Album Notes

Rachael Davis has been singing on-stage since she was two years old. Being born to parents who never intended to keep her very far from music for very long seems to have made all the difference in the world. Before she was mobile Rachael would be set in a car seat and placed in the middle of a song circle, and with silver bells on her ankles she would shake her feet to the rhythm. At one-and-a-half Rachael was singing "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" to anyone who asked, and at two she started performing with her parents on stage.

Born in Lansing, Michigan, Rachael spent almost six years of her life in Chicago before her parents -- musicians as well -- settled in Cadillac, Michigan, where she was constantly nurtured and encouraged by family, friends, and other respectable musicians. When Rachael was eight she was singing on second stage at Wheatland Music Festival. The Irish singer Maura O'Connell was just backstage. When Rachael walked off stage Maura went up to her, and grasped Rachael's face with both hands and said, "Never stop doing it for the love of it!"

Rachael has spent most of her life involved with music in one way or another -- whether it was singing with her family-based group Lake Effect, or performing solo with a few friends as special guests. She attended Interlochen Arts Academy in Northern Michigan -- which also counts among its alumni, Peter Yarrow, Anne Hills and Jewel (Kilcher).

In the span of her 6 year solo career Rachael has shared the stage with Boston based singer/songwriter Vance Gilbert, folk divas Claudia Schmidt and Sally Rogers, Prairie Home Companion regulars Robin and Linda Williams, Greg Brown, Taj Mahal, Robert Earl Keen, Fred Eaglesmith, Josh Ritter, jazz legends Marcus Belgrave and Winston Walls -- amongst others. She has opened for Dar Williams, David Lindley, Dr. Ralph Stanley, Little Feat, Garnet Rogers, Chris Smither, Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer, Richard Shindell, Susan Werner, Peter Mulvey, Eddie From Ohio, , Clive Gregson, Willy Porter and many more.

In September of 2001, Rachael moved from Michigan to Boston and within the span of seven months was awarded a Boston Music Award for Best New Singer-Songwriter. In 2002, Rachael contributed "Lonely When You're Gone" to the Respond II compilation (which can be found at http://respondproject.org), which also includes such luminaries as Joan Baez, Dolly Parton, Ani DiFranco and the Indigo Girls (amongst many others). And in 2003 Rachael took home the grand prize in the Telluride Bluegrass Festival’s Troubadour Contest.


Her influences range from the jazz stylings of Ella Fitzgerald to the soulful pop vocals of Patty Griffin -- with many more in between. She is a contemporary songwriter but is equally at home singing anything from traditional ballads to Cole Porter to Joe Henry.

Some quotes about Rachael:

Mary Lou Lord: "[Rachael sings] with the voice of the most beautiful color you've never seen.


Susan Werner: "We don't have Eva Cassidy anymore but we do have Rachael Davis"


Eddie From Ohio: "With a voice that moving - we could listen to her sing the alphabet all night and that would be enough."

Ellis Paul: "Rachael Davis . . . has one of those voices that you know will somehow find its way to a national spotlight . . . keep an eye -- and an ear -- out for her"

Claudia Schmidt: "Rachael is a bold explorer in the undefined and powerful territory of her primary instrument -- her own human voice -- and the stories that come through it."

Dean Magraw (folk and jazz guitar wizard): "People . . . please open your hearts and bathe your ears in the 'Be-here-now, soul-on-your-sleeve'-inspired new voice of Rachael Davis!"

Scott Alarik (Boston Globe): "Davis is off to a faster start than any Boston-based songwriter in memory."

Ben Edmonds (Detroit Free Press): "Davis commands a voice older than her years, an instrument that is equally sure expressing strength and vulnerability, and her songwriting is fearlessly eclectic." (full article)

Brian Bishop (The Musical Curmudgeon): "This woman is anything but minor league. She has a major league voice which essentially is her instrument . . . You better see Davis soon, because it won't be long before it will be too late to say: 'I saw her when.'"

Mike Hughes, Lansing State Journal: "Her voice and songwriting seem to defy age. One moment, she's a jazz singer, her voice vaulting across ranges; the next, she's a folksinger, wizened and weary."

Ann Arbor Review: "Her music is built around her voice, a shimmering and versatile thing that trips lightly through Ella-esque jazz lines, growls and belts and glides."

Jack Leaver The Grand Rapids Press: "Davis' music defies categorization. The 10 tracks on her debut run the gamut of her influences, with minimal instrumental backing built around her versatile and powerful voice." (full article)

Holly Figueroa (singer/songwriter): "Another really scary thing as a songwriter is to share a show with someone 10 years or so younger than you who is, by far, a better songwriter, singer, and performer than you ever were, ever will be, or ever thought there could be in someone so young. This happened to me for the first time at Club Passim on December 5, when I had the good fortune (or misfortune, depending on how you look at it) of following Rachael Davis. She blew me clean away in about 20 different ways. I think she's maybe 19. Maybe. She writes these songs about dreamers and drinkers and Mississippi . . . stuff that no 19 year old from the UP in Michigan thinks about, let alone writes poetic gems about. And her voice . . . like Billie Holiday and Allison Krauss had a love child. Check her out. She's wicked awesome."

An ardent fan: "Not everyone is righteous enough to be the center of everyone's amazement