Music
The best kept secret in music
Press
"These are seven tracks from this unspeakably talented seventeen-yer-old Devonshire lass, on her second album. Bow Jenkins has been recording her own songs since the age of fourteen, and has a beauty and depth to her songwriting that recalls the best of Joni Mitchell and Tori Amos.
This is elegantly produced with a sparseness that allows the strength of the songs to shine through and space to linger, accompanied by a powerful and emotive voice. The only instruments you hear are the piano, guitar and vocals that she has blended into an
atmospheric concoction that Jeff Buckley's estate would've been proud to have been posthumously
released.
Starting out with In the Night, Bow's gentle aching voice plays across the haunting piano keys lamenting late into the night. There is Janis Joplin here in the blues pulled from the depths of this soul. There are breathless whispers of love, loss and lessons learnt the hard way.
Black Rain Falling slides into standout track, Lights of the Carnival, with acoustic guitar and piano playing background melodies and rhythms to the stories that Bow has to tell. Tonight the Riots Begin mixes the sadness of Thea
Gilmore's finer lyrics with Tracy Chapman's guitar delivery. A lifetime spent globetrotting on a tight budget with her parents has given this young girl a lifetime's worth of wisdom and the songs benefit from her mature perspective."
By Alex Kendall
- Cornish Free Press Magazine
Discography
Albums: "Acoustic Sessions" and "Innocence and Experience"
Photos
Feeling a bit camera shy
Bio
I am a 17 year old female singer songwriter, heavily influenced by the music of Bruce Springsteen, and brought up on everything from The Clash, to Cajun music, and literally everything inbetween. I was born in August 1989 in East London, to a proper cockney clan! My family arrived in London 3 days before the Romans, but believing it had no real future and wouldnt last, never bought real estate. They were always poor, but blessed with second sight I like cities, and the big
mix of so many people and noise and life and commotion. I like the smells and the millions of rituals and chaos, and humour in the face
of adversities numbered in their thousands. I like the laughter and banter and energy. Sometimes London still feels like home but when I was 9 my parents sold everything we owned (which wasnt much), and took us on a big trip around the world. The idea was to go quick, while it was still there... Optimistic, eh? We spent time in Australia and New
Zealand, and the pacific, camping most of the time and travelling cheaply. I was educated on the move, in a kind of haphazard way. I had a lot of teachers, but few had formal qualifications, which made it more real and a lot more fun, if not entirely accurate. And it was whilst travelling that we met many of the people I first sang about.
Many of the things I experienced as I grew up; leaving people and places, travelling and coming home, losing people I love, knowing awe and love, heartbreak and fear, homelessness and poverty, music and friendship, and so, so much laughter and goodness and hope, have been the inspiration of rock musicians since rock music was born. I was lucky to grow up amid all of it. I was exhausted and battered by it, but it was also my sculptor and my inspiration. I wrote and recorded my debut album, 'Innocence and Experience', when I was 14. I write my own songs, and am currently working on a new album. I take pride in writing about things that are real, and I hope my songs are saying something worth saying. Right now Devon is home, and Im studying for my A-Levels. I gig when a venue will let me, accompanying myself on piano or keyboards or guitar (all which I'm self taught in) or by getting together with fellow musicians and jamming... I love to perform solo in an acoustic setting but Im also working on getting a band together. I'd sing just about anywhere just to get the experience but there arent too many venues locally, especially for a teenager.
I'm a hard worker - when my friends are out at clubs, Im in my bedroom writing and working on songs, but its something I love so Im not complaining. Plus it means that instead of writing a few decent songs, I've written around 30 in the last 6 months! I hope to make some major progress in the music industry this year and in the coming years. I've given a few interviews and had radio play in Devon, in Detroit, and in Europe, Canada and South America, and had some good feedback - which I hope you will agree is justified! I'm right at the beginning of the journey, and I know I have so much to learn and so far to go, but I hope we can all go there together... if the journey is as important as the destination, and maybe the journey is all weve got, then I hope we can sing, and dance and drum and rattle all the way! And I hope you love my music like I love making it.
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