The jaw-droppingly beautiful voice that is Iona Leigh will release her second album 'Beside the Waves of Time', on March 30th 2009. Here at QGR, we're pleased to announce that we will be looking after all regional and online press for the release.

Iona Leigh’s unique sound has been described as gorgeous vocals floating over a folk tinged musical backdrop, with an intermingled sense of both tradition and the contemporary. While her music is cleverly catchy, it washes over the listener with a serenity that is rare in the modern pop world, and the stories contained within her songs come to life with foot stomping rhythms, melodic arrangements and vivid lyrical imagery. Iona’s talent for song-writing is clear from her poignant lyrics, which make reference to nature, ancient legends and myths. But it is her striking voice, drawing comparisons to such individual artists as Sheila Chandra and Tori Amos, that heralds her arrival as a significant new artist.

Iona left her birthplace of Sydney, Australia at the age of 8 and moved half way across the world to the remote fishing village and community of Findhorn, in the north east of Scotland. In accordance with the philosophy of the Steiner School she attended, Iona had restricted access to television and spent most of her time playing her harp, writing songs and singing to her mother’s alternative music collections in the cozy bungalow they called home. Music was woven into the fabric of Iona’s life in Findhorn, as travelling musicians came from far and wide to perform in the community’s renowned Universal Hall. These alternative and traditional musical influences, combined with her deep love for the wild tumbling waves of the Moray Firth have all been uniquely captured in her new album; ‘Beside the Waves of Time’, to be released in March 2009.

'Beside...' is a beautiful collection of 12 original tracks penned by Iona, and charts her natural progression as both a songwriter and performer. The record, produced by Nick Turner, employs a full contemporary folk band (complete with drums), and features some of Scotland and Ireland's finest musicians including Jarlath Henderson (Pipes), Duncan Lyall (Double Bass), Findlay Napier (Guitar), Mary Ann Kennedy (Harp), Paul Jennings (Drums) and Gillian Frame (Violin).

To pre order your copy now visit www.ionaleigh.com For all regional and online press enquiries, or to request a copy of the album please contact Joe at Quite Great Roots on joe@quitegreat.co.uk

Dusk is a bittersweet time of day. There’s no other point in the sun’s arc that captures the imagination quite like it. Maybe the Nashville-based alt. folk-pop trio the Bittersweets can’t literally splash a sunset across the sky, but they bring the same striking contrast of shadow and luminescence to the ears.

The Bittersweets—Chris Meyers (guitar, keyboards, vocals) and Hannah Prater (vocals, guitar)—live up to their name. They fuse yellows and blues, sunniness and melancholy, with evocative lyrics and lush arrangements, transcendent melodies and Prater’s alluring voice. On every track of their new album, Goodnight, San Francisco, their recent live set, Long Way From Home, and their 2006 full-length debut, The Life You Always Wanted, the Bittersweets weave a captivating tension between hope and poignancy that rings true.

“I think the name fits us because a lot of the songs talk about life’s tensions and that you can’t just have happy or just dwell on the sad,” Prater explains. “I feel like a lot of the songs embrace both, the beautiful and the ugly, happy and sad—life’s paradoxes.” And the Bittersweets are well-equipped for that sort of musical alchemy.

There’s a reason why Prater’s singing is such a satisfying pleasure. Both of the California native’s parents are music teachers; she sang in jazz groups and musical theatre productions; and she pursued a degree in vocal performance, before discovering a different style of vocal expression in Joni Mitchell and Over the Rhine. Prater drew the best from each approach to hone her sumptuous vocal instrument.

“Hannah has so much vocal control,” says Meyers. “That’s a rarity for pop vocalists. The technical stuff just seems like second nature to her.”

Before the Massachusetts-born Meyers ever picked up a guitar in his late teens, he was an accomplished jazz pianist. His musical epiphany came during college. As he dug into the history of American roots music and wrote at length about how country music made its way from front porches to radio airwaves, his musical palette was forever changed. Of his college studies, Meyers says, “They turned me on to a bunch of artists that I never really listened to before—everything from bluegrass to Johnny Cash or Gram Parsons, the whole spectrum.”

