Category: Features

For the past five years, New York musicians have joined forces to produce a holiday album for a good cause.

Each year, A Holiday Benefit is recorded and released by local talent. All proceeds donated to 826NYC, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting students ages 6-18 with their creative and expository writing skills.

The fifth and final benefit show will be held on Wednesday at Rockwood Music Hall Stage II.

Singer-songwriter Benjamin Wagner explained his idea for the yearly event was inspired by the 1984 Band Aid song, “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” Featuring Sting, Bono, Duran Duran, Paul Young and numerous other musicians, the track raised money for famine relief in Ethiopia.

“It’s not the greatest song on the planet, but at the time no one had ever done that before,” he said.

For my complete article, visit CBS. Watch the group’s video for “Do They Know It’s Christmas” below.

Long before he was part of popular country trio Lady Antebellum, Dave Haywood acted as engineer and producer for his friend, Mary Bragg. The two met in high school and started singing together their first week of college.

With adjacent dorm rooms at the University of Georgia, Haywood and Bragg formed a band and even opened for a still-unknown Miranda Lambert. After Bragg graduated, Haywood and the now-Brooklyn-based Americana songstress began working on her debut record, “Certain Simple Things,” in the fall of 2003.

“He was really the first person to push me to write songs. We were in a band together for three years and he’s like, ‘We’re gonna make a record,'” she recalls. “He said, ‘I’m going to send you these MP3s of me playing these random chords and I want you to write some lyrics and melodies.'”

For my complete article, visit Billboard.

Finding the perfect song to fit a poignant scene in a film can often take months to a year to select. With the right placement, the entire mood of a movie can shift, making all that hard work pay off.

Remember Rocky’s warm-up routine to “Gonna Fly Now” and that pinnacle stair scene? How about when John Cusack’s character in “Say Anything” held up his boombox blasting Peter Gabriel’s “In Your Eyes”? These scenes are easily distinguished as landmark moments in Hollywood and it’s impossible to imagine any other song being played.

I chatted with music supervisor Alexandra Patsavas, known for her work in the “Twilight” series, to find out just how she selects the perfect track for each scene and the steps she takes from start to finish.

“Once a music supervisor gets hired, we sit down with the director and talk about the musical feel and vibe of the songs and the movie. That starts the musical conversation that might include CDs going back and forth or listening to tracks together,” Patsavas said. “Sometimes we start pitching tracks while the movie is being shot. And, of course once the movie is assembled and edited a supervisor pitches songs to picture.”

For my complete article, visit IFC.com.

Mary Bragg has been winning over audiences in the New York singer-songwriter community for years.

With three albums under her belt, the Georgia native said the first time she visited New York as a teen it was love at first sight.

“When I was in New York, I felt this incredible sense of energy and thought and challenging circumstances,” she said. “I knew in order for me to have fodder for songwriting I needed to not live so wonderfully. I actually moved to New York both wanting to experience the world more and to find hardship.”

Bragg began writing songs in college thanks to the urging of her friend Dave Haywood. Now one third of popular country trio Lady Antebellum, Haywood engineered and produced Bragg’s debut album.

“I think in theory I knew that I could be a songwriter, it’s just that I had never actually sat down and done it,” Bragg recalled. “He was the person that said, ‘Alright, next Monday you’re going to come over and you’re going to have some stuff to sing for me.’”

For the complete article, visit CBS. Be sure to catch Mary Bragg tonight at Rockwood Music Hall Stage 1.