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.”
“More painful!” Teresa says, and laughs. “Yeah,” Larry says with a smile. “I’m proud of our debut, but I felt like the songs were lighter than what I’m capable of doing. As a songwriter, I aspire to a sense of uniqueness: this is a great song and it could only have been written by me. I want to get there. It’s a journey, a goal, a pursuit. The mechanics of that pursuit are figuring out what you need to do to surpass your last body of work.”
Although it was not his conscious intent, three of the eight tunes Campbell penned for Contraband Love deal either obliquely or directly with various emotions surrounding addiction. For the blues rocking “Three Days in A Row,” he authoritatively delves into the crucial first seventy-two hours directly following an addict going cold turkey in an effort to get clean. “I was thinking about the things I’ve quit in my life,” he says. “The last time was cigarettes. I remembered the dreams I had in withdrawal.” Vintage-sounding country nugget “Save Me from Myself” (featuring Little Feat’s Bill Payne on piano) explores a troubled soul’s heartrending knowledge that they are hard to love. “I’ve certainly felt both sides of that situation,” Larry says, “and observed it many times.” Delicate waltz “Contraband Love,” a captivating vocal showcase for Teresa, takes on the other side of the story, when a parent (or spouse, or friend, etc.) realizes their only recourse for dealing with an addict is merely to stand “with arms wide open.” Of this remarkable piece, Larry says, “That melody would not leave me alone. It’s one of the more unique songs I’ve ever written.”
“Larry’s writing this stuff,” Teresa says, “and we’re naming off all the people in our lives who are currently going through this (addiction and loss) with a loved one, not to mention the family members and friends we’ve lost in the past from this affliction. That may have driven him. One of my oldest, most intimate friends – a functioning substance abuser since he was a teenager – died on the street in New York while we were in the studio. We dedicated the album to him.”
“The stuff of loss resonates,” Larry says.
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.
The barnburner leadoff single, “Hit and Run Driver,” is a harrowing-but-rocking survivor’s tale, showcasing longtime drummer and engineer/mixer Justin Guip.
To leaven out the darker tunes, Larry and Teresa added a recording of the reassuring Carl Perkins country classic “Turn Around,” with old friend and mentor Levon Helm, captured on drums shortly before his passing. Jaunty folk blues “My Sweetie Went Away,” features new bass player Jesse Murphy doubling on tuba for a distinctly New Orleans feel; traditional gutbucket country blues “Delta Slide,” is spiced with irresistible, harmonized yodeling.
“Stylistically, there’s a lot of different things going on,” Larry says. “So the sequencing was difficult. But I think I got it right.”
Indeed. Contraband Love stands as a new, bolder chapter in a story that arose triumphantly joyous from loss. “When Levon died,” Teresa says, “that put Larry into high gear. He’d already had his head set about making a record, but then it felt like a train took off! We just said, ‘life is short.’”
Another motivator for creating Contraband Love was the experience of taking the Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams show out on the road, as a duo, with a band, and opening for Jackson Browne (who loaned them his band). “It felt fabulous and fantastic,” Larry says. “After I met Teresa (in the mid 80s), I’d be out with Bob Dylan [Larry toured with the Nobel laureate for eight years] and something was missing. I gotta gig, and it’s what I always wanted, but it’s not my stuff, and it’s not with the person I want to be with. And then, when we got a taste of being a performing duo at the Rambles with Levon, the idea that we could expand on that was completely alluring.
“So virtually everything we’ve done musically since I left Dylan’s band, we’ve been asked to do together: Levon, Phil and Friends, Jorma and Jack, Little Feat; we’ve done it all as a unit, a duo, and it’s great. It’s rewarding on a lot of levels. The way I see it, when Teresa and I are together, doing our material for people who come to see us, then everything I ever wanted out of life is pretty well complete.”
The Wailin’ Jennys are Nicky Mehta, Ruth Moody and Heather Masse—three distinct voices that together make an achingly perfect vocal sound.
