Willow Willow

When Willow Willow appeared in San Francisco’s singer/songwriter circuit in 2002, they enthralled viewers using their delirious harmonies, breathless songwriting, and captivating stage presence. With just one single classical guitar and two angelic voices, the ladies of Willow Willow made a pleasing cross types that was identical parts folk, gentle rock, and traditional pop using the tastes of Brazilian samba and United kingdom traditional music increasing give depth with their appear. Their eponymous debut, released on the tiny Mod Lang label in early 2007, provides produced them a music group to view and was extremely praised for Miranda Zeiger’s carefully moody, lushly intimate music. Jessica Vohs and Miranda Zeiger had been born four a few months aside in Albany, CA, a bedroom community simply north of Berkeley/Oakland. They fulfilled in kindergarten and became close friends, usually performing and playing stuff throughout sentence structure college and their times at Albany SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL, where these were in choir collectively. Vohs was also in the Piedmont Girl’s Choir and brought Zeiger tunes to allow them to sing collectively. Right away that they had a natural skill for close tranquility performing, with Vohs performing the low parts and Zeiger the bigger harmonies. They began making up tunes collectively when they had been children. Their creativity and creativity established them aside from their peers; they distributed a childlike take pleasure in discovering the globe around them. In a recently available interview, Vohs mused on the long camaraderie: “We’re still close friends, though it noises silly for 30-year-old females to consider one another close friends, but we’re like sisters. We’re extremely close; it might be a past lifestyle matter, but who actually understands?” Zeiger and Vohs had been both oldest daughters of little families. They keep in mind hearing Madonna at Zeiger’s home in elementary college, lip synching to her movies and creating dances. In addition they cherished the Beatles and imagined getting entertainers. They produced little home films on Zeiger’s video surveillance camera, writing down scripts and documenting songs on a little tape recorder to make use of as soundtracks for it displays they wrote, including parodies of advertisements. In retrospect, they question what could have happened with their performing profession if they’d had the opportunity to create their Television shows on YouTube. Zeiger’s father, Jerry, was a blues guitarist and songwriter who irritated his child and her pal by taking out his acoustic guitar and playing the blues in the drop of the hat. By enough time they surely got to high school, nevertheless, they recognized that he was an excellent picker. He bought Miranda her 1st acoustic guitar and trained her the fundamentals. She required it following that. Their 1st appearance like a duo is at senior high school. The choir course had each college student do a overall performance project by the end of every semester. Vohs and Zeiger mixed their talents for his or her demonstration and sang an Indigo Ladies music. They’d also become enamored using the Silly Sisters, an recording by Maddy Prior (Steeleye Period) and June Tabor, two of Britain’s finest traditional performers. The British harmonies intrigued them as well as the a cappella ballads they discovered from the record are still an integral part of their displays every once in awhile. The duo journeyed through European countries in 1999 and 2000. After time for California plus they started likely to a whole lot of concert events and had been blown away with the Moore Brothers, an in depth tranquility folk-pop duo, on the Ivy Area in Albany. The Moores informed them that they’d help the Willows obtain gigs if indeed they ever made a decision to perform. Quickly thereafter the recently called Willow Willow (the name is normally extracted from a melody by Arthur Lee’s music group Love) opened up for the Moore Brothers at Berkeley’s Starry Plow. Eric Shea noticed them and asked these to the Mon Night time Hoot, a songwriter display in the Café du Nord in SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA. The music artists they fulfilled that night time asked these to open up displays to them and Willow Willow was off and operating. “We never attempted to rating gigs,” Vohs recalls. “We’d a strong person to person buzz and folks known as us up attempting to publication us.” The music group built a pursuing playing local rock and roll locations and was among the features of San Francisco’s free of charge Strictly Barely Bluegrass Celebration in 2005. Afterwards that calendar year, the duo wandered into Mod Lang Information, an eclectic indie record shop in Un Cerrito, requesting about discs by intensifying folkies Mellow Candle and Vashti Bunyan. Owner Paul Bradshare was intrigued by their curiosity and asked these to open up for regional pop songwriter Bart Davenport’s in-store functionality. A camaraderie blossomed and Mod Lang agreed upon Willow Willow with their record department, offering their eponymous initial record in 2007. Zeiger and Vohs still function part-time gigs to create ends satisfy, but intend to begin touring the record using their music group — Zeiger, acoustic guitar, business lead vocals, and harmonies; Vohs, business lead vocals and harmonies; Josh Miller, bass; Paul Burkhart, percussion — in fall months 2007. Zeiger also began learning the piano in 2007 as well as the group’s following task was slated to be always a 7″ 45-rpm record having a Vohs structure, “Hummingbird,” using one part and a fresh piano ballad from Zeiger within the flip.