News From Hemifran October 2016 Part 2

Hemifrån is an independent A&R, promotion and marketing company, based in the heart of Sweden, specializing in, what they call, “gut music” – The kind of music that you can feel in your gut, no matter what. Hemifran is promoting a lot of singer-songwriter, westcoast-pop, country, AOR and more. Here are featured some of their latest news – it is not all west coast, but dig into it!

Jerad Finck – Criminal EP

Ever the optimist, even in the midst of the darkest trials of his life and career, Jerad Finck wrote his powerful and provocative 2011 anthem “Runaway” about not giving up on your dreams, no matter how hard things get, and dealing with his issues head on instead of trying to escape them. The title of the track became the perfect metaphor for the wild success of the track, which has propelled the tireless Spokane, WA, based singer and songwriter and road warrior to new heights in his career, including collaborating and co-writing tracks on his latest upcoming full length album with top producers David Hodges (Kelly Clarkson, Daughtry, Christina Perri), Steven Miller (Pink, Dave Matthews Band, Switchfoot), Andrew Williams (Five For Fighting, Jessica Simpson), and Nathan Meckel (Sara Haze, Autumn Hill). Hodges helmed “Criminal”, the infectious power-pop ballad set to be the new album’s lead single. Jerad has recently signed his new single to Kobalt Music and is preparing to launch his full length album to the radio and the public. More information at Hemifran.

C. Daniel Boling – These Houses

2014 winner of the Grassy Hill Kerrville New Folk songwriter contest, C Daniel Boling shares experiences from a life well lived in places as far ranging as Okinawa, Japan, and Padre Island, Texas. This balladeer and songwriter with the friendly tenor brings his well crafted story songs to happy audiences coast to coast and in Europe in over one hundred shows a year, from house concerts and listening rooms to major festivals. Born into a traveling Air Force family, he later worked as a National Park Ranger (yes, the gun toting kind) and as a criminal investigator for the US Bureau Of Land Management. He started touring at 50, an age when most guys are planning their retirement. He has released 7 albums since 1999, including ”These Houses” produced by Jono Manson and to be released in late 2016 on the Berkalin Records label. More information at Hemifran.

Jack Tempchin – One More Song

His iconic songs comprise a soundtrack to a fabled era, but Jack Tempchin creates music in the present tense. A new release, “One More Song”, reveals the vibrant spirit of an artist moving forward. “My brain is exploding with songs”, he enthuses. “It’s great to have things that you’ve already written that people like, and I play them all when I do a show, but the creative flow demands that when I write a song and really love it, I want to get it out right now” “One More Song”, honors Tempchin’s coffeehouse roots. “A guy, an audience, and a song”, he says. “Circle Ties That Bind,” from the collection is one of the first songs Jack wrote, and although the great Hoyt Axton performed it in concert, until now it has never been translated on record. In fact, of the 12 songs curated for the latest project, only 3 have been previously recorded. The title track, covered both by the late Kate Wolf and the Eagles’ Randy Meisner, and “Singing In The Streets”, originally tracked by Jack’s band the Funky Kings who were signed to Arista Records by Clive Davis. The band also cut the venerable “Slow Dancing” famously immortalized by Johnny Rivers, now performed by Jack in an evocative solo rendition. More information at Hemifran.

Gerry Beckley – Carousel

“We play all these venues”, says Gerry Beckley, who co-founded and has been with the legendary rock group America for some 45 years now. “I’m backstage and I see head shots of who has played there too, we know virtually every one of them. Almost all of them show someone looking right at the camera and smiling. But”, he continues, “every now and then you see one that’s in high contrast, where the artist is off to the side rather than in the middle. The point is, it’s a fine line between being a bit silly and over clever and actually doing something different”. That, in 2 paragraphs, is how Beckley looks at the world and his place in it. By any conventional measure, he is a superb songwriter, a master of popular composition and a distinctive singer whether as the lead vocalist on “Sister Golden Hair” and “You Can Do Magic,” in harmony on “A Horse With No Name” and “Ventura Highway,” or singing on his group’s other classic singles or on solo projects.

At the same time, there’s something in Beckley’s work that skews toward the edge, never at the expense of musical quality but perhaps to avoid being sucked into the maws of commercial conformity. Nothing exemplifies this better than his latest album, and first for Blue Élan Records, the shimmering “Carousel”, which is at once similar to and utterly unlike everything he’s written and recorded until now. More information at Hemifran.

Jesse Dayton – The Revealer

It’s circa 1982, in a small zydeco club called The Boulevard in Beaumont, TX, not far from the Louisiana and Texas state line. Austin blues impresario Clifford Antone, who discovered Stevie Ray & Jimmie Vaughan, Charlie Sexton, Doyle Bramhall Sr and Jr and just about every other guitar player from Austin, has made a special trip from his own venue, Antone’s Blues Club, along with his bodyguard Sugar Bear, to see a very young Jesse Dayton play. “Who the hell is this kid? He can play it all, country, blues, zydeco!”, he tells the club owner. Clifford walks to the stage, pulls out a napkin with his number written on it and tells young Dayton he has an open invitation to come to Austin and play at Antone’s. Sure, there we’re small country and western gigs at the State Fair, mandatory family piano lessons, a few private parties for kids and Shriners, but the invite from Clifford Antone is how it all started for Jesse Dayton and he’s been playing live ever since. More information at Hemifran.

