A NEW ROAD MAP TO A GRAMMY NOMINATION:
INDEPENDENT ARTIST CATHY RICHARDSON NOMINATED FOR
BEST RECORDING PACKAGE
Date:
Chicago's acclaimed Cathy Richardson Band leads the way with
The Road to Bliss, available on Richardson's own Cash Rich Records
Multi award-winning singer-songwriter, Love, Janis star, and
record company president Cathy Richardson is in the driver's seat all the way
They say it's what's on the inside that counts. But there's nothing wrong with a great outside, too. Cathy Richardson Band is the total package. Just ask the Recording Academy, who has nominated the Chicago, Illinois-based band's new release, The Road to Bliss, for a Grammy award in the category of Best Recording Package. Chalk one up for independent artists.
In addition to producing the record, fronting the band, and running the label, award-winning singer-songwriter and actor Cathy Richardson art directed, designed and laid out the album packaging in a collaboration with high profile commercial artist Bill Dolan (www.dolanart.com) that she describes as "a truly inspired process and a labor of love."
In response to her first Grammy nomination, Richardson comments, "This is a great day to be an independent artist. I am very grateful to the Academy for recognizing this work. Bill and I are completely geeked!!"
And with this latest triumph, they're very much on The Road to Bliss. It's elaborate. It's clever. It's the perfect extension of the journey within. Richardson's own road photographs comprise the six-fold case, and themselves are a compass for the songs. Unfold the package, unfold the trip. The CD is the steering wheel. The rearview mirror is in position. The road map to Bliss is in the glove box. Powerful metaphors, definitely, but they are actual features of the design, as well.
Richardson and her namesake band of top-notch musicians -- Joel Hoekstra (guitar), Klem (bass), Ed Breckenfeld (drums, percussion) -- are on a rock & roll mission with The Road to Bliss, on label president Richardson's own aptly christened Cash Rich Records.
Due to the band's dedicated Midwest fanbase - and Richardson's own marquee status as the lead in the hit musical Love, Janis -- this impatiently-awaited shower of roots-rock Bliss, which follows up the EP, Buzzzed (2000), was available in advance on Cathy Richardson Band's website (www.CRBand.com), along with a quality back catalogue of five other titles. The Advocate magazine included the band in its 2001 Top 10 Best in Music list, while Fox News proclaimed them Best Band of 2000, and the Chicago Tribune named them Best Local Band of 1999 -- high praise when considering Chi-town's perennially notorious music scene.
Music mainstay and flagship Triple A formatted radio station WXRT is already on the case, adding emphasis track "This Town" to its artist-oriented, though highly competitive, playlist. "All the requirements for good record. Great musicians, brilliant songwriting, exceptional vocals, and one of the most innovative packaging efforts I've ever seen. Cathy Richardson really delivers on this one.", states John Farneda, Music Director, WXRT Radio. The Richardson-Hoekstra penned track is one of several viable directions to the airwaves for the band, owing to the fact that The Road to Bliss is paved with so many possibilities, including the reassuring ballad duet with Emily Saliers (Indigo Girls), "Blindsided by Love."
This is a brilliantly themed album, with each song an integral part of a vast and ever-changing landscape of sound and vision (literally and figuratively), though just like hills and valleys, oceans and deserts, these compositions are individual experiences, as well.
"I really wanted to bring the listener into the record," Richardson explains, pointing out, "It's probably more of a theme record than a concept album, but there are concepts involved in the design that we didn't even plan on, that ended up in the finished product. The vision was for the package to be an extension of the music."
As one who is in the driver's seat for the long haul, Richardson says, "I also believe that one of the biggest downfalls of the record industry was the move to CDs and the lack of thought and care that goes into album art anymore. Songs are just downloaded files, and there's no such thing as albums and artists anymore, because it's all about singles. You never get to know an artist so you have no vested interest in them, no reason to feel compelled to support them. This is my answer to that issue. I wanted to give people something that they absolutely have to have."
As smart, intelligent and articulate as her words and music infer, Richardson is also a captivating performer, not only on the concert stage opening for Heart, Warren Zevon, Jonny Lang, Indigo Girls and others, but also on the boards as an actress in the legitimate theatre. She starred as Janis Joplin in the original off-Broadway and Chicago productions of Love, Janis, a musical based on the letters from the legendary rockstar to her family. Though the character wasn't a huge stretch for her -- after all, Richardson has a major voice and the moves to back it up -- it's obvious that she's a natural thespian, earning a High Times magazine Doobie Award for her portrayal.
She recently worked with legendary singer-songwriter Randy Newman, who counts himself a fan of Richardson, when she appeared in the Seattle production of the play, The Education of Randy Newman, in the fall of 2002.
Nonetheless, she's focused on the Road she's on right now, and has no immediate plans to veer off on a side trip, but admits, "If something interesting came along, I would certainly consider it. What I want to do is devote the next year, at least, to promoting this record. It's the culmination of four years, and deserves a shot from me to go out there to let it be heard."
The Road to Bliss can be full of twists and turns, but as Richardson points out, "Whenever I follow my heart, I'm always led exactly where I need to be."
Chicago's acclaimed Cathy Richardson Band leads the way with
The Road to Bliss, available on Richardson's own Cash Rich Records
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