Artist Category: Singer/Songwriter | Page 4

Alicia Blue

Born and raised in the last eastern town of LA County, just steps from the San Bernardino line, the daughter of a truck driver father and bank teller mom, Alicia Blue is no stranger to desolate landscapes. Desolation is something that comes to mind when recalling her childhood, despite her insistence that she is also a “closeted optimist.”

Working multiple jobs to pay rent while in college, Alicia stumbled upon a job helping to take care of an aging soul singer named Malcolm Hayes, Jr who’d been disabled from a stroke. It was that fateful meeting that opened the doors to her realizing she needed to set her words to music as a means to reach people…and it was Malcolm who first said to her, “Why are you so blue?” Up until then, Alicia had never played more than a few chords on guitar for fun at an old boyfriend’s house. But she was determined to learn to play for real and studied and practiced relentlessly. In 2015, Alicia Blue did her first open mic and started writing her first songs. Alicia began busking around LA, playing every open mic and opening shows whenever she could. One of her first recorded songs, “Magma,” was featured by Starbucks in their stores worldwide and on their Spotify playlist and brought her a good amount of attention. By 2020, Alicia had established herself in the LA music scene as a true poet / songwriter.

In 2021, Alicia Blue started spending a lot of time in Nashville writing and working on new music. This led to a deeply creative period in which she began collaborating with people like John Paul White (Civil Wars), Sadler Vaden (Jason Isbell) and Lincoln Parish (Cage the Elephant), setting the stage for what would become 2022’s release Inner Child Work, produced by Lincoln Parish and recorded in Nashville.

The following spring 2022, Alicia packed up her life and relocated to Nashville.

In late summer 2023, Alicia recorded a new batch of songs with producer Dan Knobler (Allison Russell). She caught the attention of legendary producer/songwriter Butch Walker that year, bringing them together to write for her album, and even having him feature on one of her songs. That winter, Alicia Blue was named one of American Songwriter’s 16 Artists to Watch. During this same period, Alicia Blue’s music was discovered by the Jack Kerouac Estate curators and asked to compose a song inspired by the soon-to-be-released Kerouac collected writings, “Self Portrait.” After meeting in Kerouac’s hometown of Lowell, MA, they invited her to stay for a few days and record at Jack’s former home in St. Petersburg, FL just after her tour with Lucinda Williams. There she got to stay in Jack’s room and sleep in his bed while going on to record three songs with Kerouac lyrics and do a live broadcast. She is solidly endorsed by the Kerouac Estate and even thanked in the first printing of “Self Portrait.”

Alicia Blue wrapped her second year in Nashville with one final meeting that would consecrate her path and place as a songwriter, in which she got to give an impromptu performance of her songs for the legendary Lucinda Williams at a party. That led to Lucinda featuring on her upcoming single, “Tennessee,” (out July 2024) and a growing friendship between the two that led to Alicia joining her out on tour in early 2024. With singles from her new album hitting each month throughout 2024, plus the success of her second single “Tennessee,” released in July and still going strong, and a growing and important presence on the Nashville scene, Alicia Blue, is already looking toward the future and writing for her next album to be produced by Butch Walker in early 2025.

Thea Hopkins

A member of Aquinnah Wampanoag tribe of Martha’s Vineyard MA, performing songwriter Thea Hopkins calls her music – Red Roots Americana. She has been described as a “standout writer” by the Washington Post.

In Spring 2024, she was selected to attend the First Nations gathering and the ISPA Congress in Perth, Australia as a Western Arts Alliance artist delegate.

Thea was an official showcase artist at the International Indigenous Music Summit, held in Toronto in June 2023.

In January 2023, Thea received an artist award from the Newport Festivals Foundation in support of her new album, “Here In Our World” to be released in January 2025.

She was an Official Showcase Artist at Folk Alliance International in 2022.

Her program, “In The Roundhouse”, a celebration of traditional and contemporary Indigenous music, debuted in Providence RI in September 2021.

