Artist Category: Singer/Songwriter | Page 29

Olivia Brownlee

Taking her cues from the likes of Hoagy Carmichael, Dr Teeth & the Electric Mayhem, and The Sons of the Pioneers, Brownlee smacks of timeless, quality taste and a heckuva good time for a broad audience. Her original songs are folksy, cheeky, and thought-provoking—her stories are insightful—her charm is undeniable. Whether by house concert or recording, bringing this modern-day bard into your home will not disappoint.

In 2013 Olivia began working on a communications course she calls “Music as a Second Language” and hopes its continued development will be the answer to her interest in cross-cultural collaboration.

Rory Michelle Sullivan

Listeners have called Rory Michelle Sullivan’s music “entrancing”, “most enjoyable … worshipful as well as fun” and “clever, honest, soul-bearing folk songs that transcend place, time, and circumstance and stir the imagination and tug gently but deservedly and genuinely at your heartstrings.” From upbeat anthems to intimate ballads, Rory Michelle will make you laugh, cry, and of course – sing along.

Rory Michelle has recorded four studio albums and performed internationally, including at the Morgan Park Summer Music Festival on the same stage graced by folk legends Peter Yarrow and Dar Williams. Rory Michelle and her music have been featured at festivals such as ISH, Cincinnati’s Jewish and Israeli Arts and Cultural Festival, on the Emerging Artist Showcase on Jewish Rock Radio, and in Philadelphia RowHome magazine.

Rory Michelle’s work explores relating to ourselves, others, and a spiritual Source in healthy, authentic, creative, and constructive ways. Her Jewish-themed musical endeavor, The God Album, includes fun folk, funk, rock, and swing music with songs infused, inspired, and informed by Jewish text. She is currently working on a musical. Watch the trailer, hear the music, and learn more at risinginlovethemusical.com.

Matt Sucich

Holy Smokes starts with the punchline. Disorients you, then brings you back home. It’s the kind of record that’s coming and going. You don’t know if it’s gonna slap you on the back or across the face. A gut-punch, a haymaker, three piece and a biscuit.

Sucich sings about death and love, and by the end of the record you won’t know which is which. It’s all the same to him, living is just editing, you change your looks, your mind, your friends, your faith, try to get in shape for the afterlife. The songs are a confident strut, nothing chickenhearted about them. Sucich is Hannibal crossing the Alps, telling you tough truths through treacherous terrain. Cut straight to the heart, straight to the point. He’s showing you all his cards, and he’s holding a dead man’s hand. These are songs that see the future and the past with equal clarity. The only unknown is the present. We’re all just getting by, doing what we can, honoring a handshake agreement with something somewhere we can’t quite trust. Sucich is skeptical of everyone – God, country, you, me, and himself. Everyone’s full of shit, no one is beyond reproach, and even the things made with the purest of intentions are out to get you. America the beautiful, she’ll break your heart. Life’s one big joke, and all you can do is laugh. Well, that and keep breathing. – Mike DiCenzo

Jonah Tolchin

Jonah Tolchin has wrestled with a wellspring of emotions in his 26 years, and in the process, has consistently found the means of integrating his sentiments into his songs. It’s been a relatively brief progression as far as his career is concerned, but the maturity and musical progression he’s tallied in that short time has been shared in sync with his coming of age.

On his upcoming Yep Roc album, Fires for the Cold, Tolchin lays bare the conflicts and quagmires that have engulfed him over the course of the last few years. Indeed, by his own admission, it’s been a difficult time. The ending of a marriage and an upheaval in his mindset left him shattered, confused and struggling to find the solace that had eluded him for too long a time.

“Every record I make is like a record in time,” Tolchin explains. “It recounts the things that I’ve observed and experienced between the last album and the current one. It’s painful for me to talk about the last few years. It’s even painful to write about it. But singing and strumming about it? That’s different. That’s the main way I feel that I’m able to interact with the impossible emotions. It’s the greatest gift that music has given me throughout my life.”

Laura Cortese & The Dance Cards

Laura Cortese might best be described as a sonic magpie: a curious and resourceful adventurer traversing great distances, collecting melodies and rhythms that glitter like jewels in the sun. Driven by the gravitational pull of human connection, her tendency towards exploration and collaboration have led her into countless niches, each providing its own unique feather with which to decorate her distinct and ever-evolving sound. But all of these explorations have one thing in common: the power of strings. This may seem limiting to some. To her, it is anything but. “Strings are at the core of what I do,” she says. “Genre is secondary to that palate.”

With her band the Dance Cards, Cortese showcases all of her varied experience and expertise–as a master fiddler, an instructor, a leader, and a musical collaborator–using it to craft a new sound from whole cloth: a nearly symphonic hybrid of countless traditions and influences, full of layered vocal harmonies and rich interplays of virtuosic string instrumentation. Expanding on the boundaries of what an indie folk band can be, Laura Cortese & the Dance Cards take their extensive string music background, add their knowledge and appreciation of folk and roots music and incorporate an edgy pop sensibility.

Sam Robbins

Sam Robbins is often described as an “old soul singer songwriter.” A Nashville based musician whose music evokes classic 70’s singer songwriters like James Taylor and Neil Young, Sam adds a modern, upbeat edge to the storyteller troubadour persona. An avid performer, he has gained recognition from extensive touring and as one of the six 2021 winners in the Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk competition, one of the largest and most prestigious songwriting competitions in the country.

