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Rachael Sage - Interview

The first single that was released from Rachael Sage’s upcoming album The Other Side is “Whistle Blow,” a beautiful, retrospective song with a slow tempo. It is accompanied by an equally beautiful and artistic video. Under the direction of Jenny, He and with the Director of Photography Daniel Cho onboard, both seemed to be in complete unison with Rachael Sage’s lyrics and music.

She talks about the song, “One thing I wanted to convey with “Whistle Blow,” is that moment when someone is able to find the inner strength and to summon the courage to confront someone in a greater position of power, whether it is in a workplace or in a relationship, when they know that inappropriate boundaries have been crossed. When they have been abused or wronged in some way. There are innumerable examples of this every day when we watch the news. I have also experienced these dynamics and just as a witness in society I see it recurrently. The story in the video is interpreted through movement by the wonderful director Jenny He and (we) were able to convey that specific moment when a human being is able to say ‘No this is not right. I am not going to accept this anymore and I am moving to a more positive space and away from this negative energy and negative person.’

I had not worked with Jenny before, but I saw some examples of her work and I was blown away. I have never actually worked with a female director in this capacity and it was exciting for me. She is very talented and she trained at NYU. When we talked, we had a lot in common and we shared a feminine sensibility and a specific sensitivity to Read More

Fiona Joy Hawkins - New Music

It was time to get caught up with Australian composer, pianist and vocalist Fiona Joy Hawkins, as the last time we sat down with this affable and talented lady was in 2020. We connected with her at her home in Kendall, New South Wales, Australia. Although you do not often hear her mention it, Fiona Joy Hawkins has performed in some of the world’s most prestigious music venues.

Our conversation on this day, however, takes us far from those concert venues and to the Arctic and how she has combined her music with nature and video.

Acknowledging that her trip to the Arctic was a life changing event, she says, “Absolutely, it was probably the best time I ever had, and it was such an eyeopener with the beauty there. I want to do it again, but there are so many other things I want to do. It really made me aware of the problems there and aware of the power of music and the power of suggestion. I was on a boat that was full of writers, biologists, photographers and politically involved and motivated people. We had really famous political people and I can’t even say who. When I met all of these people I said, all I could really do is my music. There is nothing more that I feel I can do to help these situations. They said to me, in some ways you can do more than many of us.

I was like, really? Read More

Tim Easton - I've Been Everywhere

Roll back the decades and imagine busking on the streets of numerous European countries, at a time when travel was easier in Europe or counting among the places where you either lived or spent a great deal of time in your childhood and adolescent years, Ohio, Japan and Canada. It therefore is not a great leap of faith to understand why musician, singer and songwriter Tim Easton so easily embraced his nomadic music lifestyle early in his career. Fittingly enough, during our conversation, Tim Easton was on his way from Nashville through Kentucky, while on his way to Ohio for a gig. Do not worry folks he was handsfree the whole time. No, not on the steering wheel on the phone!

Wait you are thinking you said Tim was originally from Ohio, Akron to be precise. Well, he has also lived in Los Angeles and Joshua Tree, California and the aforementioned Nashville, Tennessee. It is almost as if Gene Mack’s 1959 song, “I’ve Been Everywhere,” was written for him.

Rather than start with the first song from the new album Find Your Way, we are going to begin with the last song on the record, one of the prettiest and most tender songs you will hear, “By The End of the Night.”

“Today when a songwriter is recording a song, he just turns his phone on and records whatever he has in a voice memo. That is why most of us songwriters will have 170 voice memos of half-written songs. It is Read More

Evie Sands

Evie Sands started her music career (writer puts hand over mouth and mumbles, as it is never polite to discuss a woman’s age) that many years ago, but you would never know it from her new album, her vocals are crisp, the music more imaginative than many of today’s artists, and that is not a slam on today’s musicians and songwriters, but rather a nod to Sands. If you were not aware of all that Evie Sands has already accomplished during her career, you might think she was just starting out, because of her unbridled enthusiasm. We wondered how she has managed to stay on top of her game and with such a contagious, positive and fun attitude.

“I trust in the music and then I let it go. I think it is probably a combination of things. It is my ongoing and will be forever, my insane passion for music, about making it, listening to it and breaking it down. I enjoy it, but I like to figure out what is that stuff sonically, what is going on and it is the enjoyment part of it. It is just ongoing. It is just like I was born, and I started listening. I just get excited. Then there is the striving to continually get better and all the skills that are involved, whether it is continuing to be a better singer, a better songwriter, better composer, a better musician, a better producer and engineer. It drives who I am.

I never look to chase the trends. I have learned that is a losing game. By the time we see and hear things, it already took a while for those things to be created and released, so by the time we say that must be the kind of stuff people want to hear and by the time I could get it out there it would be a day late and a dollar short. It would be old news. Also, it wouldn’t be honest, because for me making music is all about being connected to the heart. It is a combination of my heart and honesty. There is also Read More

Sylvia Hutton

Nature Child - A Dreamer’s Journey released recently by Sylvia Hutton, better known to music fans all over the world as the American Country Music Award, Billboard’s # 1 Country Music Female Artist and Grammy nominated singer Sylvia, is one of the most beautiful collections of story songs you will hear this year. With numerous # 1 and top ten hits to her credit, the former RCA artist, who has for many years recorded as an independent artist, once again collaborated with longtime friend John Mock (Dolly Parton, The Chicks, James Taylor, Kathy Mattea). Other co-writers includes Verlon Thompson, Craig Brickhardt and Thom Schuyler.

The opening song for the album “Avalon,” transports the listener to Camelot and the days of King Arthur. Sylvia and Verlon Thompson wrote “Avalon,” a beautifully orchestrated song with lush vocals by Sylvia. For any child, any teenager, any adult whoever wished you could close your eyes and open them to find yourself in a magical place, Sylvia invites you to take her hand to travel to a place where the walls are made of freedom and every tear becomes a shining star.

Normally, we would not credit so many musicians, but they earned their due on “Avalon,” guitars, both electric and acoustic by John Mock, as well as mandolin and percussion. Matt McGee played bass, Skip Cleavinger played the Uilleann pipes, oboe by Somerlie Pasquale, Emily Bowland on clarinet, trumpet (Jeff Bailey), French horn (Jennifer Kummer), violins by Conni Ellisor and Mary Kathryn Van Osdale, viola (Betsy Lamb) and cellist Nicholas Gold.

About the musicians, Read More

Madeleine Davis - One of a Kind!

If we told you that Madeleine Davis has lived a life full of adventure some might easily argue that is an understatement. She grew up the daughter of a Gospel singing mother, and a pharmacist father in Columbus, Georgia, near the Chattahoochee River, with one sibling, a brother at home and a sister eighteen years older, who had pretty much left home by the time Madeleine appeared on the scene.

Madeleine Davis had a lengthy career with Boney M (By the Rivers of Babylon, Rasputin) and a small sample of her work in the studio and / or live performances includes artists such as Precious Wilson, Hoyt Axton, Peggy March, Terence Trent D'Arby, Rick Astley, Klaus Doldinger, La Bionda and Amanda Lear. She was in demand by producers such as, Ralph Siegel, Tony Monn, Michael Kunze, Sylvester Levay, Giorgio Moroder and Frank Farian.

She sang in church as a young child, acted on stage as a teenager (there is a motorcycle story we will get to in a minute) and she was a soloist with the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, while still in university.

“My father was a lot older than my mother. He was fifty-nine when I was born and he was seventy-five when I was eighteen.

I grew up with a father who was in World War I. He had so much information for me when I went to school. When he was a paperboy the Titanic sank, Read More

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