Preview: Karen Turley EP launch – Friday 24th March 2017

Karen Turley is a Singer-Songwriter from Omagh in Northern Ireland, living in Liverpool. She started playing the guitar at the age of 15 and has always had a passion for music, particularly American Folk and Country.

Karen has had her original songs played on BBC Introducing on BBC Radio Merseyside in the past few years as well as performing on a couple of live sessions.

In March 2015 Karen was lucky enough to be one of two Singer/Songwriters chosen to travel to Nashville for a full week of Songwriting workshops and activities with esteemed songwriters. She was also able to perform in the round with the wonderful Beth Nielsen Chapman and Don Henry in the famous ‘Bluebird Cafe’. The competition was part of an exciting exchange between Liverpool and Nashville, with The ‘Bluebird Cafe’ being recreated in August 2015 in ‘The Bluecoat’ in Liverpool for an evening of live performances. Karen performed at the Early Show for this event while the late show was hosted by ‘Whispering Bob Harris’ and included special guests from Nashville.

2016 saw Karen support Xander and the Peace Pirates at The View Two Gallery with Liverpool Acoustic and in March she was thrilled to perform as part of the The Liverpool Acoustic Festival in The Unity Theatre. She recently played at Chorlton Arts Festival, the inaugural Folk Festival at The Albert Dock and regularly gigs in Liverpool.

Her ‘Like We Used To’ EP is being released on Friday 24th March and features four brand new songs recorded in December 2016.

Hands of Grain are a country/folk duo formed by Daniel Saleh and Gabby Hayes-Wishart. Blending rich harmonies with music, they are producing their own blend of captivating songwriting. Their debut EP Blue & Black is to be released soon.

Liverpool born Joanne Louise is finally back in Liverpool after 20 years or so away. She is an eclectic jazz/folk singer/songwriter with two albums under her belt. Joanne Louise originally began performing in Liverpool as very young ethereal backing vocalist with I-Lands, supporting The Icicle Works a couple of times and James at Lark in the Park. She then progressed to writing her own songs and formed the duo Drowning World with which she played regularly at singer/songwriter venues in Liverpool before moving to London.

She recorded her first collection of songs Love The Sea Is Blue (two songs Lies and Body Bright from that album are currently available on JL’s website) with her then band The Mighty House featuring bass ace Nick Cohen (Incognito, Annie Lennox) and percussionist Preston Heyman (Kate Bush).

JL has performed at London venues such as The Mean Fiddler, 12 Bar Club, Jazz Cafe and The Green Note and in 2006 teamed up with Lewis Fielding (blues guitarist with Jerimiah Marques, Big Joe Lewis, and bass player/slide guitarist for JL) to create her last album The Here & Now. This album is described as “… an oasis of calm & healing. Lovely. ” by Keith Ames, music critic from The Musician’s Union magazine and features BBC jazz award winner 2003, Byron Wallen.

She is currently working on her next album and is performing regularly in and around Merseyside. The Here & Now as a CD was originally released in 2008 and is now available in its 2nd edition form only from her live performances or as a download from www.joannelouisegriffiths.com.