'Singer-Songwriter' Bands // p 2 of 6

Cotton Jones

Cotton Jones (formerly The Cotton Jones Basket Ride) is an indie folk band, with elements of psychedelic folk, dream pop, baroque pop, and Americana, based in Cumberland, Maryland and currently signed to Suicide Squeeze Records.

Michael Nau (born October 31, 1984) is the lead singer-songwriter and plays guitar, Whitney McGraw (born July 20, 1986) is on keyboards, organ, and electronic autoharp, Todd Gowans (born February 4, 1986) is on lead electric guitar, and Greg Bender is on bass.

The signature sound of the band is Michael Nau and his wife Whitney McGraw's ethereal vocals.

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Damien Jurado

Damien Jurado is an American singer/songwriter from Seattle, Washington. Over the years, he has released albums on Sub Pop and currently on Secretly Canadian.

Jurado's solo career began during the mid-1990s, releasing lo-fi folk based recordings on his own cassette-only label, Casa Recordings. Gaining a local cult following in Seattle, he was brought to the attention of Sub Pop Records by Sunny Day Real Estate singer Jeremy Enigk. After two 7-inch releases (Motorbike and Trampoline) Sub Pop issued his first full album, Waters Ave S. in 1997. His second album Rehearsals for Departure, was released in 1999, produced by Ken Stringfellow (The Posies, Big Star, R.E.M.).

He often makes use of found sound and field recording techniques, and has experimented with different forms of tape recordings. In 2000 he released Postcards and Audio Letters, a collection of found audio letters and fragments that he had found from sources such as thrift store tape players and answering machines. Also released in 2000 was Ghost of David, Jurado's bleakest and most personal sounding record to date. I Break Chairs (2002) was produced by long-time friend, Pedro the Lion's David Bazan. It was his last album for Sub Pop, and was a much rockier, electric affair.

After signing for the Indiana-based label Secretly Canadian, Jurado reverted to his trademark folk ballad-based style, releasing four more albums: Where Shall You Take Me? (2003), On My Way to Absence, (2005) And Now That I'm in Your Shadow (2006) and the rockier Caught in the Trees (2008).

In 2009, Jurado teamed with his brother Drake to issue an LP under the moniker Hoquiam, released on February 23, 2010. The album preceded Damien's next solo release, dubbed Saint Bartlett, which was released May 25, 2010 and was produced by label mate Richard Swift. After touring the album with Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground, Jurado began work on his next album. On February 21, 2012 he released his 10th studio album, Maraqopa, his sixth for Secretly Canadian. In January 2014 Jurado released Brothers and Sisters of the Eternal Son an album which marked the third straight collaboration with producer Richard Swift. In March 2016, Jurado released Visions of Us on the Land, and in December of the same year he and Swift released a collection of covers from 2010, Other People's Songs, Volume 1. In September 2016 he was forced to cancel an Australian tour due to health issues.

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Daniel Lanois

Daniel Roland Lanois, born September 19, 1951, is a Canadian record producer, guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter.

Lanois has released several albums of his own work. However, he is best known for producing albums for a wide variety of artists, including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Peter Gabriel, Emmylou Harris, Willie Nelson, and Brandon Flowers. Lanois also collaborated with Brian Eno: most famously on producing several albums for U2, including the multi-platinum The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Three albums produced or co-produced by Lanois have won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Four other albums received Grammy nominations.

Lanois wrote and performed the music for Billy Bob Thornton's film Sling Blade (1996).

Biography

Early life and career
Lanois was born in Hull, Quebec. Lanois started his production career when he was 17 recording local artists including Simply Saucer with his brother Bob Lanois in a studio in the basement of their mother's home in Ancaster, Ontario. Later, Lanois started Grant Avenue Studios in an old house which he purchased in Hamilton, Ontario. He worked with a number of local bands, including Martha and the Muffins (for whom his sister Jocelyne played bass), Ray Materick, Spoons, and the Canadian children's singer Raffi. Lanois attended Ancaster High School.

Producer

In 1981 Lanois played on and produced the album This Is the Ice Age by Martha and the Muffins. In 1985 he and two members of the band earned a CASBY award for their work on the band's (by then going by "M + M") 1984 album Mystery Walk.

