 90 miles an hour down a dusty road, pushing this thing to just see how fast this thing will go; engine hot enough to burn up the fuzzy dice; I better put my Heart On Ice.”
Black finds herself on her debut single preaching to the choir about “having to step back and cool off” when hot in love.
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Black, who is 22, fondly remembers how her father sparked her love of country music at age 6 when he used to play guitar and sing Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash songs to her.
Sierra’s love of music didn’t just originate with her father though. Her grandmother was Babette DeCastro, one of the members in the trio, DeCastro Sisters, who were famous for their 1954 top Billboard hit “Teach me Tonight.”
Unfortunately, her grandmother never got the chance to hear Sierra sing because she passed away before Sierra was born in 1992.
WATCH: Sierra Black’s “Heart On Ice”
Sierra proudly wears her grandma’s necklace to keep her close to her. Interestingly enough, her grandmother provided the voices to the animals, including the butterflies, in Disney’s animated film Song of the South.
Sierra has been playing around with music ever since she can remember.
As a young girl, she would put on her own stage shows, alone, in her bedroom.
Fluent in Spanish, she could sing “El Paso” by heart by age 7.
She wrote her first song at the age of 12.
Her first break came when Keith Urban handpicked her out of 14,000 contestants to sing alongside him at a music festival.
“I wasn’t nervous meeting him or singing with him but the experience was surreal,” Black said of singing with Urban.
Sierra Black (R) singing with Keith Urban. Photo Credit: Sierra Black/ Facebook.
Chalking up her lack of nerves and comfort singing on stage to being an “old soul”, Black is determined to take the country scene like a dust storm.
And unlike many other young stars, Black actually has some chops in writing songs as well.
“I start with the title first and then the lyrics come to me,” Black said of her songwriting process that eventually leads to a melody.
With a bit of luck, Black eventually found herself in Nashville working with Grammy award winning producers Michael Omartian (who has worked with Donna Summer and Trisha Yearwood) and Tom Hemby (who has worked with Faith Hill and Bebe & Cece Winans).
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She was recruited from Vegas after someone at one of her live shows caught wind of her voice. One thing led to another, and she was flown out to Nashville for back-to-back meetings with the producers.
“It’s been a bit of talent and luck and being in the right place at the right time,” Black said of the events that’s led to her rise.
Black after a radio interview. Photo Credit: Sierra Black/ Facebook.
Black’s promotional single, “Casino”, was her first release to iTunes and will also be featured on her debut album.
Lyrically, the song is a metaphor for love where Black says, “Sometimes you win in the game of love and sometimes you lose.”
On this ballad, she sings: “Like a coin I was tossed into a wishing fountain. I was only one of a 1,000 looking for a little fortune,” and further laments that her heart is like money a lover blows with “I was a card you were using and a trick that you were good at playing. Luck didn’t build up the Monte Carlo just like love never promised tomorrow.”
WATCH: Sierra Black sings “Casino”
Black describes her sound as “twang with a slap of gospel.“ Like a true Vegas Show Queen, she laughs, “you can never have enough rhinestones.” Hoping to have a show like Shania Twain in distant future, she is now hoping for a duet with Jason Aldean in the near future. She has already opened up for Joe Nichols and Uncle Kracker to name a few.
She is not hoping to hit the jackpot with slot machines but instead with her music. What is truly special about both of her songs, “Heart on Ice” and “Casino”, is that they do something that most songs in the music business fail to do. Both songs brilliantly forfeit a clunky bridge and offer a seamless melody to sing along to.
The music is already there. As long as she doesn’t forget her bedazzler at home, Sierra Black will surely be able to forge her own luck and have a long career in the business.
Sierra Black is on a radio tour promoting “Heart On Ice”. You can find it along with her promotional single, “Casino”, on iTunes. Look out for her self-titled debut album in the Spring. And don’t forget to request “Heart On Ice” on your local radio stations.
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in public affairs. You can write for us!
