Album Notes

Award winning singer/songwriter, Jenny Bruce, is delighted to share with you her new long-awaited independent cd, Left Of July.

In 2003, New York singer/songwriter, Jenny Bruce, received an email from fellow singer/songwriter, Edie Carey. It was an intelligent and appealing fundraising email for her upcoming CD project. Bruce was ready to begin her third album, yet, like many independent artists, lacked the funds. Inspired by Carey’s appeal, Bruce launched her own campaign. The results were shocking. In a matter of weeks more than half the money necessary to record her album came in and pre-orders and contributions continued to trickle in over the following months until she had raised enough money not only to begin but also to complete her project. So began the process. There is much to tell about how the album was recorded and by whom, however, the story of what unraveled behind the recording process and the making of this album best express what you will hear in these 12 songs.

The title of Jenny Bruce’s recent release, Left Of July, was taken from a lyric in a song of the same name. The song was written for Bruce’s friend James Larsen who lost his battle with cancer at the young age of 32 shortly before recording began. “Seems a heavy price to pay for being born a little left of July” Bruce wrote articulating the seeming randomness of events in life. The songs on this album poignantly reflect that point of view. We struggle to make choices and, for better or for worse, must assume the consequences: “The things I stand to lose are weighing me down, but if you made me choose, I’d probably drown.” Sometimes life makes choices for us and again we must keep up with the pace or be left behind: “Believing I was captain, while slave to an immense eternal sea.”

Larsen had just begun his promising career as a booking agent for ICM Talent Agency and had taken on Bruce and two other artists (Amy Fairchild & Mairead MacMullen) as the NYC Sirens. A promising tour was in the making and things were really looking up for the three artists’ careers until Larsen was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus. Less than a year after diagnosis, James died, a fighter to the end. That same day, Bruce found out she was expecting her first child. Recording of the album was nearly finished and mixing began. Several months later Bruce’s beloved grandmother died. Five months later, Bruce’s son Felix was born. The album was mixed and mastered. A month later Bruce’s mother was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and 8 months later she too was gone.

Now as Bruce expects her second child in October, she is at last able to release this album. It was hard for her to let go of these songs. So many life-altering events had occurred during the process of making this record that her life hardly resembled what it had been. She questioned whether the songs reflected who she had become and what she now wanted to put out into the world. Somehow holding onto these songs felt like the safe thing to do. Letting go of something else seemed too difficult. It took a while, but it was time to let it go…

After sending out cds to all her fans, friends and family who pre-ordered and contributed to the making of “Left Of July,” Bruce is finally making this album available at cdbaby.com. We hope you enjoy it.

“Stolen moments are all we get and with every turn we take, we find ourselves on an open road, alive and wide awake.”

Produced by Ethan Eubanks (Jess Klein, David Mead)
Vocals, Acoustic Guitar, Piano: Jenny Bruce
Drums: Ethan Eubanks
Bass: Whynot Jansveld (Gavin DeGraw)
Guitar: Cameron Greider
Keys: Andrew Sherman
Additional production: Kevin Bents
Mixed by Richard Furch
And a whole lot of other people!