Andrew Holmes
Aug 20, 2021 Uncategorized
Andrew Holmes specializes in lyrically poignant alternative music. His songs reflect a mix of meaning and melancholy, crafted with keen observation, and capturing moments worth remembering with lyrics you won’t forget. His melodies rise and fall to keep you on the edge of a feeling, always passionate and authentic. His crisp vocals and range are both warm and inviting, with a winsome vulnerability.
Holmes is a singer songwriter at heart, with his writing and delivery best classified as folk-rock/Americana. His first album, Seize the Day, was self-produced. He followed that in 2015 with Lionheart and 2017 with Through the Hollows. This year’s fresh offering is Garden.
With each record, Holmes writes songs to and for himself…something akin to his own personal time capsules…ever wishing to represent himself and who he was at a singular moment in time. “For me, Through the Hollows was about embracing life and doing things you regret so you can learn from them,” he says. “Garden has been three years of me coping with those decisions and learning to live above them.”
Alice Wallace
Jul 8, 2021 Uncategorized
Into the Blue is Wallace’s fourth album but marks her debut on the brand-new Rebelle Road label, an imprint founded by a trio of women dedicated to strengthening the California Country music community and expanding visibility for female artists in the Americana/roots genre. “They care so deeply about giving women a stronger voice in the music industry,” Wallace attests. Having spent the past six years writing songs and touring the nation – from AMERICANAFEST® to county fairs, barrooms to coffeehouses – Alice Wallace is ready to break out. “It takes bravery to ‘sail away into the blue’ and grab it,” she says. “It took me until about six years ago to finally take the plunge, quit my job and go for it. I haven’t looked back since.” On the title track from her fourth album, country-singing Californian Alice Wallace sings about the uncertainty of a career spent on the road. “The Blue” pays tribute to those who’re willing to take leaps, laced with soaring strings that nod to the country classics of the 1970s. “It’s a song about taking the risk to do what you love,” Alice Wallace says of the soaring track, “The Blue,” which yields a lyric entitling her spellbinding new album. With Into the Blue, the California-country singer-songwriter conjures the atmospheric sound of the Golden State’s canyons and deserts, mountains and crashing waves, its crowning beauty and its tragic losses. At the same time, the supple-voiced Wallace tells her own and others’ stories, weaving tales that resonate as we grapple with so many disturbing national issues.
https://www.alicewallacemusic.com
https://www.caitlincannonmusic.com
George Ensle
Jan 20, 2020 Uncategorized
George Ensle (pronounced Enslee) is a veteran Singer/Songwriter who began his career in Houston in 1967 sharing stages with legends Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark and Billy Joe Shaver. He pens his own brand of StorySongs, powerfully crafted and played with his unique finger picking style on his vintage Martin D-35 and Fender Resonator guitar.
He is celebrating 50 years as a performing songwriter and in February 2017 was inducted into the Houston Folk Music Archives at Rice University.
He has won numerous songwriting awards, been awarded Government grants to teach children through the Artist in the Schools program, and released albums and CDs in the US and Europe, including a Movie–in-Song CD, “Small Town Sundown”, based on his original story, which he performs as a one man “Songplay.”
George is the originator and songwriting director of PortraitSongs, a custom songwriting service designed to pay tribute and honor loved ones by “Giving them Their Own Song.”
He teaches songwriting workshops on the creative process and the crafting aspect of songwriting, in individual one on one and group sessions.
George is a Song Painter. He paints stories. Sometimes he uses broad strokes to paint hilltop sunsets, and tree-lined rivers, and sometimes he paints with fine detail the portraits of everyday people you feel like you know. Real characters like Uncle Jack, who is a young boy’s hero, tucking him in on a Summer Saturday night. Characters like the housewife who dances across her kitchen to a golden oldie, the Circuit Preacher down by the riverside, the widow across the street in her state of Grace, the Mother who sings her children to sleep beneath a third world moon, Grandma in her apron and Grandpa in his vest, the homeless vet, the single Mom, the old character who runs the small town Icehouse, the aging cowboy with his hired hands, the family farmer with his shining eyes, the Troubadour as ragged as the wind and yet pure as the snow…
George feels your musical journey should be an uplifting one, so he paints portraits with compassion mixed with a healthy dose of wit and wisdom.
