On Sunday Jan. 11th Angel Taylor joins legendary Richie Havens for an exclusive live E Town radio taping at the Boulder Theater. Many of you know Richie Havens… played the opening performance at Woodstock in 1969….!

But who is this talented newcomer Angel Taylor?

A passionate blend of youthful innocence, soulful essence and a spiritual center, 20-year-old singer/songwriter Angel Taylor is poised to impress with her recording debut due early in 2009. The Southern California native never wanted a recording contract, but fate intervened, making Angel Taylor one of music’s emerging voices for those of us who seeking substance amidst the overblown style of today’s pop culture. Looking for nothing more than a way to record a few of her songs for family and friends as a Christmas gift, an unknowing email to producer Mikal Blue [Colbie Caillat, Brendan James] resulted in an invitation to his Revolver Studios for an impromptu audition. “I played two songs, -‘Chai’ and –‘It’s Easy,’ and he said he wanted to work with me - I told him all I wanted to do was get my music on a CD, and asked him how long that was going to take, and he said, - ‘Oh no, I want to really work with you.’

And in a manner of months, the soft-spoken and big-hearted Angel Taylor took her first plane trip (to visit record labels in New York), got her first cell phone, and after signing with Aware/Columbia Records, was able to move herself, her mother and two of her sisters into their first house. Not bad for a girl who never had any musical schooling, and only starting writing poetry because of her sister.

For tickets to this special first show of the new year click HERE.

For more information on newcomer Angel Taylor click HERE

It’s freezing in Boulder Colorado today! The remedy to this chilly Saturday? The hot and shakin’ E Town mp3 “Cumbia De Los Muertos” by Ozomatli. Listen to the entire E town Radio Broadcast featuring Ozomatli AND Martin Sexton HERE. Stay warm wherever you are- have a dance party inside.

And if you want to see more pictures of this E Town show, click HERE.

Happy 2009! Today’s exclusive E Town mp3 is “Love is Just a Four Letter Word” by Joan Baez. Listen to the entire E town Radio Broadcast featuring Joan Baez and Brett Dennen here. Coming up later this week on the blog, an exclusive E Town mp3 from Ozomatli!

Enjoy the day!

Happy Holidays from E Town! Today’s exclusive E Town mp3 is “Los Pollos” by Lila Downs. Listen to the entire E town Radio Broadcast featuring Lila Downs and Gregory Alan Isakov here. See photos from this show here.

Today’s exclusive E Town mp3 is “Make You Crazy” by Brent Dennen. Listen to the entire E town Radio Broadcast featuring Joan Baez and Brett Dennen here. Coming up later this week on the blog, an exclusive E Town mp3 from Lila Downs!

Enjoy!

Today’s exclusive E town mp3 is “Just Lust” by the lovely and talented Juliana Hatfield. Listen to the entire E town Radio Broadcast featuring Juliana Hatfield and Sonny Landreth here. See pictures from the show here.

Happy listening!

Nick and Helen:
I’ve been a huge Flobots fan since I first heard the song “Same Thing” over a year ago. Imagine my excitement to learn that they were going to be on

Etown (I like listening on KRCC on Saturday evening, 5-6pm) AND that you guys were coming to Colorado College!!! I’d like to commend ya’ll on the awesome show and interviews. I was also happy to hear that Nada Surf was still around making new stuff (hadn’t heard anything about them since high school). Come back down more often! I love being able to walk over to enjoy a great show and live music. I especially liked the Flobots interview– and when Johnny5 spoke about people in uniform who are glad that he’s their voice…

Sincerely,

(1st Lt, USAF) Jimmy Heinbaugh

Here is the song “Virginia May” by Gregory Alan Isakov from the Etown broadcast with Lila Downs. Listen and download the whole show here. See pictures from this show here

Just announced, the first show of 2008!

Live Show: Sunday January 11, 7:00 pm
Location: Boulder Theater

Tickets: (on-sale Wednesday December 17, noon)
$15.00
303.786.7030
www.bouldertheater.com

Live Show: Thursday, Dec 18, 2008
Location: Boulder Theater

Etown closes out a phenomenal year of radio show tapings with a classic mixture of exemplary roots music and scintillating conversation. Join the studio audience as Nick and Helen welcome back etown’s dear friend, Grammy award winning singer/songwriter Tim O’Brien and innovative blues powerhouse Shemekia Copeland. Congressman-Elect Jared Polis will drop by for a chat with Nick.

Tickets on sale: www.Bouldertheater.com
or call 303-786-7030

Tim O’Brien
At a point in his career where you’d think he’d be charging at full speed toward the next big thing, Tim O’Brien confounded expectations by doing something else: he took time–and plenty of it–to create the next small thing. Chameleon, his latest recording project, is an intimate record that, in its blend of virtuosity, wit and warmth, is unmistakably his. And this time around, it’s literally his alone.

Though he first won renown as a member of one of bluegrass’s premiere bands, Hot Rize, O’Brien’s been doing solo performances for a long time, and pressed for antecedents, he offers up figures like James Taylor and Joni Mitchell. “The folksinger with a guitar is a sort of an unassailable icon,” he says with a laugh. “Dylan, Woody Guthrie–what can you say. And I remember that when I heard the first Doc Watson album, I thought, what does he need a band for? This guy has got it all. But what happens is that when you go into the studio, you can play with a band and get the juices flowing and maybe do things that you might not be able to do on the road. So there’s a temptation to go that way. But this time, I thought, let’s just bring it inside.”


Shemekia Copeland
For more than a decade, Shemekia Copeland has been paving a road that will inevitably lead to her reign as Queen of the Blues. By some standards - numerous blues awards in the U.S. and elsewhere, a Grammy nomination, a resume that includes work with musical titans like Dr. John and Steve Cropper and film giants like Martin Scorsese and Wim Wenders - she may already be there. For as appealing as that regal title may sound, though, and for as much as she respects the rich legacy of artists like Bessie Smith, Etta James or Koko Taylor, Copeland insists that there’s more to who she is and what she does than a twelve-bar ballad or a Chicago shuffle could ever convey.

Never Going Back, her debut on Telarc set for release on February 24, 2009, captures Copeland at a crossroads on that artistic path - a place where numerous new avenues are open to her. While Copeland will always remain loyal to her blues roots, Never Going Back takes a more forward view of the blues, and in so doing points her music and her career in a new direction.

“I’ve had success in my career, and I’m happy with that,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to continue to grow. In order for an artist to grow - and for a genre to grow - you have to do new things. I’m extremely proud to say I’m a blues singer, but doesn’t mean that’s the only thing I’m capable of singing, or that’s the only style of music I’m capable of making.”

Born in Harlem, New York, in 1979, Copeland actually came to her singing career slowly. Her father, the late Texas blues guitar legend Johnny Clyde Copeland, recognized his daughter-’s talent early on. He always encouraged her to sing at home, and even brought her on stage to sing at Harlem-’s famed Cotton Club when she was just eight. At the time, Shemekia-’s embarrassment outweighed her desire to sing. But when she was fifteen and her father-’s health began to fail, her outlook changed. -’It was like a switch went off in my head, and I wanted to sing,-’ she says. -’It became a want and a need. I had to do it.-’

At only 19, Shemekia stepped out of her father’s shadow with the Alligator release of 1998 debut recording, Turn the Heat Up!, and the critics raved. The Village Voice called her -’nothing short of uncanny,-’ while the Boston Globe proclaimed that -’she roars with a sizzling hot intensity.-’ A year later, she appeared in the Motion Picture Three To Tango, while her song -’I Always Get My Man, was featured in the film Broken Hearts Club.

Also, a special Etown interview with Congressman-Elect Jared Polis.