Jonatha Brooke life and biography

Jonatha Brooke is an American folk rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. Her music merges elements of folk, rock and pop, often with poignant lyrics and complex harmonies. She has been a performer, writer, and artist since the late 1980s, and her songs have been used in television shows and movies.


While many singer-songwriters possess the gift of literate lyrics, Jonatha Brooke has also shown an ability to marry these lyrics to tuneful melodies. Through her work with her band the Story and her continued growth as a solo artist, she has explored the world of relationships against an intriguing folk-pop-rock backdrop. Brooke took her place among the new breed of women performers, from Paula Cole to Alanis Morisette, in the mid-1990s and beyond. Unlike these artists, however, she eventually worked independently of major record labels by starting her own label and choosing her husband, Allain Mallet, as her producer. TJ McGrath in Music Hound Folk noted that "Brooke, a descendant of Virginia Woolf, writes poetry set to music that carries you up and over the plains of ho-hum experience and into a dream-world of ambiguity and paradox."


Brooke met Jennifer Kimball as a freshman at Amherst College in 1981 and the pair teamed up as Jonatha and Jennifer. The duo, while continuing to perform sporadically after college, eventually went their separate ways: Brooke joined a dance company and Kimball worked for a publishing firm. In 1989, however, the duo--eventually to be re-named the Story--recorded a demonstration record at the suggestion of Brooke's husband, Mallet. They submitted "Over Oceans" to Green Linnet and were signed; after the Story's first album, however, they moved to Elektra Records and the label reissued their debut. The Story released its first album, Grace in Gravity, in 1991, an album featuring the intertwining of Brooke and Kimball's voices. "Grace in Gravity," wrote McGrath, "is a swooping, creative exercise in jazz rhythms and folk-rock with flashes of brilliance and charm." The duo released a second album, The Angel in the House, in 1993 to more critical fanfare. Citing differences in artistic direction, however, Kimball and Brooke went their separate ways in the fall of 1994.


In 1995 Brooke finished her first album, Plumb, for Blue Thumb, an album that found her establishing her solo voice. "Kimball is gone," wrote Steven P. Marsh in the Bergen County, New Jersey, Record. "But the literate writing that informed the first incarnation of the Story remains. And this time around, the singing is even better and more expressive." Brooke wrote the material for her second album during a ten-day stretch at a cottage in Nantucket. "It forced me to be disciplined and assemble all the bits and pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that I'd carried around in my head or on napkins or ticket stubs for a year," she told Gene Stout in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The title, 10 Cent Wings, was taken from a misspelled marquee Brooke had seen while traveling that advertised "10-cent (chicken) wings and free dip." It was also her first album released with support from a major label, MCA, and it promised to reach a broader audience than had her previous efforts. "With the release of 10 Cent Wings," wrote Darryl Cater in All Music Guide, "Jonatha Brooke completed the transition from her band the Story to a solo career."


Brooke's first two albums had been well received, but her career took an un-planned detour during her 1998 concert schedule to promote 10 Cent Wings. The tour had reached its mid-point when she received a phone call from MCA: she would be dropped from the label. Caught off guard, Brooke was at first unsure of her next move. After two weeks, however, she made the decision to form her own label, Bad Dog Records, and recorded a live album to release on the new label. "Live was a testing ground," she told Victoria Rios in the Colorado Springs Gazette. "It was a personal triumph and a way to get this little fledgling thing off the ground, but not have to prove myself with a new CD right away." While Brooke missed the ability of a major label to promote and support her, she valued her independence more.


In 2001 Brooke released Steady Pull in both CD and DVD formats. "I don't even own a DVD-Audio player yet," she told Jonathan Takiff at Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, "but we borrowed a player to check it out and were blown away by the things we didn't know were there." The album, like her previous two, received a warm welcome from critics. "The inspiration is easy to glimpse," wrote Kelly McCartney in All Music Guide. "It's a wonderful record, smart and catchy, interesting and fresh." Brooke also received an offer to record an original song for Disney in 2002 to be used in the animated film Return to Never Land. The song "I'll Try" worked like thematic glue, appearing in important scenes and during the closing credits. Brooke also sang a new version of "Second Star to the Right." The movie helped introduce Brooke's voice to a mainstream audience. "You know, now that I think about it," Brooke joked with Takiff, "maybe I could be the next Britney Spears."


