I can’t believe this already is the 15th weekly post in a row in my recurring feature about newly/recently released music. Frankly, I did not expect that when I started the endeavor 15 weeks ago! This installment includes three singer-songwriters, a jazz funk outfit and a rock & roll band. I had not heard of any of these artists before and surely plan to further explore their music. Let’s get to it!
Sarah Jarosz/Johnny
Sarah Jarosz is a 29-year-old singer-songwriter hailing from Austin, Texas. Wikipedia characterizes her music as Americana, country folk and bluegrass. Jarosz who is of Polish ancestry learned how to the play the mandolin as a 10-year-old and later added guitar, claw-hammer banjo and octave mandolin. While still being a senior in high school, she signed with Sugar Hill Records and released her debut album Song Up in Her Head in June 2009. Written by Jarosz, Johnny is a great tune from her new album World on the Ground, her fifth studio release that appeared on June 5. The record was produced by John Leventhal, who has also worked in that capacity with an impressive array of other artists, such as Michelle Branch, Shawn Colvin and Joan Osborne. I hear some Sheryl Crow in here.
Tim Burgess/Empathy For the Devil
While Tim Burgess has been active since 1989 and apparently is best known as the lead vocalist of alternative rock band The Charlatans, I had not heard of the English musician, singer-songwriter and record label owner before. I generally don’t listen a lot to alternative rock, which at least in part may explain my ignorance. After recording seven albums with The Charlatans, Burgess launched a solo career in parallel and came out with his debut I Believe in September 2003. Empathy For the Devil, which Burgess wrote, is a track from his fifth solo album I Love the New Sky that was released on May 22. There’s just something about this tune that attracted me right away. Check it out.
Jess Williamson/Infinite Scroll
According to her website, Jess Williamson is a Los Angeles based singer-songwriter who makes deeply felt songs that orbit around her powerful voice, a voice that’s strong and vulnerable, big room flawless, quietly ecstatic, and next-to-you intimate...Williamson grew up in the suburbs of Dallas. An only child, she was raised by music-loving parents on a healthy diet of Bonnie Raitt, Van Morrison, and K.T. Oslin…In her last year of school [at the University of Texas where she was a photography major], following an impulse after seeing Austin’s Ralph White play the banjo at a house show in her friends’ basement, Williamson took up banjo lessons at South Austin Music, and soon after was writing songs and making home recordings. In 2011, the young artist self-released her debut EP Medicine Wheel/Death Songs. Following her relocation to L.A. in 2016, Williamson started work on what would become her first album released with a record label: The 2018 Cosmic Wink. Infinite Scroll is a song she wrote for her latest album Sorceress that came out on May 15. Here’s the official video.
Lettuce/Blaze
Lettuce is something I generally like as a side to a steak or other piece of meat or fish. It also happens to be the name of an American jazz and funk band initially formed in Boston in the summer of 1992 when all of its founding members attended Berklee College of Music as teenagers. It was a short-lived venture that lasted just this one summer, but the members reunited in 1994 when all them had become undergraduate students at Berklee. In 2002, their debut album Outta There appeared. And ever since the band has been, well, out there! Blaze is the opener of their new studio album Resonate that was released on May 8, their seventh studio record. Today, Lettuce are a six-piece, with four of their members remaining from the original lineup. Ready for some cool groove? Wait a moment, no vocals? Jeez, indeed! I don’t know who specifically wrote the track but I just dig when they play that funky music!
Low Cut Connie/Private Lives
“If an alien landed and asked what rock ‘n’ roll is, you could start here.” This is what Low Cut Connie confidently proclaim on their Facebook page. Wikipedia apparently agrees, describing them as an American rock & roll band based in Philadelphia. And I love rock & roll, so put another dime in the jukebox, baby, to creatively borrow from rock dynamo Joan Jett! Low Cut Connie were formed in 2010. I’m afraid I hadn’t noticed! They self-released their debut album Get Out the Lotion in 2011. After their sophomore, another self-release, the band got a deal with Contender Records that issued their first label release in 2015. Private Lives is a single and the title track of Connie’s forthcoming double LP, which is scheduled for October 13. The cool rocker was written by frontman, pianist and songwriter Adam Weiner, who appears to be the band’s driving force. While it’s the only song I currently know, Low Cut Connie sound very promising to me. Here’s the official video.
Sources: Wikipedia; Jess Williamson website; Lettuce Facebook page; YouTube
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