SALLY-ANNE FINDS ‘MY PLACE IN THE WORLD’ Latest single, ‘My Place In The World’ from Sally-Anne Whitten was written by the Tamworth local herself and close friend Allison Forbes. This is a lyrical tale about a musician’s constant struggle between sustaining a "real life" and chasing a career. This career can sometimes seem like a fruitless task, while friends are off playing house with babies, husbands and mortgages, musicians spend every cent on recording, touring and promoting, all in the hope of carving out a name for themselves as an artist.

Sally-Anne philosophises, “The moral to the story is of course, that even though I struggle with it, music is the only true place where I feel like I really belong in the world. So whether I achieve a chart hit or not, it's something in my blood that I have to do. It's a family love for music that's been passed down through the generations. Performing, writing and recording is where I am meant to be... my place in the world”.

When the self-confessed ‘Funky Country’ (a blend of country, rock and blues) artist speaks of ‘a family love’ she’s talking about her dad, Barry Whitten – a guitarist/piano/bass player who taught a young Sally-Anne most of what she knows about music today. As a teenager, he taught her to read and write music and she honed her skills as a backing player - funnily enough as a bass player! From the age of 15 Sally-Anne worked in bands as a session player alongside her dad.

‘My Place In The World’ the second single from “Sell My Soul”, Sally-Anne’s second album release will also have an accompanying video clip released soon. The clip was produced by 171 Entertainment’s Ross Wood who recently produced clips by The Sunny Cowgirls (‘Green And Gold’), Luke O’Shea and Dianna Corcoran (‘New England Sky’) and worked on previous Sally-Anne clips too.

The clip was filmed at the Caipora Alpaca's property in Duri, 20 minutes outside of Tamworth – the property and beautiful sandstone home of Sally-Anne’s cousin Diane. The songstress felt at home filming at this location, where the home was built by Diane’s stonemason husband Phil and the walls are adorned with pictures and memories of the extended family. Plus on the day of the filming a baby alpaca was born, no doubt a good sign of things to come!

Stay tuned for the Video release :)

A little bit different and a little bit edgy that’s Jess Holland and she is sure to set your strings on fire! A graduate from the CMAA Country Music College in Tamworth Jess is a singer-songwriter with a great future. Her musical abilities have also been recognized and mentored by respected musicians such as Lynn Bowtell, Mike McClellan and Lawrie Minson. Mike McClelland has described her singing as ‘a voice that could peel the paint off walls’.

Growing up with a musical family, it was natural for her to follow in the family tradition of country music - her grandfather was a founding member of well-known bush group The Stringybark Band. A young Jess was attracted to the piano and taught herself to play to when she was just three years old. At the age of nine she was already performing on stage with other artists in her home town of Mudgee.

Jess spent much of 2012 touring and performing, building up a strong fan base on the back of songs such as Iddy Biddy Pride and My Kinda Town. As well as big venues in big towns, she’s played everywhere, in true country fashion, from Irish McGann’s Pub in Roma to the Nindigully Pig Races.

With a drive and determination to succeed, 2013 is shaping up to be another massive year for Jess Holland. She has had a successful start to the year by being announced as a Finalist in the 2013 Toyota Star Maker Competition (Jess was also a finalist in 2011). The release of her third single is scheduled for April and will be followed up by a Queensland Tour in June/July.

Holland is currently writing for her next album, to be released by the end of the year.

[video]http://youtu.be/BvWRhjCMT_g[/video]

Website: www.jessholland.com.au

Email: [EMAIL=This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.]This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.[/EMAIL]

The new single Kids Forever from Australian country favourites The Sunny Cowgirls is quintessentially what the down-to-earth sisters are all about. The girls picked Kids Forever as the second single from their latest album, What We Do, specifically to showcase their ‘fun’ side.

The track was penned by one-half of The Sunny Cowgirls, Sophie Clabburn, and inspired by her last Christmas at home with her family (including fellow Sunny, Celeste). “There are three kids in our family,” says Sophie. “Although we are all definitely far from being ‘kids’, we certainly don’t act like it. On Christmas morning we still sit under the tree in our pyjamas and thank Santa for our pressies. Mum and Dad are forced to play along. We certainly don’t feel our age, and as a result, don’t act it. I think most people are in the same boat and that’s why I wrote the song. Age is just a number and there is no rush to grow up. If we all acted like grown-ups, all of the time, the world would be a very boring place. Kids don’t take themselves too seriously, unlike a lot of adults. They don’t care about what other people think. They live in the moment and just have fun with it. We all have our problems, but sometimes I think a lot of us could learn a thing or two from these little people!”

