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Mexican-born singer-songwriter Silvana Estrada believes in magic. And why wouldn’t she? Nearly every time she opens her mouth, she sees its spells come to fruition. But the type of magic Estrada subscribes to is not some bag of parlor tricks dependent upon new-age gadgets and slick mirrors. No, the kind she appreciates is timeless, unfettered by anything but itself. It’s the kind of incantation that can bring someone to recall a time and place they never knew they’d longed for. It’s the kind that can summon tears from previously stoic eyes. It’s the kind that moves you, to your core. And it’s sewn deeply into Estrada’s new forthcoming album, Marchita, set for release Friday (January 21).

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Pearl Jam lead guitarist Mike McCready has known Seattle-based musician Danny Newcomb since they were both five years old. McCready has played music with Newcomb since they were 11. In fact, he says, Newcomb is one of the main reasons he picked up a guitar, to begin with. Newcomb was the first on the block to get a six-string when the two were kids and as a result, McCready says, he wanted one, too.

One wonders if the history of rock music would be entirely different had Newcomb not been there from the beginning. And it’s memories like these that make McCready smile today because the band he and Newcomb started in 1999, The Rockfords, is finally getting its due shine and release date. Some 22 years after McCready, Newcomb and the band recorded their self-titled debut, it’s now set for release with a debut single, “Silver Lining,” out today (January 14).

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Sometimes it’s the unplanned moments that can change the course of a life, a globe, or a song. Whether considering the onset of a pandemic or letting yourself discover new notes in real-time, letting go to let something unknown in can be as important a skill as knowing the pentatonic scale. It can also be earth-shattering. For the Colorado-based band, the Lumineers, that was certainly the case with the creation of their newest LP, BRIGHTSIDE, which is set for release on Friday (January 14).

The new record began in the studio with songs unfinished, which was a new approach for the band, which formed in Denver in 2005. But the fresh approach, the openness to the faith that the songs would soon feel complete aided their production. It’s odd how this works. How something different can lead to renewed satisfaction. Yet, it’s often the topsy-turvy recipe to sonic transcendence.

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For Chris Dowd, songwriter and keys player for the genre-defying musical group Fishbone, a band is like an artistic movement. Like a painter who unveils a new style that legions imitate (read: Picasso and Cubism), a band can usher in a new sound that changes the proverbial angle upon which the world’s axis spins. And the founding six members of Fishbone, which began formally in L.A. in 1979, got to see how their music influenced myriad bands to come after them, despite some of those bands earning more financial success.

Yet, the movement was felt and it’s still being felt. Just weeks ago, Fishbone played a series of shows from Portland to Seattle that caused fans to line up around street corners for the doors to open. But for those who know the band and its history, the soaring highs and the harsh lows are all part of the journey for Fishbone. Still, though, the band keeps moving. Pushing boundaries. Breaking conventions. And now there are rumors of possible new music for fans in 2022.

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No one was going to outwork Brandy Clark. As a young person, up into the collegiate years, that meant no one was going to out-hustle Clark on the hardwood basketball court. A shooting guard, she had deep range. She was a skilled long-distance bomber before that became en vogue thanks to the likes of Sue Bird and Steph Curry. Clark learned an ethic for hard work at an early age. Both of her parents were hard workers, her father especially. He was an endurance athlete and the push to keep going, to keep up the effort of any kind was prized.

Clark internalized it, dribbling and shooting a Spalding. And kept it when her efforts took a left turn into the world of music and songwriting. Now, a longtime resident of Music City in Nashville, Clark’s star is rising. She is heralded as one of the greatest at her craft and she keeps getting better. As evidenced by her 2020 LP, Your Life is a Record, and its 2021 deluxe release, which has earned Clark her latest Grammy nomination for Best American Roots Performance for her bonus track duet with Brandi Carlile, “Same Devil.”

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There’s an idea: the way you do anything is the way you do everything. In other words, the way you approach scrubbing your kitchen sink is the same way you approach writing a college essay. For versatile-voiced singer and songwriter Nathaniel Rateliff, that saying holds true, at least when it comes to the hard work he pours into whatever task is at hand.

For Rateliff, hard work is a major reason for his success both locally in the Denver, Colorado music scene and now nationally, having recently played Saturday Night Live and penned the lead song (“Redemption”) to the Justin Timberlake-led movie, Palmer. Yet, hard work begets more hard work. This, too, Rateliff is learning as he continues to release albums and rise to the top of charts. It’s the result of the world seeing great offerings like the latest LP from Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats, The Future, which the band unveiled in November.