Starting as a happy accident of solo singer-songwriters getting together for a one-time-only performance at a tiny guitar shop in Winnipeg, Manitoba, The Wailin’ Jennys have earned their place as one of today’s most beloved international folk groups. Founding members Ruth Moody and Nicky Mehta, along with New York-based Heather Masse, continue to create some of the most exciting and exquisite music on the folk-roots scene, stepping up their musical game with each critically-lauded recording and thrilling audiences with their renowned live performances.
In 2004, Red House Records released The Wailin’ Jennys’ first full-length album, 40 Days, in the U.S. to great critical acclaim, and in 2005 it won them a Juno Award (Canadian Grammy) for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year. Bolstered by their frequent appearances on Garrison Keillor’s public radio show A Prairie Home Companion, The Jennys exploded onto the roots music scene, performing at packed venues across the U.S. and throughout the world. Their next CD, Firecracker, was a powerful follow-up to their debut album and found The Jennys stepping out of the folk realm and into the world of alt-country, pop and rock. Garnering much attention, it was nominated for a Juno Award and won a 2007 Folk Alliance Award for “Contemporary Release of the Year.” It charted for over 56 weeks on the Billboard charts and was followed up by their 2009 release Live at the Mauch Chunk Opera House, which spent over a year on the Billboard bluegrass charts.
The Wailin’ Jennys joined the ranks of Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris by recording their 2011 studio album Bright Morning Stars with award-winning producer Mark Howard, co-produced by frequent Jennys collaborator and Juno Award-nominated David Travers-Smith.
Although known primarily as an acoustic outfit, The Wailin’ Jennys have a wide range of musical backgrounds that have formed their musical sensibilities. Soprano Ruth Moody (vocals, guitar, accordion, banjo, bodhrán) is a classically trained vocalist and pianist known as an accomplished, versatile singer of traditional and Celtic music and was the lead singer of Juno-nominated roots band Scruj MacDuhk. Red House Records released her first full-length solo album The Garden, whose title track was the #4 most played song of 2010 on folk radio followed by 2013’s These Wilder Things. She recently became a mother to a son, Woodson.
Mezzo Nicky Mehta (vocals, guitar, drums, ukulele) is a self-taught musician and classically trained dancer raised on ‘70s AM radio. She was nominated for a Canadian Indie Music Award for her solo album Weather Vane and is working on a follow-up while also preparing for the release of a new children’s book based on the lyrics of her song “Away But Never Gone” from Bright Morning Stars. When at home she splits her time between composing for contemporary dance and engaging in various social justice initiatives. With the Jennys, she spearheaded their ongoing relationship with the National Alliance on Mental Illness to raise awareness and funds for the cause. She is the proud mother of twin boys, Beck and Finn.
Alto Heather Masse (vocals, upright bass) is a Jazz Voice graduate of the New England Conservatory of Music and is a regular guest on A Prairie Home Companion. She has also toured with her own band, supporting her 2009 Red House release Bird Song. Masse has released two jazz collaborations with Red House: Lock My Heart, a collection of standards pairing her with keyboard legend Dick Hyman, and August Love Song, which found Masse united with free jazz trombonist Roswell Rudd. She is the mother of a son, August.
The Midwest is to The Pines what Monument Valley was to filmmaker John Ford. The flat, endless expanses of the band’s native Iowa are at once the settings of, characters in, and muse behind the songs on their new album, Above The Prairie. Songwriters David Huckfelt and Benson Ramsey—who along with Benson’s brother Alex form the band’s touring trio format—craft their music with a filmmaker’s keen eye for detail and framing, blending celestial, ethereal atmospherics with rich, warm vocals and earthy acoustic instruments. It’s a gripping brew that demands your total presence, transporting you into vividly painted musical and lyrical snapshots.
“Almost all of the songs on the album are somewhere between the first and third take,” says Huckfelt. “It was a matter of capturing raw performances and preserving that spirit, of not losing the energy of the songs in the recording of them.”
“It’s kind of a risky way to work,” adds Ramsey, “but we went back to Iowa and just did it in three days and that was pretty much it. It’s almost like a photograph.”
Much like the photograph on the album’s cover—which depicts a stunning nighttime landscape of wide-open grassland spotted with crumbling, abandoned cabins beneath an infinitely expansive galaxy of stars—the songs on Above The Prairie at once evoke the vastness of space, the ceaseless passage of time, the beauty of Earth, and the inescapable loneliness of inhabiting it.
In some ways, Above The Prairie may sound like an attempt to reconnect with the past, to capture the feel of the land and the communities of their youths, but the songs seem rather to reflect on the impossibility of such an endeavor in the modern age.
“People say you can’t step in the same river twice,” says Huckfelt, “but you can’t even step in the same river once, because change is the only constant. Home isn’t the same home you remember, and you don’t get a minute to catch your breath to think about it.”
It’s a sentiment that pervades the album and comes vividly to life on the record’s closing track, “Time Dreams,” a poem written and read by the famed Native American activist/poet John Trudell and set to music by The Pines.
“He articulates some profound truths that resonate throughout the record,” says Ramsey. “There’s just this kind of disconnection from the Earth that we experience. There’s this loneliness about it, and there’s this truth that’s sort of undeniable but that no one really wants to talk about.”
“We both grew up in Iowa in very sparse, rural communities,” adds Huckfelt, “and we watched our towns kind of dissipate and the vitality go away, but at the same time also remain in certain hidden, unexpected ways.”
Above The Prairie explores those hidden places, from “Lost Nation”—a synth-driven instrumental penned by Alex and named after an Iowa town with a population of less than 500—to “Villisca,” another soundscape featuring Uilleann pipes and titled for an Iowa community that lives under the ominous cloud of an infamous 1912 axe murder.
“There’s a remoteness to the record and the feelings,” says Huckfelt. “These communities are tiny, but they’re out there. There are homes with people and lives being lived there, and the towns we grew up in were not so different.”
Finding somewhere to feel at home is a recurring theme on the record. On “Where Something Wild Still Grows,” Huckfelt longs for a place “through the trees, past the city, beyond the glow” where he can be at ease, while “Sleepy Hollow” finds Ramsey contemplating our treatment of each other and our planet as he looks into the abyss of the night sky, and “Come What Is” (which features Ryan Young of Trampled By Turtles on fiddle) tries to find contentment in the present moment.
At the core of it all, though, is the realization that if this life is nothing more than a fleeting journey on a tiny speck of a planet floating among the stars of an infinite universe, then there’s no more important act than to love each other and the Earth. When Ramsey sings “hold, hold on to me” in opener “Aerial Ocean”—which brings together lush, sweeping slide guitar with gently plucked guitar and banjo—it’s repeated in the intimate, reverent tone of a prayer. The narrator might be singing to a person, or he might be singing to the prairie. In the case of The Pines, he’s probably singing to them both.
The daughter of two preacher’s kids, Pieta Brown’s early upbringing in Iowa was in a rural outpost with no furnace, running water, or TV. There, she was exposed to traditional and rural folk music through her father, Greg Brown, the now beloved Midwestern folk singer. Later, while living with her mother in Birmingham, Alabama during her formative years, Pieta drew on and expanded these influences and began writing poems and composing instrumental songs on piano. By the time she left home at 18 she had lived in at least 19 different houses and apartments between Iowa and Alabama.
In her early 20’s, after experiencing what she describes as “the songs calling”, Pieta started experimenting with the banjo and eventually picked up a 1930’s Maybell arch-top guitar during a visit to her father’s place and never looked back. Emerging from a disjointed and distinctly ‘bohemian’ upbringing, Pieta began performing live and making independent recordings soon after teaching herself how to play guitar. “I grew up around a lot of musicians and artists living on the fringe, and have always felt most at home among them,” Pieta says.
Making her first recording with (now) frequent collaborator, guitar-ace and Grammy-Award winning Indie/Roots/Americana Producer, Bo Ramsey, started Pieta down the path of making recordings based around live performances. Her first album (self-titled), recorded and released independently in 2002, was recorded live in 3 days to 2-inch tape. “My first experience in the studio really steered me down a certain road,” Pieta says. “I was so shy about singing my songs then, and barely understood how to sing into a microphone, in spite of all the live music I had grown up around. Still, I was feverishly driven to deliver these songs in my heart. Right away, during that first recording session, as we were playing live and recording to tape as it went down, I experienced the magic of hooking all the way in with the song in the moment…playing the songs, with those players, playing those instruments, in that room, at that time. And ever since, I’ve been hooked on that magic feeling.”
