Darnell Levine
I've decided to not present more stress on myself by looking for someone who will say what I'm about to say in a more elegant way. 3rd person bio, $100...gramatically incorrect bio to present to label execs...priceless.
Well, JOURNAL ENTRIES is an EP, my second studio recording. My first album was called "We Gon' Use What We Got" (which is on itunes and cdbaby.com) and basically documented my whole life experience up until that point in music. 15 songs, wonderful friends to help make it, and a $5,000 budget. And something I'm still pretty proud of. But as I began touring last year and realized I didn't want to dwell on it forever, I got scared. I wondered how I actually wrote those songs! I had writer's block bad, and it freaked me out quite a bit. My imagination could think up things fictional stuff easy, but I wanted more. So I turned to my journals.
I know, so cliche...saying I just wrote straight from my journals. But that's what I started doing. I've been keeping journals since 2001, working on journal #7 now. And I decided that if I did this, I'd have to go all the way. So I became very selfish and wrote alot of "me" songs. Songs that were from my perspective only, the cold hard facts of the matter.
After touring the soul-r&B-jazz scenes for about 2 yrs, I got kinda bored. I started listening more to indie radio stations, country (i actually like watching GAC...and I live in nashville, HELLO!), and oddly enough almost no jazz. Folks give the Bobby McFerrin/Al Jarreau comparisons all the time from the first record, which are amazing to recieve, but I never listened to them much at all (it's sort of a complex now). My jazz tinge is pretty much God-given, I admit I don't nurture it as much as I should. I also listened to folks like KT Tunstall (bought me a loop pedal b/c of her), Marc Brossaud, Jonny Lang, John Mayer (finally saw him in concert) for their commercial appeal but indie style; Ari Hest (met in Nashville one night) and Brandi Carlille who both have such unforgettably natural voices; John Legend, Common, and Jill Scott because it's still good soul music; and most of all Al Green...need I say more.
See ya soon,
DL
Well, JOURNAL ENTRIES is an EP, my second studio recording. My first album was called "We Gon' Use What We Got" (which is on itunes and cdbaby.com) and basically documented my whole life experience up until that point in music. 15 songs, wonderful friends to help make it, and a $5,000 budget. And something I'm still pretty proud of. But as I began touring last year and realized I didn't want to dwell on it forever, I got scared. I wondered how I actually wrote those songs! I had writer's block bad, and it freaked me out quite a bit. My imagination could think up things fictional stuff easy, but I wanted more. So I turned to my journals.
I know, so cliche...saying I just wrote straight from my journals. But that's what I started doing. I've been keeping journals since 2001, working on journal #7 now. And I decided that if I did this, I'd have to go all the way. So I became very selfish and wrote alot of "me" songs. Songs that were from my perspective only, the cold hard facts of the matter.
After touring the soul-r&B-jazz scenes for about 2 yrs, I got kinda bored. I started listening more to indie radio stations, country (i actually like watching GAC...and I live in nashville, HELLO!), and oddly enough almost no jazz. Folks give the Bobby McFerrin/Al Jarreau comparisons all the time from the first record, which are amazing to recieve, but I never listened to them much at all (it's sort of a complex now). My jazz tinge is pretty much God-given, I admit I don't nurture it as much as I should. I also listened to folks like KT Tunstall (bought me a loop pedal b/c of her), Marc Brossaud, Jonny Lang, John Mayer (finally saw him in concert) for their commercial appeal but indie style; Ari Hest (met in Nashville one night) and Brandi Carlille who both have such unforgettably natural voices; John Legend, Common, and Jill Scott because it's still good soul music; and most of all Al Green...need I say more.
See ya soon,
DL
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