Gareth Asher
With the kind of voice that stops every passer-by on it's sheer power and resonance, Gareth Asher’s music has grabbed the attention of some pretty impressive names in the music industry both in and out of his hometown of Atlanta, Georgia.
Born and raised in a small town of West GA, music found Gareth at an early age. "My family was very musical. My Father a songwriter/guitarist, my Mother a drummer. They were part of the hot local band, Touchstone, and they would play parties in barns and fields, build stages out of old trailers and plywood, and rock the local gatherings of hippies and music lovers. I have fond memories of watching my Mom breaking drum sticks, and my Dad singing the songs that I still sing today. Their love for music paved the way for me. They were... they are my main inspiration", says Asher.
As a singer-songwriter, Gareth also attributes many of his musical sensibilities to influential artists like Jackson Browne, Don Henley and Otis Redding. Some of his current influences are more contemporary - Toad the Wet Sprocket, Aqualung, and Amos Lee among them.
Gareth's newest (untitled) CD release slated for early 2012 is currently in production. And just before the sessions began in the fall of this year, Gareth's demos caught the attention of a fellow Georgian and iconic keyboardist Chuck Leavell, who spends his spare time helping out his pals The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, playing piano and B-3 Organ on their tours. As Chuck was laying down keyboard tracks for the new Gareth CD he commented “Gareth Asher is an exceptional songwriter and truly unique vocalist.” The other band members to join in on the 2011 sessions were guitar wizard Jack Pearson (Allman Brothers Band), Pat McDonald (CDB) and Randy Smith (Larry Carlton).
More evidence that the universe is conspiring to bring good things to his journey, in August of 2011 an Indie Film Director namedShayde Christian walked in on a Gareth set at the World Famous “Eddie's Attic” in Decatur, GA just outside Atlanta. Christian was so taken by the young Singer-Songwriter, he has scrapped ALL of the music for his up and coming feature film entitled “PAINTING IN THE RAIN” to insert 7 Gareth songs including “Safe and Sound”, a haunting duet that will play over the credits – with a full ”Music By” credit going to Gareth for the seven songs he's contributing to the film.
As a touring artist, Asher has shared the stage with Shawn Mullins, Glen Philips, Emerson Hart, Angie Aparo, Steve Cropper to name a few. So as the new CD is made ready for early 2012 release, watch for Gareth Asher & The Earthlings at a music venue near you real soon.
“When I'm onstage it's a real quiet place for me where I can zone out the whole world and just play and sing the song in my heart. Once that first chord is struck I'm in a magical place where everything is perfect” says Asher.
Holly Firfer of Atlanta media fame said “Gareth Asher has the most soulful voice I have ever heard. I imagine that this is what it was like for those who heard Ray Charles or John Lennon for the first time.”
It has been said that some things were just meant be. And once you witness Gareth Asher's level of conviction in his music and his performances, it's not hard to affirm that this is exactly where this man was destined to spend his days (and nights).
Born and raised in a small town of West GA, music found Gareth at an early age. "My family was very musical. My Father a songwriter/guitarist, my Mother a drummer. They were part of the hot local band, Touchstone, and they would play parties in barns and fields, build stages out of old trailers and plywood, and rock the local gatherings of hippies and music lovers. I have fond memories of watching my Mom breaking drum sticks, and my Dad singing the songs that I still sing today. Their love for music paved the way for me. They were... they are my main inspiration", says Asher.
As a singer-songwriter, Gareth also attributes many of his musical sensibilities to influential artists like Jackson Browne, Don Henley and Otis Redding. Some of his current influences are more contemporary - Toad the Wet Sprocket, Aqualung, and Amos Lee among them.
Gareth's newest (untitled) CD release slated for early 2012 is currently in production. And just before the sessions began in the fall of this year, Gareth's demos caught the attention of a fellow Georgian and iconic keyboardist Chuck Leavell, who spends his spare time helping out his pals The Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, playing piano and B-3 Organ on their tours. As Chuck was laying down keyboard tracks for the new Gareth CD he commented “Gareth Asher is an exceptional songwriter and truly unique vocalist.” The other band members to join in on the 2011 sessions were guitar wizard Jack Pearson (Allman Brothers Band), Pat McDonald (CDB) and Randy Smith (Larry Carlton).
More evidence that the universe is conspiring to bring good things to his journey, in August of 2011 an Indie Film Director namedShayde Christian walked in on a Gareth set at the World Famous “Eddie's Attic” in Decatur, GA just outside Atlanta. Christian was so taken by the young Singer-Songwriter, he has scrapped ALL of the music for his up and coming feature film entitled “PAINTING IN THE RAIN” to insert 7 Gareth songs including “Safe and Sound”, a haunting duet that will play over the credits – with a full ”Music By” credit going to Gareth for the seven songs he's contributing to the film.
As a touring artist, Asher has shared the stage with Shawn Mullins, Glen Philips, Emerson Hart, Angie Aparo, Steve Cropper to name a few. So as the new CD is made ready for early 2012 release, watch for Gareth Asher & The Earthlings at a music venue near you real soon.
“When I'm onstage it's a real quiet place for me where I can zone out the whole world and just play and sing the song in my heart. Once that first chord is struck I'm in a magical place where everything is perfect” says Asher.
Holly Firfer of Atlanta media fame said “Gareth Asher has the most soulful voice I have ever heard. I imagine that this is what it was like for those who heard Ray Charles or John Lennon for the first time.”
It has been said that some things were just meant be. And once you witness Gareth Asher's level of conviction in his music and his performances, it's not hard to affirm that this is exactly where this man was destined to spend his days (and nights).
Erick Baker
If you listen closely, you can hear a heartbeat in the songs of Erick Baker. A warm familiar pulse of love and loss echoing from somewhere just under the surface. Written with unguarded lyrical honesty, Erick's songs are passionate confessions that reflect many of our own deeply rooted emotions and secrets.
Since releasing his debut EP, It's Getting Too Late To Say It's Early, in 2008, Erick's powerful voice and deeply personal songwriting style have led listeners through music rich with themes central to the emotional cornerstones of their lives. And recently, after the release of his second full-length album, Goodbye June, in 2012, the message of Erick's music has quickly started to spread.
Produced by Ken Coomer, former Wilco/Uncle Tupelo drummer, Goodbye June succeeds in defining Erick’s distinctive voice by skillfully blending a divergent set of influences – rock, pop, soul, blues, country, and folk – into one seamless, signature sound. As a result, Erick’s music is blurring genre lines and uniting fans across lines of age, lifestyle, and musical taste.
“My songs belong to every right turn and wrong turn that have led me here,” Baker says. “They reflect the pieces of poetry hidden in the experiences that lie in each of our everyday lives.”
Noted for his intensity, passion, and unabashed emotional energy on stage, Erick’s live shows are a powerful example of what can be accomplished through song. His performances have earned him invitations to perform with an impressive array of artists, including John Legend, James Blunt, Gavin Degraw, Marc Broussard, Edwin McCain, the Goo Goo Dolls, Grace Potter, Brandi Carlisle and Heart.
Asheville’s Mountain Xpress writes that Erick “perform[s] with absolute sincerity and enthusiasm...his acoustic guitar serving as rhythm and background to the swell of his voice – a smoke and whiskey tenor with plenty of range and emotion.”
In addition to steady touring, Erick has performed for the US troops stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as tours in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East performing for our men and women in uniform stationed overseas.
There is an underlying heartbeat in the songs of Erick Baker, and it is quickly growing stronger. Listen closely....can you feel it?
Since releasing his debut EP, It's Getting Too Late To Say It's Early, in 2008, Erick's powerful voice and deeply personal songwriting style have led listeners through music rich with themes central to the emotional cornerstones of their lives. And recently, after the release of his second full-length album, Goodbye June, in 2012, the message of Erick's music has quickly started to spread.
Produced by Ken Coomer, former Wilco/Uncle Tupelo drummer, Goodbye June succeeds in defining Erick’s distinctive voice by skillfully blending a divergent set of influences – rock, pop, soul, blues, country, and folk – into one seamless, signature sound. As a result, Erick’s music is blurring genre lines and uniting fans across lines of age, lifestyle, and musical taste.
“My songs belong to every right turn and wrong turn that have led me here,” Baker says. “They reflect the pieces of poetry hidden in the experiences that lie in each of our everyday lives.”
Noted for his intensity, passion, and unabashed emotional energy on stage, Erick’s live shows are a powerful example of what can be accomplished through song. His performances have earned him invitations to perform with an impressive array of artists, including John Legend, James Blunt, Gavin Degraw, Marc Broussard, Edwin McCain, the Goo Goo Dolls, Grace Potter, Brandi Carlisle and Heart.
Asheville’s Mountain Xpress writes that Erick “perform[s] with absolute sincerity and enthusiasm...his acoustic guitar serving as rhythm and background to the swell of his voice – a smoke and whiskey tenor with plenty of range and emotion.”
In addition to steady touring, Erick has performed for the US troops stationed at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba as well as tours in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East performing for our men and women in uniform stationed overseas.
There is an underlying heartbeat in the songs of Erick Baker, and it is quickly growing stronger. Listen closely....can you feel it?
Daphne Willis
With Chicago roots and Texas ties, Daphne Willis brings both musicality and grit to the songs she writes and plays. Born in San Antonio to a classically trained vocalist and audio engineer, Daphne began singing at an early age and found her way to the guitar in high school. Since then, she’s developed the confidence, melodic mastery and vocal range that have won her admirers from here to Beijing.
Daphne didn’t plan a career in music. But as a student at DePaul University in Chicago, she found herself performing at open mic nights, which led to regular Chicago gigs and, eventually, a decision to leave school and hit the road. So she assembled a band and began playing 200 shows a year across the United States. Daphne released her independent EP Matter of Time in September 2007; in a twist of fate, Vanguard Records head Kevin Welk heard a track on an American Airlines flight. This led to a record deal in 2008 and the release of her second EP, Exhibit A.
To record her first full-length album, Daphne headed to the hills of Tennessee. She released What to Say in 2010, which was co-produced by Tim Lauer and Grammy winner Gary Paczosa. Album number two, Because I Can, came out in 2011 and reached the number two spot on iTunes’ Top 40 Singer/Songwriter Chart. On her latest EP, Inside Outright, Daphne co-wrote songs with Hunter Davis, Chris Faulk, Angela Lauer, John Oates of Hall & Oates, Keri Barnes and Tim Lauer.
Daphne currently calls Nashville home, where she crafts her distinct brand of pop and is poised to expand her fan base world wide.
Daphne didn’t plan a career in music. But as a student at DePaul University in Chicago, she found herself performing at open mic nights, which led to regular Chicago gigs and, eventually, a decision to leave school and hit the road. So she assembled a band and began playing 200 shows a year across the United States. Daphne released her independent EP Matter of Time in September 2007; in a twist of fate, Vanguard Records head Kevin Welk heard a track on an American Airlines flight. This led to a record deal in 2008 and the release of her second EP, Exhibit A.
To record her first full-length album, Daphne headed to the hills of Tennessee. She released What to Say in 2010, which was co-produced by Tim Lauer and Grammy winner Gary Paczosa. Album number two, Because I Can, came out in 2011 and reached the number two spot on iTunes’ Top 40 Singer/Songwriter Chart. On her latest EP, Inside Outright, Daphne co-wrote songs with Hunter Davis, Chris Faulk, Angela Lauer, John Oates of Hall & Oates, Keri Barnes and Tim Lauer.
Daphne currently calls Nashville home, where she crafts her distinct brand of pop and is poised to expand her fan base world wide.
Emily kopp
Emily Kopp's music has been described as a marriage between "bluesy heartache vocals and pop songwriting smarts" (The Advocate), and the soon to be 23 year old singer-songwriter is ready to become a full-time road warrior with the release of her debut full length album, "Serendipity Find Me” (10/15). Though an independent artist, Kopp has already gained much momentum and the attention of many, working in the grassroots-esque style of countless artists who she most admires; Among them, Brandi Carlile, who Kopp had the opportunity to open for on tour in early 2013. She has spent the last two years honing her skills the traditional way:
Touring the Southeast along with her top-notch band in-tow, and also sharing stages with artists such as Michelle Branch, Parachute, Boyce Avenue, Air Supply, ZZ Ward, Delta Rae, and even Matchbox 20. Like many artists, Kopp's musical beginnings started at a young age. She grew up singing in the school choir, playing behind the drum-kit in garage bands, to eventually strumming cover songs on her guitar at wine bars and coffee shops. After relocating to Orlando, FL to study at The University of Central Florida, Kopp began working at local music venue, running errands and providing hospitality for artists (Marc Cohn, Joshua Radin, Joe Bonamassa, The Civil Wars, Dr. John, Bryan Adams, Ani DiFranco, among many others).
Much of Kopp’s tenacity and knowledge about the music industry was developed while cutting her teeth behind the scenes—working hard and watching from the sidelines. Now after finding her own voice, Kopp shares a similar soulfulness, lyrical knowhow, and pop sensibility that blends beautifully with the same artists who she has always admired, and in many instances, worked for. Kopp will be touring heavily this Spring, with trips planned to all of the major markets throughout 2014.
Touring the Southeast along with her top-notch band in-tow, and also sharing stages with artists such as Michelle Branch, Parachute, Boyce Avenue, Air Supply, ZZ Ward, Delta Rae, and even Matchbox 20. Like many artists, Kopp's musical beginnings started at a young age. She grew up singing in the school choir, playing behind the drum-kit in garage bands, to eventually strumming cover songs on her guitar at wine bars and coffee shops. After relocating to Orlando, FL to study at The University of Central Florida, Kopp began working at local music venue, running errands and providing hospitality for artists (Marc Cohn, Joshua Radin, Joe Bonamassa, The Civil Wars, Dr. John, Bryan Adams, Ani DiFranco, among many others).
Much of Kopp’s tenacity and knowledge about the music industry was developed while cutting her teeth behind the scenes—working hard and watching from the sidelines. Now after finding her own voice, Kopp shares a similar soulfulness, lyrical knowhow, and pop sensibility that blends beautifully with the same artists who she has always admired, and in many instances, worked for. Kopp will be touring heavily this Spring, with trips planned to all of the major markets throughout 2014.
Angel Snow
The highest caliber of artistry is often intertwined with the deepest sincerity. As is the case with rising star Angel Snow, whose music is the truest and most honest reflection of her life. Her story plays out in self-penned songs, where detail by detail she lets the listener in on her innermost thoughts, hopes, and dreams. Sometimes sorrowful, often hopeful, and always looking toward faith, Snow’s music is nothing if not sincere. Combine this honesty with sweeping folk melodies and bluesy guitar riffs, and the result is the captivating landscape of sound found on her new self-titled album.
Fate and faithful perseverance have brought Snow to the present, as she prepares to release her second full-length set. With a major boost from acclaimed star Alison Krauss, Snow’s lifelong dreams are coming to fruition. Krauss and Union Station recorded three songs written by Snow for the deluxe edition of the band’s latest album.
Fate and faithful perseverance have brought Snow to the present, as she prepares to release her second full-length set. With a major boost from acclaimed star Alison Krauss, Snow’s lifelong dreams are coming to fruition. Krauss and Union Station recorded three songs written by Snow for the deluxe edition of the band’s latest album.
