Jake Oken-Berg - Jake Oken-Berg was born and raised in Portland, Oregon. A "Portland prodigy" (KINK FM), Jake's been playing piano, singing, and writing songs since age five and has performed in over 50 cities around the world. Combining jazz and pop piano styles with powerful vocals, Jake's music is instantly catchy and his live shows are full of improvisational surprises. Just released at the beginning of 2009, Jake's debut album, Find Love EP, received immediate praise from critics. Echo Helstrom - After garnering critical acclaim for their debut album, The Veil, orchestral rock band Echo Helstrom retreated to the studio to do something different. Or, continue to do something different. But what is it? This Portland, Oregon collective, consisting of some of Portland's best classical and jazz musicians, are definitely playing rock music. Their adventurous arrangements run the gamut from chamber music to punk rock with a lot to offer in between.

No artist to emerge in the second half of the '60s-a remarkably bountiful period-has gone on to have a more productive and vital career than singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson. While still a teenager, he founded and led Fairport Convention, which was to British folk-rock what the Byrds were to the idiom's American equivalent-meaning more Childe ballads and less sunshine. Richard Thompson, who was recently described in Rolling Stone as the "Thinking Man's Guitar God", is among the most distinctive of guitar virtuosos, capable of breathtaking drama and sublime delicacy, depending on the song and the amp setting. Over the course of his career, Thompson has earned numerous awards and honors, including the Ivor Novello Award for songwriting, the Orville Gibson Award for guitarists, and a spot in the Top 20 of Rolling Stone's list of all-time Guitar Greats. In 2006, he was awarded the BBC Lifetime Achievement Award.

No artist to emerge in the second half of the '60s-a remarkably bountiful period-has gone on to have a more productive and vital career than singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson. While still a teenager, he founded and led Fairport Convention, which was to British folk-rock what the Byrds were to the idiom's American equivalent-meaning more Childe ballads and less sunshine. Richard Thompson, who was recently described in Rolling Stone as the "Thinking Man's Guitar God", is among the most distinctive of guitar virtuosos, capable of breathtaking drama and sublime delicacy, depending on the song and the amp setting. Over the course of his career, Thompson has earned numerous awards and honors, including the Ivor Novello Award for songwriting, the Orville Gibson Award for guitarists, and a spot in the Top 20 of Rolling Stone's list of all-time Guitar Greats. In 2006, he was awarded the BBC Lifetime Achievement Award.

No artist to emerge in the second half of the '60s-a remarkably bountiful period-has gone on to have a more productive and vital career than singer/songwriter/guitarist Richard Thompson. While still a teenager, he founded and led Fairport Convention, which was to British folk-rock what the Byrds were to the idiom's American equivalent-meaning more Childe ballads and less sunshine. Richard Thompson, who was recently described in Rolling Stone as the "Thinking Man's Guitar God", is among the most distinctive of guitar virtuosos, capable of breathtaking drama and sublime delicacy, depending on the song and the amp setting. Over the course of his career, Thompson has earned numerous awards and honors, including the Ivor Novello Award for songwriting, the Orville Gibson Award for guitarists, and a spot in the Top 20 of Rolling Stone's list of all-time Guitar Greats. In 2006, he was awarded the BBC Lifetime Achievement Award.

From the moment she first appeared in front of us on Saturday Night Live in 1979, Rickie Lee Jones has challenged her listeners and the establishment with an absorbing musical vision that defies border and classification. She rocked the culture of singer-song writerdom with her refusal to conform to the stayed and careful eloquence of the folk rock generation that came before her. Neither punk nor pop, she tottered on a thread of her own devise, jazz - the old musical kind, and R&B - the Motown thread that permeates her work. Her sense of humor, musical dexterity and song craft is all evident on her exquisite new album Balm in Gilead. Jones, who's joined on the record by Ben Harper, Jon Brion, Vic Chesnutt, Bill Frisell, Victoria Williams and Alison Krauss among other highly talented friends, has again captured her generation's common experience.

From the moment she first appeared in front of us on Saturday Night Live in 1979, Rickie Lee Jones has challenged her listeners and the establishment with an absorbing musical vision that defies border and classification. She rocked the culture of singer-song writerdom with her refusal to conform to the stayed and careful eloquence of the folk rock generation that came before her. Neither punk nor pop, she tottered on a thread of her own devise, jazz - the old musical kind, and R&B - the Motown thread that permeates her work. Her sense of humor, musical dexterity and song craft is all evident on her exquisite new album Balm in Gilead. Jones, who's joined on the record by Ben Harper, Jon Brion, Vic Chesnutt, Bill Frisell, Victoria Williams and Alison Krauss among other highly talented friends, has again captured her generation's common experience.

On Just Us Kids, James McMurtry follows up his critically acclaimed Childish Things with a dozen new, sharply drawn illuminations as he continues to hone and expand his considerable gifts. And the self-produced opus (James' fourth venture pulling strings on both sides of the glass) unquestionably represents his most ambitious, accomplished and ass-kicking presentation to date. Just Us Kids will be the first release for Nashville-based Lightning Rod Records; label president Logan Rogers previously worked as Vice President of A&R for Compadre Records on McMurtry's previous two albums. The Texas native long has been known as an astute, clear-eyed observer and concise, no-holds-barred chronicler of the human condition, but a growing socio-political edge fairly exploded just prior to the 2004 elections when his scathing, palace-rattling "We Can't Make It Here" was made available online as a free download.