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Local singer-songwriter Heather Rice has released a cover of Jeff Buckley’s “Lover You Should Have Come Over.” Lee Barbour arranged, mixed, and produced the track. Duda Lucena of Borboleta Audio is the mastering engineer.
Rice says she was inspired by the song since hearing it on a mixtape at age 17, followed by a friend commenting that she sounded like a female Buckley. The album Grace was quickly in rotation. “I felt really cosmically connected to Buckley’s voice and background,” says Rice, who was an opera major by day and rock band leader by night during her college days. “And the song is so romantic; it made my teenage heart swoon.”
She’s never covered the song until now, saying she feels she didn’t feel mature enough as an artist before. “I also needed a really great producer: enter Lee Barbour, a Charleston native, and in my opinion a total musical genius,” she says. “As soon as we met I knew I wanted to work with him — and we are both Buckley fans. Without his intuitive arrangement and his vision to reinvent this song while still maintaining it’s iconic feel, I really wouldn’t have wanted to attempt it.”
Rice moved to Charleston four years ago, this after honing her craft in big cities like New York City and Las Vegas. “I’ve been embraced by the artist community in the most brilliant way and I am so grateful,” she says. “I have killer friends/bandmates; Brett Belanger, Adam Ray, Jonathan Lovett, Lee, and cinematographers like Kieth Bradshaw and Stuart White. I was able to work with Alice Keeney on my latest photo shoot and our poet laureate Marcus Amaker on my album covers. Honestly, the talent in this town is huge and some of the most wonderful hearts I’ve ever met.”
Rice will release two original tracks this spring along with more covers produced and arranged by Barbour and “fully fleshed-out videos.”
“It’s important to me to understand and participate in all levels of the content creation and it’s release,” she says. “It’s empowering to dream a dream and be able to execute the plan so that it becomes a reality. I’m also digging this new playful outlook I have about creating. I don’t need perfection, I just need to make what inspires me and send it out with love. It’s good for the soul.”
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