BILL ISLES: Weightless - buy MP3s Here!!

Bill Isles

Weightless - buy MP3s Here!!

© 2001 Bill Isles (808105003229) (format: CD-R)

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An award-winning Minnesota songwriter whose poetic lyrics and americana styles have listeners playing the CD over and over.

tracks

1 That's How She Seems
2 Photo Mosaic
3 I Can't Take You Home (Duet with Becky Schlegel)
4 Go Ahead and Cry
5 Weightless
6 Wake Up!
7 Cowbird (Featuring Annie Enneking)
8 That's When I'll Whisper (Duet with Jessica Lind)
9 Through Her Window
10 Till The Morning Comes Again
11 Where Does the Ice Go?

notes

Bill Isles performed his first show of original songs in twenty-five years in February of 2000. Since that time, he has become one of the most well known singer/songwriters in the Minnesota acoustic scene and has begun to get national and international attention. His first UK tour was in March of 2003.
His songs are poetic reflections of life experiences and often explore adventurous spiritual courses. Admittedly a romantic, many of his lyrics describe emotional and sensual encounters. At the same time, just when you conclude that a song is about Michelangelo's first visit to scope out the project at the Sistine Chapel, you start to realize that, perhaps, this is also an artist's perception of entering the "chapel" of his/her audience. But then, again, it also hints at the intimate interaction of lovers. It is this multi-layering that has drawn fans to listen over and over again.
His love of life has strong roots in his childhood, but his urgency to tell these stories comes from an experience in 1993 when, with just enough warning to drive himself to the hospital, his heart stopped beating. He arrived with just ten minutes to spare. After being defibrillated, and before the doctors had time to detect and open a blocked artery in his heart, he made a commitment to himself that, if he survived, he would begin to write again. Those paddles restarted more than his heart...
Highlights ...
2001 - Winner of the 2001 Minnesota Folk Festival New Folk Songwriting Contest
2002 - Nominee for the 2002 Minnesota Music Awards Song of the Year for "I Can't Take You Home" a duet with Becky Schlegel (From "Weightless" 2001)
2003 - Nominee for the 2003 Minnesota Music Awards Acoustic/Folk Recording of the Year for "The Threshold" (June, 2003)
2004 - Semi-Finalist in Budweiser True Music Band Contest. The only solo act in an original field of 25 bands.
2004 - Finalist in the KRCL (Salt Lake City, UT) songwriting contest.
2004 - Song "Big Girl Now" placed on national compilation CD "Before Their Time"
2004 - Juried Showcase Artist, Northeast Regional Folk Alliance Conference, Catskills, NY
He has shared the stage with the likes of Buddy Mondlock and Carol Elliott, David Francey, Pete Morton, John Gorka, Lucy Kaplansky, Lynn Miles, Vance Gilbert, Christine Lavin, Rod Picott and Stacey Earle and Mark Stuart.

His first studio album, "Weightless", was released in December, 2001. His second, "The Threshold" was released in June, 2003. His third release, "The Calling" was released November 2nd, 2004. The album includes the song, "Hobos in the Roundhouse", which tells the first person account of his grandfather, who, when working as a railroad roundhouse mechanic on Minnesota's Iron Range, risked his job by letting hobos sleep indoors when he was on the midnight shift. "The Shores of My Hometown" was released October 23rd, 2006. It features Canadian master fiddler April Verch and is Isles' first completely self-produced, engineered and mixed album.

reviews

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  • Review of live performance and CD
    author: City's Tone - David Keiski

    Isles' use of word pictures and metaphors separates his work from the others in more ways than one. He is a more seasoned craftsman that has put a lot of work into the task of songwriting, and it's easy to tell that Isles takes a lot of time, is serious and diligent about his subjects. He is a thoughtful and creative storyteller, mixing interesting images into what is the perfect introduction to the other songwriters, and to our table, this song, Photo Mosaic...  I imagine Bill Isles doing very well in Nashville, and at bluegrass and folk festivals... he has the craft of songwriting down... The musical feeling of (his) CD is warm like Isles' voice... there are moments of brilliance...

  • On this stellar debut album, Isles offers eleven lighter-than-air recordings.
    author: Northland Reader - Todd Newton

    On the stellar debut effort Weightless (2001), Duluth, MN-based sinter/songwriter Bill Isles (winner of the 2001 Minnesota Folk Festival New Folk songwriting contest) offers a blissful and inspired collection of lighter-than-air recordings. Beginning with the mandolin, organ and fiddle-fueled That's How She Seems, the combination of soothing lead vocal and lilting pace seamlessly blends with an ear-pleasing harmony vocal (courtesy of Jessica Lind), resulting in a highly infectious composition worthy of repeat listening. Continuing with the truly beautiful I Can't Take You Home and the spell-binding That's When I'll Whisper, vocalists Becky Schlegel and Lind provide a dynamic and soulful accompaniment to the windswept arrangements and though-provoking story-lines... A breathtaking array of emotions...

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