Jewly Hight

Alternative / Blues / Folk Rock

Nashville, TN

Billboard

"White Knuckles: The only thing more chilling than this song's shadowy blues groove is Hight's fearful moan."--Brian Mansfield, USA Today

"...Stomps with the steady-pulsing sensibility of a drummer, certainly, but howls and wails with the influence of some talented folks you don't associate with drumming, like Bonnie Raitt...."--Nicole Keiper, The Tennessean

"It calls to mind long, southern midnight hours, long after church has let out when the congregation gets together for some raw, rocking, alternative-gospel, honky tonkin' blues fun."--Terry Rolad, The Phantom Tollbooth, tollbooth.org

"The vinyl cracks and pops of her opening track "Part 1: Man Without a Gun" make it instantly clear that Jewly Hight is drawn to the evocative power of old sounds. Like kindred musical spirits Lucinda Williams and Julie Miller, Hight--a Vanderbilt divinity school student and Scene contributor--marries a Southern literary sensibility with an ambient soundscape as languorous and pregnant with secrets as an August Mississippi night. A prime example is the lover's plea "White Knuckles," which suggests what Lucinda might sound like if produced by Daniel Lanois. That's not to say that Hight is retro-obsessed--some of the album's highlights explore the contrast between older and newer sounds, such as the title track, which pits a verse that suggests the Scottish Highlands (a melodica creates a bagpipe-y drone) against a hooky, slide-guitar-driven chorus that's somewhere between Fiona Apple and Alanis Morissette. But throughout, Hight is unmistakably Southern--when she drawls, "He don't like them junebugs / Metallic purple and green / He don't like them junebugs / buzzin' like tiny machines," there's no mistaking where her roots are planted."--JACK SILVERMAN, The Nashville Scene

NASHVILLE CITY PAPER
November 8, 2007

Nashville singer/songwriter Jewly Hight is an outstanding music journalist, whose work has appeared in several local, regional and national publications, among them Paste and The Nashville Scene.

While journalism has been one of her passions since college, writing and playing music remains the primary focus and interest for Hight, who will be performing selections from her upcoming CD Darlin' Understand Tuesday at the Five Spot (9 p.m., 2006 Forrest Ave, $5, 650-9333), she cites the influence of rhythm and her longtime experience playing drums as a key factor in her writing and vocal approach.

"I started on drums, then moved into co-writing with members of various bands," Hight said. "Later I did pick up the guitar and then became more interested in being out front with the group and singing, but I never lost interest in rhythm or the importance of the groove in terms of crafting compositions. Another thing that has proven very important to me was the impact of the blues and learning ways to incoporate that into my music. So you combine attention to rhythm and groove with emphasis on lyrics and a coherent message and those are all the things I try to ensure work in my songs."

There's a narrative edge in Hight's songs that reflect her knowledge of literature, and in particular Southern works. But the tone, and edge in her singing and writing, augmented by excellent guitar/bass/drum interplay, make Darlin' Understand less esoteric and sharper than many similar works within the singer/songwriter arena.

"For me the music has to have a visceral impact as well as a lyrical one," Hight said. "I never want to neglect the message in a song or the melody, but it's also important that there's some link or connection there with a groove whenever possible."--RON WYNN

Street date for debut album Darlin' Understand is January 29, 2008

NASHVILLE, TN: I might as well come right out and say that I wrote my own bio, which was no easy task, no matter how many of them I've written for others in the past. As a music critic, I'm used to writing about what somebody else's album amounts to. Here's what I make of my own.

Darlin' Understand is my first album--14 original songs (only one co-written) colored by the molten physicality of blues and the deep, unceasing pulse that I internalized through several years of playing the drums. I know this much--I've always been drawn to the more full-bodied and visceral approach to almost anything. I chose clogging--with its shuffling, loose-limbed motions and joyous whooping and hollering--over tap dancing, the drums over clarinet.

The musicianship on Darlin' Understand occupies a potent place somewhere between audaciousness and precision. Those responsible are Charlie Rich, Jr., Delaney Bramlett, Chad Watson--bass player for Charlie Rich, Ronnie Milsap, Janis Ian, Freddy Fender and Delaney Bramlett--Dave Perkins--who's handled guitar for Ray Charles, Jerry Jeff Walker, Guy Clark, Lucinda Williams and Carol King--Dwight McConnell--bassist for Earl Thomas Conley and T. Graham Brown--Jason Eskridge--backing vocalist for Lyle Lovett and Jonny Lang--Bob Nickerson--who's played drums for Sun Records, Jeannie C. Riley and Tammy Faye Bakker--and Joshua Whitaker--the raw, intuitive newcomer among the bunch. I co-produced the album with Watson and Nickerson, and let the latter use my 1975 Rogers drumkit throughout the recording process, the very same kit he'd used in the studio and on the road from '75 to '89 and later sold to me. That's a story in and of itself.

Darlin' Understand breathes like a two-sided LP, book-ended by lap steel-washed, Flannery O'Connor-inspired incantations ("Part I Man Without a Gun" and "Part II Good Country People") and punctuated midway through by an a capella chant set to heavy boot steps across my kitchen floor ("My Mother's Daughter"). The passionate and the mundane are joined on the title track. The verses uncover the bones and sinews of a relationship--with a melody curling around a droning chord--and the chorus describes the humble, worn-in features of the partners' world--eventually giving way to the cathartic back and forth of bottleneck guitar and B-3. "Guilt"--simultaneously pained and droll--was an occasion for me to play a blender with a beer bottle. Songs like "Some Things (Gonna Be Left Undone)" and "Junebug" cull earthy imagery from my family's geographical center (rural Warren County, N.C.) and my more than hundred-year-old East Nashville home. "Pure Honey" melds minimal, hypnotic lyrics, modal vocal and bottleneck guitar melodies and the ragged dignity of a field drum march. As a seamless Southern R&B/rock and roll suite, "Poke Salad" and "Tiger" jarringly juxtapose internal and external sources of profound human pain.

I've spent enough time with the album that I could go on forever. But I won't. You have a listen.

CONTACT: info@jewlyhight.com, 615.262.0548

www.jewlyhight.com (under construction), www.myspace.com/jewlyhight

Publicity, Europe - Peter Holmstedt, Hemifran - www.hemifran.com

All other inquiries: info@jewlyhight.com