Ciao Bella - Soulful Rock from the Heart of Texas

began taking piano at age 6 and soon began writing songs and playing popular songs from the radio by ear on piano and organ. She later began to learn other instruments, such as guitar, trombone, and drums. At age 15 when the school jazz band bassist had graduated, the jazz band director asked for volunteers to audition on the bass to fill the vacant chair. Darla auditioned and was given the position. It was during these high school years that Darla also began playing bass with bands outside of school. In her senior year, Darla received an all-star jazz award for bass guitar, and also NAJE awards (National Association of Jazz Educators) for bass and trombone.

After graduating, Darla continued to college where she earned a Bachelor of Science in Biology from UTA. Supporting herself through college mostly by playing with various local bands, the genre of music she covered ranged from jazz, country, blues, pop, punk, 50’s rock, and even several years of playing for different Elvis impersonators. Although Darla had initially planned to go to medical school and become a re-constructive (plastic) surgeon after graduating from college, she worked in a blood lab for a time, then accepted a captivating offer to go on the road with a band.

As a career musician basically from that point, Darla has since opened for several national acts (Joe Diffy, Billy Dean, etc) with Sammy Sadler and other artists. Through music she has met many interesting people, including John Walsh, Donny and Marie Osmond (appearing on television with them), Sheryl Crow, and Sara McLachlan to name a few. She spent a summer playing bass at Six Flags Over Texas in a regular season show and has traveled with former band, Blanche Fury, on 4 different overseas tours which took her to Finland, Iceland, Croatia, Macedonia, Germany, etc, and twice to South Korea. Darla is currently playing with Ciao Bella, which was established in 1999 and is still going strong! Although her musical experience is diverse, Darla’s favorite bands are No Doubt, Hole, and Aerosmith.
www.myspace.com/buzzbass