In May 2021, Thea was selected by Folk Alliance International as part of Team USA, for Global Music Match, an internationally artist led collaborative effort.

Thea’s song, “The Ghost Of Emmett Till”, from her highly praised 2018 EP, “Love Come Down” was awarded the grand prize by the Great American Song Contest in March 2021. There were over 1900 entries from forty three countries.

Her EP “Love Come Down’, was nominated for a 2019 Indigenous Music Award in the folk category, an international competition. She created, in just six tunes, an elegant and seamless song journey that begins with a gentle invocation (“Love Come Down”), ends with a lullaby (“Until Then”) and gracefully travels to a few dark American landscapes in between.  From love ballad to social history, every song is personal. The scope of the EP – touching upon Americana, folk and pop — can be seen by the choice of musicians. Jazz trumpeter Tom Halter (Either Orchestra) explores haunting new directions on four songs. “Mississippi River, Mississippi Town” features the electric “ebow” guitar of David Minehan (The Neighborhoods, The Replacements.) The pianist Tim Ray (formerly with Lyle Lovett) is prominent, and plaintive, on “Almost Upon a Time.” The song “Tamson Weeks” is sparked by violinist Mimi Rabson of the Really Esoteric String Quartet. It tells the story of Hopkins’ great-great aunt, a medicine woman of the Aquinnah Wampanoag Indian tribe of Martha’s Vineyard. On her timely ballad, “The Ghost of Emmett Till,” Noel Paul Stookey (the Paul of P,P & M) adds his quietly dramatic guitar and harmony vocals.

In June 2019, Thea was selected by the Western Arts Alliance as a 2019 Native Launchpad Artist, a three-year artist development program. To cap off 2019, Thea was selected for the Wichoie Ahiya Indigenous Singer Songwriter Intensive at the Banff Arts Centre in Alberta, Canada. Thea was a Native Arts and Cultures fellowship recipient in 2017.

She first came to wider public notice when Peter, Paul & Mary recorded her song “Jesus Is On The Wire” in 2004, and then again in 2010 with the Prague Symphony Orchestra. It is considered one of their later signature songs.

In addition to Aquinnah Wampanoag, Hopkins ‘ ancestry includes Nottoway (Iroquois), African American, Irish and Portuguese. In other words, Red Roots Americana.

Rosa Joe Jacobs

Rosa Joe Jacobs is a Brooklyn-bred, Boston-based songwriter and musician. Heavily inspired by American roots music, Rosa Joe strives to bring new perspectives lyrically and sonically to the genre and hopes to take up space as a black woman in a style in which black women have historically been underrepresented.

Kat Quinn

Kat Quinn is an indie-pop songbird with roots in Boston, NYC, and LA. Originally hailing from Massachusetts, Quinn discovered her love for music at a young age with drums, piano, and guitar. Years later, she found herself with a broken heart and a guitar in her hands, and without even realizing what she was doing, she wrote her first song. That song is now long-forgotten (that’s not true.. she could probably play it right now, but wouldn’t want to put anyone through that), but her passion for songwriting has grown every day since.

This passion moved her to Nashville, then New York City, then Los Angeles, and now finally, back to Boston. Where she gets to spend her days writing songs and watching the seasons change. She has toured internationally, performed live on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and had her music featured in numerous trailers, commercials, and television shows.

To you, from a songbird.

Grace Harriet

Grace Harriet is a 21 year old singer/songstress from Northern California, a place that deeply influences her music and lyrical content. Combining indie, rock, and folk styles, Grace performs music that encourages an audience to discover beauty in every emotion and experience. If you enjoy driving with the windows down through redwood trees, romanticizing farm life, or changing your outfit multiple times a day, you have come to the right place.

Grace shares her time between the San Francisco Bay Area and Boston, MA where she is studying songwriting at Berklee College of Music. She performs around Boston with herself and a guitar but also with a wonderful band that helps bring her music to life. Her latest single “Hometown” and debut EP “Cowboys my baby” are available everywhere!

