Album Notes

"rocker Joe Pagetta('s) ... new recordings ... show he continues to explore the melodic strengths and small-group dynamics that make classic rock so timeless."
-- Michael McCall, Nashville Scene

Nashville's Joe Pagetta exposes a severe case of sincerity on his new EP OTHER PEOPLE'S NEWS. While the pop-and-roots rocker always been an earnest songwriter, he digs to a new depth of feeling on these five new songs. When he compares historic meetings between Les Paul and Bing Crosby to Elvis Presley and Colonel Parker, then takes it a step further to include Jesus and his Apostle John in the song "Practice Makes Perfect," he's serious. On "Both Be Wrong," a George Harrison-inspired plea for compromise and peace, he's as resolute as ever. And who else but Pagetta could turn the architectural similarities of churches and train stations into an honest exploration of the meaning of life? Check out "Church or Train Station." Throw in an homage to perseverance about fisherman returning to work after 2005's tsumani and you've got the most serious -- yet most hopeful -- compositions of Pagetta's career.

Recorded in two days at the Sound Kitchen in Franklin TN, and co-produced by Pagetta with acclaimed country music engineer Steve Marcantonio, four of the five rock and contemporary folk songs on OTHER PEOPLE'S NEWS possess the added distinction of being about things outside Pagetta himself -- rare in the genre known as "singer-songwriter." It's only on the EP's title track that the Jersey City, NJ native goes inside, giving voice to a narrator struggling with "living in my head/and blue/I've been living in my head/and can use/some other people's news."

From the "take no prisoners" guitar riff that kicks off the first track, the listener is escorted through a musical journey that can only come from some serious soul searching. If Pagetta's 2004 full-length CD JOYWOOD mused about reconciliation, OTHER PEOPLE'S NEWS clearly is about the personal faith, perserverance and rebirth that come after it.

OTHER PEOPLE'S NEWS is the follow up to the acclaimed pop and roots-rock JOYWOOD, which was heard on NPR, MTV and close to 200 college stations nationwide. It was called “….a tough but pretty new album… complete with sidewalk grit" and "pop sparkle” (Tennessean), ...a sweet roots-rock collection packed with mandolins, chiming pop melodies and easy rhythms" (Nashville Scene) and "a combination of wit and muscle that's pretty hard to resist. (Rapid River Arts)."