Artist Category: Americana | Page 9

Eddie Berman

Portland, OR-based singer/songwriter Eddie Berman shares a second track, “Pascal’s Triangle,” from his upcoming album Frontiers, out September 20th. “Pascal’s Triangle” sees Berman’s heartfelt delivery resound through deliberate flatpicking and lush choral harmonies. Evoking the life-altering experience of seeing his first child for the first time after his wife’s tumultuous delivery, the track proves to be passionate and powerful.

The name of the song was inspired by a passage from John O’Donohue’s book Beauty, in which he paraphrases a quote from Blaise Pascal, saying: “In times of hardship keep an image of beauty in your mind.” Berman explains, “It’s the idea that holding on to one irreducible, genuinely beautiful thing can see you through anything. When I first read that notion, I immediately thought of the birth of my daughter. Holding her brand-new, little body against my chest felt like stepping into a new frontier. Parenthood is obviously a long and daunting road, but that first moment seems like it will sustain me through all of it.”

With Frontiers, the critically acclaimed troubadour surveys himself and the world around him over the course of 11 heartfelt vignettes rooted in his signature fingerpicking style, accompanied by ethereal lap steel, bellowing double bass, and orchestral percussion. The album, in all its warm yet vibrant production, is inspired by nature, literature, and, of course, the joys and struggles of Berman’s own life. He previously released lead single “The Match,” which blends bending fingerpicking and boisterous horns with a meditative beat soaked in droning harmonium.

Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams

Multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter Larry Campbell and singer-guitarist Teresa Williams’ acclaimed eponymous 2015 debut, released after seven years of playing in Levon Helm’s band – and frequent guesting with Phil Lesh, Little Feat, Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady, brought to the stage the crackling creative energy of a decades-long offstage union. A whirlwind of touring and promo followed, and when the dust cleared, the duo was ready to do it all again. Which brings us to Contraband Love, a riskier slice of Americana.

Larry, who produced Contraband Love, says, “I wanted this record to be a progression, bigger than the first one. That’s all I knew. I wanted the songwriting to be deeper, the arrangements more interesting, the performances more dynamic. Specifically how to get there, I didn’t know. I did know the songs were different. The subject matter was darker than anything else I’ve written.”

Musically, Contraband Love revisits the Americana textures of the duo’s debut, deftly channeling Memphis, Chicago, the Delta, and Appalachia with equal assurance. Larry’s world-famous guitar work – scorching here, funky there, stellar always – punctuates the proceedings with riveting emotion, often like a third voice weighing in on a myriad of emotional states.

EmiSunshine

Rolling Stone named EmiSunshine among “10 new country artists you need to know,” but she is more than country. With music described as “old-timey,” the East Tennessee native adds her own unique contemporary blend of roots music that is equal parts Americana, Bluegrass, Gospel, Blues and Jazz. Many critics have compared her to a young Dolly Parton.

Known for her powerful voice and masterful ukulele-playing, this 15-year-old singer/songwriter has been attracting national attention since she was 9 years old, with appearances on “The Today Show,” NBC’s “Little Big Shots,” “Pickler & Ben,” “Song of the Mountains,” “WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour” the Grand Ole Opry (14 times) and elsewhere. In 2018, she was featured in the Grammy-nominated Elvis Presley documentary film “The King,” for which she wrote and performed two original songs—“Johnny, June and Jesus” and “Danny Ray.” In 2019, she received the prestigious ASCAP Foundation Desmond Child Anthem Award for musical excellence.

Emi’s latest album, “Family Wars” (produced by 4-time Grammy-winner Tony Brown), has received outstanding reviews in leading music publications. No Depression says the album “establishes EmiSunshine as a strong creative force… someone bold and talented enough to tackle today’s issues while honoring yesterday’s folk traditions.” American Songwriter says “Family Wars” proves “EmiSunshine is wise beyond her years.” Country Standard Time calls it “a superb album.”

Jill Andrews

The stories of a woman often go untold. Her struggles are kept as secrets. Her victories, discreet. Her pain, polite and unobtrusive. History records the ones who break her heart and the ones who mend it, yet it forgets the life and truth born in between. On Thirties, acclaimed singer-songwriter, Jill Andrews gives these unsung moments the voice they have always deserved.

