TYWANNA JO BASKETTE READIES DEBUT ALBUM, FANCY BLUE, ON SWEET TEA RECORDS THROUGH TERMINUS RECORDS

Compared with Outsider Songwriters Like Vic Chesnutt, Daniel Johnston, Nick Drake, Syd Barrett, Captain Beefheart, Skip Spence and Lambchop

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 14, 2003

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (PRWEB) -- Tywanna Jo Baskette, cited by the Nashville Scene for "the plaintive beauty of her voice and the unsettling directness of her writing," has signed to Sweet Tea Records, a new Oxford, Miss.-based label imprint distributed by Terminus Records through Ryko Distribution. Her debut album, Fancy Blue, is set for August 12 street date.

Born and raised in Nashville, Tywanna Jo Baskette has always been writing songs.    "Pass-alongs" she calls them, improvised tunes that seem to roll from her brain effortlessly, as if shes channeling the songs of her ghosts around her. But it was not until 1998 that she began capturing these songs a capella with a micro-cassette. She then began taking her songs to a friend, a musician who lent accompaniment to her voice on tape in his 8-track home studio. These collaborations yielded the home-dubbed tape that Tywanna started circulating around Nashville and beyond, eventually leading to a record deal with producer Dennis Herrings Sweet Tea Records.

Fancy Blue is Tywannas first studio collaboration with Mississippi producer/musician Clay Jones. It was engineered by Ted Gainey and Clay Jones at Sweet Tea Studio in Oxford and mixed by Clay Jones, Dennis Herring and Ted Gainey.

A close friend of Tywanna calls her songs "lullabies for adults." This effectively describes her lyrical style and her intuitive and beautiful musicality, which is at once child-like and complex. She has a gift for graceful rubato and a refreshing sense of melody that is inhabited by the ghosts of her musical past -- a strange collection, from the classical melodies of her ballet classes, to the traditional country music of her Nashville surroundings, to the popular music of her childhood (Walt Disney soundtracks, Dean Martin records, Bread songs on the radio.)

Tys rare gift, her unfettered originality and her self-taught neglect of convention, shares a beautiful kinship with the great outsider songwriters: Vic Chesnutt, Daniel Johnston, Nick Drake, Lambchop, Syd Barrett, Captain Beefheart, and Skip Spence. Its hard to say she sounds like anyone. She is the only one like her. Her stories are true, and she sings them all with the conviction and naked emotion of a tragically beautiful aria.

According to label owner Dennis Herring, "From the first listen, Tys music has worked some kinda magic spell on me. Its not just SO sad, and SO beautiful -- its innocently HONEST."

Fancy Blue contains 19 beautiful songs of happiness and misery from the Southern gothic world of Tywanna Jo Baskette.

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For media information on Tywanna Jo Baskette, please contact The Baker/Northrop Media Group:
Cary Baker (818) 986-5200 x 222 cary@bakernorthrop.com
Monica DAscanio (818) 986-5200 x 223 monica@bakernorthrop.com

http://www.terminusrecords.com
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