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John Calvin

“One of the telltale signs of an elite songwriter is sincerity, a quality John Calvin inherently exudes. His lyrics are poetic in nature, while the music is entrenched within the rich traditions of American folk music.” – V13

“Wrapped In folk mystique & intrigue… blends jazzy drums with folk storytelling… a whirlwind of a listen. The unpredictable crashing of the drums slides into droning keys with a twangy twist, creating a collage-style arrangement and a beautiful canvas for Calvin’s introspective songwriting. On a bed of relaxed melodies, the singer/songwriter digs into a vulnerable place and emerges with a palpable longing… a pure country ballad that challenges the genre’s tropes to land on a colorful middle ground between blues, jazz, and indie rock.” – Glide Magazine

“His Tom Petty and Wilco sincerity emphasizes being the best father possible, while also trying to minimize inherited trauma… this song naked of empathy… beautiful melancholic Chick Corea style vibe that swells with cinematic strings.” – Soulwavez

“A totally sincere and melancholic song… a calm that embraces our soul… a violin enters to wrap our hearts in a very good aura… There’s no doubt about the excellent talent of John Calvin, as he has the ability to transmit powerful emotions and messages in every second of [‘I Can Make Your Heart Mine’].” – Zona Emergente

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John Calvin – Greener Fields & Fairer Seas LP (out Jan. 24, 2025)

Americana heartland-rocker John Calvin’s new LP Greener Fields & Fairer Seas (out Jan. 24) is an antidote to the world’s ills. It’s a bold statement that no matter how bad things get, a silver lining always follows. Poetic lyrics weave through a rich tapestry of folk (and occasionally overdriven) guitars, organs, orchestral strings and gospel backing vocals, reminding us to pay attention to the world around us and to choose kindness in our daily lives. It’s an album that delves into the horrors of the pandemic years, while projecting hope through building a family, fatherhood and Texas. This is an album about growing up.

The tongue-in-cheek irony of the title Greener Fields & Fairer Seas isn’t lost on Calvin. “I have a wonderful life, wife and kids,” says Calvin. “I have a lot to be thankful for, but there’s always something more to strive for. Stumbling from bar to bar in my past life was fun, but having people in my life who believe in me inspires me to be a better person.”

Written while Calvin was in the throes of COVID in the early days of the 2020 pandemic, the album kicks off with the uplifting “Rest of My Roads.” Piano and organ peek out before building into its cacophonous orchestral chorus. Eric DeFade’s wailing saxophone solo cuts through the maelstrom in this song about coming to terms with one’s mortality. It has the musical complexity and emotional resonance of The Band while utilizing the loud-quite-loud ebb and flow of the Pixies. The uncertainty of the time is lyrically emphasized in the well-worn metaphor of, “We’re sowing those seeds / Just to watch ‘em grow.”

“I was shivering and sweating,” says Calvin. “I was looking out the window at the leaves and the shadows they were casting. It was a strange, Pink Floyd, psychedelic experience. The grocery stores were out of food and paper. I was eating the same Campbell’s soup every night, until I just stopped eating. People were dying and we didn’t know what was going to happen. It was scary knowing that my kids were relying on me for their safety. I made a promise to myself and my family to not take things for granted.”

The Tom Petty meets Wilco sincerity of “I Can Make Your Heart Mine” emphasizes being the best parent you can possibly be, while attempting to minimize inherited trauma. “What I can’t leave behind / I’ll have to carry on / But I can make your heart mine / I can hold you close and let you go,” Calvin sings as his honest vocals trade off with bass, drums and Rhodes organ in this stripped-bare song of empathy. A phantom guitar is implied through its beautiful, Chick Corea-eque melancholic vibe that crescendos with cinematic strings.

“It’s important to see things from a child’s perspective,” says Calvin. “I use empathy to help my children grow. Your wins will be my wins. Your losses are my losses. You’re worthy of that. We make mistakes and that’s okay. Be accepting of what you can’t control. Listening to the case they’re making will get you 90% there. If you did your job right, your kid will be able to walk away as a mostly unscathed adult.”

The acoustic “Hazel or Blue” is an ode to Calvin’s late grandmother and the family mythology that she passed along. Calvin’s finger-picked guitar dances with the pedal steel as DeFade’s ethereal flute flitters and fades in and out of existence. “The kids in our family either had hazel or blue eyes,” says Calvin, “and the story went you had to worry about the kids with blue eyes.” It’s a song about not making the same mistakes as your parents, or passing them on to your own children.

The pedal steel-centric and geologic “Austin Chalk” ruminates on our oldest human mythology, the flood, while feeling just as timeless. The Austin Chalk is a massive and ancient outcropping of limestone that travels, like Calvin’s troubadourian guitar strums, from Dallas, to Austin, to San Antonio. The bed of underground rock would cause flooding from the Trinity River in certain areas of South Dallas, which have always been separated by racial and economic lines. Lush green spaces intermingled with poverty. The song lives in a mellow Khruangbin-esque drizzle before exploding like a thunderclap on the chorus, all while evoking wet ground previously tread in Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Texas Flood.”

“I was sitting on my patio playing that rolling intro on my J-50 when it started to rain,” says Calvin. “I’d play louder to keep up with the noise of the storm, then quiet down when there was a lull. Then out of nowhere, someone yelled, ‘Hey, we got a flood on our hands!’ I started thinking about the 4.5 billion year-old Earth versus the 200,000 years us humans have had. Our short time on this planet was a big orienting principle. We’re only here for the blink of an eye.”

Similarly, the wondrous post-grunge song “Gravity” takes on the weight of the world and the crushing inescapability of time. “All the heroes are ground to dust / Just to pave the street / As we waltz along endlessly / To a tune we call time,” he sings.

The plaintive “Saint Innocent” is about coping with the loss of his wife’s best friend. The title is taken from a pinot noir they’d all drink together, while winking at its religious implications. It ruminates on dealing with loss in unhealthy ways. Calvin’s grief can be felt through his primal vocals and impassioned guitar work. Pete Freeman’s furious pedal steel wails and Kelsey Jumper’s sorrowful backing vocals carry the emotional resonance of Joe Cocker’s “With A Little Help From My Friends.”

“Ellen and my wife were peas in a pod,” says Calvin. “We thought we’d spend our lives with her. She’d do firework shows professionally around Michigan. She loved it. She’d have a beer and just watch the fireworks. She was one of those people who just wanted to bring you something lovely and unexpected. Her love and dedication to fireworks was great. I sing, ‘paint those starry skies for me,’ and every time I see fireworks I still think about her.”

The gentle and touching “She Might Be a Song” is also about Ellen, and her succumbing to cancer. Calvin’s lyrical imagery and metaphors of cells dividing, ultraviolet light and “a summer dress of lead” is heartbreaking. Its threadbare intimacy is an alchemical portal into Calvin’s soul, like he’s whispering psychedelic secret truths to each of us listeners individually. It’s incredibly personal yet we all have to deal with the universality of death. It’s tragic and touching, all while feeling like we’re absorbing ancient wisdom in his anguish.

The washed out and trippy “High is My Favorite Height” comes from an off-handed quip from Calvin’s son when he was five years old and staring out of a car window at Texas overpasses shooting into the sky. It’s about seeing things from unique perspectives and opening your mind to the world around you. It calls to the listener to embrace childlike innocence and wonder through its mind-bending space echo. “It took the purple one to rein me in / And the green to settle down again,” Calvin sings, reminiscent of the Hunter S. Thompson Fear and Loathing quote “[we had] a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, laughers, screamers…”

Calvin attended the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, and his song “Our Souls Have Broken Chains” is about Heather Heyer who was fatally injured during the white supremist Unite the Right rally there. It’s a song of frustration at injustice that rolls in like a thunderstorm. The musical tension echoes the fear we all feel from the people who deem us different from them, enemies — people who might kill us because of that feeling. The pandemic years brought these feelings to the forefront through unnecessary violent deaths. George Floyd. Trayvon Martin. Freddie Gray. The song explodes in swirling strings and a near-screaming outro. Calvin’s demand for respect and kindness is like screaming into the void — into a wind that refuses to carry his words to those who need to hear them most.