Korby lenker
An abbreviated list of Lenker's achievements so far includes: a significant amount of airplay on the legendary Seattle indie rock station KEXP; a BBC 2 interview with Bob Harris, which is only about the highest honor a rootsy singer-songwriter touring the U.K. can get; opening slots for acts ranging from Willie Nelson to Ray LaMontagne, Nickel Creek, Keith Urban, Susan Tedeschi and Tristan Prettyman; a successful run with one of the hottest young West Coast bluegrass bands of the aughts; and wins in the Merlefest folk songwriting contest as well as the Kerrville Folk Festival's elite New Folk songwriting competition.
Lenker's composition "My Little Life" brought him the Kerrville honors this year. It doesn't seem possible that one song could work so well in such disparate worlds, but it also proved its powers as a galvanizing piece of indie-pop, drawing a small army of likeminded, rising Nashville artists and personalities-Jeremy Lister and Katie Herzig to name two-to make lip-syncing, ukulele-strumming cameos in Lenker's music video.
The song-which is on the Heart of Gold EP he co-produced with A-list keyboardist Tim Lauer this year-itself points to the uncommon mixture of abilities Lenker has honed. It's imminently accessible and effortlessly tuneful, plus the lyrics express a familiar idea in playfully unexpected ways while pointing to thoughtfulness just beneath the surface. You can tell the guy's well-read, but he never comes off as too clever for his own good.
"I like it simple," says Lenker. "I just do. As soon as there's a weird chord, I'm like, 'Why? That's all been done. Who cares?' What's really hard is to hit people in the heart and to reach them. That's what I'm trying to do: make music that's easily likeable, but with a kind of secret sophistication. I'm always trying to write a song that you can hum along with on the first listen. You're like, 'Yeah, I'd like to hear that again.' Then maybe you hear it 20 times and you're like, 'Damn, that's actually something I'm going to think about now.'"
But there's a lot more than that to his instinctual, unorthodox journey from being brought up as a mortician's son in rural Idaho to being recognized as one of the more innovative voices in Nashville's current music scene.
Back in high school, Lenker had a cover band that enabled him to try on various alt-rock identities. "We covered 'Under the Bridge,' by Red Hot Chili Peppers," he says, "and I didn't know this at the time, but I listened to it recently and I'm like, 'Whoa, that's Korby trying to sing like Anthony Keidis. And this is Korby trying to sing like Trent Reznor.'"
After that, he got really into transcribing Trey Anastasio guitar solos as part of his music theory studies at Western Washington University. He also spent a semester in West Virginia with only his Martin D-18 acoustic guitar for company.
Here's a bit of insight into the spontaneous spirit that makes Lenker's music so interesting: He picked up a bargain bin copy of the journalistic snake handling memoir Salvation on Sand Mountain, and, with that alone to go on, decided to drive until he found one of the mountain churches mentioned in the book.
Lenker got new perspective, and a song about a snake-handling preacher, from the experience. "I ended up going home with one of the families," he says. "We rode home with the snake in the box in the backseat. And I got to be friends with this kid who was my age-I was 23 at the time, and he was 23. We couldn't have had more different backgrounds. He had an 8th grade education. But we somehow also had a lot in common. We ended up trading letters back and forth for years."
Lenker returned to the Pacific Northwest inspired by his Appalachian adventures and fully immersed himself in the region's bluegrass scene, forming a band called The Barbed Wire Cutters that proved to be an immediate hit in those parts. And he found ways to apply his pop-honed sensibilities to that tradition.
"I like it tight," he offers about his experience fronting the 5 piece bluegrass outfit, which SPIN magazine called "The Young Riders of the bluegrass revolt". "I like the solos short and I like harmonies in tune...it was all song-driven for me."
All this time, Lenker was also making solo albums, and that became his primary focus with the folk-leaning Bellingham, which went over wonderfully in the U.K. and landed him on Bob Harris's BBC Radio 4 show. After a move to Seattle, he got the urge to plug in again, hooked up with Candlebox drummer Scott Mercado and made a nimble modern rock record called King of Hearts that got lots of spins on KEXP and a 4 star review in UK mainstay MOJO magazine.
Toward the end of the last decade, Lenker followed his muse down to his present home of Nashville where he's not only continued to hone his own unique artistic voice, but launched a stripped-down series of performance videos dubbed Wigby, spotlighting kindred musical spirits he's found.
"I love those videos," he says, "because it's just people being great. It's not production-it's just, 'Can you sing? Can you write a great song? Can you play your instrument well?'"
Deep down, Lenker is drawn both to the sort of unadorned expression the discerning folkie crowd treasures and to the sort of playful pop embellishment and electronic textures that may land one of his tracks in a primetime T.V. show or film any day now.
And there's nothing at all wrong with having it both ways musically when it comes this naturally. "I can't abandon either one of them," Lenker says, "because they're both so me. One of my favorite musicians in the world, bassist and composer Edgar Meyer once said in an interview 'The boundaries of music have been and always should be limitless.' I couldn't agree more."
Lenker's composition "My Little Life" brought him the Kerrville honors this year. It doesn't seem possible that one song could work so well in such disparate worlds, but it also proved its powers as a galvanizing piece of indie-pop, drawing a small army of likeminded, rising Nashville artists and personalities-Jeremy Lister and Katie Herzig to name two-to make lip-syncing, ukulele-strumming cameos in Lenker's music video.
The song-which is on the Heart of Gold EP he co-produced with A-list keyboardist Tim Lauer this year-itself points to the uncommon mixture of abilities Lenker has honed. It's imminently accessible and effortlessly tuneful, plus the lyrics express a familiar idea in playfully unexpected ways while pointing to thoughtfulness just beneath the surface. You can tell the guy's well-read, but he never comes off as too clever for his own good.
"I like it simple," says Lenker. "I just do. As soon as there's a weird chord, I'm like, 'Why? That's all been done. Who cares?' What's really hard is to hit people in the heart and to reach them. That's what I'm trying to do: make music that's easily likeable, but with a kind of secret sophistication. I'm always trying to write a song that you can hum along with on the first listen. You're like, 'Yeah, I'd like to hear that again.' Then maybe you hear it 20 times and you're like, 'Damn, that's actually something I'm going to think about now.'"
But there's a lot more than that to his instinctual, unorthodox journey from being brought up as a mortician's son in rural Idaho to being recognized as one of the more innovative voices in Nashville's current music scene.
Back in high school, Lenker had a cover band that enabled him to try on various alt-rock identities. "We covered 'Under the Bridge,' by Red Hot Chili Peppers," he says, "and I didn't know this at the time, but I listened to it recently and I'm like, 'Whoa, that's Korby trying to sing like Anthony Keidis. And this is Korby trying to sing like Trent Reznor.'"
After that, he got really into transcribing Trey Anastasio guitar solos as part of his music theory studies at Western Washington University. He also spent a semester in West Virginia with only his Martin D-18 acoustic guitar for company.
Here's a bit of insight into the spontaneous spirit that makes Lenker's music so interesting: He picked up a bargain bin copy of the journalistic snake handling memoir Salvation on Sand Mountain, and, with that alone to go on, decided to drive until he found one of the mountain churches mentioned in the book.
Lenker got new perspective, and a song about a snake-handling preacher, from the experience. "I ended up going home with one of the families," he says. "We rode home with the snake in the box in the backseat. And I got to be friends with this kid who was my age-I was 23 at the time, and he was 23. We couldn't have had more different backgrounds. He had an 8th grade education. But we somehow also had a lot in common. We ended up trading letters back and forth for years."
Lenker returned to the Pacific Northwest inspired by his Appalachian adventures and fully immersed himself in the region's bluegrass scene, forming a band called The Barbed Wire Cutters that proved to be an immediate hit in those parts. And he found ways to apply his pop-honed sensibilities to that tradition.
"I like it tight," he offers about his experience fronting the 5 piece bluegrass outfit, which SPIN magazine called "The Young Riders of the bluegrass revolt". "I like the solos short and I like harmonies in tune...it was all song-driven for me."
All this time, Lenker was also making solo albums, and that became his primary focus with the folk-leaning Bellingham, which went over wonderfully in the U.K. and landed him on Bob Harris's BBC Radio 4 show. After a move to Seattle, he got the urge to plug in again, hooked up with Candlebox drummer Scott Mercado and made a nimble modern rock record called King of Hearts that got lots of spins on KEXP and a 4 star review in UK mainstay MOJO magazine.
Toward the end of the last decade, Lenker followed his muse down to his present home of Nashville where he's not only continued to hone his own unique artistic voice, but launched a stripped-down series of performance videos dubbed Wigby, spotlighting kindred musical spirits he's found.
"I love those videos," he says, "because it's just people being great. It's not production-it's just, 'Can you sing? Can you write a great song? Can you play your instrument well?'"
Deep down, Lenker is drawn both to the sort of unadorned expression the discerning folkie crowd treasures and to the sort of playful pop embellishment and electronic textures that may land one of his tracks in a primetime T.V. show or film any day now.
And there's nothing at all wrong with having it both ways musically when it comes this naturally. "I can't abandon either one of them," Lenker says, "because they're both so me. One of my favorite musicians in the world, bassist and composer Edgar Meyer once said in an interview 'The boundaries of music have been and always should be limitless.' I couldn't agree more."
barrett smith
In the year 2000, Barrett Smith abruptly left his career as an accomplished classical guitarist to immerse himself in the world of his first love: folk and americana music. Since then, he has successfully toured the world as a performer, teacher and composer. Across the United States, Asia, and Europe, Barrett continues to perform as a solo artist and with various ensembles. Among these groups are the Shannon Whitworth Band, a traditional Italian string ensemble (Guggino Trio), and a bluegrass-fusion band (Cosmic Possum). Still, Barrett seems to be at his best in the simplest setting: a stage, a guitar, and a great listening audience.
Ryan Montbleau
Songs for Ryan Montbleau typically need to simmer. In his 10-year career this gifted singer and his limber band have built their catalog the old-fashioned way, by introducing new songs to their live set, then bending and shaping them over dozens of performances before committing a definitive version to the hard drive.
For that and many other reasons, Montbleau's next album, For Higher, is quite literally a departure. Well-established out of his home base in the Northeast, the singer threw himself into New Orleans, where everything is slow-cooked, for a few fast-moving days — and whipped up an instant delicacy.
A few of the cuts on the new album — the playful stomp of “Deadset” or “Head Above Water,” freshly peppered with horns — were already part of the Ryan Montbleau Band's ever-growing repertoire. But the majority, including four handpicked cover tunes — stone soul nuggets from Bill Withers, Curtis Mayfield, the late Muscle Shoals guitarist Eddie Hinton and more — came together spontaneously, with little prepwork.
It was a feel thing, with Montbleau putting heads together with fellow music head Ben Ellman of New Orleans flag-bearers Galactic. The singer and songwriter first eased his way into the city when he was invited to contribute songs to Backatown, the breakthrough album of favorite son Trombone Shorty. That went so well, Montbleau co-wrote two more songs for Shorty's recent follow-up, “For True.”
When Montbleau sent videos of himself performing the songs, Ellman, who produced “Backatown,” was impressed. Why not come down and do a record of your own? he asked.
Almost before he got an answer, Ellman had assembled a band of ringers – keyboard/B3 player Ivan Neville, French Quarter mainstay Anders Osborne on guitar, drummer Simon Lott, and the estimable George Porter, Jr. of the Meters and countless funky sessions on bass. Though Montbleau has released several solo records and three albums credited to his full band, he felt like this was an all-new hurdle he'd have to clear.
“My main issue was, what would I bring in for material?” he recalls, sitting in the kitchen of the spacious home he and several bandmates share in an industrial city north of Boston. “I'd never done a session like that.
“Our band will 'shed songs on the road for years and then record them, and there's strength in that. But there's also strength in putting together these other badasses for a few days.”
And his New Orleans band proved, in fact, to be most badass. If Montbleau was initially a bit apprehensive that the sessions might represent just another paycheck for his sidemen, he quickly learned otherwise. “Every single person, kind of to my amazement, got into it,” he says. “They listened to every playback, and they were high-fiving each other. They were great.”
Staying at Ellman's house while recording the new album, Montbleau spent his downtime cruising the streets of New Orleans on a borrowed vintage bike. “There's clearly no American city like it, at all,” he says. “It's deep, dark and beautiful.”
Unlike Montbleau's previous recordings, which showcase his own maturing songcraft, the new album draws a lot of its depth and beauty from its cover songs. Perfectly titled is the beatific “Sweet, Nice and High,” originally recorded by the forgotten soul supergroup Rhinoceros. On the other end of the moodswing, Mayfield's “Here But I'm Gone,” written and recorded for the great singer's last album, after the accident that left him paralyzed, is a shimmering testament to human frailty.
“Sometimes I feel like there are so many songs — who the hell needs another song?” Montbleau asks. But then he'll discover another new inspiration — sitting at the kitchen table sipping tea, there's a vinyl copy of an old Billy Preston album propped on the windowsill behind him — and another lyric or melody will come to him like a visitation. And when the song becomes a reality, and the crowds begin to sing it back to him, well, that's what it's all about.
At 34, he's a late-bloomer who's right on time. Montbleau didn't start singing and playing guitar in earnest until he was in college, at Villanova. Later, working at the House of Blues in Boston, he began playing solo sets there as a warmup act. His band — there's now six of them — came together naturally, over time, planting strong roots in coffeeshops, folk venues and rock clubs before converting audiences on an outdoor festival circuit that now stretches across the country. Through word of mouth and repeat visits, the band has built a devoted following from the Northeast to Chicago, Seattle and Austin. “It's like watching the grass grow,” says the easygoing Montbleau.
Far from feeling left out of the New Orleans sessions, his band is already feeding hungrily on the arrangements from the new album in their live sets.
“We've done a good job staying in one direction, just moving forward,” says the singer. “We all just really want to get better. I try to instill it in the guys — if we just keep it together, good stuff is gonna continue to happen.”
When the crowds are dancing, the band digs deeper in the pocket. But Montbleau, who still performs solo, is constantly looking to strike a balance between the contagious energy of moving bodies and making a closer connection.
“You can still dance and have a good time,” he says of his fast-spreading fan base, “but I love when you listen.”
For that and many other reasons, Montbleau's next album, For Higher, is quite literally a departure. Well-established out of his home base in the Northeast, the singer threw himself into New Orleans, where everything is slow-cooked, for a few fast-moving days — and whipped up an instant delicacy.
A few of the cuts on the new album — the playful stomp of “Deadset” or “Head Above Water,” freshly peppered with horns — were already part of the Ryan Montbleau Band's ever-growing repertoire. But the majority, including four handpicked cover tunes — stone soul nuggets from Bill Withers, Curtis Mayfield, the late Muscle Shoals guitarist Eddie Hinton and more — came together spontaneously, with little prepwork.
It was a feel thing, with Montbleau putting heads together with fellow music head Ben Ellman of New Orleans flag-bearers Galactic. The singer and songwriter first eased his way into the city when he was invited to contribute songs to Backatown, the breakthrough album of favorite son Trombone Shorty. That went so well, Montbleau co-wrote two more songs for Shorty's recent follow-up, “For True.”
When Montbleau sent videos of himself performing the songs, Ellman, who produced “Backatown,” was impressed. Why not come down and do a record of your own? he asked.
