Emmylou Harris is an American singer, songwriter, and musician. She has released dozens of albums and singles over the course of her career and won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honors, including induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Wikipedia
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Eric Brace
Eric Brace (and Last Train Home)
Eric Brace runs Red Beet Records and makes music on his own, with Last Train Home and as a trio with Peter Cooper and Thomm Jutz. In 2003, he founded the label and he and his band, Last Train Home moved to East Nashville from the Washington DC area. Brace had been a journalist at the Washington Post and had run the Top Records label.
Eric returns to the DC area with some frequency, playing clubs where he built his loyal following and participating, as in the embedded video, in numerous BandhouseGigs productions, including the recent live stream “From BandHouse to Your House.”
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Marshall Crenshaw
Marshall Crenshaw
Born in 1953 in Detroit, Michigan, Marshall Crenshaw learned to tune a guitar correctly at age ten and has been trying ever since. His first big break came in 1978 playing John Lennon in “Beatlemania”, first as an understudy in New York, then in the West Coast company followed by a national touring company. Removing himself from that situation in Feb. 1980, Marshall settled in New York City. After crossing paths with the great and legendary Alan Betrock, Marshall recorded his debut single “Something’s Gonna Happen” (for Betrock’s Shake Records label), which led to a deal with Warner Bros. His debut album, Marshall Crenshaw, was acclaimed as a masterpiece upon its release in 1982 and established him as a singular songwriter, record maker, and guitarist. The album spawned the hit single “Someday, Someway,” and other classics such as “(You’re My) Favorite Waste of Time,” “Whenever You’re On My Mind” and “Cynical Girl.”
Over the course of a career that’s spanned three decades, 13 albums, Grammy and Golden Globe nominations, film and TV appearances (Buddy Holly in “La Bamba”) and thousands of performances, Marshall Crenshaw’s musical output has maintained a consistent fidelity to the qualities of artfulness, craftsmanship and passion, and his efforts have been rewarded with the devotion of a broad and remarkably loyal fan base.
Along with touring around the country and the occasional recording project, Marshall currently hosts his own radio show, “The Bottomless Pit”, every Saturday at 10 PM on New York’s WFUV. Other current projects include a documentary film-in progress about legendary record producer Tom Wilson. Says Crenshaw, “This is a road that I never imagined taking before, but it’s been amazing and is going great..”
“Although he was seen as a latter-day Buddy Holly at the outset, he soon proved too talented and original to be anyone but himself.” – Trouser Press -
Jesse Winchester
in memoriam
Jesse Winchester, the esteemed singer-songwriter who became a symbol of the anti-war movement when he moved to Canada to escape the draft in the Sixties, died April 11th, 2014, from bladder cancer. Winchester, who was living in Virginia when he died, was 69.
While never as well known as peers like James Taylor and Jackson Browne, Winchester wrote some of the defining singer-songwriter tracks of the seventies — evocations of American and Southern life like “Yankee Lady,” “Biloxi,” “Mississippi You’re on My Mind” and “The Brand New Tennessee Waltz” that ached with feelings of loss for the country he decided he had to leave. The songs gained him a cult following and critical respect, and were covered by everyone from George Strait to Tim Hardin. Winchester was considered such a formidable songwriter that a 2012 tribute album, Quiet About It, featured versions of his songs by Taylor, Elvis Costello, Jimmy Buffett, Rosanne Cash, Lucinda Williams, and Vince Gill, among others.
Born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1944, Winchester started playing music in Memphis, where his family later relocated. In 1967, he received a draft induction letter, but instead of showing up, he took a plane to Montreal. “I was so offended by someone’s coming up to me and presuming to tell me who I should kill and what my life was worth,” he told Rolling Stone in 1977. He arrived in Canada with only $300 and no connections, but settled into a new life, joining a local band and finally writing his own material. (Rolling Stone)
RIP Jesse
