Sheba's Caravan

Artist Information

Biography

Sheba's Caravan is led by singer/songwriter and performing artist, Miri Hunter Haruach. She performs with various musicians based both in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Los Angeles Area.

Just back from performing at the Amercian Academy of Religion Conference, the band received a standing ovation and encore request!!

BOOKING NOW for 2012!!

Acclaimed by BC Touring as "…dynamic, unique and mesmerizing…” Miri Hunter Haruach is being billed as one of the finest folk/spiritual singer/songwriters America has produced since Joan Baez or Tracy Chapman. Often compared to Adele, her soothing anmd sultry, crystal clear voice and poetically inspired arrangements display a depth and breadth of range that are earning her a rightful place among the world's finest folk singers.

Miri’s CD “The Ways of Love,” distributed by her label, Project Sheba Music, is an uplifting compilation of nine songs; each one giving voice to Miri’s real passion – the desire to empower humanity. The song titles on “The Ways Of Love” are life-affirming and positive and beneath the simplicity of Miri’s songs lies her ability to give expression to any composition. “The Ways Of Love” is the result of inspiration Miri received from a range of musical influences including North African, Middle Eastern and the African American and country and western sounds of the Amercian South.

Miri began her Folk/Spiritual music career in 1999 with the release of her first CD “Harvest Of The Heart” which was selected by Independent Music Group (IMG) as a semi-finalist for CD of the Year. INDIESONGS also awarded Miri an Honorable Mention for Song of the Year for “Southern Lullaby,” a sensuous song from the Harvest CD. She is also a three time recipient of an ASCAP music grant for songwriters.

Born in Roanoke, Virginia, Miri Hunter Haruach is also a gifted poet who has been honored with several awards including a feature in the 2004 International Who’s Who in Poetry. Her first collection of Poetry, entitled :Dancing With the Wind' was published in the Spring of 2011.

Recent bookings and successes include being a featured performer on three stages at the Nashville Songwriters' Festival in June 2011 and again in October 2011. In addition Sheba's Caravan is being featured on Indie Castle Rock Radio, and Underneath Magazine. This Fall she returned to Nashville as part of the Independent Music Festival and as a special guest at the Indigo Hotel's Singer/Songwriter Night.

Other successes include having "Let Your Hearts Be Alive" as a featured selection on Continental Airlines inflight programming on trips from the USA to Europe and Israel.

"My Soul Will Be Restored" from the CD The Ways of Love, was voted International Folk Song of the Year 2007 by Toronto Exclusive Music Magazine!

The band has played in various venues in LA including BB King's, Tatou, 10/Twenty, and the Rainbow Room.

As an actress, Miri has tours nationally with her one woman show “Grandmothers of the Universe.” She has performed in various stage productions such as Jacques Brel at the Actors’ Ensemble in San Francisco, 15 Minutes of Fem and Comedy Union, both of which ran in Los Angeles. She has also performed with the Los Angeles Women’s Theatre Festival for two consecutive years.

She is currenly writing scripts for her upcoming webseries based on her one woman show "the Queen of Sheba? Yes I Am?" as well as being in the pre-production for her next musical compilation entitled "Temple of Love."

She holds a Bachelor's Degree in music theory and composition and a Masters Degree in theatre and a doctorate from the California Institute of Integral Studies..

She is currently based in Hollywood CA, but she and her band love to travel!!

Instrumentation

Linda Tillery - Vocals and Percussion
Camilo Landau - Guitar

Discography

Harvest of the Heart, 1999
The Ways of Love, 2005
Temple of Love, 2011, in production
Grandmothers of the Universe, 2011 (one person theatrical performance with original music and storytelling)
Muddy Mississippi, featured on Vent's Radio, August 2011

Links

• Facebook
• MySpace
• Project Sheba

Audio

• Red Shoes and Blue Jeans
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• I'd Like to Know Him
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• My Soul Will Be Restored
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• Muddy Mississippi
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• Let Your Hearts Be Alive (Wedding Song)
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• Happy Are The Ones
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• New Day's Begun
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• Shabbat Blessings
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• Shabechi Yerushalayim
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• Woman In My Heart
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Lyrics