Lanois worked collaboratively with Brian Eno on some of Eno's own projects, one of which was the "Prophecy Theme" for David Lynch's film adaptation of Frank Herbert's Dune. Eno invited him to co-produce U2's album The Unforgettable Fire. Along with Eno, he went on to produce U2's The Joshua Tree, the 1987 Grammy Award for Album of the Year winner, and some of the band's other works including Achtung Baby and All That You Can't Leave Behind, both of which were nominated for the same award but did not win. Lanois once again collaborated with U2 and Brian Eno on the band's 2009 album, No Line on the Horizon. He was involved in the songwriting process as well as mixing and production.

Lanois' early work with U2 led to him being hired to produce albums for other top-selling artists. He collaborated with Peter Gabriel on his album Birdy (1985), the soundtrack to Alan Parker's film of the same name, and then spent most of 1985 co-producing Gabriel's album So. The album was released in 1986 and became his best-selling release, earning multi-platinum sales and a Grammy nomination for Album of the Year. Lanois later co-produced Gabriel's follow-up, Us which was released in 1992 and also went platinum.

Bono recommended Lanois to Bob Dylan in the late 1980s; in 1989 Lanois produced Dylan's Oh Mercy. Eight years later, Dylan and Lanois worked together on Time Out of Mind, which won another Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 1997. In his autobiographical Chronicles, Vol. 1, Dylan describes in depth the contentious but rewarding working relationship he developed with Lanois.

Wrecking Ball, his 1995 collaboration with Emmylou Harris, won a 1996 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. In 1998, he produced and appeared on Willie Nelson's album Teatro.

Lanois was working on Neil Young's record Le Noise in June 2010 when he was hospitalized after suffering multiple injuries in a motorcycle crash in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles. He has since recovered. Lanois' production is recognizable and notable for its 'big' and 'live' drum sound, atmospheric guitars and ambient reverb. Rolling Stone called Lanois the "most important record producer to emerge in the Eighties."

On July 12, 2019, Lakeshore Records released the official soundtrack of Red Dead Redemption 2 computer game, and Lanois was given credit for producing; additionally he was given seven composition credits, including one for the song "Table Top", which was released in the days before the soundtrack's release, next to collaborator Rocco DeLuca's song "Crash of Worlds" to promote the upcoming release.

Recording artist

As well as being a producer, Lanois is a songwriter, musician and recording artist. He has released several solo albums and film scores; his first album, Acadie was released in 1989. A number of Lanois' songs have been covered by other artists, including Dave Matthews, Jerry Garcia Band, Willie Nelson, Tea Party, Anna Beljin, Isabelle Boulay, and Emmylou Harris. His albums have had some success, particularly in Canada. Lanois plays the guitar, pedal steel, and drums. Belladonna, an instrumental album released in 2005 was nominated for a Grammy.

Lanois' song "Sonho Dourado" was included in the 2004 Billy Bob Thornton film, Friday Night Lights. In 2005 with the re-release of his first solo album, Acadie, a late-1980s version of the song appears on the additional tracks called "Early Dourado Sketch". Lanois had performed the song numerous times in the intervening years, including on a Toronto television program in 1993 where it was credited as "Irish Melody" on a recording of the performance. Though the melody does indeed feel Irish, the title is Portuguese and means golden dream. Lanois also provided an instrumental score for LOUDquietLOUD, a 2006 documentary about the Pixies.

Lanois premiered a documentary entitled Here Is What Is at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007. The film chronicles the recording of his album of the same name and includes footage of the actual recording. The album Here Is What Is was released, first by download, then on compact disc, in late 2007 and early 2008. Soon after that, Lanois released a three-disc recording called Omni.

In October 2009, Lanois started a project called Black Dub which features Lanois on guitar, Brian Blade on drums, and Daryl Johnson on bass, along with multi-instrumentalist/singer Trixie Whitley. They released a self-titled album in 2010. In 2014, Lanois played with Emmylou Harris as a sideman and opening act on a tour focused on the Wrecking Ball material he produced.

Solo career

On October 28, 2014, Lanois released an album titled Flesh and Machine on ANTI- Records, based on Brian Eno's ambient albums. The instrumental album consists primarily of original atmospheric and process-based sounds, blending pedal steel guitar and a variety of digital and analog sound processing devices. He was assisted by the drummer Brian Blade. In 2016, he released the album Goodbye to Language with Rocco DeLuca.

