©2008 Janni Littlepage (Little Pages Music, BMI)
Janni Littlepage - lead & background vocals & piano
Kenny Edwards - bass & electric guitar
Robert Stanton - acoustic guitar
Tony Ybarra - nylon string guitars
David Piltch - percussion
Joseph Di Maria - harmonic electric guitar
Robinson Eikenberry - trippy ambient stuff
©2009 Janni Littlepage / Johan Seige
(Little Pages Music, BMI) / (Johan Seige Songs)
Janni Littlepage - lead & background vocals & piano
Kenny Edwards - bass
Robert Stanton - 12 string guitar
Tony Ybarra - nylon string guitar
Rick Chelew - bowed bass
David Piltch - drums & percussion
Robinson Eikenberry - mountain dulcimers & trippy ambient stuff
© 2009 Janni Littlepage / Parisch Browne
(Little Pages Music, BMI) / (Rudi Music)
Janni Littlepage - lead & background vocals & piano
Kenny Edwards - bass & electric guitars
Robert Stanton - acoustic guitars
Nico Georis - accordion
Mick Flowers - drums
David Piltch - percussion
Robinson Eikenberry - trippy ambient stuff
©2009 Janni Littlepage, music / Vivien Kooper, lyrics
(Little Pages Music, BMI) / (Moonwhistle Music, BMI )
Janni Littlepage - lead & background vocals, mountain dulcimer
Kenny Edwards - acoustic guitars, harmony vocal
David Piltch - upright bass, drums & percussion
© 2010 Janni Littlepage, music / Vivien Kooper, lyrics
(Little Pages Music, BMI) / (Moonwhistle Music, BMI )
Janni Littlepage - lead & background vocals & piano
Kenny Edwards - bass, acoustic & electric guitars, mandolin & harmony vocal
John Weed - fiddle
©2009 Janni Littlepage (Little Pages Music, BMI)
Janni Littlepage - lead & background vocals & piano
Kenny Edwards - bass, electric guitars & background vocals
Robert Stanton - acoustic guitars
Mick Flowers - drums & percussion
©2009 Janni Littlepage (Little Pages Music, BMI)
Janni Littlepage - lead & background vocals & piano
Kenny Edwards - electric guitar
Robert Stanton - acoustic guitar
Rick Chelew - upright bass
David Piltch - bowed bass
©2010 Janni Littlepage, music / Michael Dulaney, lyrics
(Little Pages Music, BMI) / (Michaelhouse Music/Desert Dreams Music/Sony ATV Melody, BMI)
Janni Littlepage - lead & background vocals & piano
Kenny Edwards - electric guitars & harmony vocal
David Piltch - upright bass & drums
John Weed - fiddle
© 2010 Janni Littlepage, music / Vivien Kooper, lyrics
(Little Pages Music, BMI) / (Moonwhistle Music, BMI )
Janni Littlepage - lead & background vocals & mountain dulcimers
Kenny Edwards - acoustic guitar & harmony vocal
David Piltch - upright bass, drums & percussion
John Weed - fiddle
Traditional Hymn - John Newton • Traditional (2nd verse) Harriet Beecher Stowe
Janni Littlepage - vocal, piano & original arrangement
Kenny Edwards - electric guitars
David Piltch - upright bass
©2009 Janni Littlepage / Johan Seige
(Little Pages Music, BMI) / (Johan Seige Songs)
Janni Littlepage - vocal, piano
Kenny Edwards - vocal
Tony Ybarra - nylon string guitars
Robert Stanton - electric guitar
Rick Chelew - upright bass
Produced by Robinson Eikenberry & Janni Littlepage
.
CDs are currently out of stock, but you may purchase the digital album or individual song downloads from iTunes.
Purchase on iTunes, click here...
Publicity Europe - Peter Holmstedt, www.hemifran.com.
Someone dear to me once described my music as “richly cinematic contemporary folk”. I think that is quite lovely, and I hope it is true, for I have quoted it now a number of times and places!
In describing it myself, I like to think that my songs are melodic narratives of many journeys toward redemption, renewal & awakening. That is what I am striving for, anyway.
I was born in California, and grew up on Willow Street in Pacific Grove and marched in the Butterfly Parade. I had a penchant for climbing trees, a deep reverence for Nature, and a fascination with faeries and angels, birds and any winged things, with rain, distant stars and wild ponies.
All these things are still true of me, except that I no longer march in parades...
As a child, I loved to listen to records again and again, working out the harmonies. I would often sing in my closet, wrapped in my sister's faux fur coat, which is a fact unbeknownst to her, until now!
