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Achievements
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2011 Kerrville New Folk Winner
2009 NPR's Mountain Stage NewSong Contest Winner & Best Song Winne...2011 Kerrville New Folk Winner
2009 NPR's Mountain Stage NewSong Contest Winner & Best Song Winner
2010 Wildflower! Performing Songwriter Contest Winner and "People's Choice" Award Winner
2010 Rocky Mountain Folks Festival, 4th Place Winner
2010/2011 International Folk Alliance Conference Official Showcase Artist
2009 Bugle Boy Sunday Showcase Winner & Best of 2009 Winner
Kerrville Regional Finalist (New Folk) 2008 & 2010
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Quotes
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"In the marriage of word and melody, Grace Pettis sets the bar at a jaw-dropping high level...I can'..."In the marriage of word and melody, Grace Pettis sets the bar at a jaw-dropping high level...I can't force you to purchase a copy of this gem encrusted Grace Pettis. If you do I can guarantee a musical voyage that will have you pressing the repeat button with regularity."
-ARTHUR WOOD OF MAVERICK MAGAZINE, UK
"This first outing for Grace Pettis is just great...These are fine songs from a brave, transparent young woman. She has a voice that reminds me of Karla Bonoff or a young Linda Ronstadt."
-LARRY BAUMGARTNER OF VICTORY REVIEW ACOUSTIC MUSIC MAGAZINE
"Songs like the opener "The Gypsy's Code" possess the dusky Western folk sound of Patty Griffin and Kate Rusby, and Grace's voice has a warm lilt similar to Beth Nielson Chapman."
-VICTORIA MCCABE OF MURUCH.COM
"Grace Pettis is definitely an artist to keep an eye and an ear on. She's taking on big ideas, and hewing them into well-crafted lyrics. There are graceful turns of phrase which sometimes remind me that she grew up under a roof that sheltered more than one great writer, but her voice is her own, as a writer as well as a singer."
-David LaMotte
"Grace Pettis is as promising an artist as I've heard in a long time. She's got the heart, art, soul and looks to touch a lot of people with her music"
-Tom Kimmel
"There is a wisdom in Grace's observations about life that makes her music go right to the heart. She sings and shares so honestly that it is inevitable listeners will hear themselves in her songs."
-Jill Phillips
"Grace is wholeheartedly dedicated to using her myriad talents to heal, and to bridge the distance between that sacred and the every day, making every song a prayer and making every moment holy."
-Joe Jencks
"Of course I'm biased, but Grace is really, really good- and I hate that. Because, as her dad, I'd much prefer that she got a real job..."
-Pierce Pettis
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Album Review
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Stunning debut release by Grace Pettis.
Grace is the first musician in the Pettis dynasty’s secon...Stunning debut release by Grace Pettis.
Grace is the first musician in the Pettis dynasty’s second generation to throw her hat into the ring. She does so with a flourish via a self-titled twelve song collection (of original compositions) that is daring, accomplished and memorable. Whatever trade we choose to ply, we all have to begin somewhere. In the marriage of word and melody, GRACE PETTIS sets the bar at a jaw-dropping high level.
Recorded at Blue Rock Studio in Wimberley, Texas the core of support players amounts to Rick Roberts (drums, percussion), Chris Maresh (acoustic and electric bass), Colin Brooks (lap steel, resonator guitar) and facility owner/album producer Billy Crockett (acoustic guitar, piano). Cellist Dirje Smith and pianist Dave Madden contribute to a couple of songs each. Grace is currently studying at St. Edwards in Austin, performs in local clubs at weekends, and – like her talented father Pierce – aims to pursue a career in music following graduation next summer. Any Austin radio station programmer worth his salt should, currently, be scheduling Nine To Five Girl and the lyrically surreal A Bird May Love with incessant regularity.
The lyric to the gently paced The Gypsy’s Code amounts to a personal testimony, and opens the album. Barely getting by financially, Nine To Five Girl finds its feisty young narrator set out her bussing skills, and then sum up her dilemma with “yours to ignore, Part of the scenery, American machinery.” All the poor girl sought was a pleasantry, some respect. Was that too much to ask? Embracing a lifetime in a mere three verse, Pettis’ courageously employs a male voice in the beautiful waltz paced Dancing.
