"Write the Night"

“I’ve always had a taste for traveling alone,” Tift Merritt sings in the title track of her fifth album. This time around, she got to prove it, “calling the shots myself and letting myself go wherever I needed to go” at a point in time when she was a free agent without label or manager. But the song does also conclude that “Everybody here is traveling alone,” a realization that places as much value on community as iconoclasm. And Merritt put together her “dream cast” of fellow travelers to play on Traveling Alone, which found its happy home at her new label, Yep Roc. The road less taken doesn’t preclude good company.

The New Yorker has called Merritt “the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul that reaches back to artists like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry,” a standard upholding that got underway in earnest with Bramble Rose, the 2002 solo debut that put her on the Americana map forever. As her sophomore album, Tambourine, was followed by Another Country and See You on the Moon, Merritt found acclaim coming not just from critics and awards orgs but her own heroes, like Emmylou Harris, who marveled that Merritt “stood out like a diamond in a coal patch.” Now a leading lady in her own right, Merritt is hardly one to hog the spotlight. She engages in dialogue with fellow artists of all disciplines on her public radio broadcast and podcast “The Spark With Tift Merritt,” bringing in fellow sojourners ranging from Patty Griffin and Rosanne Cash to Rick Moody and Nick Hornby (who devoted a chapter to Merritt in his 31 Songs book).

For Traveling Alone, Merritt knew—and got—exactly the journeymen she wanted with her on this 11-track trip: legendary guitarist Marc Ribot, Calexico drummer John Convertino, steel player extraordinaire Eric Heywood, acclaimed jazz and rock multi-instrumentalist Rob Burger, and longtime cohort Jay Brown on bass. As captured by producer Tucker Martine (known for working with the Decemberists, and one of Paste magazine’s “10 Best Producers of the Decade”) and mixed by three-time Grammy-winning engineer Ryan Freeland, the sound is both spare and luxurious. “Maybe I was bored with bells and whistles and wanted to go without them. It might have been that I didn’t have enough money for bells and whistles,” she quips. “But once you get in that sweet spot where things feel real and right, you just want to burrow down in that feeling. Nothing to hide behind, no distractions, no sense trying to be everything to everybody. There’s a beautiful economy of motion in that place.” Who wouldn’t want to tag along?

Damien Jurado has been known for writing lovely, lonely acoustic guitar melodies strummed sparsely alongside his wistfully brooding croon. His latest release, Saint Bartlett, turns what you know about him on its ear. Saint Bartlett opens up with a grandiosity yet unheard on a Damien Jurado album. It strips away the many layers of paint from the house down the street where we know Jurado has occupied for the last decade. The new coat is exhilarating. It makes the whole neighborhood shine. It’s a modest grandiosity; still homegrown. The mellotron swells, heavenly handclaps ring in stereo and big drums create a sky for the songs to fly in. And the words. Words spring forth from within the volcano of Jurado, full of hope. There’s so much hope, in fact, that album opener “Cloudy Shoes” turns into a call-and-response with himself, as though it were a dialogue between two halves of himself.Secretly Canadian / Sub Pop Records.

Joshua James is currently working with Richard Swift on his third full-length album to be released in early 2012. Here are some highlights from his critically acclaimed second album, Build Me This.

James expands his musical palette to foreboding doom-laden hard rock on his second record. Progressing from folkish harmonies, to country twang, world beats and southern home rock while further exploring themes of spiritual searching.

Possessing a whispery and intimate vocal style that works its way into the ear peacefully and directly, Joshua James is pitched midway between seminal influences like Bob Dylan and Neil Young.

“I find solace and beauty in darkness and depression,” admits James, who grew up in his native Lincoln, Nebraska, skateboarding and sneaking listens to music his parents banned, like classic rockers Jim Morrison and The Doors, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, “But there are contrasts to everything. You have to combine the sweet and salty, the ugly and beautiful. Music is very therapeutic for me. It’s all about making a connection with humanity, with the audience, in ways that I normally wouldn’t be able to.”