“I thought that we could come together as a country and hold people accountable,” says Calvin, “that we could change the system. A woman doing the right thing. She’s just protesting. We all should have a right to protest, and she gets run down by an idiot in a Charger. It just broke my heart. We need to stop that primal instinct to think of another person as ‘other,’ to the point that you’d kill them. As a people, we need to find ways to defuse that powder keg.”

“Ode to Denis Johnson” is a love letter to the author, perhaps most known for the short story collection Jesus’ Son. Like the author, this song is fun and harrowing, particularly with it’s opening line of “Kill yourself / In the company of strangers.” It’s California gothic meets Velvet Underground New York skeeze.

“He’s this Raymond Carver type character,” says Calvin. “I was raised Catholic, and his views on Catholicism resonated. The church is for people who’ve made mistakes and are trying to deal with them. People who aren’t visible to the rest of society. Whose trials and tribulations are close to the ideals of Catholicism. The meek inheriting the earth. The Beatitudes, Sermon on the Mount is much more in line with the type of people that Jesus hung out with. It’s about being kind and understanding to the people among us who are struggling most. Denis Johnson got that and turned it into awesome books. There’s also an undercurrent of self sacrifice in Dennis Johnson that’s less healthy. There’s a religious theory that says Jesus was God so he could’ve saved himself. It’s a perspective that can’t be gained by living a simple life.”

The fingerstyle guitar, bossa nova percussion, and loungy organ of “Sturgeon Moon” brings a carefree spirit to this song that embraces the freedom of New York City living. His poetic lyrics take nothing for granted while embracing a beautiful day, moving through trains, or sitting at a cafe sipping on coffee and wine. The ‘60s chunky-pop, Phil Spector wall of sound “Garden State Variety” swirls and swoons as a poignant and soulful love-at-first-sight song.

Album closer “Shenandoah” is a traditional folk song that Calvin performs with sludgy, overdriven guitars and a four-on-the-floor dirge of percussion. Imagine Springsteen, Pete Seegar and Pearl Jam on a camping trip, singing this around a fire with amps up to eleven. This is an album that’s captured a specific time and place in America, and “Shenandoah” is the perfect sendoff in the vein of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.”

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Calvin’s story begins two generations ago with his finger-picking grandfather’s Gibson J-50 named Jumbo. He passed away when Calvin was eight years old and it sat unplayed in an attic. Years later, his step-grandmother found out he was playing guitar and bequeathed Jumbo to him. Jumbo and Calvin forged a relationship that has culminated in this new album.

“Jumbo isn’t set up right,” says Calvin, “but I love its sound. I always kept this guitar near me, and it always got played. It has this Neil Young mid-range, and I learned as many of his songs as I could. I was writing songs on this guitar my whole life, but it wasn’t until I got laid off in 2008 that I got serious about it.”

Calvin grew up a military brat, and continues a nomadic lifestyle where the only constant of home is his heirloom guitar Jumbo. Born at Fort Benning, Georgia, Calvin moved nearly every two years of his childhood: up and down the East Coast, to South Korea, to Germany, to living near the Pentagon for high school. He attended UVA in Charlottesville. From there he spent four Burning-Man-attending years in San Francisco and Oakland before settling down in New York City where he met his wife and started his family. Work moved him and his family to Dallas where he put out his debut album Masquerade Monday (2018), and wrote the lion’s share of Greener Fields & Fairer Seas. Now Calvin’s started a new South Florida life with his family in Boca Raton.

Very much a New York City album, the songs that made up Masquerade Monday dealt with frustration and loss — the emotional transition of losing his job and the stability that provided, and the loss of a long-term relationship before he met his wife. This primal scream of an album is epitomized in the vivid imagery of songs like “Beautiful & Wasted,” about cautiously watching the cocaine decline of a friend during his more wild NYC days, and the dark, Nick Cave-esque, finger-picked “Run,” which feels like a nightmare where you’re being chased by a faceless entity — where you know that there’s respite ahead, as long as you don’t stop moving.

“I felt like everything was falling apart at that time in my life,” says Calvin. “I was walking with a limp. It had taken a physical toll. I had a friend in Pittsburgh who offered to record the album for me, and that was the first time I worked with Nate Campisi. He heard things in my songs and brought in additional musicians to build this really full sound. It was that experience that inspired me to musically keep going.”

Working with Campisi inspired new songs in Calvin. He loved the recording process and wanted to work with the same people for the next album. Where Masquerade Monday had a loose, hangout feel with yawning tempos, Calvin wanted to do it again with more precision. For years, he’d grab his J-50 and fly from Miami to Pittsburgh every couple of months.

“To carry-on my guitar,” says Calvin, “I had to practically become a paralegal to wrestle with the gate agent every time. I’d stay walking distance to the studio. We did two weeks with drummer Pat Coyle to lock in the base elements. Every subsequent trip was to refine and record the other musicians. I did that for three years. I believe in allowing a song to be organic. To breathe. To allow the song to be human. Embracing flaws as features.”

The time spent to craft this record was well worth it. This is an audiophile’s album. Calvin and Campisi emphasize instruments in specific moments, building complexity and depth in its production and arrangements. It’s an engaging listening experience reminiscent of Tom Waits’ Mule Variations or Leonard Cohen’s early work. Where Masquerade Monday was about loss, Greener Fields & Fairer Seas is about better times now and in the future.

TRACK LIST:
01 – Rest of My Roads
02 – I Can Make Your Heart Mine
03 – Austin Chalk
04 – Gravity
05 – Saint Innocent
06 – She Might Be a Song
07 – Sturgeon Moon
08 – Garden State Variety
09 – High is My Favorite Height
10 – Hazel or Blue
11- Our Souls Have Broken Chains
12- Ode to Denis Johnson
13 – Shenandoah

ALBUM CREDITS:
All songs written by John Calvin except “Shenandoah”
Produced by Nate Campisi

John Calvin: acoustic guitar, vocals
Greg DeCarolis: guitar, bass, piano, Hammond organ, Rhodes, glockenspiel
Pat Coyle: drums, percussion, backing vocals
Kelsey Jumper: backing vocals
Eric DeFade: sax, flute, brass arrangements
Robert Matchett: trombone
Joe Herndon: trumpet
James Hart: pedal steel
Pete Freeman: pedal steel
David Bernabo: brass and string arrangements, Rhodes
Nadine Sherman: cello
Sandro Leal-Santiesteban: violin
Ashley Freeburn: violin
Jason Hohn: viola
Ricardo Cortés: art & art direction

John Fusco: photography

Recorded and mixed by Nate Campisi at Mr Smalls Recording Studio, Pittsburgh, PA
Mastered by Reuben Cohen at Lurssen Mastering, Burbank, CA

Sparxsea – On the Sea LP

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“Sparxsea blends high quality sonic production with organic tones and instrumentation, deep, sometimes baritone vocals, down-tempo electro-beats, and a carefully crafted lyricism which exists in total harmony alongside a modern folk sensibility. Her music weaves effortlessly between emotional anthems and inspiring psalms that deal with hard-hitting topics like loneliness and depression.” – The Big Takeover

“Sparxsea heals us and herself with her soulful voice and somber story of hope.” – Now Entertainment

“Her vocals are haunting and full-bodied.” – Portland Press Herald

“Blends acoustic instrumentation, deep vocals and down-tempo beats with adroit lyricism and a modern folk sensibility to create a sound entirely her own.” – VENTS Magazine

“We’re thrilled that Sparxsea is taking a stereotypically dull genre such as folk and revitalizing it with her own signature sound and endless charm.” – We Write About Music

“Sparxsea is an angel sent here to inspire us.” – A&R Factory

“A great and growing catalog of cinematically toned releases… Sparxsea has long found her particular sound and still manages to evolve it with each new track.” – The Sounds Won’t Stop

“The soothing tone of Sparxsea’s voice just sways across the listening room like air.” – New Groove Magazine

“We will end the month on a note full of peace and love thanks to that surprising and unworldly musical experience.” – The Further

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Sparxsea – On the Sea LP (out Sep. 13)

Soulful singer-songwriter Sparxsea’s gentle new indie folk-pop album On the Sea (out Sep. 13) begins with her leaving home to set sail on her “Little Wooden Boat.” Each subsequent song is a part of her own hero’s journey, but there’s no returning home. The album ends with her sinking into the “Deep.” It isn’t death that she finds there, but a whole new world to explore. There’s hope in Sparxsea’s pain. She’s a sister in trauma reminding us that we’re not alone, and although this world can be shallow and cold, we can find the warmth and love to carry on and thrive given time, friendship and compassion.