Almost before he got an answer, Ellman had assembled a band of ringers – keyboard/B3 player Ivan Neville, French Quarter mainstay Anders Osborne on guitar, drummer Simon Lott, and the estimable George Porter, Jr. of the Meters and countless funky sessions on bass. Though Montbleau has released several solo records and three albums credited to his full band, he felt like this was an all-new hurdle he'd have to clear.
“My main issue was, what would I bring in for material?” he recalls, sitting in the kitchen of the spacious home he and several bandmates share in an industrial city north of Boston. “I'd never done a session like that.
“Our band will 'shed songs on the road for years and then record them, and there's strength in that. But there's also strength in putting together these other badasses for a few days.”
And his New Orleans band proved, in fact, to be most badass. If Montbleau was initially a bit apprehensive that the sessions might represent just another paycheck for his sidemen, he quickly learned otherwise. “Every single person, kind of to my amazement, got into it,” he says. “They listened to every playback, and they were high-fiving each other. They were great.”
Staying at Ellman's house while recording the new album, Montbleau spent his downtime cruising the streets of New Orleans on a borrowed vintage bike. “There's clearly no American city like it, at all,” he says. “It's deep, dark and beautiful.”
Unlike Montbleau's previous recordings, which showcase his own maturing songcraft, the new album draws a lot of its depth and beauty from its cover songs. Perfectly titled is the beatific “Sweet, Nice and High,” originally recorded by the forgotten soul supergroup Rhinoceros. On the other end of the moodswing, Mayfield's “Here But I'm Gone,” written and recorded for the great singer's last album, after the accident that left him paralyzed, is a shimmering testament to human frailty.
“Sometimes I feel like there are so many songs — who the hell needs another song?” Montbleau asks. But then he'll discover another new inspiration — sitting at the kitchen table sipping tea, there's a vinyl copy of an old Billy Preston album propped on the windowsill behind him — and another lyric or melody will come to him like a visitation. And when the song becomes a reality, and the crowds begin to sing it back to him, well, that's what it's all about.
At 34, he's a late-bloomer who's right on time. Montbleau didn't start singing and playing guitar in earnest until he was in college, at Villanova. Later, working at the House of Blues in Boston, he began playing solo sets there as a warmup act. His band — there's now six of them — came together naturally, over time, planting strong roots in coffeeshops, folk venues and rock clubs before converting audiences on an outdoor festival circuit that now stretches across the country. Through word of mouth and repeat visits, the band has built a devoted following from the Northeast to Chicago, Seattle and Austin. “It's like watching the grass grow,” says the easygoing Montbleau.
Far from feeling left out of the New Orleans sessions, his band is already feeding hungrily on the arrangements from the new album in their live sets.
“We've done a good job staying in one direction, just moving forward,” says the singer. “We all just really want to get better. I try to instill it in the guys — if we just keep it together, good stuff is gonna continue to happen.”
When the crowds are dancing, the band digs deeper in the pocket. But Montbleau, who still performs solo, is constantly looking to strike a balance between the contagious energy of moving bodies and making a closer connection.
“You can still dance and have a good time,” he says of his fast-spreading fan base, “but I love when you listen.”
Victoria Vox
Victoria Vox has been honing her songwriting and voice for the past ten years, performing around the globe to Australia, Europe, Canada, and across the USA. She began writing songs at age 10, inspired by artists Cyndi Lauper and Madonna, primarily writing songs with the guitar. She went on to earn a degree in songwriting from the Berklee College of Music (2001), and then at 24 she was given a ukulele and never looked back. The small four-stringed instrument proved to be an excellent vehicle for her songwriting, while not getting in the way of her endearing vocals and seemingly simple, but rather smart songs. Originally from Green Bay, WI, Vox now lives in Baltimore, MD.
2013 sees the release of her new album: KEY which is a heartfelt collection of songs that she wrote during her self-inflicted 52 Original Song Project. Her fans purchased 52 songs in advance so she could take some needed time off-the-road to focus on her songwriting. Reflecting on her release, Victoria says, “We spend a lot of time in search of key. Maybe it’s the key to success… to happiness… or to someone’s heart. As I searched for the right key, I found keys to songs, which opened the door to my own heart. I entered into a year of songwriting where I unlocked my senses in order to create. I let music in and out”.
2013 sees the release of her new album: KEY which is a heartfelt collection of songs that she wrote during her self-inflicted 52 Original Song Project. Her fans purchased 52 songs in advance so she could take some needed time off-the-road to focus on her songwriting. Reflecting on her release, Victoria says, “We spend a lot of time in search of key. Maybe it’s the key to success… to happiness… or to someone’s heart. As I searched for the right key, I found keys to songs, which opened the door to my own heart. I entered into a year of songwriting where I unlocked my senses in order to create. I let music in and out”.
Danielle Ate the Sandwich
Danielle Ate the Sandwich is the stage name of nationally-recognized independent folk musician and songwriter, Danielle Anderson. Danielle has shared the stage and collaborated with acts such as Pomplamoose, Lauren O’Connell, Leo Kottke and Mumford & Sons. Beginning her career at small shows and open mic nights in Fort Collins, Colorado, Danielle has toured nationally since 2009, playing for a loyal fan base of online followers. Her videos on youtube have gained millions of combined views and have given Danielle the opportunity to write and play music full time. Danielle Ate the Sandwich has recorded four independent albums. Her 2010 release, Two Bedroom Apartment, reached number 5 on iTunes’ top selling singer/songwriter charts. In June 2012, she released a new, full length, studio album, Like A King. Danielle currently lives in Fort Collins, CO.
Denver's Westword describes Danielle as, “cripplingly enchanting with lyrics telling the story of a generation coming of age in an age of uncertainty."
The Denver Post says, "Danielle Anderson is a tender singer-songwriter, a brazen humorist, a fearless young woman. Performing as Danielle Ate the Sandwich, Anderson wields a ukulele, a guitar and her own words to tell stories about people."
Denver's Westword describes Danielle as, “cripplingly enchanting with lyrics telling the story of a generation coming of age in an age of uncertainty."
The Denver Post says, "Danielle Anderson is a tender singer-songwriter, a brazen humorist, a fearless young woman. Performing as Danielle Ate the Sandwich, Anderson wields a ukulele, a guitar and her own words to tell stories about people."
Rachael Sage
A soulful vocalist and innovative keyboardist, singer/songwriter and producer Rachael Sage has become one of the busiest touring artists in independent music, performing 150+ dates a year with her band The Sequins throughout the US, UK, Europe and Asia. She has earned a loyal following for her infectious melodies, poetic lyrics, and often-outrageous, colorful stage banter.
Sage has shared stages with Sarah McLachlan, Colin Hay, Marshall Crenshaw, Marc Cohn, The Animals and Ani DiFranco. She has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and received numerous songwriting awards including The John Lennon Songwriting Contest (Grand Prize) and several Independent Music Awards and OUTMusic Awards.
MPress Records released her 10th album, “Haunted By You” in May 2012. Featuring The Sequins as well as guest appearances by Dar Williams, Mike Visceglia (Suzanne Vega), David Immergluck (Counting Crows), Doug Yowell (Duncan Sheik) and more, it was self-produced by Sage and mixed by Kevin Killen (U2, Elvis Costello).
Sage has shared stages with Sarah McLachlan, Colin Hay, Marshall Crenshaw, Marc Cohn, The Animals and Ani DiFranco. She has performed at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and received numerous songwriting awards including The John Lennon Songwriting Contest (Grand Prize) and several Independent Music Awards and OUTMusic Awards.
MPress Records released her 10th album, “Haunted By You” in May 2012. Featuring The Sequins as well as guest appearances by Dar Williams, Mike Visceglia (Suzanne Vega), David Immergluck (Counting Crows), Doug Yowell (Duncan Sheik) and more, it was self-produced by Sage and mixed by Kevin Killen (U2, Elvis Costello).
Granville Automatic
Led by a modern-day Linda Ronstadt, Granville Automatic writes songs the Associated Press call “haunting tales of sorrow and perseverance.” Horses, history and war are just some of the topics songwriters Vanessa Olivarez and Elizabeth Elkins prefer – all fitting subjects for a band named after a 19th-century typewriter. With sonic references like Lyle Lovett, Gram Parsons, Emmylou Harris and Willie Nelson, Granville Automatic has created a quiet and lyrical sound devoted to telling stories from the past. After writing together first in the spring of 2009, the pair has more than 100 songs.
The band hit the ground running with the release of 2011’s Live from Sun Studio, an eight-song set recorded old-school-no-overdubs- style at Memphis’ Sun Studio and released in conjunction with the premiere of their episode of the revered PBS television program Sun Studio Sessions. A studio album, Granville Automatic, followed closely behind in late 2012. Recorded at The Station House in Echo Park, Los Angeles, with producer Ted Russell Kamp (Shooter Jennings), the record’s 11 tracks include “Comanche” (about the horse who survived the Battle of Little Big Horn), “Hazel Creek” (about a town flooded when the TVA built Fontana Dam), “The Groundskeeper” (about a Civil War ghost seen at Carnton Plantation in Franklin, Tennessee), “Flying Mercury” (about the 19th-century Pepin & Breschard Circus), "Carolina Amen" (about a solider lost in the Civil War battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse) and “Copenhill” (about Sherman’s burning of Atlanta) as well as live favorites “Never On A Sunday” and “Don’t Come to Tennessee”. Legendary harmonica player Mickey Raphael makes a cameo on the elegiac “Blood and Gold”, which recounts the story of the American wild horse.
Chosen as the Composers in Residence at Seaside, Florida’s prestigious Escape to Create program, the pair spent a month in residence there, writing An Army Without Music: Civil War Stories from Hallowed Ground. Those songs will become the duo’s third album, a double disc: one side recorded live on battle sites across the country, and the other offering full-band studio versions of the songs. The pair has partnered with the Civil War Trust for the live recordings. Each live recording is filmed and posted on the group’s website to underscore the importance of saving these quickly-disappearing Civil War landscapes. The girls are currently writing their fourth album, Dancing at El Mercado - a collection of songs inspired by Texas and Vanessa's childhood in the Lone Star State.
The band taped a Daytrotter session in June 2013. They’ve also appeared on the PBS/NPR program WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour - as well as Nashville Public Radio's Live at the Bluebird Café (their photograph hangs on the wall at the famous venue). They have performed at SXSW, the CMA Music Festival, the Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival, the 30A Songwriters Festival and the Key West Songwriters Festival.
Granville Automatic loves the road – clocking as many as 200 dates across America each year. The duo has played at Hotel Café in Los Angeles, the Tin Angel and World Café Live in Philadelphia, the Bitter End and the Living Room in New York City, Momo’s in Austin, Eddie’s Attic in Atlanta and are favorites at Pappy and Harriet’s near Joshua Tree, California. They’ve played BMI’s Acoustic Lounge in Los Angeles and appeared on Mississippi Public Broadcasting’s Thacker Mountain Radio and NBC Atlanta’s Morning Show.
The band was a finalist in Mountain Stage’s NewSong Contest and a semi-finalist in the Unsigned Only competition. They won third prize in Spin Magazine’s Next Great American Road Song contest, made the finals in the Maurice Small Town Sounds competition and USAA’s GarageBand Playoff and were in the Top 50 for the Wildflower Performing Songwriter Competition.
Both girls have a history in the music business: Vocalist/songwriter Olivarez wrote and recorded a Top 10 single in Canada, has three cuts on Sugarland records, including a song on their multi-platinum Enjoy the Ride album, and received a Dora nomination for her work in the Toronto production of Hairspray. She was also a finalist on the second season of American Idol. Guitarist/songwriter Elkins is a Grand Prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest who has showcased at the Billboard/BMI Acoustic Brunch at SXSW, at BMI showcases in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Nashville, and at CMJ. Elkins’ songs have appeared on television programs from Smallville to Rescue Me, Jersey Shore to CNN and in the film Mean Girls 2.
The band hit the ground running with the release of 2011’s Live from Sun Studio, an eight-song set recorded old-school-no-overdubs- style at Memphis’ Sun Studio and released in conjunction with the premiere of their episode of the revered PBS television program Sun Studio Sessions. A studio album, Granville Automatic, followed closely behind in late 2012. Recorded at The Station House in Echo Park, Los Angeles, with producer Ted Russell Kamp (Shooter Jennings), the record’s 11 tracks include “Comanche” (about the horse who survived the Battle of Little Big Horn), “Hazel Creek” (about a town flooded when the TVA built Fontana Dam), “The Groundskeeper” (about a Civil War ghost seen at Carnton Plantation in Franklin, Tennessee), “Flying Mercury” (about the 19th-century Pepin & Breschard Circus), "Carolina Amen" (about a solider lost in the Civil War battle of Spotsylvania Courthouse) and “Copenhill” (about Sherman’s burning of Atlanta) as well as live favorites “Never On A Sunday” and “Don’t Come to Tennessee”. Legendary harmonica player Mickey Raphael makes a cameo on the elegiac “Blood and Gold”, which recounts the story of the American wild horse.
Chosen as the Composers in Residence at Seaside, Florida’s prestigious Escape to Create program, the pair spent a month in residence there, writing An Army Without Music: Civil War Stories from Hallowed Ground. Those songs will become the duo’s third album, a double disc: one side recorded live on battle sites across the country, and the other offering full-band studio versions of the songs. The pair has partnered with the Civil War Trust for the live recordings. Each live recording is filmed and posted on the group’s website to underscore the importance of saving these quickly-disappearing Civil War landscapes. The girls are currently writing their fourth album, Dancing at El Mercado - a collection of songs inspired by Texas and Vanessa's childhood in the Lone Star State.
The band taped a Daytrotter session in June 2013. They’ve also appeared on the PBS/NPR program WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour - as well as Nashville Public Radio's Live at the Bluebird Café (their photograph hangs on the wall at the famous venue). They have performed at SXSW, the CMA Music Festival, the Tin Pan South Songwriters Festival, the 30A Songwriters Festival and the Key West Songwriters Festival.
Granville Automatic loves the road – clocking as many as 200 dates across America each year. The duo has played at Hotel Café in Los Angeles, the Tin Angel and World Café Live in Philadelphia, the Bitter End and the Living Room in New York City, Momo’s in Austin, Eddie’s Attic in Atlanta and are favorites at Pappy and Harriet’s near Joshua Tree, California. They’ve played BMI’s Acoustic Lounge in Los Angeles and appeared on Mississippi Public Broadcasting’s Thacker Mountain Radio and NBC Atlanta’s Morning Show.
The band was a finalist in Mountain Stage’s NewSong Contest and a semi-finalist in the Unsigned Only competition. They won third prize in Spin Magazine’s Next Great American Road Song contest, made the finals in the Maurice Small Town Sounds competition and USAA’s GarageBand Playoff and were in the Top 50 for the Wildflower Performing Songwriter Competition.
Both girls have a history in the music business: Vocalist/songwriter Olivarez wrote and recorded a Top 10 single in Canada, has three cuts on Sugarland records, including a song on their multi-platinum Enjoy the Ride album, and received a Dora nomination for her work in the Toronto production of Hairspray. She was also a finalist on the second season of American Idol. Guitarist/songwriter Elkins is a Grand Prize winner of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest who has showcased at the Billboard/BMI Acoustic Brunch at SXSW, at BMI showcases in Los Angeles, Atlanta and Nashville, and at CMJ. Elkins’ songs have appeared on television programs from Smallville to Rescue Me, Jersey Shore to CNN and in the film Mean Girls 2.
