Search - Susan Cattaneo :: The Hammer & The Heart

In the age of the single, Susan Cattaneo is doubling down on the album. Literally. The Boston singer songwriter s fifth release is a double album that harkens back to a different era. Musicians make albums because albums allow you to tell a bigger story , she says, and this is the story about the joy of making music with a wonderful community of musicians and friends . In fact, a large number of her friends were instrumental in creating the record: 40 of them to be exact! They range from national stalwarts of the Americana/Roots rock scene, like The Bottle Rockets, the Titan of the Telecaster Bill Kirchen, and singer/songwriter and guitarist Mark Erelli (Lori McKenna, Paula Cole), to British guitar virtuoso Davy Knowles, to ace musicians like Duke Levine (J. Geils Band, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Peter Wolf, Garland Jeffreys), Kevin Barry (Rosanne Cash, J. Geils Band, Peter Wolf, Marc Cohn), Jim Henry (Mary Chapin Carpenter, Tracy Grammer), Marco Giovino (Robert Plant, Tom Jones, Buddy Miller), and Stu Kimball (Bob Dylan), to some of the best artists from the North East Folk and Americana music scene like Jennifer Kimball, Nancy Beaudette, Dennis Brennan, Amy Fairchild, Todd Thibaud, to Susan s bandmates The Boxcar Lilies. Susan s first self-produced album, The Hammer & The Heart takes you on a journey across both sides of her musical personality: The Heart, the acoustic side, and The Hammer, the electric side. The albums include tender ballads like Ordinary Magic and Fade To Blue as well as straight-out rockers like Lonely Be My Lov- er, plus a rockabilly swing that s her tribute to vinyl records, In The Grooves. Both discs begin with the song, Work Hard Love Harder, recorded two different ways and which serves as the music manifesto of the record: a reminder to focus on the things that really matter in life. Taken together, The Hammer & The Heart is a sum- mary of the past four years of Susan s musical life,