JESS KLEIN
For over a decade, Jess Klein’s gutsy “tell it like it is” folk pop has been embraced by tastemakers from Tokyo to London, from Australia to her new home state of Texas.
Graced with one of the most enviable voices in Americana music – that’s her singing harmony on John Fullbright’s Grammy-nominated album From the Ground Up, Jess is equally at ease with a sultry whisper or a rock’n’roll wail. MOJO Magazine writes “Jess Klein has one of those voices you want to crawl up close to the speakers to listen to.” The NY Times describes her songwriting as having “stranger, more personal things to say than one could get away with most of the time in Nashville.” And No Depression‘s Lee Zimmerman calls Klein’s latest release Behind A Veil “An excellent album – a career-maker in fact.” In fact, Klein has released eight critically acclaimed albums of her own and toured the globe, sharing the stage with such greats as Arlo Guthrie, Steve Earle, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Shawn Colvin, Radney Foster and Alejandro Escovedo.

“A series of YouTube videos, each one more precious than the last, paint Minneapolis’ Savannah Smith as a ukulele-slinging Jack Johnson disciple—particularly in an adorable take on “Bitter Heart” by Zee Avi (who’s on Johnson’s Brushfire Records), aided by some smirking, unofficial sign language from her roommate. But the seriousness Smith shows when performing her own songs, like the punchy “Ventriloquism,” nicely balances her jazz-informed cooing and displays a talent for lyrical density that raises her simple melodies.”
— AV Club -Madison