Amy Winehouse, Chrisette Michele and Martina McBride...Hot Music!

I'm really feeling Amy Winehouse, Chrisette Michele and Martina McBride. I believe the music industry is turning out better artists and music and getting away from "cookie cutter" throw-away music. Amy Winehouse in spite of her personal problems and sometimes outlandish public displays is a true artist with impeccable skill for musical storytelling. I love most of all the songs on her second album Back To Black, especially, "Just Friends." Hopefully, she'll get it together and not waste her incredible talent, Amy go to the light!



Chrisette Michele is really regal and her debut album is creating a serious buzz with I Am and this is encouraging for real artists trying to get signed. Her style is a collective body of various influences from Ella Fitzgerald to Bossa Novas to Aretha Franklin. Chrisette was discovered by India Arie while singing at the Village Underground in New York and asked her to be her opening act. She's a very good songwriter and her vocal phasing is on point, coming from a young woman, 24 years old, embodied in an old soul. Some of her favorite contempory artists are Beyonce, Kanye West and Nas. Thank God she's on the scene, representing for "music majors" and artists who really take the time to hone their craft, instead of the over consumption of making hits versus making music. With record sales down again, massive industry lay-offs, the music listening public ain't buying it, so the answer is to deliver "must-have" music, classic joints that will be music to our ears for years to come!



Martina McBride, a proven hit making, Grammy Award winning artist delivers once again with her Waking Up Laughing CD. I play over and over again the song "Anyway" as a philosophy for getting through the grind because stuff happens. Life is just that life, with all its ups and downs, twists and turns and it helps to have music that inspires. Country music is selling off-the-charts because of its ability to continue to tell and share relatable stories with live instrumentation while making hits records. A simple formula that still works, our great departure to engineered studio artists should never dominate because the public will eventually get wise and not buy it!

Music has always been a refuge and an awesome entertainment component, so here's to new and familiar artists being exactly that artists!