Patrica Vonne 08.23.2019
Jun 24, 2019 Uncategorized
Three time Austin Music Award winner Patricia Vonne is back with her seventh album “Top of the Mountain”, on her own Bandolera Records. The album celebrates the human spirit in the midst of adversity and the Higher Power that lights our path. The defiant stand-your-ground title track sets a declamatory tone as the rest of the album winds a sinuous path through the border radio groove of “Lil’ Lobo,” the careening rocker “Graceland Trip,” “Madre de Perla,” (a flamenco-flavored tribute to Vonne’s mother), the spaghetti western soundtrack that is “Western Blood”, and much more.
Mare Wakefield & Nomad
Sep 24, 2018 Uncategorized
“Daddy was a seeker,” says Mare Wakefield. “Eventually he became a Salvationist minister. Mama was a gypsy, loving nothing more than a long stretch of highway.”
Born with wanderlust in her DNA, Mare lived in eight different places before she was ten. “It was a roller-coaster way to grow up, but my brother and I learned to fit in fast,” she says. “We picked up Wisconsin accents in two weeks. Eighteen months later we were drawling like native Texans.”
For Turkish-born Nomad, the journey was equally varied. His musical education began at the exclusive Istanbul Conservatory and continued with a scholarship to Berklee College of Music. Nomad’s gift for musical arrangements includes a full arsenal of classical, folk and jazz chops.
Versatility and travel-scapes are evident in their music. Listeners roam through Arizona deserts, Oklahoma oil fields and Amsterdam canals. Journeys go inward too, exploring hope, heartbreak and barroom brawls. Story and song are woven together by Mare’s intimate delivery and Nomad’s exquisite piano and accordion.
Currently based in Nashville, the pair were 2016 and 2015 Kerrville NewFolk finalists and 2015 Falcon Ridge Emerging Artists.
hONEyhoUSe 9-21-2018
Aug 28, 2018 Uncategorized
“hONEyhoUSe” is a unique acoustic trio combining the talents of three very diverse and seasoned artists into one unexpected powerhouse force. Consisting of award winning R&B/Gospel soulstress Hillary Smith, earthy Blues/Folk singer-songwriter Yvonne Perea, and sweet voiced Mandy Buchanan, “hONEyhoUSe” seamlessly melds the lines of musical genres with their original creations embracing blues, soul, folk and Americana into one sweet Honeyhouse of music.
Three very different voices with one path…hONEyhoUSe.
Jann S. Wenner – Rolling Stone Magazine
While much of New Mexico’s live music scene revolves around songwriters and roots bands, Albuquerque has its own underground scene, and a few of its bands have earned some mainstream success. Playing a kind of post-punk power pop, Lousy Robot have released three albums and had their music featured on MTV, the Travel Channel, Bravo and Animal Planet. Another band, the two-piece Elevator Boys, play a bashing style of garage-psych.
The James Douglas Show, an outlandishly costumed, six-piece “funk-n-soul-n-rock-n-roll” band, has shared stages with Tom Petty, Keith Urban and Sammy Hagar, and they are the house band for the syndicated TV show The After After Party, hosted by Breaking Bad alum Steven Michael Quezada.
Santa Fe’s the Strange play their own brand of original “desert rock,” fashioning themselves as young outlaws and touring throughout the West. Based out of Taos, the Art of Flying, composed of former San Franciscans Dave and Anne Costanza, play a kind of modern freak-folk, an acoustic-based music layered with reverb and distinctive touches including a bicycle bell. Another musical couple, Las Cruces’ Far Corners (originally from Boston), play a noisier, electric style of minimalism.
For the last few years, the state’s Music Awards have been dominated by hONEyhoUSe, a trio of female songwriters – Hillary Smith, Yvonne Perea and Mandy Buchanan – who draw from blues, gospel, soul and Americana to form a unique blend that is distinctly regional. This year, the group won the Norman Petty Producer’s Award for their album Medicine Lodge. Local favorite Wild Frontier have been compared to “Joni Mitchell’s long-lost sister backed by a haunting Western band.” Their recent album Americana Motel features the spaghetti Western-style title track and a New Mexico-centric reworking of Bruce Springsteen’s “State Trooper.”
Credit: Rolling Stone Magazine – 2013
Bob Livingston 8-11-2018
Jul 16, 2018 Uncategorized
Livingston played an integral role in helping to create the music that first earned Austin the designation of “Live Music Capital of the World” and helps explain why he was recently inducted in to “Texas Music Legends Hall of Fame” in 2016.