My sister, Layne Littlepage, is a classically trained singer, an author, and an actress. I grew up backstage, watching her and the other performers, in awe. I could NEVER do that! Walk out on a stage in front of an audience, having memorized dialogue, and interact with other actors who had memorized dialogue, and not fall down in a dead faint! So, I’ve been very impressed with my sister’s talent, my whole life. More to the point, I never imagined myself as a performer of any kind.
We don’t know exactly where the music in our family came from. Our people are from Scotland, on my mother’s side, and England, on my father’s side. Their great, great, great grandparents settled respectively in Ohio, Texas, and California. Though of course, there is much more to their stories than that.
My mother was a teacher, and my father, an army pilot, whose plane crashed in heavy fog in a training exercise in Oklahoma before he ever made it to the war. That was the good news and the bad news. He was critically injured, but thankfully, he recovered significantly.
After two years in the hospital, he and my mother came out to California on the train, and settled onto the land that my mother’s great, great grandparents had purchased when they moved west from Ohio.
When I was two or three years old, I had a vision. It wasn’t a dream, and it wasn’t a daydream. I was standing on a platform, up high, in front of a sea of faces. I did not know where this was, nor what I was doing there, but it felt completely natural, and I was unafraid.
Many years later — twenty years or more — I experienced that vision in real life, in real time, and in its entirety in every detail. I still don’t know what this means — 
but it was fairly astounding, and seems to resonate with my path in this life.
My professional music career began when I was 21. I met Bruce Kunkel, a founding member of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, and one of my first and lifelong musical mentors. I was introduced to Bruce, by his music partner, and my dear friend, singer-songwriter Rob Harris.
The evening I met Bruce Kunkel, we were all at a party where there was music being played by many guitarists and singers. I had never seen anything like it before. I was singing some feeble harmony under my breath, when Bruce suddenly whirled around, leaned down, looked me in the eyes, tapped me on the collar bone with his index finger, and said in a very loud voice:
“Girl! You've got a BIG VOICE in there! You just need to LET IT OUT!”
I now understand, that everything Bruce does seems larger than life ... he’s just like that.
I was an art student at the time, and had never imagined a life in music. I had always considered myself too shy to be a performer, and I loved the peace and super-out-of-body-hyper-focus that creating art provided for me. So, it was a surprise to be suddenly, without warning or planning, performing in front of rather large 
audiences.
While in northern California, I was introduced to singer-songwriter, David Tate, and joined his wonderfully eclectic band, SAMA, almost by accident. Though I played piano and had written songs in childhood and a few in my teens, I was primarily a vocalist, at this point. So, through David’s mentoring, and by observing his process of writing, I was inspired to begin writing myself, in earnest.
Through my friendship with David Tate, I became involved in a musical production of “The Ramayana” ... best described as a Western Rock Musical interpretation of the East Indian sacred 
text.
There I met Chris and Daniel Brubeck. As well as becoming dear friends, Chris arranged and performed with me on my song “Keeper Of The Stars”, for the album of that musical.
At that same time, David introduced me to Michael Nesmith who had recently created his Pacific Arts company and was launching his music video “Rio”. It was a rare pleasure to meet such a visionary in the Arts, and Nez continues to stay way ahead of the curve.
Then, David Tate, Bob Seraphin and I began performing together as the trio nucleus of the SAMA band, and drove south to Los Angeles to perform at the Troubadour for a group of A&R people from a number of record labels. We were very well received, and were told how “artful” our music was.
Apparently however, the timing of our emergence onto the LA music scene coincided with the signing of THE CARS, and all the record companies were now looking for the “next” CARS... Funnily enough, this was a theme that was to repeat itself throughout the years, with respect to the music industry.
Another such incident involved a Label that had regretfully “passed” on signing Enya. A few years later, they were courting me with a record deal. Apparently still stinging from their previous loss, they requested that I “use a few less words” in my songs...
I don’t know if this strikes you as hilariously funny as it still strikes me... “We like your songs ... but it’s all those pesky WORDS!” I can just see the byline now: “JANNI LITTLEPAGE ... ALMOST like ENYA 
... but with WORDS!” Needless to say, I did not sign with them.
While I was in LA, David introduced me to Fred Myrow, film composer and extraordinary human being. I played him a few of my songs on piano at his request. Several weeks later, I came back down to Los Angeles to look after Fred’s three little girls, Shira, Neora & Raquel, while their mama was in the hospital.
Fred gave me lessons in music theory, some fab noshes, and many wonderful stories. He was working on the film, “On The Nickel” with Tom Waits at that time. So, it was an incredible education for me, to see that process unfold.