Continually revealing new layers as both a songwriter and performer, Pieta is being recognized as one of modern Americana’s true gems. In just the last 4 years Pieta has released two critically acclaimed albums, with much attention being paid not only to her distinct sound and style, but also the power of her singing and songwriting. Since releasing One and All (2010) and Mercury (2011), Pieta has toured North America with Mark Knopfler, and toured various regions of the U.S., Australia and Canada with John Prine, Amos Lee, Brandi Carlisle, JJ Cale, Ani Difranco, Mavis Staples, and Calexico among others. She has made guest appearances on Mason Jennings‘ album, Always Been, two of Calexico‘s recent albums (Algiers and Carried To Dust), including singing on the song “Fortune Teller” (which Pieta penned with Joey Burns),as well as appearing on Amos Lee‘s album, Mission Bell (2012). Pieta’s father, Greg Brown, recorded one of her songs, Remember The Sun, on his album Freak Flag (2011), and invited her to sing and play banjo on his latest release, Hymns For What Is Left (2012). One of Pieta’s all time favorite singers, Iris Dement, has been singing Pieta’s song “Faller” (from One and All) in her live shows. Pieta’s song I Don’t Mind (from Mercury) was also recently translated and released (as Het Deert Me Niet) by Belgian pop songtress Eva De Roovere.
Now with Paradise Outlaw, Pieta delivers her most emotionally resonant compositions, and some of her most expressive performances, to date. Produced by Pieta, with frequent collaborator and partner, Bo Ramsey, Paradise Outlaw was recorded in four days at Bon Iver mastermind Justin Vernon’s April Base studio in Wisconsin with a supporting cast that includes Vernon, Amos Lee, Brown’s troubadour father, Greg Brown and various members of an experimental group of players she calls the Sawdust Collective.
Showcasing Brown’s established strengths while staking out fresh new creative territory, Brown says of the songs, “On my last album, I was recording near Nashville with top-call studio musicians who I hadn’t worked with before, and exploring the idea of craft and trying to hone in on more classic forms than I had previously.” She adds, “Paradise Outlaw came from a radically different place. I was thinking a lot about freedom, experimentation, poetry, folk songs, bending forms and voices. I also wrote and delivered half the songs on the banjo, which was completely new for me.”
Paradise Outlaw features twelve originals by Brown plus a co-write and duet with soulster Amos Lee (“Do You Know”) and a cover of Mark Knopfler’s“Before Gas And TV.”
Brown continues, “Growing up around many musicians and artists, often living on the fringe, I have always felt most at home among them. And that’s where I made this recording. Surrounded by friends in an underground Mid-western goldmine.”
Meg Hutchinson is an award-winning songwriter who artfully documents the human condition. With a poet’s ease, she makes the personal universal, allowing people’s stories to come alive through her unique vocals and haunting melodies. Since the release of her Red House Records debut Come Up Full through 2010’s The Living Side, she has won high praise for her songwriting and has been featured nationally on NPR Music, XM/Sirius Radio and several times on the syndicated show Mountain Stage.
Growing up in the Berkshire Mountains of Western Massachusetts, the woods and ponds were her childhood muses, as were songwriters like Greg Brown and Joni Mitchell, and poets like Mary Oliver, William Stafford, William Butler Yeats, T. S. Eliot and Robert Frost. When Hutchinson inherited her grandmother’s 1957 Martin guitar at age eleven, her love of words found an inspiring instrument, and there was no turning back. “Songwriting is not something I chose, I’ve just somehow always known that this is what I love to do. This is what I can’t help but do,” she says.
After graduating from college with a degree in creative writing, Hutchinson quit her longtime job on an organic lettuce farm and settled in Boston. In between gigs at pubs, coffeehouses and train stations, she won a Kerrville New Folk Award (2000) and was nominated for a Boston Music Award for her first studio album Against the Grey. She went on to win awards at the Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, the Telluride Troubadour Songwriter’s Showcase in Colorado and The Chris Austin Songwriting Contest at Merlefest in North Carolina, all in the course of a year, causing national publications like Performing Songwriter to take notice, calling her “A master of introspective ballads filled with understated yearning and an exquisite sense of metaphor.”