• My Soul Will Be Restored
• Let Your Hearts Be Alive (Wedding Song)
• I'd Like to Know Him
• Red Shoes and Blue Jeans
• Happy Are The Ones

Video

It Would Be Enough

Photo Gallery

Press

• Knock-out Debut [+ Show ]
  

  MIRI HUNTER HARUACH "The Ways of Love" Miri Hunter Haruach's knock-out debut "The Ways of Love" b...MIRI HUNTER HARUACH "The Ways of Love"
  
  Miri Hunter Haruach's knock-out debut "The Ways of Love" benefits from the production and contributions of Linda Tillery, but it is Miri's own creative inspiration that makes it all work. She uses as source material The Psalms, and brings them to present time relevance, with a spiritual/gospel feeling that is grounded in world rhythms, with spirit in abundance. I defy anyone to not be moved to their very soul!
  
  
  
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• A Great Listen [+ Show ]
  

  Project Sheba Music Miri Hunter Haruach returns with the Book of Psalms-inspired “The Ways of Love....Project Sheba Music
  Miri Hunter Haruach returns with the Book of Psalms-inspired “The Ways of Love.” The sparse “My Soul Will Be Restored” has an effective polyrhythmic pulse. The title track’s haunting string arrangement adds drama to Haruach’s imploring lyrics. While the Afro-Middle Eastern influence is prominent, she takes a few inspired detours. “Let Your Hearts Be Alive,” is a gentle, pastoral acoustic and “Sing A New Song” is an acapella barbershop bounce. A great listen. -todd williams
  

• Psalm Thing to Sing About [+ Show ]
  

  Psalm-Thing to Sing About in New Album By Karla Blume, June 30 2006, The Jewish Journal of Greater...Psalm-Thing to Sing About in New Album
  By Karla Blume, June 30 2006, The Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles
  Have you ever thought about what makes a good song? The Virginia-born Miri Hunter Haruach, who lives in Los Angeles, is a folk singer, playwright, student of Judaism and proud purveyor of a doctorate in women’s studies, and she believes that to make a good song, you need a little some of this and a little Psalm of that. Haruach has always used her art to discuss the strengths and plights of women, but this time, with the release of her second album, “The Ways of Love,” she takes the strong and ethical messages of the Book of Psalms and sets them to music for a new audience to discover.
  Haruach sings with a modesty and softness that enhances the simple and good-natured spiritual messages of her songs. That, in itself, is an unusual trait, because audiences have come to expect artists who make spiritual/new age, religious music to have overproduced studio performances. Haruach doesn’t make herself the main attraction of the album. The verses are intertwined with laid-back melodies and sparse, single-riff drumbeats that add an interesting feeling of emptiness and sorrow to the otherwise uplifting words of wisdom.
  In the title track, “Teach Me the Ways of Love,” Haruach chants, “Open your eyes, let your ears hear the cry, unchain your mind from the bondage of shame, deliver your spirit, and set your soul free.” The nuances of her delivery are accompanied by a rhythmic rap in Hebrew by an Israeli poet, known only as Ofer, who translated the meaning of the song into an interesting lyrical loop.
  “The album is actually based on the Book of Psalms. I have been reading the Psalms since I was a child. The ideas and themes stick with you. They cover all of the aspects of life, including joy, sorrow, ecstasy, repentance, confusion, acceptance, marriage and separation,” she says. The song, “It Would Be Enough,” is the only one based on the Song of Songs, and Haruach was given it to read as a punishment in the 11th grade, she says. In the process, she “fell in love with it.”
  Haruach did take the liberty of interpreting the Psalms, not singing them verbatim, but updating them in hopes of reaching more people. Many of the songs are not gender specific, so she could be as inclusive as possible with the audience. None of that sentiment of inclusion is really surprising when you learn that Haruach is not only a converted Jew but also a mix of African American, European and Native American cultures.
  “I was born a Southern Baptist, and I was really into going to church, because I liked to participate in the music aspect of the religious experience,” she says. “Then I had 12 years of Catholic school and moved around a lot, writing plays, getting degrees and teaching Israeli folk dancing at Berkeley Hillel.”
  In fact, it wasn’t until 1994 that Haruach became interested in Judaism, a move provoked by reading a book on kabbalah.
  “I was drawn to Judaism because I felt that it was a religion of life rather than death,” she says. “Through the music, dance and teachings of the Mizrachi Jews, I found a roadmap for living in this world.” And although Haruach refers to herself as a convert, she has not yet taken the big plunge of being bat mitzvahed. “But that’s coming eventually,” she notes. “I did a Conservative conversion, although now I consider myself a Reconstructionist. I am considering cantorial studies, too.”
  In addition to her interest in music — psalms or otherwise — Haruach has also devoted much of her life to writing plays. The strong and determined women in her performances range from her own slave ancestors to the mysteries surrounding the enigmatic figure of the Queen of Sheba. “As much as we’re engaged in the media, we don’t see a lot of strong women. It’s important for us as women to portray ourselves as strong so that the strife of our ancestors won’t have been in vain.” It would be an interesting twist, if someday Haruach’s descendants were writing plays about her.
  

