Milton Grand Hotel CD

Milton, the NYC singer-songwriter with the distinctive voice and one-name moniker, releases his best work to date, Grand Hotel, the album he and his band recorded with Grammy-nominated producer Bo Ramsey (Lucinda Williams, Iris Dement, Greg Brown) and engineer Tom Tucker (Prince, Lucinda Williams, Mavis Staples). Each track a diamond, Grand Hotel includes some of the songs that crowds have come to know and sing along to in sold-out shows at NYC venues like Joe's Pub and The Living Room. Among these are the album's title track, as well as the swinging, radio-ready "Everybody Loves You"and the lilting "Pretty Face." Other highlights include the bluesy "A Whole Lotta Pain"and the reflective "Night Driving."Grand Hotel offers timeless music which hovers in a distinctively NYC intersection of blues, pop, folk-rock and country. "There's a lot of country in the sound of this record" , admits Milton. "My grandmother's brother was a folk singer. He even cut 78's in the 1940's. He used to play old folk songs on guitar at family parties. His son would play banjo and we'd all sing along." Drawing inspiration from a deep well of rural American roots music, Milton explains, "My favorite singers are blues singers and old R&B guys. As a kid, my dad took us to see Doc and Merle Watson. He loved bluegrass." As for how an urbane musician writes such soulful songs, Milton offers, "I never make any rules when I write, I just follow whatever I'm writing to its end. All of my favorite American songwriters drew from all the different root forms we have in this country. I write all of my songs in my head and then find them on a guitar or keyboard in front of my little computer in my tiny Manhattan apartment and I send Garage Band demos to the band to learn."While he has been compared to many of his heroes; Van Morrison, Nick Lowe, The Band. Milton has distinguished himself with a unique voice and a compelling mix of grit and grammar. Milton has been aptly described as a writer's writer; he's capable of elegantly simple narratives about the complex wonders of life in the city and in the world. Milton's striking lyrics are as intelligent as they are soulful, and come from a keen, compassionate, and witty observation of our current moment."In recent year I was heavily into Nick Lowe's ballady records and Lucinda Williams' 1990's to present stuff,"explains Milton. "I contacted Bo Ramsey for this record because I had been blown away by the sound of the rhythm section and the vocals on Lucinda Williams' Essence record, which he produced. We got together and Bo hired the same engineer that mixed Essence, a genius of a mild-mannered guy named Tom Tucker in Minneapolis. As he has with such landmark recordings as Lucinda Williams' Essence, Ramsey brought to Milton's Grand Hotel a simplicity and tasteful economy that make space for the songs of an exceptional writer who is heavy on craft without being heavy-handed. The three men's shared penchant for literate pop songs unmistakably rooted in American rhythm and blues resulted in a transcendent musical collaboration.

Milton's musical journey began in the suburbs of New York City, where he was the youngest of many music-playing brothers. His family had a long history of making music: grandma was a classical pianist and music teacher, her brother was the aforementioned folk singer; there was a bluegrass-banjo-picking cousin; a jazz-piano-playing uncle; another cousin who met her husband in the French horn section of a pit orchestra. And in close proximity were Milton's older brothers, making records and playing punk rock in NYC clubs by the time they were in high school.

As a teenager, Milton fled to the city whenever possible to meet as many strange characters and hear as many kinds of music as he could. Way gone on Bob Dylan, old R&B and the classics of Western literature, Milton began in earnest his own struggle to compose the well-made song. He taught himself to play guitar, and performed h