Meyers is the Bittersweets' primary songwriter. He crafts poetic, often abstract lyrics and the kind of melodies that send shivers of sensory pleasure down the spine. “He keeps everything so interesting,” says Prater. “He keeps me thinking, he keeps me on my feet and having to interpret, and that’s something I’ve always loved to do.”

That new album, Goodnight, San Francisco, flows seamlessly through eleven gorgeous mood pieces. Lex Price—Mindy Smith producer and sideman—lent his delicate producing touch, and brought in a perfectly sympathetic team of players: steel guitarist Russ Pahl (Don Williams), bassist Dave Jacques (John Prine), guitarist Doug Lancio (Patty Griffin), cellist David Henry (Ben Folds), organ player John Deaderick (Emmylou Harris) and others. GRAMMY nominee Jason Lehning (Guster) also lent his mixing and playing abilities to the project.

Goodnight marks the end of the Bittersweets’ season in San Francisco and the beginning of a new one in Nashville with a leaner lineup (the Bittersweets recorded The Life You Always Wanted as a quintet). “Basically we were all going through various personal struggles the last year we were there, even as a band,” says Meyers. “One of the band members went to law school and another one had a baby—both of which are wonderful things.” But that meant shifting from their five-person lineup—which included bassist Daniel Schacht and multiinstrumentalist Jerry Becker—into trio mode, a change that’s ultimately made the Bittersweets even more versatile.

For more information please visit www.myspace.com/thebittersweets or contact Joe at Quite Great Roots on 01223 410000 or email joe@quitegreat.co.uk. The band will be on a tour of the UK throughout January.

"His music is, as it has always been, an intimate fusion of country and soul.” - MOJO

A modern-day Renaissance Man, Jeb Loy Nichols is a musician, songwriter, and visual artist whose creative path has taken him from his birthplace in the American Midwest, to London, and rural Wales.

PARISH BAR “was made at home, over the past couple years, in-between other projects. Some of the tracks came quickly, other tracks crawled into being, a layer at a time,” explains Jeb Loy Nichols.

“It all started because I was involved in doing a series of wood cuts entitled Ghost Yard. Ghost Yard was a public park in the Bronx where Afrika Bambaataa birthed Zulu Nation and helped bring about the age of hip-hop. When I lived in NYC in 1979-83, I went to the parties that Bambaataa threw there. Like the music, the parties were grass roots affairs, a collection of sounds and influences that said: what you see is what you get! This is who we are and that’s what I wanted to say with Parish Bar. ‘This who I was and who I am!’ No big deal—just relax and have a good time.”

“The first song, “COUNTRYMUSICDISCO45” was based on a real happening - I was at a dance and we were all dancing to great disco grooves when out of no where the DJ dropped a Charlie Rich record. It was a great moment. It reminded me of being in

Jamaica and going to the local parish bar and listening to a dub session that lasted all night. Finally, as the sun was coming up, they put on some country tracks. It's all roots music.”

“So I've included some covers, some jazz, some country, some soul - all the stuff that matters. It's an in-between time record - this is what it soundslike at my house.”

For UK press enquiries please contact Rob at Quite Great Roots on 01223 410000 or Robert@quitegreat.co.uk

It’s not all that hard to find a musician willing and able to offer a guided tour of life’s dark clouds -- but making the acquaintance of someone able to hone in on the silver lining, well, that’s an altogether rarer occurrence. Catie Curtis’s ability to do just that radiates from virtually every groove of her appropriately titled ninth studio album, Sweet Life.

“I probably wouldn’t have written a record this positive if things were going great in the world and we had peace and prosperity,” the singer-songwriter explains. “There are lots of reasons to be unhappy or anxious at this time, and I think the album is as much about resilience as anything. In order to stay sane and keep moving forward you have to be able to look at all the bad news around you and see the beauty that is there alongside the trouble.”

