Archives: Artist

Sonya Rae Taylor is a Boston-based blues and soul artist whose music resonates with raw emotion and masterful musicianship. A triple threat—Sonya Rae Taylor is known for her soaring vocals, searing guitar work, and deep song-craft. Her sound is rooted in the blues, but you’ll hear touches of jazz, funk, and soul woven throughout—alongside modern, hook-driven melodies that make it unmistakably her own.

Sonya’s spent years on the road and in the studio—backing top artists in Austin’s soul scene, writing for country acts in Nashville as a staff songwriter with BMG Chrysalis, and building a loyal following in New England, where she’s been nominated six times for Blues Artist of the Year.

Now stepping into the spotlight with her debut single—a raw, aching heartbreak ballad—“Ain’t It A Shame” is a powerful introduction from an artist who’s already carved out a voice that’s unmistakably her own. Her music is honest, deeply felt, and anchored by the kind of musicianship that only comes from living it.

Here’s a more detailed look at her music:
• Style: Sonya Rae Taylor’s music blends blues, soul, and a touch of rock and roll, influenced by artists like James Brown, Donny Hathaway, and Son House.
• Instruments: She plays guitar, vocals, and occasionally piano.
• Original Songs: Sonya Rae Taylor writes and performs her own original songs.
• Performances: She performs solo and with various groups, including the Boston Soul Collective, and currently is touring with Gigi Perez on the Hozier tour.
• Boston Soul Collective: Sonya Rae Taylor is a member of the Boston Soul Collective, a band known for performing tributes to soul music legends.

Tony Kamel (formerly the front man of Wood & Wire) is a GRAMMY nominated singer/songwriter who’s shows, both solo and w/ a full band, showcase his versatility as a multi-instrumentalist and compelling story teller – going off the cuff and engaging with the audience, playing guitar and clawhammer banjo for a night of entertainment beyond some dude simply singing his songs. Whether it’s a raucous festival crowd, or a listening room, he finds a way to sync up with the folks he’s in the room with. But really, it’s all about the songs. For that he teamed up with legendary Texas songwriter Bruce Robison and his analog focused production company (The Next Waltz) for his debut solo record of original tunes, “Back Down Home” – which held the #1 spot on the Alt. Country Charts for three weeks. With new songs, some newfound viral fame, he went back into The Next Waltz studio this spring to record his follow up set for singles to begin releasing this fall (“Damn Good Ride released 10.10), with the full LP (“We’re All Gonna Live”) out in April 2025..

“I’m over the anger, the sadness, all the not so gentle reminders of my nature. I’m
moving forward; I can see it coming soon.”
From “Waiting On The Dust To Settle”
David Ramirez took a little time to get back to himself, and now he’s dead set on making music for himself—for the sake of the music, and nothing else.
“I love all the records I’ve made in the past,” says Ramirez. “But in making them, there was always the thought in the back of my mind of where and what it could get me. I made both creative and business decisions with a goal in mind; a goal that often never came. This time it was all about just the joy of making it, about having fun with it.”
The Austin, TX-based singer-songwriter—whose career has seen six full-length studio albums, three EPs, countless collaborations, and an illustrious supergroup project in Glorietta—spent a season of rest away from his focus on writing songs. In the wake of the end of a long relationship, he wanted to prioritize processing his grief as a human, not as an artist bleeding onto the page.
“The last thing I wanted was to write a heartbreak record. So I stopped writing altogether, and I just waited until I saw my heart start coming back to life. I wanted the next thing to be hopeful and sweet and beautiful—a testament to music and my love for it.”
Ramirez’s new record, All the Not So Gentle Reminders, is exactly what he was waiting for. The 12-song album is an expansive succession of dreamlike songs that indeed tell his stories—but more than anything, lean into the possibilities of the trip that music can take us on. “I’ve been a songwriter for a long time. I love words and stories. But this was about music. I wanted the long musical intros and outros [as heard on “Dirty Martini,” “Twin Sized Beds,” “A Bigger World,” and “Dreams Come True”] to contribute to the stories and be a part of them.”
The lead track, “Maybe It Was All a Dream,” sets this theme of the ethereal and dreamy from the outset. It’s a three-and-a-half-minute musical tour de force—at first, a simple synth line over a subdued drum machine, that eventually morphs into a grandiose rollick of organ, drum rolls, and electric guitars. All the while, staticky, broken voices repeat the almost-haunting coda that gives the record its name. In the end, this “dream” is interrupted and punctuated by a recording of Ramirez’s own mother saying, “David… David… it’s time to get up.”
In “Deja Voodoo,” Ramirez questions his own memory, wondering if he remembers his life as it really was, or if even the past itself is a dream colored by time and distance. He sings, “Maybe it was in another life. Maybe it was just a dream. Was it a memory passed down from another? A cosmic sunflare? Or just deja vu?” It’s easy to wonder whether the not-so-gentle reminders are themselves facts, or just figments of our imagination— something to be trusted or something to move on from and reclaim our lives.
The songs for the album were written during a writing getaway David went on for two weeks, where he holed up at Standard Deluxe—a music venue and art space in the tiny 100-person town of Waverly, Alabama. His goal was to get out of the noise of Austin for a while, to be alone, to get back to writing with the “uninterrupted silence [he had] been missing.”
All the Not So Gentle Reminders was recorded at Spectra Studios in Cedar Park, TX just outside of Austin, engineered by Charlie Kramsky at the helm. He tapped local staples as the house musicians for the sessions, including Barbara Frigiere, Jeff Olson, James Westley Essary, and Christopher Boosahda (who also helped to produce the album alongside Ramirez). And in the spirit of the exuberance and joy of the recording, he also called upon a handful of friends to contribute and sing background vocals throughout the album.
“It made sense to bring in this group as we were so tight musically and relationally from touring together the last few years. Like all my albums before this I never want to repeat what I’ve previously made. This was no exception. I brought in Boosahda to co-produce because I had never tried my hand at the captain’s wheel, and I wanted someone experienced and with a different musical background than me to bring some extra shine.”
Throughout the album, David tackles memory and dreams, fleeting romance, the possibility of something better ahead, and his own deep appreciation for music and his place in making it. The fact that he considered giving it up altogether—a decision he thankfully didn’t follow through with—All the Not So Gentle Reminders only serves to be that much more impactful as a testament to music and its power.
Most pointedly in “Music Man,” he recalls his own turning point as a boy, listening on a Walkman his father gave him… a fateful turn that led him to where he is today. “So take a look at me now. I’m quite the music man. Take a look at the crowd. We’re all here for the music, man. It’s the music, man.” On what is his most ambitious, lush, and exuberant record to date, David is leaning in full-hearted to who he knows he is at his core—and not letting anything else stand in his way.
“I will always be me. I’ve seen enough of the business to know that chasing its praises will only land me in a world of disappointment and self-doubt. I’m wholly back in my chi and, fingers crossed, have the strength to stay.”

