 |
 |
|
| CD Available at these stores: |
 |
|
Borders Books & Music-Princeton Bookmarks-Pennington NJ Princeton Record Exchange-Princeton, NJ Rock Dreams-Hamilton NJ Hopewell Video-Hopewell, NJ Hopewell House Liquors-Hopewell NJ |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
 |
 |
||||
|
P R E S S -full reviews & raves East Coast Rocker - June, 2002 (Click here to see review) Musicians Realm - May, 2002 PARADISE LOST & FOUND The extraordinarily talented Maggi Hill has done it again with the release of her second outstanding CD, Paradise Lost & Found. As in her debut release, Keep The Label Hill has produced a CD that has every component of success. Combining all of the ingredients for a winner – brilliant songwriting, musicianship, vocals and production – Hill has hit the target again.
True to her independent and imaginative style, Paradise Lost & Found can hardly be classified as anything but Maggi Hill music. The music is soulful, rocking, bluesy, and all Maggi Hill. While she is at her best when telling a story with her special philosophical insights, like Faith in a Seed and Pain All The Same she also shows an amazing diversity when cranking out rock or blues tunes like Cold Day In Hell, Inside Out and an magnificent rendition of the Bessie Smith classic Moan You Moaners. Anybody who has witnessed any of her live performances knows she can expertly handle a sexy rock or blues song as well as an acoustic ballad.
While Maggi Hill’s vocals and creative songwriting alone are enough to generate a great musical work, she once again is savvy and secure enough to share the spotlight with a multitude of outstanding musicians. Searing and passionate guitar work is provided by John Bushnell, while Tom Reock and Ralph Liberto provide energetic and soulful keyboards. Excellent support is provided by bassist Jerry Steele, percussionists Bob Demetrician and brother Steve DeMet. A guest appearance is made by the incomparable blues harpist, Guy DeRosa of Herd of Blues. Splendid harmony vocals are provided by Jeannie Brooks, Carol Brooks Meyners, Jerry Steele and Tom Reock as well as Maggi herself.
Paradise Lost & Found is a first-rate CD and worth picking up at one of the locations mentioned on The Maggi Hill website. While you are at it, if you haven’t heard her first album, Keep The Label, it is worth purchasing as well. For those of you who are lucky enough to live near the area, Maggi Hill can often be found performing at the local pubs, coffee shops, bookstores and music festivals in Princeton, NJ and New Hope, PA and is definitely worth catching live.
Lycos Music - January 2001 "Some people just were born to sing country, and Maggi Hill is one of them. Her voice does some of the best natural tremolo sustains since Neil Young, and her harmonies could melt ice cream cones. Maggi Hill's dynamic band is almost as good as her voice. The steel player seems like he can draw actual tears from the weeping tones falling out of his amp, and the fiddle playing is really smooth. In fact, even though the Maggi Hill Band is from Trenton, New Jersey, they could easily give any Nashville band a run for the money. Her songs are sad and fragile sometimes, while other times they are soaked in pure uplifting pop. Either way, she can write the kind of arrangements and melodies that will stick with you like Crazy Glue." ...link to Lycos Music Musicians Realm - July 2000 "In the title track of this ingenious CD, Maggi Hill implores her listeners to Keep The Label. She doesn't need bourgeois material possessions, doesn't want to identify with any particular class or political affiliation, and I'm sure she doesn't want her music pigeonholed either. In this fine debut CD, Hill practices what she preaches. Diverse, straightforward, lowbrow, original and definitely not belonging to any particular genre, Keep The Label is a delight. Maggi Hill is a superb singer and creative songwriter. Chic, funky (Move On and Work In Motion), moving, storytelling (All That's Left, Way To The Top), rustic, rocking, Hill handles all of her vocals with expert elucidation and integration with her musicians. Work In Motion and Hudson Station are excellent compositions and are performed and engineered with perfection. In the realm of music, Maggi Hill is the complete package: singer, songwriter, guitar player, producer and she records on her own label, Lowbrow Records - www.lowbrowrecords.com. Notwithstanding her ample talent, Hill is smart enough to share the stage on Keep The Label with a cadre of outstanding musicians from Nashville and New Jersey. On the New Jersey sessions the guitar wizard from The Maggi Hill Band, John Bushnell, is joined by Maggi's husband Mark Hill of Herd of Blues in providing crisp, funky and exciting leads and accompanying rhythm. Additional band members and friends Jerry Steele (bass, vocals and peddle steel), Steve Demetrician (drums), Bob Demetrician (percussion), Tom Reock and Glen McClelland on keyboards, and a bevy of others provide