New Orleans:  504.344.2607   GypsyElise@Gmail.com  Orlando:   407.504.2117


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 Gypsy Elise and The Royal Blues

About The Band

The Grammy Nominated band, Gypsy Elise and The Royal Blues is a full scale performance band, ranging from a duo, featurng husband and wife musical team, Gypsy Elise and Ryan De Sade Way...  all the way to the full scale festival and international performance band featuring 9+ performers and 3 additional back up vocalists.


Band Performance Configurations:


Duo:
(Gypsy and Ryan... keys and vocals, highly engaging, brilliantly entertaining)


 

4 - 5 pc Club and Event Band:
(Vocals, full harmonies, drums and auxilliary percussion. saxophone, and double keyboards for a VERY full sound!)


Full Performance Band
(8 to 12 performers, see 1st paragraph)

Instrumentation for the full band is lead vocals, keyboards, drums, lead guitar, bass guitar, saxophone, trumpet, electric violin, and a perfectly syncopated second drummer (or trombone, if stage can not accomodate 2 drummers).  3 additional back up dancers/singers round out the performance that is sure to set any stage aglow~


About Gypsy Elise:
(Lead Vocals, Lyricist, Band Leader)

Gypsy Elise is the rarest form of vocalist; a beautiful female contralto~ With her 3.5 octaves, and silken, throaty lower range, occasionally Milady Gypsy is mistaken for a male singer. Nothing is further from the truth! And then...you see her... it becomes crystal clear that she is not only 100% gorgeous female vocalist, she is keyboardist Ryan De Sade Way's wife and is also the very proud Mama to two beautiful children, 33 years apart!. Gypsy Elise is a force of nature, a super-charged rose to be reckoned with! 

Refining her vocals and assuming her position as troubadour, Gypsy Elise, with the aid of her Royal Blues, vividly captures the mysterious chambers of human emotion when reciting a torch or blues ballad. Together their sound recalls Gypsy's transient kindred with a whimsical bohemian, yet mesmerizing sensual mash-up of blues, R&B, jazz, rock, and funk. Their repertoire ranges from soft, dulcet melodies to psychedelic powered rock, but invariably provokes a teeming crowd from tears to twinkle-toes. 
- Haley Hemenway Sledge, Ogden Museum of Southern Arts, Intern/ With Edward Rio, Publicist


Orleans to Orlando, Gypsy Elise and The Royal Blues is the #1 Rockin Blues Band! With a worldwide fan base, over 80 original songs all in radio rotation. This IS the band to have at your performance! ~The "world bred, traveled and seasoned" vocalist/band leader, Gypsy Elise De Sade-Way is Basque Gypsy by birth, but essentially southern musician by trade. Born in 1959 to a family of entertainers, her flower-child era rearing is clearly heard in her music.


About Ryan:
(Keys/Key Bass/Vocals, Music Director)

Hailing from South Carolina, Ryan De Sade Way grew up always wanting to play music.  From age 7, he took piano lessons and loved them!

By the age of 9, his teacher Mr. Clamp, a multi-instrumentalist with decades of professional experience, put him into a performing band to gain experience as a pianist/keyboardist.  At the age of 11, he began learning trumpet, which he began playing in his Middle School band.  

During Ryan's years at Berkeley High School in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, Ryan continued playing trumpet in the High School marching and concert band, as well as playing piano for Mr. Clamp’s performing band as well as the High School jazz band.  During Ryan’s last 3 years in high school, he had earned a spot as a pianist in the All State Jazz Band, meeting and playing with many of the finer musicians in South Carolina.

Ryan earned a music scholarship to Florida State University where he studied jazz piano under Jazz Piano Professor Bill Peterson for 4 years.  During this period, Ryan played on stage with Bobby McFerrin, Leon Anderson, Joel Johnson, as well as several other well- known jazz musicians.  After his graduation from FSU in 2006, Ryan continued perfecting his craft by recording and touring with bands across the southeast. He has performed with no less than a dozen professional performing bands.  He has performed on 17 CDs, 14 of which he is performing on each track.

