Devon Sproule - The Gold String (2017)

Canadian singer/songwriter Devon Sproule was born in Kingston, Ontario, in the spring of 1982 and grew up on a sprawling hippie commune in rural Virginia. At a young age, Sproule practiced vocal harmony with her father, later using his old guitar to strum out her first tentative notes. By the time she was 15, she was putting her musical talents to work, writing songs and playing locally for those who would listen. There was never any other dream in her mind but music, and luckily no one to tell her it was the kind of dream that was, for most people, out of reach. Sproule recorded her self-titled debut album a few years later, billing herself simply as Devon. That album -- really, her voice on that album - drew a lot of interest, and in the end landed her a spot touring as a side act with the Dave Matthews Band. For 2001, Sproule released a second album, Long Sleeve Story, under the Three Word Records label. She had some pretty impressive help on her sophomore release, such as drummer Nate Brown, bassist David Saull, trumpeter John D'earth, and bass player Stefan Lessard, who also served as producer for the album. Sproule pulled stakes and headed north soon after the release of her second album, moving from sultry Charlottesville, VA, to snow-bound upstate New York. The move signaled a change in Sproule's songwriting. Her 2003 album, Upstate Songs, was stripped of the slick alt-rock feel of her previous work and found Sproule returning to her acoustic guitar-driven folk roots. Critics loved Upstate Songs; Rolling Stone said it was "perhaps the sweetest and most honest folk pop album recorded this year." Sproule moved back to Virginia and married fellow musician Paul Curreri soon after the album was released. Her fourth record, a shimmering, country-tinged effort called Keep Your Silver Shined, followed in 2007 expanding on her warm and often whimsical folk-based sound. Over the next few years Sproule released music as a rapid pace, delivering the charming Don't Hurry For Heaven via U.K. label Tin Angel Records in 2009, followed a year later by the concert album Live in London. 2011 brought her sixth studio LP, I Love You, Go Easy, around which time she and Curreri relocated to Berlin. Sproule's next project was a 2013 collaborative album with fellow Canadian singer/songwriter Mike O'Neil called Colours. Her wayfaring continued with a move to Austin, Texas, a stint as artist-in-residence on Fishers Island of the coast of New York, Canadian recording sessions in Yukon, Ontario, and Nova Scotia, and eventually back to Virginia where she wrapped up her eighth studio album, 2017's The Gold String.