Music FridayLive!

Jenna Torres is a country-rock siren who has travelled from New York to Nashville and won acclaim as a recording artist and songwriter for Warner Music Group and Warner/Chappell Music.  Artists like Martha Wash (from the Weather Girls) have cut songs from Jenna’s pen, and she co-wrote “Busted Heart” with Ben Glover for the group For King & Country.  Her forthcoming album Wild Sugar has been previewed with a video for the title track  which co-stars Richard Turner of southern rock and country band Blackberry Smoke. Her current release,  Heart On Wheels is the follow-up to her critically acclaimed album A Woman's Touch  whose  accompanying video of the song “.22”  remained in the Number One spot in the Artist Charts on Yallwire for over six months.  

, Sarah Packiam, born and raised in Ireland, began writing songs at the age of 12, inspired by her blues musician father from India.  At 14 years old she represented Ireland in the European  song contest,and at 18 she moved to Spain with the family band.  She was discovered and sent to Miami by Jon Secada, working with Grammy award winning producer Tim Mitchell. In 2009 Sarah joined Shakira's promo tour singing background vocals and playing guitar and banjo. She also opened with her band for Smashmouth and Jason Mraz at the Sunfest Festival and she sang with Carole King, Gloria Estefan, Queen Latifah, Ricky Martin at the  "The Power of Love Gala" in Las Vegas.  Sarah's first Independent CD One for two was released in 2012 and her EP Dream was released in 2013, in 2014 she released her third studio album, AGAIN. Sarah is in the studio with her band for her fourth album to be released in 2017.

Shelby Lanterman is a singer-songwriter from Napa, CA, who was exposed to all forms of  music - rock & roll,  pop, blues, Americana --  by her parents practically from the day she was born. So it is not surprising that, at the age of 12 she picked up the guitar, learned Garage Band, and started playing her own shows, and at 16 was writing and singing her own songs.  There was no stopping her. She went on to play Hollywood’s Roxy Theater, the Bottle Rock Festival, Sweetwater Music Hall, the Uptown Theater, Silo’s and many more venues.  She opened for artists like Bob Mould, Lisa Loeb, among many others. If that wasn’t enough, she started producing the Emerging Artist Series at City Winery, attended the Dark Horse Institute inNashville and earned a degree in audio engineering and worked with musicians from all over the country. Her debut album. Paper Thin, an earnest album of carefully crafted folk rock stories, is now available.

Raised in the old West Village, NYC, Natalie Gelman grew up amidst artists and true bohemians, which may be why she borrowed a friends guitar at 16, started writing songs and never looked back.  From busking on subway to touring Europe, she has crisscrossed more than one country captivating tourists, straphangers and audiences with her powerful voice, deep-heart stories and witty humor. She continues to play what she calls her favorite stage – the subway - while also performing at the House of Blues, Webster Hall and festivals across the country. And no wonder;  Gelman is often compared to Sheryl Crow, Jewel and Joni Mitchell, for her timeless music and honest songs that make her a modern day troubadour.  Whether it is Live in London or Sundance in Your Eyes, her albums make you long to stand in front on her in a train station and just absorb the power of her heart.

Born in the streets of Los Angeles, Las Cafeteras are children of immigrants who are remixing roots music and telling modern day stories with eclectic instruments, including jarana’s, requinto, a donkey jawbone, a West African bass instrument called the Marimbol, cajón, and a wooden platform called the Tarima used to dance Zapateado. Las Cafeteras formed as a band in 2008  to document the histories of their neighborhoods through music. They started as students of the Eastside Café, a Zapatista inspired community space in East Los Angeles where they were influenced by the culture, storytelling, and poetic music of Son Jarocho, a traditional music from Veracruz, Mexico. To honor women and challenge masculine language, they feminized their group name by calling themselves, Las Cafeteras, rather than Los Cafeteros. They have recently returned from a sold out national tour and will be playing Friday night at California State University in Northridge.

The daughter of musicians, Kesenia Valenti was born and raised in the port of Khodka, Russia – literally the last stop on the Trans-Siberian Railroad.  The isolation didn’t stop her.  She began studying classical piano at 6, was a finalist on the national Russian television program ‘Sing if you Can” and found a way to move to Los Angeles to study acting and continue her musical career. She began working with producer Mario Marchetti and songwriter Gino Barletta to craft high energy, rhythmic pop songs based on her life.  At the same time she began studying comedy, producing comedy videos and acting.  Now a triple threat, she has just released her first single, with more on the way.

