Artist stories

On January 21st, local musicians Amee Chapman & Paul Garcia came into the KZSC radio station to talk about their new CD, Grace is Hell to Keep Up. It was quite the show featuring Amee performing live three songs off her new album, Grace is Hell to Keep.

Amee Chapman & the Velvet Tumbleweeds are having a CD Release Party at Kuumbwa the first weekend of February 1, 2013.  The night includes special guests and Carolyn Sills opens. Music starts at 8pm, doors open at 7:30pm. The CD was produced with the help of musician Alan Evans (Soulive) and through Beachcombed Music.

Amee Chapman has been playing and writing music practically her whole life. She’s performed in venues up and down the West Coast from 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, The Crepe Place & Kuumbwa in Santa Cruz, as well as venues in SLO and Santa Barbara).  Her band won a coveted SAMMIE Award in 2006 for Best Country/Bluegrass Band. She collaborates with co-writer Nichole Robbins, writing about  people met and conversations overheard, of melancholy and tenderness.

When not playing with Amee Chapman and the Velvet Tumbleweeds, Paul Garcia turns up on the drum chair for such diverse bands as the Banana Slug String Band (doing kids ‘edutainment’ music), plays straight-up Grateful Dead tunes with Slugs and Roses, and also branches into the bluegrass-tinged hybrid styling of Groove Grass.

During our show, we talked about how Amee & Paul met, developed a friendship at the Strawberry Music Festival and formed the Velvet Tumbleweeds. The band has particularly opened Paul’s musical universe.