After charting in the Top 10 of Roots Music Report, and breaking the Top 25 of the Living Blues Chart, Willie J Laws Jr's masterful new blues album "Too Much Blues" has been submitted for a Grammy Award. Here's to hoping that the Grammy voters hear the brilliance we hear in this album!
Stream here: https://open.spotify.com/album/2N6Jy22HIE7cOJa2rw2BYv?si=GtyXUXRvRCeX0gV5mJx0VQ
Continuing to amaze her friends, fans and music industry pundits alike, Fairfield-CT based singer-songwriter Vicki F is back with a new release, and it's about as far from her last song "There is a God" that one might expect. In fact, it's not even a song at all, it's a book entitled "Gestational Surrogacy: The Definitive Guide!"
The subject matter is actually an area of Vicki F's professional expertise, you see. In fact, when she is not writing acoustic, post-punk confessionals, she is an attorney in the state of Connecticut, known in that circle as the more proper Victoria Ferrara, Esquire.
Back in her CBGB punk days, when she was known as Trudi, Vicki sang and played guitar in a New Haven, Ct-based punk band Troupe DiCoupe. These were fast, heady days by all accounts, which Vicki would leave behind in what she has described as an act of self-survival. Vicki pivoted, and leaving Trudi in her wake, she headed to law school.
Yet, even as a lawyer, Vicki would find herself further breaking away from the pack and blazing her own trail, just as she had in becoming a musician to begin with, and ultimately deciding to set her guitar aside. Entering into the field of family law, she founded and became the Legal Director of Worldwide Surrogacy Specialists, one of the leading surrogacy agencies in the world. She is a member of the Academy of Adoption and Assistant Reproduction Attorneys, the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, the American Bar Association/Family Law Section, and the National LGBTQ+ Bar Association's Family Group. Within her vast expertise, she became a lecturer and panelist in international surrogacy conferences. universities and professional seminars all over the world. She earned the LAMBDA Award for Outstanding LGBTQ+ Community Service in 2016.
In her latest work, a comprehensive self-help, how-to guide for intended parents turning to surrogacy, "Gestational Surrogacy: The Definitive Guide" is a soup-to-nuts work that will take intended parents through the surrogacy journey from when they sign with a surrogacy program and a reproductive clinic, to when they are home enjoying their newborn. Many people do not know about gestational surrogacy and why it is an important fertility option. The book was designed to alleviate fears and anxieties as an acceptable societal mode to create families.
"One of the most through yet understandable roadmaps to breaking down this multistep process into simple, manageable steps with an awareness of not only each critical component but also how they fit together and how one affects the other....by one of the most trusted and admired surrogacy attorneys in the United States," said Michael B. Doyle, MD.
After the unexpected and surprising release of this book, which we as Pilot Light Records could not be more pleased to announce, fans of Vicki F will be surely pleased to know that her next single, entitled "16 Days," is set to come out very soon. This song will feature work by guitarist and producer Ryan Hommel, best known as for his work with recording artist Amos Lee. By all accounts, this could be the break through hit of all Vick F's recent work, and we can hardly wait!
In the mean time, hearty congratulations to Vicki F on a hugely important job well done!
NORWALK, CT, USA, September 26, 2023 /EINPresswire.com/ -- Pilot Light Records has released an official new music video for recording artist Vicki F’s dream-pop ballad “There is a God.” The video was filmed and produced at Factory Underground Studio in Norwalk, CT, co-directed by Marc Alan, with Director of Photography and Editor, John Shyloski.
The visually stunning music video, available on YouTube, is an intriguing mix of experimental filmmaking, with elements of classic film noir. Shot and edited entirely in black and white, the interplay of light and shadow is used to create a sense of phantasmagoria and mystery.
Unapologetic close up shots of Vicki's face and hands, as she sings and plays the guitar, create a sense of intimacy with the viewer, as we bear witness to a stunningly personal and introspective solo performance.
As the song evolves, and winds its way toward an emotional release, so too does the video, with Vicki emerging from the darkness, bathed in a shimmering white light. Yet even with the burst of light, Vicki remains as she was at the very start, a figure of intrigue, peering out from the shadows.
The cinematography is a fitting match to the aural soundscape constructed by producer-engineer Tom Stewart, and mix engineer with Kenny Cash. Lush slide guitar lines, acoustic guitars, and background vocals dripping in reverb, are at times reminiscent of Brian Wilson's “Pet Sounds.”
About “There is a God,” Vicki states: “This is not a Christian song [as many believe]. It’s a human song as told in the lyrics, “do I get a prize for trying, can you see that I am crying, I am working on believing, I do not think I am only dreaming.”
“I wrote this song to try to work out my struggle about whether there is a god or not. I think Marc Alan and John Shyloski did an extraordinary production that captures the mystery of the struggle for belief,” she said.
About the creative direction for the music video, Marc Alan stated: "I was originally inspired by a photographic portrait of a woman sitting in a dark room with shadows of a Venetian blind streaked across her face. This was something I wanted to recreate in a music video.
I remember the day I was running around maniacally trying to find just the right type of blind to shoot light through. I didn't seem to notice all the people wearing masks in the store. It was the day of the Canadian forest fires, and I was oblivious…. This is what I love about the filmmaking process, the relentless drive to bring a creative vision to life.”
“There is a God” is the fourth music video by the team of Alan and Shyloski. The pair previously co-directed a roof-top set music video for Vicki F’s cover of “Downtown,” as sung originally by Petula Clark. They also co-directed videos for “Late Night Train,” by Tom “The Suit” Forst, shot guerilla-style on the New York City subway, and “Everything is Falling,” a simulated live-performance captured on stage at the historic Wall Street Theater in downtown Norwalk, CT.