SPH Presents Concerts in the Chapel with Heather Little

Doors 6pm, Show 7pm

SPH Is delighted to welcome singer-songwriter Heather Little! This will be a fantastic way to close out your Easter Sunday evening. This is a BYOB show, with some complimentary beverages available while supplies last. There will be the usual session after the show so instruments are welcome!

Saying someone is a “songwriter’s songwriter” is a cliche for most folks to describe someone that writes great songs but isn’t famous. Heather Little shatters the cliche because there is a very good chance she is your favorite songwriter’s favorite songwriter.

Starting her career in the early 2000’s in her native Texas, Little has been crafting perfect songs for a long time in relative obscurity, at least as far as the general public is concerned. But, with songs covered by some of the biggest names in country music, Heather’s songs have garnered her two BMI awards for songwriting.

Her own recordings have been few and far between, with 2013’s Wings Like These her only proper full length release until now. Partnering with the folks at Need To Know Music has led to an album that Little herself says was “46 years in the making”. Releasing on April 19th, By Now is poised to not only bring the brilliance of Little’s songwriting, but also her vulnerable, awe-inspiring vocals and delivery.

Little says of the album, its themes and the journey it took to become a reality :

“This record is about how easy it is to be hard on yourself, and how hard it is to be easy and cut yourself a break sometimes. Grace is a dense pigment that takes over what it colors, but so are resentment, contempt, anger, fear, and indifference. It took a long time for me to learn the lessons given by the people I’ve known along the way thus far, and even longer to see clearly the situations and circumstances I created with my own choices. There is a good bit of reprogramming, re-parenting, rebuilding, and re-replanting yet to do, but this is a start.

These songs would not exist were it not for the awful parts I did not expect to survive. The existence of this record is proof love will always win in the end: Love of each other as humans, of healing and communication through music, and of what happens when the notes and words and sounds string us all together in the universal language of song. Music is universal. Love is universal. Music is love.”

Every track presented here tells a story that the listener cannot turn away from. “Hands Like Mine” featuring Griffin is an unflinching look at the difficulties of marriage. The gut wrenching “Razor Wire” takes on the topic of abandonment in a way that has never been done. Further along the record Little takes on abuse in two different relationships, each with its own way of coming to terms with a situation that far too many people find themselves in. “My Father’s Roof” shines a light on what it’s like to grow up in a house infected with evil and “Gunpowder and Lead” (made famous by co-writer Miranda Lambert) closes the album with the story of a wife taking matters into her own hands when the system fails to help her, complete with a never before recorded second verse.

When taken all together By Now is a snapshot of a songwriter and artist at the very top of her game. These songs are born from a wisdom and compassion that can only come from experience, learning and living. Heather Little has given the world a record that will inevitably stand the test of time to sit among some of the finest albums in recent memory.

Southside Preservation Hall and Southside Preservation Association are supported in part by a grant from Arts Fort Worth.