On the Sea features Dana Colley & Jerome Deupree of Morphine, Tim Reynolds (Dave Matthews Band), Nikki Glaspie (Beyoncé, Dumpstaphunk, Nth Power), Rebecca Kingsley (Wyclef Jean), Nate Edgar (Nth Power, John Brown’s Body), Devon Colella (QUAD), and David Yearwood (Forét Endôrmie). It was produced by Will Bradford (SeepeopleS, theWorst) and Will Holland (Pixies, Dead Can Dance) at Chillhouse Studios in Boston.

Sparxsea was featured in the L.L. Bean x Bull Moose Music summer concert series, opened multiple sold-out theater shows for Tim Reynolds, shared the stage with SeepeopleS, Clarisse Karasira, grammy-winner Dave Gutter of The Rustic Overtones, and performed at the ARME Boot Camp 2 Festival and Maine Folk Festival. Her debut single, “Alive” (2016), was featured in the 2022 indie film Dole Mates (DBC Productions), and her haunting pop ballad “Don’t Let The Fire Die,” was composed for the 2019 Damnationland soundtrack and film festival.

Sparxsea’s name, art and music confronts the dichotomy of the human condition. Fire and water meets beauty and pain. The happiness of light mingles with the subaquatic darkness of the depths. The radiance of her soul twists like a celestial leviathan around the harrowing path that led her to this collection of songs.

On the Sea kicks off with “Little Wooden Boat,” an ethereal dreamscape about leaving everything you know behind for the great unknown. It embraces the discomfort of being out of your element. It encourages bravery in the face of trials and tribulations, especially when you feel at your most alone and unsure. It’s an ancient metaphor that feels fresh and poignant through Sparxsea’s calming vocals. The video for “Little Wooden Boat” stars Holly Martin (Wind Hippie Sailing), who’s been circumnavigating the globe in a solo sailboat for the past five years.

The indie-pop ballad “Roses in the Street” balances piano synths and modern drum programming with acoustic guitars, Sparxsea’s romantic vocal delivery, and exceptional harmonies. It’s an electro-rock slow dance that toys with the stark imagery of a single rose growing through a city sidewalk. It’s an inspirational song that acts as a personal cheerleader, reminding you that you have the strength to get through the hard parts of life.

“This is a ‘darkest before the dawn’ song,” says Sparxsea. “That last hour before dawn, before that rose breaks through the concrete into the street and becomes something beautiful for people to appreciate. I write about what I need to get through hard times, words that I need to hear. It’s a song about abundance. There’s enough love out there for everyone. You just have to be open to it. Everything can seem very hard until you break through.”

The “Roses in the Street” video was shot at Sandy Point, Maine, where a kaleidoscopic menagerie of roses move from darkness and fire to daylight and water. In a striking image, Sparxsea moves like a goddess among manmade structures that contrast against the natural coastline. She then plucks a rose from the clouds she walks on, as the sun rises.

The jangle pop “Daylight” is a shining star among some of her more desolate songs, with its driving drum beat from Deupree and bright guitars reminiscent of R.E.M. or Alvvays. It’s a lyrical call to action to give someone your support and to reevaluate your own support network. It’s important that we show in words and actions that we believe in our friends and family. “I see a daylight burning bright in you / and rays full of golden truth / seeding creation in my heart / a garden full of memories / an everlasting light,” she sings.

“I’d dream of these beautiful gardens and think they were so far away,” says Sparxsea. “One day I realized we are both the gardens and the light. The light to grow that garden is there, inside of all of us. Then, our gardens lay seeds of creation for others. It’s not as easy as flipping a lightswitch to get through hard times, but maybe hearing my words will uplift someone, even just a little bit.”

The beautifully cinematic video for “Daylight” is brimming with love and compassion. It follows Sparxsea as she sings and plays her guitar, intercut with heartwarming interactions with wild mustang horses rescued from neglectful and abusive homes at Ever After Mustang Rescue ranch in Biddeford, Maine. In 2022, the matriarch and director of Ever After passed away and they’re now in great need of donations and volunteer support to care for their ten remaining horses, down from thirty. The family hopes to revive the farm back to its full glory as a seaside sanctuary, rehabilitation, and community riding center.

“Daylight” will be released via non-profit label CommunityZ RecordZ, who works with influential artists to give back to grassroots charities in their hometowns, with a portion of the profits going to help Ever After get back on its feet.

The atmospheric and chill “Essence of Me” is a dancey journey towards building a happy life — musically and meditatively transcendent. The finger-picked acoustic guitar breathes life into indie-pop electronic drums as Sparxsea’s layered vocals gush heart-on-her-sleeve confessional truths. “Tomorrow’s the day I’m moving far away / leave everything / bringing favorite things and love / placing every single piece so beautifully/ ‘till walls tell stories of our adventure in the sky / this is the essence of me,” she sings. It’s a personal song of leaving your emotional baggage behind to build something new, and to always embrace growth.

“Although my life is blessed with beauty and love,” says Sparxsea, “the difficulty of growing up with alcoholic parents, and fearing the constant fighting for 18 years, created a huge people-pleaser out of me. Safety became my happiness. I built an existence by monitoring my surroundings, reacting for peaceful outcomes, and staying silent with my own desires and emotions. Therefore, I built a ‘safe’ life that harbored an ever-deepening well of secrets and pain, along with an ever-burning desire to express it all. ‘Essence’ is about stripping away all the safeguards we build throughout our lives and just letting loose, having fun, and being swept away in the moment. I think we can all sing this song for ourselves. At the end of the day, our inner child wants to play.”

The video for “Essence of Me” was shot in the bayou outside of New Orleans. Its imagery of nature and Sparxsea are visually intertwined through avant garde multiple exposures that echo the tumultuous trek and ultimate joy that got her to this point in her life.

“While we were filming in the swamp,” says Sparxsea, “after everything else was stripped away, we were left with standing water and stuff that hadn’t been dealt with for a long time. I was still full of feelings, still full of things similar to a swamp. I felt more and more excited as I went through the process of editing the video. I felt like I’d gone from the bottom of the barrel to this point of celebration.”

In a whirlwind romance that wasn’t meant to last, “Chariot” takes on the spirit of adventure through electronic beats and Sparxsea’s singer-songwriter earnestness. Sparxsea met a man with a boat who planned on sailing the world. They’d take his barely functioning dingy up and down the coast, hunting for sea glass until it was time for him to sail away.

A campfire crackles in the background of “Glow” as Sparxsea sings and plays her acoustic guitar alongside Colley on the bass clarinet. It’s a gentle song that embraces peaceful childhood memories of nature. There’s wonder and awe in the stillness and space left between the two musicians as Sparxsea continues to embrace metaphors of fire and water.

The folk-pop “Forever Love” is a tender and moving ode to love and the changing seasons of our lives. It’s brought to life by Deupree’s sympathetically emotive drumwork and Reynolds’ sensitive classical guitar picking. Written in the aftermath of her mother’s sudden opioid death and a codependent and tumultuous seven-year relationship, Sparxsea heals us and herself with her soulful voice and story of hope.

“Tim was on tour with TR3,” says Sparxsea, “and came into Chillhouse after his Boston show. We worked on the song from like midnight to three in the morning. It was such a fun late-night session and I was just in awe of how beautiful his classical guitar tracks were laid down. It was cool to get both Tim and Jerome into Chillhouse to record.”

