Beth Garner

In the fall of 1996, Beth headed to San Marcos, TX for Southwest Texas State University, where she studied jazz, taught lessons, and began playing with local Austin-area groups like Teisco Del Rey and the all-female rhythm section The Del Reylettes. They opened several large shows at the Continental Club for Texas guitar picker extraordinaire Junior Brown and the South by Southwest Music Conference, where they were showcased alongside Grammy-nominated instrumental surf-rock band Los Straitjackets and also opened for Tito & Tarantula of Dusk till Dawn soundtrack fame. Thru this band, Fender electric guitar strings endorsed Beth.

By July 1998, Beth decided to move back to the Dallas-Fort Worth area to attend the University of North Texas in Denton, studying jazz and whoring herself out as a sideman, playing with rock-ska band Alligator Dave and the Couch Band for a few months at the ripe old age of 19. Later, she picked up a gig with a Pakistani rock band called Shor. They played various sites in New Jersey, Wichita Kansas, and Dallas, opening for Junoon at the now bulldozed, but historic Bronco Bowl. While going to school in Denton, Beth continued to freelance as a guitar player, until she got sick of backing up singers, deciding to front her own band at the age of 22. She flunked out of her last semester of college and started the Rattlesnakes, a female-fronted group with Beth on vocals and guitar, Cricket Taylor on guitar and vocals, sis Linda on bass and a male drummer. They played loud, down and dirty, roadhouse blues, packing places in a matter of weeks and the Rattlesnakes would back up the legendary Sam Myers every Thursday when he would drop by their weekly gig at the Lakewood Bar and Grill in Dallas, TX. During that fall of 2000, Beth also toured as a sideman for blues hottie Shawn Pittman, from the Midwest to the West Coast, onto Minneapolis then back to Dallas, until January of 2001 when the local blues DJ from KNON heard Beth and decided to let her budget a CD. Beth released Much Later For You independently to a few, but good reviews.

By the end of 2001, Beth had joined the all-girl rock / punk super-group Girl, a club packer on the Dallas scene, quitting around the end of March to push her own band, when she was the cover girl, along with twin sis and big bro, of Buddy Magazine. That same month, Beth was featured as one of six Women Who Rock on the Brook Mays Music website.

April of 2002 saw Beth doing a brief tour with Danny Federici of Bruce Springsteens E Street band, playing BB Kings in New York Citys Times Square, the famous Stone Pony (where Springsteen and Jon Bon Jovi got their start) in Asbury Park, New Jersey and the Conduit in Trenton, New Jersey. With her band, Beth opened for Los Straitjackets at the Gypsy Tea Room in Dallas, and for Marcia Ball at the Sons of Hermann Hall.

In October 2002 Beth got a call to sing with the Reverend Horton Heat on the soundtrack of the Sony movie Auto Focus. They covered an old song Real Gone Lover, as a duet.

In March of 2003, Beth moved to Austin, picking up side gigs with Elizabeth McQueen (who now sings with Asleep At The Wheel), opening for Radney Foster. In August of 2003 she joined with Stephanie Urbina Jones. Opening for Roger Creager they did The Shiner Bock Fest with Terri Hendrix, Kevin Fowler, Cross Canadian Ragweed, Reckless Kelly, and NickelBack.

After Stephanies gig ended in December of 2003, Beth had more resolve than ever to focus on her own career. In January of 2004, she started rehearsing with a new rhythm section and writing more, also putting together the fun band shed always wanted to do, an all-girl surf/rock trio The Queen of Spades, playing locally in Austin with both bands at the Continental Club, Jovitas, The Saxon Pub and any other dive that would have them. Beths original group still played once a month or so around Texas, opening for Jimmie Vaughan, Joe Bonnamassa, Doyle Bramhall, Sr., and James McMurtry.