She settled in Boston, where she quickly became an integral part of the vibrant songwriting community. Like every great performer who has come out of the Boston scene, Hutchinson took to the subway, performing in Park Street, Downtown Crossing and Davis Square stations — honing her chops in the same method of predecessors like Martin Sexton, John Mayer, Paula Cole and Tracy Chapman.
After recording her live CD Any Given Day in 2001, and continuing to build a fan base throughout the Northeast, she went into the studio with esteemed producer Crit Harmon (Lori McKenna, Martin Sexton, Mary Gauthier) to record The Crossing. Released in 2004, this album was enthusiastically received by critics and DJs across the country, catching the attention of renowned folk/roots label Red House Records. Label president and veteran producer Eric Peltoniemi knew there was something special in the young singer-songwriter, “Meg won me over with the profound yet easy depth of her lyrics—rich words married to melodies I just can’t get out of my head.” Knowing her songs could stand alongside those by Red House heavyweights Eliza Gilkyson and John Gorka, Peltoniemi signed Hutchinson to the label. Teaming up again with Crit Harmon, Hutchinson recorded her Red House debut Come Up Full over the course of more than a year in Boston. An instant folk hit, the album was one of the most played on folk and college radio and landed her on many “best of the year” lists.
Meg Hutchinson went on to tour with such artists as Lori McKenna, Martin Sexton, Susan Werner, Luka Bloom and Joe Pug, handily winning over new fans on both sides of the Atlantic. She was also a favorite at South By Southwest (SXSW) and the International Folk Alliance Conference, showing that this was a young talent to be reckoned with.
In fall of 2009, Meg Hutchinson joined fellow songwriters Antje Duvekot, Anne Heaton and Natalia Zukerman to record the holiday EP Winterbloom: Traditions Rearranged. A collection of eclectic holiday and wintertime tunes, the CD features original tunes and songs from a variety of traditions–from a German hymn to a Yiddish folk song to a Midwinter Greg Brown ballad. Touring in support of the album, the four women performed concerts in 12 cities, making appearances on such popular stations as WFUV, WUMB and FolkAlley.com.
In 2010 Hutchinson released her second album on Red House Records, The Living Side, showing that she was a songwriter who had fully arrived. With this album the lens grew larger as Hutchinson tackled some of the big issues of the time, all while maintaining that intimate and relatable voice which makes her songs resonate deeply.
As a result of the messages inherent in her earlier albums Come Up Full and The Living Side, Hutchinson has been invited to speak and perform as a mental health advocate across the country at prestigious conferences and teaching hospitals including Johns Hopkins University.
Her own personal journey has led her to study meditation at the Sakya Institute in Cambridge, Ma since 2009. In 2011 she discovered the power of yoga and as a result of the positive changes she experienced she decided to complete a 200 hour Pranavayu yoga teacher training program in 2012 with founder David Magone.
About two years ago, Meg participated in the filming of an award-winning documentary entitled, “For The Love Of The Music: The Club 47 Folk Revival.” Club 47 was the predecessor of Club Passim, a key venue for her performances located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The film was produced by Ezzie films. Ezzie was created by Todd Kwait with the mission of documenting the positive contributions of music to society. Todd has made films with such musical icons as Joan Baez, John Sebastian, Bob Weir, Judy Collins, Taj Mahal and Tom Rush. Meg is now working with Todd and Ezzie films to bring you a feature length documentary film that will explore many of the topics nearest and dearest to her heart; music, mental health, wellness, healing, spirituality, and how those elements converge in making the world a better place. This is an ambitious project that will be filmed throughout 2014.
With Beyond That, Hutchinson delivers a collection of celebratory hymns from a woman who has made it out the other side of some difficult years and who is inviting us to go “Beyond That” with her now.