Sweet Life abounds with that positive energy-- from the warm and winsome coming-of-age allegory “Are You Ready to Fly?” to the languid, sepia-toned “What You Can’t Believe,” on which she disperses the doubts that gather, as the lyric puts it, “under darkening clouds.” That song, like many of the disc’s dozen offerings, reaches out to listeners with a welcoming blend of burnished keyboards and slide guitar -- a departure from Curtis’s most recent recordings, which were more spare.

“We’re at this juncture where a lot of folks are working on their records in home studios and making them sound craftily small, but I really wanted to go in the other direction toward a big, warm, friendly sound,” Curtis says of her first Nashville-bred recording. The songs are meant to be open and confident, and I don’t know that they’d have carried as well if they were done stripped down and bare bones.”

They’re anything but stripped down. Backed by an array of Music City vets, including longtime Bonnie Raitt collaborator George Marinelli and Alison Prestwood, who’s accompanied such artists as Shawn Colvin, Rodney Crowell and Peter Frampton, Curtis stretches out as broadly as at anytime in her 12-year recording career. That’s evident in the playfulness of the ‘30s-styled barroom plaint “Lovely” as well as in the ‘70s soul groove of “For Now,” which exudes Muscle Shoals sultriness.

As is her wont, Curtis also slips a surprising cover into the mix on Sweet Life – this time an affirming rendition of “Soul Meets Body” by kindred alternative-rock spirits Death Cab for Cutie, a song she says she was drawn to because “I was really taken by the way these young guys are able to talk about wanting to live on a spiritual plane, which is really different than a lot of the music of the ‘90s which was really critical and jaded and ranting.”

There’s never been anything remotely jaded about Catie Curtis.. From the first time she picked up a guitar -- an instrument given to her gratis by a neighbor who asked only that she promise to learn to play it -- the native of rural southern Maine has used music as a sort of sonic superglue to bring people together. She brought that to the fore on her charming 1995 debut Truth From Lies, a disc on which she tangled with heartache and -- on the affably goofy “Slave to my Belly” -- had a full-on dialogue with that body part, and ramped it up further on her 1997 follow-up, which was named Album of the Year at the Gay and Lesbian American Music Awards.

While her early recordings captured a goodly bit of the Curtis charm, her live shows marked her as that rare breed of singer-songwriters -- the kind that refuses to take themselves as seriously as the topics they delve into. Using her whip-smart sense of humour – one part small town New England warmth and one part Ivy League wryness – like a chef uses a well-stocked spice rack, she brought a little bit of the Borscht Belt to the sometimes staid folk circuit.

“I feel like the growth for me has come from performing live and realising how you can be playful and even silly while acknowledging the hard stuff,” she explains. “When you’re in a room with a bunch of strangers, you need to laugh, or at least I do. If I couldn’t laugh a little every time I went onstage, I don’t think I could do this.”

While Curtis is prone to peppering her concerts with knee-slappers, Sweet Life is punctuated more by smile-inducing moments, like the narrative of “The Princess and the Mermaid” – a lullaby-like concoction inspired by the two daughters she and her partner Liz have adopted in recent years.

Joy is not only palpable throughout Sweet Life, it’s as contagious as can be -- giving a much needed shot of delight to all who cross its path.

For all UK press enquiries please contact Joe at Quite Great Roots on joe@quitegreat.co.uk / 01223 410 000. Catie will be in the UK for an exclusive press and radio day on Wednesday February 28th before her show at the Borderline on Feb 21st.

Released in the UK via Compass Records on February 23rd 2009

"One of the most open-hearted practitioners of new folk...Pettis's voice beckons with something to say." The Boston Globe

"A torrent of musical language that speaks to the head and the heart." The San Francisco Chronicle

After a lifetime of crafting finely-wrought, heart-touching songs, singer-songwriter Pierce Pettis feels that he’s finally found his comfort zone. “The biggest change,” he says of this point in his career “has been getting over myself and realising this is a job and a craft. And the purpose is not fame and fortune (whatever that is) but simply doing good work.”