Plankenhorn’s songwriting, expressive vocals, and musicianship are front and center on Alone At Sea produced by Colin Linden (Bruce Cockburn, Keb Mo) explores new sonic territory on this gem of a long player. Lyrically that exploration manifests in songs such as the title track, which poured out of Plankenhorn, aka Plank, so fast, he had to be convinced not to tamper with it.

The ballad “Alone At Sea” is nestled between two of the album’s many up-tempo tunes and envisions an adventurous soul who’s searching for self-awareness and learns to appreciate solitude — as Plank has since moved to Canada’s Vancouver Island freed him from his previously landlocked Austin, Texas existence.

Plank’s time in both locations reminded him of long-ago experiences singing in foreign languages, which inspired him to record versions in French and Spanish for separate release (November 1st.) “Singing in Italian, German, French, etc., expanded my worldview,” he says. Having become a permanent resident of Canada, I am long overdue to sing in other languages. ‘Alone At Sea’ seemed like the perfect song, as its translations sounded beautiful in both non-native-to-me tongues.”

Born in Ohio and raised in Michigan, Plank’s musical travels began when his older brother gave Jeff his first guitar at age ten. Fast forward to his dropping out of college because his three bands (a bluegrass group, a hip-hop collective, and a 12-piece funk outfit) were doing so well. His musical journey led to Memphis and a chance meeting with Texas singer-songwriter Ray Wylie Hubbard – as well as to Plank’s 20-year sojourn in the Lone Star state. The slide guitarists’ next level talent opened many doors leading Jeff to perform with the likes of Hubbard and Joe Ely, Ruthie Foster, Bob Schneider, the late Jimmy LaFave, and others. In 2016, he officially launched a new chapter as a solo artist with the release of Soulside.

His actual first solo album, 2003’s Plank, included a contribution by British-born Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer, the late Faces/Small Faces/Rolling Stones keyboardist Ian McLagan — paid tribute on the Alone at Sea blues-rocker “Juggling Sand.” “I hope that someday I learn to play piano like him,” says the too-modest Plank, whose luscious licks always get audiences moving when he reunites with his Purgatory Players’ partner, Scrappy Jud Newcomb. In fact, Newcomb shares writing credits on two songs: “Flat Tire,” a horns-of-a-dilemma, get-me-out-of-this-jam tale, and “Maybe It’s Not Too Late.” A favorite at the Purgatory Players’ weekly fundraising “pseudo-gospelish brunches,” the up-tempo tune, full of tasty slide guitar and horn work, is a nod to Plank’s love of the sacred steel tradition born in African-American Pentecostal churches.
Newcomb & Plank are also in another legendary Austin band, The Resentments – who hold down Austin’s longest running residency at the world-famous Saxon Pub. Started by the late Stephen Bruton, this cast of Austin’s top players and writers get together every week for new songs and new adventures in banter and road stories. The Resentments includes Scrappy Jud Newcomb, Bruce Hughes, John Chipman, Miles Zuniga, and Plank (when he’s in town).

Though his live performances include shifts among piano, electric guitar, and his famed “Plank,” the self-designed hybrid lap-steel guitar he plays standing up, “Maybe It’s Not Too Late” is the only Alone At Sea track on which he plays it. Plank says that’s because, when Linden heard the demos that he’d recorded with acoustic guitar and lap steel, the producer liked them so much he built his vision for the album around that sound. So, Plank concentrated on acoustic, while Linden contributed electric and 12-string acoustic guitars.

For Jeff Plankenhorn, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of bringing people together to experience the joy music brings. He’s so good at it that he’s been recognized with Austin Music Award nominations for Musician of the Year, Best Guitarist, and Best Misc. Instrument. In 2016-2017, he also earned Album and Song of the Year nominations for his album, SoulSlide, and the single, “Trouble Find Me.”

Listeners quickly get that Plank loves a good groove, but he’s also become quite accomplished at ballad-writing, as proven by two of the album’s other standouts, “Bluer Skies” and You’ll Stay”. Still, despite his newfound love of solitude, for Jeff Plankenhorn, there’s nothing quite like the feeling of bringing people together to experience the joy music brings.

These days Plank happily finds himself on the road over 150 days a year. “I like the idea that people get uplifted at my shows, there are so many ways to get away from the hubbub of day-to-day living. Dancing is one of the more noble and effective, in my humble opinion. Better than any drug I’ve ever tried. I like the idea that everybody who walks in — I don’t care if you’re a biker or a drag queen — I want you there. Music is supposed to bring people together.”

His music does exactly that — whether people come to listen or do a little dancing. Or ideally, both.

Grupo Fantasma American Music: Vol. VII
Austin’s Grupo Fantasma enters their 19th year as a band with an exciting new record and a fresh take on their unique sound. With six previous albums in their back catalog, plus collaborations and backing gigs with the likes of Prince, Spoon and Los Lobos, not to mention a GRAMMY award and a loyal fan base, they are ready to turn people’s heads again with American Music: Vol. VII (Blue Corn Music).

It’s been five years since they’ve been in the studio, and this time around they’re working with the multi-talented Carlos “El Loco” Bedoya, a highly regarded Miami-based Colombian producer, audio engineer, musician, and songwriter. His credits are extensive, having worked with artists as diverse and successful as Beyoncé, Weezer, and ChocQuibTown. According to the band, Bedoya “brought with him a wealth of knowledge and experience as mixer and engineer as well as huge ears and skills as a musician and songwriter.” In addition, Grupo has changed recording facilities and composing scenarios, and are collaborating with special guests more extensively, as well as experimenting with a lot of new, interesting instrumentation, all of which contribute to the record’s familiar yet powerfully fresh vibe.

It’s important to stress that Grupo has always had a special polyglot flavor that is an amalgamation of disparate sonic and thematic elements that defy easy characterization and seem to cohere with an impressive naturalness and grace. It’s an expansive and layered sound too, with two lead singers, multiple percussionists, a big brass section, prominent electric guitar, catchy bass lines, plenty of changes, and a whole plethora of influences. Thematically, the band’s lyrics range from the personal to the universal, the political to the social, from party tunes to down-tempo laments that carry the weight of romance gone wrong, loss and disappointment. So in these respects, nothing has radically changed with this new album. Yet there are definitely differences as well.

For instance the track “LT” is not only sung in English (a rare occurrence with the band) but features a guitar sound that is inspired by ‘70’s Turkish psychedelia plus the dhol drumming of Red Baraat’s Sunny Jain. Several songs feature Colombian folkloric instrumentation of gaita and maracas, as well as accordion work that calls to mind both Colombian vallenato and Tex-Mex courtesy of Mr. Vallenato and Josh Baca (from the Grammy winning Texmaniacs). In a first for the band, an outside lead vocalist, Tomar Williams (of Tomar and the FC’s), was brought in for the boogaloo cut “Let Me Be” which also features him playing electric organ and the backup vocals of the Soul Supporters.

