Joanna Newsom
Joanna Newsom in 2007
Background information
Born	Joanna Caroline Newsom January 18, 1982 (1982-01-18) (age 28) in Nevada City, California
Origin	United States
Genres	Indie folk
Instruments	Harp Piano Harpsichord
Labels	Drag City

Joanna Newsom (born January 18, 1982) is an American harpist, pianist, and singer-songwriter from Nevada City, California.

Early life

Newsom grew up in the small town of Nevada City, California. She was exposed to music from a young age. Her father plays guitar, and her mother is a classically trained pianist who also plays hammered dulcimer, autoharp, and conga drums.¹² She attended a Waldorf school, where she studied theater and learned to memorize and recite long poems, a skill that she has said helps her to remember lyrics to her long songs while on tour.³

Newsom had known since age two or three that she wanted to play the harp. Her parents eventually agreed to sign her up for harp lessons, but the local harp teacher did not want to take on such a young student and suggested that she learn to play the piano first. After two years of "detestable" piano lessons, she began playing the harp, which she "loved from the first lesson onward."⁴

Her harp teacher taught her about composition and improvisation. Newsom learned to play on progressively larger Celtic harps, until her parents bought her a full-size pedal harp in the seventh grade.⁵

Newsom studied composition and creative writing at Mills College, Oakland, California. While at Mills, she played keyboards in The Pleased.

Career

In 2002 and 2003, respectively, Newsom recorded two EPs, Walnut Whales and Yarn and Glue. These homemade recordings were intended to serve as a document of her songs, which she had previously been recording on a Fisher-Price tape recorder.⁶ These EPs were not originally intended for public distribution, but at the suggestion of Noah Georgeson (who had helped her record the songs, and who was her boyfriend at the time), she burned several copies to sell at her early shows.⁷

A friend of Newsom's passed one of these CDs on to Will Oldham at a show in Nevada City. Oldham was impressed with Newsom's music and asked her to tour with him. He also gave a copy of the CD to the owner of Drag City, his record label. Drag City signed Newsom and released her debut album The Milk-Eyed Mender in 2004.⁸ Shortly thereafter, Newsom toured with Devendra Banhart and Vetiver and made an early UK appearance at the Green Man Festival in Wales, returning to headline in 2005 and 2007, respectively.

Newsom's work has become prominent on the indie scene, and her profile has risen, in part due to a number of live shows and appearances on Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC.

Her second album Ys was released in November 2006. The album features orchestrations and arrangements by Van Dyke Parks, engineering from Steve Albini, and mixing by Drag City label-mate Jim O'Rourke. On a road trip, Bill Callahan recommended she listen to the album Song Cycle by Parks, which led to his being chosen to arrange her work on Ys.

Joanna Newsom at the Sasquatch Music Festival, Washington. May 2005

Having sporadically debuted new songs at her concerts since the fall of 2007, on March 28, 2009, Newsom performed over two hours of new material at a "secret" concert in Big Sur, California with fellow Nevada City singer-songwriter Mariee Sioux, under the pseudonym The Beatles's. Those in attendance reported that about one-third of her new material was played primarily on piano, with a backing arrangement of banjo, violin, guitar and drums.⁹

Since early 2007 she has also been known to perform a solo harp version of the Robert Burns poem Ca the yowes tae the knowes.¹⁰

Several of the songs on The Milk-Eyed Mender have been covered by her peers: "Bridges and Balloons" was covered by the Decemberists on their 2005 EP Picaresqueties. "Sprout and the Bean" has been covered by The Moscow Coup Attempt and Sholi. "Peach Plum Pear" has been covered by Final Fantasy (Owen Pallett) on the 2006 EP Young Canadian Mothers, as well as by Straylight Run. M Ward has played "Sadie" on his live shows.¹¹

In 2009, she appeared in the music video for the song "Kids" by the group MGMT.¹².

Also in 2009, she was reportedly working on her new album in Tokyo,¹³ and had since completed the album by December of that year.¹⁴

On January 12, 2010, an entry cryptically entitled "@!?*(%$#!!" was posted on the Drag City website. It contained a link which led to a short comic strip titled "Joanna Newsom 'Have One On Me'" with a date of February 23, 2010.¹⁵ Later that day, it was confirmed by Spunk, Newsom's Australian label, that the title and date represented the title of Newsom's upcoming album and its release date.¹⁶ P-Vine Records in Japan announced that Have One On Me, which was recorded in Tokyo in 2009, would be released in Japan on March 3, 2010, as a 3-disc CD set, with a total of approximately three hours of new recordings. ¹⁷ It was recently announced that Newsom has been chosen by Matt Groening to perform at the edition of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival he is curating in May 2010 in Minehead, England.

