Barbara Sheree has found an audience for her gospel, soul and R&B music in Morocco, which is surprising, since most people there are Muslims.
“They wanted to hear (gospel standard) ‘Oh Happy Day.’ They sang along with it — knew it word by word. It was enlightening. They were very embracing of me being Christian,” she said of her audience at a wealthy businessman’s private New Year’s Eve party at his home in Casablanca, Morocco. “They enjoyed the soul of the music and the expression,” she said of the 50 attendees, including hotel owners and diplomats.
Sheree, a former member of Patti LaBelle’s Boom Boom Choir, often plays in venues such as the House of Blues in Atlantic City. She got the job in Morocco through a friend who lives there, and will go back soon to perform again, she said.
Sheree grew up in Absecon, graduated from Absegami High School in 1995, and attended Atlantic Cape Community College before transferring to Temple University in Philadelphia. At Temple, she decided to major in music, rather than international business and marketing, which she studied previously.
“Although it’s funny how international business has become part of my life,” she said.
Sheree fine-tuned her singing in Absegami High School choirs and at her church, the Love Center in Venice Park. All of her close friends and management — TMarquise Entertainment — are in Atlantic City, she said.
Her song “Together” spent nine weeks on the Billboard Dance Club Play Chart in 2010, and “Bring the Fire” is newly available on iTunes.
Call him Mr. Catfish
Adam Weinberg, 24, spends his days promoting other people’s music for Universal Music Group. He works in online video distribution to broadcast and online companies around the world.
But on his own time, he is Mr. Catfish, a folk/acoustic rock singer-songwriter. The 2004 graduate of Atlantic City High School grew up in Margate. He just released his own full-length album, called “Scrambled Eggs.” It’s available on iTunes.
In high school, Weinberg was a member of Moss Animal, a group that also included Alex Greer, of Margate (now of Washington, D.C.); and Carmine Bonanni, of Margate, he said. Weinberg studied music and cultural anthropology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and he now lives in Venice, Calif.
Moss Animal played the Margate Beach Fun Fest, the Absecon Island Surf Competition, and at other local venues such as the Grand Fromage in Atlantic City, he said.
“We were always in the ocean surfing, and fishing in the back bays,” he said of growing up in Margate.
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Contact Michelle Brunetti Post:
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