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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

Ciara Grace - Earthy and Edgy

A few months back, a publicist friend of mine Mike Farley sent me some information updating me on the artists he represents. I scrolled through the list, some names familiar, others less so and I happened upon the name of Ciara Grace. I was intrigued by the release of an album, Write It Down, that at that time was still three months away. I gave a listen to the music of the blonde, blue-eyed young woman, who I guessed to be late teens or very early twenties and found I was pretty close.

Ciara Grace’s music is earthy, edgy with some of the vocals and music being staccato in nature. The themes we want to say mostly dealt with relationships, but that would not be true, because the songs were all about relationships! Even though they were written between her high school years and the summer immediately prior to entering college, whether you are sixteen years old, twenty years old or forty-two years old, there is something here for everybody to sink their teeth into, both musically and lyrically. Yes, we are hearing the expression of feelings from what was then a teenage songwriter, and from a female perspective, but we think we are correct in saying that many women out there are going to listen and say, ‘I knew a guy just like that!” or ‘I remember that guy who treated me poorly,” and “I can’t believe I fell for that guy.’ Now, just so we do not give you the wrong impression, while some of these lyrics do bear the signs of feeling jaded or angry at the time, it is important to note that these are not angry songs, at least in our view. There are enough images and metaphors that keep this from becoming a dark brooding album and you can sink your teeth into the uneven beats and vocals.

We requested 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

Kori Linae Carothers

Cedar City, Utah, seems a long way from California, but so was Minnesota and Texas, just some of the stops along the way for pianist, composer, singer Kori Linae Carothers. New Age music is also a bit of a distance from the Contemporary Instrumental music and electronic music that she is best known for and yet early on the music industry seemed to want to pigeonhole her as a New Age artist, nothing wrong with that genre, but that is not the essence of who she is. Complete loss of hearing in her left ear and now taking injections to treat spasmodic dysphonia, a condition she shares with two siblings, has not stopped her from continuing her music career.

From her home in California, Kori Linae Carothers sat down with us to talk about her life, her music and might we dare say a very interesting date years ago, that resulted in her marriage to her husband.

“We moved to Texas when I was 15 and that was really hard. I didn’t do change at that age. What was really interesting about that move was nobody cared where I came from. There was not this popularity contest that I had in Minnesota. We moved from Minneapolis to a very tiny farming community southwest of Minneapolis and it was one of the hardest moves that I ever had. People would tease me, because my hearing was crappy, and it just was not a good time for me. That is when I started writing music,” Kori Linae Carothers explains, continuing she says, “I was thirteen and fourteen when things really started to come to my head. Then we moved to Texas and things got much better for me. I lived in Dallas.”

Before we go any further, let's go back, way back, "My dad's mom played piano 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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