PHOTOS
Tracking at Zippah Recording in Boston, MA: with Brian Charles (engineer), Annie Hoffman (assistant engineer), Mike Mele (guitars), Joe McMahon (bass and keys), Steve Chaggaris (drums), and Ken Clark (keys). Tons of fun, and totally inspiring to work with these guys!
News & Updates
January 2025
I am thrilled to be putting the final touches on my new album, slated to be released this April 2025.
Check this space for info on where to listen, stream & download!
An original arrangement of a traditional hymn that my great-great grandfather William Laban Brown sang as a Union solder in the Civil War, recently discovered in several of his wartime letters to his wife Nancy back in Knoxville, TN.
Special thanks to the very talented Andy Santospago and Steve Chaggaris for playing on this project that documents a meaningful musical heirloom in my family history.
Tracking day for There is A Fountain!
Clockwise from top: Andy Santospago, Assistant engineer Annie Hoffman, Engineer Brian Charles, Jody Blackwell
Zippah Recording, Boston, MA
BIO
I grew up in South Carolina in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains, in a house surrounded by large oak trees and filled with music, live and recorded, which growing up gave me a conviction that the world was a sturdy, melodious place that would always make me sneeze. My earliest music influences were the R&B tunes from my brother's glorious stash of 45s - Bill Withers, The Brothers Johnson, Stevie Wonder. A few years later I discovered folk and bossanova from my parents' dog-eared record collection, playing their Joni Mitchell and Astrud Gilberto vinyl until we had to buy replacement copies.
Music for me has always gone hand-in-hand with dancing. While studying dance in high school, I started playing guitar as a way to decompress after long rehearsals. Worried that a I'd end up a barista in a coffee joint if I tried to pursue a career in dance, I opted for a more financially secure future and majored in Latin in college. In that era my alma mater Brown was enjoying a lively singer-songwriter scene (Mary Chapin-Carpenter, Lisa Loeb, Catie Curtis), so with added inspiration in my headphones from Joni and Jobim, I began experimenting with alternate tunings on the guitar and formed my first band with three college friends, playing clubs in and around Providence, RI.
Soonafter I headed to the folk music epicenter of the east coast, Cambridge MA, immediately landing work as a barista in a coffee joint. I also began playing in the subways and coffeehouses around Cambridge, including the venerable folk mecca Club Passim, and recorded my first solo acoustic CD Volcano in 1996 - six songs written in six different tunings which proved impossible to play all together at shows. In the ensuing 5 years I independently released two more albums, Living Room Dances in 1999, another jazz-inspired snapshot of my experiments with alternate tunings, and Good Again in 2004, inspired by the events around 9/11 and my time working with refugees during that harrowing period.
In 2010 I traded my acoustic Guild for an electric Ibanez, began exploring the blue and R&B, and with my fourth and fifth records, Come and Gone in 2011 and Wilderness in 2016, traveled further backwards to the spirit of the R&B 45's I danced to as a kid under oak trees with songs of nostalgia, change and letting go.
My latest album, Forecast was released in April 2025. Far from being a portent, it’s a rebellious pop and latin inflected celebration. When times get hard I always return to water, both physically and creatively, and many of these songs invoke metaphors of weather. Some are older, some are newer, but together they are a dance I've composed to honor changes in my life over the past several years. Joyful permission to embrace all of the dearly cherished people and memories in my heart. As you hear these songs I hope you'll be inspired to dance with me. This is the music most deeply rooted in my body, memory and soul. Comfort food for uncertain times and places far from home.
Join us for the “Forecast”
record release!
June 13, 2025
6:30pm
The Burren Backroom
Davis Square, Somerville, MA
With the Ken Clark Organ Trio
Buy tickets NOW anD Get AN early-bird discount
This is a family-friendly show!
photo: Karen Hendrickson-Santospago