'Singer-Songwriter' Bands // p 5 of 6

Rufus Wainwright

Rufus McGarrigle Wainwright (born July 22, 1973) is an American-Canadian singer, songwriter, and composer. He has recorded seven albums of original music and numerous tracks on compilations and film soundtracks. He has also written a classical opera and set Shakespeare sonnets to music for a theater piece by Robert Wilson.

Wainwright's self-titled debut album was released through DreamWorks Records in May 1998. His second album, Poses, was released in June 2001. Wainwright's third and fourth studio albums, Want One (2003) and Want Two (2004), were repackaged as the double album Want in 2005. In 2007, Wainwright released his fifth studio album Release the Stars and his first live album Rufus Does Judy at Carnegie Hall. His second live album Milwaukee at Last!!! was released in 2009, followed by the studio albums All Days Are Nights: Songs for Lulu (2010) and Out of the Game (2012). The double album Prima Donna (2015), was a recording of his opera of the same name. His ninth studio album Take All My Loves: 9 Shakespeare Sonnets (2016), featured nine adaptions of Shakespeare's sonnets.

Wainwright is the son of musicians Loudon Wainwright III and Kate McGarrigle, and the older brother of singer Martha Wainwright.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Ryan Adams

David Ryan Adams (born November 5, 1974) is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, and poet. He has released 16 albums, as well as three studio albums as a former member of rock/alt-country band Whiskeytown.

In 2000, Adams left Whiskeytown and released his debut solo album, Heartbreaker, to critical acclaim. The album was nominated for the Shortlist Music Prize. The following year, his profile increased with the release of the UK certified-gold Gold, which included the hit single, "New York, New York". During this time, Adams worked on several unreleased albums, which were consolidated into a third solo release, Demolition (2002). Working at a prolific rate, Adams released the classic rock-influenced Rock N Roll (2003), after a planned album, Love Is Hell, was rejected by his label Lost Highway. As a compromise, Love Is Hell was released as two EPs and eventually released in its full-length state in 2004.

After breaking his wrist during a live performance, Adams took a short-lived break, and formed The Cardinals, a backing band that accompanied him on his next four studio albums. In 2009, after the release of Cardinology (2009), Adams disbanded The Cardinals and announced an extended break from music due to complications from Ménière's disease. The break-up of Ryan Adams & The Cardinals was also attributed to the death of Ryan’s childhood friend and active bass player Chris Feinstein in 2009. Chris was known to his friends and band-mates as “Spacewolf”. The following year, however, Adams resumed performing and released his Glyn Johns-produced thirteenth studio album, Ashes & Fire, in late 2011. The album peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard 200. In September 2014, Adams released his fourteenth album, Ryan Adams, on his own PAX AM label, and formed a new backing band, The Shining, to support the release.

In 2015, Adams released 1989, a song-for-song cover of Taylor Swift's album of the same name, and worked on up to eighty songs for an album influenced by his divorce from actress and singer-songwriter Mandy Moore. The album, Prisoner, was released in 2017.

In 2019, Adams announced three albums to be released that year. However, the release of these albums was cancelled after several women, including a minor, came forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Adams.

In addition to his own material, Adams has also produced albums for Willie Nelson, Jesse Malin, Jenny Lewis, and Fall Out Boy, and has collaborated with Counting Crows, Weezer, Norah Jones, America, Minnie Driver, Cowboy Junkies, Leona Naess, Toots and the Maytals, Beth Orton and Krista Polvere. He has written Infinity Blues, a book of poems, and Hello Sunshine, a collection of poems and short stories.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Ryan Tanner

Songs steeped in Springsteen, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle,enduring, timeless storytellers who keep genre-namers busy. Is it folk? Is it rock? Is it country? The real questions are: does it move you? Does it take you somewhere? And, when listening to Ryan Tanner sing his songs, the answer is yes.

^{Source bandcamp.com}

Samantha Crain

Samantha Crain (born August 15, 1986) is a Choctaw-American songwriter, musician, producer, and singer from Shawnee, Oklahoma, signed with Ramseur Records (North America) and Full Time Hobby Records (UK/Europe).

Crain won 2 NAMMYs (Native American Music Awards) in 2009 for Folk Album of the Year and Songwriter of the Year. She also won the Indigenous Music Award for Best Rock Album in 2019. She has had songs featured on 90210, HBO's Hung, and in many independent documentaries and films, including Barking Water and UNRESERVED: The Work of Louie Gong. In 2017 and 2018, she worked with the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Mass. to compose and contribute music for the extensive T.C. Cannon exhibit "At the Edge of America." In July 2018, she self-released a collection of sonnets "En Masse: A Collection of 30 Sonnets by Samantha Crain".

