The New Orleans based label Threadhead Records raises funds for recording and releasing CDs, but te act in queation is required to pay the money back within a year. Apart from that, the act promises to remit an amount to one of the charities that supports music life in New Orleans.
That amount is ten per cent of the total amount raised, but the act pays that itself: it is not deducted from the money lent from fans.
Threadhead Records’ profile: Continue reading
American singer-songwriter Joe Iadanza released his debut in 2008: ten self-penned songs on his then unnoticed debut CD.
In them Iadanza accurately combines folk with some rootsy and jazzy elements. In a mix of up-tempo songs and ballads this traveling salesman believes in the power of lyrics and in that of love.
In the thematic opener he sings of himself as a wandering folkie. Born into a family of immigrants and union members he is serves the tradition of comfort and justice, despite the disappointment of his family about that. Continue reading
His own voice.
Keyboardist/singer Vince Melamed has written hits through the years for Trisha Yearwood, Tina Turner, Jimmy Buffett and others. At the same time he was a musician for acts like the Eagles, Dan Fogelberg, Bobby Womack and Bob Dylan.
That explains that the the songs that are on his first CD now, were written between 1990 and 2009. Because of his parents’ death Melamed realised that he wanted to record the songs that had been turned into hits by others under his own name.
Apart from those songs, mostly sung by country acts, there are four new songs on his CD too. Continue reading
Jenee Halstead’s The River Grace is not completely new anymore, but such a self-released debut easily disappears in the enormous supply. Still popmagazine Heaven reviewed the record favourably already in no. 58, January-February 2009/no. 1. That was justified, because what Halstead shows is impressive in ten songs that were sometimes written together with others.
In a mix in which country and folk struggle for the upper hand, but in which clear influences of singer-songwriter and gospel can be heard too, she evokes anguished atmospheres with simple means. Continue reading
Purified singer-songwriter.
MaHarry’s career came to a standstill after the dissolution of her contract, but she recorded twenty new songs, of which eleven live with band.
On stage and in the studio she proves to be matured: in the songs based on piano the accompaniment serves her vocals more than on her two CDs from the nineties. Baroque excess caused fragmented melodies sometimes then, but these are absent here, except in Dyan Is Resting, fitted with Ian Anderson’s characteristic flute.
The result is a rich collection of ballads and medio-tempo songs, in which MaHarry’s singing gains intensity by the space that she leaves and by the slight fray that her sometimes metallical voice has now. Continue reading
Click.
Scott Kirby has been making music fulltime for twenty years already and Row Me Home is his sixth CD since 1993. The ex-political consultant also does 150 to 200 gigs per year, but the Florida-based American is completely unknown here.
In these eleven self-penned songs he proves an experienced and inspired singer/guitar player. Hij combines influences from singer-songwriter and pop with traces of rock, jazz and roots in supple melodies. Continue reading
Brooks Williams lives up to his reputation (and more than that!) on his seventeenth CD as an acoustic and slide-guitarist/songwriter in seven songs of his own and five covers of Son House, Mississippi John Hurt en Duke Ellington’s I Got It Bad o.a.
He plays intimately, serving the songs, plays sensitive solos and sings with a free timing. Because of that Baby O! proves to be a late discovery.
***1/2
Signs of life.
David Brewbaker’s new CD only contains seven songs. That is in line with his two previous releases, both of them singles with two and three songs respectively.
In these new songs Brewbaker proves much more to be a jazzy singer-songwriter with a lazy timing than in those older songs. The versatile musician played guitar, bass and keyboards, while he also programmed the drums.
For his sound he drew inspiration from fusion and singer-songwriter. Continue reading
Harlequin Goodnight ***1/2
Just For Fun, Songs For Little Ones ***
Accurate melancholic.
Forest Sun’s seventh (!) CD contains ten of his songs and Dylan’s She Belongs To Me. In both catchy and rootsy melodies the musician/painter does not only sing, but he also plays the guitar, piano, wurlitzer and drums. Friends on dobro, cello, accordeon and background vocals even enrich these miniatures.
Melancholy continually overshadows Sun’s by no means small craftmanship. In creating an atmosphere he needs only few instruments. He uses them very effectively: brushes and a plopping bass for instance propel Queen Anne’s Lace. On top of that a repetitive acoustic guitar riff sounds and an electric guitar plays long notes. Because of that relative simplicity his beautiful compositions attract all the more attention. Continue reading
Personal New Orleans melting pot.
Swedish expat Osborne, living in New Orleans, was considered promising for a while by Sony, but got dumped after one CD already. His previous CD proved that label wrong convincingly: it was a desparately sounding record about a lost love, obsessedly played and produced clearly. This one does that too. Overall it sounds optimistic, recorded with a lot of fun in the playing and breathing a swampy and relaxed live feel.
Fourteen songs long Osborne mixes his trusted influences (blues, gospel, second line, country-folk, jazz and pop) at the intersection of those styles. He reverts to them, but after two stereotipic openers he manages them at will with beautiful, natural melodies. Continue reading
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