Anatomy of a Songwriter
 
   
 

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JACKIE TICE

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Mitakuye Oyasin

 
 

"For years Jackie Tice has been writing and performing earthy, edgy songs of bliss, cruelty and faith. On her lacerating, luminous new disc, ''Second Skin,'' she explores genocide (''Trail of Tears''), open-tuned relationships (''Borders'') and her Native-American heritage (''Thunder Moon'')."

Geoff Gehman, MORNING CALL, ALLENTOWN

"...her stylistic universe floats above the vast galaxy of contemporary folk, borrowing accents from Joni Mitchell's pre-Mingus period."

Mauro Eufrosini, JAM Magazine, ITALY
 

 

Biography:
An Important Voice Among American Songwriters

 
Radio programmers from New York City and Boston to Chicago and San Francisco have heralded Jackie Tice with banners like, “Best new songwriter”, and “A stand-out!”   With the release of her most recent CD, Second Skin, Tice has made full use of her award-winning performing and song writing skills.  Produced by 2005 Native American Grammy Winner, Bill Miller, in a week-long studio marathon in Bucks County, PA, Tice steps up and out with ten songs spanning pop-rock, jazz and folk styles.  Jamey Haddad, percussion, (Paul Simon, Lenny Kravitz, Dave Liebman) and Pete Cummings, electric guitar, (Tanya Tucker, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley), are among the luminaries who helped create this sonic landscape framing Tice’s lyrical story songs.  "She writes songs with messages," says Miller.  "Her music has elements of jazz and rock. Hers is a voice that needs to be heard and her songs are as poetic as they are powerful."

"Lyrically brave" is how Acoustic Guitar magazine describes the music of Jackie Tice, adding, "Tice's songs capture instances of universal recognition and appeal.  Her ode to a Dublin pub, 'The Marijo Tonight,' is a guitar player's 'Piano Man,' and as bittersweet as John Prine's 'Angel from Montgomery,'
 
A Kerrville New Folk Award-winner, the co-mingling of Tice's Native American and Old European roots informs her musical and lyrical points of view, carefully combing through subjects from Shakespearian love to the call of coyotes.  She's been called "an eloquent storyteller whose songs elevate common experience with subtle layers of meaning," (Richard Fox, WCUW), and an artist with "a poet's touch," writing about "complex, believable characters who grow more vivid with each listen," (R.A.B. Perch, Folk Acoustic Music Exchange.)
 
Raised in a Pennsylvania steel mill town with a family of twelve, Tice grew up fast and with enough songwriting fodder “to last a lifetime,” she says.  Forays into social work and college music theory eventually led her back to performance and songwriting and her strong Native spiritual roots.  Today, she has four albums to her credit, artist endorsement deals with John Pearse Strings and Audix Microphones, and a long list of kudos from major music media in the US, Australia, Italy and Canada.  "I love your songs," Lucinda Williams said to Jackie backstage at the Kerrville Festival.  Christine Lavin, folk diva of New York City, endorsed Jackie by declaring her song, The Marijo Tonight, "a modern-day classic," and including it on the compilation CD, The Stealth Project: Music Under The Radar.
 
In 2002, Tice produced a collection of songs inspired by her oil paintings entitled "In These Bones," which, alongside the Doc Watson/David Holt collection, Legacy, was recently nominated as Best Traditional Folk Album by the grassroots JPF Music Awards.  In 2003, Tice composed the soundscape for an educational video documentary produced by Rutgers University entitled, Riparian Buffers: Restoring and Managing New Jersey's Streamside Forests.
 
Tice's song, Domestic Delinquent, was included in the 2002 Random House publication, Life's A Stitch: The Best of Contemporary Women's Humor.  An anthology of humorous short stories, poetry, songs, and cartoons-all from the pens of women, and all proceeds donated to benefit charities- it includes the writings of Kathy Najimy, Wendy Wasserstein, Gloria Steinem, Erma Bombeck, Christine Lavin, Julie Gold and others.
 
Jackie Tice has appeared with many formidable artists.  On-stage festival and listening club performances and workshops with Bill Miller, John Gorka, Christine Lavin, Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey, Garnet Rogers, Susan Werner, Frank Christian, Caroline Aiken, Dana Cooper, and others, from Club Passim (Boston) and the Tin Angel (Philadelphia) to the Bluebird Café (Nashville) and Eddie’s Attic (Atlanta) have paved the way for her recognition as an important voice among American songwriters.


Click here to Download full bio in MSWord format
 

 
 

Press Materials

 
 


250 Word Biography:

JACKIE TICE
Jackie Tice’s recent CD, Second Skin, makes full use of her award-winning performing and songwriting skills. Produced by 2005 Native American Grammy winner, Bill Miller, it includes Jamey Haddad, percussion, (Paul Simon) and Pete Cummings, electric guitar, (Johnny Cash, Willy Nelson). "She's not in a box," says Miller. "She writes songs with messages…hers is a voice that needs to be heard."

A Kerrville New Folk Award-winner, the co-mingling of Tice's Native American and old European roots informs her musical and lyrical styling, carefully combing through subjects from Shakespearian love to the call of coyotes. "I love your songs," Lucinda Williams said to Jackie backstage at the Kerrville Festival. Christine Lavin declared Jackie’s song, The Marijo Tonight, "a modern-day classic," and included it on one of her compilation CD’s. Acoustic Guitar says, "Tice's songs capture instances of universal recognition and appeal. Her ode to a Dublin pub, "'The Marijo Tonight,' is a guitar player's 'Piano Man,' and bittersweet as John Prine's 'Angel from Montgomery.'"

