The third album from Maggie Rose, Have a Seat is the work of a phenomenally gifted artist showing the full extent of her power. After years of honing her chops and making her name as a force-of-nature vocalist, the Nashville-based singer/songwriter has dreamed up her own unbridled collision of rock-and-roll, soul, folk, funk, and R&B: a fittingly eclectic sound for a musician whose live experience includes opening for Heart and Joan Jett & the Blackhearts, touring as direct support for Kelly Clarkson, and sharing the Cayamo Cruise bill with Emmylou Harris and Jason Isbell—all in 2019 alone. Centered on the stunning vocal command she’s revealed in taking the stage at The Grand Ole Opry over 80 times, Have a Seat f inds Rose approaching her music with more confidence and clarity of vision than ever, ultimately sharing a selection of songs both timeless and urgent. Produced by Ben Tanner of Alabama Shakes, Have a Seat came to life at the iconic FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, AL. In a series of pre-pandemic sessions, Rose recorded live with a lineup of heavy-hitters that includes bassist David Hood of the Swampers (the group of session musicians who played on records from legends like Aretha Franklin and Etta James) and guitarist Will McFarlane (Bonnie Raitt, Levon Helm), along with her longtime bandmates/collaborators Larry Florman (background vocals/percussion), Alex Haddad (guitars), and Sarah Tomek (drums) of Them Vibes. Also featuring an esteemed string section and swampy horn ensemble—in a way that’s never been so integral to Rose’s sonic aesthetic— Have a Seat continues the free-flowing musical exploration she first began on her powerhouse 2018 album Change the Whole Thing. “I had the idea of recording at FAME in the back of my mind throughout the entire writing process for this project,” says Rose, who first visited the studio upon performing as part of the Muscle Shoals to Music Row program in late 2018. “I took a lot of inspiration from the Aretha Franklin and Wilson Pickett records that came out of that very room, playing up my R&B sensibilities more than ever and really tapping into my soul and its connection to this music.” Like any great soul singer, Rose beautifully captures the tensions of the current moment, gently presenting her pensive social commentary while providing much-needed reprieve from the everyday chaos. “These songs were written during a contentious time, and there are undertones to the lyrics that are influenced by the state of our world politics and the politics of the music industry,” she says. “The title Have a Seat is responsorial, placing an emphasis on inclusivity—like, ‘Here, sit down. Let’s try talking to each other.’ One of the most loving things we can do is listen and make others feel heard—give people the space to speak their mind and be themselves. However, there’s also an intended meaning to the title that points to the power in occupying the seat that’s designated to you: I am claiming a seat I believe is rightfully mine, and I want others to do the same.” One of the lead singles to Have a Seat , “For Your Consideration” arrives as a full-hearted plea for understanding and compassion, its smoldering verse and stormy chorus brilliantly mimicking the back-and-forth of a heated argument. “When I wrote that song I’d just been in L.A. and seen all the billboards on Sunset for some awards show that was about to happen,” says Rose. “I decided to repurpose the phrase ‘For Your Consideration’ to make it about the aftermath of a fight, where the people are so caught up in saying what they want to say that they never actually listen to each other.” The slow-burning opening track to Have a Seat, “What Are We Fighting For” offers a gorgeous introduction to the album’s message of loving solidarity, its power intensified by Rose’s tender yet mighty vocals and the soul-soothing harmonies of Karita Law and Shanay Johnson (a duo known for their work with Brittany Howard and Emily King). On “Do It,” Rose veers into a brighter mood, bringing fiery horns and breezy rhythms to a personal mission statement she sums up as “doubling down on being an individual.” With its ethereal textures and hypnotic guitar tones, “Saint” unfolds as a delicate refusal to succumb to the expectations of others. (“That song’s about admitting to not being perfect and being okay with that,” says Rose. “It’s something we should stop expecting of women—because women are many things, and saintly is not a requirement.”) And on tracks like “Are We There Yet”—a crystalline piece of symphonic pop graced with lush and luminous string work—Rose ventures into unsparing self-reflection. “‘Are We There Yet’ is a song about the way we all torture ourselves