Hayward Williams
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.
John Hammond
John Paul Hammond (born 13th November 1942), also known as "John Hammond Jr", is a blues singer and guitarist. He usually plays acoustic guitars and dobros and sings in a barrelhouse style. Since 1962, when he made his debut on Vanguard Records, Hammond has made 29 albums. In the 1990s he recorded for the Pointblank label. Hammond has earned one Grammy Award and been nominated for four others. He is the son of the legendary record producer John H. Hammond.
The Rainmakers
The Rainmakers were a Kansas City, Missouri-based original rock band whose members included: Bob Walkenhorst,
Steve Phillips (later a member of The Elders),
Rich Ruth,
Pat Tomek,
Michael Bliss (replaced Rich Ruth in 1995). Missouri has long boasted of being the home of two of America's greatest artists, Mark Twain and Chuck Berry. However, it wasn't until The Rainmakers thundered into the national music spotlight in 1986, had anyone combined the guitar power of Berry with the social wit of Twain into a unique brand of Missouri rock n' roll.
Courtney Marie Andrews
Courtney Marie Andrews is an American songwriter born November 7, 1990. She is a founding member of the Southwest label that's being compared to Omaha's Saddle Creek, River Jones Music. Andrews gained popularity by gigging in her home town of Phoenix Arizona when she was just fifteen years old. Producer River Jones met Courtney at an art gallery party while he was there playing spur of the moment drums for a noise post punk riot girl band.
Lisa Hannigan
Lisa Hannigan, born February 12th 1981 in Kilcloon, County Meath, Ireland, is a singer-songwriter originally known as the female vocalist from Damien Rice's best selling breakthrough albums O and 9. Lisa also appears on backing vocals on Mic Christopher's album Skylarkin, as well as the soundtrack to "Goldfish Memory". In 2005 Lisa and Damien co-wrote Unplayed Piano which was released to support the Free Aung San Suu Kyi 60th Birthday Campaign.
Brous
Brous (pron. Bruce) is the daring new musical venture by Sophia Brous. The Melbourne based musician has developed a striking sound with the instinct and swagger of a performer well beyond her years. Her band are made up of gifted musicians featuring members of Pikelet, Ned Collette + Wirewalker and Lost Animal. Coming from a second-generation Austrian/Polish migrant family, Brous' early musical experimentation was influenced by a family made up of musicians, sculptors and novelists.
Freya Hanly
Traversing a sea of folky-jazz melodies, country ballads, humorous love songs and deeply poetic, classically influenced pieces is Freya Hanly. Freya has established herself in the Australian independent music community as a seasoned performer., having extensively toured WA and the East coast as well as being a regular at some top Australian festivals. Freya has supported and performed alongside such artists as The Indigo Girls, Deborah Conway, Lior, Sarah Storer, Kate Miller-Heidke, The Whitlams, Clare Bowditch, Blue King Brown and Brandi Carlile.
Josh Pyke
It didn't take long before Josh's unique voice and song writing style, influenced by the likes of Elliott Smith, Evan Dando, and Sparklehorse, began to find favour amongst music tastemakers, critics and Triple J listeners. The first taste, the assured 'Kids Don't Sell Their Hopes So Fast', found high rotation on Triple J and soon 'Silver' and the gently sweeping 'Doldrums' followed to similar praise and airplay. These tracks are now available on the CD 'Recordings 2003-2005' through The Million records.
Bon Iver
Bon Iver is a Grammy Award winning folk band from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, United States, and one of Justin Vernon's current and most notable music projects to date. The band also consists of Mike Noyce, Sean Carey and Matt MacCaughan.
The name 'Bon Iver' (pronounced "bon ee-VAIR") is a play on the French phrase 'bon hiver' meaning 'good winter'. Vernon independently released Bon Iver's debut album For Emma, Forever Ago in 2007, most of which was recorded during a four-month stay in a remote cabin in Wisconsin.
While in high school and college Vernon founded the indie-rock bands Mount Vernon and DeYarmond Edison in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, where he still resides.
According to the For Emma Songfacts, after the break-up of De Yarmond Edison, Vernon retreated to his father's log cabin, out in the woods of north-east Wisconsin to hibernate for three snowy months. There he collected his thoughts and formulated them into a suite of songs, For Emma, Forever Ago . The album was originally self-released in late 2007 in a run of 500 copies and sold out instantly.
The album garnered critical acclaim, and was picked up by the indie-rock label Jagjaguwar, which gave the album a proper release on February 19th, 2008. The album was released in the UK and Europe by iconic indie 4AD on May 12, 2008.
When released in the UK, For Emma, Forever Ago received 5/5 and "Album of the Month" reviews in both MOJO and Uncut magazines. It is currently the third highest rated album of 2008 on review-aggregator site Metacritic, with accolades from publications including The Village Voice, The Hartford Courant and The A.V. Club.
The group's second album Bon Iver, Bon Iver was released on June 17, 2011 to universal acclaim. It was named by Pitchfork Media as the best album of 2011 on their annual list. At the 2012 Grammys, the album won Best Alternative Album and the group was awarded Best New Artist, despite having debuted in 2007.
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