The piano-pop “Glisten” is about the light her grandmother left when she passed away. Sparxsea’s flute harmonies float and flutter, embracing her belief in the transmutation of light after death. “This is a very healing song,” says Sparxsea. “We’ve all lost people in our life. We can all identify with loss. It’s universal. My mother enjoyed that song. I feel a strong connection to my mom through that song. It’s helped me heal.”

The anthemically cinematic “Gold” was co-written with Kingsley (best known for her bachata collaboration with Wyclef Jean to cover Fugees’ “Killing me Softly with his Song”). Sparxsea and Kingsley trade verses over big orchestral strings and stadium-splashed drums by Glaspie. It’s a song stating that our self-worth doesn’t diminish despite difficult life circumstances, that our brilliance shines even brighter because of them. “Thirty cents overdrawn / million things going wrong / ‘till you remember / you’re rich in heart and soul / you’re gold,” they sing together in the chorus.

The soul-ballad “Circles” is an organic piano-and-vocals performance that’s a statement track in the sphere of Adele or Alicia Keys. It’s a song crafted to inspire young girls, or perhaps a song sung to the ghost of Sparxsea’s past self. It encourages breaking the cycles of trauma, to find the strength to realign your heart and your place in the world. It’s the catharsis that this album deserves as the penultimate song before ending with “Deep.”

Collective trauma meets collective healing in the powerful yet somber “Deep.” It opens with a dark, scratchy, synthetic cello that echoes its lyrical theme of healing as a solitary endeavor while feeling a part of the greater world at the same time. It’s clacking metal polyrhythmic percussion emphasizes the feeling of sinking into mysterious depths. Its contemplative and eerie quietness bridges the ethereal fae of Enya with the devilry of Nick Cave.

“I was looking back at the rest of the album,” says Sparxsea, “and after dealing with my anxiety and healing, I was ready to go deep. My little wooden boat was built up into a ship, but now it was sinking. Going deep. Once you’re there, it’s not easy to feel the feelings. It’s messy. Going deep is the healing part. This song leads into the next record I’m working on. I’ve gone so deep that I’m exploring the surface of a new world — a thundering dark, ethereal, orchestral dream that tells secrets and alchemizes worlds with its electric current.”

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Sparxsea grew up in a small town in Northern Maine, in a house with loving/abusive, musician/alcoholic, supportive/dysfunctional parents. During the day she was surrounded by the calming forest and the peace that nature can provide. But when night came, things shifted into turbulence and sadness. She’d spend her childhood with her sister weathering the trauma of their parent’s nightly mayhem. Would the police be called again tonight? Then the morning would come, and the cycle would start again. The lifetime repetition of this mental strain left the children with complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD).

“CPTSD causes your brain to form around those survival mechanisms,” Sparxsea says. “It’s wired into your subconscious in a much stronger way. Your thoughts and behaviors are a result of the traumas that become survival mechanisms that don’t always serve you in the best ways in life. And some of them actually did. My parents were and are great people, they were just very affected by addiction. My dad said that playing music five nights a week caused the alcoholism for them. I’m able to look at things in a clear headspace now, to see the good with the bad, as a life experience that’s formed me.”

Despite the Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde chaos of their homelife, the sisters were instilled with a rural discipline that’s worked well for Sparxsea. The sisters both competed in biathlons and trained with the Olympic team. Sparxsea’ sister was on the U.S. team. “In high school, I worked on the potato harvester,” says Sparxsea. “Every year, we’d get out of school for two weeks in late September / early October. That’s harvest break, when the potatoes get farmed. In my hometown, if you say you worked the potato harvest, they already know they’re going to hire you or pick you for their sports team, because they know your work ethic.”

While Sparxsea was in high school, the family held an intervention with their mother and it worked for a while. Her mother left for three months to get treatment. She stayed sober for years and recorded a full-band Christian album that Sparxsea played flute and sang backup on. Together they went on a regional tour playing crowded churches. These were happier times. After four years sober, their mother was diagnosed with sciatica and prescribed opiates to treat the pain. The cycle of addiction was back, the fighting started again, and in 2011 Sparxsea lost her mother to a fatal overdose.

“My mom was an example of someone who gave everything and asked for nothing,” says Sparxsea. “She was a light in the community. There were six priests at her funeral. It’s my goal, specifically with this music, to provide a light for people — to shine a light into that darkness, into those spaces.”

There were seven years of disassociation and deep depression between her mother’s death and her first album SHINE (2018), but Sparxsea persevered. In 2016 she wrote and recorded the song “Alive,” a celebration of feeling like a person again. The process of making the song and filming the video at an amusement park and the beach with her friends was a turning point, a ray of hope piercing through the dark clouds of hopelessness. In 2017 she began to meditate, made more friends, and recorded her song “Zen.” She became the first person in her family to graduate from college and is now a practicing dentist. The lo-fi electropop EP SHINE was the culmination of showing up, following her heart, and perseverance.

“I’ve kept that record dear to my heart,” says Sparxsea, “but now I listen to it from a different place. It took a dark journey of hopelessness and loneliness to get to my awakening. The song ‘Shine’ was a powerful eureka song for me. It ended that chapter of my life. I’m looking forward to playing it live with the band as the person I am now. I didn’t have as many friends at the time, so I’m grateful to the people that made this new record with me.”

Sparxsea was supposed to take a weeklong vacation for her birthday in March of 2020, but the pandemic changed the state of the world. Instead, Sparxsea hunkered down with producer Bradford to record the songs that would become On the Sea, beginning then with “Little Wooden Boat” and recording “Deep” this year.

They took their time with each song — between dealing with life and Bradford’s frequent touring schedule with SeepeopleS and theWorst. Sparxsea built a home recording studio, including a vocal booth made of materials from Home Depot. When COVID let up, they’d travel down to Boston to record at Chillhouse. Musicians would come to her house to record. It was a process of allowing songs to marinade and make thoughtful decisions with instrumentation, performance and mixing.

The oceans connect all the lands of the Earth, and Sparxsea was finding her tribe through the joy of making music. The album’s title On the Sea is a metaphor for Sparxsea’s escape from Northern Maine to the cultural hub of Portland, Maine. It’s an album of exploration and self-discovery, internally and externally. It’s about finding hidden treasures that were right there all along. Sparxsea pushes herself to the edge of her comfort zone by conquering her fears and opening her shattered and patched-back-together heart to the world.

“This album wasn’t always fun to write,” says Sparxsea, “but it was very cathartic. It’s a shrine to all the realizations and exciting moments in my healing process. When I was a teenager, I’d feel this deep connection to the stories music was telling. I want my music to do the same. I want the younger generation to be exposed to positive music that brings people together. These songs are about liberation.”

TRACK LIST:

01 – “Little Wooden Boat”
02 – “Chariot”

03 – “Glow”
04 – “Daylight”

05 – “Forever Love”
06 – “Essence of Me”
07 – “Glisten”
08 – “Roses in the Street”
09 – “Gold”
10 – “Circles”

11- “Deep”

ALBUM CREDITS
All songs written and performed by Sparxsea except
“Gold”, written and performed by Sparxsea and Rebecca Kingsley
Co-produced by Will Bradford and Will Holland
Engineered and mixed by Will Holland
Recorded at Chillhouse Studios, Charlestown, MA
Additional recording at home studio
Additional engineering by Will Bradford
Mastered by Will Holland at Chillhouse Studios

Acoustic guitar by Sparxsea, Will Bradford
Electric guitar by Will Bradford
Classical guitar by Tim Reynolds
Drums by Jerome Deupree, Nikki Glaspie, Will Bradford
Electric bass by Will Bradford, Nate Edgar
Upright bass by David Yearwood
Bass clarinet by Dana Colley
Cello by Devon Collela
Piano by Will Bradford, Sparxsea
Flute by Sparxsea

The Blues Society (2024 music documentary)

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“The Blues Society explores the complex relationship between the fest’s white organizers and the Black musicians who played it.” – Rolling Stone

“I loved creating the voice of Robert (Bob) Palmer for The Blues Society.”- Eric Roberts

