Category: News
0 Follow the “Book of Jude” Podcast (New Episodes Availabe Every Thursday)
Book of Jude is a series of discussions between me and my daughter, 26 year old singer, songwriter – Ray Duncan, about the songs, stories, thoughts and experiences from my many years in the music business. We start from the beginning, growing up in Maine, playing in a top forty band, meeting Clarence Clemons on a plane, spending time in NYC and New Jersey under his wing, attending the famous No Nukes concerts at Madison Square Garden, watching Bruce Springsteen record “The River”, and then moving to Los Angeles in 1979. From there we delve into making demos, playing clubs, singing backup vocals, signing my first publishing deal, and getting my first songs covered by well known artists. Ray asks me questions about how each of those early experiences educated and shaped me. We also touch on some of the mistakes I made and how to avoid them. We discuss my choice to eventually leave LA for the Central Coast of CA to raise a family, while releasing 8 albums, touring Europe, opening shows for some of my heroes and finally moving to Nashville, Tennessee in 2015.
0 One Song, Seven Questions
Jude answers 7 questions about her song, “Unchained”, which was recorded by Johnny Cash as the title track on his 1996 album.
“He was actually listening to my demo of it when he recorded it, which was a much more raucous, gospel version like the one on my debut CD, “Coming Of Age.” He just heard it like a hymn in his own head. And sung it that way.” – Jude Johnstone
Read the entire interview here.
0 Northern Spirit Radio Interview
Jude was interviewed on Northern Spirit Radio recently. You can listen to it here if you missed it: Songs for All the Best: Jude Johnstone
0 Fatea Magazine Reviews Living Room
“Living Room” is a slow paced but never lazy album that deserves a deep listen. With Johnstone at the lead, this is a truly collaborative work that involves some of the finest American musicians, session musicians, and songwriters – John Reed (read the full review here)
0 No Depression Magazine Includes Living Room on “The Grace of Good Albums in 2019” List
“Johnstone dwells in a sonically spacious universe within her living room in these spare, affecting songs that move us and stir our souls.” – Henry Carrigan, nodepression.com
0 Jude’s Interview and Performance on Martin Kelner’s UK’s Talk Radio Show
Listen to Jude's recent interview and performance on the Martin Kelner's talk radio show.
0 Folking.com Review of Living Room
“As I noted in my review of her previous album, Johnstone is better known as a songwriter than a performer in her own right, her work having been covered by many of Americana’s great and good. As such, Living Room, often stripped to basics with minimal arrangements (the sleeve is just a black and white photo of her and a piano), might be seen more as demos for potential covers by artists looking to add some extra class to their albums than a spotlight for Johnstone herself, but that would be to overlook the quality she brings to her own material.” – Mike Davies, Folking.com (Read the full review here.)
0 Lonesome Highway Review of Rathfriland Show
“There is quite a lot of self-reflection and deep contemplation in Jude’s songs and the ability to go below the surface is something that has always provided her admirers with the solace that she acts as a lightning rod for many of the personal highs and hurts that they experience in their own lives. Some find her songs too couched in melancholy but that can be viewed as a positive in that it is an aesthetic emotion. It is not somehow debilitating, like sorrow, despair or depression, but includes wistful feelings of yearning and memories of the past, that can bring much pleasure and sweet nostalgia for what we have loved and lost. There is also a longing in her words and a hope for a better tomorrow so that a message of optimism is always there too.” – Paul McGee, Lonesome Highway
Read the full review here
0 Rootstime’s Review of Living Room
“The American singer Jude Johnstone was for a long time only known as a supplier of songs for other artists. For example, Trisha Yearwood, Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt, Mary Black and Bette Midler recorded her songs. Only in 2002 did she decide to take her own chance as a solo artist by releasing her debut album “Coming Of Age”. That became a big windfall and soon a series of other solo albums followed, including “On A Good Day” in 2006, Blue Light” in 2007, Mr. Sun”, 2008, Quiet Girl” in 2011, “Shatter” in 2013 and “A Woman’s Work” in 2017.
This year, Jude Johnstone, who lives in Nashville, Tennessee, released her eighth official solo album under the title “Living Room”. On that album are ten new, mostly fairly sober songs for which she has written almost all lyrics and music, but for which she has also invited some guest musicians for the instrumentation. We note the names of the regularly acclaimed Neilson Hubbard as co-composer of the song “My Heart Belongs To You” and Rob van Duuren also plays on pedal steel on three tracks: “That” s What You Don’t Know “, “All I Ever Do” and “One Good Reason” that you can listen to a live performance here.
Jude Johnstone herself plays the piano as an accompaniment instrument for her intimistic songs and she also has some songs sung by other vocalists living in Nashville. For example, Hunter Nelson sings the song “That’s What You Don’t Know”, singer-songwriter Ben Glover sings “Seasons Of Time” and Brandon Jesse takes care of the vocals for the beautiful song “Serenita”. With the song “So Easy To Forget” Jude Johnstone sings a duet with Tim Hockenberry who was only discovered at the age of 49 in the television show “America’s Got Talent”. He also provides great harmony vocals for the song “All I Ever Do”.
You can read in her biography that Jude Johnstone is actually a discovery of the late Clarence Clemons, the saxophonist of Bruce Springsteen’s “E-Street Band.” That this artist regularly compared to Norah Jones, Shawn Colvin and Rickie Lee Jones soon made her own way in the music world, she owes mainly to her great talent as a songwriter and to the beautiful solo albums she has recorded, including certainly also this new CD “Living Room”.
“Known as the songwriter for Emmylou Harris, Bonnie Raitt and Mary Black, etc., the Nashville based Jude Johnstone convinces once again on her new solo record “Living Room”, referring to the place where these newly penned songs were recorded. She was assisted by four male singers that provided lead vocals on a few songs, but the typical trademark of her great songwriting has remained 100% intact throughout the whole album.” – www.rootstime.be