"Modern vintage sounds that will make you laugh and cry and dance like there’s no tomorrow, Ruby Friedman is an electrifying performer and songwriter"-- KCRW, Gary Calamar  
“You don’t need to know Ruby Friedman’s life story to get a sense of who she is. Just hearing her, and better seeing her perform, tell enough. Her voice and manner are as bold and brash as her flame-red hair. But she’s telling you anyway, with ‘Fugue in L.A. Minor,’ the opening song of her long-in-coming first album, Gem…It’s quite the curtain-raiser, fitting as what follows has some theatrical punch, Vaudevillian in some spots, Brechtian in others. Well, really it’s Vaudeville-y and Brecht-y, not fully either, or any one thing at any time. Bluesy also applies. Jazzy maybe. But brassy, always…another highlight is a last-minute addition to the album, the powerful ‘Ballad of Lee Morse…’ Friedman sings the tale with a kind of force that can only come from someone who sees something, or a lot, of herself in it. It’s part celebratory, part cautionary. And all Ruby Friedman.”
--Steve Hochman, KPCC (NPR Affiliate)
"One hell of a frontwoman with a completely unique and transfixing voice laden with passion... {Gem} is a necessary addition to your music collection." --  POP MATTERS, Sarah Zupko  
"Songs of Quiet Devastation - Gem is full of intense emotion, dark and menacing, full of violent frustration and shattered expectation"  -- MAGNET MAGAZINE, J Poet

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