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Inspired Southern Music

Southern music has a unique flavor. Whatever the dominant genre, you'll likely find hints of soulful blues, Appalachian folk, and gospel blended together on the canvas of a front porch or juke joint where friends gather for good times, good food and tall tales.

Sit back, pour up a glass of sweet tea (or your beverage of choice) and enjoy!

Nashville’s Elliott Park collaborates with daughters on new album

September 28, 2020 By Kara Kennedy

Nashville Elliott Park
Elliott Park and his daughters collaborate on a new album

Nashville-based singer-songwriter and musician Elliott Park has a flair for storytelling. His songs have been sung onstage at the Ryman Opry Theatre and on Late Night With David Letterman. The main body of his work leans towards the unconventional telling of truths and healing messages. In his latest album, Songs With My Daughters coming in October provides comfort and healing the world needs.

Elliott Park and daughters
Songs With My Daughters out Oct. 16

Harmonizing Drive

In March, Park like others in this world faced extended time at home due to the pandemic. One day on a drive he and his daughters began harmonizing. The result is a creative musical collaboration with his three teenage daughters, Anna 18, Autumn, 16 and April 14.

“This is an acoustic 12 song collection was created as a response to the current times which have called for compassion and calming reassurances,” said Elliott Park. “Our album is compiled of unique songs that provide comfort and warmth to all of those who listen to it.”

Park’s unique songs couldn’t be more perfect for this moment in time. They provide comfort and warmth with a touch of whimsy. His songs can go from delightfully playful and imaginative, to dreamy and introspective. Guitar, piano, strings and sweet soulful vocals that features Park’s quintessential weathered, soothing and soulful vocals. 

Blue Skies of the Rainbow Mashup

Therapeutic songs

The album provides reassuring messages of understanding and empathy. His lyrics are vulnerable, honest and passionate with a touch of quirkiness and comedic fevor. Park often gives a wink to his audience to exude his southern charm and soft fatherly way. Listening to his songs are therapeutic. 

The album kicks off with To The Moon and Back, a catchy uptempo duet featuring daughter Anna that’s chock full of cheeky cuteness. The song Follow is a lighthearted encouragement to take a break from the bright lights of popular culture and to search within for one’s own talents and interests. In addition, Park encourages young adults to listen with their own heart instead of following influencers. He will donate proceeds from the sale of the song Follow to teen suicide and prevention.

Park and his daughter, Anna, perform

Road Trips

Park’s Memories of growing up in west Texas and favorite road trips with his father brought forth Three Bottles In The Wind. The song is a rebirthing of his love for that area and its wonderfully slow culture. The emotional song Beautiful is for older kids who are just starting to see the complications of a bigger world. The song Set Me Free is a song where the instrumental leads allow the music and melody to serve as a vehicle to lift the listener to a higher place. Songs like Bloom, which is a song of encouragement and Crickets’ Ball, with its poppy harmonies and lyrics you cannot help but visualize them. Similarly, Orange Jello and The Flute Song bring more delightful vocal play from the girls and their dad.

“This album is an ear to the door of my home. My girls have grown up singing and harmonizing on their own. It’s a joy to bring that to a larger audience,” added Park. 

Ellott Park Songs with My Daughters
Nashville’s Elliott Park and his daughters make memories as they perform

Songs that heal

Park’s career in music and songwriting continues on a refreshingly honest course, writing chapters of courage and healing for family and fans alike. His song I Loved Her First hit number one on Billboard and R&R in 2006. 

Songs With My Daughters will be available for digital download on Oct. 16. Follow Park: Spotify, iTunes, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube.

Filed Under: Entertainment, Life, Music Tagged With: Family, kids, kids music, Music, Nashville, new album, singer, songwriter

Jessie Powell is healing the world through her music

June 19, 2020 By Kara Kennedy

Jessie Powell Inspired Southerner
Jessie fell in love with music at an early age

Jessie Laine Powell began her music career at an early age. At 14, she was singing on the weekends at weddings, festivals, and churches with her high school teachers whom she considered her mentors. The Lexington, Kentucky singer, songwriter soon found that music was her calling. Her goal is to heal the world through her music.

“We lived in the very small town of Winchester, Kentucky and I would travel all over the place singing,” said Jessie Laine Powell, owner of JLPMusic. “I was making good money, for a 14-year-old and I soon realized that I could make music my professional career.”