“The Wall” is another collaborative effort featuring members of Ozomatli and Locos Por Juana that swings from hard Latin funk to hip-hop, like a modern-day take on War or Mandrill. According to the band, the song “questions the definition of an ‘immigrant’ and what makes one illegal.” While Grupo isn’t really known for being overtly political, “The Wall” speaks volumes about what has been going on in terms of immigration, borders, homeland security and identity politics during the current divisive administration. The album was recorded at Sonic Ranch, the world’s largest residential recording complex and long on Grupo’s bucket list, located in the tiny border town of Tornillo, Texas, which, soon after Grupo finished their sessions at the ranch, became infamous as the site of an enormous and shameful immigrant detention center where countless children were housed separately from their families. As the band says, “this dissonance certainly impacted the album and inspired our message later on as we were creating lyrics and forming the message of the songs and the project as a whole.”

Indeed, the very title of the record takes issue with these definitions of identity, borders and who is illegal or “other.” As the band says, calling it American Music: Vol. VII was a “direct response to the concept of identity as well as the pigeon-holing of our music, which we’ve dealt with throughout our careers.” In presenting their unique multi-ethnic musical mix to audiences over the years, Grupo were constantly challenged by “the concept of identity, citizenship, and the nationality of music,” especially in the press and music industry. Yet, as they attest, in many ways “music is the ultimate assimilator, crossing borders and cultures and mutating to represent the experiences of its performers.” Though often labeled as Latin, the band feels they do not have a national identity other than that of being from the US and in this way, Grupo’s music is an inspiringly honest expression of their multicultural American experience. None of the band members can look to a recent homeland in Latin America other than singer/percussionist José Galeano, hailing from Managua, Nicaragua, but now a long time US citizen who calls Texas his home. Though Grupo has lyrics in Spanish and certainly references the musical traditions and rhythms of their heritage, they stress that “we also embrace and express the music of our home in Texas and American culture which we inhabit daily. We maintain that regardless of language, our music is ‘American Music’ because we are from here. Our music is a product of our circumstances and we can still celebrate ethnic and cultural heritage while asserting our identity as Americans and sons of this country.”

Though the half-decade since Problemas was recorded has been full of touring and creatively enriching side projects like Brownout, Brown Sabbath and Money Chicha, the band feels that “the fact that we were able to regroup and rally around new inspiration for a whole new release as we enter our 19th year is a feat unto itself for us. We know many bands don’t make it this far and this long.” Thankfully for their old fans—and the many more newbies this album is sure to gain—Grupo Fantasma has not only survived with their sound, vision and integrity intact, they have honed and improved their musicianship and compositional skills while managing to address meaningful, urgent issues in a thoughtful, non-dogmatic way, and thus have matured, evolved and been inspired to make their best, most impactful album yet.

NASHVILLE SONGSMITH GARY NICHOLSON CRAFTS
HYMN FOR MID-TERM HEALING
WITH MOVING NEW SINGLE, “GOD HELP AMERICA,”
FEATURING BLUES-GOSPEL GREAT RUTHIE FOSTER

Nicholson addresses nation’s ideological schisms, expresses hope for reconciliation in song and video releasing Oct.2019 on Blue Corn Music.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Despite his two Grammys and a slew of writing credits on chart-topping songs recorded by some of the world’s biggest artists, Gary Nicholson doesn’t regard himself as famous. In fact, he’s so humble, he apologizes sheepishly about putting a caller on hold to take another instead of letting it go to voicemail. But who wouldn’t pick up for Ringo Starr? Or Willie Nelson, Bonnie Raitt or Buddy Guy?

Even if he’s not a household name, Nicholson is one of Nashville’s most esteemed songwriters, producers and performers, with a credits list few others can match. His name appears on 600-some recorded songs spanning multiple genres, including the title track of Starr’s latest album, Give More Love; the title track of Guy’s new one, The Blues Is Alive and Well; the Merle Haggard tribute, “He Won’t Ever Be Gone,” on Nelson’s God’s Problem Child; and the first track of Keb’ Mo’s and Taj Mahal’s TajMo, 2018’s Best Contemporary Blues Album Grammy winner. Nicholson’s Grammys represent two of the five Delbert McClinton albums he produced and co-wrote. With the late Stephen Bruton, he also co-wrote “Fallin’ and Flyin’,” the song Jeff Bridges sings in the Oscar-winning film Crazy Heart. But Nicholson occasionally tackles his own projects; his latest, a song and video titled “God Help America,” due October 2018 on Blue Corn Music, is particularly close to his heart.

Nicholson says he was inspired to write “God Help America” because he believes that God has blessed America, but we still have much to work to do as a nation, and he wanted to address our current schisms in a way that might help bridge the chasms.

He decided to record the song as a soulful duet featuring blues-gospel great (and three-time Grammy nominee) Ruthie Foster, a fellow Texas native. Then he commissioned a majestic video that depicts images of this American life, including reminders of what already makes this country great: the people and places we love, the activities we enjoy, the symbols we respect. The fabric of our lives, a richly woven tapestry we sometimes take for granted.

