The Letter - Hayley Reinhart
Photo credit: Extra Gum
If you are going to base the name of your new album on a lyric of a Buffalo Springfield classic song and then do a wonderful cover as the title track, you can't go far wrong. Our next LCM featured artist Hayley Reinhart has done just that. Her highly anticipated new album 'What's That Sound?' will be released this Friday September 22nd. Our LCM #TrackOfTheDay is a great toe-tapping cover of the Box Top's 1967 release 'The Letter'.
Originally from the Chicago area, Hayley Reinhart was born into a musical family with a deep love of rock-and-roll, funk, jazz, classic pop, and the blues. In her early childhood, she started joining her parents’ rock band 'Midnight' onstage and quickly found herself hooked on performing. "One memory that stands out is my golden birthday, when I turned nine on September 9, 1999,” says Hayley. "My parents were playing a tattoo convention and there were all these tough-looking people and biker dudes there, and I got up to sing a LeAnn Rimes song with my hair in little Princess Leia buns. But then once I started singing it got so quiet and the tattoo machines all went off,everyone was listening to me. I was so overcome by it, I cried right afterward, but they were happy tears. I just thought to myself, ‘This is amazing.’”
Through the years Hayley continued singing with Midnight, and later joined a high school jazz band that led her to perform at major jazz festivals across Europe while still a teenager. She then studied jazz in college and, at age 20, landed a spot on season 10 of American Idol, eventually finishing in third place. The following year, Hayley made her full-length debut with Listen Up!, a 2012 Interscope Records release that premiered at #17 on the Billboard 200 chart.
A milestone year for Hayley, 2015 marked the release of "Can’t Help Falling in Love” (a song included on her 2016 sophomore album Better). Chosen as the unforgettable soundtrack to the Extra Gum ad spot "The Story of Sarah and Juan,” Hayley's spellbinding rendition hit #1 on Spotify’s global viral chart in 2015 and has now amassed over 57 million streams on the platform. That same year, she began collaborating and touring with YouTube sensation Scott Bradlee’s 'Postmodern Jukebox', offering up jazz/ragtime/swing-inspired updates of songs like Radiohead’s "Creep” and The White Stripes’ "Seven Nation Army.” To date, Hayley's Postmodern Jukebox contributions have garnered more than 112 million views on YouTube.