Lucy Woodward/ Rachel Platten April 30, 2011

Lucy Woodward, raised on plenty of opera music, as well as jazz, classic soul, pop, and rock, has just released her third album. Her influences include her father (a composer and conductor), her mother (a music teacher who sang opera), Etta James, and Big Mama Thornton.

Beautiful, but not brazen. Passionate, but never preachy. Populist, but definitely not prosaic. New York singer-songwriter, pianist, and beatboxer Rachel Platten is by no means your average headliner-in-the-making. Her Rock Ridge Music debut, Be Here, is a bewitching collection of ten wise-beyond-their-years piano-driven pop songs that echo elements of Alanis Morissette, Carole King, Tori Amos, and Regina Spektor, while retaining a singular sense of self that is rarely found in such a young performer.