Rachel Stevens | tl

Beautiful, but not brazen. Passionate, but never preachy. Populist, but definitely not prosaic. New York City singer-songwriter, pianist and beatboxer Rachel Platten is by no means your average headliner-in-the-making. Her Rock Ridge Music debut, Be Here, is a bewitching collection of 10 wise-beyond-their-years piano-driven pop songs that echo elements of Alanis Morissette, Carole King, Tori Amos and Regina Spektor, while retaining a singular sense of self that is rarely found in such a young performer. Be Here was born over the course of an epic trans-Atlantic journey that took the singer-songwriter from London to Los Angeles, on to Stockholm and...

Yusuf Islam (born Steven Demetre Georgiou; 21 July 1948), commonly known by his former stage name Cat Stevens, is a British singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, humanitarian and education philanthropist. He is a prominent convert to Islam. Stevens' albums Tea for the Tillerman (1970) and Teaser and the Firecat (1971) were both certified triple platinum in the US by the RIAA. His 1972 album Catch Bull at Four sold half a million copies in the first two weeks of release alone and was Billboard's number-one LP for three consecutive weeks. He also earned two ASCAP songwriting awards in consecutive years for "The First...

April Stevens (born Carol LoTempio on April 29, 1936 in Niagara Falls, New York) is an American singer. Though she has been recording since she was 16, and had a few chart successes with Henri Rene's orchestra in the early 1950s, she is perhaps best known for her 1963 duet "Deep Purple" with her brother Antonino LoTempio (singing under the stage name Nino Tempo) that went to No.1 on the Billboard charts. The song won the 1964 Grammy Award for Best Rock and Roll Recording. Subsequent recordings were much better received in Europe and Great Britain than in America, although...

Sufjan Stevens (pronounced "SOOF-yahn"; born July 1, 1975) is an American musician, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist from Petoskey, Michigan. He is known for his lyrically focused and instrumentally rich songs that often relate to faith and family. He has enjoyed wide critical success in the United States. He is considered part of the folk revival through indie pop, but his influences are very broad, including experimental electronic music, the jazz of Vince Guaraldi, and the academic minimalism of Steve Reich and Philip Glass. Though Stevens had announced plans to make an album for each of the 50 U.S. states, beginning the...