^{Source Wikipedia}

Sean Hayes

Sean Patrick Hayes (born August 27, 1969) is an American singer-songwriter.

Hayes was born in New York City, and raised in Greensboro, North Carolina. He began playing traditional American and Irish music with a band called the Boys of Bluehill. He traveled the south, from the Black Mountain Music festival (LEAF Festival) in the Blue Ridge Mountains down to Charleston, South Carolina and eventually found his way to San Francisco, where he lived for two decades before moving to Sonoma County, California.

In his twenty year career as a musician, Hayes has won acclaim from fans and critics alike and had his music featured in a variety of television shows, films, and commercials. Hayes' song "Rattlesnake Charm" was re-mixed by DJ Mark Farina, and also appears on the Stéphane Pompougnac compilation Hôtel Costes, Vol. 8. His song "3 A.M." is featured on the soundtrack for the television show Kyle XY, and his song "A Thousand Tiny Pieces", was covered by The Be Good Tanyas and the group Blame Sally, and has appeared on the television show Brothers & Sisters. The song is also referenced in the Moth Radio Hour story as told by theoretical cosmologist Janna Levin. The HBO show Bored to Death featured his song "Fucked Me Right Up" on its second episode as well as on the soundtrack for the first season. This song was also featured in the German film, Resturlaub. His song "Turnaroundturnmeon" is part of Big Change: songs for FINCA, an album curated by Natalie Portman to benefit the anti-poverty organization FINCA. Hayes was also featured singing the duet "Ballantines" with Aimee Mann, released on her album Smilers. Hayes' song "Lucky Man" was used in the season four trailer for the show Rectify on the Sundance Channel.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Shovels & Rope

Shovels & Rope are an American folk duo from Charleston, South Carolina composed of husband and wife Michael Trent and Cary Ann Hearst. Combining threads from their individual solo careers, Shovels & Rope blends traditional folk, rock and roll and country rock.

Cary Ann Hearst was born in Mississippi in 1979 and raised in Nashville from 1987 until she attended the College of Charleston in 1997. During school she began performing music as a solo artist in local bars and venues. After graduating she toured, recorded and performed with various groups including Caravan and Borrowed Angels. Hearst saw Michael Trent, born in Denver but relocated to Charleston, performing with his band The Films in 2002 and they began touring with various artists including Jump, Little Children. Hearst released her first solo album Dust and Bones in 2006 and Trent released his self-titled solo album, also his first, in 2007.

In 2008 Hearst and Trent recorded and released the album Shovels & Rope as a co-bill under their individual names, not intended to ever create a permanent act. Hearst and Trent married in March 2009 and continued to perform and record their music for their individual solo careers. Hearst released the EP Are You Ready to Die in 2010 and the LP Lions and Lambs in 2011. Trent released The Winner in 2010.

At the end of 2010 filming began on a documentary titled The Ballad of Shovels and Rope about their life as a band. Originally slated for only 3 months of filming, it didn't end until September 2013. After filming finished a Kickstarter campaign was launched to help get the film finished and released.

In 2012, the pair committed to their joint venture and released an album together under the Shovels & Rope moniker entitled O' Be Joyful, which reached #123 on the Billboard 200.

The band made their network television debut playing "Birmingham" on Late Show with David Letterman, January 30, 2013. On September 18, 2013 at the Americana Music Honors & Awards Shovels & Rope received the honors of emerging artist of the year, as well as song of the year for their song "Birmingham". They also appear in an end scene, and provide the episode background music, for the Charleston episode of CNN's Anthony Bourdain: Parts Unknown.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Steve Gunn

Steve Gunn is a New York-based guitarist and songwriter. With a career spanning nearly fifteen years, Steve has produced volumes of critically acclaimed solo, duo, and ensemble recordings. His albums represent milestones of contemporary guitar-driven material, and forward thinking songwriting. Steve has steadily processed his inspirations into a singular, virtuosic stream. Close listening reveals the influence of blues, folk, ecstatic free jazz, and psych in his continually unfolding output. In 2016 Steve released, Eyes On The Lines, his first album for Matador Records which the Washington Post called, "so intimate and so mysteriously distant all at once". In January 2019 he followed it up with his breakthrough fourth album, The Unseen In Between where he explores his own emotional landscapes with his most complex, fully realized songs to date.