The ragged voice of Band of Heathens alumni Colin Brooks duets with Grace on A Bird May Love, the ensuing Italy doubles as travelogue and love song, while Turning Too reflects on coming of age. The uplifting Let A Little Light is propelled by probably the busiest melody in this collection, andsupported only by cello and gut string guitarGrace’s voice soars and swops on the delightfully melodic album closer Long Sleep, the lyric to which is a patently honest statement of faith.
Grace’s name had been mentioned (to me) in despatches by friends and acquaintances over the last two years. She recently won the Mountain Stage NewSong Contest as well as the Best Song category with Nine To Five Girl. I can’t force you to purchase a copy of the gem encrusted GRACE PETTIS. If you do, I can guarantee a musical voyage that will have you pressing the repeat button with regularity.
4.5 Stars
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Album Review
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It might be expected that the daughter of singer/songwriter Pierce Pettis would make music that’s bo...It might be expected that the daughter of singer/songwriter Pierce Pettis would make music that’s both brainy and quietly spiritual. Grace Pettis displays a winning idealism and an awareness of the world’s injustices. “Nine to Five Girl” is a bittersweet portrait of a harried working woman that earned Pettis top honors in the 2009 Mountain Stage NewSong Songwriting Competition. The rock-tinged “Heard Enough Now” confronts an authority figure with a defiantly questioning attitude. More introspective are the dreamily jazzy “A Bird May Love” and the ruminative, Sarah McLachlan-esque “The Gypsy’s Code.” “What You Didn’t Want to Know” is an engaging slice of lovelorn torment. While Grace can’t be called carefree in attitude, she does allow herself a lighthearted moment with “Italy,” a sunny travelogue. All the tunes benefit from Pettis’ clear, emotive vocals, distinguished by her keening upper range. Grace Pettis is heartfelt and free from affectation and its fresh outlook is its strength.
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Performance Review
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I am just back from the Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis and I am so thrilled to be sharing this ...I am just back from the Folk Alliance Conference in Memphis and I am so thrilled to be sharing this artist and her music with you. My goal at the conference this year was to see a lot of new artists, and one of the first ones I went looking for was Grace Pettis.
Grace is the 22-year-old daughter of Pierce Pettis, who is one of my favorite songwriters. I heard that her song Nine to Five Girl beat out 800 other songs to win the Mountain Stage NewSong Contest this year. I suspected I was in for a treat… but I had no idea.
I went to her first showcase and, along with everyone else in the room, fell in love with Grace Pettis. She has a really lovely voice (strong and sweet) and a beautiful presence. She started with Turning Too a gentle and lovely coming-of-age song which takes us from bicycles to wedding dresses. The next song was Nine to Five Girl, which is the one that beat out all the others at Mountain Stage. She joked that it was about the kind of jobs you have when you’re in your twenties… or a musician… or both, and “making just enough to dream.” Dancing (written with Sofia Echegaray) is a tender waltz that Grace dedicated to her grandparents and to a time when dancing was a part of all love stories. Italy was dedicated to her fiance, who couldn’t be with her at the conference because they are saving for a honeymoon. She told us that when they met they discovered they both dreamed of traveling in Italy. When the song was done, I don’t think I was the only one who wanted to help finance the trip. Like I said, I fell in love with Grace Pettis. I am sure you will too.
Grace’s album, which came out in October 2009, was produced by Billy Crockett, who runs the amazing Blue Rock Artist Ranch and Studio in Wimberley, Texas. I am happy to know that Grace is working with someone who obviously cares so much about wonderful music and artists.
The videos below are from Grace’s official showcase at the Folk Alliance Conference. By the time she did this showcase, word had spread (I know I told everyone I saw) and the room was packed. The noise you hear is from bustling conference traffic in the nearby hallway, but in the room there was not a sound as everyone was listening so intently. She was accompanied by Billy Crockett on guitar and Dirje Smith on cello. She got a standing ovation at the end of her set which is rare at this conference.
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Pierce and Grace Pettis Know How to Bring It
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Haven is described as "a place of shelter or safety, a refuge." For thousands of acoustic-music devo...Haven is described as "a place of shelter or safety, a refuge." For thousands of acoustic-music devotees in our fair city, no nook fits the description better than Uncle Calvin's Coffeehouse, which routinely books singer-songwriters whose profiles veer closer to low than high (they are not Lady Gag-uh-me-with-a-spoon) but who actually have something to say. And who say it so very well.