The collaborative album Venetian Snares x Daniel Lanois was released on Venetian Snares' label Timesig in May 2018.

Lanois also contributed to the composition and production of the soundtrack for the 2018 video game Red Dead Redemption 2, released by Rockstar Games.

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David Ramirez

We’re Not Going Anywhere: At a historical moment of immense political, social, and ecological uncertainty, those four simple words comprise both a promise and a protest, a comforting reassurance of inclusion as well as a hearty cry of defiance. It’s a statement that offers no small sense of hope, in that sense matching the music contained on the album.

On these vividly imagined and passionately performed songs David Ramirez takes in the world from his unique perspective: “Being half white and half Mexican has made this current political climate especially interesting. So many cultures in this country are being viewed as un-American and it breaks my heart. My family have raised children here, created successful businesses here, and are proud to be a part of this country. Most of what I've seen as of late is misplaced fear. I wanted to write about that fear and how, instead of benefiting us, it sends us spiraling out control.”

The album that bears that title marks a departure for Ramirez, who builds on the rootsy sound of his early albums to create something new, something bold, something anchored in the here and now. Scouting out unexplored music territory, these songs bounce around energetically, toying with new ideas and experimenting with new sounds, as barbed-wire guitars and retro-futuristic synths grind against his anguished vocals and evocative lyrics.

“We flipped script a little bit and went in with a pretty specific vision: lots of keyboards and some out-of-the-box guitar sounds. I took a lot of notes from the indie bands I’ve been listening to and from the bands I loved growing up in the ‘80s, like the Cars and Journey. Let’s just live in this spacy world for a while and see what comes out of it.”

What came out of it isn’t just Ramirez’s most adventurous album to date, but a record that captures the mood of the country in its music as well as in its lyrics. While he does tackle some new subjects, Ramirez grounds these songs in his own perspective, which means every song remains both human and humane, outraged and generous. There are some break-up songs on here, sober and self-castigating: first single “Watching from a Distance” thrums with iridescent synths and a tight backbeat that sounds like lines on the highway measuring the widening rift between lovers. “People Call Who They Wanna Talk To” is Ramirez at his catchiest, marrying a playful earworm hook to a somber realization about romantic irreconcilability: “Don’t blame it on the distance, don’t blame it on the booze… people call who they wanna talk to.” A simple line, but completely devastating.

“This is the first album I’ve had properly produced,” says Ramirez, who either produced or co-produced all of his previous efforts. For We’re Not Going Anywhere, he hired Sam Kassirer, who has helmed albums by Josh Ritter, Lake Street Dive, Bhi Bhiman, and many other artists. “I needed to evolve and change things up a bit, which is why I chose Sam. He pushed me in a way I hadn’t been pushed before.” Kassirer challenged Ramirez to simultaneously simplify and complicate his songwriting, to find new ways to tell his stories. “He said, I want you to try to tell a story but use fewer words and more space. In other words, let’s not make a singer-songwriter record. Let’s make a band record. Once he said that, my mind just opened up in a way it never had before. It was fun to just be more straightforward lyrically. It left a lot of space for the music.”

In January 2017 Ramirez and his band decamped to the Great North Sound Society, an eighteenth-century farmhouse in rural Maine that serves as Kassirer’s studio. Especially in the winter, when the trees are bare and snow blankets the ground, the setting proved inspiring. “It’s very secluded, which was part of the appeal. We were able to get out of our touring headspace and stay completely involved with the record and what we were doing.” That allowed the band to concentrate on the music, to pursue ideas without distractions and misgivings, but it also removed them from the world during a momentous event.

We’re Not Going Anywhere turns that distance into a big-picture perspective— engaged and informed, compassionately political but not necessarily partisan. “We’d take breaks during the day and watch the news and see all the rallies and marches and the disruption and the out-of-control feeling that was everywhere then—and, frankly, still is now. We were looking around and no one was around us. The closest house was a mile away, so it was just us. We were grateful just to retreat from that social tornado for a while and create something that we hoped would be very beautiful.”