“The songs are sweeping, with intricate finger picking and rich instrumentation, the lyrics meditative and intimate” -New York Times

"It’s the most immediate set Gunn has ever made, a leap forward that’s thrilling to hear” -Rolling Stone

^{Source steve-gunn.com}

Steve Taylor

With a sound steeped in the sunlit tones of Laurel Canyon, the mid 60’s pop and R&B of the Brill Building, and the lo-fi synths of early prog rock, Los Angeles resident Steve Taylor makes cinematic, impressionistic psych-folk that pushes the envelope of the singer/songwriter genre. A multi-instrumentalist with a remarkably diverse background, he’s been tapped to play with everyone from LA electro soul group Rhye to bass prodigy Tal Wilkenfeld. He’s steadily recorded his new opus, “The Land of Milk and Honey”, in between international tours and recording gigs. A sparse, moody, and soulful record, it is full of ruminations on the search for an idyllic paradise amidst the chaos and loneliness of modern day life. Sonically, you will find layers of vintage organs, pianos, analog synthesizers, and dead drums, creating a sound that’s both modern and thoroughly informed by 70’s AM rock.

Influenced by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Nick Drake, and Joni Mitchell, his last album “Has the Size of the Road Got the Better of You?” was recorded at home and at the venerable Tiny Telephone Studio in San Francisco. The record showed the expanded influence of gospel music, something he explored while he was a guitarist and organist at a number of prominent African American congregations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Performing solo and with his band, Steve has played hundreds of shows, including headlining slots at The Independent and The Chapel in San Francisco, The Echo and The Hotel Café in LA, and The Hope & Anchor in London. An avid busker, he has made many fans the old fashioned way, through singing his heart out and pounding out his songs on his portable Helpinstill piano, an electrified acoustic remnant from the 70’s.

In addition to being an active solo artist, Steve has played as a singer, keyboardist and guitarist with an incredibly diverse range of collaborators, including Rhye, Skylar Grey, Lauren Ruth Ward, Duane Betts, Rogue Wave, Nicki Bluhm, and members of the Grateful Dead, CAN, Guns n Roses, The Edwin Hawkins Singers, Deathcab for Cutie, and The Dirty Projectors.

^{Source stevetaylormusic.com}

Stevie Wonder

Dubbed “Little Stevie Wonder” by Motown’s Berry Gordy, he was signed to the label when he was only 12 years old and was just 13 when the live recording “Fingertips (Part 2)” hit no. 1 pop and R&B. Playing harmonica, drums and keyboards, as well as singing, the boy who had been blind from infancy proved aptly named. While still a teenager--dropping the “Little” from his stage name--he earned seven top 10 pop singles, including “For Once In My Life,” “My Cherie Amour,” “Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday,” “Uptight (Everything’s Alright)” and “I Was Made To Love Her.”

By age 20, he was self-sufficient in the studio, writing, playing every instrument and serving as his own producer, including for such hits as “Signed, Sealed, Delivered I’m Yours” and “If You Really Love Me.” He broadened his vision from pure pop to the socially conscious. He began exploring exotic musical ideas incorporating gospel, rock, jazz, reggae, and African and Latin American rhythms, and pioneered the use of synthesizers. Turning 21 in 1971, Stevie holed up in a New York studio and refused to sign with Motown until he was given autonomy to record as he please. Motown agreed and the groundbreaking Music Of My Mind was released followed the next year. Later that year came Talking Book, which boasted the no. 1 pop and R&B hits “Superstition” and “You Are The Sunshine Of My Life.” Innervisions, featuring the Top 10 hit “Higher Ground,” “Don’t You Worry ’Bout A Thing” and the epic “Living For The City,” was a landmark LP that became the his first of three consecutive Grammy® Albums of the Year.

While the record was riding high, Wonder was in a near-fatal accident. He recovered to record another deeply felt album, Fulfillingness’ First Finale, in 1974, that featured the no. 1 pop “You Haven’t Done Nothin’” (with the Jackson 5 on background vocals) and no. 1 R&B “Boogie On Reggae Woman.”

Songs In The Key Of Life was an instant no. 1 album, the first by an American artist to debut at the top spot, where it remained for an incredible 14 weeks. It was highlighted by the no. 1 pop and R&B hits “I Wish” and “Sir Duke.” By the late seventies, Wonder was also leading the way in New Age instrumental music with the soundtrack album Journey Through The Secret Life Of Plants, which featured the ballad hit “Send One Your Love.” He won 15 Grammys in just four years.

^{Source facebook.com/StevieWonder}

Sun Kil Moon

Sun Kil Moon is an American folk rock act from San Francisco, California, founded in 2002. Initially a continuation of the defunct indie rock band Red House Painters, Sun Kil Moon is now the primary recording moniker of vocalist and guitarist Mark Kozelek. The project is named after the Korean super flyweight boxer Sung-Kil Moon.