In 2004 Brooke released Back in the Circus, an album that successfully melded her songwriting to tasteful pop-rock arrangements. "She's arrived on the top floor landing with Back in the Circus," wrote Johnny Loftus in All Music Guide, "a typically audacious effort that showcases her singing and writing even as it flirts with new musical directions." The album included Brooke's covers of James Taylor's "Fire and Rain," Brian Wilson's (of the Beach Boys) "God Only Knows," and Alan Parsons's "Eye in the Sky." Back in the Circus rose to number 20 on the Top Heatseekers chart, and received airplay on Triple A radio.

Brooke remains a believer in spreading her music through lengthy tours. "I think," she told Rios, "it's the only sure-fire, tried-and-true way of establishing an audience and keeping it." In 2005 she teamed with Joan Osborne and Jane Siberry at the Women's Rock Festival in Del Mar, California, and continued to perform solo shows in New York, Connecticut, and Maine. "Beguilingly honest and intriguing in her lyrics, melodically sophisticated yet immediately accessible," wrote Takiff, "Brooke restores artistry to the popular song with a distinctiveness not heard or enjoyed since the prime of Joni Mitchell and Carole King."


In April 2007, Brooke released Careful What You Wish For via Rykodisc distribution. "The vibe of the album," she wrote in notes for reporters, was "all about busting out, being on the edge, playing with great abandon to see what we could come up with."

Some Brooke songs have been sung or "covered" by other artists. Her tune "Because I Told You So" from Ten Cent Wings was covered by Nick Lachey on his 2006 album What's Left of Me. Her song "Inconsolable" from Plumb was featured in a TV episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer entitled "Prophecy Girl". Buffy creator Joss Whedon chose Brooke's "What You Don't Know" to be the theme song for the TV series Dollhouse starring Eliza Dushku.


In 2008, Brooke appeared on the Tinker Bell movie soundtrack with the song "Be True". The movie's soundtrack was released on October 14, 2008, a week before the DVD release and contains songs from and inspired by the film. In February 2008, Brooke recorded The Works which was her seventh solo release. This effort was inspired by the music of late folk legend Woody Guthrie.

Brooke was invited by Guthrie's daughter Nora to sift through the private archives and hunt through Guthrie's unreleased material for possible adaptations.
One reviewer lauded Brooke's "forceful, girlish voice" and described her tune "My Sweet and Bitter Bowl" as a "driving opener" and "standout" and described the entire suite of songs as "solid" but which "rarely sparkles".


The critic described the album as a "Brooke record" not a "Guthrie one".Another critic described the album as "Woody Guthrie's lyrics" with "an urbane new voice within Brooke's sleek, winking alt-pop ... if the Dust Bowl troubadour had matriculated at Amherst, he'd sound just like this."


In 2008, she participated in the music album Songs for Tibet, an initiative to support Tibetan Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso. The album was issued on August 5 via iTunes and on August 19 in stores.

In 2009, she shared vocal duties with Davy Knowles on the song "Taste Of Danger" on the album Coming Up For Air from Davy Knowles & Back Door Slam. Brooke was a judge on the 10th annual Independent Music Awards.She was also a judge for the 5th and 9th Independent Music Awards.

According to Brooke in an interview, her favorite collaboration with other artists was the song "Forgiven" with Chris Botti (in Chris' 2002 CD The Very Best of Chris Botti) In 2010, Jonatha Brooke performed as the first part of the French tour of Nolwenn Leroy, singing songs in English and in French, and joined Nolwenn Leroy for some duets.


Selected discography:

-Plumb Blue Thumb, 1995
-10 Cent Wings Refuge/MCA, 1997
-Live Bad Dog, 1999
-Steady Pull Bad Dog, 2001
-Back in the Circus Bad Dog, 2004
-Live In New York, 2006
-Careful What You Wish For, 2007
-The Works, 2008

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