January 2017

Scandinavian-born singer Benjamin Folke Thomas is excited to announce the release of his impressive new album Copenhagen on March 3rd, 2017. Folke Thomas was born in the coldest winter recorded in modern day history in Gothenburg Sweden; perhaps his obsession for sad, lamenting country songs was inevitable; and grew up on a secluded island off the coast of, populated by mainly evangelical Christians. However, Ben never found God. He discovered grunge music instead, and at the age of 11 he was playing drums in a punk band before turning to Folk and Americana music after seeing Kurt Cobain’s performance of ‘In The Pines’ on Unplugged. Steeping himself in Leadbelly, Dylan, and Leonard Cohen, by the age of 20 he was an accomplished finger-picker, confident performer, and mature songwriter. Copenhagen is Ben’s best work to date; an album full of Roots and rhythmic Blues, alongside the most beautiful descriptive storytelling, sung with his trademark baritone vocals and packed with anthemic choruses. After living and playing in London for some years, where he proved to be one of the most exciting prospects to come out of the acoustic scene in years, he released his first studio album Too Close To Here in 2013. It was mainly recorded with Swedish musicians in the Rosa Huset (‘The Pink House’) outside Gothenburg. Follow up Rogue State of Mind, released in 2015, was recorded with his same Swedish band in their studio in an old warehouse, and focused in on the bands live nature with minimal rehearsal.    

Nashville-based venue marketing company, Marco Club Connection, has announced the 2016 Top Ten dance songs among Country lifestyle venues across the country. Topping the list are Jon Pardi’s Head Over Boots, Luke Bryan’s Move, and Thomas Rhett’s T-Shirt.Also making the list were two pop tracks, Cake by the Ocean  by DNCE and Can’t Stop the Feeling by Justin Timberlake. “2016 proved to be a very diversified year for the dance clubs with the inclusion of two pop acts and the steady climb of independent act, Drew Baldridge, in the top ten rankings,” said Craig Bann, Executive VP of Marco Music Group/Aristo Media Group. Marco Club Connection maintains a national database of venues and world-renowned dance instructor contacts that reaches thousands of club patrons each weekend. The panel of venue instructors, DJs, and venue managers were surveyed, and the results were calculated. The full results of the 2016 Top Ten Country Dance Club Hits are: 1   “Head Over Boots” – Jon Pardi 2.  “Move” – Luke Bryan 3.  “T-Shirt” – Thomas Rhett 4.  “Cake By the Ocean” – DNCE 5.  “Dance With Ya” – Drew Baldridge 6.  “21 Summer” – Brothers Osborne 7.  “Can’t Stop The Feeling” – Justin Timberlake 8.  “You Look Like I Need A Drink” – Justin Moore 9. “Dirt on My Boots” – Jon Pardi 10. “We Went” – Randy Houser

Acclaimed young singer songwriter Luke Jackson is to join forces for the third time with Cardiff’s Amy Wadge this month for what promises to be a dazzling double header UK tour. Between January 20-February 10, Luke will tour England and Wales with Amy, known for her winning songwriting collaboration with “Britain’s hottest pop star” Ed Sheeran. She and Sheeran, having reached No 1 in the official UK chart with THINKING OUT LOUD  which went platinum, won the coveted Song of the Year at the 2016 Grammys. The global smash hit was the first song to celebrate a whole year in the Top 40. The songwriting pair also penned When Christmas Comes Around – the X Factor winner’s debut single – which made a bid to be the Christmas No 1 for newly crowned Matt Terry, but was pipped at the post.  Jackson, a widely acclaimed 22 year-old singer songwriter, has recently played dates in Scotland, Belgium, Germany and The Netherlands while in 2015 there was no doubting his versatility when he supported one of Britain’s most successful rock bands, Marillion, on a UK and European tour.   The Canterbury musician’s remarkable 2012 debut album More Than Boys (FATEA music magazine’s Debut Album of the Year), triggered a double nomination at the 2013 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards (Young Folk Award and Horizon Award for Best Emerging Act) and just 18 months later he fulfilled all the promise heaped upon him with his second album Fumes and Faith, with the accolades coming thick and fast. A belting blues and roots-infused album it showed how skilfully he had honed his craft in just 18 months. Sparse and stripped back with a wealth of narrative songs it received widespread airplay and accolades across BBC Radios 2,3 and 6, showing the limitless appeal of his ever developing music. Last year the prolific songwriter released his third album, revealing his new trio in This Family Tree – Andy Sharps on bass and Connor Downs (percussion). The punchy seven track EP of finely observed original numbers was released on Luke’s own new label, First Take Records. Nudging the mainstream, the sophisticated songs interwove the tale of one small town family’s high and low journey – sometimes ramped up and rocky, then heartbreakingly gentle and poignant. Joining forces with Amy Wadge presents an exciting start to 2017 – a 15 date tour taking in London, Cambridge and their home towns of Cardiff and Canterbury. Described by Bob Harris as “an irresistible, riveting performer” Amy is widely regarded as one of the country’s most successful female singer songwriters. With great vocal range in her emotive songs she has twice won the Best Solo Female Artist title at the Welsh Music Awards, ahead of Charlotte Church in 2002 and Cerys Matthews in 2003. In 2016 she won two awards at the ASCAP (American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers Awards) – Song of the Year and Top Digital Song. A gutsy performer with a voice that is “tough but tender” she has supported some of the world’s great artists – Van Morrison, Damien Rice, Eric Bibb and Jeff Beck – and has seven album releases to her name. In 2015 she unveiled her first solo release in six years – the EP Recovery – and her most recent EP, No Use Crying Over Spilt Milk – includes her own version of Thinking Out Loud.

