Danny, Jess, and Amanda - 

mean harmony writers, country crooners, friendly folks who wanna break your heart.

Thanks for listening.

A decade of writing folk songs, songwriting school on the island of Martha's Vineyard, optimism, and a mission to see Truth and Beauty work together more often have formed Josiah Stumbo's songs into insightful and engaging works of art that they are. 

His latest project, under the name Retrofit Hymnal is a project in hymn preservation. Retrofit's first album "The Passion Fire of Love Divine" is music written, produced and recorded by Josiah to the near-forgotten lyrics and poems of A. B. Simpson (1843-1919).

Esther Sparks was born and raised in a castle in the west of Scotland; in what you might call a spiritual-communal-living-situation (not a cult as such – they didn’t make you stay, or take your money, or make you marry numerous people, they were just into Jesus, and peace and love and justice and macrame and what-not) She attended high school in a fairly violent, and repressed wee town, which was such a contrast to the peace-loving commune in which she was raised that an identity crisis ensued!

Esther came to the United States in 1996. For 11 years she lived in New Orleans, where she played music with numerous wonderful musicians, including Mike West, of Truckstop Honeymoon, who produced 2 of Esther’s 4 albums. She now lives in Lafayette, Colorado where she daily enjoys views of the magnificent Rockies, plays music at every brewery, pub, wedding, arts event and food-joint she can for a living, and helps her husband run their contracting business Blue Moose Builders. Her latest release a live album called ‘Back to Life’ is a collection of songs which chronicles the past few painful years of Esther’s life and her re-emergence back into joy …

“Brilliant, just brilliant. Knocked me out …. a lovely, lovely track” –  BBC Radio

“This musical gem is a bright and subtly powerful song that creeps up on you and fills you with joy and hope. It naturally transcends you into the story of the song and embraces you with positivity and happiness.” – Huffington Post.
 

The Band:

Our band is called Esther Sparks & the Whiskey Remedy. There are 3 of us. Esther Sparks on guitar and vocals. Darren Thornberry on harmonies and lead guitar, and his wife, Melissa Thornberry on drums.

We met in a wee town called Woodland Park Colorado around 2008. We’d all been playing music for years, solo and in various bands, and we started playing together while Darren was living in Esther’s basement, shortly before he married Melissa back in Nov 2012.

In 2013, we released a single called ‘Back to Life’. We made a video to go with it, and that got us a good few reviews and radio play on BBC Scotland, and on the local stations in Colorado. We then released a live album “Back to Life” which Esther promoted while doing her yearly tour in Scotland, with a CD release at Nice & Sleazy’s in Glasgow.

We’re now recording a new project, “Love Songs” due out in the spring of 2014.

Esther is Scottish, Melissa is German, and Darren is from Canada.

ToddNAnderson is following