If you haven't yet discovered Rosie Flores.....


.....it would be my pleasure to bring her to your attention. She's well known and respected by her peers, but has a disappointingly-low profile with the music buying public. I won't bore you with her long backstory, but this short conversation with Otis Gibbs should give you an idea of what she is all about:

 

https://youtu.be/4BGJuTaDqmw?si=YGagHy7dLNzOwMVbation

 

 

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Steve, are you speaking of Mary’s Drag Queens In Limousines album? I just picked it up a coupla days ago, haven’t cracked the shrink wrap yet. Also just in, Iris DeMent's sophomore album My Life on LP (Yep Roc Records, maroon vinyl).

 

I’ve mixed and recorded hundreds of live shows (and a local TV interview show connected to monthly concert series) and when I got into the "coffee house" scene, not having been previously connected to it (except as a musician or attendee), it was a serious eye opener. The people I hadn’t paid much attention to or was oblivious of turned out to be some of the best, most talented, and most astonishing musicians I’d ever discovered. Julian Lage, Lucy Kaplanski, Ellis Paul, Anais Mitchell...I could go on and on...the "coffee house" world, or as a talented pro guitar friend called it "the unpopular music business," is amazing. Generally almost nobody makes any serious money (Ellis Paul had a song in a movie that paid for a house, Lage is doing great, Anais wrote the musical Hadestown and won dozens of Tony awards, but those are exceptions) but certainly not for lack of talent. Support that scene...if you don’t have a venue start one...