Loudon Wainwright III is one of the quintessential voices in American music. A prolific songwriter and accomplished actor, Wainwright’s albums accumulate like treasures in the attic, masterfully painting personal experiences as everyday human condition with compelling wit and wry humor. His 2001 release on Red House, Last Man on Earth was greeted with glowing reviews and he debuted the title track on “Late Night with Conan O’Brien.” The album is one of the strongest of his career and features songs that are more personal–a departure from the light, humorous, nature of previous albums.
Loudon grew up in Westchester, NY where he attended St. Andrews School for Boys from 1961-1965. He enrolled at Carnegie Mellon University, but after a year and a half, dropped out and moved to California in 1967. A year later he was writing his own songs, eventually cutting his first record for Atlantic in 1970. Since then, Loudon has gone on to record 20 albums, receive two Grammy nominations and have his songs covered by some of the legends of music like Johnny Cash, Earle Scruggs, Kate and Anna McGarrigle, and his son Rufus.
Not only is Loudon a prolific songsmith, but his year and a half studying acting at Carnegie Mellon paid off. He has gone on to numerous roles in film (Knocked Up, The 40 Year Old Virgin, Big Fish) and TV (Grounded for Life, Ally McBeal, Undeclared).
A songwriter who geniusly laces personal confessions with humorous poignancy, Loudon is one of the “greatest lyricists of our time.”
Better known perhaps as the President of Red House Records, Eric Peltoniemi has long been an acclaimed songwriter, composer and musician, as well. For over 4 decades he has worked several sides of the music industry: as a performing artist, songwriter, graphic designer, Grammy-winning producer and record label executive. (He assumed leadership of Red House in early 2006 upon the passing away of his long-time friend and colleague Bob Feldman, the label’s pioneering president and co-founder with Greg Brown.)
Eric’s long relationship with folk and country music began in a small farming town in the early 1960s when as a teenager he began performing on his grandma’s old guitar at county fairs, dances, township halls…and even boxing matches. Along the way he added Finnish songs to his act and spent several years performing across the US, Canada and northern Europe as a solo artist and with the folk-rock bands Trova, Suomi Orkesteri and Trova Ystavineen.
He has also spent several years in the music theatre where he has written music, lyrics and occasional book for eleven plays, including the regional hits TEN NOVEMBER (a collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-nominated playwright Steven Dietz) and PLAIN HEARTS (with playwright Lance Belville). Along with his collaborator Peter Glazer, he was awarded a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, and together the two created HEART OF SPAIN, a musical about the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War.
Eric’s original songs have been recorded by artists like Bok, Trickett & Muir; Robin & Linda Williams; Sally Rogers & Claudia Schmidt; Lisa Asher; Trova; Prudence Johnson, and the Finnish roots band Koinurit, among others.
His own recordings have been rare and few: two albums with Trova (Trova and Healing Zone), three Finnish language releases Kävelin Kerran/Velisurmajaa [single], Suomi [album] and K.A.U.S.T.I.N.E.N., [single with Trova Ystavineen], the mid-1990s’ Songs O’ Sad Laughter [album] and the more recent Gales of November…The Songs of ‘Ten November’ [album] with Prudence Johnson, Ruth MacKenzie, Claudia Schmidt, Peter Ostroushko, Dan Chouinard & Jeffrey Willkomm.
Award-winning Austin artists Carrie Elkin & Danny Schmidt are both songwriters who have performed on each other’s solo Red House recordings, but For Keeps marks the recording debut of their duo material, which has been enjoyed by thousands of fans at their live shows.
Carrie Elkin With her 2011 Red House Records release, Call it my Garden, Carrie Elkin has emerged as one of the defining new voices in the world of Texas singer-songwriters, being celebrated by Texas Music Magazine as one of their artists of the year. The voice, the stories, the images, the grace, it’s the complete package. But it’s the power of her live performances that really have been creating an incredible buzz around this young artist. Maverick Magazine said it best, after a recent festival performance: “I have never seen a performer so in love with the act of singing. That’s the gospel truth. Onstage, Elkin was simply a force of nature.”
Danny Schmidt Named to the Chicago Tribune’s “50 Most Significant Songwriters in the Last 50 Years,” Austin, TX-based singer/songwriter Danny Schmidt has been rapidly ascending from underground cult hero status to being recognized as an artist of generational significance. Danny is considered a preeminent writer, an artist whose earthy poetry manages to somehow conjure magic from the mundane, leading Sing Out Magazine to tag him: “The best new songwriter we’ve heard in the last 15 years.”
