Singer-songwriter-troubadour Garrison Starr releases her seventh studio album, Amateur May 1 on her Radtown Music imprint. Currently in Europe with Jay Nash & Madi Diaz, Starr returns to the U.S. for a run of dates with fellow acoustic-strapped-author-troubadour David Berkeley from April 27 through May 5.
Another track from Amateur, “The Train That’s Bound For Glory” is currently airing on Delta Air this month and you can stream the track at Garrison’s web site.
Her first full-length since 2007’s The Girl That Killed September, Amateur is co-produced with musician Justin Glasco (Dan Wilson, Cary Brothers, Matt Nathanson) and features contributions from Glen Phillips, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Kevin Devine, Adrianne Gonzalez, Gary Jules and many more.
The genesis of Amateur began during Garrison’s junior high years when she started writing a book called A View of Life From An Amateur which was a collection of poems, thoughts and general ponderings that is the blueprint for the current recorded chapter in her life journal. Twenty further years of jabs in the “ring of life”, its fifty minutes of resolute honesty are punctuated by the ethos of an amateur fighter (a portrait of a little boxer is the sole cover art image, sans name or title). She elaborates, “An amateur is somebody who pursues something for the love of it, not for money. That's where I started in the ninth grade before I got into the music business and that's where I find myself again. I've never forgotten the fighter in me and I'm starting over again.”
Drawing from a wealth of collective experience amidst many layers of reinvention, Julia Garrison Starr’s desire to creatively engage the minds, hearts and souls of others continues to burn bright. She, in fact, is the polar opposite of an amateur. Starr is a consummate professional firmly entrenched in the Conductor’s seat on a train that’s bound for glory.
David Berkeley has been performing his music and reading from his new book at museums, bookstores, cafes, private homes and even for marriage proposals. He’s been more than industrious this year in support of his recent album Some Kind Of Cure, well as his accompanying book, 140 Goats And A Guitar: The Stories Behind Some Kind of Cure (now in its second pressing). YAHOO! MUSIC named Some Kind of Cure one of the 'Albums That Should Be In Every Home' and along with recent features on CNN Newsroom's #MusicMonday and the San Francisco Chronicle, David’s music and book have been featured by the Huffington Post, Paste Magazine, American Songwriter, Daytrotter, Art Of The Song, Acoustic Cafe and many more.
rumours has it that Steve Perry wanted to sing in Wild Horses, the band featuring Brian Robertson and Jimmy Bain but they wanted to handle the lead vocals themselves.
