Kirsten Proffit - My Devotion (2012)


My Devotion

Kirsten Proffit's new album, My Devotion will be released on April 30th. We fell in love with Kirsten's voice when we first heard it, nearly ten years ago. At the time we thought that there was nothing better than the sound of her voice paired with a crunchy electric guitar. There was plenty to love when Kirsten released her debut album, Lucky Girlin 2006 which quickly established her as one of L.A.'s finest singer-songwriters.

Kirsten's voice sounds better than ever on her new long awaited second album, and there's not a crunchy guitar in sight. Kirsten co-produced My Devotion with Michael Woodrum using a mostly acoustic instrumentation for a warm, rich, multi-layered sound that is positively brilliant. You can tell as soon as you drop the proverbial needle onto track one and feel the presence and texture of the acoustic guitar, then the mandolin confirms that something very special is going on here; this isn't your father's pop/rock.

Listen to "Whatever That Means"




My Devotion is, for the most part, about love. Kirsten comes at it from almost every angle, set to some of the most tuneful songwriting you could ever want to hear. We've been listening to it for several weeks now and every song already feels like an old favorite. "The Sweetest Kiss" is a great example; a gem of a love song, and I'm not even going to try to paraphrase the perfect description on Kirsten's website: “The Sweetest Kiss” is a hauntingly simple but lovely look at that moment when you “just know”. Regular readers know that we are all about the songwriting. You can be the greatest singer or guitarist or whatever, but without great songs to sing or play, you will never make a great album. My Devotion is a total delight from start to finish.

The closer you get to the songwriting process, the more magic it seems. Anybody can write average lyrics, and with practice might even write good lyrics. But to write really amazing lyrics like Kirsten does, is truly an art. Composing a melody out of thin air is the part of songwriting that seems like it could never be taught or learned; this ability is a gift, and Kirsten is a very gifted songwriter. All but one of the songs on this record were written or co-written by Kirsten. Many artists are reluctant to cover songs by their heroes, but Kirsten more than does justice to "Talk of the Town" by Chrissie Hynde and the Pretenders.

Listen to "Talk of the Town".



Photos coutesy of Kirsten Proffit

The album's title is meaningful on several different levels. There is the devotion of love, which is the subject of most of the songs here. There is the devotion of Kirsten to her craft of being a singer, songwriter, and musician. But most of all, My Devotion is a tribute to her grandfather whose World War Two plane was nicknamed, "My Devotion". Kirsten describes the cover photo:

The B17 and crew is my grandfather and his crew. They flew all 25 missions in Europe in that aircraft. They were shot down over the Thames, barely made it to safety. They all survived. They were the 2nd American B17 to complete all 25 missions, right after the Memphis Belle.

In this time when music is, to many people, just a download, disposable as old newspapers, it's really refreshing to find an album where the cover means something; even amplifies an important aspect of the project. Click on the front cover (above) and the back cover (below) for a closer look. Back in the days before CDs, great album covers were made all the time, there even used to be a Grammy for this. The cover definitely makes this worth having on CD rather than MP3.

Kirsten was lucky to have some quality time to spend with her Grandpa in the years before he died. The song "Flood and Fire" is based on one such conversation. The beautiful sound consists of acoustic and electric guitars, piano, upright bass, cajon, mandolin, dobro, cello, and violin.

Listen to "Flood and Fire".


"Flood and Fire" has a superb melody to go along with its poignant lyrics and is our favorite song on the album. Kirsten has done her Grandpa's memory proud with My Devotion, and wherever he is, the Big Man is smiling.



We wouldn't leave you on a Saturday without a bonus video, so here's a live in-studio performance of "California", another awesome song from My Devotion.



Kirsten Proffit's Website
Kirsten Proffit's Facebook




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Remembering the Main Point, 1964 - 1981

Image
WXPN Most Memorable Musical Moment #5 Begining in 1964, The Main Point in Bryn Mawr provided the Philadelphia area with one of its most enjoyable venues for live music. Although it started as a folk based coffeehouse, all styles of music were presented over the years. Financial problems continually plagued the Main Point, and in spite of frequent benefit shows by artists who loved the place as much as the audience, the club finally closed in 1981. The following brief history is contained in an obituary of Jeanette O. Campbell, one of the founders and owners of the Main Point who died on October 22, 2006, written by Philadelphia Inquirer Staff Writer Sally A. Downey as reprinted on the Save Ardmore Coalition website. Jeanette Orndoff Campbell, 89, former owner of the Main Point, a music hall in Bryn Mawr where young talents including Bruce Springsteen, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt and James Taylor were introduced to local audiences, died of complications from hip surgery Oct. 22 at Stap
Read more

Cream and Blind Faith at the Spectrum, Philadelphia, 1968 & 1969

Image
WXPN Most Memorable Musical Moment #3 (L-R) Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, & Eric Clapton I could not have foreseen it at the time, but looking back on a concert going history now entering it's fifth decade, my first three concerts were absolutely formative in the development of the music obsession that has driven life as we know it from that point forward. Attending a rock concert pre drivers license was no small feat, that I even got to these shows is the first indication that I knew I was onto something even if I couldn't quite explain it. I've already detailed my first concert (The Beatles at JFK Stadium) in my MMMM#1 . My second and third concerts took place at the Spectrum in Philadelphia, they were less than a year apart, and due to the fact that concerts never end at the time predicted, these concert experiences both ended with a very angry driver stuck waiting in the car outside the venue until the last encore had finished. I shot both concerts with the same starter
Read more

And We Danced - Filming the Hooters Video, 7/27/85

Image
WXPN Most Memorable Musical Moment #4 "And We Danced" (picture sleeve above) was released in 1985 as the second single from the album, Nervous Night , the Hooters' major label debut for Columbia Records. Here's the video. The call went out to the Hooters' mailing list the last week of July 1985 that an audience with cars would be needed on the coming Saturday for a video shoot. Participants would report to the Exton Drive-In by late morning and be prepared to stay all day until after dark. This stage set, early in the day, was a warm-up for the crowd and probably a dry run for the production team for the night-time performance to be filmed later. The banner backdrop does not appear in the video. Some of the antique and custom cars that were on hand for the shoot. The production crew prepares the ticket booth for its shot. This is the film crew shooting the acoustic intro part of the song. The acoustic intro was shot twice, first with t
Read more