JESS KLEIN

On her sixth and most unrestrained album City Garden, Jess Klein reveals everything. “I was at a really hard point in my life and the only thing I knew to do to make it easier was to write,” said Klein. “I sat down and the song ‘All I Ever Had’ came out, and it felt like a faucet had been turned on because it was such a release of emotion. The first night that I performed it, several people told me it had moved them to tears. I realized that I wasn’t the only one who felt that something had been released.” www.JessKlein.com

Klein said that she wanted every song on this album to have that same power “to release and to heal.” With her soulful, passionate voice up front, and lyrics that alternate between searing and heartbreakingly tender, Klein went for a gritty, primal production style reminiscent of early blues albums. As a result, City Garden exudes the emotional intimacy that has captivated audiences at Klein’s much-lauded live shows, an intimacy which, coupled with Klein’s powerful voice, caused the Boston Globe to describe her as "Quite simply one of the most gifted performers this area has produced."

After independently releasing her first two albums, winning the Telluride Troubador Songwriting Contest, and garnering several Boston Music Award nominations, Klein was signed to Rykodisc in 2000. Her first Ryko release, Draw Them Near [***1⁄2 USA Today], launched Klein on a worldwide tour where her relaxed confidence and rootsy soulfulness charmed European audiences and wowed 12,000 attendees at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. In 2001, Klein returned to the U.S. and helped form the songwriter collective Voices on the Verge, along with Erin McKeown, Rose Polenzani, and Beth Amsel. The foursome was featured on Good Morning America performing Klein’s song “Little White Dove,” and brought crowds in small theaters across the U.S. to their feet nightly with their blend of harmonies and eclectic styles.

Looking for a new phase in her creative life, Klein moved to New York and recorded her second solo effort for Ryko, Strawberry Lover [2005], produced by former RCA recording artist Marc Copely. The CD debuted as the #1 most added album at Triple A Radio a week before its release, was given 4 stars by MOJO, a plug from the 80 million readership PARADE magazine, and within weeks of its release, the emotive and sensual title track was named one of the ‘Top Ten Sexiest Songs of the Moment’ by the New York Daily News.

While touring for Strawberry Lover, Klein felt the powerful connection with her audience deepening. “I sensed I was accessing something larger when I sang,” she said. “It wasn’t just about me. It was about what connects us all, and I felt like that energy was being channeled through me. It was a big leap of faith giving myself over to that kind of feeling in my performances, but it felt right like the path that was opening up for me was both beyond my imagination, and also what I had been hinting at for some time.”

On the road, Klein began seeking out material that would inspire her to write more from this vulnerable, powerful place. Klein explored some classic songwriter albums, touchstones for emotional intimacy, such as Springsteen’s Nebraska and Joni Mitchell’s Blue. One day, she came across something she wasn’t as familiar with: Junior Wells and Buddy Guy’s It’s My Life, Baby!.” She was immediately hooked. “I felt like I’d been saved, hearing the passion and raw emotion these artists were pouring out. I’d always been influenced by artists like the Rolling Stones and Dylan, who were themselves influenced by the Blues; I'd even been influenced by older soul artists, but I'd never really gone back to the roots. It was electrifying, and terrifying. I knew that if I started thinking of my songs as the blues – not structurally, but in the feeling of them – they would be able to handle as much emotion as I had to give.”

The blues influence is clear on City Garden in the heart-wrenching solo acoustic “All I Ever Had,” the deep raw sound of the African drum and floor toms underscoring Klein’s rhythmic acoustic and cacophonous yells on her personal and political call to action, “Real Live Love,” her slinky bass note riff on “Shell and Shore,” and the bittersweet lyric of “Alone”: “You can walk alone, or cry alone, or look between the lines/But everyone’s gotta be alone sometimes.”

Klein’s impassioned vocals throughout convey the power of unearthing one’s true nature. In the title track, Klein ruminates on addressing one’s fears and owning the power that lies underneath them: “Been lookin’ at my city garden for almost twelve months now/I been thinkin’ ‘bout a bargain/About tearin’ that old fence down.”

For Klein, writing City Garden tore down creative barriers and helped solidify her voice, but she makes a distinction between what she can and can’t take credit for: “People are always commenting on how big my voice is for my body, and asking me how all this power can come out of a little white girl. But it’s not me. I just channel this stuff. God knows where it comes from. I feel really blessed to have this gift. I just try to give it back.”

City Garden will be released nationally in October 2006 on United for Opportunity, distributed through RYKO. This extraordinary CD will also be available through Amazon and itunes.com. Klein will be touring in support of the CD as well, bringing her critically acclaimed live shows to audiences across North America.

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