Austin, Texas native Danny Schmidt has built a cult following as a modern day poet and classic troubadour. A true renaissance man and consummate artist, his work is rich and wide-ranging. His lyrics have been published as poetry in literary journals. His photographs from the road have been included in photo exhibits and sold as fine art prints. He has written children’s stories. He designs his own album artwork and codes his own website. And, he has produced albums for friends, including Red House artist Carrie Elkin. Danny is a man of many media.
His life has followed a similar multi-dimensional path. He dropped out of college to pursue a more holistic and connected life on a self-sustainable communal farm. He worked as a sawyer at a sawmill in rural Virginia and as a preschool teacher in Texas. He helped found a musician’s cooperative in Charlottesville, and he is now currently working on a web-based cooperative of musicians.
While the creative expressions along his unorthodox path have taken many forms, it’s Danny’s music, and songwriting in particular, that have garnered him the most notoriety, winning him the 2007 Kerrville New Folk Award and attracting the attention of venerable roots label Red House Records.
Danny’s label debut Instead the Forest Rose to Sing was recorded in Austin by Mark Hallman (David Byrne, Ani Difranco, Eliza Gilkyson) and mixed folk, Americana and indie-rock sounds. It garnered rave reviews and made No Depression’s “Best of 2009” list. The #2 most played folk album that year, it also solidified Danny’s place as one of today’s most important voices and led him to be highlighted by Rich Warren in the Chicago Tribune as one of the top 50 most significant folk songwriters in the last 50 years.
On his latest solo album Man of Many Moons, Danny returns to an intensely intimate solo acoustic sound. Both thoughtful and playful, the songs dance around themes of personal evolution and an ever-fluid relationship with commitment.
Danny and fellow Red House artist Carrie Elkin have been performing together for the last few years and have teamed up for their duo debut For Keeps. This release from two of Austin’s award-winning songwriters contains many of the songs that have been enjoyed by thousands of fans at their live shows.
When not on the road, Danny lives in Austin where he likes to cook, brew beer and wine and take in as many Texas Longhorns games as he can.
Cliff Eberhardt knew by age seven that he was going to be a singer and songwriter. Growing up in Berwyn, Pennsylvania, he and his brothers sang together and their parents played instruments. His dad introduced him to the guitar and he quickly taught himself to play. Fortunate enough to live close to the Main Point (one of the best folk clubs on the East Coast), he cut his teeth listening to the likes of James Taylor, Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Bonnie Raitt, and Mississippi John Hurt — receiving an early and impressive tutorial in acoustic music. At the same time, he was also listening to great pop songwriters like Cole Porter, the Gershwins, and Rodgers and Hart, which explain his penchant for great melodies and clever lyrical twists.
At fifteen, Cliff and his brother Geoff began touring as an acoustic duo, playing the Eastern club circuit until Cliff turned twenty-one and moved to Carbondale, Illinois. There he found space to develop his own voicewithin a vibrant and supportive music scene that included Shawn Colvin. After a couple of years there and a short stay in Colorado, Cliff moved to New York in 1978.
Because the clubs were great (the Bitter End, the Speakeasy, Kenny’s Castaway, Folk City) and the company amazing (John Gorka, Suzanne Vega, Lucy Kaplansky, Julie Gold, Steve Forbert, Christine Lavin, and Shawn Colvin), New York was an ideal musician’s boot camp. Though he put in long hours as a taxi driver, Cliff worked steadily on his music throughout the 80’s, doing solo gigs and studio work, and playing guitar on the road with Richie Havens, Melanie and others. Singing advertising jingles for products like Coke, Miller Beer and Chevrolet (“The Heartbeat of America” campaign) allowed him to devote more time to his songwriting.
