WENDY WEBB
MOON ON HAVANA
CLASSIC 12” VINYL – LP. LIMITED EDITION 180 gram Vinyl. Lyric Insert Included. Also available on CD with lyric insert and photos taken in Cuba.
Pure -- Moon On Havana is an audiophile’s dream. Minimal engineering, no tricks, one woman alone with her piano, or guitar, performing her original music. This new live recording connects with the listener in ways that echo the quality and expression found in classic songwriter albums.
“ Wendy Webb’s “Moon On Havana” is intelligent, complicated and above all musical. Webb sings with such emotional investment--jubilant, rueful, whatever she needs--that the listener has that rarest experience: of being swept away.”
-Thomas McGuane, novelist, recipient of the Rosenthall Award and the Wallace Stegner Award
SPOOKY MOON RECORDS is proud to announce the release of Wendy Webb’s first solo album, MOON ON HAVANA, ten original songs written and performed by a woman who is a “a stunning, undiscovered secret” (Steven Dougherty, senior writer, People Magazine) and a “superb lyricist with a hauntingly pure, wise and sexy voice” (Tim Cahill, Founding Editor, Outside Magazine).
“Laura Nyro lives! I mean that as the highest compliment. What a pleasure to listen to Wendy Webb play her piano and sing her breathtaking songs. I could go on for hours about her complex lyrics, but it is the sound of her voice that I find so haunting, the achingly beautiful voice of real experience.”
- Jeff Klinkenberg, columnist, St. Petersburg Times
VINYL NOTES:
“ I was inspired to make this record after visiting Cuba, a place all about love and the longing for freedom. The songs on Moon On Havana are about my life and my experiences within that context.
All ten songs were recorded in a three day session, mostly first takes, in a seaside cabin on a Florida Indian mound built by contemporaries of the Maya. It’s an ancient place; a pre-Colombian complex of burial mounds, canals and a ceremonial plaza where, for more than two thousand years, people sang songs and told stories. At night alone, sitting at the piano, I felt a powerful connection to the people who built the mounds and who -- according to archaeologists -- fled to Havana in the late 1700s, only to vanish into extinction.
I decided to record in the same space where I had written the songs because I wanted the music and my performance to come alive, unadorned, to be a true representation of what I do. The music is not about an extinct people, it is the voice of my own solitude.
Long after midnight, as I wrote and recorded, it was energizing to know my music floated among the mounds, and could be heard on the dock that inspired the song In The Blue Light. I think the music will speak for itself. ”
-Wendy
AUDIOPHILE RECORDING DATA
These songs were recorded over a three day stretch, almost all first takes, in a cabin atop an Indian Mound on Florida’s Gulf Coast. To do justice to the setting, and to the music, classic recording equipment was employed – a list of which, Audiophiles may find interesting.
MICROPHONES
Vocal: Neumann U87 AI on voice with Focusrite ISA 220 Channel Strip into Manley Vari Mu Compressor
Piano: Stereo Matched Pair Neumann KM 184’s on Mason & Hamlin Model BB 7’ Grand
Guitar: single Neumann KM 184 on Taylor Acoustic 914-CE
We used PreSonus Anthony Demaria Labs ADL 600 Tube Preamp on Piano
Recorded & Mixed by David Arnold at Pineland Fl. & Stump Sound Recording in Louisburg N.C.
Mastered by Kent Bruce and Wolf Stephenson
Malaco Records - Jackson, Mississippi
Lacquers cut by Kevin Gray at AcousTech, pressed at RTI
CREDITS
All songs written and performed by Wendy Webb
Lyrics ‘The Fall’ & ‘Nashville Can Wait’ by Mark Keller
Design –r studio, Matlacha
Photography by Randy Wayne White, Cuba & Florida
wendywebbmusic.com
Wendy Webb Publishing - ASCAP All Rights Reserved.
BIO
Wendy Webb has performed in Cuba, Paris and New York. Frequently compared to artists such as Laura Nyro, Joni Mitchell and Norah Jones, Webb effortlessly weaves poetic lyrics and elements of folk, jazz, and blues into a classic style all her own.
Ms Webb has received honors in both the John Lennon Songwriting Contest and in the Lilith Fair Songwriting Competition. Lyrics to three of her compositions appear in the novel "Dark Light" by New York Times best selling author Randy Wayne White.
Wendy Webb was honored to perform at the 9th annual September Concert Series Gala in New York City. She has also performed at the Sidney and Berne Davis Art Center in Ft Myers, Florida, the Center For The Arts Bonita Springs, and at BIG ARTS Strauss Theater on Sanibel Island, Florida.
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