Grande Prairie, Alberta singer-songwriter Tenille Townes wanted to create music that would deeply touch people, so when the now 26 year old first landed in Nashville in 2013, she started working with renowned producer Jay Joyce and eagerly began creating the music she had dreamt of making.
She worked alongside Joyce while taking gigs at local bars, and her work soon paid off as folks in the famed Music Row began to take notice of her songs that would eventually make up the tracks on her first EP Living Room Worktapes. Her songs, each created with Townes looking at the stories from an observer’s point, were written from deep within, including personal tragedies. Once with Columbia Nashville, Townes sought the help of Joyce who turned her tunes into well crafted, anthemic masterpieces. “Somebody’s Daughter,” a more uptempo tune with the premise of looking into another’s background, wondering who they are or where they came from, was one of the many songs from her first EP to be revamped a bit and added to her debut album The Lemonade Stand, released on June 26.
The album is a compilation of tracks that fans have already heard and others they haven’t. Some are deeply poignant and showcase vulnerability in Townes’ delivery; “When I Meet My Maker” has a hymnal quality, where one prays to God, albeit questioning about the eternal life they will see:
When I meet my maker
We’ll walk on heaven’s boulevard
Up above the clouds
In between the stars
Soft subtle guitar strums in the background while Tenille’s ethereal vocals lend a spiritual feeling to the song.
Another more spiritual track is “The Most Beautiful Things,” a beautiful tender ballad with vivid images of a world seen in our minds, not through our eyes. The songwriting as well as the production with bittersweet background of vocals in the refrain repeatedly singing “Pray, cry, kiss, dream” create a sense of appreciation for what you have (note: it is the voice of the album engineer’s daughter singing background).
Among the spiritual, softer tunes, there’re plenty of uplifting songs with more of a pop sound that’s interspersed among the more mellow. “White Horse” and “Holding Out For The One” are geared toward the lighthearted look in romance with heavy drum beats added with a bit of edginess. The bluesy “I Kept The Roses” is a romance gone bad, performed perfectly with Towne’s delivery. Her vocals are perfectly fitting for this “breakup number” as she touts about the positives and negative of its end:
But I kept the roses, right by my bed
And they should make me lonely, but I’m smiling instead
‘Cause you weren’t the one, babe, but you were the closest
I let the rest of us go, but I kept the roses
The Lemonade Stand is a well produced and rounded album with a mixture of tunes from the subdued to the pop style. Fans will still love the songs already played at shows, but be more pleased at a the new ones. This album is a download must.
For more information on Tenille Townes, please visit: www.tenilletownes.com
The Lemonade Stand Track List
“Holding Out for the One”
“Where You Are”
“Jersey on the Wall (I’m Just Asking)”
“Lighthouse”
“White Horse”
“I Kept the Roses”
“When I Meet My Maker”
“Come as You Are”
“The Way You Look Tonight”
“Find You”
“Somebody’s Daughter”
“The Most Beautiful Things”