Biography

"A SAD CLOWN" GOING FOR ADDS NOW! released 3/16/18
Thanks for making us last month's #48 on APD's global indicator Americana Album Chart!

Julie Christensen
615-601-3972
cupid@stonecupid.com, Artist Contact

sharyl@girlrockltd.com, Sharyl Holtzman in Los Angeles, Communications Director

stonecupid.com

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A quick gander at Christensen’s long, winding and heartfelt road in music touches on the landscapes - cultural and actual – which helped shape her "Great Plains Soul" vision. Julie Christensen on Wikipedia

Related Albums on Airplay Direct:

The Cardinal
Julie Christensen & Stone Cupid

Weeds Like Us
Julie Christensen

Where The Fireworks Are
Julie Christensen & Stone Cupid

Julie co-fronted post-punk rockers Divine Horsemen with Chris D and is a veteran of Leonard Cohen’s bands (and the documentary I’m Your Man) “A Sad Clown” is her 7th record , an acoustic yet gritty offering of her own music and a few gems by fellow East Nashville friends Tim Easton and Darrin Bradbury; and the stunning kind of interpretation of Tom Waits’ Hold On that only Julie can deliver.

She spent time as a jazz chanteuse, tours, has performed and recorded with Steve Wynn, Van Dyke Parks, John Doe, and Exene Cervenka.
“Her swagger is true to her rebellious punk-rock roots and refined through working with the likes of Leonard Cohen, Iggy Pop, and Public Image Limited.”
–No Depression

“Julie Christensen’s music is deep and wide, speaks of experience. Her voice has amazing range, her own songs are little gems and her choice in material is assured. Wherever she is taking you, you’ll want to go. “ – Jeff Turmes

TRACKS ON "A SAD CLOWN" (IN THE ORDER ON THE ALBUM)

1. A Sad Clown 3:41
© Julie Christensen, Stone Cupid Music BMI
lead vocal Julie Christensen
guitars: Chris Tench, Sergio Webb, Julie
acoustic bass, banjo: Jeff Turmes
snare drum: Steve Latanation
backup vocal: Renée Wahl

I named the album even before this song came. Then the song started coming to me, as I went around my business in East Nashville in the car. I just thought about my long career, and though I'm certainly not as heroic as a rodeo clown, I sure have some dad gum persistence! It's like I crashed my Harley and I'm headed down the road on my brand new Japanese bike, damn the torpedoes!

2.Exile On Myrtle Beach 5:33
© Darrin Bradbury ASCAP
lead vocal Julie Christensen
guitar: Chris Tench
guitar: Julie
resonator, resonator slide: Sergio Webb
acoustic bass: Jeff Turmes
snare, cymbal: Steve Latanation
backup vocals: Renée Wahl, Brett Ryan Stewart, Julie

I have loved this song since the minute I heard Darrin sing it, and I think it might have in fact been at Fran's Eastside Lounge. It's a doozy. A sort of epic drug flashback or future dream trip. Just let go.

3. Honey, Let’s Go To Town 2:54
© Julie Christensen, Stone Cupid Music BMI
vocal Julie Christensen
guitars: Chris Tench, Sergio Webb, Julie
electric bass: Jeff Turmes
snare, kick, hi-hat: Steve Latanation

My answer song to "Exile on Myrtle Beach," written right after my visit there, but written on a porch outside Asheville, NC.

4. Like Nothing Hurts 4:38
© Julie Christensen, Stone Cupid Music BMI
vocal Julie Christensen
spooky acoustic guitar, ambient guitar: Chris Tench
acoustic guitar: Julie
accordion: Sergio Webb
acoustic bass: Jeff Turmes

Lyric not "offensive" but might be scary to some listeners. discusses pain, and was written after some mass shootings. mentions war and rape.

5. Burning Star 3:40
© Tim Easton, ASCAP
vocal Julie Christensen
guitar: Chris Tench
nylon string guitar: Sergio Webb
acoustic bass, banjo: Jeff Turmes

This is Tim Easton's homage to Townes Van Zandt.

6. Cold Tennessee Rain 3:54
© Julie Christensen, Stone Cupid Music BMI
vocal Julie Christensen
guitars: Chris Tench
guitars, slide and resonator: Sergio Webb
electric bass: Jeff Turmes
all percussion: Steve Latanation, the drumming sensation (moniker thanks to Turmes.)

I'm proud of the bass line I came up with for this one! I wanted Bonnie Bishop or Bonnie Raitt to cover this one, if someone out there is listening and can get it to them! But hey, a gal's gotta do it herself sometimes! Funky and chilly.

7. Vienna, Illinois 4:53
© Julie Christensen, Stone Cupid Music BMI
lead vocal Julie Christensen
12-string guitar, guitar: Chris Tench
guitar, resonator: Sergio Webb
acoustic bass: Jeff Turmes
snare drum: Steve Latanation
backup vocals: Renée Wahl, Brett Ryan Stewart, Julie, Chris Tench

On the way back from visiting Mom in Iowa to Nashville, you go by the Shawnee Correctional Institution next to the National Forest of the same name. The nearby town is not pronounced in the way that you would think. I did not know that as I was keeping myself awake singing its name over and over in a lilting, catchy (at least I think so!) fashion all the way home. Then I wrote my first ever song on mandolin. Then I googled Vienna, Illinois to make sure...and had to sing it differently!

