Artist description The Court and Spark is a slow-fade, a slow-klang, a climb to the top of Portola Road to watch San Francisco on the longest day of the year. M.C. Taylor, Scott Hirsch, and James Kim have known each other a long time, and that’s in the music too. They began calling themselves The Court and Spark in spring of 1998 and started gigging around The City, refining the music that would appear on their first album, Ventura Whites, a collection of lanky shuffles, ballroom organs, and tremeloed guitars. Released on San Francisco’s Tumult Records and Germany’s Glitterhouse Records in 1999, the record garnered the group international acclaim from publications such as Mojo (UK), Uncut (UK), Time, No Depression, Copper Press, Schellackgeschrei, and weeklies throughout Northern California. Extensive touring, with the addition of Tom Heyman’s pedal-steel guitar and frequent collaborator Wendy Allen’s harmonies, led the group towards the music that appears on 2001’s Bless You, released by San Francisco’s Absolutely Kosher Records and Germany’s Glitterhouse Records. A Sunday morning record, or one that hums like the milky light at sundown. Organic and drifting, wrapped around Kim's loose groove, Hirsch and Heyman’s ethereal vibrato calls back and forth across channels, and with help from Graham Taylor’s woozy brass arrangements and friend and former Byrd and Flying Burrito Brother Gene Parsons on various stringed instruments, Bless You is a testimony of joy and sorrow and apology, of religion and sobering up at dawn. Everybody joins Taylor on the choruses. There are those that think The Court and Spark is a straight country band, and they’re missing the point a bit. The music sounds more like a heavenly houseboat in space.

Music Style Deep, Layered Country Rock, Americana

Musical Influences Souled American, The Byrds, Palace, Townes Van Zandt, Brian Eno, The Band, Gram Parsons, Mazzy Star, Flying Burrito Brothers, Neil Young, Willie Nelson

Similar Artists Gene Clark, Calexico, Byrds, Palace, Silver Jews, My Morning Jacket

Group Members M.C. Taylor - Vocals, Guitar Scott Hirsch - Guitar, Vocals James Kim - Drums, Percussion Tom Heyman - Pedal Steel

Instruments Take-off, Panoramic, River Guitars, Rattlers, Shakers, Drum Kits, Backwash, Pianos, and Synthesizers

Albums Ventura Whites, Bless You

Press Reviews Pulse Magazine - Forget about a sophomore slump: The members of the Court and Spark merely wanted to record a second album that met their own high expectations. That's why the San Francisco indie folk-rock band spent almost two years at work on Bless You (Absolutely Kosher) scrapping songs and searching for an elusive thread that would tie together what remained. "I think on all the great records over time, all the songs blend together and sound like a piece of art," posits Court and Spark frontman M.C. Taylor. "We wanted to make an album that was fully cohesive." Too often, such lofty desires from upstart bands result in albums that sound forced, clinging to tricked-out motifs or suffering from overzealous production. Keeping that in mind, Bless You is a revelation, a glorious post-alt-country record that looks back past the Old 97's and Uncle Tupelo to forefathers like Gram Parsons and the Byrds. Then it harnesses such influences into something that's completely relevant today, the type of album you can listen to in a living room or 'round a campfire or through headphones 25,000 feet up in an airplane. A naturalistic, rootsy sound spreads out across each song, whether it's a dirge that has a gloomy Taylor lamenting a romantic stumble or a hopeful pop jaunt that finds him upbeat and accompanied by sparkling harmonies. Rather than rely on a narrative theme, a simple mood or a singular tempo, the Court and Spark employ guest vocalist Wendy Allen's backing and Tom Heyman's pedal steel to create what Taylor calls the "fabric" that makes up the disc. That and an instinctive communication between the core group. "When we're playing, we don't have to talk to each other much," Taylor notes. The 26-year-old met his full-time bandmates Scott Hirsch, James Kim and Joe Rogers in Santa Barbara during the mid-'90s, playing in a noisier outfit before the young men went their separate ways. By 1998, they'd reconvened in San Francisco, forming the Court and Spark and setting off in their new direction. Though other Bay Area bands over the years have twisted the country idiom into inventive and offbeat shapes, Taylor says he was unaware of even the best-known among them-including Tarnation, whose Paula Frazer would later enlist the Court and Spark to back her on a tour. Taylor did know a bit about the late-'60s/early-'70s folk-rock scene and its California roots, however, and when it came time to make the Court and Spark's second record, he made an odd gesture to the past. Having heard that ex-Byrds member Gene Parsons lived north of the Bay Area, Taylor wrote a letter asking Parsons if he'd have any interest in recording a song or two with the band. To Taylor's surprise, Parsons wrote back and requested a demo. After listening, the guitarist from the legendary band wrote again. "He said he couldn't understand the lyrics," Taylor recalls with a laugh. Soon, Parsons received a copy of the lyric sheet and agreed to take part, driving to a Bay Area studio in a "pick-up truck full of instruments," Taylor says. Parsons contributed harmonies and mandolin to the sad midtempo tune "National Lights," strummed the Byrds-like melody of "Fireworks" and plucked the banjo on the toe-tapping "Pearly Gates." The latter song is a reminder that Bless You's cementing factor isn't a trend-seeking alt-country aesthetic or the presence of Gene Parsons or even the clean production. It's something more old-fashioned: an ability to write and execute memorable hooks. "That's the job of any writer of songs," Taylor says decisively, "and anybody who says they don't is a liar." Rolling Stone - The Court and Spark Bless You (Absolutely Kosher) Though they've been tagged as alt-country, the term doesn't really do justice to the expansive, drifting haze of sounds that this San Francisco sextet conjures on its second album, Bless You. The ghosts of left-field twang-rock icons like Gram Parsons and Townes Van Zandt are easily detected in the dusty acoustic guitars and the delicate whine of the pedal steel, but from the odd, Tom Waits-style percussion that opens the album to the warm brass arrangements that color "Rooster Mountain" and "Fade Out to Little Arrow," it's clear there's far more going on. M.C. Taylor's gentle, soothing voice often masks a profound sadness buried beneath it, and as the wistful harmonies he and Wendy Allen generate on "National Lights" and "Fireworks" unfold at a wonderfully lazy pace, the effect is downright stunning. For the Court and Spark, it seems, even emotional urgency needn't sound rushed. (DAVID PEISNER)

Location San Francisco, California - USA

Copyright notice. All material on MP3.com is protected by copyright law and by international treaties. You may download this material and make reasonable number of copies of this material only for your own personal use. You may not otherwise reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, or create derivative works of this material, unless authorized by the appropriate copyright owner(s).