The real substance of Alathea comes from the unexpected, the underground and the out of sight. The duo’s fourth full-length recording, My Roots Grow Deeper, conveys a depth of thought, insight and care that is rare in a surface age, and which puts on display the reason for their continually expanding community of supporters. And that’s what Alathea has developed: community, not fans.

My Roots Grow Deeper is a full and textured record, thoroughly modern yet absent of any cliché studio trickery or gimmicky hybrids. Led by Radford’s clear-as-a-bell vocals, and complemented by Johnson’s smoky harmonies, the song cycle delivers an emotional and atmospheric ride as dynamic as the mountain view they glimpse from their East Tennessee cabin.

That spirit allows Alathea to connect to anyone, anywhere, simply by being invitational in the way they approach their craft and their lives. And while their lyrics display a sharp intellect and grounding in the work of influential artists, it is the unresolved honesty of how the songs are conveyed that marks Alathea’s work.

Brittany Reilly was born on May 22nd, 1984 & raised in a small town outside of Cleveland, OH called Bay Village. Her first music performance was with her husband Brent Hopper in Sept. 2005. Since then, she has played more than 200 shows nationwide with several line-ups. Brittany & Brent toured as a duo primarily from 2005-2007 supporting their 2006 CD release “Back to My Roots” as well as a couple of tours with the full band. In her evolved project with Brent Hopper (Guitar, Vocals), Billy Gilmore (Banjo, Mandolin, Fiddle, Dobro, Lap-Steel, Dobro), Steve Belcher (Bass), Sue Cunningham (Fiddle, Vocals), & Erick Ireland (Drums), she recorded her debut solo CD “Good Old Country Sound” released March 1st, 2008.

Brittany will be doing close to 150 shows nationally throughout 2008 supporting the new CD release, mostly with the Almost Acoustic Band. More Updates coming soon, keep checking back for details & more info….

Perhaps it was the definitiveness of genre with which she started her musical endeavor which lead Christina Horn, a.k.a. Hudson K, to her current style of genre-dissolving anti-pop piano rock. Listening to her music, you can’t help but guess that the classical masters trained her technical eyes and ears. But when she first heard the early sounds of Tori Amos, it occurred to her that she had options beyond teaching piano lessons and accompanying the church choir. Certainly she has been compared to Amos by music journalists in her native Knoxville, and she won’t deny the strength of Amos’s influence on her ambition. Still, she has poured her own earthiness into her style and created a sound that is uniquely hers. This sound found a home first behind the vocals of fellow Knoxville native Matt Urmy in the short lived but loved local indie outfit Teleskope.

The dissolution of Teleskope in 2005 left Horn wondering if it were possible for her to front a band, rather than just support one. It didn’t hurt that her life, at the time of the Teleskope’s parting, was whirling in the heartache and despair of the increasingly common quarter life crisis: the kind of tragedies of which beautiful music is so often made. She wrote what she knew and brought it where she could, usually to the once smoky bars in downtown Knoxville, or any other corner where she could fit her keyboard. It was during this time that she ran into old friend Laura Bost in a dark garage at a party; the two had become acquainted years earlier, in music school, while both were learning to perfect and perform the classical music they were, years later, eagerly leaving behind. Unlike Horn, Bost was a vocalist by training, and was working as a sound engineer. Like Horn, Bost was feeling the compulsion to write and sing something different than what her classical training as a vocalist had been.

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Our congratulations to Anna Scott (chef/owner of Mia Cucina) for her winning of the 2008 FiveStar Food Fight at the Chattanooga Market on Sunday.  This year’s trophy was crafted by Charles McFarland, a long-time metal artist at the market.

The competition was terrific this year, and featured fresh-produce and spices available at the Chattanooga Market.  All of the competitors used FiveStar Professional Ranges, the finest stoves in the world made here in the Chattanooga metro area.  Our thanks go out to all of the celebrity chefs and their Chattanooga restaurants - local is better!

Photo (left-to-right): Wolfgang Poe, Red Rock Grill, Wes Orr, 212 Market, Anna Scott, Mia Cucina, Brandon White, Back Inn Cafe/Bluff View District, and Bill Heckler, Gordon Biersch

More photos from this weekend are available on our Google Photos site (click on the sidebar on the right)

Visit the Chattanooga Market in the First Tennessee Pavilion this Sunday, June 29th, from Noon to 5 PM to enjoy a Five Star Food Fight Cooking Demonstration, featuring chefs from 212 Market, Mia Cucina, Back inn Cafe’, Gordon Biersch and Red Rock Grill:

Wes Orr, 212 Market
Bill Heckler, Gordon Biersch
Anna Scott, Mia Cucina
Wolfgang Poe, Red Rock Grille
Brandon White, Back Inn Cafe’

Contestants will be displaying their professional and creative expertise by preparing dishes using fresh produce, spices, herbs and other goods available fresh and direct from farmers at the Chattanooga Market. The chefs will be using the finest professional ranges in the world, thanks to Five Star Professional Ranges, which are also available for home use.

Five Star is yet another best-of-class manufacturer here in the Chattanooga metro, and a long-term supporter of the Chattanooga Market. Please support our local farmers, manufacturers, craftsmen and organizations - Local is Better!

On the title track of her debut album “Today,” Wendy Jans sings “Today I’ll walk in bare feet even if it rains…” setting the tone for an album about living life intentionally and not being afraid to live and love outside the lines.

