If you're a fan of soft-spoken, poetry-driven folk music, sung from the heart with enchangintly spare compositions, you'll be a big fan of Ziona Riley. She's working on her first album now, and she visited HPPR while traveling through the High Plains. Learn more about her music on her Facebook and Bandcamp, and be sure to check out the in-studio songs she played for us. So ethereal and captivating! We look forward to her next trip through the Yellow City!
More about Ziona Riley (from her website): "I'm a Nashville based singer songwriter by way of Bloomington, IN. I was raised in a hyper-legalistic faith healing cult and my work as an artist often references this restrictive and sometimes chaotic upbringing.
My household was very musical -- my mother had been a flautist and her mother was a classical singer and father a composer. But secular music was frowned upon by our faith community, so until I was old enough to seek it out on my own, I was raised purely on classical music with a sprinkling of gospel and Christian contemporary for good measure.
I moved to Nashville in 2012 and joined a band called Heinous Orca. We opened a show for Kesha at a dive bar one time. I also performed as bass player and backup singer for Ruby the Rabbitfoot on multiple tours, including 3 weeks on the road with Of Montreal. Playing bass is fun, but my true passion lies with deepening my relationship to the guitar and writing folk songs. Last November, I caught the tour bug again, but this time I went out as my solo singer songwriter self and I loved it so much, I decided to do it forever. Just kidding, but actually sort of not kidding because I did very recently decide to quit my day job of 7 years in order to be a full time artist. Still figuring out what that looks like."
