Sferes and White

SFERES & WHITE WERE ONE OF INDIE-MUSIC'S FOUR FEATURE ARTISTS IN MARCH 2006

In a world where a rock star like Chris Martin tells us to be environmentally friendly, it would certainly set a good example if he’d record an album using “renewable wind power and printed on recycled paper using non-toxic soy-based ink.” He’s got the money. (Watch out for casting stones!) Sferes & White have done just that and packed it with some damn fine folk music to boot. A genre where even the destitute are thankful for something, The View From Here has a feeling of wide open plains and a billion stars lighting the night.

With vocal harmonies that work so well together it sounds almost too good to be true, there is a combination of campfire tunes, driving songs and whiskey-sipping porch music. “Let Me Down Easy” has a jazzy feel to it, with Jennifer White picking up the smoky-lounge grove imposed by Jimmy Sferes’ guitar.

The bluesy finger picking of “Nomad” shows there is endless depth and influence in acoustic music and nothing beats a song about traveling. “Flapjack City” and “Moon on the Rise” stand as the most original songs and found themselves played more than a few times, and the instrumental “J. Hey” only lacked for the sound of a river flowing past. Maybe if Crosby, Stills & Nash could’ve held it together without the freebasing, they’d still be cranking out ditties like these rather than the occasional “For The Money World Tours” they’ve been so consistent with.

Capturing the sound of Colorado, Sferes & White have managed to delve into the land while at the same time remaining kind enough to keep the cleanup to a minimum. In lieu of naming their kids after fruit and writing stuff on their hands maybe some bands should take it upon themselves to practice what they preach. It’s nice that Chris Martin has a biodegradable recycling bin under his piano, but until his tour bus runs on corn oil he’s polluting the air all the same.
- Derek Blackmon, Indie-Music.com

"Keillor Picks Local Musicians for Radio Show" (excerpt)
May 6, 2006

Four local musical acts will get the break of their lives this afternoon when they perform live in front of a sold-out crowd at the Budweiser Events Center and on millions of radios throughout the country during Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion."

The Northern Colorado acts chosen to perform are Kelly Aspen, a singer who will graduate from the University of Northern Colorado today; Jimmy Sferes and Jennifer White, an acoustic duo; The Greenes, a father and two sons who play Celtic music; and Halden Wofford & the Hi-Beams, a western swing band....

....The local musicians were chosen from 240 acts that submitted samples, and winners were announced by Keillor during a Friday afternoon news conference at the events center.

Keillor brought his trademark quirky wit and ad-libbing style - and wore snazzy red tennis shoes - to the news conference.

"It's a really amazing selection of people," said the 63-year-old word master of the acts he and two co-workers chose to perform. Producers decided to audition local talent for the popular radio show when a "big name" act couldn't make the show, Keillor said, although he wouldn't identify who the act was.

Keillor said having local talent as entertainment on the radio variety show will add an exciting twist; and although it has been done in the past, it's not a common occurrence for "Prairie."

"It's just an adventure..I thought it would be thrilling for the crowd," he said. "There's no thrill like seeing people you've never heard before doing really well and being from around here."
- Maggie Walsh, Fort Collins Coloradoan Staff

....The result was the Sferes & White CD, “The View From Here”, a laid-back but muscular effort by a natural guitarist with easy vocals and a singer with the kind of raw power evinced by bombastic vocalists like Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney and Bonnie, or a young, pre-alky Grace Slick.

Sferes excused himself for a guitar lesson he was teaching, and White took the opportunity to praise her songmate. “One thing that makes Jimmy unique is, he can sit in and play with anyone,” said White, “whether it’s country, bluegrass, blues, rock. They call him Jammin’ Jimmy ‘cause of that. He can play great in any style, and on any kind of guitar – electric, acoustic, lap-steel, his resonator – which has a metal top, like a dobro.”

The album opens with “Circles”, with its 461 Ocean Boulevard-like lead by Sferes sweetening the song.
“Stars All Over the Sky” features Sferes’ excellent acoustic picking, while “Small Stuff”, with its chorus reminding stressed-out busy brains that, “when the little bitty things build up/when life gets rough/don’t sweat the small stuff”, bounces along with the duo’s satisfying harmonies and Sferes’ guitar harmonics livening up the spare recording.

“Let Me Down Easy” is White’s torch song, her smoldering vocals supporting the “Fever”-like atmosphere of late night/blue light and quiet, powerful guitar.
“Flapjack City” evokes that time-to-get-out-of-town feeling we’ve all had, but with the caveat, “You know that train goes either way/I’ll be comin’ back this way again someday”, softening the goodbyes that the line “Flapjack City can kiss my ass” made necessary.
This reporter’s personal favorite is “Sleepy Town”, which tells the story of Lyons-like people living lives of quiet desperation: “Dreams don’t sleep in a sleepy town/They just bury them deep and hold them down.”

Who in town can help but put someone’s face on lyrics like this verse:

“Sorting washers and bolts at the hardware store
He says it’s enough, but deep inside he knows there’s more
There’s a locked room in his quiet house
With a covered canvas where he lets his pain come out”

“Moon on the Rise” is a happy boogie-woogie tune that keeps your toes tappin’: “Up all night/Dancin’ until light/The sun is on the rise” they sing, while a nice electric slide eases the tension right from your neck. The CD ends with the instrumental “J. Hey”. A long, repeating pattern of chords and melodies adds more layers of sound with each pass, just like the old Beatles’ tunes Sferes’ played in his youth.

An altogether satisfying album, it’s the type of bouncy, rhythmic CD this old rocker eagerly looks for as alternative ear cream to constant rock’n’roll. The environmentalist duo used wind-generated power to record “The View from Here”, and on their tour following the album’s release. - Steve Novak, Old Lyons Recorder