Album Notes

Celeste Krenz was born and raised in North Dakota. She started writing songs at age 15 and continued writing through college (with time off traveling around the country as a full time musician). After returning and earning a marketing degree from the University of North Dakota, Celeste moved to Denver in 1990 where, before long, she developed a loyal following in a community that appreciated the honesty and warmth of her songs and voice. Not a newcomer to the music scene, she has recorded four independent albums between 1993 and 1998, with "Slow Burning Flame" reaching #11 on music trade magazine GAVIN's Americana radio airplay chart. Blix Street Records, a specialty label that has built its reputation distributing some of the finest Celtic, folk and world music on the market, signed Celeste in 1999. They recognized her appeal to the same audience that had reacted strongly to other Blix Street artists, including Irish vocalist Mary Black, Scotland's Dougie MacLean and the late Eva Cassidy. Using some of the songs from the unreleased last independent project as the nucleus, Celeste went back into the studio to record what has become the CELESTE album. Now settled in her Nashville home, Krenz continues to grow as a performer and writer. Celeste has a pure, sweet voice, as smooth as the great American plains. The new album retains the simple beauty that her prior indie records so gracefully achieved but with a fresh new band-oriented approach. Songs like "Break the Cup," Noel Brazil's "Don't Send Me Anymore Love" and the driving rhythm of "It All Comes Back" reflect a cosmopolitan energy. Although CELESTE is more produced than Krenz's other recordings, there is no mistaking the intimate songs and vocals that touch the spirit. Like the chilling "In The Arms Of The Moon" and "I Had A Dream About You," both of which ruminate about the hard realities of death--the first a family friend and the latter her 16-year-old sister when Celeste was 11 years old. How difficult is it to write songs about such closely-held emotions? "In a strange way, I think they're the easiest ones to write," Celeste answers. "You can hardly keep them in, on the other hand, they're the hardest ones to perform. There are some nights when I just can't sing them. In the years following Charmaine's death, one of the most difficult things I dealt with was the fear that I would forget the sound of her voice and of her laughing, what she really looked like...all those things that keep somebody real in your mind. I started having these wonderful dreams where I would see her and we would talk, it was like she was really there with me. These are the songs that you just wake up and write down. I played it once for Bob, (producer/guitarist) and he insisted on recording it...until that moment I really thought it was just a personal song for me." "What I've realized is that although the song about my sister is very personal, it has a universal message. Life is constantly changing, we all lose people we love and we are all looking for ways to keep love alive. I think the trick is to squeeze every drop of joy from the time we have together. Life is short...make it count.