RAIN ON FIRE REVIEW From Americana Roots
Posted by Don Zelazny
Here is someone I somehow missed. I’m continually amazed by the number of talented Americana artists out there and still have the thrill of discovering some I should probably already been aware of. Such is the case with Jill King, whose new cd Rain on Fire has an early April release date.
Her bio is so apt for a singer songwriter working their way up that I must include it. Jill was born and raised in Alabama and played guitar and sang in a bluegrass band in high school. She moved to Nashville in 1992 to attend Vanderbilt University and began writing songs. While working on a tune at an IHOP a customer (songwriter Mark Gray) asked her what she was doing. When he found out she was a songwriter he invited her to join a new publishing company he was forming, which she did after graduation. She eventually contributed over 200 songs for Gate to Gate Publishing. At night she would often play open mic nights at a place called Jack’s Guitar Bar, a haunt for musicians including Patti Griffin, Kim Ritchey, Jim Lauderdale and Keith Urban. Later she became a fixture at a place called Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge which helped launch the careers of Roger Miller, Tom T. Hall, Terri Clark and Kris Kristofferson. She’d played an afternoon audition and was asked to come back that night because the headliner hadn’t showed up. She ended up with a regular gig after that. She released her first album Jillbilly in 2003.
The new cd is a rich diverse gem of Americana. Each of the many times I’ve listened to it I find something new in the lyrics or the music. She is joined on the disc by too many guests to mention and a varied list of instruments, including “Tibetan Bowl” and Tenor Uke. Producer Michael Flanders adds guitars, steel, slide, mandolin and “Big African Balls”, which I hope for his sake is not what he is playing on the tune 16 Elephants…. She adds subtle elements of many styles of music, even a bit of rap, into the 13 tunes on the disc. She is an o9bviously talented artist who I’m going to dig deeper into for sure!