On the song, the accomplished guitarist gently strums his custom acoustic while pondering his “sweet, troubled home,” accompanied by Chris Carmichael’s strings, Joe Robinson’s gut-string guitar and multi-instrumentalist John Jorgenson’s fretless bass. Foster’s dynamic voice elegantly chimes in on the second verse, and together, they sing the third verse’s prayerful lyrics, God help America live its ideal … Let the freedom that we stand for/Overcome all hate and greed. Nicholson’s voice first conveys ache, then takes on a reassuring, cathartic tone — one he hopes might ease some animosity and even inspire more tolerance as important mid-term elections loom.

Until a friend asked Nicholson what prompted him to recast the Great American Songbook classic, he says, he hadn’t realized “how much of my being had been taken over by what has happened in our country.”

Nicholson’s political awareness started early, though: when he was 11, his father, who’d campaigned for Sam Rayburn, took him to Washington, D.C., where the House speaker squired them around the halls of Congress. Nicholson also happened to reach draft age in 1968, a time he points to as the most politically divisive of his life — until now.

“I’ve witnessed some insanity through the years,” he says. “But today’s troubles are different, and I wasn’t hearing anybody singing about what’s on everybody’s mind every day, so I said, ‘Well, I’m just gonna put this out there.’”

Tracking at his own Fearless Recording studio in Nashville, with Zack Allen engineering and Ray Kennedy mixing, Nicholson and Jorgenson recorded a full album, The Great Divide, which he’ll release soon. Its songs encompass blues, folk, gospel, ragtime and, on one that marches from the Civil War era to now, a Celtic influence. A couple of them could have been rendered by Nicholson’s alter ego, “obscure bluesman” Whitey Johnson (one, “Blues in Black and White,” actually is part of Johnson’s repertoire).

But more about that when the time comes. For now, Nicholson offers “God Help America” as an attempt to repair some of the divisiveness fraying our nation at its seams.

“It’s overwhelming for all of us,” Nicholson says. “We need music to soothe our souls, as it did in the days when you had ‘For What It’s Worth’ from Buffalo Springfield or ‘What’s Going On’ from Marvin Gaye, and ‘Give Peace a Chance’ and ‘Revolution’ and all the Bob Dylan songs.”

During that tumultuous era, music also helped catalyze major change, as it has in many times of upheaval. “Music helped us get through all the madness a little easier,” Nicholson recalls, adding, “I’ve made a living writing songs; now I’m hoping to serve.”

Born in Commerce, Texas, and raised in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Nicholson began making that living as a teen. Inspired by Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and other early rockers spinning on his older sister’s record player, he got a guitar at 10. That led to playing Beatles covers in several high-school bands, including underage gigging around the DFW scene that spawned Bruton, McClinton, T Bone Burnett and other talents. At one club, he alternated sets with a band featuring Jimmie Vaughan and his even more underage brother, Stevie, before they moved to Austin.

After entering North Texas State University (now the University of North Texas) in Denton, Nicholson wound up touring with Todd Rundgren’s old band, the Nazz. Back at school, Nicholson and his college bandmates got to meet the Flying Burrito Brothers and hang out with Gram Parsons, who suggested they head to L.A. So they did, and immediately won a talent contest at the famed Palomino, where they met Glen Campbell, Delaney Bramlett, James Burton, Clarence White, Linda Ronstadt and other hot talents. As Uncle Jim’s Music, they signed to an MCA imprint; college classmate Don Henley, who had migrated to L.A. with fellow student Jim Ed Norman, drummed on the demos that got them signed.

Nicholson returned to Texas in 1973, where he played with McClinton and his own band. Norman, meanwhile, became a producer in Nashville. Nicholson started sending him songs; Mickey Gilley cut “Jukebox Argument” for the Urban Cowboy 2 soundtrack. That drew Nicholson to Nashville, where he wrote for Norman’s publishing company and toured with Guy Clark and Billy Joe Shaver. After signing with Tree Publishing (now Sony/ATV) he got his first No. 1 with Don Williams’ recording of “That’s the Thing About Love.” A string of hits followed; he reached No. 1 again with Vince Gill’s version of their co-write, “One More Last Chance.” Nicholson’s songs also boosted the careers of Waylon Jennings, Charley Pride, Patty Loveless, Lee Roy Parnell, Montgomery Gentry, Garth Brooks, Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire, the Mavericks, John Prine and many others, and he began collaborations with McClinton and Starr that continue to this day.