Nini Camps

Born and raised in Miami, FL, Nini Camps, a first-generation Cuban American, has long called NYC home. As a solo artist, she quickly made her mark on the NYC music scene, performing in iconic venues like The Bitter End, The Mercury Lounge, and The Living Room. Her independent releases and national tours with artists such as Los Lonely Boys, as well as performances at Madison Square Garden with Joan Osborne and the 2006 World Cup games in Germany, highlight her dynamic career.

A celebrated songwriter, Nini won Billboard’s Songwriter Award and was named Spin’s Top 5 Singer/Songwriter for her album “So Long.” Signing with Cherry Lane Music Publishing in 2005 allowed her to transition from touring to songwriting for other artists, TV, and film. With over 50 placements, including Grey’s Anatomy, Station 19, All American, Brothers and Sisters, Castle, Pretty Little Liars, and more, Nini continues to create music for various media. She is currently signed to Concord Music Publishing.

Nemarca

Nemarca is the musical project of artist Anna Reidister.

Anna Reidister is an interdisciplinary artist, writer, and musician located in Boston, MA. Her work explores the intersection of storytelling, character building, and late-stage capitalism through performance, event production, post-digital objects, folk art, and poetry. She aims to expose the absurdity of neoliberalism, imagine new worlds and envision alternate realities. She has performed at Massachusetts College of Art’s Alumni & Founders Day, Club Passim’s campfire. festival, Boston Neighborhood Network’s Community Media Day, and the Winthrop Pride Festival hosted by Senator Lydia Edwards. She holds a BFA from Massachusett College of Art and Design in Interrelated Media and a minor in Creative Writing.

Sarah Sample

Sarah Sample is an award-winning songwriter with a “raw, graceful voice” (Salt Lake City Weekly) and beautiful songs that weave a trail of stories through folk, Americana, and country and have garnered comparisons to Sheryl Crow, The Weepies, and Bonnie Raitt.

Redwing, Sample’s sixth album, features more of her cut-to-the-bone storytelling, framed with empathy and compassion, and told with the best singing of Sample’s career. Produced by Sample’s longtime producer Scott Wiley (Elliott Smith, Bonnie Raitt), Redwing came to life over a few weeks of sessions at June Audio in Provo, Utah.

Sample’s last album, ‘Til The Morning, paired her with songwriter Edie Carey as the two sang their favorite lullabies and songs of comfort, both wanting to bronze a bookmark for their years as mothers of young children. And that instinct proved to be inspired, as the collection won Best Children’s Album in the 2014 Independent Music Awards, the 2014 Parents’ Choice Gold Award (highest honor), and 2014 NAPPA Gold Award (also highest honor).

Sample has played several prominent festivals—Merlefest, Cayamo, Folks Fest, Sisters, Telluride, Kerrville (not to mention winning songwriting contests at most of them). She has also warmed up stages for artists like Darrell Scott, Steve Martin & The Steep Canyon Rangers, Marketa Irglova, and Over The Rhine.

As a kid she bounced across the country, from Santa Barbara to Austin to Salt Lake City, and that experience and wanderlust has seeped into all six of her albums. She’s also a founding member of the folk-gospel collective The Lower Lights, who take on gospel classics from old hymnals as well as Hank Williams, Dolly Parton, and even Stevie Wonder. She lives in the welcoming, wild wide open of Wyoming with her husband and two daughters.

Jay Nash

I remember when I was kid, being dumbfounded, paralyzed and terrified all at once, when the notion of infinity first dawned on me. I think that I was eleven years old and in the sixth grade at Enders Road Elementary School. It was then, that the expanse of the Universe and the endless stream of time first dwarfed my perception of my own reality and it was then, for the very first time that I felt afraid and alone.

This pre-pubescent, existential crisis was thankfully subverted by a fortunate discovery.

