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Artist
Biography Francesca Beghe was born and raised in New York City where she grew up studying classical piano and sang in the church choir. In her teens she found her true calling while learning to sing and play the songs of Aretha Franklin, Odetta, Betty Carter and Bonnie Raitt. One of her first gigs was the front room of Hoboken’s legendary Maxwell’s playing the piano and singing Mose Allison songs. “I would mix those up with Stevie Wonder tunes, Tom Petty’s “Refugee,” Aerosmith’s “Dream On” she remembers. “My piano playing was not cocktail piano, it was rock and roll piano. I wouldn’t do standards. I wouldn’t do requests. I just wanted to get out there and play as a musician.” Francesca spent the next several years developing her own songwriting and playing around the New York club scene performing in virtually every major venue in the area opening for Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Muddy Waters, Sonny Terry and Brownie Mcghee (among others) at The Ritz, Roseland, The Beacon Theatre and The Bitter End. Her first demo project was produced by Jimmy Miller, renowned producer of the Rolling Stones and Steve Winwood. In 1989, Francesca was signed to EMI Music Publishing when her song “Trust in Me” was recorded by Joe Cocker. In 1990, she was signed to SBK/EMI Records by it’s founder Charles Koppelman, who fell in love with her record and put the full weight of his promotion machine behind her. In 1991, Francesca released her debut album for SBK/EMI Records to immediate critical