From her days fronting lauded Americana group, the everbodyfields, to her successful solo career as a writer and performer, Andrews’ music has taken her far from her East Tennessee home. She has collaborated and shared the stage with countless celebrated artists including the Avett Brothers, Langhorne Slim, Drew Holcomb & The Neighbors and the Secret Sisters, and her music has been featured on Grey’s Anatomy, The Good Wife, Nashville, Wynonna Earp and American Idol. Featuring emotional melodies, intimate storytelling and vocals that soar even at a whisper, Thirties is a deviation, it resists contemplating the big, loud questions of the world, and rather, invites listeners to look inward, keeping us closer to home than ever before.

Tenderly, hauntingly and without fear, Thirties chronicles Andrews’ journey through a decade rife with both beauty and brutality. She explores the isolation and joy of motherhood, the loss not of a lover, but a partner, the experience of growing older in a world that expects you to stay young forever. With co-producer Lucas Morton and help from friends including Grammy winning songwriting duo Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk, Natlie Hemby and Andrews’ Hush Kids bandmate Peter Groenwald, Thirties is at once profoundly intimate and artfully infectious, evocative of greats Lucinda Williams, Chrissie Hynde and Brandi Carlile.

Andrews lives in Nashville, Tennessee with her children Nico, Falcon, and husband, Jerred. Along with a full-color, hard-cover companion book, Thirties is slated for release on March 27.

The Small Glories

Roots powerhouse duo The Small Glories are Cara Luft & JD Edwards, a musical tour-de-force partnership planted on the Canadian Prairies. Thrown together purely by accident for an anniversary show at Winnipeg’s venerable West End Cultural Centre, The Small Glories could almost make you believe in fate.

With a stage banter striking a unique balance between slapstick and sermon, these veteran singer-songwriters have a way of making time disappear, rooms shrink, and audiences feel as they are right there on the stage with the band — writing the songs, living the songs, performing the songs. It’s not uncommon for listeners to find themselves laughing, dancing, crying, or caught up in a good ol’ fashioned sing-along. “We’re folk singers, we try to write stuff that people can relate to,” says Edwards, whose looming stage presence and penetrating eyes find him the yin to Luft’s petite, snort-laughing yang. The material of a Small Glories concert is welcoming in terms of subject, folk-pop melody and instrumentation — songs of love, loss, and environment, delivered with soaring, interwoven vocals on various combinations of stomping clawhammer banjo, guitar and harmonica. However, a Small Glories performance is really about what happens in-between the songs. “The feedback we get from a lot of audiences is that it’s not just about the music for them,” Luft says. “It’s the whole package.”

Nora Jane Struthers

Nora Jane Struthers has written “some of the most quietly powerful narratives within the new wave of Americana artists,” says Ann Powers of NPR Music. The songs that last decades and weave themselves into the fabric of listeners’ lives are usually the ones in which an artist lays her soul bare for the world to hear. Struthers has built her career on these kinds of songs.

There’s an honesty and energy to Nora Jane’s stage presence; a vulnerability that is part and parcel of great artistry. In one moment, she joyfully leads the audience in a dance party… in the next, she lays her soul bare for the world to hear. A performance by Nora Jane and her band is full to the brim with stellar musicianship, unexpected arrangements that blur the lines between folk, roots, and rock, and an audible sense that everyone in the room is having a damn good time.

Lucy Wise

Lucy Wise is a Melbourne-based multi-instrumentalist and singer. Accompanying herself on guitar, ukulele and Appalachian dulcimer, she creates a contemporary sound that draws upon her roots in folk, Old Time American and Celtic music.

The evocative imagery and universal themes in Lucy’s songs have won the hearts of listeners from a diverse range of ages and backgrounds and have seen her tour three albums and two EP’s in Australia, NZ, the US and the UK since 2010. “Lucy is a natural storyteller, infusing songs with a sense of place so strong you can almost feel the dusty earth crunch beneath your feet as she sings,” says The Brag.

Lucy grew up in a musical household. Through childhood she toured as part of the Western Australia-based Wise Family Band playing an eclectic mix of folk, roots and blues, and at age 11, she started writing her own songs. Upon moving to Melbourne in 2009, Lucy dived into the local music community establishing herself as a beloved solo artist, celebrated for her insight poetic lyricism, and stunningly pure voice.