Following the delayed release of Red House Painters' final studio album, Old Ramon (2001), vocalist and guitarist Kozelek began recording new material under the name Sun Kil Moon with bandmates Anthony Koutsos (drums) and Jerry Vessel (bass), alongside Geoff Stanfield and Tim Mooney. The resulting album, Ghosts of the Great Highway, was released in 2003 to widespread critical acclaim. The project's second studio album, Tiny Cities (2005), was composed entirely of Modest Mouse cover songs.

In 2008, the band released its third studio album, April. Recorded as a three-piece by Kozelek, Koutsos and Stanfield, the album was well received and featured guest vocal appearances from noted indie rock musicians Will Oldham and Ben Gibbard.

Inspired by classical guitar music, Kozelek recorded Sun Kil Moon's fourth studio album, Admiral Fell Promises (2010), as a solo act, and continued to record mostly alone on its follow-up, Among the Leaves (2012). In 2013, Kozelek released three studio albums under his own name before releasing Sun Kil Moon's sixth studio album, Benji, in February 2014, to widespread critical acclaim and increased exposure, with the band releasing their seventh studio effort, Universal Themes, in 2015. Sun Kil Moon's eighth studio album, Common as Light and Love Are Red Valleys of Blood, was released in February 2017, which was followed by their ninth studio album, This Is My Dinner, in November 2018.

^{Source Wikipedia}

Ted Lucas

Ted Lucas was a phenomenal musician who performed solo and in a number of bands. He appeared in-concert and was also a studio musician. He played numerous clubs, concerts, and colleges. Ted's musical career began in Michigan in the early 1960's, and continued until his death in 1992. He played primarily in the Midwest, but also performed in San Francisco, Manhattan, Windsor and Toronto Canada.

While Ted is best classified as a rock musician, he originally majored in classical guitar at Wayne State University. He was a student of Blues, Country, Jazz, Middle Far Eastern, and contemporary music. His inspirations and teachers included Jo Fava (guitar) & Ravi Shankar (sitar). He performed in-concert or opened for The Eagles, Frank Zappa, Yes, John McLaughlin, Black Sabbath, Ravi Shankar, and others.

Ted was a studio musician with Motown until they moved to Los Angeles. He was their 'exotic string' specialist and played balalaika, sitar, acoustic 6 or 12 string guitar and more.You can hear his work on albums by The Temptations, The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, and others. He also did session work at Warner/Reprise, RCA and other major labels.

Ted Lucas was a member of the original Spike Drivers. He also formed a number of bands including The Misty Wizards, The Horny Toads, Ted Lucas & the Phasers, The Androids and Boogie Disease.

Please browse in our online store to purchase Ted's limited re-issue color vinyl album and other music. And while you are here, peruse the photo gallery that includes both personal and band photos and images from the Lucas family archives.

^{Source tedlucas.net}

The Jayhawks

The Jayhawks are an American alternative country and country rock band that emerged from the Twin Cities music scene during the mid-1980s. Led by vocalists, guitarists and songwriters Gary Louris and Mark Olson, its country rock sound was influential on many bands who played the Twin Cities circuit during the 1980s and 1990s like Uncle Tupelo, the Gear Daddies and the Honeydogs. They have released ten studio albums with and without Olson who left the band in 1995, including five on the American Recordings label. On hiatus from 2005 to 2009, the 1994–1995 lineup of the band reunited, releasing the album, Mockingbird Time, in September 2011. After the tour, Mark Olson again left the band. After another hiatus in 2013, the 1997 lineup led by Louris reunited to play shows in 2014 to support the reissue of three albums released between 1997 and 2003. The band has remained active touring and recording since, including the release of the albums Live at The Belly Up in 2015, Paging Mr. Proust, produced by Peter Buck in 2016 and Back Roads and Abandoned Motels in 2018.

^{Source Wikipedia}

The Raven & The Writing Desk

Seasonal moulting. We need it - catharsis, change - we try to unstick ourselves to any one moment in time. This band has been many different bands. Who we are now might be completely different from who we will be tomorrow. In the past few years we set an emphasis on co-creation. We found ourselves in the woods writing music from morning to night - nothing but music. No rules - no preconceived ideas. We wanted to go about things with a little more purity in mind. You’ll hear many of these songs as we hit the road again this Spring. We are on to something - gonna follow it to the next scene.

