XPNFest Weekend Performance Slated For July 26
New Exclusive On-Air and Online Performances at XPNFest.org
“A Livestream From Here, For”
Weekly IGTV/Facebook Live Concert Dedicated To Charity
Thursdays @ 7p CT / @michaelaanne
Following the success of Desert Dove, Michaela Anne today releases a second new single, “Burn My Bridges.” Produced by Kelly Winrich and Sam Outlaw, the track harkens back to Michaela’s earlier country leaning material, which The New York Times praised as “delivering a ‘healthy dose of the new oldfangled country.”
Paying homage to Rodney Crowell’s “Ain’t Living Long Like This,” the track serves as a fun, dance honkey tonker. “There was a stretch of time in my life that I was partying a little too hard, a little too often, in my personal opinion,” says Anne. “I remember waking up one morning with another terrible hangover and thinking, I just can’t keep living like this. My next thought was, ‘I should write that song,’ immediately followed by, ‘Rodney Crowell already wrote that (Ain’t Living Long Like This).’ Shortly after, I got together with my buddy Jeff Malinowski to write. He showed me this chorus he had started called “Burn My Bridges.” It felt serendipitous. Like he had already started the song that was ringing in my head. We finished it that day. And I love that we were able to tip our hats to Rodney’s classic song with a line in the second verse. No matter what direction I explore musically, it always feels so good to come back to what feels like a fun dance honky tonker.”
In lieu of its 2020 XPoNential Music Festival, WXPN is bringing music lovers an exciting three-day music festival filled with dozens of hours of live music performances July 24-26. XPNFest weekend will feature archived full-length sets and new and exclusive live, full-length performances from artists who were scheduled to perform at this year’s festival. On Sunday, July 26, Michaela Anne will be among six artists, including Liz Phair, Nicole Atkins, and Devon Gilfillian, performing exclusive performances presented both on-air and online at xpnfest.org.
While recorded pre-Covid during the same sessions as Desert Dove, the message of the previously released “Good Times” is apropos for the current times. “Hope and optimism are two things I have to work hard to keep,” says Anne. “I often write songs as reminders or affirmations for myself and for the people I love. “Good Times” is a prime example of that. Trying to remember the blue sky is always there behind the clouds.”
Since the beginning of April, and with her spring tour canceled, Anne has hosted a weekly concert on Instagram and Facebook Live dedicated to a different charity each week. By donating half her tips each week, “A Livestream From Here, For…” has, thus far, raised thousands of dollars benefitting an array of charities, including Here With Us Foundation in memory of her friend Ron Louie; NYC Makes PPE; Aim High Foster Support Network; Gideon’s Army; The Troubadour; Music and Memory; YEAH!, Youth Empowerment Through Arts and Humanities; the Loveland Foundation; and Equal Justice Initiative.
In March, for her Refinery 29 op-ed piece, she shared her thoughts about being a musician in these uncertain times and spoke of losing her tour, income, and a friend to Coronavirus. She has since been featured in the New York Times, which included a photo of her Livestream from home in their ‘Photos of Life Transformed by a Pandemic’ series; on the NPR special series ‘The National Conversation with All Things Considered’; on the Surviving the Music Industry Podcast that explores topics including celebrating diversity alongside the lack of it in the music industry, particularly in the Americana genre; and in the recently aired BBC News Coronavirus Conversations: Musicians.
Topping many 2019 year-end lists, including Rolling Stone, Stereogum, and No Depression, Desert Dove garnered critical praise from the likes of NPR Music, Billboard, American Songwriter, Associated Press, Paste, Rolling Stone Country, Brooklyn Vegan, and No Depression.
Michaela Anne began garnering national attention in 2014 with the release of Ease My Mind, hailed by The New York Times for its “plain-spoken songs of romantic regret and small-town longing” and named one of the year’s best country albums by the Village Voice. Her 2016 follow up, Lights and the Fame, was praised by Vice Noisey, who noted she’s “our saving grace, our angel, the person who will help usher us into a new age,” while Rolling Stone compared her to Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.