“Mention the historic music festivals of the 1960s and most likely Woodstock, Monterey Pop and Altamont immediately come to mind as they all represented major moments in the counterculture. Lesser known but no less significant was the Memphis Country Blues Festival. The idea of the festival organizers mounting an event showcasing Black musicians that brought together a mixed crowd amid a segregated environment appears in hindsight both courageous and groundbreaking.” – Forbes

“At times joyful and outraged, it’s a fascinating story, and the mixtape format allows Palmer to explore different aspects of these events… Speaking with a range of voices—including original organizers and performers, along with younger musicians and writers—Palmer shows how the organizers’ best intentions were complicated by their own often paternalistic relationship with the Black artists they wanted to celebrate.” – SPIN

“The Blues Society is a masterful journey through an important transitional moment in the history of the blues and the city of Memphis. Bridging the gap between two generations of disenfranchised Americans, the directness and cultural strength of the blues proves to be a weapon for social change. One group, an older group of African-American people dogged by the oppressive Jim Crow laws of the South and the other, a bohemian class of young artists looking to break away from the limited world views of their parents. Though an unlikely pairing, the love of the blues and presenting it to a community unwilling to integrate would create a new community that would change Memphis, Tennessee forever.” – Dom Flemons, The American Songster

“Examines the relationship between the fest and ’60s counterculture, Memphis blues, and race — particularly looking at the white organizers who put it on, and the Black musicians who played it. It’s appointment viewing for music and American history fans alike.” – Associated Press

“Festival highlights include the World Premieres of Connor Mahony’s madcap comedy Donna and Ally, as well as The Blues Society, a documentary by Augusta Palmer about the Memphis Country Blues Festival.” – ScreenAnarchy

“When it comes to programming the Indie Memphis Film Festival, artistic director Miriam Bale and executive director Kimel Fryer follow a ‘no duds’ philosophy… highlights including the world premiere [of] Augusta Palmer’s documentary The Blues Society.” – MovieMaker Magazine

“A brilliant look into the history of Memphis Blues music… vitally important components in the history and legacy of American music… a much more powerful piece of filmmaking than your typical music documentary… [the Memphis Blues Festival] was the most unique of events that frames the political landscape of the late 1960s as much as the likes of other era-defining gatherings, Monterey and Woodstock, perhaps even more… an essential reminder of what festivals should be.” – V13

“Furry Lewis remains one of the most important figures to the blues sound that many people may not know about.” – KOPB (Paul Marshall)

“Examines the origins and legacy, the music and mystery of the entire run of the Memphis Country Blues Festival… ‘The Blues Society’ digs deep into the fertile musical soil, cultural clay and, yes, literal hash.” – Commercial Appeal

” ‘The Blues Society’ captures the richness and inspiration of a cultural moment in Memphis.” – Daily Memphian

“A truly great documentary… The Blues Society is an captivating, insightful and well-edited documentary about the Memphis Country Blues Festival from 1966 to 1969… a loving, engrossing and nostalgic tribute to an essential part of music history.” – Avi Offer, NYC Movie Guru

“The Blues Society is an evocative reintroduction to the most important contributions of Memphis Country Blues to the fabric of American music. Using priceless archival footage and engaging interviews to provide depth and context, it transports the audience to 1960s Memphis, reflecting on the blurred lines between appreciation and appropriation and examining how we weigh intent against impact at the crossroads of race, culture and economics.” – Oxford Film Fest Best Documentary Feature Jury Statement

“The story of the blues contains multitudes and always has. The genre is inextricable from its relationship with class and race, and how its pre-eminent artists often struggled to gain the recognition they deserved due to the color of their skin. The Blues Society attempts to understand that relationship and how one festival attempted to turn it into something beautiful and powerful.” – Pittsburgh City Paper

—

The Blues Society

Documentary by Augusta Palmer

The Memphis Country Blues Festival (1966-1969) all started with a $65 check, a ball of hashish and a bunch of white bohemians who set out to rediscover forgotten bluesmen of the early 20th century. The Blues Society, directed by Dr. Augusta Palmer is a feature-length documentary that reevaluates the life of the Memphis Country Blues Festival through the lens of race, the counterculture of the ‘60s and the genre of Memphis blues.

“I didn’t want to just make a concert film,” says Augusta. “I loved the arc of the story. The initial stake was guitarist Bill Barth’s baseball-size chunk of hash and guitarist Jim Dickinson’s sixty-five-dollar check from a Sun Studios session. It was white and black musicians playing together during the height of the civil rights era. The KKK held a rally in that same public park a few days before. I wanted to understand what this moment meant to the people involved.”

The film follows the festival from its start in 1966 as an impromptu happening, through a period of cross-pollinization with New York’s East Village scene, and up to the 1969 festival, which mushroomed into a three-day event. It garnered substantial print and television coverage, including an appearance on Steve Allen’s national PBS show, Sounds of Summer.

The Blues Society tells the story of blues masters like Furry Lewis, Nathan Beauregard and Rev. Robert Wilkins—who had attained fame in the 1920s and 1930s, but were living in obscurity by the 1960s. It’s also the story of a group of white artists from the North and the South who created a celebration of African American music in a highly segregated city.

Furry Lewis gained a popular following in the ‘20s, but fell into obscurity as the popularity of “race music” fell in the ‘30s and nearly disappeared post World War 2. His touring days were cut short when he lost a leg in a railroad accident in 1917. He worked for decades sweeping the city streets, so the efforts to recognize his musical accomplishments echo the 1968 Sanitation Strike, where each worker’s sign proclaimed “I AM A MAN,” underlining the racist refusal to honor African Americans’ basic humanity.

Folks sought out Furry after he was featured in The Country Blues by Samuel Charters. He played regularly at Memphis coffeehouse The Bitter Lemon, building close relationships with these young blues enthusiasts. He was a father figure to the members of The Blues Society, and they ultimately fought to help him get a pension.

Musician Bill Barth was a cofounder of the Memphis Country Blues Society, played in a band with Augusta’s Father Robert Palmer, and was a central organizer of the festival. He was always looking for the old blues masters, including famously finding blues great Skip James in a Mississippi hospital.

In ‘66, Barth was canvassing for old 78 (rpm) records when he came across blind proto-bluesman of the ‘20s Nathan Beauregard playing guitar and singing. He looked old, and without asking, Barth billed him as over 100 years old. Much later, his draft card and census were found putting him most likely in his 70s. Beauregard would become known for playing his Japanese electric guitar in an almost acoustic style while singing lonesome songs in his high voice. Beauregard passed away in 1970, only a few years after being brought back to the spotlight. He was buried in an unmarked grave. In 2023 Augusta went to the dedication ceremony of a new gravestone for him provided by the Mount Zion Memorial Fund.

“Bill was a blues aficionado, collector and historian,” says Augusta. “He would walk around Memphis going door-to-door looking for old blues records to buy. There’s books and movies about these collectors. I wish that Nathan Beauregard lived longer. There’s not a lot of interviews with him. He was more of a symbol to the Blues Society than an actual person. He was lauded at festivals and by Sire Records in ‘68. But he was not taken care of or properly remembered.”

Reaching into the present, the film ends in a 2017 concert where John Wilkins returns to the stage he last shared with his father Rev. Robert Wilkins 48 years earlier. Robert wrote “Prodigal Son” in the ‘20s, but was made famous by the Rolling Stones in the ‘60s who initially didn’t properly credit Robert. The Blues Society members were outraged. Rolling Stone Magazine wrote an article about it and he was eventually paid royalties on the song. John ended up being the groundskeeper for The Levitt Shell, the new name of the venue of the festivals, and eventually followed in his father’s footsteps in becoming a reverend himself.

Augusta made it a point to bring in diverse voices to give this film a historical context. Memphis writer and filmmaker Jamie Hatley talks about when she was younger that she wanted to separate herself from images of poverty in the blues. And that it took her a while to come around to appreciating the genre. Henry Nelson, a black man from West Memphis, Arkansas, was hoping he could get a ride to Woodstock, but wound up at the Memphis Country Blues Festival. He talks about how his history with the blues is a kind of private thing and how he wasn’t sure that it was something that should be shared. Don Flemons discusses how the blues lost its appeal for a lot of young African Americans as we move into the more radical Black Panther era.

