Amee Chapman Music

With a voice that conveys both the brutal honesty of a changing California and the tender footed sweetness of its past, Amee Chapman maintains a meandering love affair with the roots of American music and with the oft times bitter realities of rural soul. Influenced by the likes of Lucinda Williams, Esther Phillips, and Jeff Tweedy, her singing, songwriting and guitar playing reflect the images of the average and eccentric: lonesome highway phone booths, sea faring whiskey rebels, city wise angeled outlaws and suicidal tattooed cowboys, all of them pent up together on a stretch of land between the past and the present. Amee has spent the years pedaling her musical wares in front of the audiences of Jolie Holland as well as Michelle Malone, Caroline Aiken, Sean Hayes, Nathan Moore and The White Buffalo. She was chosen as a finalist in the '98 Lilith Fair competition, in the '98 Sierra Songwriters Festival and as a showcase at the 2001 and 2003 Nashville New Music Conferences. Her band won a coveted SAMMIE Award in 2006 for Best Country/Bluegrass Band. Currently, Amee performs up and down the West Coast, at clubs in L.A. (Tangiers, Hotel Café), San Francisco (Café Du Nord, Starry Plough, Make Out Room, Hotel Utah) Sacramento (Blue Lamp, Fox and Goose, Marilyn's, Old Ironsides, Crest Theater) and on the Coast (Don Quixote's, Moe's Alley & Kuumbwa in Santa Cruz, as well as venues in SLO and Santa Barbara). Attracted to the aliveness of vinyl and analog, Amee chose to record her 3rd release, Still Life, which was released late October 2004, with producer and engineer Desmond Shea (Tom Waits, Court and Spark, Virgil Shaw) of San Francisco. Collaborating with co-writer Nichole Robbins, the album is a collection of stories, of people met and conversations overheard, of melancholy and tenderness. The album features backing vocals by Jolie Holland and is supported by the San Francisco All Star band of John Hofer (Mother Hips, Persephonees Bees), Marc Capelle (American Music Club, Virgil Shaw), Rob Douglas (Chuck Prophet), Tony Mattioli (Stolen Bibles) and Jeffrey Luck Lucas (Galveston). Amee is currently finishing her 4th release, Grace is Hell to Keep, with producer and musician Alan Evans (Soulive). Sagebrush Soul