Jennifer Knapp
On another continent, some 9000 miles from the United States, is a corner of the earth where there is no Internet, no electricity, no telephone. From wherever you stand, you see red dirt and sky, well-adapted wildlife, rock piles next to dirt roads that seem to go on and on forever. Desolate but not empty, the Australian outback offers people the chance to revel in the open space and solitary oneness this striking terrain provides. Had you travelled that same path years ago, you may have passed Jennifer Knapp along the way, a Grammy nominated, Dove Award winning artist, who was happy to let go of all the success she had to live a very different kind of life traveling to the most remote corners of Australia, looking to reclaim a part of herself she felt she lost in all the excitement of her accomplishments.
And then one day she decided to come back.
Before you start with any Eddie and the Cruisers comparisons, please note that Jennifer didn’t fake her own demise. She just decided to take a break, though at the time, she wasn’t sure she’d ever return. Considering Jennifer has over sold over 1 million records, spent years successfully playing to sold out audiences and had a considerable fan base, the choice wasn’t an easy one but definitely necessary. “I didn’t play, I didn’t write, my guitars collected dust for 5 years. I completely had to divorce myself from the whole thing because I never really took ownership of what music meant for me as an individual. I needed to figure that out, so I really left the music business with the idea that I may not ever do it again.”
At first, Jennifer set out to go to all the cities she had toured in, but never had a chance to visit. Growing up in a tiny town in Kansas, the trips across the US and Europe were exciting. This led to a jaunt to Australia, where she decided to stay. Walking away from her career wasn’t easy, as Jennifer was riding high on the wave of success. Having cultivated an audience within the Christian music spectrum, Jennifer’s first 3 albums were all critical and commercial successes. She won her first Dove Award in 1999 for Best New Artist, scored 2 Grammy nods and another Dove nomination in 2003. She opened for Jars of Clay, spent some time on the Lilith tour and continued to grow her audience, who clamored for more of her folk-rock message of spirituality and love. People magazine touted Jennifer as an “uncommonly literate songwriter,” but just as she was at the top of her game she…let go.
After seven years spent traveling, mastering the Playstation and spending time working at an antique store (and actually loving that she dreaded going to work in the morning like a “normal” person), Jennifer began to re-visit what made her happiest. “I had to go through a mourning process of walking away and convincing myself that it didn’t matter if I played music anymore. But it was hard, and the whole time I was gone, it was like I had a shadow following me. I began to return to it in my own private time, getting out my guitar, starting to play and falling in love with music again without any expectations. I just wanted to play because it meant something to me.”
Struggling with being a normal person with an abnormal occupation, Jennifer finally made peace with what she did best. “I was really enjoying the music I was playing at home. Half the record was written in Australia and as I played it, friends were responding to it. It fanned the flame. There are sad parts of working in the industry that made me feel disconnected, but I realized I was just afraid and was hiding. It seemed a shame that I could share my songs with people and I wasn’t doing it. I hadn’t worked in 7 years and there were fans on the Internet holding vigils for me to play again. It took me a long time to understand that connection and now it’s a passion of mine. In a true sense it’s a gift – you give it because you don’t want it back, and you want it to bless the person receiving it. What an amazing opportunity for me to have.”
Returning to Nashville, Jennifer holed up in the studio to begin recording the aptly named Letting Go, her fourth studio album. With Producer Paul Moak, best known as his work as a studio musician for artists such as Mat Kearney, Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, at the helm, Jennifer had no intention of resting on past laurels. With Paul, they put together a whole new band of hungry young musicians and got to work. With the exception of longtime bass player Tony Lucido, the guys in the studio were musicians Jennifer had never even met before, who brought an energy she was craving. “All risk and high reward” is how she explains her new band with which she had an instant camaraderie.
While Jennifer made her initial mark in the Christian market, her time away made her realize that while she would never turn her back on that belief, she didn’t want to exclude any one else, either. As with past releases, she had gotten used to the focus on her song writing, that it was viewed as somewhat unusual for the Christian music industry. However Jennifer was always celebrated for her honesty and human approach to the divine, and she looks at Letting Go as a continuation of pushing those limits. “It was a struggle, because I was used to writing lyrics one way. I had to break that yoke to write a record that was honest about how I feel about life. It is the voice of people that I am concerned in preserving here, our right to express our deepest souls without the fear of condemnation. It’s my hope that the music feels legitimate and meaningful for whoever hears it. I wanted this record to reflect that.”
The result is the astonishing straightforwardness of Letting Go, an album of stripped back folk and country tinged rock that is as intimate as it is expansive. The musical warmth of Letting Go spreads throughout the record. From the wry opening words (“careful what you say, careful who might hear…”) of “Dive In” to the lyrical play of “Want For Nothing” and the evocative rocker “Inside,” Letting Go observes the world around it with captivating perception.
To say that Jennifer Knapp has come full circle would be a fair assessment. Beside the record release, Knapp has been asked to play on the re-vamped Lilith Fair tour, the first one in 10 years. Since Jennifer played on the last one in ’99, being asked to play the re-launch is very special, a reminder of why Jennifer came back to her musical roots. “There is a strong sense of community that has been in the back of my mind throughout this whole process. I want my core audience to find something familiar, but refreshed, on Letting Go. At the same time, I am so happy to throw off any cloak that has been put upon me that would make any music lover hesitate to listen to my music. I am so excited to bring all different types of people to my party. I’ve written this for them.”
Sometimes, you have to let go of everything to be able to come back.
And then one day she decided to come back.
Before you start with any Eddie and the Cruisers comparisons, please note that Jennifer didn’t fake her own demise. She just decided to take a break, though at the time, she wasn’t sure she’d ever return. Considering Jennifer has over sold over 1 million records, spent years successfully playing to sold out audiences and had a considerable fan base, the choice wasn’t an easy one but definitely necessary. “I didn’t play, I didn’t write, my guitars collected dust for 5 years. I completely had to divorce myself from the whole thing because I never really took ownership of what music meant for me as an individual. I needed to figure that out, so I really left the music business with the idea that I may not ever do it again.”
At first, Jennifer set out to go to all the cities she had toured in, but never had a chance to visit. Growing up in a tiny town in Kansas, the trips across the US and Europe were exciting. This led to a jaunt to Australia, where she decided to stay. Walking away from her career wasn’t easy, as Jennifer was riding high on the wave of success. Having cultivated an audience within the Christian music spectrum, Jennifer’s first 3 albums were all critical and commercial successes. She won her first Dove Award in 1999 for Best New Artist, scored 2 Grammy nods and another Dove nomination in 2003. She opened for Jars of Clay, spent some time on the Lilith tour and continued to grow her audience, who clamored for more of her folk-rock message of spirituality and love. People magazine touted Jennifer as an “uncommonly literate songwriter,” but just as she was at the top of her game she…let go.
After seven years spent traveling, mastering the Playstation and spending time working at an antique store (and actually loving that she dreaded going to work in the morning like a “normal” person), Jennifer began to re-visit what made her happiest. “I had to go through a mourning process of walking away and convincing myself that it didn’t matter if I played music anymore. But it was hard, and the whole time I was gone, it was like I had a shadow following me. I began to return to it in my own private time, getting out my guitar, starting to play and falling in love with music again without any expectations. I just wanted to play because it meant something to me.”
Struggling with being a normal person with an abnormal occupation, Jennifer finally made peace with what she did best. “I was really enjoying the music I was playing at home. Half the record was written in Australia and as I played it, friends were responding to it. It fanned the flame. There are sad parts of working in the industry that made me feel disconnected, but I realized I was just afraid and was hiding. It seemed a shame that I could share my songs with people and I wasn’t doing it. I hadn’t worked in 7 years and there were fans on the Internet holding vigils for me to play again. It took me a long time to understand that connection and now it’s a passion of mine. In a true sense it’s a gift – you give it because you don’t want it back, and you want it to bless the person receiving it. What an amazing opportunity for me to have.”
Returning to Nashville, Jennifer holed up in the studio to begin recording the aptly named Letting Go, her fourth studio album. With Producer Paul Moak, best known as his work as a studio musician for artists such as Mat Kearney, Amy Grant and Michael W. Smith, at the helm, Jennifer had no intention of resting on past laurels. With Paul, they put together a whole new band of hungry young musicians and got to work. With the exception of longtime bass player Tony Lucido, the guys in the studio were musicians Jennifer had never even met before, who brought an energy she was craving. “All risk and high reward” is how she explains her new band with which she had an instant camaraderie.
While Jennifer made her initial mark in the Christian market, her time away made her realize that while she would never turn her back on that belief, she didn’t want to exclude any one else, either. As with past releases, she had gotten used to the focus on her song writing, that it was viewed as somewhat unusual for the Christian music industry. However Jennifer was always celebrated for her honesty and human approach to the divine, and she looks at Letting Go as a continuation of pushing those limits. “It was a struggle, because I was used to writing lyrics one way. I had to break that yoke to write a record that was honest about how I feel about life. It is the voice of people that I am concerned in preserving here, our right to express our deepest souls without the fear of condemnation. It’s my hope that the music feels legitimate and meaningful for whoever hears it. I wanted this record to reflect that.”
The result is the astonishing straightforwardness of Letting Go, an album of stripped back folk and country tinged rock that is as intimate as it is expansive. The musical warmth of Letting Go spreads throughout the record. From the wry opening words (“careful what you say, careful who might hear…”) of “Dive In” to the lyrical play of “Want For Nothing” and the evocative rocker “Inside,” Letting Go observes the world around it with captivating perception.
To say that Jennifer Knapp has come full circle would be a fair assessment. Beside the record release, Knapp has been asked to play on the re-vamped Lilith Fair tour, the first one in 10 years. Since Jennifer played on the last one in ’99, being asked to play the re-launch is very special, a reminder of why Jennifer came back to her musical roots. “There is a strong sense of community that has been in the back of my mind throughout this whole process. I want my core audience to find something familiar, but refreshed, on Letting Go. At the same time, I am so happy to throw off any cloak that has been put upon me that would make any music lover hesitate to listen to my music. I am so excited to bring all different types of people to my party. I’ve written this for them.”
Sometimes, you have to let go of everything to be able to come back.
Callaghan
Performing live Callaghan plays piano and guitar and delivers a vocal which earns frequent comparisons with artists like Sarah McLachlan and Emmy Lou Harris. Her songs chronicle stories and moments from her own life and from others. Watching her show you’ll enjoy thoughtful lyrics, haunting vocals, and catchy melodies.
Callaghan’s debut album, Life In Full Colour, released in spring 2012. The release was the culmination of a journey which brought the singer-songwriter across the Atlantic from London to live and record in the USA.
A long-time Shawn Mullins fan, Callaghan contacted the Atlanta singer-songwriter through MySpace, and after being knocked out by her music he agreed to a rare collaboration. Callaghan left her London digs and boarded a plane headed for the American South: the experience was the inspiration for the opening track and first single from her album, Best Year.
Life in Full Colour was tracked in and around Atlanta with Mullins both producing and playing on the record. Its 12 songs combine shades of folk, country, rock and pop into a fusion of feeling and melody.
Life in Full Colour has been getting a great reaction. The Huffington Post describes the album as “joyful listening”, while InLiveMusic says “Callaghan’s voice is stunning, clear and is perfect for the story telling of her songs”
2013 saw her releasing her live album ‘Callaghan Live in America’ and touring from coast-to-coast. To enjoy a taste of Callaghan’s music please download her free six song EP ’40 States and Counting’ which draws songs from both her live and studio albums: www.noisetrade.com/callaghan
Callaghan’s debut album, Life In Full Colour, released in spring 2012. The release was the culmination of a journey which brought the singer-songwriter across the Atlantic from London to live and record in the USA.
A long-time Shawn Mullins fan, Callaghan contacted the Atlanta singer-songwriter through MySpace, and after being knocked out by her music he agreed to a rare collaboration. Callaghan left her London digs and boarded a plane headed for the American South: the experience was the inspiration for the opening track and first single from her album, Best Year.
Life in Full Colour was tracked in and around Atlanta with Mullins both producing and playing on the record. Its 12 songs combine shades of folk, country, rock and pop into a fusion of feeling and melody.
Life in Full Colour has been getting a great reaction. The Huffington Post describes the album as “joyful listening”, while InLiveMusic says “Callaghan’s voice is stunning, clear and is perfect for the story telling of her songs”
2013 saw her releasing her live album ‘Callaghan Live in America’ and touring from coast-to-coast. To enjoy a taste of Callaghan’s music please download her free six song EP ’40 States and Counting’ which draws songs from both her live and studio albums: www.noisetrade.com/callaghan
Shannon Whitworth
The coast is calling, and Shannon Whitworth is packed and ready.
If her first two albums were cross-country treks (and they were, taking her across the U.S. and Canada in support of Chris Isaak and the Tedeschi-Trucks Band), High Tide is a trans-Atlantic voyage. Leaving all preconceptions of the banjo-wielding songstress behind, Whitworth’s new adventure steers into waters both familiar and refreshingly new.
Since her days as the anchor voice and songwriter of lauded N.C. ensemble The Biscuit Burners, Shannon Whitworth has attracted international attention with her passionate presence and a talent that’s evident within moments of taking the stage.
Whitworth’s swoon-inducing style found its first showcase in her Asheville-produced solo debut, 2007’s No Expectations. Followed by 2009’s critically-acclaimed Water Bound (an album that drew comparisons to Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball), Whitworth garnered praise in outlets ranging from People magazine to Garden & Gun. Her honest reinterpretation of ‘Americana,’ a la Mark Knopfler meets Norah Jones and the ghost of Julie London, has garnered Whitworth prime appearances from Philledelphia Folk Festival to Yosemite’s Strawberry Music Festival to Nashville’s own Ryman Auditorium.
Back home last year after endless months traveling coast-to-coast, Whitworth took time to relax on her Brevard, N.C. farm, painting in her barn-cum-studio and letting songs come naturally to her. Organic and pure in its origins and execution, High Tide is poised to outfit Whitworth’s vessel for a figurative ocean crossing.From the first rolling rhythms, it’s evident that this album charts new waters. A Gibson SG joins Whitworth’s quiver of acoustic guitar, banjo and ukelele, and for the first time, the band is her own. Whereas her first two efforts utilized seasoned Nashville studio pros, High Tide calls upon the people who know her music best, from producer Seth Kauffman (Floating Action) to bassist Bill Reynolds (Band of Horses).
Just as her music stems from Appalachian roots (she’s a favorite at MerleFest) but sheds its traditional skin at the door, High Tide begins with a journey to the sea that takes rest stops in reverb-drenched jazz and indie rock along the way, setting the mood for a tight but playful expedition.
“So many of my songs were penned from darkness, and High Tide came from a place of light,” Whitworth explains. “It’s about heading towards that good feeling.” ‘La Croix’ takes listeners to the islands, diving into a reef of deep poignancy and examining the ‘Oh shit, I’m vulnerable,’ catch-22 that comes with falling in love. ‘Henry,’ the album’s oldest track, was born of two women drinking at a bar, commiserating over another foolhardy romance gone wrong. Whitworth dug up the rudimentary original lyrics years later from the back of a journal, its words smeared by the sweat of a bottle. “I feel like you make peace with life’s situations by making songs of them along the way,” says Whitworth, underscoring her desire to engage audiences with clarity and honesty.