In 1990 Cliff’s song “My Father’s Shoes,” appeared on Windham Hill’s Legacy collection, leading to a deal with the label. They released Cliff’s first album, The Long Road (1990), a work featuring a duet with Richie Havens. The critical response to this debut was outstanding (The Philadelphia Inquirer called the album a “repeatedly astounding collection”). He followed with two more records on Windham Hill before releasing 12 Songs of Good and Evil (1997) on Red House Records, which stemmed from a chance meeting with Red House founder Bob Feldman at John Gorka’s wedding. Cliff recorded two more albums before his critically acclaimed The High Above and the Down Below, named the #5 album of 2007 by USA Today. Produced by legendary musician and Red House Records president Eric Peltoniemi, it was recorded in Minneapolis with noted jazz players Gordy Johnson, J. T. Bates and Rich Dworsky and was his first album after spending several years recovering from a car accident. With a new lease on life and a fresh batch of songs, Cliff embarked on what has turned out to be an artistic renaissance. Recorded in the Texas Hill Country, Cliff’s new album 500 Miles: The Blue Rock Sessions may be his finest to date. An intimate album of powerful originals and unique covers, it features a reworking of his hit “The Long Road,” a song made more poignant after nearly two decades of touring and recording.
Long one of the most respected songwriters on the club scene, his peers often mine his catalog for themselves. Cliff’s song “Memphis” was included on Cry Cry Cry, an album of collaborative covers by the “folk supergroup” of the same name (comprised of Dar Williams, Lucy Kaplansky and Richard Shindell). Other performers who have recorded his songs include Richie Havens, Shawn Colvin, Russ Taff and Buffy Sainte Marie. A collection of his songs has been published in The Cliff Eberhardt Songbook (Cherry Lane Publishing).
Carrie Elkin is a soulful singer with a gypsy spirit, a songwriter with a keen eye. Inspired by her travels and the many places she has called home–Ohio, New Mexico, Colorado, Boston, Austin–she documents the human condition with sensitivity and humor, crafting songs that have garnered attention at prestigious songwriting contests, including Mountain Stage New Song and the Falcon Ridge Emerging Artist Showcase.
Carrie is a born performer, possessing an infectious energy that cannot be contained. As Maverick Magazine so eloquently put it: “We have never seen a performer so in love with the act of singing. Onstage Elkin was simply a force of nature.” With her dazzling voice and unpretentious charm, she wins over new fans at every show, whether playing at a headlining club gig, singing the national anthem in front of 20,000 at a Chicago Bulls game or opening for artists like Jesse Winchester, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Greg Brown.
Although Carrie got her musical start young, singing in church and playing the saxophone, she lived an extremely diverse and active young life. She competed as a National Champion acro gymnast, which led to an eventual invitation to join the circus. Instead, she studied physiology at Ohio University and became an organic chemist. But music never left her blood, and the attention she was gaining from her songwriting quickly stole her away from the academic world, as she began to record and tour across the country.
After settling in Austin, Texas in 2007, she recorded her album The Jeopardy of Circumstance. Produced by Colin Brooks (The Band of Heathens), the album received rave reviews in the US and the UK that shot her up the Euro-Americana Charts and landed her a spot on Bob Harris’ national BBC Radio show and several prestigious festival invitations.
Following the success of Carrie’s latest album Call It My Garden, she has teamed up with award-winning Austin artist Danny Schmidt for their Red House duo debut For Keeps, which has been enjoyed by thousands of fans at their live shows.
Raised on a beef and wheat farm in North Dakota by folk musicians, Andra Suchy began touring and performing at festivals at a young age. Classically trained and a veteran of musical theater, the guitar-playing singer moved to Minneapolis in 1996, where she has gone on to make a name for herself as one of the finest vocalists around.
A regular performer on the national radio show A Prairie Home Companion, Andra has performed around the world, singing with such artists as Brad Paisley, Mindy Smith, Emmylou Harris, Chris Thile and soprano Renee Fleming. She has recorded with a wide range of indie, rock, blues and folk acts, including The Honeydogs, Jonny Lang, Peter Ostroushko and Soul Asylum’s Dave Pirner.
Full of infectious originals, Little Heart is a twang-tinged mix of country, rock, folk and blues, this album shows that Andra is poised to become the next big voice in country, Americana and roots music.
When not on the road, Andra knits, practices Bikram yoga, bakes bread and performs around Minnesota.
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