“We all love the idea that music conquers all,” says Augusta, “Everyone can appreciate the blues music in this film, but love for this music didn’t cure white supremacy, and white blues fans were part of a power structure that took advantage of black artists. I love the enthusiasm of that white hippy idealism, but the rules were much more stringent back then. There were segregated bathrooms for employees at the bandshell. Racial inequality has become more and more clear to the nation since the pandemic. We’ve come a long way, but still have a long way to go.”

–

The film’s genesis began as a family affair for director Dr. Augusta Palmer. She grew up in Little Rock, Arkansas, went to Rhodes College in Memphis, as well as Sarah Lawrence College, before settling in Brooklyn, NY. Her father, Robert Palmer, was a founding organizer and player in the festival, and her mother was also there tearing tickets.

“I officially started working on this film in 2016,” says Augusta, “but you could say I’ve been working on it for all my life. When that woman makes a speech at the end, where she’s saying, ‘Why can’t you just pay for your tickets people?’ to people who snuck in. That’s my mom. She was pregnant with me when she made that speech. So, I kind of went to the 1969 Memphis Country Blues Festival. I didn’t know my dad very well until I was a teenager, but this festival was a big part of his life.”

Robert Palmer later went on to become a music critic for the New York Times and Rolling Stone, and authored the seminal blues history book Deep Blues—which in turn inspired the 1991 documentary Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads.

Getting in touch with her father’s spirit was also the impetus for her debut feature documentary, The Hand of Fatima (2009), which had its U.S. premiere at Indie Memphis as well. It’s about two trips to Morocco. One, her father’s trip in the ‘70s to meet with master musicians and record an album. And two, her own journey to Morocco in 2005 to meet those same master musicians.

“My dad died in 1997,” says Augusta. “He left me a necklace tied to those musicians. I had my own child and I needed to find out what happened there, because he really felt like he was part of that family of musicians. I didn’t meet my dad until 1982 when I was 12, but I heard a lot about Jaouka when he returned there after I started college.”

Both films carry the theme of the power of music across cultures. They ask the questions, what did this moment mean to the musicians, to their audience, to her father, and to Augusta herself?

Music executive and Memphis country Blues Fest organizer Nancy Jeffries was approached by Gene Rosenthal with 16mm footage of Memphis Country Blues Festival that he shot and kept in his basement. Jeffries brought Augusta on board based on seeing The Hand of Fatima. They began developing the film in 2013, but the project stagnated due to rights issues and conflicting ideas on what this film should be. A few years later, Fat Possum Records had bought the footage and put together the 2019 concert film Memphis ’69: The 1969 Memphis Country Blues Festival, and they were generous enough to offer Augusta access to the footage.

Augusta continued to work on the film through the pandemic, and had a breakthrough in 2021 when they received their first big grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, then grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the New York State Council for the Arts in 2022. Augusta’s The Blues Society gives context to the performances seen in Memphis ’69, and so much more.

“I was putting it together like a collage. There’s stuff in the film I didn’t even find until last year. I had this bootleg tape that someone had labeled ‘1969,’ but when I had the tape transferred we found that it was actually from 1966! So we suddenly had media to work with from that first festival. The primary text from my dad in the film was from an article I hadn’t discovered until late in the process. The film and I both benefited from having that time to think about what I wanted to say.”

Augusta currently has a short fiction film, Order My Step, making rounds in the film fest circuit. It’s about an incarcerated woman trying to reestablish a relationship with her estranged daughter.

The Blues Society premiered Indie Memphis and won the Audience Award, won best Doc Feature at the Oxford Film Festival, and will have theatrical runs in New York City, Memphis, Columbus, Ohio and Portland, Oregon before being released to streaming services this summer.

“I’ve been thinking about more ways to do outreach,” says Augusta, “I spent seven years making this cross-generational historic project. We’re already working with high school students, and the Music Maker Relief Foundation is working with us to develop ideas. Their mission is to help preserve the music of the American South by helping musicians. We’re looking forward to bringing this film to new communities to continue this conversation of music, race and culture.”

Film director Augusta Palmer. The Blues Society 2024 music documentary press photo. — Direcor of The Blues Society Dr. Augusta Palmer. Photo by Paul Reuter.

by Baby Robot Media

FAMEmagazine premieres new Epic Levels single “House on Haunted Hill Dwarf”

Epic Levels press photo. Dragon Warrior and Tiger Wizard at Gamehole Con 2023

A unique musical adventure through fantasy, hip-hop, and gaming culture

Atlanta’s Epic Levels transcends traditional boundaries, merging fantasy, hip-hop, and gaming culture to create a unique musical journey. Their latest release, House on Haunted Hill Dwarf, captures the spirit of tabletop roleplaying games with charm and allure.

Dragon Warrior and Tiger Wizard, the masterminds behind Epic Levels, blend hip-hop, horror films, and tabletop RPGs into their music. With intricate wordplay and infectious beats, they transport listeners to realms of imagination. Epic Levels’ tracks explore haunted houses, mythical dungeons, and enchanted forests, celebrating nerdy nostalgia. Each song is a gateway to a world of magic and adventure.

Parker Smith – Short Street LP

Parker Smith press photo by Alex Glustrom. Short Street LP — Parker Smith. Photo by Alex Glustrom

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Parker Smith – Short Street LP (out June 7)

Atlanta singer/songwriter and guitarist Parker Smith’s breezy third studio album Short Street (out June 7) was made with sensitivity, humor and an innate knack for creating art from life. Its easy-flowing melodies and lilting pedal steel infuse some rural Americana without going full-on country. Smith’s sweet, zephyr-like sound and welcoming everyman vocals continue from the album’s opening lightly strummed guitars, through its eight brisk, yet never blustery, tunes.

He’s the best friend everybody wants, telling stories with the cozy confidentiality of someone you love spending time with—hanging out with a few bottles of wine while hearing their generally optimistic opinions on growing up, chasing true love, absorbing the death of a dog, and even praising terrific mothers-in-law. We all need a Parker Smith in our lives.

Initially meant as an acoustic venture named after his tune “Friend Ships,” the collection gradually took a different vibe. As it progressed, Smith re-worked his vocals and shifted towards the more Atlanta-centric title, Short Street. This album, including the title track, references neighborhoods in his city. His previous two releases, Garden Hills and Underground, are also named after Atlanta areas.

The album opens with “Air Stream,” referencing the iconic mobile home. It reflects Smith’s storytelling motif and Poco-like lilt. On it, he recounts a camping trip where the chilly temperatures forced his family to the warmth of the titular vehicle. The song takes a longer, more universal lens to that situation as he sings, “The smile on each other’s face / When they hold a warm embrace / At the end of a long day / Dog at their feet.” The tropical rhythm and pedal steel exude a comfy homespun texture that you can visualize as Smith emotes his words with the casual cadence of John Prine, letting them float through the laconic vibe.

The heartland rock “Mothers” turns every outdated mother-in-law joke and stereotype on its head. This tribute to Smith’s mother-in-law is also an accolade to other moms who are frequently criticized by songwriters. “She might not be my mother / But she’s a mother to me,” he sings before complimenting his wife with the sentimental, “You’ve got your mother’s eyes and that’s alright with me.” It should be a perennial Mother’s Day favorite with its buoyant folk-rock vibe and Tom Petty-esque down-to-Earth relatability.

“Seeing my wife become a mother this year has given me greater insight into the connection between a mother and their child,” says Smith. “It’s crazy man. I have a six-month-old now. Breastfeeding and providing for her, it’s just a totally different type of bond between my wife and our baby. We’ve been together for eight years, and now we get to grow into this together. It’s nice to see this new side of her, you know?”