Photo by Ira Hantz of Uncle Calvin's Coffeehouse: From left to right, Grace Pettis, Dirje Smith and Pierce Pettis in concert Friday night
For those who know how to listen, who respond more to slowly falling tears than screeches, screams or scantily clad joke-dancing, this is the place for you. Friday night offered no better example than in the choice pairing of headliner Pierce Pettis and his incredibly gifted 23-year-old daughter, Grace, who recently won the New Folk Songwriting award at the Kerrville Folk Festival. They were supported by surprising newcomer Liz Longley, a 2009 New Folk finalist who served as an unforgettable opening act, and Dirje Smith, a terrific cellist, who accompanied Pierce and Grace.
Longley opened the show, which lasted more than three-and-a-half hours, with one razor-sharp ballad after another. "When You've Got Trouble" explored the meaning of true love, "Unraveling" was a poignant elegy to a grandmother who died of Alzheimer's, and "Vintage Camaro" is a cleverly spun break-up tale that equates the roles we play in love to the cars we most resemble.
Pierce Pettis won the 1987 New Folk award at Kerrville, making him and his daughter the only father-child combo to have captured it. This is a guy who knows how to write, whose songs feel as much like novels or carefully woven short stories as they do memorable ballads. His compositions have wound up as hits for the likes of Garth Brooks and Art Garfunkel, but I prefer his own renderings. Hearing him sing "You Move Me," the one he wrote for Brooks (he recently told his 7-year-old son from his second marriage that it paid for their house), it's no wonder that elite vocalists find his tunes so alluring. "That Kind of Love," which he sang as a poignant duet with Grace, offers no better proof of the power of the man's writing.
The second set featured Grace singing "Little Bluebird," a sweet homage to a songwriter's heaven, the Bluebird Café in Nashville, Tenn., and one of two for which she won the New Folk award. The other, the majestic "Lighthouse," which can be either a Christian allegory or an unforgettable love story, got the rousing ovation it deserved. She also sang "Nine to Five Girl," which offers its own adroit commentary on the condescending way that so many view the working class, and the moving "Love Is There." (To learn more about Grace, please read my recent feature on her in The Dallas Morning News.)
For an encore, Pierce sang one of his older songs but one of his best, "Just Like Jim Brown (She Is Leaving)," which cleverly equates a woman leaving a relationship with what some called the premature exit of the best running back in the history of professional football: "Jim was something, that's a fact/the all-time greatest running back/but Jim knew something fools don't know/he knew when it was time to go."
Grace says she prefers to sing "Speak Tenderly" only with Smith playing cello behind her, and if that's the case, she should take her with her everywhere she goes. It's a wonderful song, which feels destined for a Hollywood soundtrack (as, for that matter, do so many of the songs she and her father sing - Hollywood, where are you?). Pierce closed the night with a pair of Bob Dylan classics, "The Times They Are A-Changin' " and "Down in the Flood," on which he sent the crowd home with his killer harmonica. Great night. If only they had made a video.
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2 Page Feature
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THE THING IS, THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING
The middle weekend of May proved to be far from unev...THE THING IS, THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING
The middle weekend of May proved to be far from uneventful for young Grace Pettis. On the morning of Friday 14th just as she was about to head north to Richardson and the Wildflower! Art & Music Festival’s Performing Songwriter Contest, a package arrived at her Austin, Texas home. The guitar case therein contained a twelve-fret, 000 Moonstone Guitar, hand made by Steve Helgeson and gifted by Jon Phelps, owner of Storyville Coffee. We’ll return to Storyville later.
A few hours later heading north on I35, Grace’s car broke down near Temple. Thankfully, mobile phone to hand, she intercepted finalist Eric Hanke on his way to Richardson. Selected from hundreds of applicants, on the late morning of Saturday 15th May ten musicians performed two songs each on the Bank of America Theater stage in the Eisemann Center for Performing Arts. The Contest judges were musician Tracy Grammer, Kerrville Folk Festival producer Dalis Allen and P. A. Gettie editor of the East Texas publication THE COUNTY LINE. The Songwriter Contest’s first prize was a G-55 Dreadnaught Gallagher Guitar, built by Stephen Gallagher and presented by him. Within a matter of thirty-six hours, twenty-two year old Grace was the somewhat surprised but proud owner of two beautiful (new) guitars. For the sake of the song, lightning had well and truly struck twice!
Let’s go back to the beginning. Grace was born in Tallahassee, Florida during 1987. “My parents moved from Tallahassee, to Ohio to Atlanta, before I was four.” Her parents divorced a few years later and her father, musician Pierce Pettis, eventually settled near his hometown of Fort Payne, Alabama after marrying for a second time. “I lived in Atlanta, and would visit my dad on weekends and during the summer.”