Looming over every song is the ghost of Ramirez’s great-grandmother, who inspired “Eliza Jane,” a deeply poignant and personal tune near the album’s conclusion. In gracefully plainspoken lyrics, Ramirez describes how she and her brothers left Oklahoma during the Great Depression, heading northwest to Oregon, where she played piano in a country band. “My mom was telling me this story and the song was writing itself. I wish I had known her, because I’m curious what drove her. I know what drives a lot of my musician friends, but I really want to ask a family member: Why did you do this? Was it just for fun? Was it a passion so deep-rooted that you couldn’t not do it?”

While he may describe the creative process as fun, Ramirez obviously has inherited a deep-rooted passion—one that will continue to drive him well into the future. “I’m not going to be so afraid to take risks in the future, like I have been in the past. I’ve been so stressed and concerned with every detail, but I learned to let that go. Let’s just have fun. Let’s get weird. I’ve never felt that way about my work. I still respect my older stuff, but I just didn’t want to be afraid anymore. That’s what I learned on this one.”

^{Source facebook.com}

Emma Ruth Rundle

Emma Ruth Rundle is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and visual artist based in Louisville, Kentucky. Formerly of the Nocturnes, she has released three solo albums and is a current member of Red Sparowes and Marriages.

Career
Rundle was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, United States, together with her sister in a household where a lot of folk music was played. She has cited Kate Bush and David Lynch as influences.

With her first band, the Nocturnes, she released the Wellington EP (2008) and two albums, A Year of Spring (2009) and Aokigahara (2011). Rundle also joined Red Sparowes and played on their third album, The Fear Is Excruciating, But Therein Lies the Answer, released by Sargent House on April 6, 2010.

She self-released an ambient guitar album, Electric Guitar: One, in 2011. It was later reissued in 2014 by Errant Child Recordings.

In 2012, she formed the trio Marriages, who have released the Kitsune EP (2012) and Salome full-length (2015).

On January 7, 2013, she self-released the album Somnambulant, attributed to the Headless Prince of Zolpidem, which she described as "my somewhat anonymous downtempo, somewhat creepy electronic dark wave project".

Rundle's official debut solo studio album, Some Heavy Ocean, was released on May 20, 2014 by Sargent House. It was co-produced by Chris Common and recorded at the Sargent House studio. Rundle lived at the studio complex as an artist-in-residence for the period. The release was accompanied by a US tour with King Buzzo.

Rundle suffers from adenomyosis, which in part inspired the material on her second album, Marked for Death, produced by Sonny DiPerri. It was released in October 2016 on Sargent House.

In January 2017, a split EP with Jaye Jayle, titled The Time Between Us, was announced, and the song "The Distance" was made available on streaming platforms. The EP was released by Sargent House on February 24.

Rundle's third studio album, On Dark Horses, was released on September 14, 2018. It featured contributions by Jay Jayle members Evan Patterson and Todd Cook as well as Dylan Nadon of Wovenhand. Also in 2018, Rundle provided backing vocals for "Just Breathe", a song on American rock band Thrice's 2018 album Palms.

In August 2019, Roadburn Festival announced that Rundle was one of two curators for the 2020 edition.

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Father John Misty

Joshua Michael Tillman, born May 3, 1981, also known as Father John Misty and previously J. Tillman, is an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, drummer and record producer.

Fiona Apple

Fiona Apple McAfee-Maggart (born September 13, 1977) is an American singer-songwriter and pianist. Classically trained on piano as a child, Apple began composing her own songs when she was eight years old. Her debut album, Tidal, written when Apple was 17, was released in 1996 and received a Grammy Award for Best Female Rock Vocal Performance for the single "Criminal". She followed with When the Pawn... (1999), produced by Jon Brion, which was also critically and commercially successful and was certified platinum.

For her third album, Extraordinary Machine (2005), Apple again collaborated with Brion, and began recording the album in 2002. However, Apple was reportedly unhappy with the production and opted not to release the record, leading fans to erroneously protest Epic Records, believing that the label was withholding its release. The album was eventually reproduced without Brion and released in October 2005. The album was certified gold, and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Album. In 2012, she released her fourth studio album, The Idler Wheel..., which received critical praise and was followed by a tour of the United States.

Born and raised on the Upper West Side of Manhattan, New York City in 1977, Apple is the daughter of singer Diane McAfee and actor Brandon Maggart, who met when both were cast in the Broadway musical Applause. Her father is from Tennessee, and through him, Apple has Melungeon ancestry. Her maternal grandparents were dancer Millicent Green and big band vocalist Johnny McAfee. Her sister sings cabaret under the stage name Maude Maggart, and actor Garett Maggart is her half brother. Apple grew up in Morningside Gardens in Harlem with her mother and sister, but spent summers with her father in Los Angeles, California.