Lucy’s latest album, “Winter Sun” was received with critical acclaim: a 4.5 star review in the Weekend Australian and a nomination for The Age Music Victoria Awards’ Best Folk or Roots Album. Comprising songs about love, friendship and the relationships people form with their environment, the album draws on Lucy’s experiences over the last few years of touring as well as times spent closer to home, walking the streets and creek paths of Melbourne’s inner north. “A wonderful representation of healing, self discovery and the processes of becoming grounded and learning self worth…It is no secret that Lucy is a gifted writer, but “Winter Sun” will have you experiencing a new sense of empathy and have you walking in her shoes from track one,” says 27 Magazine.

Jaimee Harris

Jaimee Harris is poised to become the next queen of Americana-Folk, a slightly edgier Emmylou Harris for the younger generation. Her soon-to-be released debut album draws comparisons to Patty Griffin, Lucinda Williams, and Kathleen Edwards – all writers who know how to craft a heartbreakingly beautiful song with just enough grit to keep you enthralled. Harris writes about the basic human experience in a way that is simple, poetic, and often painfully relatable. Harris’s talent has impressed artists and critics alike. Jimmy LaFave deemed her his “new favorite” and Peter Blackstock of the Austin-American Statesman called her “one of Austin’s most promising young singer-songwriters.”.

“She’s quick to pay homage to her musical heroes, but Jaimee Harris is her own person, with her own voice. She’s got a natural songwriter’s instinct for the hard truth, and a voice that brings them home with a visceral punch. Pay attention.” – Gretchen Peters

Bella White

While traditional bluegrass is usually associated with the American South, the genre has surely found a safe and loving Canadian home in the form of Calgary-born singer/songwriter Bella White. Armed with a piercing voice, edged with teardrops, White’s debut album Just Like Leaving, rings out as a coming of age anthem. The twenty year-old singer/songwriter and instrumentalist shys away from modern and fussy arrangements, and instead brings a traditional style of music into the contemporary moment by personalizing it to her own experiences. “I want people my age to hear my music, and think, actually Bluegrass is kind of cool”, she says. Throughout Just Like Leaving, White finds her strength in leaving home for the first time, with songs of heartbreak and loneliness that demonstrate both an old soul and a young heart.

Produced by fiddle player Patrick M’Gonigle (The Lonely Heartstring Band), Just Like Leaving, was recorded and mixed by Grammy-winning engineer Dave Sinko at Gilford Sound Studios in Vermont. White’s frequent collaborators Reed Stutz (Mandolin, harmony vocals), Julian Pinnelli (Fiddle, harmony vocals), and Alan Mackie (Bass) create a weaving, textured landscape from which White’s no-nonsense voice takes off. White sights The Stanley Brother’s as one of her biggest vocal influences, and her love of harmony singing is on full display throughout the album. On Just Like Leaving, White has shown herself to be a star student of the bluegrass genre, with something new to bring to the table. Her ability to translate modern experience to an old sound is seamless and compelling, and permeates the boundaries of a regional genre with authentic singing and songwriting.

Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light

Fresh off a first place win at the 2023 Thomas Point Beach Bluegrass Festival band competition, Rachel Sumner & Traveling Light have been captivating audiences throughout the northeast. With songs as sweet and biting as the nectar and venom in her voice, Sumner’s lyric-forward writing and penchant for snaking chord progressions demand something far beyond folk conventions, highlighting the acrobatic range of her brilliant bandmates Kat Wallace (fiddle) and Mike Siegel (upright bass).

Sumner is no stranger to the stage. She spent her early career on the bluegrass circuit, singing and writing with the genre-bending roots group Twisted Pine. Since setting out on her own, Sumner’s songs have been critically acclaimed: winning the 2021 John Lennon Award in the folk category for her song “Radium Girls (Curie Eleison);” earning a spot in the Kerrville New Folk Competition; and being chosen four consecutive years as one of the top Massachusetts entries in NPR’s Tiny Desk Competition.

Rachel Sumner will be releasing her new album Heartless Things in May, 2024.