JPR Live Sessions

Nashville singer/songwriter Michaela Anne first started getting national attention in 2014 with the release of Ease My Mind, which was an old school collection of songs hailed by The New York Times for its “plain-spoken songs of romantic regret and small-town longing” and named one of the year’s best country albums by The Village Voice.

In early March, a terrible snowstorm hit Utah and Wyoming, causing over 100 vehicles to crash and close I-80. The Ballroom Thieves were at the head end of the crash. Though their vehicle was stuck in the snow for a few days, all in all they escaped without injury or any damage or loss to their gear or van. They joined us in the studio just a few days after the wreck to talk about the logistical challenge of the forced separation from their belongings, and the interruption to their touring schedule. At that point, the COVID-19 pandemic hadn't even started to impact working musicians!

After a busy stretch of touring and general life on the road, singer/songwriter Christopher Paul Stelling found himself at home and in a moment of quiet reflection wondering what was next.

Jazz vocalist Kat Edmonson grew up on the songs of classic Disney films and the Great American Songbook.  Those early influences have found their way on to her new album Dreamers Do - a concept album that examines the many different facets of dreaming. She brought her full band in to the JPR studio to perform a few of those old classics.

Radical Face is the musical project of singer/songwriter and composer Ben Cooper.  Cooper never expected it to become his primary focus, but life threw a couple of roadblocks in the way of his earlier pursuits, and a fortuitous connection launched Radical Face into the forefront.

For Icelandic singer/songwritier Ásgeir, the fame and popularity that followed his debut album Dýrð í dauðaþögn was a shock, though it was tempered somewhat by the general laid-back attitude of Icelanders in general.

Having a tour collapse is one of the most difficult things a band can endure. Sometimes it's a problem with a venue, the shuttering of a label at an inopportune time, or even illness within the group.  But for the Lone Bellow (and everyone else recently), their tour collapse literally occured the day they stopped by JPR due to the growing coronavirus pandemic.

Leif Vollebekk is a Montreal-based singer and songwriter whose last record Twin Solitude was a finalist for Canada's Polaris Prize.  After that album release and tour cycle, Vollebekk took a moment to reflect and find clarity about his next steps. Vollebekk says his new release New Ways is about engaging and changing, touching and being touched.  “Anything that I wouldn’t ever want to tell anyone—I just put it on the record."

Montreal-based singer-songwriter Patrick Watson's family moved to Hudson, Quebec when he was four. As a child, he started singing in the church choir, and eventually studied jazz and classical piano as well as composition. His album Close To Paradise won the Polaris Prize - the biggest prize in Canadian music - in 2007.

Montreal-based singer-songwriter Patrick Watson's family moved to Hudson, Quebec when he was four. As a child, he started singing in the church choir, and eventually studied jazz and classical piano as well as composition. His album Close To Paradise won the Polaris Prize - the biggest prize in Canadian music - in 2007.