My Fall Pick for favorite musical artist

http://www.brandicarlile.com/

From Amazon.com
Brandi Carlile has a rare voice, consistently spilling over with honesty, purity, and passion. Her dynamic and tonal range is truly exceptional and on par with the likes of k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt, and Patsy Cline--at times soft, swooping, and clear as a bell ("Turpentine," "Josephine," "Cannonball"), and then ferocious to the point of breaking ("The Story," "My Song"). A voice like Carlile's when paired with the right material is a winning combination, and The Story's country-meets-Radiohead ballads and rockers do not disappoint. While the songs on are not as consistently stellar as those on her self-titled debut album, they are more often than not solid, and show off her talents and confidence as both an artist and performer, which have fully bloomed since her debut. This, coupled with T Bone Burnett's light, live production style, creates an album that is ultimately more rewarding than her first. The high points on The Story have raised the bar considerably for Carlile, and they are frequent. Her choice to record the album in a live setting inside the studio lends it a raw intimacy and authenticity noticeably absent from most studio recordings, and leaves us with not only an album, but a work of art. Carlile is a career artist still defining her sound, but her maturity as a vocalist cannot be questioned--this is an immensely talented singer laying herself bare before us, and one of the strongest releases of 2007. --Alan Wiley