Ellis Creative: PR/Marketing/Project Mgmt: Gretchen Peters

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Biography

Burnt Toast & Offerings
Street Date: August 7, 2007

Since she released her last record, Gretchen Peters, a Nashville hit songwriter with a seemingly charmed and easy life has been through the wringer.

"A midlife epiphany" is perhaps a better description of what Peters had one day in 2004 on a tour bus somewhere in the U.K., where she's enjoyed a thriving, decade-long career as a performer on top of her American songwriting success. It was a realization that she needed to take control of her own life, and it would turn her world upside-down and inside-out before culminating in Burnt Toast & Offerings, a deeply personal coming-to-terms record that both reveals and transcends the specifics.

It's not like the best-selling, Grammy-nominated songwriter needs drama in her life to write a song that rings true. Peters hadn't personally lived through domestic violence when she gave life to "Independence Day," one of the most powerful and empowering women's anthems ever recorded by a country artist (Martina McBride). Nor did she really know "The Secret of Life" when she took a stab at it in that feel-good Faith Hill hit. And she's certainly never been a circus girl or a Brooklyn cabbie, just a couple of the more memorable characters from her own previous four albums--songs from which, along with others she's written over the past 20 years, have been recorded by artists as diverse as Etta James, the Neville Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Diamond and Bryan Adams as well as country queens Trisha Yearwood and Patty Loveless.

So she didn't need drama, but drama is what she got when she divorced her husband—and manager and booking agent and producer—of 23 years.

"Professionally, I was looking at, essentially, abandonment. You can be this empowered woman, and write these empowered-woman songs, but there were a lot of times, after leaving, I could not believe how scared I felt. There was a huge wall I had to get over in terms of thinking, OK you can do this."

As always, Peters went to "the well," as she calls it. That place deep inside her where she accesses the emotions that allows her to create. But this time, that place was scarier. "Often what feels like the scariest thing is the right thing," she said. "For me, that was getting more personal."

Burnt Toast & Offerings kicks off with the frustration and anger of "Ghost": "There was a girl who used to live here…. / But you let her beauty go unnoticed/ You let her music go unheard/ You should have listened when she told you/ You should have hung on every word." And it ends with the painful reality of making a change in "To Say Goodbye": "We are dreamers slowly waking/ We are shooting stars across a midnight sky/ We are strangers in the making/ But we're not ready to say goodbye."

On the tracks in between, though, Peters not only says goodbye to her old life, she says hello to a new love, a band mate of 16 years, and to a relationship that inspired what "might be the first flat-out, unrepentantly guileless love song I've ever written." ("The Way You Move Me")

A self-described folkie and hippie chick despite her mainstream country creds, Peters co-produced the record with Doug Lancio, whose work with Patty Griffin (1000 Kisses) she admired, and whose atmospheric guitar playing and intuitive production helped her achieve the layered, mysterious, feminine sound she was looking for. Her enchanting voice is perhaps the only crystal-clear part of a record that's a bit murky by design, a complex, multi-hued sound that befits the lyrics of a woman who knows that life isn't simple and it isn't black and white.

For years, she said, "I wasn't ready to take control and say it's my life, my career. It took a huge upheaval for me to come to grips with the fact that I wanted to design my own life."

Part of her master plan now is performing more often. The problem with being a successful songwriter, Peters said, is that you don't have to tour, and in fact are discouraged from the less lucrative job of playing live in small clubs. "But going out and playing is a critical part of writing a song for me, to have it live and breathe. It's almost like they're not really done being written until you've lived in them for a while.

"There's a spiritual aspect to performing," she continued. "It's the only time you're completely in the moment. Writing is very cerebral; in the studio there are lots of choices you have to make; but when you perform, it's the only Zen moment. For me that's hugely important."

Nowadays when she performs these songs, she can even joke about it all, telling her audience, "This is my divorce album, and as such there are a lot of really happy songs on it."

But of course it wasn't always that easy. At first she asked herself, how am I going to write about this? How am I going to talk about it? "But I thought of other writers," she said, "like Joan Didion, and the book she just put out. How incredibly personal it was. She put her whole thing out there. And I thought, Yeah, that's what writers do. Showing your humanity is probably the bravest and best thing you can do artistically."

Burnt Toast & Offerings is proof of that.