I wondered what Grace recalled of her early years. “I had juvenile arthritis and couldn’t play outside and do things that were real physical. It miraculously went away, but for years I had it. I didn’t take ballet lessons, climb trees or do cartwheels – I stayed inside and drew pictures and sang songs.” As for her first musical memory, Grace replied “I listened to The Beatles a lot. My mom and my dad were huge fans.” She credits the boys from Liverpool with teaching her to sing harmony. An English and Irish literature lecturer and published author, Grace’s mother has been a professor at Georgia State University for around two decades. “She plays guitar and violin and sings. She loves being part of song circles. Both my brothers, Rayvon and George, are musical. My step-mom was a voice major in college and she also sings.”
Grace took formal piano lessons during her pre-teens years. “I didn’t practice (laughs) but always made up my own stuff. I loved the piano, but when I was thirteen my mom took a sabbatical year in Cork, Ireland so I lived there with her. Aged fourteen I moved to my dad’s, but he only had a keyboard.” Grace’s first guitar was stamped Made in Japan. Had she begun writing songs after switching to the stringed instrument? “I can’t remember a time when I didn’t write songs. Even as a little girl before I took piano lessons, if you ask my parents, I’d make up songs about whatever I was doing. A lot of it was just reflex, a reaction to being inside all day. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t social. Some kids expend energy playing sports. I made up songs.” Had she committed those early creations to paper? “Yes, as soon as I could write. My mom would meticulously notate them for me, and she still has sheet music from when I was seven or eight.”
Grace sang in church choirs from an early age, and accompanying herself on piano performed her songs in the annual high school talent show – she won in her freshman year. Auditioning at the age of eight, Grace joined the Atlanta Young Singers of Callanwolde and performed with them for a decade. “It was a fun thing, and we performed in auditoriums locally. I was in this other choir called Harmony for about a year and we performed at Carnegie Hall one time. In Cork I also joined a children’s choir.” Had the foregoing disruptions – Cork and choirs - affected her education? “I don’t think so, I think it broadened it. I love travelling. I think, if anything, I’ve become the kind of person who can’t live in one place for more than a few years without wanting to move - unless, I’m travelling constantly.”
“It was my mom who showed me a few chords on the guitar. She taught me a few hymns and Angel From Montgomery the John Prine song.” Discovering the capo, brought the realisation that she play any song in any key. From that point onward, Grace truly fell in love with the guitar. “My writing just exploded. I went from writing a song a month or so, whenever I could sit down at the piano, to writing ever day. I learned all kinds of songs and hymns as well.”
Apart from the Beatles and Atlanta’s Indigo Girls, while growing up, when listening to music Grace gravitated to jazz and soul. “I loved Aretha Franklin, and the great vocalists – like Billie Holliday, Ella Fitzgerald and Frank Sinatra – that’s the stuff I would sing. In choir I always wanted solos on their songs. As my writing got better, I discovered I was writing folk music (laughs) – I wasn’t writing R&B or soul. I remember thinking that was funny, because I didn’t intend to. I was familiar with my dad’s music, and think he is the single reason I wrote in the folk vein. In high school, I began listening to folk artists like Joni Mitchell. I was mostly into lyrics. Melodies have always come easy to me, but lyrics - I have to really work on them.”
Had Grace considered making music as a career? “I’ve never wanted to do anything else. I’ve never wanted a real day job.” Through her late teens Grace grasped every opportunity to develop her song writing skills, and concurrently thought about enrolling in a music college. Eventually enrolling as a Communication major at St. Edwards University, Garce graduated in May 2010. “They offered me a great scholarship, plus I wanted to live in Austin and be around music. I had been living in small town Alabama and writing songs that I thought were getting better. I thought “Maybe I could do this for a living?” but I didn’t know because I was living in small town Alabama. I visited Austin in 10th Grade and fell in love with it. Great singers lived and worked there, plus I’d heard countless stories about Kerrville from my dad.”
“Even though I wanted to be a musician, I didn’t know what that meant. Mostly, I wanted to learn. I wanted to watch people. I wanted to soak up music, and see how good I was on my own. I wanted to see how my songs held up in that kind of company, because it’s hard to tell. If you have a good voice, they may just like your voice. It may not have anything to do with what you are singing - it might be because they like your dad.” In her Austin dorm room Grace penned songs each day, while in the city’s numerous listening rooms she saw, heard and met numerous musicians.
