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We ♥ Sharon Udoh: The Piano Playing Party Chef by Erin McCalla
Udoh is a first-generation American – her parents are from Nigeria and curThere is a good chance you know of rently live there - who moved to ColumSharon Udoh. bus from Cincinnati in 2009, but has been playing music all 27 years of her She performs with The DewDroppers, life. Music was always on in her house The Apes, Andrew Graham & Swarming as she grew up, and she says her mom Branch or by herself as Counterfeit can “sing like a bird,” but her musical Madison. prowess comes from an older generation. “I play music like my grandfaShe works at Impero Coffee Roasters in ther,” Udoh smiles. the Short North, where she is in the back “making soup and With a flair for commaking it rain.” position, she writes music She is attending for any inyour shows and strueither mentorment, ing you or inquiring, “How do I be like you?” (A question she’s constantly asking Zac Little of Saintseneca.) But what’s the story on Sharon Udoh and why do we love her so much?
“finding her way” on guitar, bass and sax, but she is trained on the piano. She’s been playing since she was 4 years old.
constrained by ourselves, our jobs, our parents, gravity. At a DewDroppers show, you can fuck yourself up and let loose. It’s a time to dance like fools.”
Udoh plays all of the typical venues and music festivals, but Café Kerouac, Brothers Drake Meadery and Café When she moved to Columbus, she told Rumba top her list of favorites. She also holds a special place in her heart herself she wasn’t going to play live for the relatively new Independents Day. music because she felt overextended as a part of 14 bands at one time in “Independents day is my shit; it’s in the Cincinnati. heartbeat of the city. It fits into the But then she met Joe Gilliland in 2010 rhythm of my life.” and the secret was out that she could But Udoh isn’t just sharing her talents rock that piano. with festivalgoers and bar patrons. She “We met and the words of death were is involved with the musical youth of the city. spoken: ‘We should jam sometime.’” “I approach all music through the eyes of a piano player,” she explains.
Not long after, The DewDroppers was formed, and local fans quickly embraced the band.
Currently, she mentors two students at the Arts and College Preparatory Academy (see Page 22: principal Tony Gatto is another person we love).
Counterfeit Madison and says the alias/stage name is so people can’t find her if she doesn’t want them to. Her album is dropping in August. And it’s with such aliases that some find her both refreshing and confusing. For all the time she spends tickling the ivories for audiences in this city, you would be surprised to find that Udoh doesn’t really care for attention. “I’m an introvert and I don’t behave like one. I’m expressive, but not extroverted,” she tries to explain. “The war to express myself and the war to stay out of the spotlight is a war I will have until I die, and I’m fine with that.” With her talent, a future making music full-time seems inevitable, but two new loves have come into Udoh’s life since moving to Columbus: cooking and dance. She flexes her culinary muscles at Impero by incorporating as much zest into her cooking as she can, and she takes modern and hip-hop classes and has even dabbled in choreography.
“I think people like us because I feel like so many Udoh also has been involved with the Dick & Jane Project, a literacy effort in of us are which middle school students and local “I want to live making food for people musicians collaborate on lyrics and and to become as comfortable as a music for original songs. dancer as I am a musician.” Her year is filling up fast with Dick & Jane, mentoring, touring and albumdropping. The DewDroppers plan release a full-length album in the fall and The Apes, a “hip-hop/classical/blues/polka/gypsy/improvisational” band she plays with, is releasing an album “sometime this year.” Currently, she’s the only DewDropper who has a “solo career,” a term she uses with much chagrin. Udoh plays as
There are many reasons to adore her (her smile and laugh are infectious, too) but she also has much love for our fair city. “I have done more here as a musician in three years, than the six I was doing music in Cincinnati,” Udoh says. “Columbus is so great to me as a musician because it has a good ear. It’s my home. I’ve been musically, socially, spiritually rebirthed here and I love the person I’ve become.”
If you want to see Udoh this month in her element, she is playing shows April 1 with Dane Terry at Café Kerouac, April 11 with The DewDroppers at The Basement, and April 27 with Joe Camerlengo at Café Kerouac.
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Sharon ♥ Till Dynamic Fare. “If I had more money, I’d be there every single goddamn day.”
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