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What does the holiday season really mean? To answer that question requires a personal investigation. Certainly, the meaning of a time of year is largely dependent upon its observer. For many, Christmas is delightful; a season of twinkling lights and presents. For others, however, the time can remind them of the harshest of days, the most nightmarish of experiences. So, then what? How do folks move forward? By forging their own ways—that’s the only way. And that’s exactly what Americana songwriter Allison Russell knows as well as any.

Russell, who recently garnered three Grammy nominations for her 2021 LP, Outside Child, has endured unspeakable harms; physical and mental abuses. Yet, today, the artist has much to cherish, from professional success to the family she’s started with her husband (musician, JT Nero), which includes their young daughter, to whom Russell has recently begun teaching the joys of music, movies, and the holiday season.

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Confidence is an important thing when one is creating something new. To (metaphorically) birth something into the world requires strength and a sense of assuredness that what you’re bringing deserves to be there. But how one achieves confidence can be a touch-and-go situation. And confidence itself is precarious; it’s easily broken. Any artist will tell you that. But one who can also speak eloquently about the idea from myriad vantage points is the 42-year-old Nashville, Tennessee-born Shooter Jennings.

If you ask the Grammy Award-winning artist about when he began feeling proud about the songs he’s written, he’ll hesitate. “It’s a learning process,” he’ll say. But that’s the funny thing about confidence. If you express too much of it or believe too much of it regarding yourself, you can be crushed. Instead, it’s best to leave it up to others to talk about your great work. Like Jennings’ latest single, “Gene’s Song,” which Americans Songwriter is premiering today (December 15).

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When generations in the future look back on the 21st century and earlier, there will likely be several things to cause heads to shake. One of those that will assuredly make some cringe will be the general treatment of children during early development. For many years, the prevailing thought was that children will get over whatever affects them or ails them in their primary years. Adulthood, the thought is, will rectify those wounds. But that’s not actually the case. The reality is that our earliest experiences set the trajectory for our lives in adulthood. And acclaimed songwriter and performer Raffi Cavoukian knows this perhaps better than any other artist.

Raffi has made a career writing music that both entertains and elucidates the notion that when we are about five or six years old, our understanding of what it means to be human is shaped forever, for better or worse. Today, Raffi continues to highlight this idea, through his many works, including his recent collaboration with fellow children’s songwriter Lindsay Munroe.

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When it comes to the holidays, Hayley Orrantia says that she’s a bit more Grinch than Chris Kringle. On the other hand, though, she loves winter. So, while maybe the pomp and circumstance traditionally associated with the season isn’t necessarily her cup of tea, the coziness that can come with December has its delights. Orrantia, who is an accomplished country songwriter and recent presenter at the Country Music Awards, is also known for her achievements as an actor, especially so on the ABC comedy The Goldbergs.

Fans can next see Orrantia in the upcoming festive film Christmas is Cancelled. The movie, which also stars Dermot Mulroney and Janel Parrish, is out Thursday (December 16). For the Amazon release, which she calls “a really funny, raunchy, oddball comedy,” Orrantia wrote a heartfelt track, “The Same Way,” which displays her writing touch and affinity for love songs.

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Journey is back in Las Vegas. While the Bay Area-born rock band, which is known for songs like “Don’t Stop Believin’” and “Faithfully,” has been playing Sin City since the Millenium, the group is back again after a pandemic-induced hiatus. (Now three shows in with two more to go in December.) And, says keyboardist Jon Cain, they’re already seeing people tear up. “I saw a couple of ladies in tears in the front row,” Cain says of the band’s recent shows in the desert.

For Cain, to be back is a real achievement. He and the band missed the stage, their time away was “devastating.” But in the meantime, the group wrote and recorded a new album, long-distance, which Journey is set to release in spring 2022 and will feature bassist Randy Jackson.

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Growing up in southeast Ohio, future award-winning songwriter, Jimmy Yeary, wasn’t allowed to listen to country music. In the early years, his was a life of school, family, and church. It was during the worship hours where Yeary would sing gospel. He was raised religiously. His upbringing was strict and hard. For instance, Yeary’s mother was a fan of singer Barbara Mandrell until she heard Mandrell’s 1980 song, “Crackers,” which went: You can eat crackers in my bed anytime, baby. That was it.

Yeary also says he endured some physical abuse, as a kid. But as he got a little older, he began sneaking music he loved into his house and listening to it surreptitiously. When his mom heard the song, “So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed,” in her house she blew her lid. Still, Yeary was undeterred. Once he heard you could move to Nashville to write, he had a plan. Ever since then, that plan to get where he belonged has worked out and Yeary has become one of the most popular songwriters in Music City.

His latest single, “Angeline,” released in October, showcases his love for his wife (famed singer, Sonya Isaacs,) his knack for storytelling and his natural ability to catch an ear hook, line and sinker.

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