One of Grace’s most enthusiastic early Austin supporters was the late youth pastor/musician David Gentiles. “He gave me so much confidence, so I started playing open mics, and at his church. I’d never done that before. Apart from the annual high school talent show in small town Alabama, there’s no music clubs, no open mics.” Grace was a regional finalist in the Kerrville New Folk Song Contest in 2007 and again this year. “Attending Kerrville when I was nineteen REALLY changed my writing. I wrote three or four songs while I was there, and they were good songs that appear on my album. Being around all that music kick started my writing. It made it instantly better. That’s why I would recommend it to every young writer. It’s like school. It’s an education. It’s invaluable - you can’t pay for that. That’s all that writing is – it’s stealing ideas from other people. Everybody learns their tricks from somebody. You can soak up all that knowledge at Kerrville and apply it to your own writing.”
In her freshman year at St. Edwards, with assistance from David Gentiles and Gordon Garrison, and accompanied only by her guitar, Grace recorded the one-take album ME AND MY GUITAR. She sold the disc at open mics. and gave away copies to friends. The first Blue Rock house concert featured Pierce Pettis, which is how Grace met Billy and Dodee Crockett. “My dad and Billy have known each other for over twenty years. The family came to that show and because I was moving to Austin, Billy and Dodee invited me to volunteer at Blue Rock and I got to sell CD’s and for four years I heard all these incredible acoustic musicians. That experience, and Kerrville, proved invaluable to me.”
Billy Crockett soon became aware of Grace Pettis, the performing songwriter, and decided that he wanted to record her. “Billy had this vision for the record, as an introduction to who I am. All the songs on the record are really intimate biography type songs. They’re statements about who I am. I don’t know what records I’ll make in the future but I’m really proud of this one. It still shocks me how blessed I’ve been. It’s an incredible record, and Billy put so much of himself into it. All the musicians did. It was a labour of love.”
The core musicians on GRACE PETTIS were Colin Brooks (electric and resonator guitar, lap steel), Chris Maresh (bass) and Rick Richards (drums), with contributions from Billy (acoustic guitar, piano) and Dirje Smith (cello). “Billy watched me grow up for three years. He gets my music in a way that very few people do. He knew exactly what each of my songs needed.” The twelve-song album was recorded during July 2009 and released during October 2009. The same month, in Charleston, West Virginia, Grace won the Mountain Stage NewSong Writing Competition, and also scored the contest’s Best Song award for Nine To Five Girl. Grace subsequently performed on the National Public Radio’s Mountain Stage show. “It was a total shock to my system, because it was the first time I’d ever won anything. It was also a huge confidence booster. That came from making the record with Billy, and from David Gentiles.”
In my four-and-a-half star album review, which appeared in the January 2010 issue of MAVERICK, I wrote “Grace is the first musician in the Pettis dynasty’s second generation to throw her hat into the ring. She does so with a flourish via a self-titled twelve song collection that is daring, accomplished and memorable. GRACE PETTIS sets the bar at a jaw-dropping high level.” Having recently witnessed Grace onstage and heard her perform material from her debut album as well as yet to be recorded compositions, I can attest that Grace weaves words and melodies into memorable songs with a regularity that you'd only expect from a seasoned troubadour.
Last year Grace entered a Sunday Showcase songwriting contest at the Bugle Boy in La Grange, Texas and although she didn’t win, her spiritual slanted Love Is There assuredly impressed one of the judges - the irrepressible Sara Hickman. Love Is There is the final track on Hickman’s recently released collection ABSENCE OF BLAME. Joined by family and friends during her mainstage set at the 2010 Kerrville Folk Festival, Sara’s powerhouse rendition was rapturously received by the audience.
Through at least the summer months of 2010 Grace is scheduled to share stages with David Wilcox, Willy Porter and her father, in a private house concert series entitled STORYVILLE LIVE FREEDOM TOUR. The series sponsored by the Storyville Coffee Company supports the work of the International Justice Mission in freeing slaves around the world. Tour details can be found at http://www.storyville.com/storyvillelive/ Grace’s thoughts on this worthy project ran to “I feel like each person that is involved is where they are supposed to be. I rarely feel that way about things. I feel like the work that they are doing is what is needed right now at this time in history.”
I’ll let Grace have the final word. “I’m doing what I’ve always wanted to do, which is play music and bring my music to people.”
supersonic
