Charlie Faye & the Fayettes
“Musically, the group hearkens to Motown, Spector or the Brill Building: Charlie is emerging as a budding Carole King, and the songs are good enough to rate comparison to Goffin & King or Mann & Weil.” – Huffington Post
“In a world of new soul singers who actually get what they’re talking about, enter the name of Charlie Faye and her unbeatable Fayettes to that list. They could go all the way.” – Bill Bentley, The Morton Report
“The album stretches beyond the coy boundaries of ‘60s girl groups with the opener ‘Green Light,’ and though ‘Eastside’ could usher dancers down a Soul Train line, its Stax-styled groove and horn chart service a serious look at social gentrification.” – No Depression
“It’s impossible not to be enchanted by one of this year’s freshest, most delightful and all around grooviest releases.” – American Songwriter
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The Jayhawks
The Jayhawks
One of the most enduring and beloved groups of the last thirty years, The Jayhawks first emerged from Minneapolis in the mid-1980’s, though their commercial and critical breakthrough didn’t arrive until the release of their 1992 masterpiece, Hollywood Town Hall. Over the ensuing decades, the band would go on to record a series of highly influential albums and tour the world countless times over, sharing stages with everyone from Bob Dylan and Tom Petty to Lucinda Williams and Wilco along the way. Following an extended hiatus in the mid-2000’s, Louris and his long-time bandmates—bassist Marc Perlman, drummer Tim O’Reagan, and keyboardist Karen Grotberg—returned to the studio, most recently releasing the acclaimed Paging Mr. Proust and Back Roads and Abandoned Motels in 2016 and 2018, respectively.
The 11th Jayhawks studio album XOXO was released on July 10, 2020 through Sham/Thirty Tigers. Recorded in late 2019 at Pachyderm and Flowers Studios in Minnesota, XOXO represents a bold step forward. For the first time, all four members contribute writing and lead vocal duties. XOXO is the most diverse and wide-ranging in the group’s storied history. Rather than marking a sonic departure, though, the collection signals a sharpening of focus for the band, an elevation in understanding of who they are and what they do best. In classic Jayhawks fashion, the songs here mix the influence of American roots music with British invasion and jangly power-pop, but there’s a newfound vitality at play, as well, an invigoration of confidence and energy that could only come with the injection of fresh blood. The result is an album that, much like the band’s lush harmonies, brings multiple distinctive voices together into a singular whole, a collection that, ironically enough, finds unity in individuality and identity in reinvention.
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Joan Armatrading
Joan Anita Barbara Armatrading, MBE is a British singer-songwriter and guitarist. A three-time Grammy Award nominee, Armatrading has also been nominated twice for BRIT Awards as Best Female Artist. She received an Ivor Novello Award for Outstanding Contemporary Song Collection in 1996. Wikipedia
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Mary Chapin Carpenter
Mary Chapin Carpenter
Mary Chapin Carpenter (born February 21, 1958 in Princeton, New Jersey) is a highly successful country music singer, guitarist, and songwriter. According to Songfacts, Carpenter had a fairly privileged upper middle class upbringing. Her father was at least partly responsible for her embarking on a musical career. The song “House of Cards” was inspired by the divorce of her parents when she was sixteen.
One of her most widely known singles is “Passionate Kisses” (written by fellow singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams), a song with a rock flavor musically and lyrics listing simple desires such as “a comfortable bed”, “food to fill me up”, and “time to think”. Another big hit was “Down at the Twist and Shout“, which she performed in January 1997 at Super Bowl XXXI in New Orleans.
A number of Mary Chapin Carpenter’s songs speak to women, urging them on through hard times or troubled relationships. In “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her“, co-composed by Carpenter and Don Schlitz, the singer makes the case for strength and self-respect. Another common theme in her music is that of taking life at your own pace, rather than rampant goal-driven materialism, such as “The Long Way Home” from her 2001 album Time*Sex*Love, which pokes fun at a man who “retire(s) at thirty to his big-ass house next to the putting green.” The album has a relatively different feel musically, incorporating elaborate orchestra melodies, but with her characteristic lyrical depth.
Her album Between Here and Gone, was released in 2004.
Carpenter’s 2007 album, The Calling, on Rounder Records’ rock/pop imprint Zoë, features commentary about contemporary politics, a reaction to the impact of Hurricane Katrina on a track entitled “Houston,” and an incendiary track entitled “On with the Song“, dedicated to the Dixie Chicks, and addressing the visceral reaction to the trio. In less than three months after its release, The Calling sold more than 100,000 copies in the US.
Carpenter has won five Grammy Awards and is the only artist to have won four consecutive Grammy Awards for Best Female Country Vocal Performance, which she received from 1992 to 1995. On October 7, 2012, Carpenter was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame.
Carpenter is a fifth cousin of the late singer and humanitarian Harry Chapin, along with his brothers Tom Chapin and Steve Chapin.
John Jennings
Long Time Guitarist, Producer,
Collaborator
John Jennings
R.I.P.Editor Note: The wonderful video of Down at the Twist and Shout was filmed at the Spanish Ballroom, Glen Echo Park, Glen Echo, Md. Take note of both John Jennings and Pete Kennedy on guitar and the wonderful BeauSoleil. Also special because I was there.