Born in a Pennsylvania steel town, an emancipated minor in her teens, Jackie has more than enough songwriting fodder to last a lifetime. And now, a long list of kudos from major music media in the US, Australia, Italy and Canada.

Her festival and listening club performances and workshops with Lavin, Miller, Peter Yarrow, Paul Stookey, John Gorka, Garnet Rogers, Susan Werner, and others, from Club Passim to the Bluebird Café have paved the way for her recognition as an important voice among American songwriters.


Click here to Download 250 word bio in MSWord format
 

 
 


100 Word Biography:

JACKIE TICE
Award-winning songwriter, Jackie Tice, is a unique voice among songwriters.  The co-mingling of Tice's Native American and Old European roots informs her musical and lyrical points of view, carefully combing  through subjects from Shakespearian love to the call of Coyotes.  “Musically buoyant and lyrically brave - folk-rock with Native American spirituality...Tice's songs capture instances of universal recognition and appeal,”  writes Acoustic Guitar Magazine.  Her recent CD, Second Skin, produced by 2005 Native American Grammy-winner, Bill Miller, affirms what Italy’s premier music publication, JAM! Magazine, says, “Tice’s stylistic universe floats above the vast galaxy of adult contemporary folk.”


Click here to Download 100 word bio in MSWord format
 

 
 

Press Release, June 2005 -
Jackie Tice Gets a Second Skin with New CD:


Produced by Grammy-winning Native American artist, Bill Miller, Second Skin is the newest outing by 1996 Kerrville New Folk Emerging Artist-winner, Jackie Tice. Her first full-studio release in seven years, Tice steps up with ten songs spanning pop-rock, jazz and folk styles.

Accompanied by such musical greats as Jamey Haddad, percussion (Paul Simon, Lenny Kravitz, Dave Liebman) and Pete Cummings, electric guitar (Willy Nelson, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley) Tice’s lyrical story songs are framed masterfully by these sonic landscapers.

Miller has this to say after working on Tice’s project, "She writes songs with messages…hers is a voice that needs to be heard and her songs are as poetic as they are powerful.''  The Lehigh Valley, PA resident has won many fans with her award-winning songwriting informed by the co-mingling of her mixed Native American and Old European ancestry. Rootsy and expansive sounds and images reflect Tice’s songs inspired by "integration with the elements of nature." Several of these songs are direct descendents of her oil paintings, which, Tice says, "tell me their stories."

The title cut, Second Skin, is a folk-pop anthem of rebirth – evolution and emergence – seated within the powerful percussive slips of Haddad, and vocally supported by fellow Kerrville winner and songwriting partner, William “Billy” Hall.

Trail of Tears
, Tice’s self-proclaimed “Give Peace A Chance,” is power rock – the dueling electric guitars of Miller and Cummings – engaged in a tribal rhythmical pulse that breaks into Native chants from indigenous people of North America and Africa (Miller and Ghanaian-native, JC Sarpong).  The comparatively naked The Window features one of Tice’s most poignant vocal renderings on the album.  Borders playfully flirts as close to minor-modal Joni Mitchell-like jazz as Tice can get and still pull off an original song.  On this cut, Joshua Yudkin’s piano tastefully glides between Tice’s deft phrasing. Human, with its U2-like rock-pop production, could very well be the single to watch on this record. A slow standard in Tice’s live sets and featured on this record is the soul-bearing Wide Open, which Tice counts as one of her most important pieces of writing. The only co-write (with Hall) on this CD, Coming Home, is a ballad conjuring visions of Tice’s favorite state, North Dakota, and the oft associated metaphorical longing that accompanies these vast plains. The fretless bass harmony of Tony Dominic is hauntingly beautiful here. Schizoid narcissism is the theme of a straight AAA-play, Medusa-Jane. Featuring Gary Rissmiller on drums, this is one of those perfect 3:30 songs every college radio station should be playing. In These Bones, on the other hand, reckons with the adult-oriented issues of legacy and mortality, using the image of a wall of bronzed bison bones as a backdrop. Finally, Thunder Moon gives Miller a chance to display his spirit-filled musicianship through his Native American flute playing, for which he won his 2005 Grammy Award.

Independently released at this time, on Tice’s own SajaRecords, Second Skin is available through the websites http://jackietice.com and http://cdbaby.com/cd/tice3 and live shows.

Radio:

 
 

AAA:

Second Skin (1), Trail of Tears (2), The Window (3) Human (5), Medusa Jane (8)

 
 

Americana:

Second Skin (1), Trail of Tears (2), Borders (4), Wide Open (6), Thunder Moon (10)

 
 

Folk/Singer/Songwriter:

Second Skin (1), Trail of Tears (2), The Window (3), Borders (4), Wide Open (6), Coming Home (7), In These Bones (9), Thunder Moon (10)

 
 

Rock/Pop:

Second Skin (1), Trail of Tears (2), Human (5)

 
 


Click here to Download this press release in MSWord format


 
 

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Booking:
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(www.yulungaarts.com)
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PO Pox 14604
Tucson, AZ 85732 USA
Tel: 608.358.6416

Contact:
Saja Maka Music
rebecca@jackietice.com
PO Box 333
Center Valley PA 18034 USA

 

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