It's good to be back...for a minute. The NYU Summer Songwriter Workshop was host to 42 talented songwriters once again, some of whom are squeezing into the photo on the left. I came back energized by the participants and my fellow faculty Phil Galdston and Barry Eastmond (also pictured) and plagued by the morphing medley in my mind of all the great songs that were written there over the last two weeks. Next is San Luis Obispo, Maine, Massachusetts and New Hampshire...It's a lot of miles but worth it to hit these choice spots:
Here comes June and with her, another Summer Songwriter Workshop season at NYU with my talented co-professors Phil Galdston and Barry Eastmond. It's one thing to do something every day and a completely other thing to talk about how (and why) you do it. I always look forward to the challenge and the two weeks in New York city. If all goes well I'll have time to catch Sara Bareilles' play "Waitress" while I'm there where I'm sure I'll be inspired and jealous all at once.
Mike Marrone at Sirius XM was kind enough to let us walk with the raw tracks of our live session for The Loft recorded October 20, 2015. Our favorite six have been remixed by Linda Taylor and mastered by Yes Master (great name). I'm playing acoustic and porch board. Linda is playing acoustic or electric (in one case, both thanks to the wonders of technology...and yes, it's really live).
We start a new run of dates next Sunday but we hit the ground with some catching up to do...first we lose the usual 3 hours flying west to east then immediately, it's Daylight Savings Time and we lose another hour. So friends, remember when you wake up on the 13th, you're already late...
After Dashing through the Dates from October to just last week, we're regrouping to get ready for what promises to be a helluva night at the Valley Performing Arts Center in Northridge, CA on February 22. I have the honor of being Bonnie Raitt's special guest along with my band which includes drummer Fritz Lewak, bassist JV Collier, keyboardist Jeff Young, vocalist Arnold McCuller and of course my co-producer and band member in any configuration, Linda Taylor.
Our first two tours for The Dash Between the Dates definitely lived up to the name. We never stopped. Over the last few weeks we played many old haunts, added some new ones to the fave list, shared the stage with friends like Catie Curtis and Gabe Dixon, reconnected with childhood friends who came out to those shows (awesome) and, of course, drove and/or flew hours in between. All worth it. Live performances from Maine to California were peppered with radio shows like Daytrotter, Sirius Loft, WXRV's River Music Hall, Studio M at WMMM, Studio 92 at WTTS and KINK's Skype Lounge. Exhale...
Our run from Portland, ME to Burlington, WI was two weeks of concentrated goodness. We visited five fabulous Triple A radio stations (included WTMD in Baltimore, MD pictured here) and played eight shows with a few crazy drives in between. Linda and I don't idle well so this was the right way to play it.
Tickets are on sale now for a sweet swath of dates between Portland, ME and Burlington, WI. Are we coming to a theater near you?
Fri, Oct 16 - One Longfellow Square - Portland, ME GET TICKETS
Sat, Oct 17 - Milton Arts Center - Milton, MA GET TICKETS
We had a great week at Triple A Radio with the new single "Nothing But the Radio." The following stations are playing it now..
"Nothing But the Radio," the first single from my new album The Dash Between the Dates is now available! The full album comes out October 16 on eOne Records with tour dates filling in all around. Please keep an eye out for TOUR DATES or sign up for the mailing list and we'll let you know when we're coming to your neighborhood. I promise you will only hear about release dates and shows local to you...with no added fillers or preservatives.
Literally. The new album has just been skillfully mastered by Yes Master. We are right on track for an October 16 release on eOne Records (everywhere physical and digital music is sold). Let the promotion begin and soon, after all the pictures have been taken, I can eat carbs again! It's the little things.
I know, I know, I'm a dork but I'm a dork that happened to be six when the first Star Wars movie showed up so it's not really my fault. I was also a little kid for Jaws, Piranha and Alligator which combined, kept me out of most bodies of water until I was about twenty. Fortunately there was no movie called "The Tour Monster" or I don't know what I'd be doing now.
...and ushers in a string of fun shows. I'll be at the Frogstop House Concert near San Diego CA Saturday, August 16 with my band, Linda Taylor. The next week I'll join my co-conspirators AG and Garrison Starr for a short but sweet midwest run. Thursday, August 21 we'll be at SPACE in Evanston IL, Friday, August 22 in Burlington WI for their Tall Tales Music Festival and Sunday, August 24 at the Long Grove, IL Arts and Music Council. Looking forward to all of it!
American Idol finalist, Crystal Bowersox is in the holiday spirit and has chosen, as she does all year, to love not judge with "Coming Out For Christmas." I co-write this one with my new friend Crystal and co-produced it with long time friend and musical comrade Linda Taylor. I'm proud of our team and anxious to see how this is received. I think lovers and judgers alike will agree that Crystal sang the living sleigh bells out of it.
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
The new album, Change the Ending
is now available on iTunes, complete with bonus track...
Thanks for listening,
Maia
Gallery:
Gallery:
June 14, 2012
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Lead Single “Me After You” Premieres Today On Sharp’s Website
October Tour Dates With Bonnie Raitt, Who Guests On Two Tracks
On August 28, Blix Street/Crooked Crown Records will release Change The Ending, the new album from acclaimed singer-songwriter-producer Maia Sharp. The record features guest vocals by The Rescue’s Adrianne Gonzales, Garrison Starr, Dawn Thomas and Bonnie Raitt. Sharp will be touring with Raitt in October and can be heard on the nine-time GRAMMY® winner’s new album, Slipstream.
Fans can check
out the poignant lead single, “Me After
You," beginning today at http://maiasharp.com/view/Artist/.
Sharp will be previewing songs from Change The Ending in a series
of shows this summer, beginning this Friday, June 15, when she opens for
Melissa Etheridge at Britt Pavilion in
Change The Ending follows Sharp’s 2009 album, Echo. Produced by Don Was, it contained the Top 10 Triple A radio hit “John Q. Lonely” and “Death By Perfection,” which featured Raitt and was tapped by NPR as “Song of the Day.” The new album reaffirms Sharp’s gift for capturing the subtleties and shades of gray that characterize relationships.
Sharp grew up in
During the recording sessions, Sharp admits, “We did change the ending a few times – and it was always for the better.” After producing Edwin McCain’s latest album, Mercy Bound, as well as two songs for Art Garfunkel’s upcoming record, she elected to produce Change The Ending herself. She assembled a notable crew of musicians to back her, including guitarist Linda Taylor (Tracy Chapman, Edwin McCain), who often accompanies Sharp on the road, drummer Matt Chamberlain (The Wallflowers, Fiona Apple) and bassist David J. Carpenter (John Doe, Toni Childs).
“I had been working with several other artists on their albums and I was just hooked on that whole feeling, so I decided to produce this album alone,” says Maia. “I had to learn to be my own sounding board because I’d finish a vocal and come out and there was nobody else there to go ‘yeah, that was great’ or ‘you really need to do that again.'But it was a great experience and I learned a lot.”
“Sharp always leads with her heart and comes across as a performer worth getting to know,” said USA Today in a three-star review of Echo while NPR’s “All Things Considered” hailed her as “a songwriter set to arrive” and The Washington Post called her “a sterling up-and-coming talent.”
In addition to her string of acclaimed solo albums and numerous production credits, Sharp is also a sought-after songwriter whose songs have been recorded by Raitt, the Dixie Chicks, Keb’ Mo’, Terri Clark, Cher, Trisha Yearwood and many others.
For upcoming shows see TOUR DATES on the navigation bar above
Gallery:
Gallery:
Tomorrow (Wednesday May 30) I'll be live at Room 5 in Los Angeles with my talented friends Adrianne Gonzalez and Garrison Starr accompanied by our one woman band, Linda Taylor. We start at 8:30 and swap songs and stories til 10 as a sneak preview (for you and for us) of our songwriter-in-the-round tour in September.
Promotion for my upcoming album, Change The Ending starts this week! Linda and I will be hitting the road and radio stations throughout CA, OR and ID kicking things off with a live on-air in San Luis Friday and a performance at their song and wine festival Saturday. Songs and wine. Nothing wrong with that.
New shows and live on-air streams are posting all the time. Next Monday we'll be live in studio at KINK's Bing Lounge recorded in Portland, OR but available to stream from anywhere. Please check the TOUR DATES page for details.
More to come, including iTunes and street release dates.
Time to start the engines!
Maia
Gallery:
My new album, CHANGE THE ENDING is all shiny and mastered and its artwork is almost finished (I know that not a lot of people still actually buy the entire and physical CD but to those like me who do, you should be rewarded). I'm really looking forward to getting it out into the world and to following it there on tour. New dates are posting all the time with west coast and southeast shows in June, midwest and northeast shows in July and September and then a handful in October as Bonnie Raitt's special guest.
In the meantime, I had the great fortune of producing 2 songs for my absurdly talented, real deal, legendary friend Art Garfunkel. More details to come as they unfold but I will tell you that the band was smokin' (only figuratively as far as I could tell). Russ Kunkel, Leland Sklar, Dean Parks and Linda Taylor tracked with us at Henson and then Matt Rollings, Vanessa Freebairn-Smith and Leah Kunkel iced the dense, tasty cake with piano, cello and vocal goodness respectively.
Can't wait to see these projects-in-the-works come to fruition and to bring the CHANGE THE ENDING songs to you in person one city at a time.
I'm pictured here with Lee Sklar, who may have just charted on my top 10 favorite humans list.
Hope to see you out there,
Maia
Gallery:
Bonnie Raitt recorded "I Don't Want Anything To Change" beautifully on her last album, Souls Alike and now she is offering a live version of it (with me singing with her) as a "thank you" to her fans. She also wrote a lovely intro to it that has officially made my day. She is a tremendous musician and a great friend.
To download it, you can go to her facebook page, her website at www.bonnieraitt.com or to my facebook page.
Be sure to pre-order her new album “Slipstream” while you’re at it. I had the honor of singing some background vocals on it so I got a sneaky sneak preview of its serious goodness. Her voice is mercilessly soulful as always. I promise you’ll dig it.
Thanks for listening!
Maia
Gallery:
Time to break out the Sea Bands, the Dramamine and only my very best songs. February 5 - 12, 2012 I am booked on the Cayamo Cruise, "A Journey Through Song," from Miami to Cayo Levantado, St. Maarten and St. Bathelemy.
I'll be joining (holy what in the...) John Prine, John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett, Lucinda Williams, Keb' Mo', Richard Thompson, Buddy Miller, Edwin McCain, Loudon Wainwright III, The Civil Wars, Greg Brown, Iris DeMent, James McMurtry, Shawn Mullins, The Belle Brigade, Chuck Cannon, Angie Aparo, Enter the Haggis, Winterbloom, Holly Williams, Shannon McNally, Sarah Lee & Johnny, Aslyn, Sarah Jaffe and more.
The cruise is sold out but you can go to http://www.cayamo.com/Artists/ to find out more and get on the waiting list if want to take a shot. It looks pretty fabulous.Well worth getting a little green. At least this year it won't be with jealousy for the seafaring songwriters!
Gallery:
Come on down, up or over to the beautiful Forum Theatre to see a Songwriters in the round (or more like, in the volley). Between the two of us, Randy Sharp (aka dad) and I have had our songs recorded by the Dixie Chicks, Dolly Parton, Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris, Keb Mo, Alabama, Trisha Yearwood, Reba McEntire and more. Come hear the tunes and the stories behind them in this intimate acoustic setting January 21 at 8PM. Go to www.lagunabeachlive.org for tix.
In other news, my new album, still untitled, is almost mixed so we're right on schedule for that Spring release. It's coming together so well, it's got me wagging. I'm thinking of waiting to take pictures for it until after my Cayamo songwriter cruise in February where I'm sure to be seasick the entire time and lose every spare ounce of weight! It's not easy bein' green but I could at least get a svelt cover shot out of it.
Hope to see you in Laguna!
Maia
Gallery:
The new album is well under way! Hopefully I've been right about when to drive it and when to be the passenger. It's vocal time now...what the countless hours of work to this point have really been all about...but no pressure. So far so good though, I'm still on track for a Spring release.
And in the meantime, I'm playing the next 3 Mondays (Nov 28, Dec 5 & Dec 12) at the Room 5 Lounge in Los Angeles with Adrianne Gonzalez, Garrison Starr and Dawn Thomas, all of whom will lend their distinct vocal stylings to my new album. We're looking forward to taking our already cool thing to an even more familial level. Those are always rich, fun shows. Come down if you can.
Maia
Gallery:
Thanks to those of you who made it out to the Room 5 Lounge in September to see the writers-in-the-round with Adrianne Gonzalez, Garrison Starr and Dawn Thomas. It went so well we're doing it again Friday, November 4 from 9:30 - Midnight! Get ready for harmonies galore and even more mutual accompaniment.
In the meantime, I'll be in the studio the last week in October to track the new album with Matt Chamberlain on drums, David Carpenter on bass and Linda Taylor on Guitars.
I'm ready to get this puppy out!
Maia
Gallery:
Hello!
It's official...Edwin McCain's new album Mercy Bound is offically out in the street, basking in the sun, out of the warehouses and trucks and readily available to the (hopefully receptive) public. Phew.
I'm so proud of it. At the end of its first day it's already in iTunes' top 100 overall and gathering lots of good fan reviews.
If you don't already have it, you can sample it at iTunes or at www.edwin.com and then, if you dig it, please make it yours. If you dig it so much that you feel like posting a review, "liking" it on facebook and telling your friends about it my feelings wouldn't be even a little hurt.
Thanks for listening,
Maia
Gallery:
Time to break out the Sea Bands, the Dramamine and only my very best songs. February 5 - 12, 2012 I am booked on the Cayamo Cruise, "A Journey Through Song," from Miami to Cayo Levantado, St. Maarten and St. Bathelemy.
I'll be joining (holy what in the...) Lyle Lovett, John Prine, John Hiatt, Lucinda Williams , Keb' Mo', Richard Thompson, Buddy Miller, Edwin McCain, Loudon Wainwright III, The Civil Wars, Greg Brown, Iris DeMent, James McMurtry, Shawn Mullins, The Belle Brigade, Chuck Cannon, Angie Aparo, Enter the Haggis , Winterbloom, Holly Williams, Shannon McNally, Sarah Lee & Johnny, Aslyn, Sarah Jaffe and more.
The cruise is sold out but you can go to http://www.cayamo.com/Artists/ to find out more and get on the waiting list if want to take a shot. It looks pretty fabulous.Well worth getting a little green.At least this year it's not with jealousy for the seafaring songwriters.
In the meantime, I'll be joining Edwin McCain at the Euphoria Food, Wine and Music Festival in Greenville, SC September 22 and 23. Then, I'll be in the studio to make a new album out of the last two years of tunes. I can't wait!
And speaking of Edwin, his new album Mercy Bound hits the streets August 30 and is available now for pre-order.
http://www.429records.com/sites/429records/landingpage/edwinmccain/
Keb Mo's album is available as I type!
Both have my tunes on them and both artists brought it in a big way.
Gallery:
Hi Friends,
If you're in or near Pittsburgh, Nashville or Asheville this week let's enjoy a bit of the summer together...I'll be with my full band at the Allegheny County Summer Series in Pittsburgh, PA this Friday July 22.Then Saturday I drive (like a bat out of LA) to Nashville to play a Writer-in-the-Round that night at the Bluebird Cafe with two of my all time favorite songwriters, Pam Rose and my dad, Randy Sharp where we'll be accompanied by the absurdly talented Linda Taylor on guitar.Then Sunday morning after a gigantic espresso I head to Asheville, NC to play a house concert on the river aptly named "Maia on the River House Concert" at the home of superhost Lyn McFarland.
Check the TOUR DATES page above for all the details.
In the meantime it's been a very cool couple weeks."Whole Flat World" went for adds at UK radio and is gathering steam thanks to my joint venture label Blix Street Records.I got to sing background vocals on a song for Bonnie Raitt's new album which is still in the works but already beautiful and powerful ala Bonnie with everything you've come to crave. And, Edwin McCain's first single "The Boy Who Cried Love" written by Edwin and me has gone for adds at triple A radio and is getting a big slice of love. Please feel free to request it at your local station.It wouldn't hurt my feelings at all if you did that.
The picture shown here is Emmett with his "suitcase face," the one he makes when he knows I'm leaving.
Hope to see you out there this week. Either way, have a good one!
Maia
Gallery:
Gallery:
Gallery:
Welcome to the new web site! We are up and running and feeling so brand new, to quote 2 or 3 Madonna songs. Revamping forced me to go back and listen through my songs covered by other artists and my own albums, some of which I haven't visited in years. I was fondly reminded of Soraya, a profoundly talented singer, songwriter, musician and good human who died of breast cancer in 2006 at age 37. Listening through also made me realize how many of the songs that have found the light of day were either written at Miles Copeland's castle retreat or are some indirect result of my 8 trips to it. That's where, surreally, I met and worked with Carole King, Lisa Loeb, Kim Richey, Jane Siberry, The Go-Gos, The Bangles, Paul Carrack, Howard Jones, Jules Shear, Soraya, Stewart Copeland and many others including Billy Mann who had the seemingly random idea to bring Buddy Mondlock and me together with Art Garfunkel to write, record and tour. It turned out to be completely logical and beautiful. Random like a fox. Speaking of...I recently got to reconnect with Art's Britishly hilarious and skillful house sound man, Stuart Breed on the road in upstate NY where he dialed in the rock star halo at the Philipstown Depot Theater. Between tours I've been producing (Edwin McCain, Donny Anderson, Melanie Martel and Jenifer Freebairn), responding to 911 background vocal calls from my friend and Echo producer, Don Was and trying to stay current with recordings of my own new songs. But now it's time to think about the set list for the last "Moveable Feast" show. Hope to see you out there!
Gallery: