Album Notes

This uplifting music from singer/songwriter Jo Thomas Blaine is velvety and sensual, soothing yet invigorating, unique but strangely familiar on a deep soul level. 2006’s Gift of Shining is given in the spirit of the human heart seeking its true home. Mike Borchetta of Curb Records once said that Jo was “10 years ahead of her time”, and now, 15 years later......the time has come! Jo’s music is poetry. Jordi Herold of New England based Iron Horse Productions called it “music with an inner glow”. Windham Hill Records’ Will Ackerman said “there is a confidence in all of (her) work which is infectious... it’s successful art”. Jai Josephs, author of Writing Music for Hit Songs, has called her a "genius lyricist".

JO THOMAS BLAINE was born in 1961 in State College, Pennsylvania. In 1982, she received a Bachelor of Arts in Graphic Design and Cognitive Psychology from Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts.

The Berkshire foothills of Western Massachusetts were her home for sixteen years, where she worked as a kaleidoscope maker for Artist Stephen Auger, and later as a jewelry designer with her own company, The Riddle Works. During the same period, Jo polished and performed her original “Jazzy Folk Rock with a Mystical Flair” in clubs and coffeehouses throughout the Northeast, releasing several recordings, among them Worth The Wait, Dare to Relate, and The Love Patrol’s Yes, Yes, Yes.

In 1996, Jo and her husband Craig Blaine moved to San Diego, where she attended the Pacific College of Oriental Medicine, receiving a Master of Science in Oriental Medicine in 2001, and License to practice Acupuncture in 2002. Son Maxwell Paradise Blaine joined the family in January of 2000, with daughter Bridget Deva following in September of 2005. Also during the "West Coast Years", Jo has created a vast collection of original watercolor mandalas which can be seen online at www.mandalaartplates.com.

Her music and lyrics have always been present alongside her other artistic pursuits, and early in 2005 she reembarked on writing and recording, finishing the luminous Gift Of Shining with producer Craig Blaine.