Vibrant newcomer Stephie James, debut EP These Days (out September 18) was produced, engineered & mixed by Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff). While James has yet to become a household name, her credits are enviable: touring with 8-time GRAMMY Award winner Anita Baker at the age of 17, enjoying years on the road with Nikki Lane (opening her shows and playing in the band), and assistant engineering at Dan Auerbach’s studio, working on records for Buddy Miller, Steve Earle, Shawn Colvin and The Wood Brothers.
On These Days, Matt Menold of Brittany Howard’s Thunderbitch and Brooklyn’s Clear Plastic Masks plays guitar, alongside “Little” Jack Lawrence of The Raconteurs on bass.
While James has yet to become a household name, her credits are profound: touring with Anita Baker and Nikki Lane, engineering for Dan Auerbach and Buddy Miller, sessions with John Bettis (songwriter for Whitney Houston, Michael Jackson, and The Carpenters, amongst others) and landing sync in Michael Bolton’s new film, to name a few.
Of course, all of this goes without even mentioning her ambition, which first reared its head at the age of 15, when she and her younger brother established a DIY coffee shop which doubled as a music venue. The business not only helped bolster the emerging music scene in the Detroit burbs, but has grown into a prosperous chain of shops in the specialty coffee market.
After a career zigzagging in between the crevices of others’ careers, all the while building a body of work and experience of her own, Stephie James finally decided to step into the spotlight with a solo project by working with Andrija Tokic, who earned acclaim for producing Alabama Shakes groundbreaking first album.
The EP itself is a perfect distillation of the best elements Detroit rock has had to offer over the last two decades: timeless leather-cool, thanks to the resurgence of Iggy Pop and the omnipresence of Jack White- and, above all else, great songwriting.
Glide is thrilled to premiere “Lost With You” a smoky arrangement with a punctuating accent to the early Nashville scene where Orbison, Patsy and Hank charmed both radio and The Opry. While James clearly pays homage to her influences, she wraps it with her own identifiable charm and seductive vocals, making her a worthy newcomer to Americana.
“You probably aren’t really supposed to play favorites with your songs (probably somewhat similar to picking a favorite child), but “Lost With You” might be my favorite track on the record. At the time that I wrote it, I was staying up all night listening to Roy Orbison on vinyl, a new discovery for me then,” says James. “That’s what I was listening to. So on the big choruses of this song, I could almost hear his voice, with his unique vibrato, singing those melodic lines. But the lyric, particularly the verses, is not a lyric that Orbison would ever sing or write. It’s a pretty literal narrative of my own experience and what was happening around me at that moment in time. It plays out like a movie.”
Stephie James – photo by Shervin Lainez.