Apple was classically trained on piano as a child, and began composing her own pieces by the age of eight. When learning to play piano, she would often take sheet music and translate guitar tablature into the corresponding notes. Apple later began to play along with jazz standard compositions after becoming proficient, through which she discovered Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, who became major influences on her.

At age 12, Apple was raped outside the apartment she shared with her mother and sister in Harlem. She then developed an eating disorder, purposely slimming her developing body, which she saw as "bait." After the incident, Apple also suffered panic attacks while walking home from school, which led to her relocating to Los Angeles to live with her father for one year. In 2000, she insisted that she did not write songs about this trauma: "It doesn't get into the writing. It's a boring pain. It's such a fuckin' old pain that, you know, there's nothing poetic about it."

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Fred Eaglesmith

Frederick John Elgersma (born July 9, 1957), known by the stage name Fred Eaglesmith, is a Canadian alternative country singer-songwriter. He is known for writing songs about vehicles, rural life, down-and-out characters, lost love and quirky rural folk. His songwriting uses techniques of short story writing, including unreliable narrators, surprise endings, and plot twists. In 2016, Eaglesmith toured extensively with his band.

Career

As a teenager Eaglesmith hopped a freight train to Western Canada and began writing songs and performing.

Eaglesmith founded a band known as the Smokin' Losers. He later formed a group called known as both the Flying Squirrels and the Flathead Noodlers, switching the name to represent different styles of music. The Flathead Noodlers play bluegrass, while the Flying Squirrels play more folk and rock. His first self-titled album was released in 1980.

Eaglesmith appeared in a 2001 television movie, The Gift.

A typical Fred Eaglesmith show includes his music set between several lengthy between-song comic monologues by Eaglesmith. Topics in the past have included stories about crossing the U.S.–Canada border, Newfoundlanders, and some friends from an Indian reserve. His fans are known as "Fredheads", a nod to deadheads, who followed the Grateful Dead. He is known to tour extensively throughout Canada and the U.S.

When Eaglesmith appears in solo performances, he bills himself as Fred J. Eaglesmith. In addition to his own albums, he frequently collaborated with the late Willie P. Bennett, a former member of Eaglesmith's band, who stepped down after a heart attack in early 2007. Eaglesmith publishes his own records.

In 2010, Eaglesmith was featured on the Late Show with David Letterman as the musical guest. He performed "Careless" from the album Cha Cha Cha.

Starting 2012, performances were billed as the Fred Eaglesmith Travelling Steam Show and include opening songs performed by Bill Poss, The Ginn Sisters, and Tif Ginn.

Fred co-wrote Tif's self-titled 2012 album with her, and the pair married in 2014. The backing band was disbanded in 2016 and they have been touring together as a duo since.

Eaglesmith's songs have been included in the musical play, Dear Johnny Deere. The play was performed at the Charlottetown Festival in 2013. Tif co-produced and mixed Fred's 2017 album, Standard.

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Gillian Welch

Gillian Howard Welch (/ˈɡɪliən ˈwɛltʃ/; born October 2, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, bluegrass, country and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms."

Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on seven critically acclaimed albums, five released under her name, and two released under the name Dave Rawlings Machine. Her 1996 debut, Revival, and the 2001 release Time (The Revelator), received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Her 2003 album, Soul Journey, introduced electric guitar, drums, and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, she released a fifth studio album, The Harrow & The Harvest, in 2011, which was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the soundtrack of the Coen brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. She also appeared in the film attempting to buy a Soggy Bottom Boys record. Welch, while not one of the principal actors, did sing and provide additional lyrics to the Sirens song "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby." In 2018 she and Rawlings wrote the song "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" for the Coens' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, for which they received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Welch has collaborated and recorded with Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, the Decemberists, Sam Phillips, Conor Oberst, and Ani DiFranco.

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Gregory Alan Isakov

Many musicians have day jobs to make ends meet. However, few artists maintain the lifestyle kept by Gregory Alan Isakov. The Colorado-based indie-folk artist is a full-time farmer who sells vegetable seeds and grows various market crops on his three-acre farm, while also tending to a thriving musical career.

