Carolyn Striho

“Pair Stewart Francke and Carolyn Striho on the same bill, and you have two of the hardest-working singer-songwriters in Detroit — and they’re playing at the Magic Bag on Friday. Striho was in countless rock ’n’ roll bands, an unstoppable blonde music machine, before taking the solo route and never looking back. Meanwhile, Francke has a new album out, Love Implied, which sees the former MT writer at his most introspective. Jeff Scott completes a bill that sees three of the city’s finest songwriters coming together.”
Brett Callwood - Metro Times
- Metro Times - Detroit

"Carolyn is a poetic songwriter who plays piano (sometimes with the heel of her boot) and acoustic guitar (with her fingers) while singing in a style that might be jazzy, bluesy, torchy, fiery or any combination of the above…strutting and growling and singing a version of "Downtown" that would have made Petula Clark feel like a tourist, she's worth tracking down!”
Neal Rubin - The Detroit News
- Detroit News

Terri Koggenhop, Detroit Music Awards and Detroit International Jazz Festival Coordinator, January 8, 2013, from the Detroit Music Blog, “Not only is this girl bright, beautiful and talented but she has the soul of a person who has lived life to the fullest. She is one of the most decent and warm people on the planet. Some don't realize that she "tore it up " at the Detroit Jazz Fest shocking some folks because they thought she was a punk rocker a few years back. The girl can play any genre and she can't fit into any small niches. She has it all.” - T. Koggenhop

“Winning Detroit Music Awards sends a clear message to Carolyn Striho that the music industry recognizes her creative genius & abilities..it was not the first time that she has been in the spotlight. She caught the ears of music fans in a big way fronting her band Detroit Energy Asylum & most of those musicians eventually became the core of the band Was Not Was, led by Don Was. We are that much richer for having a truly creative inspiration like Carolyn Striho. The recipient of several Detroit Music Awards including her 2010 win for Best Rock Album of the Year acknowledging her musical excellence for the album Honesty, the title song provides an accurate snapshot of Striho’s eclectic career with a languid slide guitar, turns very Punk like and at a couple of junctures slows down to a pretty Pop vocal. “Sing It To Me,” has Latin overtones and features beautiful guitar playing by Scott Dailey, while Rayse Biggs blows a good trumpet and percussionist Ron Wolf is solid!”
Joe Montague - Riveting Riffs, Toronto, Canada
- Riveting Riffs, Joe Montague, Toronto, Canada, Jan. 2013

"The punk rocker turned eclectic stylist has enough Detroit Music Awards [nominations] to build a house." - Concert of Colors Press Release 2011 - smaller excerpt

"The triumph of Carolyn Striho's CD "Honesty" as outstanding rock/pop recording at the 2010 Detroit Music Awards a couple months back highlights the city's current bumper crop of gifted female singer-songwriters. It is fitting that the award -- one of three she won that night --went to Striho, whose roots in Motor City music run deep." - Ben Edmonds, Detroit Free Press (Jun 17, 2010) - Detroit Free Press./Mojo Magazine UK

Back in April I wrote a preview post of the 2010 Detroit Music Awards for Detroit Unspun and interviewed my friend Carolyn Striho, who was nominated for twelve DMAs, the most of anybody this year. She ended up taking home three, including Outstanding Rock/Pop CD for Honesty. Carolyn has collaborated with a slew of amazing musicians in the past, including punk legend Patti Smith, but she’s an amazing songwriter/singer/performer in her own right.

Nothing exemplifies this more than her new video, “Sing it to Me,” a sultry, Spanish-sounding single with a film noir vibe that is slightly reminiscent of Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video (minus the controversy). At the time I interviewed Carolyn for my DMA story, she mentioned that the following day she was going to be shooting a new video, and this is the product of those shoots. It was directed by Mark Kinnunen of Tears of Nimbus Films, and I’ve gotta say — it’s the best effin’ video of any local artist I’ve ever seen, no matter the scale of the artist’s fame.

I feel very fortunate that I know such a wide variety of talented people, and this kind of awesomeness is a constant reminder.

