Biography
You often hear the term singer-songwriter applied to those who share their own original songs, but Dana Wells would rather be known as a songwriter-singer. Or even just a songwriter. While her sound has been lauded as “big and bold and beautiful” by Fred Mills, editor of BLURT Magazine, her true passion is writing the songs she sings.
Her vast repertoire of originals strikes a lush and lovely musical balance between rock and pop with splashes of Americana and folk, as she delivers eloquent lyricism and literate poetics with genuine feeling, honesty and verve.
Growing up in the Washington, D.C., area as the daughter of a jazz musician, Wells was exposed to a vast array of genres of music from the day she was born. Writing songs as soon as she could form full sentences, by age 3 she was sitting in on her dad’s rehearsals on congas and percussion. By the time she reached her teens, she was proficient on guitar, bass, drums and keyboards.
After graduating high school, Wells attended Berklee College of Music in Boston where she had received a Writing and Composition scholarship. She earned her Bachelor’s Degree in Music as a Songwriting major in three years, graduating Summa Cum Laude at the age of 20.
While at Berklee, Wells was one of the winners of the annual Songwriting Competition in both 2010 and 2011, was chosen to participate in songwriting master classes with John Mayer and Mike Reid, and received the school’s 2011 SESAC Award for outstanding achievement in the songwriting department. She was also chosen as one of twelve participants of the Johnny Mercer Songwriters Project at Northwestern University, an intensive program for emerging songwriters, where she studied with mentors Andrew Lippa, Craig Carnelia, and Lari White.
Midway through her second year, in late 2009, Wells released her first solo effort, the seven-song The Evergreen EP. “Blessed with a supple set of pipes and an accomplished delivery to go with (them), Wells delivers a blend of classic-tilting pop and sleek Americana that’s impressive indeed,” Mills wrote of the recording. The Washington Post added, “There’s a settled maturity to the lyrics and tempered voice of this strummy smartie that’s usually reserved for older artists.”
This spring, she will release her follow-up to The Evergreen EP: a four-song narrative depicting love found, love held, and love lost, entitled California Close.
Wells isn’t driven by a desire for her name in lights, or the fame and stardom sought by many performers. Rather, she simply wants to be able to spend her life creating music that touches its listeners, regardless of who is performing it.
