Josephine Foster is a dreamer

Wow, talk about an old-fashioned voice. Josephine Foster is meant for the Victrola, her voice trilling with old-time-y vibrato, flicking in and out of the notes, sliding in and then floating effortlessly free. She's a folk singer, I guess, though she sounds a good bit more mannered than that, and there's more than a hint of blues in the corners of these songs. She records, sometimes, with a flamenco band, but this album I'm a Dreamer tends more towards Americana -- guitar, piano, pedal steel and her. It's gorgeous, shadowy, ambiguous and if you're in the right mood (quiet, ruminative) absolutely mesmerizing.

I'm a Dreamer will come out on Fire Records in early November, but for now here's a taste.



Here she is, some time ago, playing the harp...unearthly eh?


In other non-musical news, my husband Bill has been getting some really good feedback from Blacklist on his movie script "Yours Truly Christopher Walken" (which also got to the finals in the Austin Film Festival Script Writing Contest). He got an 8 (of ten) on his professional read, as well as some really helpful notes, and that information is all public and on his profile now, so he has had a trickle of industry people starting to read it. Today, they sent out an email with all recent scripts rated 8 and up, so he is getting even more reads. I hope something happens for him. It is a really good script.

Also, I found out, almost by accident, that one of my biggest clients has been acquired, and though people have told me not to worry, of course I am worried. They are not as big (to me) as they used to be. They used to be by far my biggest client, and now they are third. Still, I don't need to be losing business at this stage. I need to be gaining it.

What else? We went to see Blackfish last night, the documentary about the killer whale that killed two trainers. It makes the point that the whale had every right to kill someone, after the way he'd been treated, but probably not those two particular people. Anyway, if you go to this movie, you will never want to see another aquarium show. It is horrible how they treat those beautiful, intelligent animals.

Josephine Foster's flamenco album

It's clear the floor time again at Jennifer Kelly headquarters (or at least roll back the edge of the CD tide), and in the process of pitching a whole bunch of CDs I will never listen to, I found this one, Anda Jaleo, which I am liking a whole bunch. It came out in 2010 and represents the collaboration between alt.folk/blues singer Josephine Foster and the Spanish guitarist Victor Herrera. It's kind of like the distaff version of Howe Gelb's band of gypsies project, although, Foster slips more readily into the mix than Gelb did, and they're performing traditional songs, not her own compositions. I'm actually not sure it's flamenco, technically, since Herrara is from the northern end of Spain...but there's a song about Seville and castenets in places, what do I know?

Anyway, good stuff, here's a video of them performing together.