Artists who have shared writing credits with Nicholson and/or recorded his songs range from George Strait, George Jones, Marty Stuart, Emmylou Harris, and the Dixie Chicks to Etta James, Stevie Nicks, Fleetwood Mac, B.B. King, Robert Plant, Dave Edmunds, Michael McDonald, and even the String Cheese Incident, NRBQ, and recently, George Thorogood, Foghat and Phish frontman Trey Anastasio.

The chameleonic Nicholson has also done several Songwriting With: Soldiers workshops and works with Project Peace on Earth, which promotes world peace through music. With Police drummer Stewart Copeland and other renowned jurors, Nicholson, a 2011 Texas Heritage Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, selected the first Peace Song Award winners in 2016.

Nicholson’s entire career has been about finding common ground through music, so he obviously knows a little something about how people can overcome differences. With “God Help America,” he’s providing what might be just the nudge we need to remind us we’re still the United States. One nation … indivisible.

She calls herself a singer-songwriter, but as soon as Rebecca Loebe leans into the first notes of Give Up Your Ghosts, her first release for Blue Corn Music, that definition starts to seem woefully inadequate.

Loebe is not just another talent. She’s a talent — a sophisticated, mature writer with a relevant point of view and an assured, nuanced voice that’s both elegant and earthy, powerful and delicate, with a range and depth she hints at more than flashes. When the moment’s right, however, she’ll glide up a scale like Norah Jones, or drop right into a crag in Fiona Apple’s sidewalk.

But timing and delivery alone don’t make an artist. There’s got to be substance as well, and Loebe fearlessly probes the rawest corners of her psyche to find it. “There’s a lot of me talking to myself,” she says. “I’m writing a lot of empowerment jams these days, and I think it’s because it’s what I need. I’ve written albums full of what I needed to say, but this album is full of songs I need to hear.”

And now she’s on a guerrilla mission to share messages others need to hear as well. “I like to write catchy songs about topics that are meaningful to me, but use fun hooks to put words in people’s mouths,” Loebe admits. “My favorite thing is to get people singing along before they even realize they’re singing about women’s equality or their own self-worth.”

Inventively marrying elements of folk, pop, rock, blues and jazz, Loebe takes vocal left turns when you think she’ll go right, or shifts from breezy to profound in a single phrase. And each surprising twist makes her music that much more entrancing.

Blue Corn’s Denby Auble was so enthralled by her 2017 album, Blink, he immediately invited her to join his Houston-based label (home to three-time Grammy nominee Ruthie Foster). By then, she’d already cast her spell over Kerrville Folk Festival New Folk Competition judges, who made her a winner in 2009, and talent scouts for The Voice, who asked her to audition for the show’s debut season. (Her version of Nirvana’s “Come as You Are” charted worldwide and landed on the show’s first compilation album.) Two years later, Alternate Root magazine ranked her ninth on its list of America’s top female vocalists.

Turns out Loebe made the right choice when she decided she’d rather sing her own songs than work in a studio recording others’.

Born in Arlington, Virginia and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Loebe was always musical. She picked up a guitar at 11 and honed her vocals in high school (where she also joined the wrestling team). After graduating at 16, she became the second-youngest member of her class at Berklee College of Music, and one of too few women studying audio engineering. But when a mentor encouraged her stay creative, she realized she wanted to sing the songs she’d secretly written for years. She took a job in a Boston studio, but snuck in after hours to record the demos that became her first album.

Returning to Atlanta so she could tour without paying Boston rents, she hooked up with studio owner and producer Will Robertson, who’d helped birth that album and a follow-up EP. Bartering studio work for recording time, she recorded 2010’s Mystery Prize, which spent 2½ months on the Americana Music Association’s airplay chart and made its yearend top 100.

Amid constant touring, Loebe spent so much time in Austin, she finally moved west in 2011. That year, she also released a B-sides-and-outtakes EP, and watched herself singing to 12 million viewers on The Voice. She spent the next two years opening for Ellis Paul on her first national tour, and performing in Europe and Japan. She also started inviting songwriter friends over for weekly potluck dinners. They shared dishes, then tunes.

“For my last couple of records, almost every song has gone through the filter of that group,” Loebe says. “It’s not just the feedback that’s important — in fact, that’s not as helpful as having to think critically about everyone else’s songs each week, for months on end, because it gets me thinking critically about what resonates with me; what expresses an idea most impactfully.”

When she was ready to record Give Up Your Ghosts, she called Robertson first. “We’re very comfortable together,” she says. “We trust each other and have a longstanding agreement not to shoot down ideas. We try each other’s suggestions and then communicate honestly about how they’re working.”

They returned to Austin’s ChurchHouse Studio, where she’d recorded Blink. “I just love that space,” Loebe says. “There’s something really vibey about it. It has a lot of cool old analog equipment. Everything works well, but not too well. It’s not pristine or clinical; it’s just a very warm and inviting space.”