A remake of ‘Don’t Lie,’ originally recorded as a banjo-rambler on Water Bound, embodies Whitworth’s new approach, recalling more Mazzy Star than Patsy Cline (but still without shedding her indelible Southern charm).
Following a year that heard Whitworth as the singing voice of Belk department store’s latest national marketing campaign and the release of a duets album, Bring It On Home (including deep tracks from Paul Simon, Tom Waits, and Sam Cooke) with band member and guitarist Barrett Smith, Whitworth releases High Tide with a reinvigorated confidence and enthusiasm. Whether you’re holed up in a chilly Appalachian barn or walking the coast on a hot August evening, Whitworth’s High Tide holds universal appeal, from the mountains to the sea.
If her first two albums were cross-country treks (and they were, taking her across the U.S. and Canada in support of Chris Isaak and the Tedeschi-Trucks Band), High Tide is a trans-Atlantic voyage. Leaving all preconceptions of the banjo-wielding songstress behind, Whitworth’s new adventure steers into waters both familiar and refreshingly new.
Since her days as the anchor voice and songwriter of lauded N.C. ensemble The Biscuit Burners, Shannon Whitworth has attracted international attention with her passionate presence and a talent that’s evident within moments of taking the stage.
Whitworth’s swoon-inducing style found its first showcase in her Asheville-produced solo debut, 2007’s No Expectations. Followed by 2009’s critically-acclaimed Water Bound (an album that drew comparisons to Emmylou Harris’ Wrecking Ball), Whitworth garnered praise in outlets ranging from People magazine to Garden & Gun. Her honest reinterpretation of ‘Americana,’ a la Mark Knopfler meets Norah Jones and the ghost of Julie London, has garnered Whitworth prime appearances from Philledelphia Folk Festival to Yosemite’s Strawberry Music Festival to Nashville’s own Ryman Auditorium.
Back home last year after endless months traveling coast-to-coast, Whitworth took time to relax on her Brevard, N.C. farm, painting in her barn-cum-studio and letting songs come naturally to her. Organic and pure in its origins and execution, High Tide is poised to outfit Whitworth’s vessel for a figurative ocean crossing.From the first rolling rhythms, it’s evident that this album charts new waters. A Gibson SG joins Whitworth’s quiver of acoustic guitar, banjo and ukelele, and for the first time, the band is her own. Whereas her first two efforts utilized seasoned Nashville studio pros, High Tide calls upon the people who know her music best, from producer Seth Kauffman (Floating Action) to bassist Bill Reynolds (Band of Horses).
Just as her music stems from Appalachian roots (she’s a favorite at MerleFest) but sheds its traditional skin at the door, High Tide begins with a journey to the sea that takes rest stops in reverb-drenched jazz and indie rock along the way, setting the mood for a tight but playful expedition.
“So many of my songs were penned from darkness, and High Tide came from a place of light,” Whitworth explains. “It’s about heading towards that good feeling.” ‘La Croix’ takes listeners to the islands, diving into a reef of deep poignancy and examining the ‘Oh shit, I’m vulnerable,’ catch-22 that comes with falling in love. ‘Henry,’ the album’s oldest track, was born of two women drinking at a bar, commiserating over another foolhardy romance gone wrong. Whitworth dug up the rudimentary original lyrics years later from the back of a journal, its words smeared by the sweat of a bottle. “I feel like you make peace with life’s situations by making songs of them along the way,” says Whitworth, underscoring her desire to engage audiences with clarity and honesty.
A remake of ‘Don’t Lie,’ originally recorded as a banjo-rambler on Water Bound, embodies Whitworth’s new approach, recalling more Mazzy Star than Patsy Cline (but still without shedding her indelible Southern charm).
Following a year that heard Whitworth as the singing voice of Belk department store’s latest national marketing campaign and the release of a duets album, Bring It On Home (including deep tracks from Paul Simon, Tom Waits, and Sam Cooke) with band member and guitarist Barrett Smith, Whitworth releases High Tide with a reinvigorated confidence and enthusiasm. Whether you’re holed up in a chilly Appalachian barn or walking the coast on a hot August evening, Whitworth’s High Tide holds universal appeal, from the mountains to the sea.
Phil Maderia
Producer, composer, musician, singer Phil Madeira has made a life for himself in the arts. Whether writing songs for artists like Alison Krauss and Garth Brooks, touring with Emmylou Harris or Buddy Miller, or playing any number of instruments on hundreds of records, Phil is no stranger to creativity.
Phil’s songs have been recorded by The Band Perry, Toby Keith, Alison Krauss, Keb’ Mo’, The Civil Wars, Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Shawn Mullins, Dan Tyminski and John Scofield, among many artists.
Phil’s associations are varied and deep. He is a member of Emmylou Harris’ band The Red Dirt Boys, putting him an elite group of amazing bands that the legendary Ms Harris is known for assembling. He has produced artists including The iconic Civil Wars, Buddy Miller, jazz legend John Scofield, Keb’ Mo’, The Pawn Shop Kings, Lee Ann Womack, and young heart throbs The Band Perry.
Phil Madeira is an oft-behind the scenes character in the music business. His 2012 production Mercyland: Hymns For The Rest Of Us features singers Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Civil Wars, and other high profile artists, but also includes a rare appearance on mic by Madeira himself. The project of new spirituals was created to offset what Madeira and his collaborators believed to be a toxic gospel, touted by warmongers and hate wagers.
The reviews are in on Phil’s Mercyland project:
“Gorgeously lyrical” – The Nashville Scene
“Exquisitely produced”- Folk Alley
“Every human being on the planet should listen to this and take heed …” – Maverick, UK
2013 brings with it Phil’s first solo record of this century, pm, a project inspired by his Mercyland success, but far different. Introspective and dark, Madeira trawls the river of life and comes up with a very human string of pearls. Loss, the blues, brokenness, and a little hope thrown in make for a compellingly real record.
As if his first solo outing in over 15 years isn’t enough, Madeira debuted as an author with his spiritual memoir from Jericho Books, God On The Rocks: Distilling Religion, Savoring Faith, released June of 2013.
Phil’s songs have been recorded by The Band Perry, Toby Keith, Alison Krauss, Keb’ Mo’, The Civil Wars, Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, Shawn Mullins, Dan Tyminski and John Scofield, among many artists.
Phil’s associations are varied and deep. He is a member of Emmylou Harris’ band The Red Dirt Boys, putting him an elite group of amazing bands that the legendary Ms Harris is known for assembling. He has produced artists including The iconic Civil Wars, Buddy Miller, jazz legend John Scofield, Keb’ Mo’, The Pawn Shop Kings, Lee Ann Womack, and young heart throbs The Band Perry.
Phil Madeira is an oft-behind the scenes character in the music business. His 2012 production Mercyland: Hymns For The Rest Of Us features singers Emmylou Harris, Buddy Miller, The Carolina Chocolate Drops, The Civil Wars, and other high profile artists, but also includes a rare appearance on mic by Madeira himself. The project of new spirituals was created to offset what Madeira and his collaborators believed to be a toxic gospel, touted by warmongers and hate wagers.
The reviews are in on Phil’s Mercyland project:
“Gorgeously lyrical” – The Nashville Scene
“Exquisitely produced”- Folk Alley
“Every human being on the planet should listen to this and take heed …” – Maverick, UK
2013 brings with it Phil’s first solo record of this century, pm, a project inspired by his Mercyland success, but far different. Introspective and dark, Madeira trawls the river of life and comes up with a very human string of pearls. Loss, the blues, brokenness, and a little hope thrown in make for a compellingly real record.
As if his first solo outing in over 15 years isn’t enough, Madeira debuted as an author with his spiritual memoir from Jericho Books, God On The Rocks: Distilling Religion, Savoring Faith, released June of 2013.
Ben taylor
How come everything good seems so hard to hear when Iʼm listening?
Ben Taylor listens and thinks. A lot. In fact, the word Word is something Ben mulls over daily. It is, when you think about it, the only word that IS what it means. The meaning of word connects us – in any language – and this idea of communication is very important to Ben, as is the paradox of an individuated consciousness (think: ego) versus collective unconscious, that which unifies us all (happiness, fear, hate, love). Heavy? Not really, just a part of the ever evolving, highly intelligent, vulnerable, loving brain of Ben Taylor, musician, son, brother, friend and deep believer. Not only has Taylor spent the past few years thinking, he has also spent a lot of time LISTENING.
Listening is Ben Taylor’s first album in four years, the last being the critically acclaimed The Legend of Kung Folk Part 1, which had CNN commenting that the album, “reflects the broad palette of pop” and Blurt Magazine declaring, “For some time now Ben’s been busy carving out a unique niche for himself in the music world.” Ben himself once described his work as “organically handcrafted songs,” and given the painstaking thought and care he puts in to his art, who are we to argue? As a successful and eclectic independent artist for the past ten years, it isn’t just anyone who takes four years to put out their next album (Listening being his fourth album).
Listening, out on Sun Pedal Recordings/ILG in August, flawlessly fuses the sounds and styles of folk, pop, soul, urban, reggae and country, and is, as Ben says, “an evolution. Some songs were actually recorded four years ago, some were recorded a few months ago, and a few recorded a few weeks ago just in time to make it. This album runs the gamut from both the production style and the period of my life in which they were recorded. These songs are little windows into the last four years of my life.” Ben was in no rush to record Listening because, for most of his career, he never limited himself with a deadline. A self-described ‘late bloomer’ musically, Ben didn’t start singing until his early 20s. The hesitation is understandable, given the daunting example of success set by his parents, James Taylor and Carly Simon. While Ben thought of other vocations he could pursue, including a wilderness guide or martial arts instructor, he was drawn to the family business. Ben had a true affinity for music, and not surprisingly, a love for words. “My scholastic career was not successful. My attention wanders, and I like to follow it. It’s a creatively lucrative process for me. My internal jukebox was always so much louder than my teachers.”
“Releasing an album represents the beginning of a process. On a commercial level, it’s a promotional enterprise. However, it’s a journey on a spiritual level as well. It’s an interesting one, with a lot of blessings, lessons and interesting adventures to have - and I get to do it with my best friends in the world. Completing an album represents a whole vignette of what may or may not be coming next.”
Listening was co-produced by Ben and his long time musicians; drummer Larry Ciancia, bass player Ben Thomas and guitarist David Saw (Saw also co-writes most of the music with Ben). Now that he is with a label, he is looking to pick up the pace and Ben is eager to delve deeper in to his songwriting. “Next time, I’d like someone to have more of a ‘Captain’ position, with a big picture in mind. My part is to write and perform, and now I want someone else to mix and produce. I want to focus my attention on my songwriting and to throw myself deeper and deeper in to music.”
The songs on Listening certainly support Ben’s clear progression as a songwriter. The track, “Worlds are Made of Paper,” which references The Beatles “Yesterday” as Ben’s favorite Beatle’s song, is a philosophical ode on the transience of life (“Yesterday” – get it?). With a strong bass beat that dissolves in to a campfire chorus, Ben and the band happily sing with an indifference to this temporary thing we call life. The album’s first single, “Oh Brother” embodies the best of songwriting in personal form with a life lesson hidden in an melodic yarn for Ben’s younger twin brothers, who like most 11 year olds, are already struggling with outside judgments and fitting in. “Even a champion loses the day before the race,” Ben cautions the boys, letting them know it’s ok to fail, and, as only an older brother can, reminding them to shine on, no matter what. The beautifully haunting acoustic title track, “Listening,” is a song Ben has been performing live for a few years. Written after he realized that he was a better talker than listener, the song stood as a constant reminder to listen more.
The social commentary of “America” challenges both America and Ben himself, to start living a more impeccable life. Not one to preach, this is Taylor extending a hand to anyone who wants to take the challenge of doing better each day. The album closer, “Next Time Around” isn’t like anything else on Listening, a folk-bluegrass-country hybrid, which could easily be heard as part of Garrison Kiellor’s “Prairie Home Companion.” A beautiful piece of abstract story-telling, Ben encourages the listener to find their own meaning in his words.
While he enjoys being in the studio, Ben is looking forward to getting out on the road too. “If you take being in the studio over playing live, you lose out. They are both important parts of the same process. You need to write a song, perform it in front of people and have an audience react to it. It helps me with the writing and presentation of the recorded song if I play it live before I record it. To me, you don’t really hear your song for the first time until you share it.”
Ben’s also excited to be on a label for the first time in his career. “For most of my career, I put out my own stuff on my own time. I start really well but then slow down. Now that I have a proper label, I love sharing the reins of my creative process. If you’re too close, you often don’t have good insight and don’t know when to stop. I love what I do and one of the best things about being a musician is getting to hang out with musicians all day! They’re mostly a joy to be around,” Ben says with a laugh.
An admitted harsh critic on his own work, Ben is quite happy with the end result of Listening. “I hope people like it. I am immensely self-critical, and almost always want to start from scratch when I finish an album. The hardest thing about being a member of my family is the expectations I put on myself. The best thing about it has been my ability to overcome that in order to be the best performer and musician I can be. My wish would be that any one who spends time with Listening just digs the songs.”
Ben Taylor listens and thinks. A lot. In fact, the word Word is something Ben mulls over daily. It is, when you think about it, the only word that IS what it means. The meaning of word connects us – in any language – and this idea of communication is very important to Ben, as is the paradox of an individuated consciousness (think: ego) versus collective unconscious, that which unifies us all (happiness, fear, hate, love). Heavy? Not really, just a part of the ever evolving, highly intelligent, vulnerable, loving brain of Ben Taylor, musician, son, brother, friend and deep believer. Not only has Taylor spent the past few years thinking, he has also spent a lot of time LISTENING.
Listening is Ben Taylor’s first album in four years, the last being the critically acclaimed The Legend of Kung Folk Part 1, which had CNN commenting that the album, “reflects the broad palette of pop” and Blurt Magazine declaring, “For some time now Ben’s been busy carving out a unique niche for himself in the music world.” Ben himself once described his work as “organically handcrafted songs,” and given the painstaking thought and care he puts in to his art, who are we to argue? As a successful and eclectic independent artist for the past ten years, it isn’t just anyone who takes four years to put out their next album (Listening being his fourth album).
Listening, out on Sun Pedal Recordings/ILG in August, flawlessly fuses the sounds and styles of folk, pop, soul, urban, reggae and country, and is, as Ben says, “an evolution. Some songs were actually recorded four years ago, some were recorded a few months ago, and a few recorded a few weeks ago just in time to make it. This album runs the gamut from both the production style and the period of my life in which they were recorded. These songs are little windows into the last four years of my life.” Ben was in no rush to record Listening because, for most of his career, he never limited himself with a deadline. A self-described ‘late bloomer’ musically, Ben didn’t start singing until his early 20s. The hesitation is understandable, given the daunting example of success set by his parents, James Taylor and Carly Simon. While Ben thought of other vocations he could pursue, including a wilderness guide or martial arts instructor, he was drawn to the family business. Ben had a true affinity for music, and not surprisingly, a love for words. “My scholastic career was not successful. My attention wanders, and I like to follow it. It’s a creatively lucrative process for me. My internal jukebox was always so much louder than my teachers.”