• Rhythms of Great Vitality [+ Show ]
  

  Miri Hunter Haruach breaks with many conventionalisms related to World Music and Folk with admirable...Miri Hunter Haruach breaks with many conventionalisms related to World Music and Folk with admirable ease, only taking those elements truly motivating her, and shaping them as the pillars on top of which she will build a very personal style, generous in warm melodies as well as rhythms of a great vitality. In the nine tracks of this album we also find plenty of American folk influences, together with Hebrew, Afro-American and Gospel shades. The beautiful voice of the singer and composer is remarkable in many passages.

• Haunting [+ Show ]
  

  “Haunting” isn’t a word I often use to describe music, but it applies to The Ways of Love. It has no...“Haunting” isn’t a word I often use to describe music, but it applies to The Ways of Love. It has nothing to do with ghosts, and everything to do with Miri Hunter Haruach’s “warm” and “soothing” voice (adjectives accurately used in the promo material), the soft up-front drumming, the lyrics centering on spirituality, and the overall mood of quiet contemplation. Several of the melodies are haunting too, in a subtle kind of way.
  
  Haruach’s musical genre isn’t strictly Caribbean or African in origin – it’s sort of a fusion of world and folk and new-age music – but it certainly shares some common elements with many reggae songs. As one shared aspect, all the songs on The Ways of Love have their source of inspiration in the Psalms, here given a woman-centric slant instead of a Rastafarian one. Another factor in common is Haruach’s mixture of mysticism with an admitted and emphatic attempt to “empower” her listeners to live wholesome lives, to love others, and to find internal peace. (Not that reggae artists ever use the e-word, thank goodness, but empowerment is often what they’re advocating nonetheless.) And then there’s the intrinsic role of rhythm within the song structure that Haruach’s songs share with reggae. In her case, we’re not talking heavy bass, but we are talking djembe, shakers, handclaps and other percussion that propel the songs forward with a relaxed urgency that turns out not to be unique to reggae. There’s even the occasional appearance of a chanter/rapper.
  
  The musicians are notable for their restraint – which isn’t the same as saying the performances are wimpy, by the way – and their unfailing enhancement of the overall mood. They don’t ever exactly rock out, of course, but you wouldn’t expect them to and it would be inappropriate within this context. Unfortunately. Maybe what I’m getting at is that although there is good variety in the arrangements, there’s nothing …well, remotely rambunctious. Respectfully animated is as strong as it comes.
  
  The comparisons that some listeners have made to Joan Baez are reasonable. That brings us back to “haunting,” a Baez specialty. It’s an excellent quality for music to embrace, and The Ways of Love does just that.
  

Setlist

PARTIAL LIST:
My Soul Will Be Restored
The Ways of Love
Let Your Hearts Be Alive
Her Love Goes On and On
Sing A New Song
Happy Are the Ones
It Would Be Enough
Alleluia (Come Let Us Sing and Dance)
Southern Lullaby
Red Shoes and Blue Jeans
Jewel of the Desert
Ring Around the Moon
Makeda
Dance Bolder
Temple of Love
The Eyes that Speak the Words
Gotta Get Home
Jewish/Israeli folk songs

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