- Taylor Holliday

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Quotes

Praise for Burnt Toast & Offerings:

"...a wondrous, wrenching personal reflection on love...Deep and deeply beautiful, Burnt Toast & Offerings is a fully realized work of art." - David McGee, BN.com

"This is Gretchen Peters' finest moment as a recording artist, and perhaps her finest as a song-lyric poet as well." - Thom Jurek, allmusic.com

"[Peters] documents her journey from unhappy wife to rapturous armorist." - Holly George Warren, More

"This album isn't about hits; it's about art. And by that measure it may be Peters' biggest success." - Steven Stone, Vintage Guitar

"Peters is not composing confessional tales as therapy. She's reflecting on the conflicting impulses of her life and writing pop songs. This leads to some real interesting observations that resonate on a number of levels. Beware—even the simple songs have hidden depths." - Steve Horowicz, Popmatters.com

"With rich, distanced sonics from co-producer Doug Lancio, it's far more adventurous than her four previous records, but works as a classically self-involved singer-songwriter statement." - Edd Hurt, Nashville Scene

...an album of middle-age regret, broken relationships and faded dreams wrapped in a classy production...bright, articulate and insightful, reflecting broadly on the withering of hope and expectation and its replacement with routine emotions. Peters's performance and that of her band impressively mixes the sassy and the subtle. - The Irish Times

Praise for Trio:

it is a major treat that one year on from Gretchen's third studio release, we have these songs stripped bare in concert interpretations, since Peters possesses an edgy singing voice that will break your heart as easily as her stories and lyrics. Trio would be a sort of greatest hits collection, except that to do Gretchen's song catalogue justice the reality would have been a multi-disc set. - Folkwax magazine

...her songwriting is better than 99% of writers working in this or any other genre. Not only that, but she has a serious voice too, one of those effortlessly pure instruments that clutches at your heart and guts and twists them out of shape. So, for those who’ve missed out so far "Trio" is the perfect place to begin. A live album, recorded with a pianist and bassist as accompanists, hence the title, it cherrypicks the best bits from her previous studio recordings and presents them in a stripped down form. Virtually without exception they work better in this style, as it allows concentration on Peters voice and superlative songs. - Americana-UK.com

..."Like Water Into Wine" is a carnal piece simmering with just the right amounts of hope and desperation. (Barry) Walsh and (Dave) Francis shade the song in all the right places and provide a soft place for Peters’ crystalline vocals to fall. The lump-in-the-throat "This Used To Be My Town," from last year’s Halcyon album, has Gretchen climbing into the skin of a departed girl who hovers over her lifeless body, the people, and the town that defined who she was when she was alive. The haunting track is one of the best songs Peters has ever written. - Countryreview.com

...some singers were born to perform and Gretchen Peters is definitely one of them. Trio, on which she and her guitar are sparsely supplemented by piano and acoustic bass, is a startling record - her voice arrestingly beautiful, her delivery perfect and the songs divine. - HMV magazine (UK)

...her songs are like micro-novels: they have settings, plots and are inhabited by utterly believable characters, such as the lonely performer in Circus Girl. Indeed, her evocation of a murdered girl's return to her home, This Used To Be My Town, brings to mind Alice Sebold's recent bestselling novel, The Lovely Bones. Peters brings almost as many heart-rending details and almost as profound a sense of lost promise as most writers could manage in a novel. - Country Music People (UK)

...this whole CD sees the incisive singer-songwriter at a peak of melodic, immaculately-crafted brilliance. Tracks such as the Patty Loveless hit Like Water Into Wine, the poignantly reflective Main Street and This Used To Be My Town are fine-cut gems of contemporary rootsy songcraft. - Maverick magazine (UK)

Praise for Halcyon:
...Like Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams and the great Emmylou Harris, Gretchen Peters is a precocious talent. The tag for her work is alternative country but with a voice as haunting and controlled as this, she could sing anything put in front of her. Halcyon is jam-packed with gorgeous musical moments, particularly the beautiful Aviator's Song and If Heaven. - Belfast (UK) Telegraph

...unlike the competition she regularly approaches the subject from an oblique angle lyrically and in the process draws you inexorably into her world. Halcyon is a solid contender in the "Best of 2004" stakes... - Folkwax Magazine

...No flowery prose, no false sentiment, no artificial anger or angst, just simple messages of life, love and loss wrapped up in elegant, organic arrangements. Peters has something of the same potent sincerity which makes Bruce Springsteen an enduringly fascinating songwriter...a masterly lesson in the art of effortless, fluid writing - with pared down arrangements and a lightness of touch that oozes confidence...more restrained then her previous outings, Halcyon still packs an emotional punch, with the bittersweet 'Imogene' and 'Tomorrow Morning', both as intelligent as we've come to expect from this introspective mistress of rootsy, lo-fi country...A brave and beautiful collection. - Manchester (UK) Online

