Corinne West
Travels the Starlight Highway on New CD, Coming May 19 from Make
Records
Special CD
Pre-Release Show for Her Full Band Set at Freight & Salvage in Berkeley,
California, on April 4
LARKSPUR, CA – Corinne West announces a May 19 release date
for Starlight Highway, the new album from the Californian artist
issued on her own Make Records imprint, distributed nationally by Burnside
Distribution. West will offer local San Francisco Bay Area fans a special
advance musical treat in the form of a pre-release show with her full band on
Saturday, April 4, at Berkeley’s famed Freight & Salvage venue (http://www.thefreight.org/) starting at
8:00 PM.
Corinne West, who recently returned from an official showcase
and additional performances at the International Folk Alliance music conference
in Kansas City, will perform a number of songs off the new CD at the Freight
& Salvage show, backed by her group The Bandits, which includes several of
the musicians who perform with her on Starlight Highway.
Additionally, Corinne West and The Bandits will also perform another pre-release
show as part of the “Lighted Window Concerts” series at the Unitarian Church in
Campbell, California, near San Jose on April 18, at 7:30 PM. Announcements of
additional US shows are forthcoming, as is an extensive European tour coming
later this year.
A fourth generation Californian, Corinne West, who now
resides in the mighty redwood forests of the state’s coast north of San
Francisco, has been described as “the Siren of the Sierras” by the SF Bay Area’s
Times Herald. Another reviewer from the North Coast Journal
in Arcata, California, declared,” “West’s voice invokes angels, if
angels had a dangerous side.” Corinne’s powerful and eloquent voice, coupled
with the way she forges a song, has earned her a unique identity within the
global acoustic roots scene. Relix noted her “voice of gold,”
coming at you with honey, velvet-dusk wine and distant sage. Legendary BBC radio
DJ Bob Harris proclaimed, “I love Corinne’s music and truly believe in her as an
artist. She has spirit, integrity and talent. I am a massive fan.”
The songs on West’s latest recording came about after a
year-long sabbatical in Austria, which culminated in the new disc.
“Starlight is my first completely self-produced record,” West says
about the sessions. “I wanted to create a body of songs that moved my music
forward in new directions, while paying tribute to the music I have done in the
past. This influenced my decisions regarding the instrumentation; piano, organ,
acoustic rock angles, heavy harmonies, the deep-drive of drums, the laid back
floating ballads… I wanted to play with many flavors, and I didn’t hold back on
using any spices while in the sonic kitchen.”
Joining her in creating these musical recipes are such
celebrated players as Ricky Fataar – drums; Edo Castro - 7 string fretless bass;
Kelly Joe Phelps - guitar, vocals; John R. Burr - Hammond organ, Wurlitzer; Karl
Sevareid - electric bass; Mike Marshall - mandolin, octave mandolin; Henry
Salvia - Hammond organ, piano, Wurlitzer, accordion; and Joe Kyle Jr. – acoustic
bass, electric bass. Starlight Highway was recorded at Opus
Studios in Berkeley, California; and the Skywalker Ranch in Novato,
California.
“I am fortunate to be able to surround myself with extremely
talented musicians,” offers West. “Kelly Joe Phelps and I recorded and toured as
a duo for two years, and he is highly featured both vocally and on guitar. Mike
Marshall produced my 2007 release, Second Sight, and it was pure
fire and pearls to have him embellish a few of the slower songs and lend some
serious steam to the title track. Ricky Fataar (Bonnie Raitt, Beach Boys) was
recommended by my rock-solid engineer, David Luke. We connected right off the
bat, and he brought in so much groove and such a bed to lean into. It's amazing
how when music is tight... it all becomes beautifully loose.
Everyone on the record was a gem to work with, and it was a
high adventure for me to both steer and gently hit cruise-control at times to
get just the right synergy, tones and movement the songs were reaching
for.
“The songs for Starlight Highway have taken
quite a journey. Many of them were written in 2011, on the heels of my last
release, and have been waiting - wherever it is that songs do wait - for a place
to land and sing themselves. The songs are decidedly more revealing than others
I have released; less dripping in metaphor, more direct and perhaps
stark.”
“This is an intimate record, and covers a lot of territory,”
adds West, summing up the new album. “I marvel at how deeply personal
experiences so often translate into universal and mythic principals. It’s as
though there is an invisible blueprint somewhere, continuously showing up in
stories and art. My aim with this recording is to communicate a personal emotive
glimpse of what we all experience in our own way, on our own roads, as we climb,
fly, fall, isolate, believe, reinvent, connect, dream... Though seemingly
different, we are all somehow cut from the same cloth.”
Click here to
watch the fundraiser video on the making of Starlight Highway: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2S2eV0GLP0
To hear song
samples of some of the tracks of her upcoming CD, click on this link: http://www.corinnewest.com/starlight-highway-samples.php
For more
information, visit her new website coming soon at www.corinnewest.com