Find more of Carolyn Striho on ReverbNation & MySpace, and support this amazing Detroit musician by purchasing the award-winning album “Honesty” on iTunes or CD Baby. If you’d like to read more about her, there’s a great feature on Carolyn in the June 17th edition of the Detroit Free Press.
- Stacy Lukasavitz, Detroit Music Monday

"The Carolyn Striho Group Members: Carolyn Striho (vocals), Scott Dailey (guitar), Ron Wolf (percussion), Kurt Zimmermann (violin) A singer-songwriter who can sing beautifully and write a hell of a good song! At her best, Striho, a known musical commodity for years in these parts, is capable of hypnotizing her listeners as if she's some kinda siren raised on bars and factories and busted hearts. She'll likely have Royal Oak eating out of the palm of her hand by the middle of her set. —BC"
— Detroit Metro Times - Detroit Metro Times

FROM MTV:VH1: Correspondent Ben Edmonds: Patti Smith was singing. A rapt audience was hanging on every syllable sung or spoken. She was standing in front of the altar of Old Mariners Church on the Detroit River in the heart of the Motor City's perennially comebacking downtown. Patti Smith, 200 friends, family, and members of the local rock and roll community gathered in memory of her late husband, Fred "Sonic" Smith, of Sonic's Rendezvous and MC5. Musician and Poet Carolyn Striho performed an acoustic set that included "So Sincerely Yours," a Fred Smith song from the set list of his mid-70s Sonic Rendezvous Band, on which she was accompanied by SRB bassist Gary Rassmussen. Striho's band Detroit Energy Asylum backed Patti for her track on the new "Ain't Nothing But A She Thing" benefit compilation with Annie Lennox and others. The video for the song premiers as part of a two hour MTV special this weekend. Striho is in the process of negotiating a major label release, and singer /songwriter Stuart Francke has seen two songs from his local CD featured prominently on recent episodes of "Melrose Place." For others, this benefit might turn out to be as good as it ever gets. But they had all come together in the belief that their art could do somebody else some good if their energies were combined. Faith and community. Fred "Sonic" Smith would have liked that.


- MTV/VH1

It takes some courage to title a new song "Promised Land" - Carolyn Striho's "Promised Land"may be the one, however, that best expresses its message via its mood in no uncertain terms. Carolyn Striho's "Promised Land" is dissonant electro-pop, with frightening stream-of-consciousness lyrics, appropriate for the zeitgeist following eight years of Bush. But it rocks nevertheless. And rock can also mean hope � even at this late date.
Is This Me? is exceptionally good. The internationally renowned Detroit artist's voice is, at turns, warm, rich, idiosyncratic and, at times, just plain (in a good way) eccentric. "Tiara" opens things on a violin-driven, downbeat, almost mournful but still melodically beautiful note. The appropriately titled "Ocean" is so Patti Smith influenced in its trippiness and mid-song chanting that it almost could be Patti Smith. And that's meant as a compliment � a big one. "Enchante" opens with a calliope-driven instrumental musical interlude before the lyrics kick in and it becomes a clash between the sounds of Barnum & Bailey and gypsys, tramps and thieves.
Good stuff. Four-and-a-half out of five, only because it leaves you wanting to hear more from this Motor City maven.


- Metro Times - Detroit by Bill Holdship (Creem)

Rome, Italy, Donne in Musica; Nov. 2006: �La Luna in la Minore from Donne In Musica, Review in Rome Press: translated from the Italian - Considered an energetic singer with a strong and free spirit, with a natural energy and interest in experimentation and improvisation, Carolyn was born in Detroit. and composes on piano and guitar, Carolyn mixes jazz, soul and avant garde compositions in her writing - great music, great passionate, catchy performance from Carolyn.� - Rome Italy newspaper (translated)

Terry Lawson, Detroit Free Press: “Soul and spirits have been our city’s strengths,” say the liner notes to this collaboration by three of Detroit’s most creative modern musicians, and the same could be said of the music on what is accurately billed as an “original soundtrack of transition. Secrets and Space has vocalist-songwriter Carolyn Striho, once of art rockers the Cubes, saxophonist David McMurray (of Kem and Kid Rock) and his former partner in Was (Not Was), Keyboardist Luis Resto (now with Eminem), on a 12-track, thematic tour of the spot where R&B, art rock, free jazz and funk intersect. Resto’s mysterious, masculine “Bravo” is followed by Striho’s insinuating and evocative “Necklace.” Both are complemented by McMurray’s fire-and-ice instrumental “Vision/Vision.” - Detroit Free Press