“I switch gears a lot,” he says. “I wake up really early in the growing season, and then in the winters, I’m up all night. I’m constantly moving back and forth.”

Isakov had an easier time balancing his two passions while making his fourth full-length studio album, Evening Machines. In between farm duties, the multi-instrumentalist wrote and recorded in a studio housed in a barn on his property. Like the farm, this studio has a communal atmosphere, filled with instruments and gear stored there by musician friends—gear Isakov always leaves on, just in case inspiration strikes.

“Sometimes I couldn’t sleep, so I’d walk into the studio and work really hard into the night,” he says. “A lot of times I would find myself in the light of all these VU meters and the tape machine glow, so that’s where the title came from. I recorded mostly at night, when I wasn’t working in the gardens. It doesn’t matter if it’s summer or winter, morning or afternoon, this music always feels like evening to me.”

^{Source GregoryAlanIsakov.com}

Hayward Williams

Hayward Williams is a veteran singer/songwriter from Milwaukee, WI. With six full length records under his belt, Williams is set to release his latest effort: Pretenders. This record is yet another swan dive into the deep end of the Americana/Soul world that Hayward tends to reside in.

Growing up in Wisconsin in the 80's and 90's convinced Hayward Williams to search for something more out there in the world. Foregoing higher education, he joined a band and learned much about what to do and what not to do in the Midwest music scene. Playing in pubs for many years, getting thick skin and finding a notably sharp tongue, avenues opened up to Williams. Headlining European tours, major US festivals and a few trips to Australia later, Hayward has carved out an impressive niche in the folk music business.

Williams' previous release, The Reef, was produced by venerated songwriter, friend and collaborator Jeffrey Foucault. Utilizing an impressive rhythm section of Billy Conway (Morphine) on drums and Jeremy Moses Curtis (Booker T, Levon Helm, Session Americana) on bass, The Reef is an unequaled Americana record with soaring vocals and hooks that dig in deep. "The surprisingly soulful voice of Milwaukee-based singer/songwriter Hayward Williams emanates from a slight, almost unassuming figure, yet that voice is imbued with so much power, it's difficult to imagine it coming from anywhere other than midway between Memphis and Muscle Shoals... The Reef is an album to return to again and again." - Allan Wilkinson, Northern Sky Magazine (UK)

Pretenders was recorded in October of 2016 at Midwest Sound in Rockford, IL under a full moon and the care of Dan McMahon and Jeremy Koester. Hayward and J. Hardin would co-produced the album. Charles Koltak, who played drums on Williams' Haymaker (2012) teamed up with Jeremy Moses Curtis in the rhythm section. Corey Matthew Hart of Madison, WI (Lost Lakes) would lend his talented voice and guitar work to the project during one late night session. Finally, Brooks Milgate would send his B3 performances in remotely from the east coast adding a layer to the project that would fit in with any Al Green classic.

"Often dark, always honest and in the groove, Williams continues to break new ground in new traditional folk rock. There’s a ghostly spirit that floats through the songs on “Pretenders.” Williams is a wary caretaker of those spirits. His songs brim with the smoke and mirror lyricism of Leonard Cohen—with the rocker’s heart of Neil Young."

-Andy Moore ISTHMUS (Madison, WI)

^{Source haywardwilliams.com}

Hiss Golden Messenger

The band's music contains elements from various musical genres, such as folk, country, dub, country soul, rhythm and blues, bluegrass, jazz, funk, swamp pop, gospel, blues, and rock. The band's style was also described as "alternative country" and "country rock." The band's main influences include the Beatles, The Byrds, and Buffalo Springfield. The band has been compared to Will Oldham and Bill Callahan.

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Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan

The second album from odd-couple collaborators Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan feels a touch phony but hardly phoned in. He's got the voice, she's got the songs, and together they take us back to the late 60s.

It was another surprising detour in a career composed almost exclusively of detours: Isobel Campbell, former Belle & Sebastian member and sometime solo act, teamed with Mark Lanegan, taciturn former Screaming Trees singer and serial collaborator. With the release of their Ballad of the Broken Seas, the "Beauty and the Beast" lines came fast and furious. So did the Nancy and Lee comparisons, which were probably welcome. The pairing of Lanegan and Campbell may have come as a shock to fans of the latter (and maybe even the former) but the music itself was less than revelatory. Indeed, the Lee Hazelwood/Nancy Sinatra template is iconic for a reason, and to borrow it means to risk imitating them. It also means treading closely to Leonard Cohen, Scott Walker, or any other somber, late-1960s orchestral pop act.