She also used the same players, originally recruited to capitalize on existing musical relationships because she didn’t yet have a gig-tightened band.

“I thought I’d take a shortcut and get a rhythm section that had years of chemistry,” Loebe explains. She started with longtime friend Andrew Pressman on bass. He called his jamming buddy since fourth grade, drummer Robin MacMillan. Then came Christopher Cox, another Pressman pal, on keyboards; Raina Rose, Loebe’s neighbor, touring partner and bestie, on harmonies; and another longtime friend, guitarist and harmony singer Anthony DaCosta, now a rising star in Nashville.

Loebe says their bonds were critical, not only because they had fun, but because they wanted to do their best to support or impress one another. The only players added for Give Up Your Ghosts were pedal steel player Gary Newcomb and vocalist Heather Mae, who contributed more harmonies.

But despite that familiarity, making this album was quite different from her previous experiences, Loebe says.

“Typically, I’d spend years writing songs, then pull 10 or 12 that felt like they fit together,” she notes. “In this case, I just went through this writing spree and had all of these songs swell up inside me at once. They were written within a three- or four-month period — one organic moment in time.”
That’s partly why the album seems to have a loose theme. Several songs examine struggles to fit in or overcome painful chapters, as in the wistful “Tattoo,” originally written for a character on a TV show. The same exercise produced the sexy, dramatic “Got Away,” which really showcases Loebe’s vocal range.

“Growing Up,” the opening track, addresses the challenges women face, starting in childhood, in what is still a man’s world.

Loebe wrote it during a songwriting retreat, but it wasn’t shaping up the way she wanted, so she took a break — and wound up having the pop ballad “Ghosts” jump into her head almost whole, in one stream-of-consciousness thread. It starts with the striking line, Have you ever tried to fall asleep, twisted in a stranger’s sheets.

In the chorus, Loebe sings, Give up all your ghosts, at least the ones you love the most, they’re never holding you as close as you are holding them.

“This line is the mission statement of the record, and practically my whole life right now,” Loebe says. “I’m trying to encourage everyone to let go of what no longer serves us. To stand taller, walk lighter. We can’t outrun our pasts, but we get to decide who we are and what we will let define us.”

To understand the musical entity known as Wood & Wire, it’s best to toss aside expectations regarding the sounds that might be created by four pickers holding assemblages of wood and wire — specifically acoustic guitar, bass, banjo and mandolin.

Yes, this Austin-based quartet’s last album, 2018’s North of Despair, gave them a permanent new adjective — Grammy-nominated — and yes, the category was Best Bluegrass Album. But for the sake of comparison, let’s note that one of their major influences, banjo player extraordinaire Bela Fleck, has received two nominations in bluegrass categories ¬— out of 33. (And one was for an album with “bluegrass” in its title.) We should also note that Wood & Wire banjo player Trevor Smith spent some of his teen years in Tucson, Arizona, playing in hardcore bands ¬¬¬¬¬— while studying Bill Monroe and J.D. Crowe. Mandolinist Billy Bright, raised in El Paso, Texas, swore his youthful allegiance to punk rock, and bassist Dom Fisher has a background in jazz studies. All of which should be considered when listening to the band’s second Blue Corn Music release, the appropriately titled No Matter Where It Goes from Here.

All four agree the outside influences they’ve absorbed form the foundation of their musical wheelhouse. They don’t claim to defy categorization; they just ignore the notion of boundaries.

“Us coming together and throwing those recipes in a blender is what makes the sound of what we do unique,” asserts Houston raised lead singer/guitarist Tony Kamel — who, unbelievably, cites Wood & Wire as his first professional band outing, though he obviously developed prodigious skills since digging his mom’s guitar out of the attic at 12.

According to Fisher, the mere presence of a banjo makes people assume their main influence is traditional bluegrass — which, they hasten to note, they all love and admire. But none of them grew up playing it. Green Mountain Grass and Asylum Street Spankers alum Smith does admit he finds it both flattering and confounding when new converts approach the merch table after a show and declare, “I don’t like bluegrass, but I love you guys.”

Bright’s roots-music education, steered by his Deadhead older brother, threaded from Jerry Garcia/David Grisman collaborations to Fleck, Col. Bruce Hampton and inevitably, Monroe. “There’s nothing more punk than Monroe’s mandolin playing and the entire outlook he had on creating his own sound, writing most of his own material and defying convention by doing everything too fast and in the wrong keys,” says Bright. “The truth is, bluegrass has always been an incredibly progressive music.”

Clearly, they’ve had more than one philosophical discussion about the music they make versus common perceptions of the music they make. And this time around, they basically decided it goes wherever it goes.