Jans, who is originally from Iowa but now calls Nashville home, has garnered attention not only for her unique voice but also her vocal range. While studying opera as a mezzo-soprano, she sang twice at Carnegie Hall, but it’s Wendy’s smooth and intimately soulful alto voice that prevails in the music of “Today.” On “Invincible”, her low voice is an unexpected juxtaposition from her petite frame. Disarmingly versatile, she exudes emotion while embracing the stylistic diversity of each song on the album.

Wendy Jans is respected for her songwriting abilities and collaboration as a co-writer. She came to Nashville to entrench herself into the songwriting community and quickly garnered a publishing deal with a Music Row publisher. A finalist in the International Song Search with honorable mentions in the Billboard World Song Contest and Nashville Song Search, Wendy was named winner of the River Bluff Performing Songwriting Competition and the Nashville Trowbridge Symposium. Eleven of the twelve tracks on Today were written or co-written by Wendy, with the only exception being an innovative interpretation on Lionel’s Richie’s classic “Hello”.

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Kate Klim was five years old when her family inherited a piano, 9 years old when she received her first lesson, and 11 years old when an unsuccessful audition for the film “Life with Mikey” caused her to rethink her career as a moviestar. This was fortunate, because the singer/songwriter Club Passim has since called a “local rising star” then turned to music.

With roots in Palatine, Illinois and Downingtown, Pennsylvania, Kate was raised on a steady diet of Carole King , Paul Simon, Billy Joel and John Lennon. Later on, her influences grew to include Patty Griffin, Jonatha Brooke, Chris Trapper and Garrison Starr.

Kate’s musical success in her hometown led her to Berklee College of Music in Boston. It was here that Kate worked on her skills as a writer and performer, and became involved with the music community that had produced icons like Bob Dylan years before, and Tracy Chapman and Patty Griffin in the recent past. Soon enough her song “Heaven Help Me” led off the 2003 “Best of Boston” singer-songwriter compilation CD, and her audience began to grow. Within a few years of her debut as a singer/songwriter, she was opening for artists like Shawn Colvin, Lucy Kaplansky, Richard Shindell and Ollabelle.

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Keith Moody’s guitar is essentially a part of him, an extra appendage, if you will. He and his Paul Reed Smith McCarty have been through some hard times, and some good times. Keith is proud of every knick and scrape his axe has taken up ‘til now.

    “I have a real relationship with that guitar,” explains Keith. “Most PRS’ you see are very nice, and kept pristine in cases, and mine has been played in about every dive bar across the Southeast…it smells, and it has pieces rubbed off of it and knicks out of it. Give me about 20 more years, and hopefully it will be beaten like Willie’s. That thing is like a part of me.”

    Just how close Moody is with his instrument is revealed immediately the minute he launches into one of his soul-searing solos. The two become one as the 27-year-old morphs easily as he plays among the strings: one minute he’s channeling the heart of a 60-year-old black man in a blues number that will melt the house and your heart, the next he’s calling up ghosts of Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughn in a full-tilt, scorching rocker. Oh, he also knows his way around a Texas-tinged tear-jerker, too, in case those weren’t enough to pique your interest and get your toes tapping. Moody possesses a maturity and depth that belies his young age, and that depth no doubt seeps into every note of his music. A triple threat, he not only can sing and tear it up on the guitar, he also writes on a level far above most of his pop peers. His new album is evidence of just how far the singer/songwriter has come in such a short time, and of the places he will go if talent has anything to do with it.
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Raised in Chi-town and born into a musical family, singer/songwriter Holly Long needled her parents into piano lessons on her Great-Grandmother’s upright Hamilton at age 7. As a young child she was exposed to the sounds of Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Elton John, Beethoven and the Beatles, sprinkled with daily doses of Free To Be You and Me via her Dad’s HiFi stereo headphones. Diversely influenced, spent her youth and early adult years performing in various musicals, piano recitals and plays.

After high school, Holly moved to California to attend UCLA as a Theater Major. She suddenly found herself scribbling lyrics on bar napkins and call-sheets for various acting gigs in an attempt to bring voice to what Hollywood wasn’t really supporting her growing creative force. Three demo recordings at Randy Alpert’s SCREAM Studios, one indie record deal gone bust and countless local gigs later, Holly seemed to be just about ready to call herself a songwriter.

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Dallas Wayne considers himself lucky to be able to make a living doing something he loves. Some people might say it has more to do with talent than luck. But throughout a career that has taken Dallas around the world as a songwriter, singer, actor and radio deejay, he claims he’s never had a real job.

A native of Springfield, Missouri, Dallas began performing professionally in 1975, and by the age of 18 he had toured throughout the entire U.S. and Canada. After moving to Nashville, he further developed his vocal style singing demos for many of the top publishing houses in the music industry.

While touring Europe in 1991, Dallas forged a deal with Texicalli Records in Finland and was signed to record an album. One album soon became six, and Dallas decided to move to Scandinavia in 1996, where he was contracted as a staff writer for Warner/Chappell Music.

After four years living and touring in Europe, Dallas returned to the U.S. and settled in northern California. Within one month of his return, he signed a record deal with HighTone Records. In addition to recording two albums of his own on the HighTone label, Dallas was a part of the honky-tonk supergroup, the TwangBangers.

Dallas moved to Austin, Texas in early 2003 where he has enjoyed a vibrant country music scene. In 2005 Dallas released the CD I’m Your Biggest Fan, marking his debut on the Koch Records Nashville label.

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