Livingston has seen a lot of the world since growing up in musically fertile West Texas. Hailing originally from San Antonio, he moved to Lubbock as a boy where his interests turned more ‘Cosmic’ than ‘Cowboy’ and prompted him to delve into the music and mysteries of many cultures. Traveling since the 80’s as a Music Ambassador for the US State Department, Livingston has taken Texas music as far afield as India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Africa, Vietnam and the Middle East demonstrating again and again the unique power that music has to build bridges between peoples of the world. As Livingston says, ‘When all else fails, music prevails’. These tours earned him the honor of being appointed, “Ambassador of Goodwill,” by the State of Texas and “Austin’s International Music Ambassador,” by the City of Austin.
These days, Livingston is a busy man. While playing over 180 shows a year, he is also managing to write a memoire for Texas Tech Press, play with a multi-cultural band from Texas and India called Cowboys & Indians and is in the final mix on a new album on Howlin’ Dog Records called, Up The Flatland Stairs to be released this winter 2018.
“Anchored by his warmly supple and durable voice, Livingston’s performances are almost universally melodic and appealing, ranging as they do from Western swing to atmospheric, Norah Jones-style balladry to singalong pop to a gently swinging folk laments & yodeling cowboy music.”– John T. Davis, Austin American Statesman
Robby Hecht & Caroline Spence 7-15-2018
Jun 11, 2018 Uncategorized
Robby Hecht is a modern folk musician-of-all-trades: singer, songwriter, congenial collaborator to some of the biggest up-and-coming names in the genre, celebrity to some, generally decent human. Motivated by both his love of songcraft and his ineptitude at competitive sports, Robby has won over judges at several major performing songwriter competitions including those held at the Kerrville Folk Festival, Telluride Bluegrass Festival, and the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival. “Eventually I had to move on from contests and be a real singer-songwriter and do booking and marketing and stuff,” he says. So he did: In 2014, his third studio album, Robby Hecht, got him featured on NPR’s Mountain Stage and was praised as “songwriting of the highest quality” by The Telegraph in a five-star review. And his 2017 single “The Ends And The Means” was recently featured in the nationally acclaimed fiction podcast Welcome To Night Vale. Robby is also a prolific songwriter as a collaborator.
While Caroline Spence may not look like one of the road-hardened troubadours of America’s past, with the release of Spades & Roses, the young songwriter from Charlottesville Virginia proves she is every bit as serious. Having won numerous songwriting awards from industry mainstays like the Kerrville Folk Festival and American Songwriter Magazine, and garnered nods and admiration from both Miranda Lambert and her fellow writers in the Nashville underground, Caroline has delivered a record to meet the expectation: Quite simply, 11 songs of gorgeous Americana that remind us of why we fell in love with the genre in the first place. It’s is a rare but unmistakable authenticity and emotional resonance that can’t be faked, all delivered from a voice that somehow manages to be both ethereally pristine and yet profoundly raw and human– a disarming union of self-assuredness and vulnerability that runs throughout the record.
“Spence has an angelic singing voice that is enchanting and devastating, elevating her diaristic writing to breathtaking heights.” – NO DEPRESSION
“Robby Hecht sings like a whisper, like a hesitant truth that simply can’t go unsung anymore. His songs can invoke starry nights and fog rolling in on the beach. Lights turning off. Front porch silences and morning walks alone. Holding hands for the first time, letting go for the last.” -No Depression
Terri Hendrix with Lloyd Maines 6-9-2018
May 23, 2018 Uncategorized
When Terri Hendrix laced up her “Two Dollar Shoes” and began her journey as an independent recording artist 20 years ago, there was no map or handy guidebook to show her the way. By then, it was Hendrix saying “no thanks” when labels came courting her — simply because it was already clear that nobody could offer her a better deal or do more right by her art and career than she could herself. Not for nothing did music legend Al Kooper once marvel, “Terri is truly a self-made woman … She makes me jealous.”
Few people are as important to the development of Texas music over the last 30 years as Lloyd Maines. As a Grammy award-winning producer and musician, the Lubbock-born Maines has played an instrumental role in the creation of some of the Lone Star State’s most famous and beloved albums. Maines has been inducted into the Buddy Holly Walk of Fame in Lubbock, Texas, individually and as a member of the Maines Brother’s Band. He was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame June 2014. He has made more appearances on the PBS show than anyone else in the history of the program.
“Terri Hendrix is a woman of wit, wisdom and conviction: a poet with a wide smile and a deep heart. She leaves you feeling lighter, even though you can sense your exposure to something philosophically profound.” Melissa Grimes, Rockin’ Box 33 Concert Series