Ryan formed and led an eleven piece Funk Band called Naked Lunch, and toured all over Florida from 2006 to 2007.

After he moved to New Orleans, he met his wife, Gypsy Elise, and they have had a dynamic, engaging band called Gypsy Elise and The Royal Blues, New Orleans and now Orlando's ’ #1 Performance band (per ReverbNation) for the past 8 years.  This highly entertaining band won the People’s Choice Award for “The Best Band on Bourbon Street in 2013” and has respected Grammy recognition.

Currently, Ryan and his wife Gypsy Elise recently moved from New Orleans and now currently live in Orlando, Fla playing music together, and raise their now 6 1/2 year old son. 

Currently, Ryan is the Musical Director and keyboardist/key bassist for Gypsy Elise and The Royal Blues, as well as the keyboardist for Reggie Smith and The Smithsonians, The Phil Campo and the Loose Change Band, and The French Market Quartet.  Ryan performs regularly no less than 4 days a week.


About Ricky:
(Saxophone/Vocals)

Ricky Jackson is a musician/producer/songwriter based out of South Florida, who’s mission has been to combine high-quality musicianship, with an intellectual passion and romanticization of contemporary music. Using his personal influences from gospel, r&b, jazz, hip-hop, classical and country/bluegrass music, and an array of multi-instrumental talent and proficiency, he has been able to work with artists that differentiate not only in genre but musical content, showing his musical versatility and experience.

     With over 15 years of experience he’s worked with such artist as Arturo Sandoval, Lil Wayne, Ed Calle, Melton Mustafa, Duffy Jackson, Pharell Williams and countless of other musician and artist behind the scenes in the music industry. As a composer, he has composed for many artist and received the honor of scoring The Special Olympics Award winning PSA “Speechless”.

From the first notes, this is one HIGHLY engaging band! The audience is immediately drawn into the show as Gypsy Elise begins her entertaining dialogue that makes everyone feel both welcomed and appreciated at once. Throughout the show, her warm and open personality, hilarious wit, and brilliant smile are a winning combination when interlaced with her powerful vocals and original lyrics. The cover music that the band does shines far past the norm. With an impressive seven original albums to their credit, it is a proven fact that the blend of skills and musicianship will undoubtedly carry this Gypsy and her talented krewe to exactly where they want to be. 

Gypsy Elise bloomed to the beats of the standards of music rooted in blues, jazz, funk, and ballads. Pair a musical family upbringing with a vocal range to rival Jacob's Ladder and hear the sultry vocals inspiring a sensual and swampy fusion. 
Gypsy has performed with, and been on the recordings of, some of music's most powerful performers. To include that list here, however, would be overwhelming to the reader. Suffice it to say, she is no stranger to the largest, finest, and most coveted stages of the world. Mostly though, Gypsy Elise prefers the more intimate settings that allow her to be up close and personal with her always en rapt audiences~

 


About Chuck:
(Drums/Vocals)

Chuck “C C” Crawley Jr is a drummer/percussionist/vocalist residing in Central Florida. He began playing percussion in concert band at age 11 through high school, eventually winding up in Orlando, Florida and studying Music Education at Valencia Community College and UCF. Growing up in the military he listened to many different styles of music including rock, pop, reggae and ska, big band, brass band and combo jazz, classical, country, Cajun/zydeco, blues, and R&B. Over the past 30 years Chuck has performed a variety of styles with National and Regional acts such as R J Howson, Ace Moreland, Sonny Rhodes, Kenny Neal, Selwyn Birchwood, Johnny Thompson (of The Drifters), Noble “Thin Man” Watts, Lester Chambers (The Chambers Brothers); jazz saxophonist and composer Sam Rivers’ RivBea Orchestra (percussion), Jackie Jones, The Legendary JC’s, Rising Lion, FunkUs to name a few. “Performing with Gypsy Elise and the Royal Blues is opportunity to put my foot to that New Orleans sound. Good times ahead!"


 

Photo Credit: Ana Espinosa