Cover Photo Credit: Submitted
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Can This Millennial Lawyer Be Florida’s First Democratic Attorney General In 17 years?
What’s New With This Story:
–Ryan Torrens is the only Democrat who has announced a 2018 campaign for Florida Attorney General so far.
-Torrens is a lawyer from Tampa, who is only 32 years old.
-He said in a wide ranging interview with RISE NEWS, that he wants to roll back what he views as a politicized AG’s office. He also had harsh words for the current AG, Pam Bondi.
-Torrens has been barnstorming around the state, meeting with donors and building grassroots support for his campaign. He talked to RISE NEWS at length about his views on the most pressing issues of the day during a campaign swing through South Florida.
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Does the Philippines Have A Dictator Now?
The president of the Philippines Rodrigo Duterte has become an internationally known figure in a remarkably short amount of time.
Oh course, so has Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
While only being in office for 253 days (as of March 10, 2017) Duterte has become an alarmingly important figure in global politics due to his awful human rights record and a penchant for bucking the status quo.
Some, including Duterte himself, have even started calling him by a new name- dictator.
Duterte was recently quoted as saying, “I will be a dictator against all bad guys, evil, I will do it at the cost of my position or my life. I won’t stop. That’s a solemn commitment.”
The world should probably start listening to him.
Human Rights Watch, an American-founded international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights, believes that Duterte may have committed crimes against humanity by, “inciting killings during his bloody antidrug campaign.”
Crimes against humanity aren’t something to scoff at, and it certainly isn’t something to take lightly.
Other high-profile political people who have been indicted for crimes against humanity include the now dead Muammar Gaddafi, and Bashar al-Assad, the current President of war-torn Syria.
Duterte meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2016.
Some people might look at what Duterte is doing for his country as an act of patriotism.
His stated goal is to rid his country of drug lords, their dealers, and anyone who is addicted to drugs.
Of course he is not creating massive amounts of new treatment facilities or encouraging other public health fixes, instead he is literally telling people to murder those who abuse drugs.
So has he already crossed the line from democratically elected leader to dictator?
The answer is obviously yes.
No one would argue against the fact that drugs and the trafficking of drugs are a global issue that has had disastrous ramifications for so many communities, but Duterte’s policy of slaughtering his own people in the name of reform cannot be tolerated by the people of the Philippines or the international community.
In the short time span of Duterte’s presidency, thousands of people have been killed by police or vigilantes, and the killings will only continue if no one is willing to speak up and demand a stop to an unjust judicial system.
The reason that many developing countries look to the west for a guiding hand in the building of their countries is for our rule of law.
A belief that all individuals are innocent until proven guilty in a court of justice.
Photo Credit: Bro. Jeffrey Pioquinto, SJ/ Flickr (CC By 2.0)
The people of the Philippines are not being given this fundamental human right, and they are suffering in silence.
The principle of human rights is universal, and it is the basis for all democracies.
What Duterte, a democratically elected official, has done is spit in the face of democracy.
He has turned around and made the Philippines his own personal killing field, and “his people” are the targets.
The saddest part about the current situation in the Philippines is that by Philippine law, the president has immunity from prosecution while in office.
What this means to the rest of the world is that it is now our solemn duty to hold Duterte and his cronies responsible for their systematic attack against the civilian population.
The International Criminal Court and the U.N. have an obligation to launch an expedient investigation into this matter and stop these policies from continuing.
How many more people must die from extrajudicial killings before the rest of the world opens their eyes and sees Rodrigo Duterte for what he truly is: a malicious dictator?
RISE NEWS is a grassroots journalism news organization that is working to change the way young people become informed and engaged in the world. You can write for us.
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In Shock Move, South Carolina Picks Will Muschamp As New Football Coach
Will Muschamp’s second chance will come at South Carolina. The Gamecocks have agreed to a deal that will make the 44-year-old Muschamp the 33rd head football coach in South Carolina football history, a source with direct knowledge of the negotiations told The State on Sunday morning. Like the man he is replacing, Muschamp last was a… Read More
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