...absolutely essential listening. - Shakenstir.co.uk

... In a word, superb. Gretchen is one of USA's best singer-songwriters, and this ranks as her finest moment. Refreshingly frank, even caustic. - Leicester (UK) Mercury

Praise for Gretchen Peters:

... If Peters' '96 debut, The Secret of Life, had the answers, her edgier follow-up poses the questions, mostly about how to navigate rough emotional terrain. Full of surprises - "Eddie's First Wife" has a randy lesbian at its center - Peters brings the pop sensibility of Sheryl Crow to meditations on Amelia Earhart and Picasso's cat. Easy to see why she's already captured the Brits. B+ - Entertainment Weekly

This is not jukebox music - the stuff that exists to fill in the pauses in conversation. This IS the conversation. - AP Wire

Rarely has a singer-songwriter had a better showcase than "Gretchen Peters," and she has mostly herself to thank for it. The lovely, leisurely paced album finds Peters co-producing; singing all the harmonies; and playing many of the instruments, including electric sitar and six-string bass. Peters displays a keen, off hand observational sense - she's a Sheryl Crow worth, well, crowing about - on the likes of "Love and Texaco" and the sly tale of "Eddie's First Wife," who takes up with someone just like the girl who married dear old dad. Even more remarkable, her singing is so winning, she manages to top even Patty Loveless' earlier version of her exquisite "Like Water Into Wine." - San Diego Tribune

...her own girlish Alice-In-Wonderland instrument provides an ideal guide for exploring her picturesque scenarios and exotic characters. There's no filler or empty cliches here. Peters' every line seems weighed and considered with a master jeweler's squinting precision, her best songs imbuing the sweat and confusion of everyday lives with the serenity of the blessed. - Music Row Magazine

...the genre hardly matters when you have such penetrating material. From the soulfully romantic "Like Water Into Wine" to the jazzy, provocative "Eddie's First Wife," Ms. Peters' musical vignettes explore life's gray areas with honest eloquence. - Dallas Morning News

...Peters' voice , sweet with a hint of weariness, is front and center, making the honesty of her words all the more sharp. These are unforgettable songs that deserve as much attention as the chart-toppers that Peters created for other artists. - Boulder (CO) Daily Camera

Praise for The Secret Of Life:

"offers 10 fresh reasons to elect her to the country songwriter's Hall of Fame."

"Peters, whose choir-girl voice has a seductive hint of late nights and cigarettes, knows the tunesmith's secret: crafting a good love song... The passionately elegiac When You Are Old is a declaration of eternal devotion: "When your brave tales have all been told/ I'll ask for them when you are old." In Peters' music every tale is brave, unique, beautiful." - Time Magazine

"If Peters never delivers another tune as achingly beautiful as "On a Bus to St. Cloud,"... she has already earned herself a spot among country's upper echelon of contemporary composers." - People Magazine

"she has more in common with the romantic sensibilities of Rickie Lee Jones... Peters' songs about emotional thirsts that never get quenched have a quiet power all their own..." - Entertainment Weekly

Praise for Gretchen’s live shows:

...a night of many stunning songs with strumming and fingerpicking acoustic guitar, backed by pianist Barry Walsh. As he played exquisite chords, and rhythmic and melodic embellishments, Peters took a sold-out house on a tour through the terrain of her musical imagination. ...Peters, who is a major Nashville tunesmith but has a large cult following in Europe as a singer, has a lovely voice that's haunting in the upper register, where she likes to take her lyrics. ...While most of Nashville is in thrall to formulaic hits, Peters pushes the envelope. She sings duets with Texas troubadour Tom Russell and raves about her favorite poets (Yeats), songs (Leonard Cohen's Joan of Arc ) and authors (Zora Neale Hurston). - Columbus Dispatch (Columbus, OH)

...from the aching lament of "Germantown" to the exotic romance encapsulated within "Over Africa," Peters scoured the depths of lyrical discord. And backed by Barry Walsh's exquisite piano playing, the elocution of the emotional truth set forth was only intensified by its execution. Nowhere was this more apparent than within their poignant performance of the Sinatra-propelled classic "One for My Baby (And One More for the Road)." During her set, Peters observed that there are two types of people in this world-those who think sad songs are depressing and those who find them cathartic. Gretchen Peters irrefutably belongs to the latter. - Santa Barbara Independent (Santa Barbara, CA)