Bellehouse was formed in 2013 and currently is based in Brooklyn, performing as a indie Americana band that is between down-home roots music and intellectual folk-rock. Bellehouse delivers a sound that embraces a variety of genres — from Celtic traditional and folk revival to soul and Motown and a bit of rock. The group includes  Sarah Elizabeth Haines (viola, voice),Jess Taylor Clinton (vocals, guitar, songwriting), Catie Friel (vocals), Nick Lenchner (bass) and Ryan Gross (banjo, vocals),and  Mackenzie  Shivers  (keys, voice).   Yuka Tadano (bass), and Cody Rahn  (percussion) deepen  the band’s sound.  They have just released the first single “Devil’s Sound” from their upcoming album, Capsized.

Indiana Grace grew up with her Swiss father and American mother in the Swiss Alps and began singing and songwriting pop songs with the skills she acquired from piano and classical voice lessons. She earned a place at the prestigious The School for Gifted Children of the Performing Arts in Switzerland, as the first pop singer ever accepted there.  After attending  Zurich University of the Arts, she produced, sang, and composed a CD with Swiss Rapper, C-Beat, that reached Top 10 in the charts in East Switzerland. At the age of 18 she left for the United States and began perfecting her own sound and musical style while studying performance and songwriting at the famed Berklee College of Music.  With a trained operatic voice, her rising choruses, soft vibrato, and soulful sounds are unique in the pop world.  Her soulful singles “Lose Count” & “Avalanche” is a preview of what to expect in her upcoming debut album.

Taylor Jahn is a troubadour, creator of palatable melodies, zealot of fine craft brews and all things Portland. Presently recording and performing in LA he has been influenced by current artists like Sara Bareilles, Coldplay, Lorde, Mary Lambert and others. His songs span genres from pop to country to singer/songwriter to rock. His first single, Hideaway is now out and his first EP will drop in January.

El Dusty returns to Music FridayLive! on his way from Las Vegas and the Latin Grammys, heading toward a concert in LA.  Raised  in Corpus Christi, the Texas producer, DJ, and nu-cumbia pioneer translates the South  Texas border experience into barrio anthems with a sampler and chopped clips of Latin music history.  Following the success of his single “K Le Pasa,”  El Dusty released the Trapanera EP, the first of his collaborative projects since signing with Universal Records AfterCluv division.  Following the success of the record, El Dusty created PRODUCE®, a multi-disciplinary production/design house where he produced “K Le Pasa.” and houses Chicas Rock, a non-profit after school program dedicated to building girls’ self-esteem through music creation and performance. Hopefully he will appear with a Latin Grammy in his hand.

Two of my favorite artists.  Maggie Szabo and Allison Iraheta of  and Halo Circus both with homecomings this week.

Halo Circus is an LA-based bilingual alternative rock band composed of vocalist Allison Iraheta, guitarist Brian Stead, bassist Matthew Hager and drummer Veronica Bellino. Halo Circus was formed in 2012 by Iraheta, a finalist on American Idol. She had released her debut album, Just Like You in 2009 and met producer/songwriter/musician Hager They wrote together and later formed Halo Circus whose crowd-sourced "Follow the Rabbit” US Summer Tour",  kicked off in SoCal in August and wraps up with a blowout concert Nov 11  in Los Angeles  at the Hotel Café.  But we get to interview them that morning.   

Maggie Szabo is a Canadian-born, LA-based  soul-pop singer whose vocals and songwriting has earned 13 million YouTube, sold out performances and well-deserved songwriting awards.  Small but powerful, Szabo is famed for holding audiences hushed as she starts songs in whispers and then rises to room-filling belts, Winner of the International Songwriting Competition, Maggie is a featured vocalist and songwriter on the new album from German electronic DJ, Schiller, which has sold 7 million albums worldwide and debuted at #1 in Germany. Her single ‘Forgive and Forget’, was premiered by Yahoo Music and licensed in Criminal Minds and Keeping Up with the Kardashians among others . And, never one to stand still long, she has released a new single, “Smile” and has an album in the works.

Alicia Blue is a young artist who uses folk, soul & blues to write songs that are passionate, poetic and often described as the work of an old soul talking about new problems. Inspired by her friend soul singer Malcolm Hayes Jr. who taught her about soul music from the 1960’s, she combined soul music with poetry in the first songs she would ever write in 2014, and the rest is history.  She began performing around LA at open mics and venues, and found her first manager busking in Santa Monica in 2015. After meeting  producer Julien Genuardi at UCLA  they produced the song “He’s An Artist” that has defined Alicia with a signature sound and drew the attention of the LA music industry.  Her first album is set for release this winter.

Simrit is a musician, producer, and music industry executive who is also a student, practitioner and a certified teacher of Kundalini Yoga and Naad Yoga, the sciences of sound and consciousness.  She records, composes, produces music, and tours with her band giving concerts and workshops across the globe and her erHvoice and sound course, The Supreme Sound, is studied by thousands worldwide.. Hailed world-wide for her haunting voice, music Simrit is known for revolutionary innovation in hypnotic world and chant music that heals and evokes the innate power within all.  She has topped World Music Charts including iTunes at #1 for consecutive weeks at a time, many times over, and Billboard Music.   

