Thursday, October 20, 2011

Sonia Leigh

I recently penned a piece on Sonia Leigh, a swiftly rising figure in the Atlanta country scene. She's best buds with fellow Georgian/Grammy winner Zac Brown, which explains said swift rise. Also, her songs ain't too bad, I guess.
Sonia Leigh speaks with quiet confidence, in a measured drawl that implies a lifetime of Southern living. It's an artist's coolness, one that's been nurtured since she saw Loretta Lynn at age five and first realized her calling. Largely because of the supportive influence of her musician father, Leigh recalls songwriting as "something I never questioned [if] I could actually do."

It was this sense of destiny that gave rise to an honest career. As a child, Leigh absorbed and imitated every note of family favorites such as Hank Williams and George Jones. As she grew older, she began writing her own material. "I always had these songs in my head," she says. "I used to sit in school and write songs. I'd get home and get to my guitar and try to get some music connected to what I was hearing in my head."

Read the rest here.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Wilco: The Whole Love

Pleasantly surprised by Wilco's new one, since their last two outings didn't exactly inspire confidence for their career trajectory. Thankfully, the Tweedmeister and company have managed to break out of their formula-rock rut to deliver a startlingly fresh-sounding record in The Whole Love. Even though the title sounds like some gross, borderline-criminal pickup line from the Tweed Jacket. Oh, Tweedums, you so-and-so.
Looking back, it’s entirely possible that music critics and listeners alike put too much stock in Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. That record, hailed both as Wilco’s breakthrough (true) and an infallible slice of American-made genius (more debatable), was and is still analyzed through a decidedly distorted lens. That the album was conceived and recorded long before September 2001 was of secondary importance in the minds of many who found a deep, if accidental, profundity in Jeff Tweedy’s blurred depictions of tall shaking buildings and general human malaise.
Read the rest here.