Houston, Texas-Based Glenna Bell Presents Lone
Star: Songs and Stories Straight from the Heart of Texas on April 15
HOUSTON, TX – Singer-songwriter Glenna Bell
announces an April 15 release date for her new CD, Lone Star: Songs and
Stories Straight from the Heart of Texas, the provocative
new album of songs from the native Texan. Produced by Mark Abernathy and
recorded at Sugar Hill Studios in Houston, The Finishing School in Austin and
Sea Fog Studio in England, Lone Star offers an authentic array of
songs ranging in mood and tempo from a cover of the chart-topping ballad,
“Everybody’s Changing,” by the UK band Keane, which showcases its writer Tim
Rice-Oxley on piano and harmonium, to Glenna’s all-original “Pig in Lipstick
Blues,” featuring veteran Austin players Johnny Nicholas (Asleep at the Wheel)
on boogie-woogie piano/guitar and George Reiff (Joe Walsh) and Rick Richards (Ray Wylie Hubbard) on bass and
drums.
Themes
run the gamut from story-songs of Glenna’s life in Texas (“Poor Girl (in
Blue),” “Shiner Bock & ZZ Top” and “What It Was Was The Art Guys”); to
upbeat old-school pop-rock love songs (“So in Love with You” and “Tonight’s the
Night”); to the enigmatic and haunting "Christmas Is Coming,” a
pre-release for the 2015 holiday as a follow up to “Be My Valentine (On
Christmas),” which garnered 194,000 streams on Spotify after being selected for
their special holiday playlist in 2014; plus a uniquely Texan and deeply
sincere take on Don Henley’s “Heart of the Matter,” featuring George Reiff and
Rick Richards on bass and drums and a soaring steel guitar part by Austin’s
Mike Hardwick (Jerry Jeff Walker). Lone Star also boasts a
gorgeous cover for both vinyl and CD formats (distributed by Burnside
Distribution) designed by French-Canadian artist, Natali Leduc, with
captivating photography by Amy Morris shot on location at Glenna’s hundred year
old wood frame house at the shadowy-sunshiny edge of downtown Houston.
“As
life accelerates and the world becomes increasingly more complicated, I wanted
to take a step back, slow down and spend time alone at home writing this
collection of songs that are meant to be heard in private spaces and enjoyed
from the perspective of a listener, much as a reader would consume a good book,
rather than from the vantage point of someone who is out to drink and dance the
night away to the backdrop of a band,” says Glenna about Lone Star.
“The theatrical element of Perfectly Legal: Songs of Sex, Love and Murder
continues to be ever present in my writing and performance (and “Pig in
Lipstick Blues” is even quite danceable!), but here the primary focus is on the
sincerity and authenticity of lyric and vocal supported by real instruments
played adeptly by human hands. I hope that people everywhere will
appreciate this introspective take on Texas, which reminds me of how I first
learned to listen and to love music—singing along to records and radio amidst
acres of East Texas thicket and the quiet, distant voices of the past. I
hope that you will take a step back with me now, slow down for a half hour or
so, and take some time to listen alone because there is nothing else like it
and there really is ‘no place like home’.”
Glenna Bell is a graduate of the
prestigious University of Houston Creative Writing Program, where she studied
with Pulitzer prize-winning playwright, Edward Albee, and she is an established
country-blues-folk artist who has been honored by the State of Texas in a House
Resolution recognizing her musical contribution to the state. Lone
Star is the fifth installment in a series of self-released albums that
chronicle the experiences of a woman, a worker, a wanderer, a dreamer, a
thinker, a seer, a stubborn free spirit who refuses to fail. Her last album,
Perfectly Legal: Songs of Sex, Love
and Murder, generated
both extensive radio airplay and rave press reviews.
Glenna
Bell regularly performs at a number of Houston venues, including La Carafe
(Third Tuesdays @ Historic La Carafe in February, March, April and May) and The
Nightingale Room in Downtown Houston (March 10). She’ll also be appearing
during SXSW in Austin as part of “Big Kev’s Roots Rock Revolution Radio
Showcase at the Opa! Wine and Coffee Bar.