Sharon Goldman – Kol Isha (A Woman´s Voice)

Sharon Goldman is a New Jersey based singer songwriter. Her intelligent, inventive storytelling has led to appearances in the Falcon Ridge Folk Festival and the Northeast Regional Folk Alliance. Several well received albums have been spun on folk and public radio around the globe and Sharon has performed in top coffeehouses, listening room series and house concerts around the Northeast US. Songwriters also know her as founder and writer of the popular blog Songwriting Scene. Her latest album, “Kol Isha (A Woman’s Voice)”, takes her artistry in a new and unique direction. She has dug deep into her orthodox jewish childhood and emerged with a bold, imaginative song cycle that is by turns deeply feminist, conflicted and yearning, tracing her own journey to find her voice as a passionate woman, a lifelong questioner, and a constant seeker. She delves into memories of prayers and rituals, of roads not taken, and of voices not heard. She also mines the stories of biblical and mythical women, such as Lilith, the Sabbath Queen and the lovers in the Song of Songs, for creative inspiration. More information at Hemifran.

Laura Whittenberger/Peyson Moss/Raymond Driver – Never Give All The Heart

This CD features 24 songs, musical settings to love poems by W.B. Yeats, most of which were inspired by his love for Maud Gonne. The poems were chosen for their universal appeal, hauntingly simple and beautiful. The melodies capture the spirit and essence of the poems. Laura Whittenberger sings with a remarkable flair of feeling expressing the emotion of each poem, while Peyson Moss matches her vocals with his skill on the keyboard. Those who have listened said the music has an ethereal quality. More information at Hemifran.

John Cee Stannard – It´s Christmas Time

”As we were getting close to Christmas 2014, I wrote ’Christmas On My Own’, for a gig we were doing at the time. Then last year I wrote ‘Winter Love’, which may not be strictly Christmas, but it’s the right time of year. That made me think it would be a great idea to put together a Christmas EP. There just wasn’t time to complete it last year, so now here it is. A 5 track EP for Christmas. I wanted part of the EP to include an old time, almost jamming feel, and I was thrilled that I achieved that with the first 2 tracks. The first track is ‘It’s Christmas Time’ which I wrote specifically for this release. All the tracks include bass and drum by Andy Crowdy and Julian Bown. This first track also features the great sound of guest vocalist Julia Tutus, and the wonderful guitar playing of Jason Manners, as well as my Blues Horizon buddy, Howard Birchmore on harmonica. ‘Beggin’ Santa Clause’ was written by BK Turner and recorded in February 1937. Jason Manners guests again on this track and the interplay between his guitar and my other Blues Horizon Buddy Mike Baker is exactly the feel I was trying to create. When I found a Snooks Englin track called ‘Let Me Go Home Whisky’ I thought it was a great song. With a degree in music, and an accomplished multi-instrumentalist, Shifty Henry wrote this in the early 1950’s. I re-wrote it with the Christmas slant and am pleased with the way it worked out. Once again with the additional voice of Julia Titus. Julia joins me again on ‘Christmas On My Own’ which I wrote almost 3 years ago. A little more upbeat, and fun. ‘Winter Love’ is almost more of an old crooner song than blues, but I think it works well as a closing track. This features guest musician Simon Mayor adding a great violin part.” ~ John Cee Stannard. More information at Hemifran.

Pete Sinjin – The Heart And The Compass

“Combing through the lyrics of this album, the 2 words that stuck out were ‘heart’ and ‘compass'”, states Pete Sinjin. “I realized that, for me, they’re one in the same. My heart is my compass. I’ve been led around by my heart always, and it’s taken me all over. It’s delivered me to where I am now, which is a pretty nice place to be”. ”The Heart & The Compass”, Pete Sinjin’s 4th album of original compositions, lives up to its title. Such lyrically vivid, melodically arresting originals as ‘That’s My Heart’, ‘Dirty Windshield’, and ‘The Night That I Saw God’, resonate with insight and warmth, with spacious, organic grooves and melodic hooks that are every bit as expressive as his lyrics. With hard-won experience and a novelist’s precision, Sinjin paints rich, evocative portraits of fleeting moments, stolen glances and lives in transition, and drives his stories home with indelible melodies that reflect his affinity for such seminal troubadours as Rodney Crowell, John Prine and Townes Van Zandt, as well as his abiding love for such punk-era greats as the Jam, Minutemen and Husker Du. More information at Hemifran.

Tom Shed – Davey´s Cornet

Tom Shed, songwriter and performer brings history, humor and the human condition to audiences in an exciting and entertaining concert. Performing on guitar and banjo throughout the USA, Europe, the UK, Canada, the Caribbean, New Zealand and Australia for many years, Tom shares his perspective of life, love and the world around us. Tom Shed sings about real events. The deadly hurricane of 1928. A great fire of consumes a city. A politicians demise in pre civil rights America in 1953. Lost in a swamp and the unforgiving nature of the wild humor Tom Shed brings to his concert songs about alien abduction, experiencing unique southern hospitality, motorhome mayhem on our highways and learning to appreciate your grandmother. More information at Hemifran.