The gorgeous ballad “Anna Lee” is a filigree of acoustic and electric guitar, groovy keys and Smith’s familial vocal delivery. This love song to his wife describes the difficulties and triumphs of working through life’s twists with a partner you’re in sync with. “This journey is my own, but I don’t have to walk alone / We can walk it side by side / It’s on your shoulders I’ll get by,” he sings with a solemn yet knowing half-smile, implying ultimately everything will work out. The dreamy, loungy electric guitar solo dancing among the simplified drums and super-chill organ is a particular treat.

“It’s about being married and going through your own shit,” says Smith. “We all have our own journeys and difficulties. We need to be able to lean on each other in tough times.”

“Waves” embraces the glorious triumph of being able to let go of material things. It has a Don Henley’s “Boys of Summer” vibe. Its gentle verses, bombastic choruses and a series of transcendent, jangly guitar solos help us embrace ego death and take stock of what’s important.

“I lost my wedding ring in the ocean during a bachelor party in Mexico,” says Smith. “A few months later, my wife lost her wedding ring in the ocean. Both rings were family heirlooms, belonging to each of Smith’s parents. We took it as a sign that we weren’t meant to have those. Material things come and go, but you want to hold onto what’s really important.”

“Oscar” is a sweet, laid-back, loping offering as Smith looks back on losing his beloved, longtime dog companion. Its lyrics could easily be applied universally to anyone you’ve lost. It’s a song about giving thanks to those who’ve made an impact on your life and are no longer with us.

The title track “Short Street” reflects on the annual Chomp and Stomp festival in Atlanta’s famous Cabbagetown neighborhood—equal parts chili cook-off, beer bash and Bluegrass fest. It’s a zydeco-adjacent honky-tonk party song about good times with good people. It’s a love letter to his hometown, while recognizing that it isn’t perfect. “Friend Ships” is a song that reminisces about his hooligan friends growing up (shoplifting, drugs in a mailbox, all night drives to meet a girl), and how he turned out alright through all the mayhem.

Album closer “Surround Sound” is an intimate, acoustic ode to taking time to appreciate the world around you. His relaxed vocals and songwriting pedigree land in the realm of Paul Simon and Mark Knopfler, epitomizing Smith’s ability to capture small moments that can be extrapolated to larger ones. He takes the ordinary (listening to the school bus, the garbage truck, the train tracks, the children laugh), and makes it extraordinary, like a subdued whisper of wisdom.

Smith first picked up a guitar at age twelve after experiencing an Allman Brothers Band show at Atlanta’s Fox Theatre, but didn’t get serious about practicing until 15. Smith then took music business courses and Bruce Hornsby’s songwriting program at the University of Miami, followed by moving to Austin and attaining a Masters of Education degree, before returning to Atlanta to start a music school.

Smith is a Renaissance man of sorts. Not only is he an acclaimed singer/songwriter and guitarist, but a successful entrepreneur as well. He started Guitar Shed in 2015 with four pupils. It has grown into a major business boasting 30 instructors and over 400 students learning a variety of instruments, not just guitar. He claims to be a “bad employee” but an entrepreneur at heart and loves that his job has never felt like work.

That gracious, affable sentiment translates to his songwriting and the dedicated supporting musicians he surrounds himself with. Most, like mixer/producer/drummer Colin Agnew, keyboardist Christopher Case, bassist Trygve Myers (who’s work on “Mothers” and “Oscar” is exceptional), and especially pedal steel/six-string wizard John Kingsley whose presence helps set the deliberate mood, contributed to Smith’s earlier work.

Smith’s debut, Garden Hills, was followed by Underground in 2021. That year also saw a cover of the Grateful Dead’s “Bird Song,” (recorded for a Dead tribute project), then 2023’s Live Bandwith, Vol. 1, a concert recording with his group affectionately, and humorously, called The Bandwith (note the intentional lack of a second “d” in the spelling).

Short Street is his most illuminating, engaging and personal statement yet. The sinuous melodies and instrumentation coalesce around his deep, affecting vocals and insightfully personal lyrics. His wry humor mingles with profound honesty as he crafts narratives of the world around him. It’s an album of poignant yet cheerfully light songs that shimmer with the touch of a craftsman; one creating a treatise on traversing the victories and challenges that come with living a full life.

–

Track List
01 Air Stream
02 Mothers
03 Anna Lee
04 Waves
05 Oscar
06 Short Street
07 Friend Ships
08 Surround Sound

Album Credits

Tracks 1-7
Parker Smith – Guitars, Vocals
Trygve Myers – Bass
Christopher Case – Keyboards
John Kingsley – Pedal Steel, Lap Steel, Fiddle, Slide Guitar
Colin Agnew – Drums, Percussion, Background Vocals

Track 8
Parker Smith – Guitar, Vocals
Casey Harper – Background Vocals
Michael Feinberg – Upright Bass
Producer & mixing – Colin Agnew
Mastering – Bob Weston at Chicago Mastering Service

Jake Trevor

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Jake Trevor – self-titled album JAKE TREVOR (out May 24)

NYC singer-songwriter Jake Trevor’s debut self-titled album JAKE TREVOR (out May 24) takes us on a journey from piano balladry and electropop club bangers, to coffeehouse folk and soulful indie-pop. This album has a throughline of rebellion and empowerment. It spans from deeply sad or romantic ballads to the utter jubilant glee of his heart-pounding dance anthems. He takes on topics of family, homophobia, religion, love and sex, all through a lens of passion and hope.

While out in California, Trevor met Grammy-nominated engineer/producer Elliott Lanam, best known for his work on Katy Perry’s album Prism and her hit single “Roar” in particular. They hit it off and started working together at Lanam’s Hidden City Studios in Santa Barbara, CA. Together they made an album that crosses genres—that speaks to vulnerable, emotional thinkers, while also connecting with folks who want to embrace the kind of rave/nightclub exuberance that’s sometimes dirty, occasionally very gay, and always super fun.

JAKE TREVOR kicks off with the powerful voice-and-piano ballad “Should I.” Trevor’s emotional depth and raw vulnerability are on full display as he sings about being overwhelmed in life and wondering what to do next. His heartfelt lyrics and deeply-moving voice are like a boat dancing on the piano’s ocean waves, especially when he hits the high notes singing, “What would you do if you had one day left to live / Who would you love if your heart had one last chance.”

“Growing up, I always had that feeling of looking from the outside in,” says Trevor. “I wanted a million friends and parents who could accept me for who I was. I felt like bosses were only there to put a nail in your coffin. I felt like just throwing my hands up in the air. I was thinking about what’s important in life, and what I’d do if I had one day left to live. I decided that I’d make sure that the people in my life know that I love them, and I’d play music.”

The video for “Should I” was shot on a cold, foggy and rainy January morning on Governors Island and around the ancient-looking structures of Fort Jay. The abandoned desolation of the video’s background mirrors the isolation and haunting beauty of the piano playing under Trevor’s authentically heartbreaking vocal performance.

The ethereal, synth-driven “Best Love” embodies that overwhelming feeling of new love, when nothing else matters but that other person. It’s genuine passion washes over you as Trevor utilizes a primal lyrical repetition—where the words “You’re my best love” are like a spiritual mantra. Its warm, dreamy vulnerability would be equally at home as a stadium-ready anthem as it would inside an intimate listening room.

“I get chills and tear up when I perform this live,” says Trevor. “I feel like I’m putting myself out there more with this one than my other songs. I can feel my heart sink as I sing. I’m consumed by this overwhelming feeling of love. I like to picture a cliff by the ocean with the sun setting. A mysterious, beautiful woman on a white horse gallops to the cliff’s edge to see a crowd of 1000 people. Then, she locks eyes with that one person that matters more to her than anybody.”

Trevor can move effortlessly from stirring Adele-esqe balladry to embrace the pure joy of electronic dance music. Like those who’ve pushed the envelope of sexual taboos before him (Madonna and George Michael in decades past, or Nicki Minaj and Cardi B more recently), Trevor’s song “Boyfriend” is a NSFW, gay-sex-positive, electropop heater. It conjures images of shirtless men writhing in steamy, dark back rooms or clandestine raves.

