Luke Vassella spends many of his weekends heralding the first day of the rest of their lives for many new married couples. His enchanting melodies set the scene for one of life’s most celebrated events and he never tires of watching love’s flowers bloom. He loves weddings. In fact, in the last 13 years he has been to hundreds of them.?Luke Vassella is one of the Northern Rivers’ foremost and much sought-after wedding singers – there is something quietly special about this man who croons a couple into their new life.
Luke studied music in high school and in the HSC before completing a Bachelor of Arts in contemporary music in 1992 at Southern Cross University in Lismore, but his interest in music began long before that. ‘I was probably about 10 or 11 when I really started getting into music. I was a huge Dire Straits fan. I loved Mark Knopfler – maybe it’s not so cool to admit that now but that guy started me on the music road and I’ve been on it ever since.’
Luke says he studied keyboards at 10 and his parents gave him a guitar for his 12th birthday – his education continued. ‘I wrote my first song a couple of weeks after my 12th birthday with the three chords I knew. I started playing in the kitchen at home, then moved up to family barbecues, then school assemblies, and it kept going from there.’ A musical life grew.
Luke is well known on the NSW north coast and beyond as a warm, personable and inspirational performer. He has played more than 1500 gigs in Australia, Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Finland. His original music now fills seven albums, all released independently.
Luke won the ‘Australia’ category and Best Live Performance at the 2010 Australian Songwriters’ Association Awards. He has received four Dolphin Awards, and recently made the shortlist as a finalist in the Vanda and Young Song Competition out of more than 3200 entries.
His latest album Great Expectation is a collection of ten smooth alternative-country songs, including seven brilliant new originals, and unique covers of Ryan Adams’s Two, Julie Miller’s All My Tears, and Bruce Springsteen’s Secret Garden.
You can catch Luke this weekend at Mount Burrell’s Sphinx Rock Cafe on Sunday.
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