with our ambitions,” she says. “Instead of always thinking about the next thing I want to go out and get, I’m trying to just focus on enjoying what I already have—which is really pretty great.” With its standouts also including “What Makes You Tick” (a gloriously funky track co-written with and featuring blues guitarist and Grammy nominee Marcus King), Have a Seat finds Rose boldly elevating her songwriting and sound while reclaiming the joyful freedom of her early years. Growing up in Maryland, she cut her teeth sneaking into nearby bars to sing with a Bruce Springsteen cover band at the age of 16, then moved to Nashville several years later after being discovered as a potential breakout country star. Although she soon achieved major success on Music Row and earned acclaim from the likes of the New York Times—who hailed her as a “sturdy heartbreaker...full of astute, aggrieved songwriting...and attitude that even in the post-Miranda Lambert era feels knifelike”—Rose grew increasingly restless within the confines of country. After expanding her musical palette on Change the Whole Thing , she found herself embraced by luminaries in the rock and pop and Americana worlds, and even became massively beloved by the jam-band community (thanks in no small part to her exhilarating performance at the Peach Music Festival in 2019). Quickly gaining recognition as a fiercely independent artist, she was eventually tapped by Osiris Media to create “Salute the Songbird with Maggie Rose”: a weekly podcast based on candid conversations between Rose and her favorite female trailblazers in music, including Martina McBride and Go-Go’s bassist Kathy Valentine. For Rose, the charmed experience of recording in Muscle Shoals has catalyzed the start of a thrilling new era in her musical evolution. “Working with musicians of that caliber and knowing they were giving my music so much attention definitely made me thrive,” she says. “I felt so safe going deep into the emotional places within the songs, and I think you can feel that love and camaraderie when you listen to the record.” At the same time, Have a Seat is undeniably the sound of an artist fully coming into her own, without concession or compromise. “I’ve worked in this industry for over a decade, and I feel like I’ve finally carved out a lane that’s genre-bending and all my own,” she says. “I had to really fight to find that space for myself, and this record is my way of staking my claim.”

Tierinii Jackson – Lead Vocals, Background Vocals * Ori Naftaly – Guitars *  Tikyra Jackson – Drums, Background Vocals * Jeremy Powell – Keys * Evan Sarver – Bass  Abounding with musical creativity, confident songcraft, and deeply felt emotion, BE THE LOVE YOU WANT marks the GRAMMY® nominated, Southern Avenue’s most ingenious and personal effort thus far, marrying soul power and jam band liberation, gospel, blues and righteous R&B, to craft their own timeless brand of American music.  BE THE LOVE YOU WANT, produced by multi-GRAMMY® winner, Steve Berlin (Los Lobos, Deer Tick, Susan Tedeschi, Jackie Greene), and co-produced by Ori Naftaly showcases an exhilarating, and deeply emotional collection of songs that captures all of the shared experiences that bring us together – joy and sorrow, unity and separation, love and hate. “On the last record, we had something to prove,” Tierinii says. “And the GRAMMY® nomination made it feel like we got the job done. We’re grateful for the moment, but we do this for the love of music and for the freedom of our spirit and hope that it frees other people from whatever they’re going through.”  “We’re definitely a melting pot of different experiences, different backgrounds and different cultures. It's hard to put us in a box, both literally, and musically. Southern Avenue doesn’t sound like anybody else. And that's something that I'm very proud of.”  - Ori Naftaly  The Memphis, TN-based band’s third studio recording sees Southern Avenue pushing themselves towards bold new ideas of what it means to be a blues band in the modern world, bending and reshaping their musical heritage with electrifying performance, vivid production, and a remarkably clear vision. Operating from their distinctively international vantage point, Southern Avenue has produced a wide-ranging collection of original music – predominantly co-written by Israeli-born guitarist Ori Naftaly and powerhouse lead vocalist Tierinii Jackson – that links them to their home city’s glorious past while at the same time, demonstrates their ambitious intent to evolve Memphis music to contemporary effect. Songs like the sensual, sun-dappled “Love You Nice And Slow” and incendiary title track evince striking new musical range, more than a match for the astonishing gravitational force of Jackson’s widescreen vocals and equally potent lyrical voice. With BE THE LOVE YOU WANT, Southern Avenue continue driving the Southern soul legacy into the 21st century, preserving its glory and tradition while striving towards something diverse, universal, and altogether their own.  “Southern soul is the foundation for so many different styles,” Tierinii says. “We use those influences, we can just run across the board and explore. It’s good.”  The road to Southern Avenue began when Naftaly – a gifted guitarist with a lifelong passion for American roots music – first arrived in Memphis from his native Israel to compete in the prestigious International Blues Challenge. There Naftaly met Tierinii and her ferociously talented sister, drummer Tikyra “TK” Jackson, both of whom had grown up in the church and were only just beginning to perform secular music. Blown away by the sheer force of their ability and personalities, Naftaly invited Tierinii and TK to join his solo blues combo but soon realized that together they had become something both new and special. Taking a name from the main thoroughfare running due west from East Memphis to 926 East McLemore Avenue – a.k.a. Soulsville, the original headquarters of Stax Records, Southern Avenue swiftly began developing a distinctly contemporary approach towards their own reverent sound. Signed to Stax in 2016, less than a year after their initial formation, the band released their self-titled debut early the next year. SOUTHERN AVENUE was an immediate phenomenon, reaching #1 on iTunes’ “Top Blues Albums” chart before being honored with 2018 Blues Music Award for “Best Emerging Artist Album.” 2019’s KEEP ON proved to be an even greater success, debuting among the top 5 on Billboard’s “Top Blues Albums” chart amidst worldwide critical acclaim, ultimately earning Southern Avenue their first GRAMMY® Award nomination, for “Best Contemporary Blues Album”.  Having spent nearly all of their half-decade lifespan on the road, Southern Avenue began 2020 with plans to celebrate their GRAMMY® nomination in front of audiences around the world. The global pandemic changed all that but allowed the band a rare chance to finally pull back and take a well-deserved pause.  “We kind of needed to sit down and rest,” Tierinii says. “Because we go and we don’t stop. We don’t stop to celebrate and soak in the moment, every time we achieve something great. We just keep going and going and going.”  “We had been going so hard for the last five years,” TK says. “In the beginning, it was like an appreciated break. But after about two weeks, I was definitely feeling the angst, wanting to be able to be in the creative space. But life is made of the good and the bad so we had to find a way to make the best of it.”  With seemingly infinite time on their hands, Southern Avenue were able to approach their third album with more attention than ever before, allowing songs and ideas to flow at an unhurried, natural pace.  Southern Avenue reconvened in November, coming together at the analog-centric Memphis Magnetic Recording Co. for eight full days of recording. As is their nature, Southern Avenue worked hard and fast. After such a long hiatus, the band lit up the recording sessions with enough raw power here to spark a sizable electrical fire.  “We hit it and quit it,” Tierinii says.  The sessions marked Naftaly’s first time as co-producer, sharing duties with Steve Berlin, a veteran musician/member of Los Lobos as well as a multiple GRAMMY® Award-winning producer with a particular affinity for cross-cultural musical adventurers (Buckwheat Zydeco, Ozomatli, Los Super Seven, Angelique Kidjo, Susan Tedeschi). Southern Avenue and Los Lobos had traveled the Mexican Riviera in 2019 on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise and a kindred musical friendship was formed.  “Having Steve there really helped us bring the songs to their full potential,” Naftaly says. “It's about having another set of ears on the music that you trust.”  BE THE LOVE YOU WANT marks an irrefutable enhancement of what has already proven an exceptional canon of material, augmenting the band’s signature sound with myriad layers of guitar tracks, percussion, strings, and brass (courtesy of veteran saxophonist Art Edmaiston and trumpeter Marc Franklin) to create what Naftaly calls “the most Southern Avenue album yet.” Songs like “Control” and the house-quaking album closer, “Move On,” fully came to life during recording, arranged to accentuate the band’s uncanny interplay and exceptional musicianship. “Don't Hesitate (Call Me)” is marked by Naftaly’s chromatic chord changes and psychedelic bridge and while “Heathen Hearts” tacks far from Southern Avenue’s usual full-blooded musical domain, eschewing traditional instrumentation for handclaps, foot stomps, and joyful church choir harmonies. The ambitious sonic approach expertly counterparts with BE THE LOVE YOU WANT’s rich themes of self-love and self-empowerment, of personal accountability and pushing through towards something greater. Songs like the spectacularly uplifting “Control” offer immediate evidence of Tierinii’s growing muscle as an individualistic, communicative songwriter with a particular knack for affirmative intimacy.  “I’m very proud of where we went lyrically with this album,” Tierinii says. “It’s the way I speak to myself. I talk to myself a lot. It’s a way of overcoming different things, fears, or traumas. I speak very positively to myself, sometimes I’m very hard on myself, sometimes I give myself self-love. Sometimes I’m very accepting of my thoughts. And sometimes I have to comfort myself and not be so hard on myself. I feel like this album reflects the way that I have to speak to myself to make it through life.”  Along with two distinctly groove-powered songs co-written with Tikyra and bassist Evan Sarver (“Let’s Get It Together” and “Pressure”), BE THE LOVE YOU WANT also sees the songwriting core of Southern Avenue teaming up with such friends and fans as North Mississippi Allstars’ Cody Dickinson (“Push Now” and “Heathen Hearts”) and Israeli-born, Los Angeles-based keyboard player/songwriter Itay Shimoni (“Fences”). Perhaps the album’s most surprising collaboration is “Move Into The Light,” a churning, funk-blasted burner co-written with 2X GRAMMY® Award-winning pop superstar Jason Mraz and producer/songwriter/musician Michael Goldwasser (Easy Star All-Stars).  “It’s just such a unique collaboration,” Tierinii says. “Jason understands the vibe of Southern Avenue is very positive, so his approach lyrically perfectly matched the direction for the album. When he turned up with the song, I was so grateful. We reworked it with the band and made it all churchy and soulful and as Memphis-y as we could. It turned out really, really great. It’s kind of a wild card, because it’s more of a dance song, but it’s still got that church vibe, it still has the soul.”  Southern Avenue have showcased that soulful spirit with nearly non-stop touring, their powerful showmanship and locked-in musicality honed through extensive stage experience. The relentlessly traveling band – who have played in over a dozen countries, including show-stealing sets at such festivals as Bonnaroo, Firefly, Electric Forest and Lockn’ – is of course eager to return to the road, keen to introduce fans old and new to their amplified musical vision.  

Singer-songwriter Bre Kennedy creates music soaked in rich, timeless storytelling with innate pop sensibilities. Influenced by mesmerizing talents like Brandi Carlile, Fleetwood Mac, and Bonnie Raitt, Kennedy’s delicate, raspy sound soars as she touches on profound themes around life’s messy moments. Kennedy reveals, “I usually try to have a smile on when it comes to talking about the mess of being human.” Kennedy grew up in a musical household, taking in the greats like Tom Petty, Heart, Aretha Franklin, and Carole King. After a brief stint in LA, she hopped in her Nissan and headed to Nashville where she discovered her true musical identity. Kennedy admits, “It was a lot of searching for what I wanted to say as an artist, and somehow I found that in Nashville amongst a community of incredible songwriters who inspired me to make music I loved.” She began playing shows at prominent Nashville venues like The 5 Spot and The Basement, where she caught the attention of industry and fans alike. In 2019, she self-released her Jealous of Birds EP, followed by 2020’s Twenty Something EP, with both title tracks landing on Spotify’s coveted New Music Friday playlist. She released her debut full-length album, Note To Self, in October 2021, which was inspired by her time alone in lockdown and after reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way. It marked another appearance for Kennedy on Spotify’s New Music Friday and saw her grace the cover of the Today’s Singer-Songwriters playlist. Over the past couple of years, Kennedy sold-out a headline show at Nashville’s historic Exit In and has supported such renowned artists as Sheryl Crow, Gary Clark Jr., and Birdtalker. Media has also taken notice, with outlets like Billboard, Paste, American Songwriter and Atwood singing her praises. At the end of 2021, Kennedy signed to Nettwerk Music Group. She is currently working on new music and will join Joy Oladokun on her Spring 2022 tour. She has cemented herself as an artist to watch and one of the brightest voices out of the New Nashville music scene.