The female singer-songwriter still struggles to find her place in the sun locally, although she enjoys great commercial appeal internationally. Think Jem, KT Tinstall or Tori Amos.
There are reasons unique to the South African music industry, such as the lack of live music venues, for instance, that are delaying the rise of singers like Andra, Laurie Levine or Meri Kenaz.
But there’s a wave of underground woman singer-songwriters who are beginning to gain attention regardless of the unfavourable environment.
In Pretoria a buzz has begun around Marcia Moon, 34.
She has been in the industry for more than 10 years, having started out in London in 2000 and then coming back home.
She is from the underground scene of the Singer Songwriter’s Club in Joburg, where names like Frankie Beagle, Shot Gun Tori and Karryn Austen were a common feature. She has performed in a range of places and events, from Cape Town to festivals like the Smoking Dragon in the Drakensberg.
Her debut album A Gradual Awakening was released in 2007 in collaboration with Peter Auret, known for his work with the band Watershed.
And Moon is hopeful she will be part of an industry that believes in art.
“The industry is still young and we’re still breaking through,” Moon says.
“We are the kind of musicians who are not commercial and present a sensitive and intellectual side to music.”
With a tattoo of a crow on her left arm, Moon presents an air of darkness.
She gave herself the stage name Moon, becoming Marcia Moon on the stage and Marcia Scholtz off it.
The moon represents her psyche: all of the deepness, madness and femininity. And for the past 10 years Moon has been telling stories about herself. Her songs juxtapose that persona with soft acoustic pop melodies.
“My music is still young. I still have to prove that the darkness speaks through me and the light is in my groove,” she says.
But her greatest potential is in how she’s able to merge country and pop music in a way that is unusually appealing. This is her edge.
And Moon is exploring her alternative country niche with the aim of writing in her mother tongue and exploring Afrikaans folklore for her second album.
“I think we Afrikaans people have an obscure longing. So like gypsies we’re always going back and forth trying to find out where we belong. I relate to country music in the sense in that it digs deep at that notion of longing.”
There are many woman singer-songwriters where Marcia Moon comes from, and one by one they’re emerging.
l Catch Marcia Moon at Steak and Ale (66 Botha Avenue, Lyttelton, Centurion) on April 30.