In the trailer for Tara Oram's CMT television show The Tara Diaries she humbly tells viewers "I finished sixth on Canadian Idol and then. nothing happened."
She may have to go back and change that soon because something very definitely is happening for the Hare Bay, Newfoundland native.
For one, she's got The Tara Diaries. A show about her that stars of course - Tara! When her Canadian Idol experience ended, Tara (pronounced "Tah-ra") began posting video blogs on her official website (taraoram.wordpress.com) to keep fans updated on what she was doing, be it stalking Loretta Lynn's tour bus ("I had to get it on video") or debuting songs with her boyfriend and season five Idol winner Brian Melo backing her on guitar. The CMT folks loved what Tara was doing and offered her a show.
"They wanted a full-out series," says Oram. "I was like, 'What!?' I think it's one of the greatest opportunities to have had."
Tara's journey definitely hasn't been one of overnight reality TV stardom, though. She's come by those great opportunities through hard work and determination.
She spent four years gigging through the Ontario country bar circuit before taking that shot at Idol. She's been a maid and she's been a waitress. And she's also never been shy about risking it all to succeed, on separate occasions making leaps of faith driving from Newfoundland to Toronto, and Toronto to Nashville in the hopes of "making it." Sometimes those leaps fell a little short.
"When I drove from Newfoundland to Toronto I had $500 to my name. I thought, 'I can live off of this.' I was sooo naïve.
"I got to Toronto and all my money basically lasted me a week. And I didn't want to call anybody for help because it was just me on my own and trying to support myself for once, so I stayed in my car for awhile. "Sometimes people say, 'Oh, that makes for a great story.' But that was the last thing I was thinking when I had no money and no work."
All of Tara's hard work is finally paying off. Her efforts on Idol and The Tara Diaries have led to the exciting next chapter in her adventure, the release of her free, fun and uplifting debut album Chasing The Sun on Open Road Recordings (with distribution through Universal Music). The album was constructed in such an organic way, starting with Tara writing and collaborating with incredibly talented writers and now friends, including the dynamic Kaci Bolls, Doc Walker's hugely talented guitar player/writer Murray Pulver, multi-award winning Canadian Chris Perry and one of Tara's own idols Carolyn Dawn Johnson. The songs that were chosen for the final sequence were then produced and engineered by the teams that wrote them making each song cohesive and true to the way it was meant to sound. Each song has Tara's touch on it and overall, the album is diverse and fresh, very melodic and loaded with potential singles.
Tara's first single "Fly Girl" celebrates her small town roots, all wrapped up in the positive message of shooting for your dreams. "It's about where I was in my lif e coming from a small town and wanting to get out there and do something more, to do bigger things," says Oram. Her second single, "538 Stars," written by Grammy Award winning Canadian Gordie Sampson and acclaimed Nashville songwriter Hillary Lindsey, celebrates a special bond. "It's about a father and a daughter and they're reflecting back when there's a storm going on around them, but Dad makes it OK," says Oram. "My Dad and I were very close when I was a kid and we'd always hang out together, so it was very important for me to have that song on my record. It's a beautifully written song. It can make you cry and it's also an upbeat, uplifting song as well."
Though rooted in country, Chasing The Sun has far broader appeal. There are echoes of numerous strong female musicians on the album.
"'Wildfire' is reflective of me being a fan of Kathleen Edwards," says Oram. "I think 'Ain't Gonna Happen' is reflective of me being a fan of young pop music. 'Don't Tell Me' is a classic country song, (written by roots icons Buddy and Julie Miller) which is me loving and respecting the stylings of Patsy Cline and Lee Ann Womack. 'Fly Girl' and 'Go to Bed Angry' kind of remind me of Sugarland stuff and how their songs can be both fun and upbeat and also dramatic and impactful. And then there's 'Taste of the Good Life,' which is a little like a Sheryl Crow song. So each song has its own influence to it."
Adding to the broad range of subject matter on Chasing The Sun is the touching and tragic story of teen pregnancy in "No Easy Way Out" and for something completely different, Tara ran a contest through her CMT TV show asking her fans and viewers to submit their songs as part of a contest. "A Canadian songwriter namedJeff Callery wrote an amazing song about heroism and we just had to put it on the record - very powerful!"
Recording parts of the album at a warehouse studio in Hendersonville, just outside of Nashville, yielded a special bonus for Tara. "I walked in to the studio and I went into this room and Marty Stuart was in there and everything I had in my hand just fell to the floor," says Oram, who adores Stuart. "It was unbelievable. The man I had listened to since six years old was right there in front of me.
"Three months earlier I heard he was playing at the Opry and I ordered tickets and drove for 15 hours straight to see him play. That night I just cried sitting in the audience. "
"From that to just sitting there with each other, it was such a surreal moment. It was absolutely crazy. Meeting Marty was honestly to me like meeting Elvis. And he let me wear a jacket that he wore in his 'Tempted' music video. I was like, 'Oh my God, this is incredible.' It was sooo heavy. Like, 40 pounds."
Tara's got spirit, unshakeable drive, her own television show and now, her own album. There's only one more frontier for Tara to chase after .the road.
"I know in the last year I've done very few shows live and I'm basically starving for the stage," Oram says. "I can't wait to get up there with a full band and perform these songs. Every one of these songs, are me. I've really learned to appreciate the fact that I get to do music for a living. I could be a maid. I could be a restaurant hostess or server again or try something new for that matter. But I'm doing what I really love to do and not a lotof people get to do that. A lot of people settle in life and they don't chase after the dream."
Source: http://artists.letssingit.com/tara-oram-kh2c7/biography