As the second single from their fifth album, Kids Forever has a lot to live up to, and if early feedback is anything to go by, it’s certainly heading in the right direction. The first single from the album Green & Gold was released last year to acclaim. Trying to pick a follow-up to this was always going to be a difficult decision, but Kids Forever is one of those songs that fans are loving, especially at the live shows. “Choosing a second single is always a bit tricky and is somewhat crucial to correctly portraying what kind of record you have made,” says Sophie. “The first single Green & Gold showed our more serious side, lyrically showcasing our love for Australia. We wanted the second single to expose our ‘fun’ side, so we chose something a bit different. Kids Forever has always been a great sounding track – from the first time the musicians belted it out in the studio, we knew we had something special. We think most people will relate to this one.”

The album itself is full of stellar tracks. When it was released in January this year, just in time for the annual Tamworth Country Music Festival, it debuted at #1 on the ARIA Australian Artist Country Music Chart. Tamworth marked the start of the girls’ What We Do national tour, which will see them travelling to regional outposts around Australia to share their music. Post-Tamworth, the girls headed to Sydney to film the clip for Kids Forever. The clip is an exact representation of the song, fun, carefree and full of laughs. The clip features a massive paint fight between the two sisters, and Sophie admits it was as fun as it looks!

“It was a very eventful day making this clip,” Sophie says. “We wanted it to have a real ‘child-like’ feel about it – something that’s fun for everyone. What better way to do that than to splash paint all over each other?! We started off in a white studio, white clothes and clean faces, which ended up the complete opposite by the end of the day! I think I still have paint under my nails! Initially we were both pretty excited about having a paint fight. However, we only had one shot of getting it right, because once the paint was thrown; there was no undoing, so the pressure was on. Turned out, we were naturals! Splashing paint all over your sister is a pretty easy thing to do. It was a very funny day, lots of laughs. We honestly did carry on like six-year-olds, which is the whole point of the song, so I think we did a good job!”

AWARD WINNING SINGER-SONGWRITER LUKE O’SHEA RELEASES NEW SINGLE SINGLE SAME SMALL TOWN

Same Small Town, the new single from multi-award-winning country music artist Luke O’Shea, is a powerful and poignant song that seems set to further cement its creator’s reputation as one of the finest lyricists working in Australia today. Luke, whose chart-topping album, The Drover’s Wife, is winning plaudits around the country, recently scored two very significant awards at the this year’s Tamworth Country Music Festival. The title track from The Drover’s Wife earned him the prestigious Golden Guitar award for Heritage Track of the Year. Even more importantly, however, the same song earned him the coveted Golden Gumleaf award – a gong up until this year awarded exclusively to spoken-word bush poets.

Yet if the word ‘heritage’ carries with it connotations of history and a certain old fashioned style, Same Small Town will dispel any doubts that Luke O’Shea is a man who spends his time looking backwards. The song is a touching and wry confessional piece about a country-born man who moves to the city and then accidentally runs into his ex-girlfriend. Their meeting is awkward, igniting memories, questions and, ultimately, sadness. They promise to meet up again, but both know in their hearts that they will never do so. Same Small Town is a sharply observed take on a very modern case of happenstance in urban life. And, what’s more, it’s a true yarn.

“We’re always forming relationships with people,” says Luke. “Some work and some don’t. I think all songs are biographical in some ways, and this one is definitely from the vault of my experience. I did bump into an old girlfriend of 20 years ago a while back. I haven’t seen her again since, and, no, she doesn’t know she was part of the inspiration for this song. I’m a married man – there’s no other woman in my life.”

The real life incident, however, was only one element that Luke considered when writing Same Small Town. The other is a little unexpected. “There’s a song by American singer Harry Chapin called ‘Taxi Driver’,” he says. “It’s about a guy driving a taxi and his ex gets in the back seat. There are a lot of thoughts and questions about what was and what might have been, but in the end he drops her off and she just leaves him with a big tip. ‘Harry, keep the change.’”

The reference to Chapin is indicative of the wide range of musical forms that ultimately influence Luke O’Shea’s work. “I’m basically an Aussie male who grew up in the Aussie pub rock scene, with my music exposure influenced by my father’s and mother’s country collection,” he says. “I grew up with Creedence Clearwater Revival, Simon and Garfunkel, George Jones and Johnny Cash. I found my own sound among diverse genres. My home turned out to be in the country singer-songwriter field.”

Luke’s home, also, once, was in a small town somewhere. He declines to identify it in the lyrics of Same Small Town because, he says, in a sense it doesn’t matter. “When you’re growing up as a kid, everywhere is a very small town,” he says. “It could be suburban Sydney, or Gunnedah, or Narrabri - it could be anywhere. In that sense, we all grow up in the same small town.”

The Drovers Wife was released in January at the 40^th Tamworth Country Music Festival through WJO Distribution. The new single Same Small Town is at radio now.

For more information please visit www.lukeoshea.com