Inspired Southerner Jessie Powell
Jessie grew up singing gospel music

Jazz Standards and Gospel Music

Jessie fell in love with jazz music in her early 20s. Her dad was a minister, she grew up singing gospel music. In fact, she and her sisters traveled with their father when he preached, and they would be his choir. Traveling and singing inspired her to compose music and she released her first gospel album, “On the Edge,” in 2004.

Transitioning to Soul R&B

During the last three years, Jessie has been undergoing a transformation and delving into Soul R&B. She says as an artist you are should be constantly growing and evolving, especially with your music. For her R&B was the next step for her to enter into naturally which allows her to reach a totally new audience of listeners. 

Jessie Powell heals the world with her music
Jessie is transitioning from jazz to soul R&B

“ Soul R&B allows me freedom and simplicity as a vocalist, It is a very intriguing style. It is a genre I particularly enjoy singing. It also allows me to tell a story musically and strategically. The flow is much smoother, and I am learning and growing in a completely different genre,” she added. 

Over the years, Jessie has found inspiration from the sounds of such musicians as Anita Baker, Patti Austin, Phyllis Hyman as well as others. Jessie has teamed up with music producer and manager  Baron Harris, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was instrumental in helping Jessie release her first Soul R&B single in the U.K. 

Inspired Southerner Jessie Powell
Jessie has received great feedback on her new single

“We released her single April 17 and it has been in rotation since with over 8.5 million listeners around the world,” said Baron Harris, president of Baron Harris Music. “DJs and radio executives from the U.S., U.K., Australia, Italy and Germany have given us great feedback on her new single.” 

Helping others Heal

Jessie released her single “Like No Other Love” in the U.S. earlier this month and she hopes to put smiles on people’s faces. For Jessie, her music is a way for her to give hope, healing and happiness to the world. Through her music, she hopes that people learn to live their lives with compassion, joy. She added that before COVID-19 we all were living life at a fever pitch and at a speed in which we could not sustain. “Many lives have been lost and it breaks my heart. We’ve been forced to re-examine our priorities,” stated Jessie.

Inspired Southerner Jessie Powell
Jessie creates music to help listeners relax

The state of the world also, as she puts it, has made humanity stop and take a look at our priorities. Families are shifting and getting back to the basics of spending time with each other, having compassion for one another, and connecting with each other in a deeper way. 

“I am creating music for people so they can relax and exhale and put into perspective what God has given to us,” she said. “My purpose is huge, but I am ready to bring joy to peoples’ lives.” 

Filed Under: Entertainment, Inspiration, Life, Music Tagged With: jazz, jazzmusic, Jessie Laine Powell, Kentucky, Music, R&B, soul

The Heartland: Alabama’s Gospel Roots

November 1, 2019 By Terry a. ONeal

Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL, 1900s. Images from Encyclopedia of Alabama

Gospel music has been the primary ingredient that has bound Black life together as a surviving people fighting to overcome racial and systemic inequality.

From generation to generation, gospel music has undergone dramatic transformations, traveling a long way from its humble beginnings of quartet music that was birthed from cotton fields and back wood churches back in the early 20thcentury. 

Although the origin of gospel music is not well-documented, Black gospel is rooted in the oral method of interaction through songs and chants called call-and-response. It was from this practice that African-American spirituals were born. 

“Negro Spirituals” published by Belmont Music Co. in 1937. Image Retrieved online from Black Music Scholar.

Heartland of Gospel Quartet Music

In the 1800s, Jefferson county was no different than any other slave state in America. With its deep roots in Alabama soil, it is known as the heartland of gospel quartet music, given rise to notable, award-winning gospel quartet groups from as early as the 1920s. 

Birmingham and other neighboring towns birthed countless gospel quartet ensembles that would later become recognized in the 2012 documentary, “The Jefferson County Sound”.

Some notable southern gospel groups including the Sterling Jubilee Singers (1929), The Four Eagle Gospel Singers (1938), the Fairfield Four (1921), the Blind Boys of Alabama (1939), and other pioneering gospel groups from the yellowhammer state, have been instrumental in shaping gospel music throughout the ages, and still remain influential today. 

Voices were the instruments. 

Gracefully, the breathtaking isolated vocals created a music all its own. The melodic acapella sound that emerged from the steel mills and coal mines of Birmingham led to its recognition of being named birthplace of acapella gospel singing.

Songs of Struggle and Spirit

Gospel hymns were born in a period of deep economic depression and racial segregation in America. In a time when hope was dying, praise songs ministered to the hearts of the people. Songs, such as “We Shall Overcome” and “We Shall Not Be Moved”, played an integral role in the civil rights movement. These freedom songs became the soundtrack to the largest mass movements in America.  