excellent supporting performances. Talented producer, songwriter and bassist Chris Harford lends his skills to the touching ballad Flatliner. On the cuts recorded in Nashville, (All That's Left, Tired Old Pickup Line, Warmth Of The Sun, and Man-Woman Thing) Ms. Hill is backed by a terrific group of studio musicians who also shared producing duties. You may find these tunes to have a little country hint, but Maggi is capable and diverse enough to handle the rustic sound with competence, emotion and flavor." Liner Notes Magazine December 1998 "...and so be good for goodness sake..." "Rushing the season just a little bit, I recently received a tremendous present by way of singer/songwriter Maggi Hill. And I must have been really good this year, because her debut CD, "Keep the Label," is perfect right down to the title, with her styles ranging from Bonnie Raitt to Linda Ronstadt, to Emmylou Harris, with a definite nod of the cap to Joan Baez. Maggi Hill has delivered a CD that finally erases that line between pop, folk, and country that so many artists, like Shawn, Chapin, Alanis, and Jewel have been blurring. And for whatever mood you are in, there's a song, and each one is better than the last, especially when you play it over and over again. My personal favorite, "Man Woman Thing," is one I got to play on radio awhile ago, and hopefully will catch the ear of radio stations nationwide, no matter what their format. The only category this CD needs to be filed under is "fantastic". It should also be filled in your collection, so for more information, write Lowbrow Records, P.O. Box 572, Hopewell, NJ 08525. And I would be remiss in my duties not to thank Ms. Hill for the mention in her liner notes, as well." by Rocky-O Trenton Times, Friday, October 30, 1998 "No matter how many years a musician works at his or her craft, that first album-whenever it comes- is a momentous occasion. So, for Maggi Hill, Hopewell's self professed "rebel without a cause," tonight's celebratory CD release party at the Yankee Doodle Tap Room in Princeton for "Keep the Label" is "huge." She played in cover bands for what seemed like "forever," from that "Pat Benatar/spandex thing" in the early 80's to the more recent stint with her guitar-playing husband in the Pedestrians. In between, there were five years of changing diapers for three children, and composing original songs in her basement. To help pay the bills, there are still enough occasions when Hill goes out with a four-piece semi-acoustic unit or as part of a country-flavored duo with her pedal steel player, or does the wedding-band thing. For the past four years, the singer with a terminal case of spunk has been most focused on fronting the Maggi Hill Band, a staple on the local bar and coffeehouse circuit. Though highly capable of unfurling a dazzling assortment of covers, the Maggi Hill Band is an original unit of explosive veteran rockers. And "Keep the Label," culled from three year's worth of sessions locally and in Nashville, is now the band's calling card in its quest for industry recognition. "It's the culmination of all the things I've ever wanted to do," says Hill. "And I didn't know that until I read a book called 'Composing a Life', where the premise is that everything you've ever done has a way of coming together." Hill has been told for years that she sings like Bonnie Raitt and Linda Ronstadt. While "Keep the Label" seeks to define the Maggi Hill sound, it surveys much of the vintage folk-rock turf of Raitt and Ronstadt with a decidely '90's sheen. Live, the rockers who make up the Maggi Hill Band-bass/pedal steel player Jerry Steele (Patti Labelle,Chic), guitarist John Bushnell (Unguided Missile, Bricks Mortar, Castle Browne), and former Down to Earth members Tom Reock(keyboards), Bob Demetrician (percussion, sax), and Steve DeMet (drums)--put on a high-energy show with crack musicianship and a fat sound. With Reock, Bushnell, Demetrican, and Steele sharing vocals with Hill, the Maggi Hill Band is fast becoming known as one of the best harmony bands around. "I'm famous as hell in Hopewell," says Hill. "But that isn't going to do too much for me down the road." Hill doesn't need to be a big star. She'd just like to make the move to the next level--the showcase clubs with some label backing. Three years ago, Hill took her songs to publishers BMI, who dispatched her to Nashville to record. Half of the album is comprised of those tracks. Among the rest, local hero Chris Harford produced, arranged, and played on "Flatliner." Keyboardist Glen McClelland (ex-Blood, Sweat, and Tears) also appears. "Keep the Label" is folk-rock with a country flavor, some blues and a touch of funk. If it sounds a bit safe for Spunk Maiden Hill, don't think she's gone soft. Alreaady, Hill reports she's getting edgier on the tracks she's writing for the follow up album. "I think my music is in the right place at the right time," says Hill. "It is what's happening." " by Randy Alexander |
 |
  |
   |
   |
   |
 |