A short time later, I was introduced by Fred Myrow, to classical composer, conductor and arranger, Malcolm Seagrave, who took me under his wing and became one of my most important musical mentors and spiritual allies. I was to go to his home each week, ostensibly to study music theory and composition. After our first session, when I had played him some songs I’d just written, he was silent for what seemed like a very long time...
Reclining on the sofa, with one plump hand poised in the air — which I would later learn, was his custom — and looking off into the distance, blue eyes twinkling, white eyebrows raised, lips pursed — Malcolm said that he had “re-thought” what we should do together, and that instead of concentrating on music theory, we should meet each week and I should play him the songs I had written the previous week, and we would “refine” them, together. And so we did.
This was one of the most productive, inspiring, joyous, challenging and rewarding times in my musical life.
After one of the SAMA band’s performances in LA, we all stayed overnight at a friend’s house in the Pacific Palisades. It was a three story house in more ways than one.
There were a handful of accomplished musicians living there, and they were all a-twitter because Jon Mark of the Mark-Almond Band, was coming to dinner and staying the night in one of the guest rooms.
They were planning to serenade him with their new songs and compositions after dinner, lucky man! As I was already committed to going to a record release party that evening, I missed dinner and missed meeting Jon.
The next morning, I took my dulcimer down into the gully below the house to play, so as not to waken anyone. A short time later, I heard a muted commotion above me on the top deck. When I looked three stories up, there was a lion of a man leaning over the balcony, looking down at me.
Dressed in a robe, with a wild mane of red hair like a halo around his head, he spoke in a very deep and resonant English accent... “And what have we here? Cinderella? ... in the ashes?”
At breakfast with everyone, Jon invited me to come up to his house in Big Sur to meet his lovely wife, Thelma, and their children, Francesca, Jonathan and Chloe. We all became
great and dear friends. Several months later, Jon asked me to open two shows for the Mark-Almond Band at the Steinbeck Forum in a benefit concert for Tomi K. Lussier, beloved Big Sur writer and photographer, who lost her sight in a car accident.
Thus, Jon Mark became one my most influential musical mentors. This was in 1980.
Also, in this year, I was introduced by David Tate to Jimmy Messina. Jim heard David singing one evening on the grounds of the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. They became fast friends, and the next day, David brought Jimmy up to my parents’ house to meet me.
The three of us sang a few songs, and our voices were quite beautiful together. So, Jimmy invited me to come and sing on his album, “Messina”, which he was recording in Santa Barbara. He featured me on the lovely song, “Child of My Dreams” which he co-wrote with David.
A short time later, I moved down to Santa Barbara, and along with fellow singer-songwriter, Alan Thornhill, joined Jimmy Messina’s new acoustic trio. The three of us performed together over the course of the next few years.
Working with Jim Messina taught me much about the music industry, about discipline in songwriting, performing and recording, and about intricate harmony. I am very grateful to have had those experiences and opportunities, and to have met the artists and producers and 
musicians that I did, through working with him.
In 1983, at the urging of Jon Mark and Tomi K. Lussier, (who lovingly and amazingly backed my project), I recorded my first album entitled, “Lady In Waiting”, produced by Mark Stacy, and engineered by the wonderful Steve Katz, and then toured the North and Southwest in a series of solo performances to promote it.
By then, I had moved to Los Angeles, looking to find my place in that strange and sometimes dubious wonderland. I worked in a variety of related mediums over the nine years that I lived there. I did studio work, commercials, voiceovers, live and studio backup singing, I also worked
for a film company, and for a designer in the fashion industry, all these things to support my “habit”... music.
During those years, I was immersed in the creative landscape of Los 
Angeles. In 1986, I met the wonderfully snarky, talented and beautiful, Robin Wiley, who was an extraordinary singer, musician, and vocal arranger. She was my ally and my friend for 20 years until her early passing in 2006. There was never a person like her, and I can say with certainty, that every single person who ever met her, will never forget her.
Other important musical compatriots and friends ... the lovely & talented lyricist, Vivien Kooper, my co-writer and confidante of 20 years; Tony Riparetti, guitarist, co-writer and film composer; amazing guitarist and hilariously funny, Carlos Rios; marvelous singer-songwriter, Harold Payne; actor/musician, Robert Mortimer, and many other dear friends, all influenced the direction of the path I’ve taken ... and for that I am ever grateful.
In 1984, I was honored to perform with Jimmy Messina and Kenny Loggins at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles for “The Heartlight Concert” which was the first reunion concert in almost a decade, for Kenny and Jimmy.
The concert was a benefit for the Heartlight School, and was a lovely event. Although the coolest part for me, was before the show even started as all the performers and musicians sat backstage, singing Beatle songs in three and four part harmony! Such a rich and wonderful memory...
Around this time, I was introduced to Henry Lewy by my dear friend and consummate musician, Robert Stanton and his band “The Freeway Philharmonic”. Henry and our friend, arranger-producer, Todd Urbonas, produced the first incarnation of my song “Gerry and Her Baby Grands”, which at the time was titled, “Geraldine”. It was a joyful experience to work with Henry, and a friendship and mentorship I will always treasure.
In the early 1990’s, I put together my own band in Los Angeles, with the wonderful musicians & manly men: Rob Meurer on keyboards & dulcimer, Simeon Pillich on upright bass, Curt 
Taylor on guitars, and Richard Hardy on woodwinds, soprano sax, & penny whistle.
Occasionally, percussionist Rick Geragi, bassist Joel Fischer, and guitarist, Robert Stanton, sat in with us.
We rehearsed together on my deck in Laurel Canyon, ate lots of snacks, and had a whole lot of silly fun ... on top of making some quite lovely 
music together!
The Mighty Five played small local venues in Los Angeles, including the Whiskey (A-Go-Go!) where we were inadvertently sandwiched between Mosh bands. As we settled onto the stage, Fab guitarist Curt Taylor leaned over, and in his inimitably wry fashion said, “Say your prayers now ... because we are GONNA DIE!”.
But that did not happen ... In fact, a MIRACLE happened!.
The milling, raving crowd (not raving FOR us, mind you) and the Soundman, (who garnered no confidence by sleeping through our pitifully brief soundcheck with his feet up on the board)... struck dread into our little acoustic hearts.
We collectively decided on the spot, that if we were “gonna die”, we would die doing something really COOL. So, we broke into our rendition of the Rolling Stones’ “Lady Jane”, myself and Rob Meurer on dulcimers ... yep ... dulcimers.
Then the miracle happened ... The crowd hushed ... and ... They Sat DOWN! On The Floor! Several Rows Deep! Cross-Legged! Like Kindergarteners! And They Listened! Through Our Entire Set!
We were astounded, as well as incredibly humbled and infinitely pleased!
In 1994, I moved to Nashville from LA with my first husband, and talented songwriter, Michael Dulaney. This proved fruitful for us with the 1997 release of our song “A Rain of Angels” on Lila McCann’s platinum debut album on Asylum Records. A first cut for each of us.
During the six years I lived in Nashville, I spent many evenings listening to writers performing in the round at The Bluebird Cafe and many other music venues. With such a rich and diverse group of songwriters, I made many dear friends and found wonderful and inspiring co-writers 
within that close-knit and supportive musical community.
I was also very fortunate to study dulcimer with David Schnaufer, the Appalachian Music Historian and Dulcimer & Tennessee Music Box Maestro. I had lessons with him throughout the years I lived in Nashville. David was a gentleman out of another time, truly a kinder and a gentler time. Anyone who knew him, knows this is true, and I’ll bet they smile when they think of 
him.
In his tortoise shell glasses, white shirt & suspenders, rolled up jean cuffs, and those wonderful brown lace-up boots, he embodied a time gone by. I learned so much with him about the instrument that I had taught myself to play, and gained tremendous respect for it through his knowledge, virtuosity, and kind wisdom.
He was an American Treasure, and I am incredibly grateful to be able to say that he was my friend and my teacher.
I so loved living in Nashville, and though I now live in a very beautiful place ... I still miss the sweetness of the people, the beauty of the parks, the rivers, the blossoming Dogwoods, the Peonies, and of course, the fireflies...
But in 2000, some things were coming to an end in my life. My first marriage was over, my well of inspiration had run dry, and my father was very ill in California. So, in the winter of 2000, I moved back to northern California to be with my father and my family.
That first year was difficult and somewhat lonely. I felt as though I had left my “real” life in Nashville, and was now living some sort of temporary existence, waiting for my real life to begin again.
Though it was lovely to be with and of service to my family, and to walk the beautiful windswept beaches from Carmel to Big Sur with my dear little dog, Jack ... I still felt that I was waiting for something ... A lady in waiting, once again...
Then once I ceased wishing that things had turned out differently, and began to live more in the present, and be grateful for all the gifts I was receiving ... the natural beauty around me, the abundance, the love of my family, my friends and new friends entering my life, and a little later on, a new love ... well, that is when the songs began to come again...
I began a new life in this lovely little valley next to the sea ... and this is where my story begins again ... with all these Strange Angels...
Please contact Janni Littlepage at janni[at]jannilittlepage.com