Before long, gospel music began to gain popularity in Birmingham in the 1920s. In the course of time, songs from local artists received national exposure. Classic tunes, like “Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around” and “In the Upper Room/I’ll Tell the World”, by The Fairfield Four, won national awards, and appeared on several movie soundtracks. 

Thomas Andrew Dorsey, the “Father of Gospel Music”. Image retrieved online from the Georgia Encyclopedia.

Influential Figures

Known as the father of black gospel music, Thomas Dorsey, is an influential figure in the world of gospel. He established the first black music publishing company in the early 20th century. Dorsey began his music career as a jazz and blues singer in the late 1920s. Years later, after undergoing several personal hardships, he transitioned from blues to the church circuit.

Dorsey was the first to write and publish gospel songs in 1926. His amazing skill and composing talent would forever change the gospel sound. Dorsey sophisticated the call-and-response in his music, while cleverly introducing jazz rhythms into gospel expressions. He composed numerous gospel classics, such as “Peace in the Valley”, “On the Battlefield”, and “Take My Hand Precious Lord”, laying the foundation for gospel composers to come. 

Mahalia Jackson, the “Queen of Gospel”

Deeply loved and revered, Mahalia Jackson, was known worldwide as the “Queen of Gospel”, taking worship music to the next level. Discovered by Dorsey, Jackson traveled the world with him, becoming the voice to his lyrics. It was the jubilant grace and soul in her contralto voice that would catapult traditional gospel music to the wider world. 

Over the years, there has been a cross-pollination between gospel, blues, and jazz. Today, it has expanded to include hip-hop, rap, and rock-and-roll. 

The five-time Grammy award-winning gospel band, Blind Boys of Alabama, is one legendary group that have created timeless classics over the 70 years of the band’s existence. Reigning from Birmingham, one of the gospel quartet group’s founding members, Mr. Jimmy Carter says that gospel has definitely evolved over time.  

Blind Boys of Alabama, 2017

Jimmy Carter of Blind Boys

“Times have changed. Gospel has changed. But the feeling hasn’t changed—not for me,” he says. “When the Blind Boys first started out, they started with nothing but an old hollow-box guitar. That was the music. To remain impactful, you have to change with times.” 

Over decades, The Blind Boys witnessed their fair share of troubles of the world. They sang their way through the world war, Jim Crow, the civil rights movement, the death of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other pivotal moments in history. 

“In the beginning, we couldn’t sing to anyone but Blacks. For us, it was a means of togetherness. We could all come together and be on one accord. It was a great feeling,” he recalls. “As time progressed, doors at White establishments were opened to us…We were determined no matter what they cost that we were not going to turn around.”

Today, gospel music has become more global, reaching deeper into the secular world. Unlike the traditional way, it’s taking secular beats and creating gospel songs. 

Some say that nothing can replace the gospel greats of yesteryears. These artists created music that was purely original, from the heart and soul—a missing ingredient from the gospel music of today. 

For the Blind Boys, their greatest rewards have been achieved through sharing their gift and uplifting others. 

“Our goal, our aim, is to touch people’s lives. And let them know that there is a God,” says Mr. Carter. “If we just touched one life, it was worth what we all had to go through.” 

Filed Under: Entertainment, Inspiration, Life, Music, Southern History Tagged With: Alabama History, Blind Boys of Alabama, Gospel, Gospel music, Southern Roots, Thomas Dorsey

Nashville singer-songwriter, Mark Elliott releases The Sons of Starmount a book about childhood innocence and adventure

July 17, 2019 By Kara Kennedy

Inspired Southerner Mark Elliott
Elliott is an award-winning singer-songwriter in Nashville

We sat down with Nashville singer-songwriter Mark Elliott to interview him about his new book The Sons of Starmount, which is about childhood innocence and adventure, to see what the response has been since he released it back in February. The audiobook will come out in the fall. There also is a companion EP Sons of Starmount now available. 

Inspired Southerner Sons of Starmount
The Sons of Starmount

The book was born from Elliott’s love of songwriting, blogging and telling stories about his childhood. We found the book intriguing, quirky, funny and reminiscent of what life was like growing up in the South in the late 70s. Most who grew up in that era had a pack of friends who were adventurous, who dared us to do things, who we got in trouble with and who helped us shape who we are today. Elliott’s book takes you back to days when kids let their imaginations captivated them, and before children lost their innocence to screens and instant notoriety. 

Inspired Southerner Mark Elliott
Mark Elliott wrote a chart-topping song for Neal McCoy

Where did you get the idea for your book?

