This album, with its strong songcraft and layers of guitars, should appeal to fans of smart, modern pop songwriters such as Sheryl Crow or Liz Phair. Featuring Pete Droge's band, the Sinners.

10 MP3 Songs
ROCK: 60's Rock, ROCK: Americana



Details:
Elaine Summers has been a member of Pete Droge's band since 1993, so it seemed only fitting that she use his band, the Sinners, on her latest record, Sparkler. This is the second record of Elaine's that Pete Droge has produced. The pair's first collaboration, Transplanting, came out on Stone Gossard's now defunct Loosegroove Records in 1997.

While Summers says that she wanted Sparkler to have a 60s sound, it is not an exercise in retro rock. The strong songcraft and layers of guitars should appeal to fans of smart modern pop songwriters such as Sheryl Crow or Liz Phair. The record's only cover, "Just Can't Take It Anymore," is a recently unearthed Gram Parsons song that is given a Nick Lowe-type pub rock arrangement. Elaine's version is the first cover of this obscure song.

Filmmaker Cameron Crowe asked Elaine and Pete to appear in his Golden Globe- Academy Award- winning movie ALMOST FAMOUS. The two play singers, loosely based on Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris, and sing Pete's original composition "Small Time Blues." Their entire performance of the song is a DVD "special feature" on the Director's Edition - Almost Famous: The Bootleg Cut.

Many of Elaine's songs have been featured in film and television, an area where she continues to focus her attention. She was recently enlisted by Pete Droge as executive producer for his musical scores in two feature length films, Catching Out and Tattoo, A Love Story.