“Releasing an album represents the beginning of a process. On a commercial level, it’s a promotional enterprise. However, it’s a journey on a spiritual level as well. It’s an interesting one, with a lot of blessings, lessons and interesting adventures to have - and I get to do it with my best friends in the world. Completing an album represents a whole vignette of what may or may not be coming next.”
Listening was co-produced by Ben and his long time musicians; drummer Larry Ciancia, bass player Ben Thomas and guitarist David Saw (Saw also co-writes most of the music with Ben). Now that he is with a label, he is looking to pick up the pace and Ben is eager to delve deeper in to his songwriting. “Next time, I’d like someone to have more of a ‘Captain’ position, with a big picture in mind. My part is to write and perform, and now I want someone else to mix and produce. I want to focus my attention on my songwriting and to throw myself deeper and deeper in to music.”
The songs on Listening certainly support Ben’s clear progression as a songwriter. The track, “Worlds are Made of Paper,” which references The Beatles “Yesterday” as Ben’s favorite Beatle’s song, is a philosophical ode on the transience of life (“Yesterday” – get it?). With a strong bass beat that dissolves in to a campfire chorus, Ben and the band happily sing with an indifference to this temporary thing we call life. The album’s first single, “Oh Brother” embodies the best of songwriting in personal form with a life lesson hidden in an melodic yarn for Ben’s younger twin brothers, who like most 11 year olds, are already struggling with outside judgments and fitting in. “Even a champion loses the day before the race,” Ben cautions the boys, letting them know it’s ok to fail, and, as only an older brother can, reminding them to shine on, no matter what. The beautifully haunting acoustic title track, “Listening,” is a song Ben has been performing live for a few years. Written after he realized that he was a better talker than listener, the song stood as a constant reminder to listen more.
The social commentary of “America” challenges both America and Ben himself, to start living a more impeccable life. Not one to preach, this is Taylor extending a hand to anyone who wants to take the challenge of doing better each day. The album closer, “Next Time Around” isn’t like anything else on Listening, a folk-bluegrass-country hybrid, which could easily be heard as part of Garrison Kiellor’s “Prairie Home Companion.” A beautiful piece of abstract story-telling, Ben encourages the listener to find their own meaning in his words.
While he enjoys being in the studio, Ben is looking forward to getting out on the road too. “If you take being in the studio over playing live, you lose out. They are both important parts of the same process. You need to write a song, perform it in front of people and have an audience react to it. It helps me with the writing and presentation of the recorded song if I play it live before I record it. To me, you don’t really hear your song for the first time until you share it.”
Ben’s also excited to be on a label for the first time in his career. “For most of my career, I put out my own stuff on my own time. I start really well but then slow down. Now that I have a proper label, I love sharing the reins of my creative process. If you’re too close, you often don’t have good insight and don’t know when to stop. I love what I do and one of the best things about being a musician is getting to hang out with musicians all day! They’re mostly a joy to be around,” Ben says with a laugh.
An admitted harsh critic on his own work, Ben is quite happy with the end result of Listening. “I hope people like it. I am immensely self-critical, and almost always want to start from scratch when I finish an album. The hardest thing about being a member of my family is the expectations I put on myself. The best thing about it has been my ability to overcome that in order to be the best performer and musician I can be. My wish would be that any one who spends time with Listening just digs the songs.”
webb wilder
Inducted into the Mississippi Musicians Hall of Fame! Alongside Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, BB King, Muddy Waters, Sam Cooke, Bo Diddley, Sonny Boy Williams, Ike Turner and Steve Forbert.
There are roots rockers and then there's Webb Wilder. Hardly a purist, he has described the music he makes as, “Rock for Roots fans and Roots for Rock fans.” His last 2 CD’s on Blind Pig Records both reached #1 on the Roots Rock chart – and stayed there for many weeks. The “Last Of The Full Grown Men" hasn’t limited his creativity to the music business. There’s the picture business. His critically acclaimed indie films made him a cult hero. He was even one of America’s 1st Satellite DJs on XM Radio. Using all manner of media, Webb Wilder has been impacting Popular culture for over 20 years, all the while maintaining a devoted worldwide fan base through a relentless tour schedule. As a singer, guitarist, bandleader, actor, songwriter and humorist, he may be roots-rock's only true Renaissance man.
“Webb flat out rocks! They serve up potent Southern comfort.” Rolling Stone Magazine
“These days the term ‘roots rocker’ is almost meaningless, but Wilder’s blend of a rocker’s heart with a hillbilly’s soul is probably the best aural definition of it yet.” Time Out Chicago
There are roots rockers and then there's Webb Wilder. Hardly a purist, he has described the music he makes as, “Rock for Roots fans and Roots for Rock fans.” His last 2 CD’s on Blind Pig Records both reached #1 on the Roots Rock chart – and stayed there for many weeks. The “Last Of The Full Grown Men" hasn’t limited his creativity to the music business. There’s the picture business. His critically acclaimed indie films made him a cult hero. He was even one of America’s 1st Satellite DJs on XM Radio. Using all manner of media, Webb Wilder has been impacting Popular culture for over 20 years, all the while maintaining a devoted worldwide fan base through a relentless tour schedule. As a singer, guitarist, bandleader, actor, songwriter and humorist, he may be roots-rock's only true Renaissance man.
“Webb flat out rocks! They serve up potent Southern comfort.” Rolling Stone Magazine
“These days the term ‘roots rocker’ is almost meaningless, but Wilder’s blend of a rocker’s heart with a hillbilly’s soul is probably the best aural definition of it yet.” Time Out Chicago
randall bramblett
A jewel of Southern music, Randall Bramblett shines on his latest release, The Bright Spots, due out May 14 on New West Records. Fresh off the inclusion of one of his songs on Bonnie Raitt’s Grammy-winning album Slipstream, he has put together a masterful recording soaked with the soulful feel that has defined his music and that of his Southern contemporaries like Gregg Allman and Warren Haynes. From Howlin’ Wolf to Ray Charles and “dark Motown” influences, sitar samples, gospel strains and even a snippet of water-splashing pygmies, The Bright Spots mixes diverse elements that dovetail into Randall’s finest album yet.
Although sometimes associated with the Southern rock scene built around the ’70s-’80s Capricorn label’s core, Randall has never identified with that sound. “Black music is what I grew up loving and the folk scene really hit me too,” he says. “So it’s a combination of Dylan and Ray Charles.”
Elements of pop, soul, blues, and the sounds of the church combine with Randall’s often wistful, beautifully conceived lyrics on these dozen ruminative, roots-based tunes. “Some of the words come from dreams. I do meditations in the morning and write in a journal,” he says. His lyrical strength is mixing unusual thematic concepts with dry humor. That helps explain the album’s upbeat title. “In almost every song there is darkness, yet some thread of humor. The irony of the bright spots is that there is a lot of hurt in these songs and there are the bright spots too. It’s pain and joy simultaneously. There are gifts of desperation.”
That takes the form of the lowdown “Whatever That Is,” his most overtly blues composition, and the sing-along gospel of “Shine,” which sports an anthemic chorus different from anything Bramblett has previously written. “I’ve tried to push the boundaries, but we always follow the song and see what it needs. If the song doesn’t like something, it will tell you.”
With five songs recorded in Nashville and seven more tracked with his long time touring band on his home turf in Athens, GA, the multi-instrumentalist (guitar, keyboards, woodwinds) says his ninth studio release was the easiest and most organic to record. “It felt good and went quickly,” he explains. “It just fell together easily compared to my other records. We did not obsess about this one. A lot of it is live in the studio; we didn’t do a lot of takes or overdubs either.”
Perhaps that’s because the songs come from the experiences accumulated during his extensive career, starting in the ’70s as a member of the jazzy Southern band Sea Level. Add to that a far-reaching resume of work with artists such as Steve Winwood (for 16 years), Gregg Allman, Chuck Leavell, Levon Helm, Widespread Panic, and Gov’t Mule, and the touchstones of Randall’s music emerge. “All these songs came from my life, just feeling that I’m getting a little older and trying to squeeze out a little more time or creativity before it’s too late.”
Having a surfeit of original material to choose from, and highly creative, imaginative musicians in both Nashville and Athens to flesh out the tracks and mold them into bold, soulful statements also helped. “I had 18-20 songs and chose the best 12. As you start recording, you get a feel for where the record is going and it starts to have a life of its own. I have a lot of different styles I can do . . . I like variety but it shouldn’t sound like it’s arbitrary.” As in the past, Bramblett’s dusky, soulful voice and sympathetic backing is unified by the sharp production of veteran shotgun-riding drummer Gerry Hansen. He effortlessly ties the somewhat disparate elements that include short bits of African pygmy children splashing water, and the occasional R&B horn section, together into a cohesive set.
It helps to have high profile fans too. The multi-Grammy winning Raitt has been a Bramblett devotee since the late Stephen Bruton gave her a copy of 2001’s No More Mr. Lucky. She invited Bramblett’s band on the road to open shows and recorded his compositions “God Was in the Water” which appears on the album Souls Alike, and the gutsy “Used To Rule the World” (which has become a focus track) on Slipstream, which in addition to winning Grammy gold has sold more than 300,000 units to date.
The self-effacing artist downplays his previous sideman status, yet is grateful for valuable lessons gained from his work with Gregg Allman (“I learned about organ, vocals and drama through the bluesiness and dynamics of his playing”), watching The Band’s Levon Helm (“his joy of playing freed me up”) and Steve Winwood (“he taught me a lot about organ and melody, working out details and how to create the background beds he was so good at”).
The challenge of composing moving, often emotionally driven songs with words that aim to stir the listener’s feelings has always motivated Bramblett and creates this inspired album. Writing a song is “like playing with the pieces of a puzzle or playing in the sand until you start seeing something,” he asserts.
Despite Bramblett’s antecedents in Americana and specifically Southern music, this is no stroll down the red clay back roads of his youth. The album bridges the past and the present in the loop-driven rhythms of “John the Baptist,” “Trying To Steal a Minute” and the upbeat groove funk of “’Til the Party’s All Gone” as well as the more meditative keyboard based ballad “Detox Bracelet.” Overall The Bright Spots is steeped in soul with a modern edge. “I didn’t want to make a retro record. I like doing something different every time,” he says.
Randall Bramblett continues to push the envelope of his Southern soul into areas that further illuminate his past, while expanding and nudging his roots into the future. The music reflects “a lot of angst, salvation and redemption but it all comes from my experiences,” he concludes. “It’s an honest album that has heart.”
Although sometimes associated with the Southern rock scene built around the ’70s-’80s Capricorn label’s core, Randall has never identified with that sound. “Black music is what I grew up loving and the folk scene really hit me too,” he says. “So it’s a combination of Dylan and Ray Charles.”
Elements of pop, soul, blues, and the sounds of the church combine with Randall’s often wistful, beautifully conceived lyrics on these dozen ruminative, roots-based tunes. “Some of the words come from dreams. I do meditations in the morning and write in a journal,” he says. His lyrical strength is mixing unusual thematic concepts with dry humor. That helps explain the album’s upbeat title. “In almost every song there is darkness, yet some thread of humor. The irony of the bright spots is that there is a lot of hurt in these songs and there are the bright spots too. It’s pain and joy simultaneously. There are gifts of desperation.”
That takes the form of the lowdown “Whatever That Is,” his most overtly blues composition, and the sing-along gospel of “Shine,” which sports an anthemic chorus different from anything Bramblett has previously written. “I’ve tried to push the boundaries, but we always follow the song and see what it needs. If the song doesn’t like something, it will tell you.”
With five songs recorded in Nashville and seven more tracked with his long time touring band on his home turf in Athens, GA, the multi-instrumentalist (guitar, keyboards, woodwinds) says his ninth studio release was the easiest and most organic to record. “It felt good and went quickly,” he explains. “It just fell together easily compared to my other records. We did not obsess about this one. A lot of it is live in the studio; we didn’t do a lot of takes or overdubs either.”
Perhaps that’s because the songs come from the experiences accumulated during his extensive career, starting in the ’70s as a member of the jazzy Southern band Sea Level. Add to that a far-reaching resume of work with artists such as Steve Winwood (for 16 years), Gregg Allman, Chuck Leavell, Levon Helm, Widespread Panic, and Gov’t Mule, and the touchstones of Randall’s music emerge. “All these songs came from my life, just feeling that I’m getting a little older and trying to squeeze out a little more time or creativity before it’s too late.”
Having a surfeit of original material to choose from, and highly creative, imaginative musicians in both Nashville and Athens to flesh out the tracks and mold them into bold, soulful statements also helped. “I had 18-20 songs and chose the best 12. As you start recording, you get a feel for where the record is going and it starts to have a life of its own. I have a lot of different styles I can do . . . I like variety but it shouldn’t sound like it’s arbitrary.” As in the past, Bramblett’s dusky, soulful voice and sympathetic backing is unified by the sharp production of veteran shotgun-riding drummer Gerry Hansen. He effortlessly ties the somewhat disparate elements that include short bits of African pygmy children splashing water, and the occasional R&B horn section, together into a cohesive set.
It helps to have high profile fans too. The multi-Grammy winning Raitt has been a Bramblett devotee since the late Stephen Bruton gave her a copy of 2001’s No More Mr. Lucky. She invited Bramblett’s band on the road to open shows and recorded his compositions “God Was in the Water” which appears on the album Souls Alike, and the gutsy “Used To Rule the World” (which has become a focus track) on Slipstream, which in addition to winning Grammy gold has sold more than 300,000 units to date.
The self-effacing artist downplays his previous sideman status, yet is grateful for valuable lessons gained from his work with Gregg Allman (“I learned about organ, vocals and drama through the bluesiness and dynamics of his playing”), watching The Band’s Levon Helm (“his joy of playing freed me up”) and Steve Winwood (“he taught me a lot about organ and melody, working out details and how to create the background beds he was so good at”).
The challenge of composing moving, often emotionally driven songs with words that aim to stir the listener’s feelings has always motivated Bramblett and creates this inspired album. Writing a song is “like playing with the pieces of a puzzle or playing in the sand until you start seeing something,” he asserts.
Despite Bramblett’s antecedents in Americana and specifically Southern music, this is no stroll down the red clay back roads of his youth. The album bridges the past and the present in the loop-driven rhythms of “John the Baptist,” “Trying To Steal a Minute” and the upbeat groove funk of “’Til the Party’s All Gone” as well as the more meditative keyboard based ballad “Detox Bracelet.” Overall The Bright Spots is steeped in soul with a modern edge. “I didn’t want to make a retro record. I like doing something different every time,” he says.
Randall Bramblett continues to push the envelope of his Southern soul into areas that further illuminate his past, while expanding and nudging his roots into the future. The music reflects “a lot of angst, salvation and redemption but it all comes from my experiences,” he concludes. “It’s an honest album that has heart.”
kevin rowe
Guitar in one hand, suitcase in the other, British singer/songwriter Kevin Rowe arrived in the U.S. in 2010 in pursuit of the elusive magic that America alone has to offer: the unwavering belief that dreams can come true. Faced with risking it all and choosing to leave behind everything, including his entire studio and his precious Nord piano – Kevin jumped on a plane bound for Georgia. In spite of his raw talent, he arrived with little more than a prayer that Atlanta would be as welcoming to him as it had been to previous musicians.