Still, the results were beautiful and brooding, with Campbell's songwriting significantly enhanced by this very specific setting. Sequels, however, are inherently built on familiarity and a sequel to the solid yet by-the-books Ballad of the Broken Seas could be as problematic as the Hollywood models are. Yet while Sunday at Devil Dirt may be more of the same (with glimpses of Tom Waits' junkyard blues tossed in to good effect), Campbell and Lanegan were never out to do anything different. Once again, melancholy, minor-key folk melodies, and bits of spy-theme and spaghetti-western cool color the album, typically enhanced by only the classiest of accompaniment-- upright bass, strings, brushed drums, twangy electric guitars, and other chamber-pop mainstays. And once again, Campbell works better as a supporting player on her own record than as a leader, cooing and chiming away in the background. Sure, she provides most of the songwriting, but it's Lanegan who provides the gravitas.

Fortunately, Campbell seems to realize her place here as writer and arranger first and foremost, generally ceding the spotlight to Lanegan on the likes of the bleak (of course) "The Raven" and "Back Burner", the somewhat lighter country-blues of "Salvation" and "Sally Don't You Cry", and the spare folk of "Something to Believe". Compared to Lanegan, Campbell sounds thin singing lead on "Shot Gun Blues" or as duet partner on "Who Built the Road" and "The Flame That Burns". Her vocals are almost like post-production special effects.

In a lot of ways that's what makes the disc such a good, breezy listen. Campbell's turn on "Come On Over (Turn Me On)" aims for sultry yet can't get beyond sweet and innocent; in Lanegan, however, she's found a substitute singer that's a perfect match for the strength of her compositions, a rumbling, grumbling vessel through which to channel her songs, themselves channeling the vibe of a lost but not forgotten time of smoky bars, scratchy jukeboxes, convertibles, open roads, broken hearts, cheap motels, and cheaper thrills. It's a bit like a dust-specked and flickering faux Super-8 road trip reel, with Campbell manning the camera and sitting in the director's chair and Lanegan glowering away in the uncomfortable glare of the sun.

^{Source pitchfork.com}

J. Tillman

Joshua Michael Tillman (born May 3, 1981), also known as Father John Misty and previously J. Tillman, is an American singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer.

Maintaining a steady output of solo recordings since 2004, Tillman had been a member of or toured with Demon Hunter, Saxon Shore, Fleet Foxes, Jeffertitti's Nile, Pearly Gate Music, Siberian, Har Mar Superstar, Poor Moon, Low Hums, Jonathan Wilson, and has toured extensively with Pacific Northwest artists Damien Jurado, Jesse Sykes, and David Bazan.

He has also made contributions to albums by popular artists, including Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, and Kid Cudi, and has produced one album for Matthew Daniel Siskin, known as Gambles.

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J.J. Cale

John Weldon "J. J." Cale (December 5, 1938 – July 26, 2013) was an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter. Though he avoided the limelight, his influence as a musical artist has been widely acknowledged by figures such as Mark Knopfler, Neil Young and Eric Clapton, who described him as "one of the most important artists in the history of rock". He is considered to be one of the originators of the Tulsa Sound, a loose genre drawing on blues, rockabilly, country, and jazz.

Many songs written by Cale have been recorded by other acts, including "After Midnight" and "Cocaine" by Eric Clapton; "Call Me the Breeze" by Lynyrd Skynyrd, John Mayer, Johnny Cash, and Bobby Bare; "Clyde" by Waylon Jennings and Dr. Hook; "I Got The Same Old Blues" by Captain Beefheart, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Freddie King, and Bryan Ferry; "Travelin' Light" and "Ride Me High" by Widespread Panic; and "Magnolia" by Poco, Pat Travers, Beck, Lucinda Williams, Iron & Wine, José Feliciano, Ben Bridwell, John Mayer with Eric Clapton, Joan Shelley, and Sadie Johnson; as well as “Bringing It Back” covered by Kansas.

In 2008, Cale, along with Clapton, received a Grammy Award for their album The Road to Escondido.

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