Jess Klein & Shelley King Sun July 24, 2011 4pm $15 suggested contribution

2011
TBA

2012
Feb 12, 2012 Bernice Lewis
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Please email me for info and/or directions or go to  Phone # is 972-234-5755.


Don't forget to bring some extra money to buy some CDs.  
So come and bring along some friends.  Or this is a great place to make new friends.

Bio JESS KLEIN A folk troubadour whose talents have been lauded on the national and international scene for almost a decade, Jess Klein writes songs that tell the story of the soul – from wrenching heartbreak to finding the strength to pick up and move on. Now, on her seventh studio album, Bound To Love, Jess Klein has created an Americana gem that speaks to the troubadour in all of us.   Inspired by a move to Austin in summer of 2008, she evokes the dusty roots of Texas songwriters and melds them into her own blend of spot-on, speak-to-the-heart lyrics, percussive guitar and a voice as sweet as it is strong. Jess Klein emerged from the Boston music scene in 1998 with her independent release, Wishes Well Disguised, but it was her later releases – 2000’s Draw Them Near, 2005’s Strawberry Lover and 2006’s City Garden that would capture the attention of critics and fans worldwide. The New York native picked up the acoustic guitar and started writing songs while living as a student abroad in Kingston, Jamaica in her late teens.  Her first songs reflected a bittersweet culture shock as well as the warmth and musical vibrancy of these new surroundings. Klein returned to the states, moved to Boston, and began performing locally. After independently releasing her first two albums, winning the Telluride Troubadour Songwriting Contest, and garnering several Boston Music Award nominations, Klein was spotted and signed to Rykodisc in 2000 by then-president George Howard.  Her first release for Ryko, Draw Them Near, [3.5 stars, USA Today], launched Klein on a worldwide tour where, among other highlights, her relaxed confidence and rootsy soulfulness wowed 70,000 attendees at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. Klein returned to the U.S. and joined the songwriter collective Voices on the Verge, along with Erin McKeown, Rose Polenzani, and Beth Amsel. The foursome was featured on Good Morning America performing Klein's song “Little White Dove,” and drew sold out crowds in small theaters across the U.S. to their feet nightly with their blend of harmonies and eclectic styles.  Looking for a new phase in her creative life, Jess moved to New York and recorded her second solo effort for Ryko. Strawberry Lover [2005], produced by former RCA recording artist Marc Copely. Strawberry Lover debuted as the No. 1 most added album at triple A radio a week before its release, was given four stars by MOJO, a plug from the nearly 80 million readership Parade, and within weeks of its release, the emotive and sensual title track was named one of the “Top Ten Sexiest Songs of the Moment” by the NY Daily News. In 2006, Klein released the blues and Motown influenced City Garden on indie label United For Opportunity.  The album was given an impressive five stars by MOJO Magazine and described by Roots Music UK as having “The best roots sound of any album heard this year.”  This album took Klein several times to the UK where she toured solo as well as with Erin McKeown.   In 2007 Klein followed up with Live At Mo Pitkin’s House of Satisfaction, which featured some of her best songs in a stripped-down, live setting. Ready for a major change, Klein packed her bags and moved to Austin, TX in 2008.  There she immersed herself in local culture – taking up residence in a small community of long-standing Austin roots music staples.  She began writing and testing songs out to small groups of fans at local club gigs, and in December 2008 she went into the studio to record her seventh studio album, Bound To Love. Recorded at The Aerie in Austin, TX with producers Mark Addison and Scrappy Jud Newcomb during December 2008 and January 2009, Bound To Love, shines as her most confident work to date.  From jubilant anthems to delicate and beautiful moments, the running theme is moving to a new and better place – emotionally, geographically and more. In the opening track, “When The Times Comes,” Klein croons, “I’m free / Nothing is expected of me,” over building guitar and drums before belting “I’ll be ready when the time comes!” over a triumphant horn section.  And in the reverb soaked “It Will Come To Me” she revisits this sense of confidence and self-awareness when she sings, “I’m going where it will come to me / A bigger ship on a broader sea / And it will come / And I’ll jump on.” If City Garden was Klein finding solace in Motown and old blues, Bound To Love is self-remedy in Americana and country; it’s kickin’ up some dirt in the south and sweating out your worries on the back porch. Bound To Love will be released September 15, 2009 on new model indie label United For Opportunity.  Jess will hit the road supporting the release with dates along the east coast, west coast, texas, and then the UK and Ireland.  Newly signed to Killer Artists Agency for booking, she’ll be touring extensively in support of the record over the next two years. Shelley King The music of Shelley King draws from and blends a spectrum of roots music styles, but one word succinctly describes it: soulful. Be it R&B, folk, blues, country, bluegrass or rock — or combinations of and variations on those themes — she delivers the goods straight from the heart with a voice that’s splendidly rich and warm and as big as all outdoors. Writing “a proverbial trunk full of instant hits and yet-unheard classics,” as the Austin Chronicle describes her songs, King has risen from the vibrant music scene in the Texas capital city to charm fans across North America, Europe and Japan, win two Austin Music Awards, and be named the Texas State Musician for 2008. And now she truly finds her sweet spot on her aptly titled new album Welcome Home. Recorded and co-produced with John Magnie, Tim Cook and Steve Amedée of The Subdudes — rated by All Music Guide as “stellar musicians of the swampy jazz-rock-blues New Orleans persuasion” — it’s a roots music tour de force where the spirit of the church meets the soul and spices of the South and the many moods and modes of the human heart. From the opening and intoxicating sunshine of “Summer Wine,” Welcome Home travels the musical highways and byways below Mason-Dixon to echo the finest traditions and open new musical dimensions, thanks to a magical marriage of the multi-instrumental gifts and vocal blend of Magnie, Cook and Amedée with the splendorous humanity and emotiveness of King’s singing and songs. On tracks like the call and response of “I Remember,” the hymnal “Welcome Home” (written just after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans) and the prayerful “Grain of Sand,” King and company draw from the gospel oak to create spiritual sounds for the modern age. “Asking Too Much” and “It’s Starting To Rain” renew classic New Orleans R&B, and “I Can’t Make It Easy” is a swooning swamp pop slow dancer. The lilt of bluegrass meets the zest of Cajun music on “Everything’s All Right,” and King and company summon up a spirited fais do do with the boogie-woogie of “How You Make Me Feel” and swing of “Falling Fast” before closing out with the acapella and handclaps of “Welcome Home Reprise.” All told, Welcome Home is a listening experience sure to be treasured and relished by all it touches for years to come. King’s voice first rang out at the age of four in a tiny rural one-room church in her native Arkansas and then bloomed further as she grew up singing in parishes large and small across her home state and Texas. Listening to her uncles sing and play songs on their acoustic guitars by Neil Young, Bob Dylan and Crosby, Stills & Nash also instilled in her a sense of songwriting excellence from an early age. After working her way through college by starting and running her own business, King stepped onto the club and concert stage fronting bands in Houston before moving a few years later to Austin, the longtime noted nexus of roots music authenticity and innovation as well as superlative songwriting that proved to be a welcoming home for her talents. She had been writing songs since her early teens, and in Austin her gifts found a place to bloom without the strictures of style or commercial concerns. “I just started writing for myself. I don’t care what kind of song it is — it might be bluegrass, it might be blues, it doesn’t matter — it’s whatever mood I’m in and whatever the song needs.” After King gave a copy of her debut album Call Of My Heart to Toni Price, Austin’s beloved and long-reigning favorite female voice, Price recorded two of the tunes on it — the title track and “Who Needs Tears” — for her 2001 album, Midnight Pumpkin. Her version of “Call Of My Heart” went on the win Song of the Year at the Austin Music Awards, where in 2005 King and her group