MotorCity Rocks.com: “Getting away from the D for a second, Carolyn Striho will be joining Patti Smith, playing at the Meltdown festival, in June 2005, held at the Royal Festival Hall in London, England. The first night, Striho will be part of Smith’s backing band on a bill that also includes Sinead O’Connor, Beth Orton, Tori Amos and long time favorite, Kristen Hersh . The second night, Striho will perform as the opening act for Steve Earle as well as being part of Patti Smith’s band, which Striho has done before. Before all that globe-crossing mayhem, Carolyn Striho can be found throwing down some tunes at the Town Pump Tavern here in Detroit." - Motor City Rocks online

Ann Arbor News: “Gallery 212 has been Kit Eagel's project for many years and he chose The Vitosha Guest Haus in Ann Arbor to host Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh’s Beautiful Mutants show. A castle stone chalet house, pipe organ and baby grand piano, neo-gothic parsonage, and coach house tearoom, The Beautiful Mutants looked right at home. The reception featured a performance by Carolyn Striho, best-known for fronting the trail-blazing music collective known as the Detroit Energy Asylum or possibly for her work with punk priestess Patti Smith, or musician Don Was of Was, Not Was. A fantastic show!” - Ann Arbor News

NEW PRESS: .. From the Detroit Metro Times, January 2010- Review of "Honesty" Longtime Detroit singer-songwriter Carolyn Striho really needn't have bothered naming her new album "Honesty". After all, it should be apparent to anyone who listens — not just hears but really listens — to the lovingly constructed record that there's barely a note played or sung that Striho doesn't really mean, from the depths of her soul to the entirety of her larynx. Striho can rock out whenever she wants —she most certainly does on the very in-your-face title track — but she's at her best when using her voice like a quilt to comfort the listeners' senses. And that's what the majority of this record really does. - Detroit Metro Times

Carolyn Striho made her name playing with bands like the Detroit Energy Asylum and the Cubes, as well as punk rock poet Patti Smith, but it is as a solo performer that she has really found her niche. Within this city’s music community, Striho is regarded as one of our best songwriters, female or otherwise, and her new album, “Honesty,” showcases that very fact. Honest.

On Sunday, Striho is playing at Memphis Smoke in Royal Oak, one of a series of CD release shows. Also on the bill is fellow singer/songwriter Paul Miles. The evening promises plenty of low-key, acoustic brilliance in a chilled-out environment and tunes galore.

Metromix connected with Striho to learn more about the new CD, her history in the musical D and her relationship and more about making sweet music with the legendary Smith. - Detroit Free Press-METROMIX

Thom Jurek, Ann Arbor News and Detroit Metro Times: �Emerging in her late teens from the high-energy music scene spearheaded by late Fred "Sonic" Smith, Carolyn has taken her deeply felt reverence for Detroit rock tradition which gave her a musical life, and extended it by weaving it's finest elements - direct emotional connection, unwavering energy, top-notch playing that doesn't get in the way of a song, urgent commitment to getting something across by whatever means necessary - together with her own passionate voice, lyrically expansive and hook-laden songwriting style, and energy-first guitar playing and spit out an unnamable, unfettered monster all her own." "Is it rock & roll? Yes, and it's also bad-ass, sidewinding, erotic music that isn't afraid to use a soft hand before cracking the whip!" - Thom Jurek, Writer

Strut Magazine, Detroit 2007: “After underage stints in punk bands with awesome one-word names like Prong and Cube, Carolyn Striho exploded onto the scene as frontwoman for the Detroit Energy Asylum. Now, after years of hard work, including recording with Eminem producers Steve King and Luis Resto, and sharing the stage with everyone from Patti Smith to Tori Amos, the Detroit native is still at it. In November, she toured Italy and the United Kingdom with her guitarist, Scott Dailey, and in 2008, she will release her fourth album. “My music has changed a lot,” Striho says. “It’s still quite experimental, but it’s also direct and pop and rock and punk. … It kind of blends into what an electric-acoustic mélange of bewitching melodies and hot little pop numbers, with the odd movie soundtrack-type song. ” Recent shows have seen Striho strumming electric and acoustic guitar, singing pretty love songs alternating with eerie circus-punk ditties, and playing keyboards – with her fingers, yes, but also with one heel of her black boot. She’s authentic, that’s for sure. You can just imagine, then, when Striho flings her leg up onto the keyboard and whisper-sings a blend of Iggy Pop and Judy Garland – well, let’s just say you’re in for quite a ride!” - Strut Magazine, Metro Detroit, Michigan