profile
KIZZY
CRAWFORD
Merthyr Tydfil’s Kizzy
Crawford tells Heather
Arnold how she went
from hating singing to
becoming the next big
thing in the world of
Welsh singer-songwriters.
pic: JAYDON MARTIN
“
When I was about 12, I hated singing!” Kizzy
laughs. “I started singing when I was 13 and it
suddenly attracted me to playing guitar – I’d
always wanted to play guitar.”
Looking at Kizzy Crawford you would never guess
that she is only 17 years old. She’s confident,
eloquent and creates astoundingly beautiful songs
in both Welsh and English.
Kizzy has been playing the guitar since she was
14 and soon after she found a passion for creating
her own music. “One day I randomly decided I was
going to write a song, and it sounded pretty good so
“one day I
randomly decided
I was going to
write a song”
I carried on from there. It was called City Free but
I actually rewrote the song a couple of days ago, so
now it sounds completely different.”
Kizzy’s career in music has picked up pretty quickly
after she won the Arts Connect Original SingerSongwriter competition in 2012. Not only did the
prize give her opportunity to work with musician
and BBC Radio Wales presenter Amy Wadge,
and record her first single Starling, but it also
introduced people to her music and changed
her little watched online presence:
“I didn’t really know how to work YouTube at
all, or any sort of social media,” Kizzy laughs.
“It was after I won the Singer Songwriter
competition and then people started to hear
me and notice me.”
Kizzy has recently been selected to champion
Welsh talent as part of BBC Cymru Wales’
Horizons scheme and now, on top of
supporting Newton Faulkner and becoming
a radio favourite, she is conquering this
summer’s festivals. She has just returned from
Hay-On-Wye and How The Light Gets In, and
is now heading to The National Eisteddfod, the
Black Mountain Jazz Festival and Dinefwr.
“I’m looking forward to Dinefwr Festival because I
used to live near there,” smiles Kizzy, “so it will be
really nice to go back.”
BUZZ 22
But has this relatively sudden rush into the spotlight
feel surreal?
“I’ve put so much work into it that it feels like it’s
gone really slow,” she says, “but the amount of stuff
I’ve managed to fit into a short space of time, the
amount of opportunities I’ve had, it’s quite amazing.
I feel really lucky.”
“One of my highlights was supporting Newton
Faulkner last year,” she states. “It was great to meet
and speak to someone who has already gone through
it all before.”
Now Kizzy has the support of the music industry and
a platform to develop on she happily admits that’s
she’s trying to hone in on her sound:
“I’ve started to grasp what sound I’m really going for,”
Kizzy explains; “it’s a jazzy, soul sound, with a bit of
folk, traditional Welsh folk.
“I don’t want to sound like another artist, but
obviously want the influences of those artists to be
heard in my music and so there’s going to be a bit
of Corinne Bailey-Rae, a bit of Erykah Badu, a bit of
Seal, a bit of Omar and a bit of Gwyneth Glyn, and
even a bit of Meic Stevens. So yeah, I’m still trying to
find my sound.”
With work on her first album well under way Kizzy
explains what we can look forward to:
“You can expect a range of different influences to be
apparent throughout, lots of different sounds,” she
says, ”it’s going to be more ‘me’ this time. The last
EP was still kind of like ‘I don’t know what I’m doing
with myself at the moment so I’m just going to try
this out’. This is going to be more like ‘me’.”
You can see Kizzy perform live this month
on the following dates, as well as several
dates in July and August:
Raglan Festival, Monmouthshire, Sat 14
June. Admission: free. Info: www.raglanfestival.org;
Dinefwr Festival, Dinefwr Park And Castle,
Carmarthenshire, Sun 22 June. Tickets:
£45-£65 adult weekend pass / £20-£35
adult day ticket;
All Saints Church, Penarth, Fri 27 June.
Tickets: £10/£8 adv. Info: www.facebook.
com/penarthsongwriterscircle;
Ffilifest, Caerphilly Castle, Sat 28 June.
Tickets: £4.10-£5.50. Info: www.cadw.
wales.gov.uk