Karen Joy Brown: Press

Karen Joy Brown possesses a rare, touching beauty, both sonically and physically--her elongated features and graceful manner bring to mind a white crane standing elegantly alone in a Japanese painting. Brown's singing voice is singularly heartfelt and soulful, delivering her original lyrics with moving emotional honesty.

Fabulous Junkyard, the subject of Brown's upcoming CD-release party, is an inspired and inspiring collection of eight sometimes poignant, sometimes lighthearted, original songs, and a lovely, reworked cover of The Beatles' "Eleanor Rigby."

....Fabulous Junkyard, an all-acoustic, scaled-down collection of tremendously moving songs , where Brown's soulfully saturated musings are left in the forefront. Despite the fact that virtually the entire album is comprised of only acoustic guitars and vocals, the music still maintains a deeply rich quality. "Thinking of you," for example, is the type of song that will bring a tear to your eye, while "Please Don't Go" and "Got to be Another Way" are seeping with fevered passion.

......The closing act, Karen Joy Brown, offered slightly more gentle songs about life, love and loss.

Brown plucked cascading melodies from her acoustic guitar as her tenor voice filled the room. An energetic performer, she moved her shoulders and head to the rhythm of her songs and emphasized her heartfelt lyrics with animated facial expressions.

"Fabulous Junkyard" is the title track from the debut album she hopes to release early next year. The track frames life as a beautiful and entertaining collection of clutter situated between heaven and hell.

The inspiration for Brown's songs comes from dealing with the ups and downs of life, she said. Writing songs is her form of therapy.

"When all was said and done, there were some good performances and there were some great performances. Karen Brown impressed the hell out of me with her song "Thinking of You." Not only was it a great song, but Brown's voice is wonderful!"

"Her songwriting reflects her life experiences and observations and you do get a sense of conviction from her every time she cocks her head back, crinkles the corners of her eyes and belts out a note into the microphone."

"I hear alot of musicians... some people can write, some people can play, you seem to be the whole package, Karen. You've got a beautiful voice, you can play well, you write beautiful songs."

Karen Brown returns to Marysville Friday

Karen Brown’s journey as a singer-songwriter began in her classroom. After graduating from California State University, Chico, she became a Spanish teacher. In the classroom, she would use songs to teach her students vocabulary concepts. “Teaching has a high element of performing to it,” she said. “It was the ‘Karen Show’ when I was in the classroom.”

While she enjoyed her work, she decided to become a singer-songwriter about four years ago. “I was always doing music on the side, but I moved it to the front when I quit being a teacher,” Brown, a Chico-based musician said.

The classroom was also where she developed a fan base. “Once when I was performing at the Farmer’s Market (in Chico), my students would walk by and ask me to play songs I had sang in the classroom,” she said.

Brown returns to Marysville at 7p.m. Friday at The Gallery. Roberta Chevrette and Phillip Flathead also will perform.

Brown previously performed at the Brick Coffeehouse in November, where she put on a “nice little show,” she said, and enjoyed a good reception. “People were really kind and inquisitive,” she said.

She began playing guitar as a senior in high school. Her father had a guitar and showed her a few chords, and “I took it from there,” she said.

As a singer, she began at an early age. “I have a clear memory of singing in my house in New York as a kid. I was singing to my sister who told me to shut up,” she said.

Musically, she falls somewhere in between genres, blending jazz, blues and rock into an eclectic mix. Brown classifies her music as “acoustic rock-pop-soul.” “It’s not just jazz or rock , and that’s what I love about it ,” she said. “I get to pull from everything and merge it together into something I like.”

Being a solo artist gives her flexibility in the music she plays, she said. “I could go in any direction, but what you’re going to get is an acoustic singer-songwriter.”

Her show on Friday will be “about three-fourths of my stuff and the rest is covers,” she said. Among them is Johnny Cash’s “Walk the Line.” “I have kind of a more brooding version of (that song). Someone told me it’s like a Led Zeppelin version of it.” In addition, she has been working on a more blues-inspired cover of the Beatles’ “Can’t Buy Me Love,” which she may perform. “When you do covers, you never know if people are going to curse you or love you,” she said.

Brown has a self-titled three song EP available for purchase. She’s also producing a full length album, which she said should be released by the end of this year.

