Gretchen Peters by Gretchen Peters

Peters brings almost as many heart-rending details and almost as profound a sense of lost promise as most writers could manage in a novel”.

Peters claims, “I never understood how the music business took people and broke them up into little pieces - the songwriter, the producer, the recording artist, the entertainer. I suppose I grew up with the idea that you made music from start to finish, and I never felt satisfied being one of the pieces”. Rejecting the Nashville assembly-line model and eschewing what she laughingly calls “gratuitous co-writing”, she nevertheless accumulated enough accolades as a songwriter, for artists as wide-ranging as Martina McBride, The Neville Brothers, Faith Hill, Etta James, Trisha Yearwood, Bryan Adams and George Strait, to earn her a recording contract in 1996. That resulted in The Secret Of Life, about which Time magazine wrote, “Peters, whose choir-girl voice has a seductive hint of late nights and cigarettes, knows the tunesmith's secret: crafting a good love song... The passionately elegiac When You Are Old is a declaration of eternal devotion: "When your brave tales have all been told/ I'll ask for them when you are old." In Peters' music every tale is brave, unique, beautiful.” Similarly, Entertainment Weekly added, "she has more in common with the romantic sensibilities of Rickie Lee Jones... Peters' songs about emotional thirsts that never get quenched have a quiet power all their own..."

As a performer, she began touring in the UK and Ireland soon after The Secret Of Life was released there and named by Mojo magazine as one of the year’s best records. As she puts it, “There was an instant connection with UK audiences. They didn’t care that I didn’t fit neatly into any particular category. They just loved the music”. The Scotsman (UK) says of Peters’ live performances, “The first thing that strikes you about Peters is her voice. The vast array of singers she has written for obviously have their own appeal but it is hard to imagine how her own crystalline vocals could ever be bettered. Reminiscent of both Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, yet maintaining a jazzy edge that sets it apart”.

In 2004, her album Halcyon caught the ear of folk legend Tom Russell, and he invited her to sing on his next two projects, the groundbreaking Hotwalker (2005) and the incisive Love And Fear (2006), in which Peters teams with Russell on the searing duet Ash Wednesday, introducing her to a whole new audience of folk fans in the USA and Canada. After signing with Russell’s US booking agent, in 2006 Peters went in to the studio to record her upcoming album, Burnt Toast And Offerings with Doug Lancio (Patty Griffin, The Greencards) coproducing. It is scheduled for release in spring of 2007, and Peters will be touring the album on both sides of the Atlantic.

Praise for "Gretchen Peters":

... If Peters' '96 debut, The Secret of Life, had the answers, her edgier follow-up poses the questions, mostly about how to navigate rough emotional terrain. Full of surprises - "Eddie's First Wife" has a randy lesbian at its center - Peters brings the pop sensibility of Sheryl Crow to meditations on Amelia Earhart and Picasso's cat. Easy to see why she's already captured the Brits. B+

-Entertainment Weekly

Rarely has a singer-songwriter had a better showcase than "Gretchen Peters," and she has mostly herself to thank for it. The lovely, leisurely paced album finds Peters co-producing; singing all the harmonies; and playing many of the instruments, including electric sitar and six-string bass. Peters displays a keen, off hand observational sense - she's a Sheryl Crow worth, well, crowing about - on the likes of "Love and Texaco" and the sly tale of "Eddie's First Wife," who takes up with someone just like the girl who married dear old dad. Even more remarkable, her singing is so winning, she manages to top even Patty Loveless' earlier version of her exquisite "Like Water Into Wine."

-San Diego Tribune

...her own girlish Alice-In-Wonderland instrument provides an ideal guide for exploring her picturesque scenarios and exotic characters. There's no filler or empty cliches here. Peters' every line seems weighed and considered with a master jeweler's squinting precision, her best songs imbuing the sweat and confusion of everyday lives with the serenity of the blessed.

- Music Row Magazine

...the genre hardly matters when you have such penetrating material. From the soulfully romantic "Like Water Into Wine" to the jazzy, provocative "Eddie's First Wife," Ms. Peters' musical vignettes explore life's gray areas with honest eloquence.

-Dallas Morning News

...Peters' voice , sweet with a hint of weariness, is front and center, making the honesty of her words all the more sharp. These are unforgettable songs that deserve as much attention as the chart-toppers that Peters created for other artists.

-Boulder (CO) Daily Camera

Gretchen was nominated in 2003 for a Golden Globe award for her work on the DreamWorks animated film, “Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron”, and her multi-award winning "Independence Day" was recently included in CMT's list of The Top 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music.

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