From the ACL Taping Program on July 30, 2005:
Over the last five years, Jack Johnson has gone from accomplished surfer to award-winning filmmaker to acclaimed singer-songwriter.
While scoring his multi-award winning surf films
Thicker Than Water and
The September Sessions, Johnson found his musical voice. Recordings of his songs soon became highly tradable bootlegs in the surfer community.
One bootleg eventually landed in the hands of musician Ben Harper, who was so impressed he helped Johnson make his debut CD and gave him an opening spot on his U.S./Australia tour.
Johnson’s debut release,
Brushfire Fairytales, was called charming and inviting by critics. It brought him platinum selling status and a large fan base. He continued touring and surfing for the next few years and in 2003 he released
On and On.
Entertainment Weekly said of his sophomore effort “while the vocal similarities to jam-band peers [Ben] Harper and Dave Matthews are striking, Johnson's songs are, frankly, more instantly likable than theirs.”
Johnson’s newest CD
In Between Dreams, which came out earlier this year, continues his unpretentious and laid-back sound combining blues and funky grooves.
Paste Magazine wrote “Listening to the surfer/artist’s third album is like sitting on a barstool alongside a good friend, knocking back pints and rappin’ it down about, y’know, life and whatever.”
From the ACL Taping Program on May 5, 2005:
Jenny Lewis (guitars, vocals), Blake Sennett (guitars, vocals), Pierre de Reeder (bass) and Jason Boesel (drums) fuse indie-pop and alt-country together for a sound that emphasizes their emotional, playful lyrics. The Los Angeles-based band got together in 1998 and released their first full-length cd,
Take Offs and Landings, three years later. The follow-up, 2002’s
The Execution of All Things, was hailed as “a dynamic album with intriguing lyrics, a country/folk shimmer, and explosive pop moments” by
Pitchfork.
After building a strong following through touring and other projects (Lewis is also a member of the band The Postal Service and most of Rilo Kiley appears on Bright Eyes’ most recent CDs), the band released
More Adventurous in 2004. Their newest CD puts lead-singer Lewis’ voice at the forefront. “This record represents how comfortable I am with my voice,” she said. “I feel proud that I've gotten to a point where I'm no longer inhibited."
Lewis’ vocal confidence has critics comparing her to some of music's most respected vocalists.
Rolling Stone wrote the CD “packs big-city country music and meticulously breezy arrangements into eleven sweet, heartbroken songs. They're sung in a voice that's equal parts Loretta Lynn and wounded indie girl.”
Like Loretta Lynn, Lewis is singing from her own experiences, which give the songs a real emotional bent.
“A lot of the album is my outlook on matters of the heart,” Lewis said. “After getting brutalized, it’s possible to go inward and be a little destructive. But at the same time it’s going to become possible to be a little bit more adventurous with love. You allow yourself to open up a bit.”