With the release in January 2006 of her second album 'Addictions', recorded in Austin, Texas, to worldwide distribution on the British label Armadillo, Austin and the rest of the world are picking up on Beths skills and dense career contained in her 28 years. She continues to work and play in the States and tours overseas in Europe. Whats in store for Beth in the next coming years? As she has said before in a 2001 interview with Southwest Blues, Im ready for anything you've got. close

Garner, a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing Arts in Dallas, does lead vocals, most of the lead guitar, wrote 10 of the 13 songs, and co-produced. The twang mostly comes in her covers of Bruce Robisons Blame It On Me and Billy Joe Shavers Im Just an Old Chunk of Coal (But Im Going to be a Diamond Some Day).

Garners writing and performing have matured since she relocated to Austin more than a year ago (as can be expected with exposure to new influences and experience). On the bass-funky Carry On, she urges an ex-lover to look her in the eyes and say what he has to say, because she believes in all his lies. On Pour Me, she invites a man to pour her a drink, saying, Its all right because it dont mean the same thing it used to.

The musical variety combinations of drums, lap steel, piano, organ, and a bit of banjo, with Beths identical twin Lyndah Garner on bass works well. Even the theremin that appears on a couple of tracks is subdued enough to add value rather than annoy.

Alwyn R. Coates directed a video of Garner singing the title song. The freebie is included with the CD.

If Garner really wants to be a diamond someday, Addictions applies some of the needed heat and pressure to that chunk of coal of an ambition.

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Non Lasciatevi fuorviare dallo sguardo che Beth lancia dalla copertina: Addictions è un album di rock chitarristico sina al midollo, dal sound denso e pieno di canzoni di buon valore (dieci su trdici scritte da Beth).

La Garner sa cosa vuol dire la vita on the road e la band alle sue spalle macina sound ruvido e corposo (John Heagle, chitarre Jeff Botta, batteria e Lyndah Garner, sorella gemella di Beth, al basso): il rusultato è un disco di sano rock, com non mi capitava di ascoltare da tempo. Non ho molti paragoni da fere: Beth può ricordare Lucinda Williams, nella voce, ma la bionda Lucinda è molto più orientata alla balata di lei.

Addictions si può mettere sullo stesso piano del disco di Tift Merritt dello scorso anno, ma farei un torto all Garner so volessi trovare un paragone a tutti I costi: questo è puro rock and roll, da suonare a volume alto.

Nienta di più, niente di meno. Too Many Cooks, sin dal potente riff iniziale, è una tipica road song, fluida e chitarristica, fornita di un ritornello che si memorizza al primo ascolto.
Perfetta per le radio che trasmettono rock (ma esistono ancora?, forse in America…).
La ruvida I Don’t Wanna è aparta dal banjo, ma l’arrangiamento è rock al cento per cento,. Blame it on Me, scritta da Bruce Robison, è una composizione piacevole, costruita in maniera egregia.

Ascoltate Get it Out: una chitarra dal suono decisamente classico, sezione ritmica possente, cantao grintoso di Beth, per finire con un assolo che sembra rubato a John Fogerty.

Anche la title track è vibrante, con sonorità quasi psichedeliche (alla 13th floor Elevators): puro rock and roll al femminile, altro che Sheryl Crow o Alanis Morrisette, La dura Don’t Live There ha un chiara impronta sudista: chitarre, sudore e grinta si fondono insieme che è un piacere; Carry On stempera un pò l’atmosfera; la tosta Pour Me ha un intro possente, che sambra cutturato a piene mani da un disco di Neil Young coi Crazy Horse.  Waiting For The Train è ingentilita dall’uso della fisarmonica, mentre High Anxiety è ancora teas a nervosa (come annuncia titolo).

L’album si chiude con la ritmata Last Straw, la lenta Believe Me, unica vera ballad del disco, ed una versione hard country, tutta chitarre e An Old Chunk of Coal.

Play it Loud, very Loud. close

Beth Garner (Jahrgang 1978) tummelt sich immerhin schon seit 11 Jahren in der texanischen Musikszene, trat im Vorprogramm von Jimmy Vaughan auf und tourte mit E-STREET's Danny Federici. 2001 verffentlichte sie bereits ihr Debutalbum, welches in Deutschland aber sicher niemand wahrgenommen hat.

