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Michelle Willis
She came from a family of "let's sing that James Taylor song again" kind of people at holidays. Her music is inspired by years spent lifting Carole King and Ray Charles records, singing in choirs and finding a home in the songwriting and artistry of musicians like Joni Mitchell, Shawn Colvin, Bonnie Raitt and Donny Hathaway.
A 2009 collaboration with Toronto's Don Rooke and Hugh Marsh led to the formation of Three Metre Day, a modern roots band featuring Willis on pump organ and vocals, Marsh on violin, and Rooke on slide guitar. The trio recorded the 2012 album Coasting Notes, and scored the 2013 independent film Still Mine, the latter of which earned them a best original score nomination from the Canadian Screen Awards. Willis and the band befriended an unlikely ally in Iggy & The Stooges guitarist James Williamson, who enlisted them to play on Pop's 2013 album, Ready to Die.
By 2015, Willis was touring across the globe opening up for Snarky Puppy across Europe, backing up fellow Canadian folk artists Peter Katz and Royal Wood all while wrapping up sessions for her first release as a solo artist.
Her debut solo record, See Us Through, was released on GroundUP Music, a label started by three time Grammy Award-winner and founder of Snarky Puppy, Michael League. She has since toured her album across Europe, Scandinavia, USA, Canada, Japan, Taiwan, New Zealand, Australia, and Singapore. Aside from leading her own band, Michelle is currently a member of both of David Crosby's 'Skytrails' and 'Lighthouse' bands, the Becca Stevens Band, and the Justin Stanton project.
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Kate McGarry + Keith Ganz Ensemble: What to Wear in the Dark
by C. Michael Bailey
Being taken for granted is the greatest tribute and worst slight to any artist. Kate McGarry has made music that brilliantly colors outside the lines since her release, Show Me (Palmetto Records) in 2003 (there was a 1992 standards release, Easy To Love (Vital Records) that is out-of-print). Her career has provided five provocatively thoughtful and inventive recordings between that release and 2018's The Subject Tonight Is Love (Binxtown Records). Listeners have come to expect something a little different from ...
read moreKate McGarry + Keith Ganz Ensemble: What to Wear in the Dark
by Dan McClenaghan
Let us start with a nod to Steely Dan, the rock/jazz group headed up by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, a pair of tunesmiths who hit a career zenith in the early 1970s with albums like Can't Buy A Thrill (1972), Countdown To Ecstasy (1973), Pretzel Logic (1974) and Aja (1974), all on ABC Records. The group drew in top jazz artists to help craft their albumssaxophonists Wayne Shorter and Tom Scott, guitarists Larry Carlton and Lee Ritenour, drummers Steve ...
read moreAmanda Tosoff: Earth Voices
by Dan Bilawsky
Building off the lure of language planted in Amanda Tosoff's Juno-nominated Words (Empress Music Group, 2016), this sixth album from the Toronto-based composer and pianist waves poetic in wondrous fashion. Pairing different guest vocalists and collections of musicians with personalized takes on Parnassian beauty of varied sorts, Tosoff cements the bonds between earthly voices and heavenly sounds with a questioning spirit. The list of subjects and styles, both in words and music, varies widely on this playlist. ...
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From: Earth VoicesBy Michelle Willis