Mark Elliott: I’ve been a singer/songwriter for the past three decades, and have written for many of Nashville’s music publishers. With the music business changing by the day, and sometimes not for the better, I thought I’d search out the one creative industry uglier and more poverty-producing than music. I found it in being an author.

Inspired Southerner Sons of Starmount
The innocence of adventure

Mark Elliott: In all seriousness though, starting a blog a few years ago, and having the room (500-1,000 words a week) to write, intrigued me and sparked a new interest in writing. I enjoyed having room to develop thoughts beyond a two-and-a-half-minute song. As I began thinking beyond the blog, a book seemed the next step for me.

Inspired Southerner Sons of Starmount
The adventures of Sons of Starmount

“The memories of friends, the outdoors, and all the adventures I had on Starmount, in 1977 have stayed with me throughout my life I wasn’t necessarily looking to start my author career with a memoir, but you tell the story begging to be told,” said Elliott.

What is the Sons of Starmount from your perspective?

Mark Elliott: We all have a place and time in our childhoods that help define the adults we eventually become. Seeds are planted, and habits are formed. The experiences and relationships we share when the world is still wild, and our hearts are still open to it all – sculpt a life like the forces of wind and water do upon canyon walls and ancient river beds. This is the story of how an era as free as the seventies, with its parental permissiveness and music, coupled with a one-in-a-million neighborhood filled with friends, swamps, creeks, woods and tree forts, set in motion a creative and adventurous life rarely devoid of either. 

Inspired Southerner Mark Ellott
Singer-Songwriter Mark Elliot releases his first book, The Sons of Starmount

What did your friends think of The Sons of Starmount?

Mark Elliott: Two or three of the old friends seemed interested and enthusiastic and helped to fill in my 40-year-old memories. And others were either care-a-less about me telling our story or outright uncooperative. It had been 40 years since I had seen all of them and nearly 20 since I had seen some of them. I thought that the dilution of time and circumstance was the main problem.

Inspired Southerner Sons of Starmount
Elliott hopes that readers find their own Starmount

Mark Elliott: But in writing the book and having some of the conversations, it became clear that I left Starmount at the perfect time. I left the neighborhood while the waters were still wild and the trees were still tall. I left before the bull dossiers pushed through the dead end and the woods, all the way to the mall parking lot. The rest of my friends, those who stayed on Starmount through their teen years, witnessed the slow undoing of Neverland, to the point where it was just another street in any town USA.

Inspired Southerner Sons of Starmount
Actors in the book trailer

What do you hope people take away from the book?

Mark Elliott: The stories in the book are, I hope, funny and poignant, and filled with an Americana zeitgeist that most will relate to. My earnest hope for the reader is that they find their own Starmount, no matter what generation or geography it may lie in. The experience of finding those straight lines between the man or woman you’ve become and the boy or girl you once were, is a unique one. The journey is not always easy or obvious, but I believe it to be for all of us, a journey well worth the taking. I hope my Starmount points the way to the reader’s Starmount.

Inspired Southerner Sons of Starmount
Book Cover

Mark Elliott and Runaway Home

We first met Mark Elliott and his band Runaway Home six years ago in Alabama at the Black Creek Arts Festival. The band was the headliner for the festival. He continues to tour with the band. He also has received accolades for his songwriting. The song he wrote for Neal McCoy, Everyman for Himself, hit the top 40 Billboard Chart. Billboard called the song, “a song with rare lyrical and musical edge and the best cut on the album.” He also has written other award-winning songs. Elliott is currently working on Rippers, a novel with co-author Joe Johnston. Click to purchase The Sons of Starmount and companion EP.

Inspired Southerner Sons of Starmount
Companion EP for Sons of Starmount

Filed Under: Entertainment, Family, Life, Music Tagged With: author, Mark Elliott, Music, seventies, singer, songwriter, Sons of Starmount, Writers & Writing

Alabama singer-songwriter Alvin Garrett celebrates the release of his new album ‘This Hill’ on June 7

June 3, 2019 By Kara Kennedy

Sponsored:

Alvin Garrett is set to release his new album This Hill June 7.

Alabama’s Alvin Garrett will release his highly-anticipated classic R&B sophomore album This Hill on June 7 at Workplay in Birmingham, Alabama.

[Read more…] about Alabama singer-songwriter Alvin Garrett celebrates the release of his new album ‘This Hill’ on June 7

Filed Under: Entertainment, Music Tagged With: Birmingham, cd release, Music, neo vintage soul, soul, workplay

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We tell real stories about the south. ~Kara Kennedy, Publisher

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