Cyndi Harvell was picked from a Georgia peach tree on the day after Christmas in 1980. She began her musical ventures at the age of 6, recording musicals for her Barbie dolls on her cassette recorder. She was writing poetry at 13, dreaming of starting an all-girl rock band at 15, teaching herself guitar at 17, and starting a "real" 1 girl, 4 boy folk-rock band in Athens, Georgia at 20.
In between study sessions at UGA, Cyndi was taking part in the bustling music scene, playing all over town...
Cyndi Harvell was picked from a Georgia peach tree on the day after Christmas in 1980. She began her musical ventures at the age of 6, recording musicals for her Barbie dolls on her cassette recorder. She was writing poetry at 13, dreaming of starting an all-girl rock band at 15, teaching herself guitar at 17, and starting a "real" 1 girl, 4 boy folk-rock band in Athens, Georgia at 20.
In between study sessions at UGA, Cyndi was taking part in the bustling music scene, playing all over town and building up enough of a following and repertoire that she felt her music career was worth pursuing on a larger scale. So she quit her job, sold her stuff, and headed west in a blue minivan, guitar and boyfriend in tow.
Fast forward a year and Cyndi's pure, natural voice and hook-filled songs had attracted a couple of talented local musicians (Mike Stevens and John Howland) and the newly formed trio started gigging seriously in the Bay Area. And then fate intervened. The group was hand-picked by a rep from Emeryville recording school Ex'pression College to be the guinea pig band in a master class taught by legendary producer Jack Douglas (John Lennon, Patti Smith, Aerosmith).
Jack was wowed by what he heard from the trio and introduced them to local producer Jim Greer (Galactic, Handsome Boy Modeling School, Rondo Brothers). Jim not only agreed to produce the album under Jack's direction but signed them to his long-standing Berkeley indie label, Fortune Records.
In early 2008, Jim, Cyndi, and the band headed to a private studio in beautiful Caspar, CA -- where such greats as Shelby Lynne, Tom Petty, Rusted Root, Five For Fighting had recently recorded -- to make an extraordinary album of their own. Caspar resident and Shelby Lynne / Sheryl Crow guitar player Roger Fritz contributed mandolin and guitar to several tracks. The resulting record is a captivating set of songs that captured the purity and magic of the experience.
So what does it sound like? Hard to describe in words alone. It's organic. It's take-off-your-shoes, close your eyes and listen. It's folk-rock, salt and peppered with southern poetry. It's feeling and story, truth and simplicity.
It sounds like what we've all been waiting for.
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