Ihr Zweitwerk "Addictions" wird jetzt vom britischen Armadillo Music-Label in Europa vertrieben und zeigt eine absolut ausgeschlafene Komponistin, Gitarristin und Sngerin Beth Garner, die mit ihrer Zwillingsschwester Lyndah am Bass und Jeff Botta am Schlagzeug das Herzstck einer gut abrockenden Band prsentiert.

Der oben bereits erwhnte Massenappeal darf hier als durchaus positiv bewertet werden. Garners Melodien vermitteln zwar diese gewisse Vertrautheit, die es einem leicht macht, sich relativ zgig mit ihren Songs zu identifizieren, doch verzetteln sie sich usserst selten im Dickicht tausendfach verwursteter Klischees. "Addictions" steht also mal wieder als Musterbeispiel fr ein Album der Marke 'Kenn-ich-zwar-schon-irgendwoher-aber-es-macht-mich-trotzdem-an'. Ein Silberling also der dem gewogenen Americana-Fan normalerweise verdammt gut gefallen sollte.

Beth Garner beruft sich, wie so viele ihrer Kolleginnen, auf den immensen Sound- und Songfundus (pop-)historischer Vergangenheit, und hkelt sich daraus ihr eigenes makelloses Jckchen. Tadelloser Gesang, der mal ein wenig an Sheryl Crow erinnert, aber auch recht hufig dem Gesangsstil einer Edie Brickell nahekommt, was in einem Track wie dem von Akkordeonflchen abgefederten Waiting for the train recht nachvollziehbar wird.

Die hufig eingestreuten rockigeren Nummern fallen aber auch mal in eine Gangart, die man von ihrer ebenfalls aufstrebenden Kollegin Gina Villalobos kennt.

Garners Vocals stehen also offenbar ganz klar auf der Habenseite, aber ihr versiertes und variantenreiches Gitarrenspiel ntigt einem dann doch noch etwas mehr Respekt ab. Die Lady hat ihr Instrument absolut im Griff und berrascht immer wieder mit geschmackvollen Soli, kernigen Akkorden und in der atmosprisch dichten Ballade Believe me gar mit jazzgefrbtem Fingerpicking.

Neben zehn Eigenkompositionen stammen zwei der drei auftauchenden Coverversionen von Billy Joe Shaver bzw. von Bruce Robison und zeugen zudem von Garners Treffsicherheit bei der Auswahl adquater Ergnzungen ihres eigenen Materials.

Wenn Beth Garner auf sich aufmerksam machen mchte, hat sie mit ihrer Mischung aus melodiser Popsensibilitt und hemdsrmelig rockender Heimatverbundenheit genau meinen Nerv getroffen. Auf ein Album mit dreizehn Titeln ohne jeglichen Ausfall trifft man auch nicht alle Tage.

Die Lady hat's wirklich raus und verdient eine breitere ffentlichkeit.Wer also noch eine musikalische Lcke zwischen seinen Lucinda Williams, Kathleen Edwards und Shawn Colvin-Alben vermutet, der sollte sie einfach mit Beth Garner auffllen.

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Both in her songs and the three covers, Beth takes on the role of spokesperson for the 20-something women standing at loves crossroads. She rounds up the usual suspects-inability to commit, rejection without bashing away and mixes those with positive upbeat love songs. She questions her mans intentions in I Dont Wanna, the title song has more of a poppier sound with a swirling arrangement that suits the lyrical stance, and Dont Live There Anymore is a leaving song with something of a positive outlook. Theres a great version of Bruce Robinsons Blame It On Me and Beth closes the album with Billy Joe Shavers Im Just An Old Chunk Of Coal. Throughout she is accompanied by her road band with twin sister Lyndah on bass, drummer Jeff Botta, guitarist John Heagle, keyboardist Chip Dolan and Charlie Richards on lap steel. They produce a very tight sound that perfectly enhances Beths soulful vocals
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