Immediately upon arrival, Kevin was endorsed by Nord and invited to perform in several showcases. In the following months, the barefoot British musician won the heart of his new city with his debut album ‘10am,’ which transformed the oft-overlooked moments in life into powerful ballads and foot-stomping rock melodies. His distinctive smoky voice and unforgettable falsetto had music critics and industry reviewers throwing out names like Bryan Adams, Joe Cocker and John Mayer. Atlanta Magazine branded him “sensational,” while BBC labeled him a “great voice” and The Examiner noted him as a musician who “flat out owns the piano.” Invited to perform live on a local CBS station, Kevin charmed Atlantans with his smile-inducing lyrics and unadulterated love of music. The summer of 2011 saw the founding of the Kevin Rowe Band and recording of three powerful new singles to be released this fall. Less than a year in the States and this soulful rocker is proving, yet again, that in America, hard work and talent transforms dreams into reality.
Immediately upon arrival, Kevin was endorsed by Nord and invited to perform in several showcases. In the following months, the barefoot British musician won the heart of his new city with his debut album ‘10am,’ which transformed the oft-overlooked moments in life into powerful ballads and foot-stomping rock melodies. His distinctive smoky voice and unforgettable falsetto had music critics and industry reviewers throwing out names like Bryan Adams, Joe Cocker and John Mayer. Atlanta Magazine branded him “sensational,” while BBC labeled him a “great voice” and The Examiner noted him as a musician who “flat out owns the piano.” Invited to perform live on a local CBS station, Kevin charmed Atlantans with his smile-inducing lyrics and unadulterated love of music. The summer of 2011 saw the founding of the Kevin Rowe Band and recording of three powerful new singles to be released this fall. Less than a year in the States and this soulful rocker is proving, yet again, that in America, hard work and talent transforms dreams into reality.
david jacobs-strain
David Jacobs-Strain is a fierce slide guitar player, and a song poet from Oregon. He’s known for both his virtuosity and spirit of emotional abandon; his live show moves from humorous, subversive blues, to delicate balladry, and then swings back to swampy rock and roll. It’s a range that ties Jacobs-Strain to his own generation and to guitar-slinger troubadours like Robert Johnson and Jackson Browne. “I try to make art that you can dance to, but I love that darker place, where in my mind, Skip James, Nick Drake, and maybe Elliot Smith blur together.” His new album, “Geneseo,” speaks of open roads, longing hearts and flashbacks of Oregon– a record of emotions big and small, and lyrics that turn quickly from literal to figurative. “I’m fascinated by the way that rural blues inscribes movement and transience. The music that frees a singer keeps them on the run; there’s a crossroads where a thing can be enchanting but dangerous; damaging but beautiful.”
Geneseo began as an experiment. Camped out in a converted 1820s church, Jacobs-Strain recorded guitar and vocals on a laptop, rarely using more than one microphone. “It was winter in rural upstate New York. We had very little daylight but endless old instruments to try: a swap-meet banjo on one song, on another, the Conn Electric Band–an orphaned keyboard from the 60s –which seemed to sound best only on tuesdays.” A road trip to Los Angeles brought in Scott Seiver (Pete Yorn, Flight of the Concords) on drums, and, after a chance meeting in a Hollywood bar, Jon Flaughers (Ryan Adams) on bass and David Immergluck (Counting Crows) on pedal steel. “I had all the songs written but I didn’t have a budget or a plan. I couldn’t stand waiting, so we just started recording ad hoc.” Caitlin Carey of Whiskey Town sent harmonies and fiddle tracks by email, Band of Horses’ Bill Reynolds Dropboxed a track for the impressionist blues “Josephine,” and long-time collaborator Bob Beach recorded harmonica solos in Philadelphia. By spring, the record was an overwhelming collage of sounds and parts. To pair the record back to its organic core, David enlisted two Oregon engineers, Beau Sorenson (Death Cab for Cutie) and Billy Barnett (Frank Black, Cherry Popping Daddies): “Everything that would fit on twenty-three tracks was moved to analog tape, then we turned off the computer screen and mixed as if it was forty years ago.”
Jacobs-Strain began playing on street corners and at farmers markets as a teenager, and bought his first steel guitar with the quarters he saved up. Before he dropped out of Stanford to play full time, he had already appeared at festivals across the country, often billed as a blues prodigy, but he had to fight to avoid being a novelty act: “I wanted to tell new stories, it just wasn’t enough to relive the feelings in other people’s music.”
On Geneseo, old sounds become new, the blues takes an unexpected turn, and Jacobs-Strain moves further into his own territory. The gleaming, mercurial “Golden Gate” eddies and surges with glinting guitar strings: “I needed you like you needed me/ like a prisoner needs a broken key/ I never knew the secret behind your smile/ but I heard the scream behind your sigh.” When Dan Brantigan’s horn section–recorded in a NY city walk-up– roars in, the song leaps from confession to nightmare: “I dreamt a war with no end or retreat/ I cried out for more but there were none to defeat/ I clung to the shore as blood filled the street/ the devil tossed me an oar and cracked his canteen.” Jacobs-Strain recalls, “Late one night, in a stream-of-consciousness, I filled page after page with seemingly unrelated couplets. I had a lucky accident when I began to play the guitar–mistakenly in the wrong tuning– the slide riff fell right under my hand and the song came to life.”
“Raleigh” arcs gently, with the cadence of a Carolina railroad, bearing an understated pathos: “She says that love is made of diamonds/ I say it’s made of glass/ sharper than a winter morning/ tonight I have no words to get it back.” “I had the guitar part for months, but the meaning of the song came later. I tried to write it about somebody else– I’ve never been to Raleigh! But when I finished the lyrics–on a park bench in Wyoming– I looked at the page and thought ‘Dang!– that’s about me, isn’t it?’”
There’s an excitement about Geneseo that comes from having the record funded by fans: over two hundred people pitched in on Kickstarter to pay for the mixing and promotion: “This record is intentionally under the corporate music radar; I’ve been making music on my own since I was a kid– it’s the only thing I’ve ever fooled anyone into paying me to do! It feels very sweet to have people stand up and say that it means something to them.”
David Jacobs-Strain has appeared at festivals from British Columbia to Australia, including Merlefest, Telluride Blues Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Hardly Strictly, Bumbershoot, and Blues to Bop in Switzerland. He’s taught at Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch, and at fifteen years old was on the faculty at Centrum’s Blues and Heritage workshop. On the road, he’s shared the stage with Lucinda Williams, Boz Scaggs (more than 60 shows), Etta James, The Doobie Brothers, George Thorogood, Robert Earle Keen, Todd Snider, Taj Mahal, Janis Ian, Tommy Emmanuel, Bob Weir, T-Bone Burnett, and Del McCoury.
Geneseo began as an experiment. Camped out in a converted 1820s church, Jacobs-Strain recorded guitar and vocals on a laptop, rarely using more than one microphone. “It was winter in rural upstate New York. We had very little daylight but endless old instruments to try: a swap-meet banjo on one song, on another, the Conn Electric Band–an orphaned keyboard from the 60s –which seemed to sound best only on tuesdays.” A road trip to Los Angeles brought in Scott Seiver (Pete Yorn, Flight of the Concords) on drums, and, after a chance meeting in a Hollywood bar, Jon Flaughers (Ryan Adams) on bass and David Immergluck (Counting Crows) on pedal steel. “I had all the songs written but I didn’t have a budget or a plan. I couldn’t stand waiting, so we just started recording ad hoc.” Caitlin Carey of Whiskey Town sent harmonies and fiddle tracks by email, Band of Horses’ Bill Reynolds Dropboxed a track for the impressionist blues “Josephine,” and long-time collaborator Bob Beach recorded harmonica solos in Philadelphia. By spring, the record was an overwhelming collage of sounds and parts. To pair the record back to its organic core, David enlisted two Oregon engineers, Beau Sorenson (Death Cab for Cutie) and Billy Barnett (Frank Black, Cherry Popping Daddies): “Everything that would fit on twenty-three tracks was moved to analog tape, then we turned off the computer screen and mixed as if it was forty years ago.”
Jacobs-Strain began playing on street corners and at farmers markets as a teenager, and bought his first steel guitar with the quarters he saved up. Before he dropped out of Stanford to play full time, he had already appeared at festivals across the country, often billed as a blues prodigy, but he had to fight to avoid being a novelty act: “I wanted to tell new stories, it just wasn’t enough to relive the feelings in other people’s music.”
On Geneseo, old sounds become new, the blues takes an unexpected turn, and Jacobs-Strain moves further into his own territory. The gleaming, mercurial “Golden Gate” eddies and surges with glinting guitar strings: “I needed you like you needed me/ like a prisoner needs a broken key/ I never knew the secret behind your smile/ but I heard the scream behind your sigh.” When Dan Brantigan’s horn section–recorded in a NY city walk-up– roars in, the song leaps from confession to nightmare: “I dreamt a war with no end or retreat/ I cried out for more but there were none to defeat/ I clung to the shore as blood filled the street/ the devil tossed me an oar and cracked his canteen.” Jacobs-Strain recalls, “Late one night, in a stream-of-consciousness, I filled page after page with seemingly unrelated couplets. I had a lucky accident when I began to play the guitar–mistakenly in the wrong tuning– the slide riff fell right under my hand and the song came to life.”
“Raleigh” arcs gently, with the cadence of a Carolina railroad, bearing an understated pathos: “She says that love is made of diamonds/ I say it’s made of glass/ sharper than a winter morning/ tonight I have no words to get it back.” “I had the guitar part for months, but the meaning of the song came later. I tried to write it about somebody else– I’ve never been to Raleigh! But when I finished the lyrics–on a park bench in Wyoming– I looked at the page and thought ‘Dang!– that’s about me, isn’t it?’”
There’s an excitement about Geneseo that comes from having the record funded by fans: over two hundred people pitched in on Kickstarter to pay for the mixing and promotion: “This record is intentionally under the corporate music radar; I’ve been making music on my own since I was a kid– it’s the only thing I’ve ever fooled anyone into paying me to do! It feels very sweet to have people stand up and say that it means something to them.”
David Jacobs-Strain has appeared at festivals from British Columbia to Australia, including Merlefest, Telluride Blues Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Hardly Strictly, Bumbershoot, and Blues to Bop in Switzerland. He’s taught at Jorma Kaukonen’s Fur Peace Ranch, and at fifteen years old was on the faculty at Centrum’s Blues and Heritage workshop. On the road, he’s shared the stage with Lucinda Williams, Boz Scaggs (more than 60 shows), Etta James, The Doobie Brothers, George Thorogood, Robert Earle Keen, Todd Snider, Taj Mahal, Janis Ian, Tommy Emmanuel, Bob Weir, T-Bone Burnett, and Del McCoury.
patchouli
Nationally touring, award winning songwriter Julie Patchouli and master guitarist Bruce Hecksel light up the air with sparkling acoustic sounds and their powerful contagious chemistry. Famous for that smiling voice that instantly turns a bad day into a good one, Patchouli’s down-to-earth, hopeful songwriting is “New American Folk” blending elements of folk, pop, flamenco and jazz with world beat rhythms. Patchouli’s sound has been described as “the harmonies of Simon & Garfunkel meet the guitar brilliance of the Gipsy Kings.
14 years of non-stop touring has honed this classically trained duo into legendary performers, dubbed “the hardest working folk duo in America”. Having just released their 15th CD Terra Guitarra, Dragonfly in winter of 2012 and a new Patchouli Cd releasing Jan 2013, Patchouli is as busy in the studio as they are on the road, with 12 albums featuring their very own brand of original modern folk music and 4 CD’s under the name Terra Guitarra for their all instrumental Spanish style guitar project, including a holiday music CD Winter Solstice.
Patchouli represents the very top echelon of today's acoustic performers, bringing the highest level of skill together with the passion, experience and joy that are a rare combination indeed.
14 years of non-stop touring has honed this classically trained duo into legendary performers, dubbed “the hardest working folk duo in America”. Having just released their 15th CD Terra Guitarra, Dragonfly in winter of 2012 and a new Patchouli Cd releasing Jan 2013, Patchouli is as busy in the studio as they are on the road, with 12 albums featuring their very own brand of original modern folk music and 4 CD’s under the name Terra Guitarra for their all instrumental Spanish style guitar project, including a holiday music CD Winter Solstice.
Patchouli represents the very top echelon of today's acoustic performers, bringing the highest level of skill together with the passion, experience and joy that are a rare combination indeed.
marc kelly smith
Marc Smith is best known for bringing to the worldwide poetry community a new style of poetic presentation that has spawned one the most important social/literary arts movements of our time. As stated in the PBS television series, The United States of Poetry, a “strand of new poetry began at Chicago’s Green Mill Tavern in 1987 when Marc Smith found a home for the Poetry Slam.” Since then, performance poetry has spread throughout the country and across the globe to hundreds of cities, universities, high schools, festivals, and cultural centers. Each year, teams from American and European cities compete in National Poetry Slams, extravagant homespun festivals blending thousands of poetic voices. The Slam has taken root and is flourishing in Australia, Germany, UK, Switzerland, France, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, Italy, Madagascar, Singapore, and even at the South Pole.
Born on the southeast side of Chicago, Smith’s innate sense of rhythm and unflinching realism has made him one of the country’s most compelling performers. Full of grit, his performances break poetic boundaries, giving audiences an acute vision of what poetry is and what it can be. Smith has performed at The Smithsonian Institute, The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Chicago Museum of Contemporary, the Asheville Poetry Festival (North Carolina), 1st Night Annapolis (Maryland), The Innovator’s Festival (Washington, DC), the Kennedy Center, Galway’s Cruit Festival, Denmark’s Roskilde Festival, Ausburg’s ABC Brecht Festival, and the Queensland Poetry Fest in Australia. He has been featured on CNN, 60 Minutes, National Public Radio’s Whadda Ya Know, ARTbeat Chicago, Ophra, Wild Chicago, WGN Chicago’s Very Own, Chicago Slices and has been a many time member of NewCity’s Lit 50, a listing of the top fifty movers and shakers in Chicago literature.
Smith’s book, Crowdpleaser, celebrates the Green Mill, particularly its audiences who remain at the core of the Slam’s success. Illustrated by Michael Acerra, Crowdpleaser, is a remarkable document, sensitively chronicled by original poems and anecdotes. As with the Slam, the book defies labels and explores new forms. It has been credited by the Chicago Book Review, The Chicago Sun Times, The Chicago Tribune, Illinois Entertainer, New City and The Reader.
Smith’s poetry has been featured in Hammer’s Magazine, Chicago Magazine, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Poetry Slam, an anthology, Aloud! Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, which won the 1994 American Book Award, and The United States of Poetry, a publication that accompanied the PBS television series. His work has been cited by The Wall Street Journal, Playboy, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun Times. Selection of his work can also be heard on CDs: By Someone’s Good Grace, a recording of the first National Slam Team Champions (1990), Grand Slam: The 1995 National Slam, It’s About Time (1999), and Quarters in the Juke Box (2007).
