KITTERY, Maine — When Celia Woodsmith set out to earn a living as a professional musician, she gave herself five years to achieve some degree of success.
About four and a half years went by and she was still scraping along, trying to eke out a living, with nothing on the horizon that looked encouraging. Time to go back to school and get on with her life, she thought.
Then a musician friend called and asked to get together for a cup of coffee. The friend got right to the point.
"She said, 'I need a singer for my band Della Mae,'" Woodsmith recalled. "I said, 'I can help you out, but only for about six months or so.'"
It was a deal—but not quite the one they had agreed on.
"Six months turned into a year," Woodsmith said, "Which has since turned into twelve years now that I’ve been in Della Mae."
An all-female string band playing American roots music, Della Mae has taken Woodsmith all over the United States and around the world, from the Marshall Islands to Saudi Arabia to Turkmenistan.
It has also brought considerable acclaim, including a Grammy nomination, a comfortable living, as well as a platform to showcase female musicians and improve opportunities for women and girls, which is part of the group’s mission.
Not long ago, Woodsmith, who plays the guitar and sings lead vocals for Della Mae, met a 22-year-old woman from California who had started her own all-female band.
"She said she had the idea and got the gumption to do that because she saw us twelve years ago," she said with evident pride. "And if that’s the only thing I’ve done to make the world a better place in my lifetime, I think that will have been worth it—to get another woman on stage, to give another woman enough self-confidence to be able to do that."
Note: Della Mae is performing at Portland House of Music on April 23.