The Country Radio Broadcasters have announced Zac Brown as the recipient of the CRS 2017 Artist Humanitarian Award and former Chairman and CEO of Greater Media, Peter Smyth, as the recipient of the CRS 2017 Tom Rivers Humanitarian Award, to be presented during Country Radio Seminar 2017; following the Opening Ceremonies on Wednesday, February 22nd, 3:30-4:00 p.m. The CRB Artist Humanitarian Award was created in 1990 by the organization’s board to honor those Country music artists who have exhibited exceptional humanitarian efforts during their career.  Past recipients of the annual award have included Lady Antebellum, Carrie Underwood, Rascal Flatts, Tim McGraw and Faith Hill, Trace Adkins, Randy Owen, Toby Keith, Brad Paisley, Brooks & Dunn, Reba, Vince Gill, Garth Brooks and Charlie Daniels, among others. Zac Brown is a strong supporter of multiple philanthropic causes including his own Camp Southern Ground which was inspired by his experiences as a camp counselor. The program at the Georgia-based state-of-the-art facility is an inclusive camp that combines children with neuro-developmental disorders with mainstream children.  Its mission is to provide extraordinary experiences for these children to recognize and magnify the unique gifts within themselves and others in order to profoundly impact the world.   Additional organizations that Brown is committed to include GRAMMYS on The Hill, GRAMMY U, MusiCares, Robin Hood Foundation and The USO. Three-time GRAMMY winner and multi-platinum artist Zac Brown, of Zac Brown Band, is one of music’s most heralded acts.  The latest platinum-certified album ‘JEKYLL + HYDE’ (Southern Ground Artists/John Varvatos Records/Big Machine Label Group/Republic Records) marks the band’s fourth consecutive No.1 debut on the Billboard 200 chart. Zac Brown Band has earned a historic series of fifteen No.1 hit radio singles and is only the second band to top both the country and active rock formats.

The story of Shane O’Malley Firek, the single constant member of The Ferdy Mayne, is one of journeys – physical, spiritual, and a combination of the two. “I was going through massive change when I was writing this material,” Firek explains of his self-titled debut album, out March 24th via Greater Peaks Records. “Before my sobriety, I was completely insane, in and out of jail, losing friends and putting myself in considerable debt,” he confesses. “I quit drinking around the time I began to perform in New York, and I’ve been sober a little over three years now.” Free of the law, and free of the hold of alcohol, Firek accomplishes on this album what any artist hopes to who has lived through pretty good and really bad, and that is to fully inform the work with experience. Firek is most proud of his lyrics, and unlike some songwriters, he fights hard for them, sometimes over the course of many years. “This is the single most focused song on the record, lyrically,” Firek explains. “What else can it say? Define my name. Surreal, poignant Ferdy lyrics. This is what I do best.” It’s a lot of movement, the other side of the coin of confinement, which Firek also knows something about. It’s likely the same optimism about his first glimpse of Los Angeles that kept him going before arriving there. “Los Angeles is a shimmering object at first glance,” he remembers. “It is unreliable, similar to the unreliable dream of New York City, but I trust in the truth that you can sharpen the tools you came here with.” Firek’s journey continues in 2017. Details of a tour behind the release of the debut album by The Ferdy Mayne will be announced shortly. The self-titled debut album by The Ferdy Mayne arrives on March 24th, 2017 via Greater Peaks Records.

While Caroline Spence may not look like one of the road-hardened troubadours of America’s past, the latest record from the young songwriter from Charlottesville, Virginia proves she is every bit as serious. Her highly-anticipated sophomore album, Spades & Roses, is due out on March 3, 2017. It’s is a rare but unmistakable authenticity and emotional resonance that can’t be faked, all delivered from  a “feather-light voice that evokes the best singers of the Lilith Fair era” (Rolling Stone Country). Somehow Caroline Spence manages to be both ethereally pristine and yet profoundly raw and human–a disarming union of self-assuredness and vulnerability that runs throughout the record.  Under the guidance of Producer Neilson Hubbard, Spades and Roses strips away all of the sonic barriers that might stand between Spence and her listener, allowing her fragile melodies and first person confessionals to do their work– reaching out and empathizing, providing a soundtrack to our own hidden stories.  Every song on the record–whether pop or meditative, glib or heartbreaking– asks the essential question of whether or not the listener can recognize himself. Having won numerous songwriting awards from industry mainstays like the Kerrville Folk Festival and American Songwriter Magazine, and garnered nods and admiration from both Miranda Lambert and her fellow writers in the Nashville underground, Caroline Spence has delivered a record to meet the expectation: Quite simply, 11 songs of gorgeous Americana that remind us of why we fell in love with the genre in the first place. So who is Spades and Roses for? Songwriters who need a sympathetic shoulder?  Song lovers who are tired of the latest gimmick? Modern ladies who still enjoy knitting? Older men who have seen enough to not find that intimidating? In the end, it’s for all of us that demand a lot of life and love, and yet still have the grace and hope to go on loving the world in spite of what it is sometimes. It’s for all of us that still like to hear our story told in song.  In Caroline’s own words, which seem to summarize the record, “It’s all love, and it’s all pain. And after all, I can’t complain.”