...in front of an audience that could not have been more reverent had the ghost of Johnny Cash just drifted into the room, she proceeded to produce an epic set.
The first thing that strikes you about Peters is her voice. The vast array of singers she has written for obviously have their own appeal but it is hard to imagine how her own crystalline vocals could ever be bettered. Reminiscent of both Dolly Parton and Emmylou Harris, yet maintaining a jazzy edge that sets it apart from standard C&W, Peters' high register vocal style gives her material an extra push that overcomes the inevitable cliches that songs of lovelorn heartache throw up. With exemplary backing on stand-up bass and electric piano, the early part of Peters' performance set the tone for the rest of the evening. Kicking off with three exercises in effortless minor-chord melancholia, it didn't take long before the audience were entranced. - The Scotsman (Edinburgh, Scotland)

...Double headliner Peters was the show stealer however, providing lush contrast to Russell's sometimes spare and hard-driving delivery. This ex-Coloradoan with the sultry voice and beautiful face had the audience spellbound, offering the best of Nashville today - solid musicianship, effortless delivery, vivid and penetrating lyrics and captivating presence. Accompanied by keyboard artist Barry Walsh, (also on accordion and xylophone), every song was enriched by the rare magic of piano and guitar. Peters nailed the audience from her opening with "Circus Girl," followed by "If Heaven" (off her recent "Halcyon" album.) Her riveting "Independence Day," made famous by Martina McBride, exposes domestic abuse and her one cover, Paul Simon's "American Tune," offered hope in a troubled world, even more meaningful now than when it was first written. - Country Standard Time (November 2006)

Download the quote sheet as a pdf

Gretchen Peters Survives & Thrives with Burnt Toast & Offerings
Post-Divorce Epiphany Collection Available August 7

Since she released her last record, Gretchen Peters, a Nashville hit songwriter with a seemingly charmed and easy life, has been through the wringer.

Accused at one point of having a midlife crisis, she thought about it a little while and then, despite the negative connotation, said, "Hell yes, I'm having a midlife crisis. Midlife is when people should be reassessing. By the time you've reached that age you've realized that it ain't endless. It's going to end. And it's going by faster and faster. So, by god, make the most of it!"

"A midlife epiphany" is perhaps a better description of what Peters had one day in 2004 on a tour bus somewhere in the U.K., where she's enjoyed a thriving, decade-long career as a performer on top of her American songwriting success. It was a realization that she needed to take control of her own life, and it would turn her world upside-down and inside-out before culminating in Burnt Toast & Offerings, a deeply personal coming-to-terms record that both reveals and transcends the specifics.

It's not like the best-selling, Grammy-nominated songwriter needs drama in her life to write a song that rings true. Peters hadn't personally lived through domestic violence when she gave life to "Independence Day," one of the most powerful and empowering women's anthems ever recorded by a country artist (Martina McBride). Nor did she really know "The Secret of Life" when she took a stab at it in that feel-good Faith Hill hit.

And she's certainly never been a circus girl or a Brooklyn cabbie, just a couple of the more memorable characters from her own previous four albums--songs from which, along with others she's written over the past 20 years, have been recorded by artists as diverse as Etta James, the Neville Brothers, Bonnie Raitt, Neil Diamond and Bryan Adams as well as country queens Trisha Yearwood and Patty Loveless.

So she didn't need drama, but drama is what she got when she divorced her husband--and manager and booking agent and producer--of 23 years.

Burnt Toast & Offerings kicks off with the frustration and anger of "Ghost": "There was a girl who used to live here.... / But you let her beauty go unnoticed/ You let her music go unheard/ You should have listened when she told you/ You should have hung on every word." And it ends with the painful reality of making a change in "To Say Goodbye": "We are dreamers slowly waking/ We are shooting stars across a midnight sky/ We are strangers in the making/ But we're not ready to say goodbye."

For years, she said, "I wasn't ready to take control and say it's my life, my career. It took a huge upheaval for me to come to grips with the fact that I wanted to design my own life."

Nowadays when she performs these songs, she can even joke about it all, telling her audience, "This is my divorce album, and as such there are a lot of really happy songs on it."

Burnt Toast & Offerings is proof of that.

Download the press release as a pdf