“We try not to worry too much about that and just do our thing,” Kamel says. “If we try to force anything in this band, then it ends up not working out.”
The joy of listening to No Matter Where It Goes from Here comes from just how well they do their “thing.” On this nine-song collection, they combine virtuosic playing with engaging melodies and lyrics that range from mentions of Banksy and Kerouac (in Kamel’s “John”), a social commentary on money and exploitation (“Pigs”), to the 1794 Whiskey Rebellion and steam-powered river travel.

They’ve been playing the historical song, “Spirit of ’94,” written by band friend Geoff Union of Ragged Union, since being invited to perform at the 2018 Whiskey Rebellion Festival, held annually in Washington, Pennsylvania, where the insurrection began. On the charmingly melodic Robin Bernard/Dom Fisher tune “Paddlewheels” — which would totally steal the heart of late riverboat pilot John Hartford — Fisher sings, The river’s calling me like a dinner bell ringin’/Askin’ “Son where you been?”/Life goes by like a butterfly flyin’/Or a leaf blowing in the wind.
The river also figures in Bright’s composition, “My Hometown,” an El Paso reminiscence in which he mentions My hometown is steeped in funk/My hometown’s got the border punk junk. If those words evoke Punch Brothers before Stanley Brothers, that just affirms how broad the spectrum of bluegrass-oriented music really is.

Punch Brothers come to mind again — along with Fleck — on both of the album’s tour-de-force instrumentals: “Roadie’s Circles,” written by Smith, and “Clamp’s Chute,” Bright’s homage to Vassar Clements. On this beguiling, very jazz-oriented, barely edited “super live” track, Bright plays the Gilchrist mandolin he used while performing with the late fiddle legend. (Bright’s history also includes performing and recording with Peter Rowan, Tony Rice, Don Edwards and other bluegrass titans, as well as membership in the Two High String Band.)

Smith’s tribute to his late border collie, the album’s delightful centerpiece, starts with Rowan’s lusty yodel, then weaves traditional bluegrass tempos into an intricate rondo of interconnected textures, with jazz-kissed Southwest breezes and a Spanish-guitar interlude. Kamel says his guitar work on the track was inspired by listening to Willie Nelson (who deserves far more recognition for his incredibly dexterous, Django Reinhardt-influenced picking). The guitar Kamel plays, Bright’s 1951 Martin D-18, has not received new strings since before the band recorded their last album. They all agree the old strings just sound better.

With Pat Manske coproducing and engineering, they recorded No Matter Where It Goes from Here at The Zone, just outside of Austin in Dripping Springs. It’s one of the area’s most renowned studios, partly because of prized vintage analog gear such as its 24-track Studer reel-to-reel. Recording a few songs at a time as the mood struck, they experimented with that gear, trying unusual setups like plugging a 1923 Gibson snakehead mandolin through a Fender Twin amp and a Boss tremolo pedal for the Bright-written ballad, “Home and the Banjo.”

Eventually, they’d tracked enough songs for nearly two albums. To winnow, Fisher says, “We all made a list of what we thought would be a good group of songs to fit together, then looked at what all of our lists had in common.”

He’s credited with plucking the album’s title from “Home and the Banjo,” in which Bright manages to reference MP3s, Australian rockers AC/DC and Crowe, the banjo-picking New South founder and major force in bluegrass music’s evolution. But the title actually comes from these lines: No matter where it goes from here, you bet your bottom buck I’m gonna steer clear/They’re gonna build a phone right into your ear/No matter where it goes from here.

Bright intended to write an ode to chasing dreams and his favorite banjo players, “because banjos always lighten the mood.” But it got a little too light, so he pared it till Crowe became the lone named picker. Somehow, Kamel’s vocals perfectly balance a tone of gentle reminiscence with the weightier feel of a weary lament.

As for that lyric, Bright says it could sum up the artistic philosophy behind any band. Just getting to gigs, much less performing, staying together, sustaining the precarious lifestyle … the odds are stacked against success. “As performers,” he adds, “we understand this plight and that the only way forward, wherever we may land, is to put ourselves out there, no matter where it goes from here.”

For Kamel, it applies not only to the band’s dynamic, but the bigger-picture uncertainty of their musical future in a pandemic-tilted world.

“We’ll ride whatever wave that comes our way,” he assures. “We just can’t control what kind of wave that is.”

Formed in August of 2012, The AJ Ghent Band is an American band that spans the genres of southern rock, blues, soul and funk music– fusing together what AJ refers to as “Southern Soul.”

Often referred to by fans as the musical love child of Prince, Little Richard and James Brown, when AJ takes his band to the stage, there is charm, charisma and a sound that is nothing short of innovative, electrifying, sensual and captivating. With their unique, appealing interpretation of southern soul, the AJ Ghent band entices their audience with raw passion and honesty, presenting an invitation for people to simply get together and feel good!