In recent years Marc collaborated with editor Mark Eleveld to create Sourcebooks’s Spoken Word Revolution and Spoken Word Revolution Redux, poetry anthologies covering the performance poetry scene at the top of the best-selling list. The CDs included in both these books (and narrated by Marc) are found in the collections of young poets and educators around the world. Marc’s Bible of Slam The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Slam Poetry released by Alpha/Penguin to national and international audiences is used as a blueprint for creating slams and learning the ins and outs of performance poetry.
Chalking up more than 1000 performances at the Green Mill, Smith continues to host and perform at the Uptown Poetry Slam, now in its 21st year, to standing room only houses. He has staged a multitude of special slam productions including The Neutral Turf Poetry Festival at Navy Pier—Chicago, Slam Dunk Poetry Day at Chicago’s Field Museum, which had people hanging over the balconies to see the action, and The Summer Solstice Poetry Show at the MCA, which crowded people cross-legged into the aisles.
Moving his talents forward into an even more dramatic realms, he has written and produced two stage plays: Flea Market, a night of monologues, and A House Party For Henry, an interactive play, and co-wrote, produced, and performed in the Zeitgeist Theater’s The Psychic Café. He is on the Artistic Board of several Chicago based performing arts companies and has just recently debut his highly acclaimed Sandburg to Smith, a musical adaptation of Carl Sandburg’s poems and stories performed in concert with the Rootabaga Band.
Born on the southeast side of Chicago, Smith’s innate sense of rhythm and unflinching realism has made him one of the country’s most compelling performers. Full of grit, his performances break poetic boundaries, giving audiences an acute vision of what poetry is and what it can be. Smith has performed at The Smithsonian Institute, The Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, The Art Institute of Chicago, The Chicago Museum of Contemporary, the Asheville Poetry Festival (North Carolina), 1st Night Annapolis (Maryland), The Innovator’s Festival (Washington, DC), the Kennedy Center, Galway’s Cruit Festival, Denmark’s Roskilde Festival, Ausburg’s ABC Brecht Festival, and the Queensland Poetry Fest in Australia. He has been featured on CNN, 60 Minutes, National Public Radio’s Whadda Ya Know, ARTbeat Chicago, Ophra, Wild Chicago, WGN Chicago’s Very Own, Chicago Slices and has been a many time member of NewCity’s Lit 50, a listing of the top fifty movers and shakers in Chicago literature.
Smith’s book, Crowdpleaser, celebrates the Green Mill, particularly its audiences who remain at the core of the Slam’s success. Illustrated by Michael Acerra, Crowdpleaser, is a remarkable document, sensitively chronicled by original poems and anecdotes. As with the Slam, the book defies labels and explores new forms. It has been credited by the Chicago Book Review, The Chicago Sun Times, The Chicago Tribune, Illinois Entertainer, New City and The Reader.
Smith’s poetry has been featured in Hammer’s Magazine, Chicago Magazine, The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Poetry Slam, an anthology, Aloud! Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe, which won the 1994 American Book Award, and The United States of Poetry, a publication that accompanied the PBS television series. His work has been cited by The Wall Street Journal, Playboy, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, New York Times, The Chicago Tribune and The Chicago Sun Times. Selection of his work can also be heard on CDs: By Someone’s Good Grace, a recording of the first National Slam Team Champions (1990), Grand Slam: The 1995 National Slam, It’s About Time (1999), and Quarters in the Juke Box (2007).
In recent years Marc collaborated with editor Mark Eleveld to create Sourcebooks’s Spoken Word Revolution and Spoken Word Revolution Redux, poetry anthologies covering the performance poetry scene at the top of the best-selling list. The CDs included in both these books (and narrated by Marc) are found in the collections of young poets and educators around the world. Marc’s Bible of Slam The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Slam Poetry released by Alpha/Penguin to national and international audiences is used as a blueprint for creating slams and learning the ins and outs of performance poetry.
Chalking up more than 1000 performances at the Green Mill, Smith continues to host and perform at the Uptown Poetry Slam, now in its 21st year, to standing room only houses. He has staged a multitude of special slam productions including The Neutral Turf Poetry Festival at Navy Pier—Chicago, Slam Dunk Poetry Day at Chicago’s Field Museum, which had people hanging over the balconies to see the action, and The Summer Solstice Poetry Show at the MCA, which crowded people cross-legged into the aisles.
Moving his talents forward into an even more dramatic realms, he has written and produced two stage plays: Flea Market, a night of monologues, and A House Party For Henry, an interactive play, and co-wrote, produced, and performed in the Zeitgeist Theater’s The Psychic Café. He is on the Artistic Board of several Chicago based performing arts companies and has just recently debut his highly acclaimed Sandburg to Smith, a musical adaptation of Carl Sandburg’s poems and stories performed in concert with the Rootabaga Band.
kyshona armstrong
Kyshona Armstrong, a music therapist gone rogue, hails from the small town of Irmo, SC (home of Vanna White and the Okra Strut). She grew up listening to her grandfathers singing in the gospel choir, aunts and uncles singing old Sam Cooke tunes around the electric guitar amps, and her father practicing the guitar solo from "Hello" by Lionel Richie on repeat.
Kyshona has mixed her love of story telling with the sound of her musical roots. Soulful, spiritual, at times guttural, Kyshona delivers an open honesty through her voice and lyrics. Her desire when she is performing is to connect with and take the audience on an emotional, soul stirring, musical journey. Her goal is to leave a crowd impressed.
“Her voice is clear and hefty, carrying a weight of fortitude that smacks through the psyche and into the gut, filling the belly with a soul-stirring resonance.”-Flagpole Magazine.
“...soul-stirring, hand-clapping and foot-stomping music is what Kyshona Armstrong gives the crowd”- Brittney Holmes, Red and Black Magazine
“Heavily influenced by the blend of bluegrass, folk, gospel and country music that played in her home as a child, Armstrong’s songwriting meshes harmonies and melodies across musical borders, unafraid to abandon conventional styles for the sake of an individualized creative process.” - Anna F. Hall, Music Journalist
Kyshona has mixed her love of story telling with the sound of her musical roots. Soulful, spiritual, at times guttural, Kyshona delivers an open honesty through her voice and lyrics. Her desire when she is performing is to connect with and take the audience on an emotional, soul stirring, musical journey. Her goal is to leave a crowd impressed.
“Her voice is clear and hefty, carrying a weight of fortitude that smacks through the psyche and into the gut, filling the belly with a soul-stirring resonance.”-Flagpole Magazine.
“...soul-stirring, hand-clapping and foot-stomping music is what Kyshona Armstrong gives the crowd”- Brittney Holmes, Red and Black Magazine
“Heavily influenced by the blend of bluegrass, folk, gospel and country music that played in her home as a child, Armstrong’s songwriting meshes harmonies and melodies across musical borders, unafraid to abandon conventional styles for the sake of an individualized creative process.” - Anna F. Hall, Music Journalist
andrew belle
Andrew Belle is a Chicago based singer-songwriter. He released his debut album, The Ladder, in 2010 and its follow up, Black Bear, in 2013. Along with these albums, Andrew has self-released two EPs, All Those Pretty Lights and The Daylight.
On the theme of his upcoming album, Andrew refers to an excerpt from Clive Staples Lewis’s 1955 autobiography, Surprised by Joy:
The odd thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. I could open the door or keep it shut. I chose to open. I say, “I chose,” yet it did not really seem possible to do the opposite.
While Andrew’s early vocal performances have drawn comparisons to Mat Kearney and Greg Laswell, his newest work shows strong musical influence from alternative artists such as Beach House, Washed Out, M83, and Bon Iver.
Andrew’s nuanced melodies are strengthened by thoughtful, contemplative lyrics, and have served as a soundtrack to numerous hit television shows, including: Grey’s Anatomy, Pretty Little Liars, Castle, and Vampire Diaries. In 2009, Andrew was presented with awards for John Lennon Pop-Songwriting and MTV Chicago’s Best Breakout Artist. The Ladder was acknowledged by iTunes as a part of their Rewind: Best of 2010 list.
Since releasing The Ladder, Andrew has spent the past three years traveling and performing with friends such as Katie Herzig, Greg Laswell, Ben Rector, Madi Diaz, The Milk Carton Kids, and is thrilled to be a part of the critically acclaimed national touring group Ten Out Of Tenn.
On the theme of his upcoming album, Andrew refers to an excerpt from Clive Staples Lewis’s 1955 autobiography, Surprised by Joy:
The odd thing was that before God closed in on me, I was in fact offered what now appears a moment of wholly free choice. I became aware that I was holding something at bay, or shutting something out. I could open the door or keep it shut. I chose to open. I say, “I chose,” yet it did not really seem possible to do the opposite.
While Andrew’s early vocal performances have drawn comparisons to Mat Kearney and Greg Laswell, his newest work shows strong musical influence from alternative artists such as Beach House, Washed Out, M83, and Bon Iver.
Andrew’s nuanced melodies are strengthened by thoughtful, contemplative lyrics, and have served as a soundtrack to numerous hit television shows, including: Grey’s Anatomy, Pretty Little Liars, Castle, and Vampire Diaries. In 2009, Andrew was presented with awards for John Lennon Pop-Songwriting and MTV Chicago’s Best Breakout Artist. The Ladder was acknowledged by iTunes as a part of their Rewind: Best of 2010 list.
Since releasing The Ladder, Andrew has spent the past three years traveling and performing with friends such as Katie Herzig, Greg Laswell, Ben Rector, Madi Diaz, The Milk Carton Kids, and is thrilled to be a part of the critically acclaimed national touring group Ten Out Of Tenn.
Jim Lauderdale
Jim Lauderdale is a Grammy® Award winning musician and one of the most respected artists working in the Bluegrass, Country and Americana music communities today. He is considered one of Nashville’s “A” list of songwriters with songs recorded by artists such as Patty Loveless, Shelby Lynne, Solomon Burke, The Dixie Chicks and George Strait, who has had numerous hits with Jim’s songs. Jim’s music has been featured recently on the ABC hit show “Nashville” and he had several tracks on the soundtrack of the successful film “Pure Country.” Jim is also in high demand as a player, touring with the likes of Lucinda Williams, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Rhonda Vincent and Elvis Costello.
Jim, who frequently collaborates with legends like Ralph Stanley and Elvis Costello, is also a critically acclaimed solo artist with dozens of studio releases, including his latest Carolina Moonrise, written with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and Buddy and Jim the critically acclaimed new duets album recorded with long time friend Buddy Miller of which Mojo states: “Miller and Lauderdale’s duets have both the easy familiarity of old friends and the musicianship of old pros.”
In addition to making music together, Buddy and Jim also co-host “The Buddy & Jim Show,” recently described as “…highly entertaining…” by NPR’s Fresh Air. Each week Buddy and Jim invite artists to Buddy’s home studio in Nashville, where they tape performances and in depth interviews with a wide variety of artists and friends. Jim also hosts the popular Music City Roots each week from the Loveless Barn in Nashville. And since winning “Artist of the Year” and “Song of the Year” at the first “Honors and Awards Show” held by the Americana Music Association in 2002, he has subsequently hosted the show each year.
Jim is the subject of a new documentary, directed by Australian filmmaker Jeremy Dylan called “The King Of Broken Hearts.” The feature length documentary tells of Jim’s unconventional and prolific story from his North Carolina roots, being immersed in the country music scenes in both New York City and Los Angeles, to breaking through in Nashville as a songwriter.
Jim’s musical influences, including the legendary Dr. Ralph Stanley and George Jones, can be heard in his songs with his unique sense of melody and lyrical expertise. He won his first Grammy Award in 2002 with Dr. Ralph Stanley for Lost in the Lonesome Pines (Dualtone) and then for The Bluegrass Diaries (Yep Roc) in 2007. In addition to previously mentioned releases, as a performer Jim is credited with production, writing and collaborating on over two dozen albums including Wait ‘Til Spring (SkyCrunch/Dualtone 2003) with Donna the Buffalo and Headed for the Hills (Dualtone 2004) his first total project with Robert Hunter, Planet of Love (Reprise 1991,) Pretty Close to the Truth (Atlantic 1994,) Every Second Counts (Atlantic 1995,) Persimmons (Upstart 1998,) Whisper (BNA 1998,) Onward Through It All (RCA 1999,) The Other Sessions (Dualtone 2001,) The Hummingbirds (Dualtone 2002,) Bluegrass (Yep Roc 2006,) Country Super Hits, Volume 1 (Yep Roc 2006,) Honey Songs (Yep Roc 2008), Could We Get Any Closer? (SkyCrunch 2009,) Patchwork River (Thirty Tigers 2010), Reason and Rhyme (Sugar Hill Records 2011), and Carolina Moonrise (SkyCrunch/Compass Records 2012.)
Jim, who frequently collaborates with legends like Ralph Stanley and Elvis Costello, is also a critically acclaimed solo artist with dozens of studio releases, including his latest Carolina Moonrise, written with Grateful Dead lyricist Robert Hunter and Buddy and Jim the critically acclaimed new duets album recorded with long time friend Buddy Miller of which Mojo states: “Miller and Lauderdale’s duets have both the easy familiarity of old friends and the musicianship of old pros.”
In addition to making music together, Buddy and Jim also co-host “The Buddy & Jim Show,” recently described as “…highly entertaining…” by NPR’s Fresh Air. Each week Buddy and Jim invite artists to Buddy’s home studio in Nashville, where they tape performances and in depth interviews with a wide variety of artists and friends. Jim also hosts the popular Music City Roots each week from the Loveless Barn in Nashville. And since winning “Artist of the Year” and “Song of the Year” at the first “Honors and Awards Show” held by the Americana Music Association in 2002, he has subsequently hosted the show each year.
Jim is the subject of a new documentary, directed by Australian filmmaker Jeremy Dylan called “The King Of Broken Hearts.” The feature length documentary tells of Jim’s unconventional and prolific story from his North Carolina roots, being immersed in the country music scenes in both New York City and Los Angeles, to breaking through in Nashville as a songwriter.
Jim’s musical influences, including the legendary Dr. Ralph Stanley and George Jones, can be heard in his songs with his unique sense of melody and lyrical expertise. He won his first Grammy Award in 2002 with Dr. Ralph Stanley for Lost in the Lonesome Pines (Dualtone) and then for The Bluegrass Diaries (Yep Roc) in 2007. In addition to previously mentioned releases, as a performer Jim is credited with production, writing and collaborating on over two dozen albums including Wait ‘Til Spring (SkyCrunch/Dualtone 2003) with Donna the Buffalo and Headed for the Hills (Dualtone 2004) his first total project with Robert Hunter, Planet of Love (Reprise 1991,) Pretty Close to the Truth (Atlantic 1994,) Every Second Counts (Atlantic 1995,) Persimmons (Upstart 1998,) Whisper (BNA 1998,) Onward Through It All (RCA 1999,) The Other Sessions (Dualtone 2001,) The Hummingbirds (Dualtone 2002,) Bluegrass (Yep Roc 2006,) Country Super Hits, Volume 1 (Yep Roc 2006,) Honey Songs (Yep Roc 2008), Could We Get Any Closer? (SkyCrunch 2009,) Patchwork River (Thirty Tigers 2010), Reason and Rhyme (Sugar Hill Records 2011), and Carolina Moonrise (SkyCrunch/Compass Records 2012.)