“I feel strongly about the things I sing about,” nods Joshua. “I want people to know how I feel, which sounds kind of dumb, because who cares how I feel? If someone feels similarly, though, that’s what I’m looking for. That’s the most important thing. If you can relate to what I’m going through, then I’ve achieved my goal.”

The album title, Build Me This, refers to his dream of salvation. “It’s my way of asking God to show himself,” declares James. “To prove he exists. Do something. Give me a sign. It’s a call to whatever or whoever is out there. I don’t want him to strike me down or paralyze me, just give me something to believe.”

Aside from the spiritual, Build Me This is also about the difficulties of everyday relationships, the inadvertent hurt we cause to those we love. “Magazine” deals with the pain of separation (“Go take your bags to New York City, call me when your plane arrives/I’ll feed the children, wash the dishes, I’ll keep the house lookin’ nice/Well don’t you worry, everything’s gonna be all right.”), while “In the Middle” envisions a posthumous conversation with a loved one from the other side (“You’ve tried so hard to forget me/You burnt the letters I’d made/Though my memory has been dyin’/I hope the feeling still remains”).

On the stage, though, is where Joshua James’ music comes alive and reveals its true intent, which is about drawing people into his insular universe, a sense of mystic that only the truly great ones can communicate.

“Perhaps the darkness comes out a little more often that I’d like,” he offers “but that’s just where I gravitate to when I’m writing. I don’t usually try to tackle specific subjects; it’s usually about what I’m feeling at the time. Things start to come out, then they form a story and a reason, and that’s how things evolve. I’m influenced by everything… by life, by love, by hate, by music.”

Curtis Peoples, songwriter with a defined understanding of creating a dynamic pop music—crafting songs that fans of rock, acoustic folk, and pop can enjoy equally. With a mix of free-spirited choruses and addictive rhythms, Curtis' style of "coffeeshop arena rock" is genuinely his own unique musical fingerprint.

Although brand new to the Los Angeles music scene at the time, it took merely a matter of months for Curtis Peoples to score his first big break via a national tour with friend and fellow singer-songwriter Tyler Hilton (Warner Brothers Records, One Tree Hill, Walk The Line). The road certainly agreed with this native of San Diego as tour dates with Josh Kelley, Hanson, Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers, Tim Reynolds (longtime Dave Matthews collaborator), Joe Firstman (Carson Daly Show), and others quickly followed. An appearance on Ryan Cabrera's on-air songwriting competition MTV's also served as a platform to perform his original material in front of a national audience.

While gaining a dedicated contingent of fans all around the country via these treks and media appearances the music industry had also been taking notice. Peoples' music has received commercial radio airplay at KMTT (Seattle), KPRI (San Diego), and a number of college stations. He was named by Music Connection as one of the "100 Unsigned Artists To Watch in 2008!" It didn't take long for the buzz to reach producer Marshall Altman (Matt Nathanson, Kate Voegele, Marc Broussard). After experiencing a live show and a brief initial meeting, Altman agreed to take the helm of Curtis Peoples' debut album. The resulting album was 10 well-crafted songs, from the hard rocking swagger of "Heart Will Fall" (co-written by OneRepublic's Ryan Tedder) and Tom Petty-esque "Back Where I Started" to the acoustic and contemplative "Wake Up" and funky power pop of the Tyler Hilton co-written "Tell Me I'm Wrong."

Curtis Peoples' self-titled debut album released in the summer of 2008 was followed by extensive national touring with the likes of Jason Reeves, Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers, Tyrone Wells, Tyler Hilton, Josh Hoge, Graham Colton, and a performance on The Rock Boat IX.

December 1, 2009 marked the release of Peoples' new digital EP, 'All I Want'. Featuring the new single, "All I Want", two previously unreleased tracks, and the "All I Want" music video.

In 2010, Curtis continued to tour and began to write for his next album. He worked with a number of great writers including Nathan Chapman (Taylor Swift), Josh Kelley, Kevin Griffin (Better Than Ezra, Howie Day), Mark Weinberg (Matt Nathanson) and Busbee (Lady Antebellum, Keith Urban). Busbee just produced Curtis' new album slated for release later in 2011.