“I think this album is more song-centred,” says Pierce Pettis about his ninth release, That Kind of Love. “We were far more focused on making the album about the songs rather than the other way around. Each track feels quite unique to me and stands solidly on its own.”

That Kind of Love was four years in the making. Having the advantage of time on his side allowed Pettis’ songs the room to grow and mature while he played them live. “I think that sets this album apart from my previous ones,” he says. “I'm hoping the listeners will notice the difference.” The timeframe also assisted Pettis with song selection. “The intervening four years pushed some songs to the surface over time, while others fell back... sort of a ‘survival of the fittest.’ So the songs that ended up on the album pretty much chose themselves,” he explains.

Pettis’ albums, like his live shows, are peppered with judiciously selected cover arrangements as well, many of which are given their trials out on the road, before making the cut or not. For instance, Pettis worked on the arrangement for Jesse Winchester’s “Talk Memphis” for over a year before even playing it live. “And then when I did start playing the song,” say Pettis, “it got smoother, more relaxed, more confident over time.” Both that track and “Nothing But the Wind” written by the late Mark Heard had strong associations for Pettis. He worked with Heard on his 1991 album Tinseltown, during the sessions for which their relationship transcended that of the producer/artist. After Heard’s untimely death in 1992, Pettis committed to including a song of Heard’s on every one of his own albums, a practice that continues to this day on That Kind of Love.

Two of the self-penned tracks that mean the most to Pettis are “I Am Nothing” and “Farewell”. The first, he explains, “was inspired by Don Dunaway -- a superb singer/songwriter who has labored in obscurity at a small tourist bar in Florida for over 30 years. The second is the story of my great, great, great grandmother and is dedicated to my mother and my daughter.”

One additional track that Pettis is particularly happy to see on this record is “To Dance”, a song that he co-wrote with an old college friend, Greta Larson. “This is a song I'd had for many years and always believed was very special. Yet, for the longest time, I couldn't seem to convince anyone else of it's worth. That's probably because I hadn't come up with an arrangement that could really get the song across. When I finally did, I tried it out live at the Bluebird in Nashville (sharing a writer's night with Buddy Monlock, Darrell Scott, and Tim O'Brien – three of the best!) and it brought the house down. That's when I knew it was time to record it.”

That Kind of Love features many guest artists who have appeared on Pettis’ past recordings. Stuart Duncan (fiddle, banjo), Andrea Zonn (background vocals, strings), Reese Wynans (Hammond B3), Phil Madeira (Hammond B3, accordion), Kenny Malone (drums, percussion), Byron House (bowed acoustic bass), and Garry West (electric bass) who also produced the album. West, co-owner of Compass Records, also brought in some artists who were new to Pettis’ music: local singer-songwriters Katie Herzig and Jeremy Lister (backing vocals), Rob McNelley (lead and slide guitar), Todd Phillips (acoustic bass) and Russ Pahl (pedal steel, electric guitar).

Ultimately, Pettis’ focus is on crafting a song that everyone can identify with, something his legions of fans would say that he succeeds time and time again in doing. “I've come to believe that songwriting, for me at least, has to be totally about the song, and everything going into the process should serve that end. The song is not there to serve an end – like pushing a particular point of view, venting emotions, righting past wrongs, or advertising the writer's ego. It IS the end. And I think what makes a song universal is not what people see of me in the song – but what they can see of themselves.”

Pettis currently lives in Alabama with his wife and their young son. Pettis’ upcoming release on Compass Records, That Kind of Love, will be available in the UK on February 23^rd 2009.

For more information please visit www.myspace.com/piercepettismusic or contact Jay Taylor at Quite Great Roots on 01223 410000 or email jay@quitegreat.co.uk