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Aspiring to grandiose dreams of a career in music at a young age, Dominique Pruitt was caught in a cycle that so many teenagers fall into–struggling to map out the road to success. She often waxed romantic about the sprawling, twinkling landscape of Los Angeles and dreamt of the day she could ride off into the sunset. The San Fernando Valley lies only 30 minutes away, but it felt more like a hundred miles.
Born into a musical legacy — her father Larry Brown once played in The Association and Smothers Brothers before joining Engelbert Humperdinck in the ‘80s, where he met and forged a romantic relationship with her mother, singer Anne-Marie Brown (The Babys, Jon Waite) — Pruitt embarks on her own with a comeback singled called “High in the Valley.” From the Nancy Sinatra-smattered jingle to fusing rockabilly with the pop styles of the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s, Pruitt pays homage to the sounds of her youth while paving her own singular and refreshing path forward.
The song snarls and winds its way through the smoke of neon lights, transportive but modern. It’s her first bit of music in five years and shows remarkable growth, owed in large part to just living a life worth living. It’s that kind of exposure to reality that breeds singers and songwriters with something worthwhile to say. “Closest that I’ve ever been to God is a Bible on a nightstand at an old roadside motel,” she paints, drawing a parallel to her youth and upbringing that lacked a religious direction.
“I had written down that song title a few years ago. It was such a part of me at one point to feel like I was trapped in this hopelessness of being so close to what you want in a way but so far away,” she says of the song, written with Jasmine Ash, Joseph Holiday and Kenny Fleetwood. Amidst the flecks of cracked motel paint and peeling wallpaper, Pruitt finds herself plucked down in a Spaghetti Western.
She didn’t come to fully realize music was her destiny until her teen years. “It scared the shit out of me,” she confesses with a chuckle. Having been surrounded with her parents’ music and a well of musician and songwriter friends, Pruitt felt the pressure to lead the same lifestyle. She began singing out at 18 or 19, and it was evident the stage never felt more like home to her. The spotlights bearing down on her sequined costumes and larger-than-life presentation, she fully flies free.
Pruitt recorded some three demos of her father’s old songs in 2009, and in 2011 her music fell into the right hands and she was ultimately signed to Merovee Records. Her Dave Darling (Tom Waits, Brian Setzer)-produced EP called To Win Your Love arrived in 2013, and while she had her debut full-length all ready to go after working with Darling, things didn’t exactly feel right anymore, and the record was shelved. The label went belly up soon after, and she was left wandering around to find her next moves.
With space and time to breathe, Pruitt is more energized than ever these days. “High in the Valley” is a smokey concoction of forlorn spirits caught in grungy dive bars in nowhere middle America, the dust of the open road crawling along the floor and the neons piercing the crowd’s dilated pupils. Her spirit and heart are on full display, culled together with remarkable musical depth. “I love Wanda Jackson,” she says. “I went head over heels the first time I heard her.”
“I saw the movie Cry Baby when I was nine years old, and it shaped the form of my life,” she remarks on one her earliest influences. This love for and inspiration from all things vintage are readily apparent when you see her live. “That’s something important. I want to put on a show with a spectacle,” she says, citing how the movie Gypsy, starring Natalie Wood and Rosalind Russell, carries an equally indelible impact. Pruitt evokes imagery of vintage showgirls and the mystique of burlesque into her music and performances, beckoning the listener and concertgoer into a world long gone.
The accompanying visual, directed by Dana Boulos and styled by Shana Anderson, is inspired by fame French photographer Guy Bourdin. The aesthetic is classic without being pretentious, accessible but universal, colorful but not overexposed. Pruitt’s vocal is sly as a cobra whose venomous itch unleashes utter bedlam on an unsuspecting audience.
The singer is currently working on new music, expected soon on the heels of “High in the Valley”.
“Pruitt confidently struts between the realms of Americana and vintage pop.” – PopMatters
“Somewhere between Nicole Atkins, Jessie Baylin and the True Blood soundtrack.” – Rolling Stone
“Features everything you could ask for from the place that put the “Western” in Country and Western: steel guitar, reverb, spooky backing vocals, and that woodblock sound from all the cowboy soundtracks.” – Glorious Noise
“One of the most impressive lyrical tracks I’ve heard all year…From irony to just outright cleverness, it’s about the depths of sin and human identity but doesn’t feel preachy at all.” – Ear to the Ground
“A heavenly strip of music that worms through the noise of today’s music scene.” – B-Sides & Badlands
Publicist: Rachel Hurley
“For an independent artist, it can be scary investing in PR- but it’s also a crucial cog in the music machine! Baby Robot Media and Rachel Hurley, in particular, made the investment worth every damn penny. They truly kicked ass on my campaign and got me some killer press. Rachel was easy as pie to communicate with, quick to respond to everything, and made me feel supported EVERY step of the way. If I had to sum up my experience with Rachel it would be “above and beyond”!” – Dominique Pruitt