On February 11, 2010, Pitchfork reported that Newsom would be the subject of a tribute book titled Visions of Joanna Newsom. The book will be published by Roan Press.¹⁸ The book is now available via Roan Press's website ¹⁹

Style

	"Emily" (2006) 30 second sample of Emily from Ys
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Newsom's earlier work was strongly influenced by polyrhythms.²⁰ Her harp teacher, Diana Stork, taught her the basic pattern of four beats against three, which creates an interlocking, shifting pattern that can be heard on Ys, particularly in the middle section of "Sawdust & Diamonds." Since the release of Ys, Newsom has said that she has lost interest in polyrhythms, that they "stopped being fascinating to me and started feeling wanky."²¹

The media have sometimes labeled her as one of the most prominent members of the modern psych folk movement, although she does not acknowledge ties to any particular musical scene.²² Her songwriting incorporates elements of Appalachian music, and avant-garde modernism.

Newsom's vocal style (in the November 2006 issue of The Wire she described her voice as "untrainable") has shadings of folk and Appalachian shaped-note timbres. Newsom has, however, expressed disappointment at comments that her singing is "child-like."²²

Critics noticed a change in Newsom's voice on her latest album²³²⁴. In the spring of 2009, Newsom developed vocal chord nodules and couldn't speak, sing or cry for two months. The recovery from the nodules and further "vocal modifications" changed her voice.²⁵²⁶²⁷

Collaborations

In addition to her solo work, Newsom has played on records by Smog, Vetiver, Nervous Cop, The Year Zero, Vashti Bunyan, Moore Brothers, Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Golden Shoulders and played keyboards for The Pleased.

Personal life

Newsom's family includes her brother Pete, a fellow musician, and sister Emily, an astrophysicist who inspired her song "Emily" (and contributed backing vocals). She is the second cousin, twice removed, of San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom.²⁸

Newsom dated Noah Georgeson²⁹, who recorded and produced her first album. She also dated Smog frontman Bill Callahan for a number of years in the mid-2000s.³⁰

In late 2007, she began dating Andy Samberg, a cast member of Saturday Night Live.¹³³¹ The couple was reportedly still dating as of February 2010.³¹

Discography

Albums

• The Milk-Eyed Mender (Drag City, 2004)
• Ys (Drag City, 2006) UK #41³²
• Have One On Me (Drag City, 2010)³³ US #75, UK #28

Early unofficial recordings

• Walnut Whales (self-released, 2002)
• Yarn and Glue (self-released, 2003)

EPs

• Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band (Drag City, 2007) UK #135³⁴

Singles

• "Sprout and the Bean" (Drag City, 2004)

Licensing of songs

• In 2004, "Peach, Plum, Pear" played over the credits of the animated short City Paradise.
• In 2004, "This Side of the Blue" was used on a British television commercial for Orange SA.
• In 2006, "Sprout and the Bean" was used in a tourism ad for Melbourne, Australia.
• In 2007, "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie" was used in the PBS documentary Following Sean.
• In 2007, "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie" was sung by an aspiring musician in the film Great World of Sound.
• In 2008, "Sprout and the Bean" was featured in the film The Strangers.
• In 2008, "Clam, Crab, Cockle, Cowrie" was used in a television commercial for HSBC.
• In 2008, "The Book of Right-On" was used in an MTV ad for sexual care and education.
• In 2009, "The Book of Right-On" was licensed for the end credits of the Mexican/Italian film The Best of Feelings
• In 2009, "Sprout and the Bean" was used in a Victoria's Secret Bra commercial.
• In 2009, the harp intro of "Cosmia" was used in the Louis Theroux documentary "A Place for Paedophiles."
• In 2009, "Sprout and the Bean" was used again in a tourism ad for Melbourne, Australia.
• In 2009, a shorter edit of "Inflammatory Writ" was used in ads for the Spanish TV channel La Sexta ³⁵

References

Interviews

• SFburning (May 2003)
• Tiny Mix Tapes (September 2004)
• KCRW (February 2005)
• The Guardian (October 15, 2006)
• The Wire (November 2006)
• Pitchfork (November 20, 2006)
• The Times (February 20, 2010)

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Joanna Newsom

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Joanna Newsom

• Drag City
• New Book: Visions of Joanna Newsom | Folk Radio UK
• Roan Press website