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
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.”
Source: Press Release
