Josh Small is a singer/songwriter from Richmond, VA. He has toured with bands such as Strike Anywhere, Stop It and Pink Razors, and is a vital member of labelmate Tim Barry's backing band. After a demo release in 2005, he recorded his Suburban Home debut "Tall by Josh Small" at Minimum Wage Studio in Richmond for a 2007 release.
Frank Yamma is one of Australia's most talented contemporary performers. He also happens to be a traditional Pitjantjatjara man from Australia's central desert and speaks five languages. An extraordinary songwriter and an exceptional guitarist, Frank Yamma also has an incredible voice, rich, deep and resonant. When Frank sings about standing on a sand dune watching over the landscape, it is if you are standing with him. When he sings about the plight of Aboriginal children born into a world of chaos and alcohol, Frank wrenches the heart.
Ryan Adams (born David Ryan Adams on November 5, 1974) is an alt-country and rock and roll singer-songwriter from Jacksonville, North Carolina. Adams dropped out of high school at age 16 to work in a shoe shop and make music. He formed a band named Whiskeytown in 1994; they disbanded in 1999 having released two full albums, Faithless Street and Strangers Almanac. Adams went on to put out his first solo record, Heartbreaker, in 2000. After a long delay, in 2001 Whiskeytown's third album Pneumonia was finally issued.
<a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Will+Oldham" class="bbcode_artist">Will Oldham</a> (born 24 December 1970, Louisville, Kentucky) is an American <a href="http://www.last.fm/tag/singer-songwriter" class="bbcode_tag" rel="tag">singer-songwriter</a>, actor, and musician. His music is often (perhaps inappropriately) placed under the genre of "<a href="http://www.last.fm/tag/alt-country" class="bbcode_tag" rel="tag">alt-country</a>". Oldham has recorded under many names, including <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Palace" class="bbcode_artist">Palace</a>, <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Palace+Music" class="bbcode_artist">Palace Music</a>, <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Palace+Brothers" class="bbcode_artist">Palace Brothers</a>, and <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/+noredirect/Bonnie+Billy" class="bbcode_artist">Bonnie Billy</a>. He often plays and records with other musicians, including <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/David+Pajo" class="bbcode_artist">David Pajo</a> and his brothers Ned and Paul Oldham, but is generally the chief creator of the music.
Hayward Williams grew up with a guitar in his hands, performing from an early age in cafés, bars, and eventually rock clubs throughout his home state of Wisconsin and around the Midwest. A high school 'Battle of the Bands' champion, the textbook lonely college kid making dinner dates with his guitar, Williams took the well-worn suburban route to musical accomplishment: he hit the ground running with a '64 Gibson that his mother bought at a garage sale, listened hard to everything from the Beatles to Buckley, and somewhere along the way began to write the tunes that would become his own voice.
Vashti Bunyan is an English singer who was publicized to be the next Marianne Faithfull and the female version of Bob Dylan back in the mid-60s. Several singles were released in the 1960s to some mild success. Bunyan also released the LP, Just Another Diamond Day, in 1970 which consisted of songs written while traveling in a horse drawn gypsy cart. Critics panned the album and a discouraged Vashti soon disappeared from the music scene.
Australia has produced very few, if any, popular singers of such extraordinary talent that their voices seem to be a gift from the gods. Not until now. Listen to Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu as he sings in Galpu, Djambarrpuynu, Gumatj - and, occasionally, in English - and you will instantly surrender to the greatest voice this continent has ever recorded. Blind from birth, he is not an Aboriginal musician singing protest songs against a rock, reggae or folk-country backing.
Like most inspirational art Timber Timbre comes from a source of isolation, cabin fever specifically. Timber Timbre, primarily the work of Oshawa-born Toronto based Taylor Kirk, walks a precious line between harrowing blues and desperate death country. Recorded in a farm house near Bobcaygeon, Ontario, their debut Cedar Shakes was released in 2006, the moniker Timber Timbre an ode to the surroundings and the warm haunting sound of the album.
Kathryn Tickell (b. 1967) is an English player of the Northumbrian smallpipes and fiddle. She has recorded eleven albums, and toured widely. Kathryn Tickell took up the smallpipes aged nine, inspired by her family - especially her father Mike, who was heavily involved in the local traditional music scene - and by the music of an older generation of traditional musicians such as Willie Taylor, Will Atkinson, Joe Hutton, Richard Moscrop and Tom Hunter.