Take a leap of faith with Karen Brown

Singer-songwriter Karen Brown
took a leap of faith when she
decided to become a musician.
Leaving her career as a
teacher took courage, the Chico musician
said, but she felt an artist living
inside that needed to express her
thoughts and feelings.
"I knew it would be a risk to leave
teaching, but life is short, and even
though there is a lot of great music out
there, I think I was courageous and desperate
enough to risk developing the
talent. I had. It seemed like it was too
good to keep to myself," Brown said.
Brown is scheduled to perform with
guitarist Amos Clifford at 8 p.m. Friday
at The Brick Coffeehouse in
Marysville.
For the past four years, she has been
developing her vocal skills and working
on her songwriting to produce her
own material. She also plays guitar.
"When I was teaching, I would sometimes
feel guilty for taking time to
write a song when I knew that I should
be working on grading papers," she
said. "Now, I am able to spend time creating
songs without feeling pressure
that I need to be doing something else,
and it has given me more time to work
on my craft."
Brown considers herself a storyteller.
She writes about everyday life
situations, encounters with pain and
happiness, and how to overcome challenges.
'
Her music, she said, is like listening
to a "dialogue between your head and
your heart. Your head tells you how
things really are, where you should be
focusing, what is really important; and
your heart tells you it is sad, it wishes
it could have the impossible, it has
dreams that are broken, it wants_"
She describes her sound as jazzy but
also mixes other genres, including pop,
folk, rock and soul.
"Music is about being able to experience
with different sounds, and I love
being able to mix it up," she said.
For the past year and a half, Brown
has been working as a duo with guitarist
Amos Clifford.
"It was great performing alone, but
as a duo, you have a different energy,
and playing with someone who is technically
savvy, I am able to concentrate
on being creative with my writing,"
she said.
Brown discovered a love of performing
through drama classes and musicals
during her high school and college
years. Her passion for songwriting was
awakened when she picked up her
father's guitar, she said, and felt the
desire to express herself through
music.
That desire began turning into reality
when she took a guitar class at California
State University, Chico, where
she earned her bachelor's degree in
Spanish in 1994. She continued to train
and develop her musical skills in
church settings while performing in
choirs.
Although she has not completed an
album, she has a three-song EP available
at her Web site, www.karenjoybrown.
com, and plans to record a fulllength
album in the coming year.
"People were hounding me for songs
after performances and I did not have
. any thing to give them, so I recorded a
demo to hand out," she. said. "I was
very happy that they loved my music
and voice." .

Feature article/Interview

Chico songwriter and musician Karen Joy Brown has a stated purpose with her original songs: She wants to "speak to a certain emotion or life lesson" she has encountered and to share that experience with others through her music.

The main focus of my music is to observe, and then portray those observations with music and lyrics as beautifully and poignantly as possible. I try to show the lovely, simple and sometimes tragic things of life, and to honor people's attempt to survive or make something good out of their situations," said Brown.

The musician said she delivers this message with original "rock/pop/soul" music. "However, I could also move in an adult contemporary rock, and even folk, setting," she said.

Brown performs solo with an electric guitar. She eventually hopes to get a small band together (with bass guitar and drums) "so I can vary my solo performances with an ensemble." Although she likes the "simplicity" of performing alone, she said she misses "the energy and creative interaction" that occurs when she plays with other musicians.

"I have been performing in one way or another since I was a teen-ager," said Brown. She started singing in church choirs as a child, and later in musical theater as a teen. As a young adult, she concentrated on working with contemporary church worship bands.

When Brown was a senior in high school, she expanded her musical skills and learned to play the guitar. "I picked up my father's old guitar and started practicing a couple of chords that he taught me." Then, while attending Chico State University, she took one guitar class.

"Beyond that I've been expanding my musical capabilities through my own personal discipline," said Brown.

Brown went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree in Spanish in 1994 from Chico State. During the 1997-98 school year, she began teaching at Pleasant Valley High School. While she held this position, Brown continued to develop her musical ability by playing with a worship band.

Although the artist has garnered much of her musical experience working within church groups, she doesn't consider her music "overtly religious." But she said her songs "certainly do have a spiritual slant."

After some soul searching and with the encouragement of her husband Quinton, Brown gave up her job as a Spanish teacher in 2002 and began taking steps to turn her passion for music into a profession. She felt that her creativity "was being poured into school and I had nothing left for my relationships or music. I don't want to leave Spanish behind, so I still write songs in Spanish. I'm surprised to find that even when people don't know what I'm saying, they still like it."

Brown is now focusing on getting a Web site running by this fall (www.karenjoybrown.com), creating a press kit, recording a five- to six-song CD for release in Spring 2004 and booking more local and regional venues.

"I play only my original compositions and I think the combination of my two strongest points, songwriting and vocals, make an engaging show," said Brown.

Brown considers her song "Goodbye My Beautiful Ocean" her best work. The song "captures the emotion of the wonderful three days I spent at a beach house in Bodega Bay." When leaving, she said, "I was so filled with the peace and delight of the ocean that the lyrics (to the song) just arranged themselves in my notebook on the drive home." The song is on her demo CD.

Whatever composition Brown is currently working on tends to be her preferred song. "Different songs become my favorite depending on what I need to hear at a given moment," she said.

"After hearing my music I hope people ... are inspired to see life in a different way, and observe and enjoy simple pleasure. I hope the music and my voice get through to them in an unexpected way and leave them a little more alive then when they came," said Brown.