Category archives: Singer
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10 years ago
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Happy New Year from Los Angeles, California! This month, I'll be featuring fashion stories from the "Golden State," kicking it off with 20 year old L.A. songstress, Layne Putnam, otherwise known as LAYNE. Recently, I met Ms. Putnam at The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) to chat about her three favorite fashion items. I was greatly impressed with her bright spirit and ambition. Raised in the Black Hills of South Dakota, Putnam released her first album entitled Better Than Me at 15. "Growing up in the Black Hills gave me the desire to want to explore and invent,” says Putnam. One of her biggest influences has been her father, Kenny Putnam, a musician who spent many years touring with Roy Clark. There were always instruments around the house, and those seemed to fascinate Putnam more than conventional toys. Unlike most teens, she was playing almost every weekend at different venues throughout South Dakota, and was featured twice on public radio and multiple times in the newspaper. By age 18, she already dropped a second release called Mind Games, and moved to L.A at to pursue her dreams.
On January 2nd, LAYNE will release her new EP called Warrior. The young indie-popper has a very clear idea of the album's overall sound: “I want people to see the production we’ve spent so much time creating come to life, and to hear the huge wall of sound---even if there are only two or three players on stage.” You can check it out on iTunes, Bandcamp, and SoundCloud, and her first [...]
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10 years ago
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Strictly Rhythm. Nervous. Emotive. These seminal New York labels, along with a handful of others, evoke a time in the late ’80s and early ’90s when the local variant of house music, one that combined depth, emotion and soul with the raw rhythms that had been coming out of Chicago, took form. But there was one other local label that was equally influential—and it wasn’t even based within the five boroughs. Its name was Movin’ Records, a label (and record shop) led by Abigail Adams and based in East Orange, New Jersey.
Between 1987 and 1995, Movin’ released some of the most beloved songs of the era—Phase II’s stone-cold classic “Reachin’" among them—and its lineup of vocalists and producers and included such notables as Kerri Chandler, Kenny Bobien, DJ Pierre, Ce Ce Rogers, Blaze’s Kevin Hedge and Josh Milan, Ace Mungin and Tony Humphries. That last name is key: A symbiotic relationship formed between the club that Humphries deejayed at, Club Zanzibar in nearby Newark, and Movin.' Though they were both just a few miles west of Manhattan, the Movin’-Zanzibar affiliation resulted in a sound with a different feel than what was going down in Gotham, a feel that amped up the gospel- and R&B–tinged passion beyond what the big city had to offer. It’s a style of house generally referred to as the Jersey Sound—and its effects can still be felt on the club music of today. I recently had the pleasure of speaking with the gracious and friendly Adams, her love of the music still shin[...]
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10 years ago
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Art for Progress’ summer music education program has met two more times since my last post, and a lot of great stuff has been going on. We have been exploring jazz theory, analyzing Etta James’ “At Last”, using the solfeggio system to develop ear training, and have delved into some vocal exercises in order to tune up our voices, and to reinforce the ear training work. Participants have each been asked to select a song to work on, and we’ll be applying the new techniques we’ve developed to singing those songs in the upcoming final session. One student, who is originally from Bangladesh, is even working on a song by his favorite Bengali pop band! In addition to all of this subtler harmony work, there’s been some good ol’ rocking out, as well. The group has expanded its original repertoire of rock songs, and has been honing the arrangements to prepare for our final recording session of the summer. We have recorded versions of four original songs thus far, and as we get closer to the perfect take, we have also been studying the various tools used in the recording and mixing process, and learning how to make the tracks pop out of the speakers.
“At Last”, by Etta James is a timeless classic, which was revisited a few years ago by Beyonce in the movie “Cadillac Records”. While the melody is arresting and unforgettable in its uniqueness, it also contains some very exemplary chord changes, which are great for illustrating the use of ii-V-I progressions and some other essential jazz[...]
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