“Gay sex was a forbidden topic until recently,” says Trevor. “So much so, that it used to be thought of as a mental illness. It was something that you were supposed to feel shame about, even when it feels so right on the inside. I want to normalize homosexuality. I wanted to make a vulgar and shameless song that felt equally fun and unsafe to listen to. I’m not telling people to cheat, but I wanted the song to feel shocking.”

Trevor brings a macro-dose of celebratory fun with “Bounce Bounce.” This energetic ode to the booty is a club-hit-in-waiting with its driving house beat and infinitely sing-along-able refrain of “This booty go bounce bounce.” Imagine if Frankie Knuckles remixed Major Lazor’s “Bubble Butt” and Katy Perry’s “Swish Swish,” with a little SOPHIE’s “LEMONADE” added for flavor. It has the infectious catchiness of “Baby Shark,” while calling people of all ages to the dance floor. It’s one of those songs that would feel at home on workout playlists, family dancefloors and spontaneous dance parties (illicit or otherwise). This song gives you permission to not take the world too seriously as you make your own booty go bounce bounce.

“I love and hate how fun and catchy this silly song is,” Trevor laughs. “I hate how much I love it. I imagine so many different people dancing to this song: gym girls in spandex, guys in tight jeans, an old lady with a walker, kids at a birthday party. This song is a gift for everybody.”

The synthpop “Gotta Let Go” is an empowering song about letting go of the people who shouldn’t be in your life. Something Trevor has had to work hard to achieve and come to terms with. “This song is directly about my family,” says Trevor. “I had to let go of people I love so that I could move on and live my life.”

The catwalk-ready electro-disco “DRESS” is a bold statement about individuality and fashion. It’s a call to embody your genuine self, whether embracing your sexuality, gender identity or simply your choice of clothing. Its use of electronic disco horns and EDM beat drops make this an anthem of empowerment for the post Madonna’s ”Vogue” era.

The gentle acoustic folk-pop track “Coffee & Wine” is a true New York City tale. Trevor takes on class warfare through springtime flutes, whistling and his jangly guitar. The trials and tribulations of the service industry are front and center in this story of a waitress who was cursed to work alone when her chef called in “sick of the bullshit pay that you call a living.” This cafe was in its last hours and was only serving its patrons coffee and wine.

“I was feeling very European as I sat at that sidewalk cafe, sipping on my two beverages. All I was missing was the cigarette.” laughs Trevor. “I kept thinking about how ruthless and unforgiving the hospitality industry is. I’ve been through it while bartending. Disrespectful customers. Bad bosses. Not making enough money to live. Leaving because you’re fed up with the whole system. This song encompasses all of these feelings.”

“Father Don’t Forgive Me” is an open letter to his evangelical Christian father and hateful religious practices in general. It’s a song of solidarity for all of the homeless kids who have been kicked out because of their sexual orientation. “I grew up in a hostile homophobic family,” says Trevor,” and I want people to know they’re not alone. It’s what I needed when my family cut me off. That was years ago, but it feels like forever.”

The symphonic, sad and beautiful “Paradise Lost” finds Trevor crooning a lament. He lyrically grieves the time and opportunities that he missed out on during his youth because of his sheltered upbringing. He moves through the anger he feels towards his religiously fanatical parents when he sings, “No summer smiles, butterflies, you’re the only reason why,” to the hope he finds in lyrics like, “So here I go / rebuild those sails / make my own winds.”

After taking this journey of highs and lows on JAKE TREVOR, the album concludes on a hopeful note with “Safety.” Its soaring orchestral melodies heighten Trevor’s emotive lyrics of finding the people in your life who embrace you for who you are. This is a song about finding sanctuary and belonging. It’s a song of true love that concludes the album in a climactic cinematic swell.

Trevor is one of those cases where music saved his life while growing up in an unsympathetic, homophobic, ultra-religious household. He was one of seven children that his mother home-schooled with a conservative Christian curriculum. His family moved frequently around the South East, from rural Tennessee, to suburban Nashville, to the mountains of Virginia. His family often left the churches they attended because they weren’t strict enough in their religious fervor. Trevor found refuge in an old piano and the poetry that would become his lyrics.

“We were too poor to afford lessons,” says Trevor, “So I taught myself piano through an old college course I found at a thrift shop. I bought an old antique 1910 Mehlin upright piano on Craigslist. I bought a tuner and learned to tune it myself.”

Trevor’s father was staunchly anti-gay, and Trevor decided that he couldn’t take it anymore and bought a one-way train ticket to New York City, just after Thanksgiving. He walked out of Penn Station with just a suitcase and oversized hand-me-down clothes. He spent his last $40 on a taxi to Queens to house-sit for an elderly man who was going to be in California for a few months.

Back in Virginia, Trevor’s family found an incriminating photograph that outed him. They had a phone call where his father said the most horrible things and the entire family cut him off. That was the first Christmas he spent without his family. Trevor has since been to therapy to work through this trauma. He now feels less sadness, and more empowerment. He went out of his way to create a new family.

“You don’t have just one family in this life,” says Trevor. “Moving to New York was like living in a movie. I came here from nothing. I got an education in life, and found my people. Now I’m ten-times-over not the same person I was when I left Virginia. The inspiration in this city is endless. I read an interview with Dolly Parton where she talked about jotting down a note anytime she was inspired. So I did the same and kept a journal. I made it a point to pay attention to my surroundings, to be present in my new life.”

Trevor took odd jobs, began bartending and was able to buy a cheap Yamaha keyboard and a Taylor 714ce acoustic guitar. He explored NYC neighborhoods and rode the subway. There he noticed buskers playing music and he began to study them. He finally got up the courage to begin busking himself.

“Busking is the best way to get over nerves and meet people from all over the world, “says Trevor. “But more than anything, I like to see people’s immediate reactions. Once, I was playing John Lennon’s ‘Imagine,’ and an older woman just watched with tears streaming down her face. There’s nothing like making that kind of meaningful connection with someone through music. It’s so personal. People missing their trains to listen. Getting anyone in New York’s attention for two minutes really means something. New York’s subway is the greatest stage on Earth.”

Trevor released a series of singles leading to his debut LP. The first was the piano ballad “Pieces,” about how fragile life and relationships can be. The we-only-have-one-life-to-live single “What I Want” is a powerful, fearless, energetic song about going after what you want in life. The pop-funk break-up song “Bitch Don’t Come Back” channels the catharsis that can only come from immediately getting those angry feelings off of your chest. “Yellowtape” is about giving into temptation, especially when it might not be the best decision in the long run.

JAKE TREVOR is self-titled because it’s the birth of something new. This is a man that had to go through tremendous changes to end up as the artist we hear on this album. He’s telling the world who he is, loud and proud. It’s a brave and bold record that feels impactful in so many different ways. We learn who Trevor is, from his most soul-spilling ballads to his most fun-filled dance tracks. In “Boyfriend,” Trevor sings, “Man on man / goddamn / don’t let my father walk in.” He knows first hand what it means to lose everything you’ve ever known and have to start a new life.

“Lots of kids have been in that same situation as me,” says Trevor. “So many homeless youth have been kicked out of their houses for being LGBTQ+. So many suicides happen to youth between a certain age because they’re gay. They were picked on. They were unloved by the people that brought them into this world. I want people to know that it’s going to be okay. You don’t just have one family in this life. Surround yourself with people who love you, and leave the rest behind. It’s my dream to start an organization to get LGBTQ+ youth out of bad homes and into society. I want to use my voice to support these people.”

“More rights are given to LGBTQ+ people in general, but it’s still bad out there. So many of my songs are influenced by that. ‘Father Don’t Forgive Me,’ ‘Gotta Let Go,’ and even ‘Boyfriend.’ Not a day goes by that I don’t think about that kid out there who was me. If I was a gay man in the ‘70s, I’d have no choices. Now in 2024, I get to unapologetically be me and pay it forward to the next generation.”

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TRACK LIST
01 Should I
02 Best Love
03 Gotta Let Go
04 Coffee and Wine
05 DRESS
06 Father Don’t Forgive Me
07 Boyfriend
08 Bounce Bounce
09 Paradise Lost
10 Safety