Glenna Bell
On May 15, 2007, the Texas House of Representatives honored the music of singer-songwriter Glenna Bell with Texas House Resolution No. 1304, which was read in a special ceremony at the Capitol on the Floor of the House in Austin. House Speaker Tom Craddick was in attendance, and personally congratulated Ms. Bell for her musical contributions to the Lone Star State:
Texas House Resolution No. 1304
A native of Beaumont, Texas in the Golden Triangle—the birthplace of Janis Joplin, George Jones, Edgar and Johnny Winter, and iconic visual artist, Robert Rauschenberg—Glenna grew up in the east Texas lumber towns of Lumberton and Pineland, where she ran barefooted through the tangled paths of the Big Thicket and rode in horse shows, play days, and rodeos in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma, accompanied by her dad who had been the president of his class at Texas A&M University. She lived the real country life before following in her father's footsteps, heading off to college at TAMU in College Station after skipping her junior year of high school.
After graduating with a Master's degree in English, she moved to Venice, California where she went on to become a theater critic and eventually a playwright, studying with three time Pulitzer Prize winner, Edward Albee (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), who directed her dissertation upon earning her Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston's prestigious and exclusive Creative Writing Program.
Her songs have been aired nationally and internationally on NBC, CNBC, Fox TV, NPR, BBC, and non-com radio, and her holiday song, “Be My Valentine (On Christmas),” was selected for permanent placement on the Spotify Acoustic Christmas curated playlist where it has surpassed 1,274,000 streams. She has performed on live stages from Houston to Austin and Nashville to New York and has received two ASCAP Plus grants from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers’ Pop Music Division panel recognizing her “contribution to American music.” Her “Cougar Anthem” from the album, Perfectly Legal: Songs of Sex, Love and Murder, was a USA Today top ten pick alongside releases by Paul McCartney, Keith Richards, Norah Jones, Aaron Neville, Dave Brubeck, and Meatloaf, and she was featured in an ASCAP Audio Portrait that showcases her music and her approach to writing and performance:
ASCAP AudioPortrait Featuring Glenna Bell
Her 2016 release, Lone Star: Songs and Stories Straight from the Heart of Texas, generated extensive radio airplay and rave press reviews from critics in the United States and Europe. Her current record, Let Freedom Ring: Songs for a New Generation, is the sixth installment in a series of self-released albums that chronicle the experiences of a woman, a worker, a wanderer, a dreamer, a thinker, a seer, a stubborn free spirit who refuses to fail.
Read all about this incredible album, which Glenna recorded with multi-platinum, diamond-certified musician and producer, Ronnie King (The Offspring, Tupac, Snoop Dogg, Mariah Carey), at his studio in Palm Springs, California -- featuring stellar keyboard, bass, and percussion performances by Ronnie and by Tim Rice-Oxley who is the primary songwriter of the UK pop sensation, Keane ("Somewhere Only We Know," "Everybody's Changing"):