Biography
About Annie Wells
Photo by Grace Walker
“I have 2 jobs: a helping profession and a creative one,” Wells says. “Helping others brings great joy but also heartbreak sometimes. Writing, performing, and recording music brings only pure joy.”
Annie Wells is a working musician. By day she helps vulnerable older and differently abled adults get the support they need to live better lives. By night, she performs her own music with some of the most renowned musicians in the Finger Lakes region of New York State including Mike Kaupa, trumpet (Glenn Miller Orchestra, Dave Rivello, Joe Locke, Ray Charles), Dave Arenius, upright bass (Herb Ellis, Archie Shepp), Phil Marshall, guitar (Colorblind James, La La Land), Tony Hiler, drums (Hanna and the Blue Hearts, Gian Carlo Cervone).
Currently at work on a new project, Wells has five albums to her credit. The twin themes of loss and hope have been evident from the start, reflected in the title of her debut album, “Sad & Beautiful,” in which she works through the grief from the death of her mother. Strong, pivotal, and important women often factor as influences for Wells’ songwriting: the subject of “Little Sparrow,” Edith Piaf; artist Georgia O’Keeffe, whose fascination with the Southwest is reflected in Wells’ “The Faraway;” Wells’ great-aunt Mary, who never married and ran a farm despite suffering from polio. Mary, when unable to drive anymore, gave Wells a Rambler station wagon; her reflective ride home is recounted in the song “Mary.”
Mary relied on strength and pride and family ties
I don’t know if I will see her again
And as I drove 500 miles across Ohio
I left her alone
“What really struck me (about Piaf) was her devotion to singing — no matter what was going on, the most important thing was singing. Georgia O’Keeffe left her New York City home and her husband, Alfred Stieglitz for six months each year to live and paint in the Southwest,” Wells says. “It’s about keeping true to your vision.”
On her most recent record, “Lonely Hearts Club,” Wells features a song about the Hitchcock character, Miss Lonely Hearts, in a touching sub-plot about a woman seeking love in the movie “Rear Window.” Her efforts to connect having failed, and in despair, Miss Lonely Hearts nearly swallows an overdose of pills, then hears a lonely musician’s beautiful song coming from an open window above. She and the man are together in the end.