Music.

Sure, I had been listening to bands like Def Leppard, Quiet Riot and Kiss on expandable suitcase-record player since I was seven, which was all well and good. But, it was the sound of the Grateful Dead, emanating from my Sanyo boombox, as I laid in my bunk bed, that reconnected me to the world, humanity and I dare say, the universe. There was a language of truth that I had never heard before in Jerry Garcia’s fiery playing (circa the 1971, ‘Skull and Roses’ release), that intertwined in conversation, chorus and harmony with Bob Weir’s, glassy, rhythmic punctuations. The entire band was communicating with each other and it’s audience in way that I could barely comprehend. Suddenly, I was no longer alone.

Shortly thereafter, I flipped that 90 minute Maxell tape over and discovered a resonance of similar amplitude in the songs and voice of Cat Stevens. Of course, his music was of a completely different shade, but the connection was just as strong. It was clear to me, at that moment, in my eleven year old mind, that Cat had pondered the same questions and fears that I had in my early existentialism. Again I realized, I was not alone.

What followed between then and now, was probably not all that different than the experience that many American songwriters have had growing up. My uncle gave me a guitar, I became obsessed with the recordings of the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, Cat Stevens and the like, and I began to figure out how to play some songs. Slowly (though not particularly surely) I would also begin to find my voice as a singer, a player and a writer. Eventually, I found my way to New York City, then on to Los Angeles and onto stages all across the land.

All of that stuff hardly seems as important though, as that discovery that I made when I was just a kid. It wasn’t necessarily The Dead, Jerry or Cat Stevens, specifically…it really could have been anyone, I think. Sam Cooke, Michael Jackson, Charlie Parker…Frank Sinatra. What I discovered, was the connective power of music. Every once in a while, throughout my life, I will forget and when I do, I suppose that I let my perception of the world around me fade in to black and white. Then, I will hear a voice, or a song…or find myself onstage with a particularly open and enthusiastic audience, or sharing a harmony with a friend…and BOOM! Everything explodes back into technicolor.

So – that is what I do. I seek that connection. I search for that sound. I suspect that the universe has some particular resonant frequencies and I believe that is truth that we are all looking for. Just as it exists in the physical world, I think that we can find that resonance in melody, harmony, rhythm and poetry. I was lucky enough to discover it very early on in my life – and so, I take that as a hint from the universe that I should encourage and enable others to make similar discoveries.

Garrison Starr

Garrison Starr is the quintessential musical triple-threat, singer, songwriter, Grammy-nominated record producer, and her soon-to-be-released latest full-length album, Garrison Starr and The Gospel Truth, reveals her at the height of her powers. Starr calls the new collection of songs, “Swamp Gospel Hymns for Humans,” the next chapter inher story of recovery and healing from her Evangelical Christian upbringing. Her previous album, “Girl I Used To Be,” released during the pandemic in March 2021, launched herexploration of deconstruction on the path towards self-love and forgiveness. “Girl I Used To Be” is the story of saying goodbye to what was, and The Gospel Truth is the story of the journey over the bridge to freedom.
Starr has been releasing singles from the new record over the last several months, following a number of TV placements on Monarch, Bull, and most recently, Walker: Independence, a consistent pattern for Starr throughout her remarkable career. Starr is a celebrated singer of such remarkable reputation that music icons go out of their way to praise her. Glen Phillips declares, “Garrison’s voice goes straight to the gut. She reminds you of what it means to be human.” Mary Chapin Carpenter adds, “She just writes and sings her heart out. In the American Idolized landscape that constitutes today’s music business, she is someone to be thankful for.” Her frequent collaborations with other artists have been both in the studio and on stage–Starr has toured with the likes of Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Bruce Cockburn, Patty Griffin, Mindy Smith, Glen Phillips, and The Indigo Girls, to name a few, logging hundreds of thousands of touring miles across the country and around the world.

“A Lucinda Williams for Gen X’ers”- NPR