July 7th, 2006

Singer Charmin Michelle - Taste and understatement. Swing and savoir faire. Grace and grooves. Intimacy and panache. Singer Charmin Michelle delivers all of the above and more. Ms. Michelle's savvy art is both fresh and timeless. Her conversational style recalls such earlier greats as Billie Holiday and Nancy Wilson. Yet it's free of any tiresome camp or easy nostalgia. Charmin Michelle truly understands, feels and puts her imprint on small group swing singing. Born in Birmingham, Alabama, Charmin moved to chilly Minnesota while still a small child. She's called the land of Prince and Bob Dylan home ever since, though the singer's no stranger to the pleasures and pitfalls of the road. Charmin's had both fun and hair-raising experiences entertaining U. S. Troops around the globe, and has recorded with funkateer Jesse Johnson's Revue and his popular spin-off group, Ta Mara and The Seen. Less is more could be Charmin Michelle's motto. Her club and concert sets are always cool, calm and collected. Even when she's moonlighting in the blues world fronting the jump band, The Senders, she never shouts or strains. "I've always admired singers who can belt out tunes, but I know I'm not a belter." Michelle told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. "So I try to use dynamics and emotion to get my point across. And I choose tunes where the lyric and melody has a lot of meaning. That way I can express a lot of feeling without having to shout it out." Michelle makes her point more subtly, both as an interpreter of seldom-heard gems from the Great American Songbook, and as a songwriter. On her critically-acclaimed debut disc "Your Eyes" (currently out of print), Charmin revives such underexposed Billie Holiday numbers as the breezy, Sailboat in the Moonlight", the haunting "Ghost of Yesterday", and the blues-rockin' "Now or Never". She also ably tackles, "You're My Thrill", Mack Gordon's obscure "Me, Myself and I". In September of '98, she released her second CD entitled "Destination Moon".

Vocalist Charmin Michelle and guitarist Joel Shapira have performed together in various group settings for over five years. With the creation of the Charmin & Shapira duo, the two bring their extensive resumes and highly personal musical stylings to a new level of intimacy. A diverse repertoire of great American standards, gentle bossa novas and swinging modern jazz tunes is presented with unique and insightful arrangements, perfectly suited for a lively nightclub, a relaxing get-together, or an elegant wedding ceremony.

Web Site: www.charmsongs.com
Booking Information: Joel Shapira (651)646-3274
E-mail: joelshapira@hotmail.com