Boston roots-rock JO HENLEY has just released their latest album, "Mohawk," and for a limited time you can stream the whole thing for free.  Just visit their website  at http://www.johenley.com/fr_music.cfm

The CD Release Party for "Mohawk" will take place at Precinct (70 Union Square, Somerville) on Thursday, June 9, at 8pm.  The show is a benefit for the Community Cooks, a group of volunteers in the area who provide food for those in need.  The first 50 people through the door will receive a free copy of "Mohawk"!!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

In 2006, not long after Boston-based singer-songwriters Ben Lee and Andy Campolieto formed a duo and began calling themselves Jo Henley--to the uninitiated, the moniker derives from a mishmash of their middle names--Campolieto penned a song about his hometown of Schenectady, NY, called "And That's Why I'm Gone."  As the titles implies, "And That's Why I'm Gone" is not what one may call a soaring tribute to the blue-collar, Upstate New York city in which he grew up.  "Back then it difficult to go home even for short visits.  Home felt stagnant; stuck in time.  Boston isn't exactly L.A. or Paris, but it's certainly more exciting than Schenectady."

Fast forward 5 years: Campolieto is now a first-time dad as of last summer; Jo Henley has blossomed from a coffeehouse duo to a road-tested and acclaimed quartet; and the Boston roots-rock band's latest album, Mohawk, the followup to last year's Inside Out, which they recorded with members of the Trey Anastasio Band, is, at least in part, an unabashed love letter to the hometown Campolieto once famously panned.  "What can I say?  I guess I've matured," Campolieto explains with a smile.  He goes on to say that fatherhood, and the realization that his son will never know what it's like to grow up in the town that, for better or worse, shaped his daddy's life, had a profound impact on his songwriting.  "This is my way of telling my son all about Schenectady someday, from both a personal and historical perspective.  I was born there; met my wife there.  My parents went to the same high school my sisters and I did.  Schenectady is home of the first live television broadcast, the home of General Electric, the birthplace of the first transcontinental locomotive.  There was so much buried material there, just waiting to be excavated and examined more closely."  

From start to finish, Mohawk is brimming with story-songs: a rollicking retelling of the Schenectady Massacre of 1690, a Celtic-tinged ditty about the plight of the Irish immigrants who found work digging the Erie Canal, dark ballads about some of Campolieto's most intimate and haunting memories, and even an old-timey banjo-and-piano instrumental that carries the listener down the sleepy river after which the album is named.  Mohawk is, hands down, Jo Henley's finest work to date.  Campolieto and Lee, along with bassist Jeremy Foti and drummer/pianist Mike Dingley, spent countless hours rehearsing each song on Mohawk, retooling the arrangements, and taking great pains to ensure their rootsy, road-tested Americana sound shined through.  Most of all, they knew the music had to sound fresh and unpolished, which meant the recording process needed to be as close to live as possible, and to achieve this they turned to none other than Plymouth-based producer and founder of Plimro Records, Mark Bryant.  

"Mark works quickly," says lead guitarist Lee.  "That's why we loved working with him.  He has great ears and knows how to get what musicians hear in their heads down on tape without going through endless takes and unnecessary edits."  Campolieto agrees:  "Mark was the right guy for this record.  He's been doing this long enough to understand that very rarely does a band get its most inspired performance in its thirtieth take."  Jo Henley entered Bryant's Seasound Studio on a snowy Monday in February, and by the end of the day on Friday the album was 99% finished--almost unheard of in today's musical climate.  "Rather than drag it out over six months and lose interest halfway through," Campolieto continues, "we wanted to make this record in about a week, so that's what we did.  And we had a blast doing it, which I think listeners can't help but notice when they hear Mohawk."  

Mohawk was released on May 3 on Plimro Records, and will soon be available on iTunes, CD Baby, select independent record stores, through Jo Henley's website (www.johenley.com), and of course at the band's live shows.  A national and European radio campaign is planned for this spring and summer.  Jo Henley will also be touring extensively behind Mohawk this year, with the following upcoming performances scheduled and more to be added in the coming days and weeks: