Second Skin by Jackie Tice

Tice herself embodies contradiction, at once a seeker, a warrior, and a homebody; an original who sounds at times like one iconic singer or another; an old soul and a child full of wonder; an angry rocker ("Trail of Tears" and "Medusa Jane") and a sweet-voiced poet; a hopeless romantic and a realist ("I will tell you that I love you / I will tell you how it feels / Should you turn away in laughter / I will wish you well and heal"). "Second Skin" begins and ends with prayer-like songs. The title track opens, a hooky invocation. (David Kleiner, Major7th.com)

With the release of Jackie Tice's most recent CD, Second Skin, she has made full use of her award-winning performing and song writing skills. Produced by premier Native American recording artist and 2005 Grammy Award winner, Bill Miller, in a week-long studio marathon in Bucks County, PA, Tice steps up and out with ten songs spanning pop-rock, jazz and folk styles. Jamey Haddad, percussion, (Paul Simon, Lenny Kravitz, Dave Liebman) and Pete Cummings, electric guitar, (Tanya Tucker, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley), are among the luminaries who helped create this sonic landscape framing Tice's lyrical story songs. After working with Jackie for this record, Bill Miller has this to say, "...she's not in a box. Her music has elements of jazz and rock. She writes songs with messages...hers is a voice that needs to be heard and her songs are as poetic as they are powerful. ''

A Kerrville New Folk Award-winner, the co-mingling of Tice's Native American and old European roots directs her musical and lyrical styling, scouring subjects as diverse as the lives of Magdalene women, Shakespearian love and the call of coyotes. "I love your songs," Lucinda Williams said to Jackie backstage at the Kerrville Festival. "I thought it was a consolation prize," Jackie explains, a few minutes before being swept on stage to accept the award. Christine Lavin, folk diva of New York City, endorsed Jackie by declaring her song, The Marijo Tonight, "a modern-day classic," and including it on the compilation CD, The Stealth Project: Music Under The Radar.

She's been called "an eloquent storyteller whose songs elevate common experience with subtle layers of meaning," (Richard Fox, WCUW), and an artist with "a poet's touch," writing about "complex, believable characters who grow more vivid with each listen," (R.A.B. Perch, Folk Acoustic Music Exchange.)

Tice was raised in a Montgomery County, PA steel mill town, growing up with six brothers and sisters and enough songwriting fodder, she says, "to last a lifetime." Today, she has four albums to her credit, artist endorsement deals with John Pearse Strings and Audix Microphones, and a long list of kudos from major music media in the US, Australia, Italy and Canada.

In 2002, Tice produced an acoustic collection of songs inspired by her oil paintings entitled In These Bones, which, alongside the Doc Watson/David Holt collection, Legacy, was recently nominated as Best Traditional Folk Album by the grassroots JPF Music Awards. In 2003, Tice composed the soundscape for an educational video documentary produced by Rutgers University entitled, Riparian Buffers: Restoring and Managing New Jersey's Streamside Forests.

Tice's song, Domestic Delinquent, was included in the 2002 Random House publication, Life's A Stitch: The Best of Contemporary Women's Humor. An anthology of humorous short stories, poetry, songs, and cartoons-all from the pens of women, and all proceeds donated to benefit charities- it includes the writings of Kathy Najimy, Wendy Wasserstein, Gloria Steinem, Erma Bombeck, Christine Lavin, Julie Gold and others.

Radio programmers from New York City (WFUV) and Boston (WCUW) to Chicago (WFMT) and San Francisco (KZSC) have heralded Tice with banners like, "best new songwriter", "a stand-out!"

Her on-stage festival and listening club performances and workshops with Bill Miller, John Gorka, Christine Lavin, Peter Yarrow, Noel Paul Stookey, Garnet Rogers, Susan Werner, Frank Christian, Caroline Aiken, Dana Cooper, and others, from Club Passim (Boston) and the Tin Angel (Philadelphia) to the Bluebird Café (Nashville) and Eddie's Attic (Atlanta) have paved the way for her recognition as an important voice among American songwriters.

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