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For songwriter Lucy Billings, music is a language. She distills life events into songs, becoming more and more fluent with each new song. “Sometimes the songs just seem to write themselvesâ€, she says. "They are like souls hovering, waiting to swoop in and join up with the right melody; I just help them to find each other.â€In Open Air, Lucy's debut album, her warm, rich voice rides on a lush blend of acoustic guitars, pedal steel, strings, and keyboards. Her voice is honest, her stories authentic, evoking in each listener a personal response. The simple, yet elegant melodies and heartstring vocals combine to create a debut album much larger than merely the sum of its parts.Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, Lucy was involved in music from a young age, beginning to sing at the age of 5. It was when her parents found her 'performing' along to a Kingston Trio record with a tennis racquet in the place of a guitar at age 9 that her parents knew they had a musician on their hands, and they promptly purchased her a guitar. As most children tend to do when presented with something, her interest in the instrument eventually waned. However, during her early teens, she returned to the guitar she had once craved, finding comfort in it. "My early teens were a lonely place," she recalls, "and the guitar was a very important vehicle for expressing my emotions." During the years that followed, Lucy continued to focus heavily on songwriting and several of her favorites from that era even found a place on Open Air. She says, “I was just a working gal, who found her voice through writing songs.â€In the late 1990’s she started to think seriously about putting together a CD of her original material. In 2000 she went to see Tom Russell perform in Northern California and was inspired not only by Tom’s songs, but also by the guitar-playing of his musical partner, Andrew Hardin. “I was quite stunned by his guitar workâ€, she says, “and I felt strongly that his style of playing would beautifully complement my songsâ€. Lucy approached Hardin regarding a musical collaboration and he agreed to work with her, eventually taking over production duties on the new album.She and Hardin chose Bradley Kopp’s, Red Boot Ranch outside of the venerable musical community of Austin, Texas as the site for the recording of their project and began in earnest in summer of 2004. Scheduling their sessions around Hardin's touring schedule, and Billings’ other commitments, the album was recorded over the course of a year. The pair enlisted an ensemble cast of musicians from around the area to contribute to the album, including engineer Bradley Kopp, keyboardist David Webb, bass player Glen Fukanaga, cellist Shawn Sanders, pedal steel players Fats Kaplin and Lloyd Maines, slide guitarist Ray Bonneville, drummer Rick Richards and violinist Javier Shappiro. Lucy lives in Northern California, and performs throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.Open Air is available for purchase at www.cdbaby.com, itunes, and www.amazon.com and www.greatindie.com/ipnmusic/store/list.php?item_number=83710 1128803