Monday, April 20, 2020

Kathleen Grace (Jim James) teams with Grammy®-nom pianist, Larry Goldings (Beck, Sia, Tracy Chapman) for mostly one-take, collaborative album.

“Tie Me To You” features Grace original “Everywhere” at American Songwriter;  Rogers/Hart classic “Where Or When,” performed live at PopMatters.

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Kathleen Grace and Larry Goldings as photographed by Emilia Pare

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Kathleen Grace | In The Press

“Genre-blurring dexterity...” — JazzTimes

“Smart, alluring and evocative.” — The Washington Post

“Imaginative talent on the rise.” — Los Angeles Times

“Echoes of Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.” — Downbeat

Simple beauty and subtle wisdom.” — LA Weekly

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Hear the plaintive, beautiful ballad “Everywhere” by Kathleen Grace (with Larry Goldings) at American Songwriter or at the link below.

Grace tells American Songwriter: “Making an album with Larry was easy, so beautifully easy, we had the same goals and values. We just wanted to trust what happened live in the studio.”


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Watch the live-in-studio video for “Where Or When” from Kathleen Grace with Larry Goldings via PopMatters or at the link below.

“On ‘Where Or When,’ Goldings’ keyboard figures provide an unobtrusive companion to Grace’s wonderfully understated vocal performance. In a world of overstuffed compositions and performances, this is a wonderfully restrained and sparse moment.” — Jedd Beaudoin, PopMatters


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Kathleen Grace with Larry Goldings
Tie Me To You
(Monsoon Records)
Out Now

Streaming Link:


Track Listing:

01. Tie Me To You (Kathleen Grace & Larry Goldings)
02. Where Or When (Richard Rodgers & Lorenz Hart) (STREAM | VIDEO)
03. Everywhere (Kathleen Grace) (STREAM)
04. John The Revelator (Traditional)
05. Berceuse (George Moustaki)
06. The Thrill Is Gone (Ray Henderson & Lew Brown)
07. Embarcadero (Kathleen Grace & Darek Oleszkiewicz)
08. Love For Sale (Cole Porter)
09. What’ll I Do (Irving Berlin) (VIDEO)
10. I’ll Follow The Sun (John Lennon & Paul McCartney)

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Kathleen Grace with Larry Goldings | About

Much like her music, Kathleen Grace’s career has expanded in recent years beyond its jazz and folk roots that saw her appearing at The Montreux Jazz Festival and The Kennedy Center for the Arts, with performances alongside rock band Portugal The Man at Coachella and throughout My Morning Jacket leader Jim James’ solo release, Uniform Distortion.

Kathleen Grace’s latest album, Tie Me To You, was born from a place of awakening, the kind that can only trigger massive change, great loss and also, hope. It is the product of finally seeing yourself fully for the first time and the price you pay to do so.

In her case, it cost her a marriage that had consumed her entire adult life. It also marked the birth of a new woman, one who would call a new man to her side — a man who, ultimately, could not stay.

Amidst this love and loss, Grace barely slept. Instead, she was flooded with music day and night — poems, songs, and melodies.  She imagined recording this new music freely, in the moment, with no big production or fixes; she envisioned simple songs broken down to their most basic parts.

Soon, she picked up the phone and called Larry Goldings, a legendary keyboardist who has worked with James Taylor, Norah Jones, John Mayer, Beck, Sia, Tracy Chapman, and others. She said simply, “Listen, I need to make a record. And you’re the only one in the world I can make it with. Can you call me back?”

He did.

And so it was that Grace found herself in the only place left that made any sense: a recording studio in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Silver Lake, California. The pair recorded live in the low light of the wood-framed building, often producing songs in single takes. What emerged is a portrait of a woman exposed as she mourns what she must let go of in order to keep reaching for herself. The result is a new sound for Grace, one that is more vulnerable and bold, one that embraces her eclecticism without apology.

Grace explains, “I remember this time so clearly, the tastes, the colors, and the sounds. The feeling of sitting next to Larry on a piano bench without headphones and just singing. Singing songs only for me, most of which I’d never sung before. Singing to myself and also to the men I loved. It’s all there in the music. Forever. Trapped in a snow globe of emotion.”

Grace and Goldings invited masterful partners into their creation of Tie Me To You. Bass player David Piltch (KD Lang) appears throughout the album, and violinist Gabe Witcher (Punch Brothers) is a special guest appearing as both a soloist and string section.

The project was championed by Grammy®-winning engineer Sheldon Gomberg, who offered up his studio for the better part of a year. A song record at its core, Tie Me To You features original music by both Grace and Goldings as well as covers of pieces by French icon Francois Hardy, blues great Son House, and The Beatles, and standards by Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Rodgers & Hart.

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Kathleen Grace | Links


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Josh Bloom at Fanatic Promotion | Contact


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