Stephen Kellogg with Special Guest Tift Merritt - The Solo and Down Low Tour April 22, 2011

To understand Stephen Kellogg, look no further than the title track of Stephen Kellogg & The Sixers' Vanguard debut album The Bear. As he sings passionately, "Sometimes you get the bear, sometimes the bear gets you. Sometimes you're gonna win, sometimes you're gonna lose...but you know in the end - there's no apologies!"

Many artists talk about "keeping it real," but in Stephen's case, he means it. "I think it's important to go with the feel of each moment and take chances. If that means to get out of synch or sing out of key once in a while, so be it. The crags are cool because they're interesting."

Producer Tom Schick (Norah Jones, Ryan Adams, Rufus Wainwright) signed up for the band's most recent record and understands why Stephen has a growing legion of loyal fans. "You can hear Neil Young, Tom Petty and John Cougar in there. It brings back a lot of good feelings about growing up and listening to great people who can really play their instruments. It's not pieced together on a computer. It's very refreshing," Schick says.

The Bear is the Stephen's rawest and most cohesive album yet. With alternating tracks between producers Tom Schick and Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter, Erin McKeown), the album was recorded in an apartment studio in NYC and a big old house in Maine respectively. The duality of these settings fits perfectly with Kellogg's description of his family upbringing as, "aristocrats and farmers." Ditto the musical diet he was raised on, a strange bedfellow mix of his dad's 70's records and his sister's taking him to 80's metal concerts. Kellogg explains, "I'm as much a product of Whitesnake as I am of Jackson Browne." The beauty of Stephen's music is that he doesn't have a problem with that.

Stephen has released four independent records as a solo artist. "I used to play 60 songs a night at this steakhouse. I was supposed to play only covers, but I would slide my own material in by introducing it as 'an old Jefferson Airplane B-side' or something. The Sixers brought me out of that and into the realm of making records and touring the whole country over the course of one great year."

These days, Kellogg and his wife (his high school sweetheart) have two daughters and live just outside of New York City. Growing up and in step with his fellow band mates, The Bear looks at generations from two sides, both the vantage point of the child and the adult. Although The Bear is not a concept record, there is a conscious time line that the characters on the record follow and Kellogg even goes so far as to say that it's "66 percent autobiographical." Of course, he will only elaborate on it a little, "If I explained the entire story to you, it wouldn't be as fun to dive in and figure it out for yourself," he says grinning. "I'm sorry, but I just can't take apart every aspect of the music without taking something out of
the soul of it... you'll have to experience it yourself and find meaning there."

Stephen Kellogg & the Sixers are currently at work on their sophomore release for Vanguard Records, set for release in Fall 2011.
http://www.stephenkellogg.com/
http://www.myspace.com/sk6ers
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stephen-Kellogg-and-the-Sixers/6124334829

Songstress Tift Merritt is a North Carolina native. Her father taught her guitar chords and Percy Sledge songs. With her longtime band, she has built a unique and critically acclaimed body of work of sonic short stories and poignant performances.

In 2000, Tift won Merlefest's Chris Austin Songwriting contest, and with the help of Ryan Adams, found herself with a manager and a recording contract with Lost Highway records. The band headed to LA to record her first release, Bramble Rose, in 2002, produced by Ethan Johns. The record landed on Time Magazine's and New Yorker's top ten lists and was called the best debut of the year in any genre by the Associated Press. Tambourine followed in 2004. Produced by George Drakoulias, featuring Mike Campbell of the Heartbreakers on guitar, Tambourine was a soul-rock throw down, Grammy-nominated for Country Album of the Year, even though it was really not a country album. It was also nominated for three Americana Music Awards. The tour opened for Elvis Costello, recorded Austin City Limits, releasing the performance as a live DVD, and made Home Is Loud, a document of the tour's homecoming concert in Raleigh, NC. As the tour was winding down, Tift ran away to Paris looking for her mojo and, without intending to, started writing songs that would become Another Country. Another Country was released on Fantasy Records in 2008, again with George Drakoulias and her longtime band at the helm. Buckingham Solo, recorded in England, is an intimate concert behind Another Country, released on Fantasy in April 2009. Also in 2009, Tift had her first art exhibit, Other Countries, bringing the journals and pictures behind Another Country to light. Tift's latest release, See You On The Moon, produced by Tucker Martine, is her most visceral work to date, and finds her doing what she does best more directly - and better - than she ever has.

Tift also produces The Spark for KRTS Marfa, Texas Public Radio. The Spark explores the real lives and processes of the people behind great works of art. Guests have included writer Nick Hornby, artist Kiki Smith, and singer-songwriter and Merge co-founder Mac McCaughan. Emmylou Harris, when asked about Tift, said, "I first heard Tift Merritt some years ago during a writers' night at a small club in Nashville. She stood out like a diamond in a coal patch, and everyone there knew she carried a promise of great things to come."
http://www.tiftmerritt.com/

Official Website: http://www.jamminjava.com/