were also named Roots Music Band of the Year. Price recorded another King song, “Tennessee Whiskey” for her 2003 album Born to be Blue. Then after Lee Hazelwood heard King’s “Texas Blue Moon” on the radio during a drive through the Lone Star State, he and Nancy Sinatra cut the song for their album Nancy & Lee 3. For her second album, The Highway, King traveled to the legendary Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama where icons like Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Otis Redding and many others have tracked classic recordings. Her 2004 live album, Rockin’ the Dancehall, captured her dynamism as a performer at the famed Gruene Hall in Central Texas, and was declared “an exuberant breath of air” by the Austin Chronicle and named a Top Recording of the Year by Buddy magazine for its “excellent, high-energy country-rock-pop-blues-gospel-soul, delivered by a tight, experienced band.” King’s catalog also includes the compilation Armadillo Bootleg #1 that features live and studio tracks including a live cut from her all-woman Southern rock band Sis Deville, a collaboration with Sara Hickman and two Subdudes covers. As the Dallas Observer says of King, “Onstage, she leads her band through tangents of electric Southern blues and acoustic folk, revved-up Cajun country and rock and roll with a charismatic ease that evidences the resilience of a lifelong performer.” And for more than a decade now, she has taken her act across the U.S. and Canada and as well tours of Europe and Japan, sharing stages with scores of noted performers from a range of styles (including such top acts as Patty Griffin, Los Lonely Boys, The Flatlanders, Mavis Staples, Ricky Skaggs and many others), appearing at major festivals in North America and Europe, and performing live on XM satellite radio and the internationally syndicated concert show Woodsongs, among many other radio and TV appearances. King’s fervent Texas following led her to be nominated and then selected as the Texas State Musician for 2008. She shares the honor with such acts as Willie Nelson, Billy Joe Shaver, Ray Benson of Asleep at the Wheel and Dale Watson, and is the first woman to hold the prestigious annual post. The origins of her collaboration with members of The Subdudes was first seeing the band in 1993 in Austin and being knocked out by their show, and then buying a cassette of one of their albums in a used tape bin. “I could not take it out of the tape player in my car for months,” King recalls. “I just got into the groove where that was my music and the soundtrack to my life.” She later met and befriended the group running into them on tour and playing shows together. Welcome Home started out informally with an initial session at Magnie’s home studio in Fort Collins, Colorado. “I really just went to demo a few songs and kind of goof around in the studio with them,” explains King. “We were in the studio for three days and came out with five songs, and had just an amazing time together. I wasn’t trying to do a record. But when I started listening to it all afterwards, I thought, wow, this is really special, and I’d really love to do it again.” Over two subsequent visits to Fort Collins, a full album took shape. “It came about really organically,” King enthuses. “We didn’t get together and say we’re going to produce a record. We were just thinking about the music and having fun recording with no pressure, and whatever comes of it comes of it. When it all came down I had recorded a whole record. I savored every moment of it and didn’t want it to end. It was a total labor of love.” Welcome Home is now sure to reside in the hearts of all that hear it as a contemporary classic of soulful American music. Yet for all the honors, praise and success King has achieved — and doing so by booking her own tours and releasing her albums on her own Lemonade Records label — the ultimate rewards for King are those of the soul. “It’s joyous work,” she concludes of her career. “It’s what I love doing and it’s such a blessing to be able to do what you love every day.”

Some other upcoming shows in the DFW area

July 22	Tribute Concert for Michael Terry-- featuring Kat Eggleston, Bill Ward, Butch Morgan, Markley & Balmer, Bill Nash, Eric Folkerth, Tracie Merchant, Julie McClain	Uncle Calvin's
July 29	Ed Miller / Ellen Tipper	Uncle Calvin's
Aug 12	Mark Wayne Glasmire / Heather McCready	Uncle Calvin's
Aug 19	Audrey Auld / Kate Klim	Uncle Calvin's
Aug 26	Antje Duvekot / Tracie Merchant	Uncle Calvin's

© Diane S Litke