Angela Peterson: "Country Is Where My Heart Is..."
by Crystal Christmas

Armed with a voice as big as Texas and a dynamic stage presence, Houston’s own twenty-four year old Angela Peterson is making a way for herself as an up and coming singer-songwriter. In fact, fans of the petite beauty (at 5'0" and 100 pounds) believe she has the soaring talent to bring her out of the shadows of Houston’s night spots and into the spotlight of places where country greats have performed.
     Angela’s purpose is simple: She loves to perform. She draws her inspiration from interaction with the crowd rather than recognition, and she performs tirelessly. She sometimes performs for four hours or more in a single show, every weekend, and even six days in a week at times. Angela struts her stuff at local haunts like the Rainbow Room and Vater’s, and recently on the Southern Empress (a cruise boat) in Conroe.
     Born Angela Michele Peterson on September 29, 1978 at Spring Branch Memorial Hospital, the native Houstonian spends her days teaching first graders at Thompson Elementary School in the Aldine School District. She’s been teaching for about four years, after graduating early from high school and being awarded an academic scholarship. She spent a couple of years at North Harris County Community College and then moved on to Berklee College of Music in Boston. Though she only lacks four classes to complete her degree, she is torn between going back and continuing her love affair with the stage. Angela told us, “My brother’s always on me (about finishing school) because I’m so close. But it takes so much away from my singing, and singing is what I love.”
     Vocally, Angela has developed her own style, but has been influenced by the likes of Martina McBride, Celine Dion, and country music legend Randy Travis. Though her performances often range from songs like Joan Jett’s “I Love Rock and Roll” to the popular tunes of artist Melissa Etheridge, Angela claims, “Country is where my heart is.” In fact, up until the last couple of years, country was basically all she sang. She said that as people started requesting popular mainstream songs, she began to learn them and incorporate them into her act. She gets the crowd revved up with popular covers and then introduces her own songs, like the title track from her latest CD, “Beyond Our Control.” She wrote the first three songs on this, her fifth CD, which was released about two years ago. Her first CD was self-titled and produced when she was only 12 years old.
     Performing in public now for about 13 years, Angela got started singing for family and friends at various venues, including her church. Angela said her dad, a retired fireman, took her to the Fire Station looking for outside confirmation of what he believed he saw: raw talent. Some of his fellow firemen were in a band, so he said to them, “I think my daughter has talent, but I might just be a proud daddy, so will you listen to her for me?”
     They did listen, and told him they thought he was on to something. Angela’s dad went out and bought equipment and she began singing everywhere she could, specializing in country music venues. Angela said, “Once I got comfortable with it, people started asking if they could hire me and I was like… ‘I get paid to do this?’”
     Angela’s experience is not limited to small crowds. Her first invitation to sing the National Anthem came in 1993 for an Astros vs. St. Louis Cardinals game in the Astrodome where George and Barbara Bush were present. Other notable performances have included a paid performance at the Nashville Palace and National Anthem performances at the Compaq Center for the Aeros, Rockets, and Comets.
     Despite the excitement that thousands of onlookers can generate, Angela’s favorite shows are the ones where she can interact with the crowd. “Nothing against the National Anthem,” she says, “but it’s one song, and so short… you can only stylize it so much. Other songs can have variety and allow me to show all my different styles… I get to perform. You’re not going to jump around and perform on the National Anthem. I love performing. It’s everything to me.” She goes on to explain, “If I had the opportunity to sing the National Anthem somewhere huge or to perform in front of family and friends, I would probably rather do the latter.”
     One of her big dreams is to become, “huge and successful and have a stage that goes out into the crowd. I want to be as close and personal as I can.”
     While she occasionally sings with a house band on the Southern Empress, and has had two bands of her own in the past, the curly locked cutie is a solo act for now. She works with the band Southern Nights when performing on the Southern Empress Cruise Boat in Conroe, but doesn’t have a band of her own due to the difficulty in coordinating schedules. Because struggling musicians generally have to work regular jobs for a living, they can’t always pick up and go to a show at a moment’s notice.
     In the spirit of a true performer, nothing can keep Angela from making her curtain call. Once she had a member of the crowd put a snake around her neck during a song, but Angela proved “the show must go on” by never missing a beat. And even in another performance when Angela was swung around by a fan and suffered a busted lip and chipped tooth (compliments of the microphone) she never stopped singing.
     Angela currently performs both in public and for private parties, but her local availability may not last forever. She is now working with the likes of Blake Melvis, a producer of George Strait and Lori Morgan, and Sawyer Brown’s Mark Miller.
     No word yet as to exactly what, but good things are in the works for the “Texas Cutie.” To learn more about her or to find out the schedule of her shows, (they are usually free), log on to www.texascutie.com. For Booking Information, call 281-448-4976, or email Angela at txcutie92978@aol.com... and tell her you read her story in CountryStyle, TX Magazine! CS