Announcing Heirloom, full-length album, comes February 2020

I am beyond excited to officially announce the name of my new album: HEIRLOOM. The first single is coming January 7, and the full album arrives February 29, 2020.

Photo by Heike Delmore, 2019. This photo will be the basis of the album’s cover art.

I first got the idea to name the album Heirloom when I was thinking about my electric guitar, which my father passed down to me, with the stipulation that it must remain in the family. In the act of giving it to me, he essentially created an heirloom. If Little Sway was my first foray into the realm of jazz and soul singers, the acquisition of my dad’s 1964 Fender Jaguar was what solidified the foundation of my current sound. It’s the guitar I used on every track on this album.

I also liked the name because it reminded me of Tapestry, the name of Carole King’s stunning, hit-stacked album from 1971. Both words mean something precious and multi-faceted, storied. And in the end, there are some parallels between Heirloom and Tapestry, particularly in instrumentation, with a strong rhythm section, and healthy doses of strings and horns throughout. (On past albums, I’ve had either strings or horns, so I’m pretty thrilled to have both this time.)

The title, to me, also represents the baroque jewel that this album has become. It was initially difficult to choose the first single because the first two thirds of the album are full of potential singles. The tail end has artistic and brave pieces that are some of the most creative and unusual recordings of my career.

I initially rejected this album title early on in production. I felt that calling it Heirloom was a pretentious thing to do - you can’t know that something is an heirloom at the outset; it takes generations of people to agree that this thing is worth holding onto. When I was applying for grants, I think I had been calling it Pearl - something that had the vibe of Heirloom, but not any less pretentious. I combed through all the lyrics on the album, looking for any little snippet that might represent the whole, but there was nothing that fit. For a while, I named it “Just Friends”, after one of the songs on the album. But as the album came together, “Just Friends” was clearly not the strongest song. In the midst of scrapping a complete album art layout around a possible but ultimately unsuitable title “Respect” (the license plate of the car I’d posed with), I came back to Heirloom.

I still hear that little voice in the back of my mind, that this name is ostentatious, but I think it’s also auspicious. You have to know the thing you want, in order to manifest it. I’d love for this album to endure, the way heirlooms do, and in my heart, this album has become something very special and precious to me. And, like the guitar, I feel as though my gift for music was passed down to me by my father, and I hope I can pass it on to my daughter, too. It feels like the right word for this stage in my life, shifting from child to parent, being the link between generations.

So, the first single is coming January 7! It feels so surreal to have new music lined up for distribution. I haven’t put anything out in years. Oh my goodness, it’s so strange to put things out into the digital world, while the physical world around you remains unchanged. It feels like there’s a new little light on this day, an extra vibration in the air.