Source theravenandthewritingdeskmusic.com

Tom Waits

Thomas Alan Waits (born December 7, 1949) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, composer, and actor. His music is characterized by his distinctive deep, gravelly voice and lyrics focusing on the underside of society. During the 1970s, he worked primarily in jazz, but since the 1980s his music has reflected greater influence from blues, vaudeville, and experimental genres.

Waits was born and raised in a middle-class family in California. He was inspired by the work of Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation as a teenager, so he began singing on the San Diego folk music circuit, relocating to Los Angeles in 1972. He worked there as a songwriter before signing a recording contract with Asylum Records. His first albums were the jazz-oriented Closing Time (1973) and The Heart of Saturday Night (1974), which reflected his lyrical interest in nightlife, poverty, and criminality. He has repeatedly toured the U.S., Europe, and Japan and has attracted greater critical recognition and commercial success with Small Change (1976), which he followed with Blue Valentine (1978) and Heartattack and Vine (1980). He produced the soundtrack for Francis Ford Coppola's 1981 film One from the Heart and subsequently made cameo appearances in several Coppola films.

In 1980, Waits married Kathleen Brennan, broke from his manager and record label, and moved to New York City. Under his wife's encouragement, he pursued a new, more experimental and eclectic musical aesthetic influenced by the work of Harry Partch and Captain Beefheart. This was reflected in a series of albums released by Island Records, including Swordfishtrombones (1983), Rain Dogs (1985), and Franks Wild Years (1987). He continued appearing in film, taking a leading role in Jim Jarmusch's Down by Law (1986). In the 1990s, his albums Bone Machine (1992), The Black Rider (1993), and Mule Variations (1999) earned him increasing critical acclaim and various Grammy Awards. In the late 1990s, he switched to the record label Anti-, which released Blood Money (2002), Alice (2002), Real Gone (2004), and Bad as Me (2011).

Waits' albums have met with mixed commercial success in the U.S., while they have occasionally achieved gold status in other countries. He has a cult following and has influenced many singer-songwriters, despite having little radio or music video support. In 2011, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was included among the 2010 list of Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Singers, as well as the 2015 Rolling Stone's 100 Greatest Songwriters of All Time.

Triggers & Slips

Not being down with the Utah scene, I hung out in cyberspace with ‘Triggers and Slips’ a while and first stop was the Small Lake City Concert Series and a version of Alice in Chains’ ‘Rooster’. Mormon descendent Morgan Snow takes a pinch of that grungy flavour and the ‘Slips’ sneeze dirty country vibes all over it, resulting in kind of a cross between Son Volt and Pearl Jam. It’s a virus that one can only imagine is going to spread rapidly as the rest of the album hits our shelves, venues and, yes, online platforms of choice.

To dig further into the ethos of ‘Triggers and Slips’ reveals that in fact the band leadership, songwriting and roots are very much intertwined with John Davies. Davies is vocal wingman, multi-instrumentalist and owner of a delightfully simple name considering his trade. Here is a band that carry themselves like men and play their music with redoubtable authority. Don’t let that fool you that it’s not fun though. Good production can sound very spontaneous when done right. The title track is all the proof you need of that, as a slow distorted intro gives way to honky-tonk piano, Hammond organ and duelling guitars, fading in and out over an outlaw country shuffle while Snow, for all the world a 21st Century Waylon, holds court as master of ceremonies. “We’ve been pushing our luck/We’re bound to fuck up…” his voice is a finely tuned country music weapon in peak condition. There are elements of border country in ‘Natchez Trace’, the dusty desert fandango style strongly vying with the rock n roll of Uncle Sam for prominence. ‘Old Friends’, which first appeared on the band’s 2012 self-titled EP is a bromance reunion epic, replete with spectacular fiddle and toe-tapping piano solo work by the band’s honky tonkin’ electro dj, the ‘Time Chimp’ – Greg Midgley. It’s been dragged from the gutter, polished to a shining star of a song and given centre stage on ‘The Stranger’. The combination of country and slow bluesy Jeff Beck overtones on ‘I’m Not Your Baby’ hints at the broad horizons that ‘Triggers And Slips’ have embraced while Snow clings to his love of grunge with that overhaul of ‘Rooster’.

Morgan Snow was a drug and alcohol therapist when he stumbled on the name for his band, Triggers and Slips was the heading of some notes on a group session one of his co-workers was leading. Much of this album concentrates, in the great traditions, on matters of the heart and of the soul. Described as songs that will “hit you in the gut” the blend of skilful delivery, first-class production and songcraft of the highest standard makes ‘The Stranger’ a game-changer for these men of Utah.

^{Written by Tim Merricks}

^{Source americana-uk.com}