Recent Press - New Live review - Tuesday, September 12, 2006

September 12th 2006 @ Hotel Cafe, Los Angeles
from Desert Highway Magazine

You can tell a lot about an artist by watching the reaction of their audience. I often sit so that I can watch both artist and audience in the dance that is a live performance. It is the pinnacle of music in my opinion, maybe even the pinnacle of art in our age; and there is nothing more pure in music than a songwriter on stage alone with her guitar and her words. It didn’t take long, sitting there in Hollywood's Hotel Cafe, a great venue for singer-songwriters, to realize that Jackie Bristow was special.

What is that IT quality that a singer has and how does one describe IT? In my role I think about that question often but, just as with the other members of the audience that Tuesday evening, I am engrossed with the first tickles of the guitar strings, the first sensuous swayings across the solitary stage, rocking the guitar like a wounded friend, eyes closed and leaning in to the microphone.

And for forty-five minutes we are treated to well-written and beautifully written odes of love, of sadness, lamenting the mistakes that seem inevitable, and the hope that comes with the sunrise, the harvest moon, the eager greeting of a puppy. Bristow brings to the stage a soulful voice accompanied by an acoustic guitar with pop accessibilities and folk sensibilities. She offers rooted music that is fresh and modern and uniquely her own.

A good songwriter is a good storyteller, but not of her own stories. With Bristow’s music we are not voyeurs so much as we are opened up to our own lives, our own beautiful sadness, our unyielding hope. A songwriter opens up her own life to allow us to experience our own more fully. We don’t need to hear or remember the lyrics so much as we need to feel and remember how we felt when we first heard them. I look around at the audience during the performance wondering where Bristow has taken them, and I cannot help myself from going along.

Bristow’s performance is warm, the lyrics are real, the voice hypnotic, and the guitar-playing is exquisite. As with all of her predecessors from Patsy Cline to Robert Johnson, she reminds us of the tragedies of life, but holds out for those sometimes moments that make all of the difference. Listening her music, I admit, is one of those sometimes moments.

Bristow is celebrating the release of her CD “Crazy Love.” Check back for updates on the CD’s release. In the mean time, listen out for the title single on Desert Highway Radio.


Michael Fallow, Southland Times, New Zealand
Who's to say you can'’t have girlish pop with integrity and depth.

Melbourne Star, Album Review, Album of the Week
THIRSTY is a collection of really strong songs that have been beautifully
Jackie Bristow …Jackie Bristow is a fantastic talent.

M People Magazine, New Zealand, Live Review by Chunn
She captivated the audience like only the truly talented can: Musically, lyrically and, unquestionably, in delivery.

posted by Craving Records @5:09 AM 23 comments