Dayna Kurtz & Robert Mache wsg Willa Mamet & Paul Miller
Over the past decade, the New Jersey born, now New Orleans resident vocalist/writer/musician/producer has been bestowed with many awards and praises, including being named the Female Songwriter of the Year by the National Academy of Songwriters. Norah Jones and Bonnie Raitt have raved about her in interviews, and she's performed on such high-profile radio shows as World Cafe, Mountain Stage and NPR's Morning Edition and Tell Me More. She's toured as an opening act for the likes of Elvis Costello, Richard Thompson, Mavis Staples, Rufus Wainwright, B.B. King, Dr. John, Richie Havens, Keren Ann, Chris Whitley, and the Blind Boys of Alabama. Her last studio record, “Rise and Fall” was nominated for 5 Offbeat Magazine Awards. Dayna’s latest disc is a live record with career spanning tracks, culled from her 2016 Dutch theater tour with guitarist Robert Maché. It manages to capture the heart-stopping edge-of-your-seat mesmerized silence that Dayna Kurtz seems to magic from her audiences. On her work and friendship with Robert Maché (Continental Drifters, Steve Wynn) Kurtz says, “I’ve loved Robert’s playing for such a long time, and we’ve been friends longer than we’ve been touring partners. That we had such deep chemistry has been one of the greater recent gifts of my life, and I just wanted to document it somehow. I’d been hesitant, only because there’s only a few live records I listen to with the devotion I’d give a beloved studio record. It’s notoriously really difficult to capture the feeling of being there in the dark experiencing it. Then the challenge of it intrigued me. I feel like we succeeded in capturing what our live shows feel like, and they can be pretty intense.”
WILLA MAMET + PAUL MILLER Willa Mamet + Paul Miller: Two voices and a guitar, or two, like you're at the kitchen table with us. Folk, country, Americana, grassy soul, a little blues. Plus the fastest, silliest patter this side of Venus.
“Fine music masterfully played and sung. The stars shine when these two harmonize.” — ROBERT RESNIK, VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO “Willa Mamet is blessed with a rich, warm, emotionally-packed, intimate voice. Her interpretations of other peoples’ songs are breathtaking. But it’s her own deeply felt and insightful songwriting and fearless, funny stage presence that has her star rising in an early evening sky. ” — MARY TILSON, AMERICA'S BACK 40, KPFA BERKELEY CA