Sam released his debut album, Finally Feeling Young, on May 14th, 2021. The album is reminiscent of his 70’s singer-songwriter heroes, with a modern perspective. On the heels of the award winning opening single, ‘Remind Me”, Finally Feeling Young has already garnered radio airplay and critical acclaim. Two album tracks, Remind Me and Saying Amen, won him a place as one of the six Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk winners. Americana Highways writes: “He writes of subjects that others don’t explore. Saying Amen has Robbins touching that special place Leonard Cohen went. This is brilliance.” Fateau Magazine in the UK writes “One of the most promising new songwriters of his generation”.

A multi-instrumentalist from a young age, Sam began learning drums and piano, falling in love with guitar at age 15. He then started writing original music, recording his first CD during his sophomore year of high school, while playing open mics in his hometown of Portsmouth, NH.

Over his career, Sam has performed countless shows across the country, in theaters, house concerts, biker bars, weddings, proposals, frat parties, and everything in between. Sam is able to tour full time, and feels at home in both intimate listening rooms and larger venues. Wherever he is performing, Sam builds an intimate, easy connection with the listener, naturally creating a feeling of closeness throughout the performance.

Sam is a full time troubadour, playing over 150 shows a year across the country, including the MainStage at the Kerrville Folk Festival, Dripping Springs Songwriter’s Festival, and as one of the “‘Most Wanted to Return” artists in the 2023 Falcon Ridge Folk Festival.

Since moving to Nashville in September 2019 following his graduation from Berklee College of Music, Sam has made a splash in music city – performing at the Bluebird Cafe within a month of moving, and sitting in again at the legendary venue with Liz Longley in February. Sam was also a winner at the Eddie’s Attic Songwriter’s shootout competition in Atlanta in early March 2020.

In 2018, Sam was able to audition and be aired on NBC’s The Voice for Adam Levine, Kelly Clarkson, Blake Shelton and Jennifer Hudson as the first artist to perform a Jim Croce song on the show.

Sam released his second album, “Bigger Than in Between”, to critical acclaim on August 5th, 2022.

Philip B. Price

Philip B. Price is a musical polymath, best known as the lead singer/songwriter of chamber-pop luminaries Winterpills since 2005. But his sprawling and emotive songbook stretches further back into the late 80s and draws on minimalist and jagged art-rock, bedroom lo-fi pop, power pop, 70’s singer-songwriter and outsider folk.

Bone Almanac, his first solo album since 2004, is a minimalist, largely acoustic album of striking intensity. Playing all the instruments and recorded in just over 4 days with producer/engineer Justin Pizzoferrato (Sebadoh, Kim Gordon, Pixies), Price opens up his internal dialog about death, memory, rebirth, insects, immortal flowers and environmental collapse, while sidling up to John Fahey, Neil Young and Jeff Tweedy.

Says Grant-Lee Phillips: This is an album that operates on a deep level, to be experienced and felt in the heart and in the bones.

The Mediterranean Collective

Dedicated to the music of the Mediterranean and the Balkans, Tamara Jokic sings in eight languages, writes her own music, and performs in a variety of styles that are uniquely brought together in her own artistic expression.

Aya Safiya

Aya Safiya is an accomplished singer, songwriter, and violinist who specializes in interpreting traditional songs from the Mediterranean, the Rromani diaspora, and island cultures. With her hauntingly beautiful and emotional voice, she captivates her listener and puts them in a spell.

Aya fell in love with music the moment her father handed her a violin at age 6, and went on to study traditional Greek island violin intensively for over 20 years. However, she didn’t limit herself to violin—she soon discovered singing and began to cultivate her voice. With guidance from master vocalists such as Eva Salina, Katerina Papadhopoulou, Kina Mendez, Merita Halili and many others, Aya has discovered her own voice within traditional music. She started performing as a vocalist at age 15, and has gone on to perform at Greek festivals in both the US and Greece, as well as at renowned venues such as The Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, The Great American Music Hall in SF, the Grand Prospect Hall in NYC, and the House of Blues in Boston.

Bay Area-born and currently based in Boston, Aya has traveled to the Balkans, Turkey, Greece, Italy, Okinawa, and Cuba in search of not only music, but also a deeper understanding of the traditions from which the music comes. She performs with numerous groups including Agapi Mou, Romantique, Sarma Brass Band, Taraf de Locos, The Aya & Tano Collective, and has recently been developing her solo set in collaboration with musicians from the vibrant international music scene in Boston.

Hannah Siglin

Hannah Siglin is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist from the Inland Northwest. Raised on folk music and studied in classical training, her songs tangle intricate guitar parts with raw and intimate lyrics, beautiful both stripped down to her guitar and voice, or set over the dynamics of her band—acoustic bass, fiddle, and mandolin. Since moving to Boston to study songwriting at Berklee College of Music in 2015, Siglin has been honored with the Pat Pattison Scholarship, opened for Margaret Glaspy at The Red Room, and her band has been featured at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in 2017 and 2019. She draws inspiration from a deep love of nature and her songs explore the themes that have shaped her coming of age–the losing and redefining of faith, love, and identity.