 

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Cosmos and Creature are the highly acclaimed LA-based singer/songwriters Brandyn Burnette and Molly Moore who combined their two successful solo careers to take on the music world twice as fast with twice the talent. Brunette, formerly with Warner Bros. Records, wrote a number 1 hit for Hedley which won Single of the Year at the Juno Awards, plus he charted on the top 40 for a single he wrote for Jake Mille. He has garnered over 3 million streams on both Spotify and YouTube, earning him  a spot on the Billboard Emerging artist charts for two weeks straight. Moore is not only a successful songwriter having recently landed a co-write with Leah Michelle (GLEE), she is also an accomplished solo artist with a dedicated fan base of her own. They formed a duo in 2014 and started making waves,.  Their new pop-electro single “Young”  is now out and rising up the chart s with 8 million Spotify Streams

Ryan Shupe and the Rubberband are a tight, traveling, acoustic  quintet that has a fanatical regional base in the West, centered in Salt Lake City.  A second generation fiddle player, equally at home with an electric or acoustic guitar or mandolin, Shupe began playing music at age five and was performing professionally and touring nationally at the age of 10 with a group called the PeeWee Pickers. He still plays a fiddle he found in his great aunt’s closet. Shupe formed the RubberBand so he could enlist a rotating group of musicians on a gig-by-gig basis and never have a group “break up.” His plan didn’t exactly work, however. One by one, the temporary sidemen began to stick, fusing into the close-knit final incarnation that exists today. His new album,  recorded and arranged in his studio in Provo, We Rode On” deftly combines rock with the acoustic instruments and virtuosic jamming the band has become known for.

Mariana Vega was born in Caracas, Venezuela and moved to Toronto, Canada at the age of 15 where she encountered British and American rock music. She began mixing them with her musical influences from Venezuela, Colombia, and Argentina while in college. After earning a degree in Industrial Relations and Psychology she decided to devote herself to music, releasing her first album, Mariana Vega in 2010.  In  2013, she premiered her second studio album, My bubble, recorded in Argentina and produced by Cachorro Lopez. In 2014, she released the  EP Te Busco , which resulted in her first Latin Grammy.  Her latest single "Cámara Lenta” is true American Latino Music – it mixes electronic and acoustic sounds with USA pop flourishes and the 6/8 charcatera rhythm of the Argentine countryside.  

Giulia (Julia) Millanta, is a native-born Italian singer-songwriter who now calls Austin,Texas home. She has been singing and playing since she was 8 years old, earning the New Sounds Of Acoustic Music” award in Italy in 2010 and an endorsement by Eko guitar. She has released four albums, toured  regionally and nationally throughout the USA and internationally. Giulia also plays ukulele and sings in four languages.  Giulia just released her fifth solo album Moonbeam Parade featuring some of the best musicians in Austin . The Austin release party is scheduled for the night of her appearance on Music Friday Live and will kick off a regional tour.

Harold López-Nussa was born into a musical family in Havana in 1983. Not only are his father and uncle—Ernán, a pianist—working musicians, but also his late mother, Mayra Torres, was a highly regarded piano teacher. At the age of eight, López-Nussa began studying at the Manuel Saumell Elementary School of Music, then the Amadeo Roldán Conservatory and finally graduating with a degree in classical piano from the Instituto Superior de Artes (ISA). The conservatory-trained pianist is the first Cuba-based musician (he has dual citizenship in both Cuba and France) to release an album internationally since the lifting of many of the restrictions associated with the longstanding trade embargo. In 2005 he played at the Montreux Jazz Festival, where he was awarded the First Prize and the Audience Award in Solo piano Competition, and he was recently awarded the French musical society’s  ADAMI as "Talent Jazz 2011".With the release of El Viaje  with younger brother Ruy Adrián López-Nussa on drums and percussion; and Alune Wade on bass and vocals, he appears on the brink of a global breakthrough.

High Sunday, a LA-based band that specializes in sizzling energy and a massive hip-hop presence is releasing their debut single, "Wonderland"  This December. The group is an eclectic mix of the talents of five men and two women -   Eddie Core, Ike Deezl, Nick Fazekas, Evann Lewis, Nicole Row, Drin Elliot and Ryan Evangelista. They consistently produce a fresh take on hip hop by combining elements from jazz, rock, reggae and funk Their new track "Wonderland", uses  dizzying horns and chromatic synths to create a  progressive hip-hop, accented with booming basslines and menacing vocal layers over an unstoppable beat.