2008: NEW ALBUM "12 Ways to Live" AVAILABLE NOW! Check out tracks from it under the "audio" tab!!!
2008 ChiTunes Chicago Tribune Feature Artist
2007 Cutting Edge of the Campfire Festival Artist
2007 Folk Alliance Official Showcase Artist
2007 Milwaukee Pride Artist
2006 Cutting Edge of the Campfire Festival Artist
2006 Womenfolk: Volume One compilation Artist
2005 OUToberfest Artist
2005 Estrojam Feature Artist
2005 Honorable Mention - Billboard Song Contest
2002 Ladyfest Midwest Artist

Emily White's sophomore release "12 Ways to Live," delves into new territory for the Chicago singer/songwriter. She's still playing her signature guitar lines and singing the disarmingly honest lyrics that have made her popular with fans throughout the country, but the choices in production showcase the songs in an entirely different light than her 2005 EP release "Every Pulse." Accompanied by two players who form the band White tours with in the Midwest (Jennifer "JJ" Jones on drums and Scott Lamps on baritone guitar), "12 Ways to Live" presents her newer songs in a sparse indie setting. Vibraphone and keyboards add depth to the mixture of personal-political subject matter that has become White's trademark.

"I'm so intrigued by the intersection of politics and relationships, and how people relate to each other in the world we live in today, and I think that really comes through on this record," White says of the new album. "We were really able to get away from the typical arrangement of a bass-guitar-drum trio that worked well on the last record, and found something fresh for these particular songs." The subject matter flows from personal relationships to politics on songs like "Bayou," a swampy rock number White wrote about the disappearing wetlands of Louisiana and Hurricane Katrina. Songs like "7th & A," "Georgia," and "Believe In Me" revisit the straightforward appeal of White's first album, while "Omaha" and "Mad Intuition" give us a glimpse of a performer willing to venture far away from pop music. There are also gems like "Secret Song" which find the songwriter exploring ambient guitar and keyboard lines under a melody you'll swear you've heard in a movie somewhere.

White, though a Memphis, Tennessee native, got her first taste of live acoustic performance in Chicago when she was attending DePaul University. Through the encouragement of other students she began playing bars, coffeeshops, open mics, and events on campus for DePaul and other schools like Northwestern and University of Chicago, and fell in love with the craft of telling stories through song. She moved to Boston in 2002 to pursue a degree in music and in the fall of her final year there began recording "Every Pulse" which was released in 2005. The tracks off of that record began gaining attention through independent music websites that reviewed it and added it to their podcasts, and White started touring in the Midwest and Northeast in support of it in 2006, moving back to Chicago in the process.

It was "Every Pulse" that gained White an Honorable Mention in the Billboard Song Contest and earned her a spot on the compilation CD Womenfolk: Volume One. In 2007, home in between two national tours, White decided to focus on a new album, an endeavor to record the songs that had popped up in the two years she spent traveling throughout the Midwest and Northeast, playing songs and meeting people. She spent several weeks on Lake Michigan in Wisconsin in a wooden cabin "as close to the water as you can get without getting wet" writing new songs and working out arrangements for the song pieces that had been brewing while she was on the road. She emerged from the lake house with 12 songs, and began recording them in Chicago with the band she had formed over the last year ? Scott Lamps and Jennifer "JJ" Jones. The three poured themselves into the collaboration and their freedom in the studio can be heard on each track, from the sounds of White playing wine glasses, microphone stands, and air conditioning grates on the song "Every Pulse," to the haunting thumping (created by drum sticks on a suitcase) that JJ beats out on "Omaha." The result is an expressive and memorable album that takes the listener on a journey through friendship, love, heartbreak and politics with "slow-turns toward a goodbye" as the song "Railroad" can attest.

Emily has performed at numerous festivals and conferences, and has shared stages with Edie Carey, Bitch (of Bitch & Animal), Ember Swift, Kym Tuvim, and many more fantastic artists. Find out more at www.emily-white.com!

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