There’s been great energy generating in the Alameda Local Music Vibe Meet-Up I started hosting earlier this month at High St. Station. In just two meetings, two projects with serious legs have sprung up: a new songwriter showcase in Alameda kicking off in April and what’s going to be a cross-country adventure in March. The latter development I couldn’t have predicted as it involves me hitting the road to Austin with Local Music Vibe founder Shelley Champine…in Chuck Prophet’s van. If anyone out there doesn’t know, Chuck Prophet is perhaps San Francisco’s preeminent rockin’ songwriter. Chuck’s touring Europe leading up to his appearance(s) at SXSW so he reached out to the San Francisco Bay Area music community and Local Music Vibe stepped in. Shelley and I are going to be blogging about the trip at Local Music Vibe and searching out local music scenes along the route. If you’ve any tips for us about musicians or venues in the Southwest, we want to hear about ’em.
Deborah Crooks (www.DeborahCrooks.com) is a writer, performing songwriter and recording artist based in San Francisco whose lyric driven and soul-wise music has drawn comparison to Lucinda Williams, Chrissie Hynde and Natalie Merchant.
Singing about faith, love and loss, her lyrics are honed by a lifetime of writing and world travel while her music draws on folk, rock, Americana and the blues. She released her first EP “5 Acres” in 2003 produced by Roberta Donnay, which caught the attention of Rocker Girl Magazine, selecting it for the RockerGirl Discoveries Cd. In 2007, she teamed up with local producer Ben Bernstein to complete “Turn It All Red” Ep, followed by 2008’s “Adding Water to the Ashes” CD, and a second full-length CD “2010. She’s currently working on a third CD to be released in 2013.
Deborah’s many performance credits include an appearance at the 2006 Millennium Music Conference, the RockerGirl Magazine Music Convention, IndieGrrl, at several of the Annual Invasion of the GoGirls at SXSW in Austin, TX, the Harmony Festival and 2009’s California Music Fest, MacWorld 2010, Far West Fest and many other venues and events. She toured the Northwest as part “Indie Abundance Music, Money & Mindfulness” (2009) with two other Bay Area artists, and followed up with “The Great Idea Tour of the Southwest in March 2010 with Jean Mazzei.