8.Slow Blue Fly 3:46
© Julie Christensen Stone Cupid Music BMI, Laura Mayo, ASCAP
lead vocal Julie Christensen
guitars, 12-string acoustic: Chris Tench
resonator: Sergio Webb
guitar: Julie
harmonica: Dave Moore
acoustic bass, banjo: Jeff Turmes

Written with twenty-something Laura Mayo on my back deck overlooking Cornelia Fort Airpark, the destination Patsy Cline's plane was headed when it went down. Laura sings jazz and backup by trade, but we have common bonds, all of us, that can make us blue and lonesome. Featuring Iowa treasure Dave Moore on harmonica.

9. Anything Like Home 5:02
© Julie Christensen, Stone Cupid Music BMI
lead vocal Julie Christensen
guitar, ambient guitar, 12-string pencil guitar: Chris Tench
nylon string guitar: Sergio Webb
guitar: Julie
electric bass, bowed acoustic bass: Jeff Turmes
street parade percussion: Steve Latanation
backup vocals: Renée Wahl

I wrote this song in response to the 2016 election, and when I was headed to the Women's March in Washington DC early the following year. I wanted to put some kind of positivity and unity out there.

10. Sunday 4:15
© Julie Christensen, Stone Cupid Music BMI
lead vocal Julie Christensen
12-string acoustic: Chris Tench
12-string acoustic: Sergio Webb
guitar: Julie
banjo: Jeff Turmes
backup vocals: Renée Wahl, Julie

I got a song prompt from a writer's group as a "gift" one week in the form of a photograph from the 60's of a little girl in a confirmation outfit in the backyard. It reminded me of trips to my mother's home place in Oelwein, Iowa. I was visiting her and her sick, now deceased husband in the nearby environs often at the time I wrote it, wistfully.

11.Hold On 5:36
© 1992 Tom Waits and Kathleen Brennan, Jalma Music ASCAP
vocal Julie Christensen
guitar: Chris Tench
nylon string guitar: Sergio Webb
guitar: Julie
button accordion: Dave Moore
acoustic bass: Jeff Turmes
snare, percussion: Steve Latanation

I had the honor of singing this great song in 2016 at the "Get Behind The Mule" Homeless Benefit at The 5 Spot and I just thought it fit on this album. I enlisted the great Dave Moore from Iowa (who learned button accordion from the greats in border Tejano country, where Flaco Jimenez and others learned.) and we gave it a southwest feel I dig very much. Such a story. I think Kathleen Brennan is an undersung heroine of this songwriting duo. I certainly hear a woman's voice on this song.

12. The Sun 3:31
© Julie Christensen, Stone Cupid Music BMI, Mary Bragg ASCAP
vocal Julie Christensen
guitar: Chris Tench
nylon string guitar, resonator slide: Sergio Webb
acoustic bass: Jeff Turmes

This song had a long journey getting born, and almost died a few times along the way. It feels to me like one of those songs from the seventies, just a little song that feels like a late night in the kitchen, after the lightweights have gone home.

13. Getting Through 3:28
© Julie Christensen, Stone Cupid Music BMI, John Hadley, Hadley Six Music BMI, admin by Sony/ATV, Sergio Webb, My Mexia Music BMI
vocal Julie Christensen
guitars, acoustic 12-string: Chris Tench
guitar, electric 12-string: Sergio Webb
acoustic bass: Jeff Turmes
snare drum: Steve Latanation

Written one morning in the winter of 2015 in John Hadley's Norman, OK living room, when Sergio and I were traveling through on tour on our way out to California. And it WAS the coffee talking! John Hadley is a miracle, a hit songwriter and a legend. Sergio and I have each gotten to write with him often, and we're very lucky.

A SAD CLOWN
Julie Christensen & Stone Cupid
Produced by Julie Christensen with Chris Tench
Recorded December 1-7, 2017 by, and Mixed December 8-10, 15 & 16, 2017 by Brett Ryan Stewart
at The Sound Shelter in Franklin, Tennessee
additional recording of Dave Moore by Jon Baumgartner At Acme Sound in Grinnell, Iowa on December 13, 2017
Mastering by Mark Chalecki at Little Red Book Mastering in Los Angeles, California
Graphic Design by Nancy Terzian at Buckinghorse Design in Nashville
Clown Painting—Unknown Junk Store Find.
back cover photo by Jeff Fasano
inside photos by Brett Ryan Stewart

℗ & © 2018 Stone Cupid Music stonecupid.com PO Box 60266 Nashville TN 37206

THANK YOU:
John Henry Diehl, Magnus, Mom, Jeff Turmes, The Sound Shelter cast and crew, Jamie Rubin, Parker Hawkins, Dave Moore, Jon Baumgartner, Sharyl Holtzman at GirlRockLtd, Clay Pasternack and Stacey Taylor, “President Petty,” to all the musicians and writers, our wonderful friends and family, and to all who are listening and still spending time and money on the music.