LOS ANGELES, Calif. – Salvation Town, the surprising and powerful solo debut by Jonny Two Bags,  guitarist for the Southern California punk rock institution Social Distortion, defies expectations at  every turn. 
Produced by David Kalish, noted for his long association with Rickie Lee Jones, at his Redstar Studio in  Los Angeles, the album, released by Isotone Records via Nashville’s Thirty Tigers on April 1, 2014,  features 10 striking original songs written by Jonny Two Bags, a.k.a. Jonny Wickersham. 
A diverse array of talent that spans the musical spectrum was enlisted for the recording. Revered  singer-songwriter Jackson Browne shares vocals with Wickersham on “Then You Stand Alone,” while  David Lindley, whose guitar work graced several of Browne’s classic ’70s albums, contributes to four  tracks. Los Lobos’ multi-instrumentalist David Hidalgo and his sons David Jr. and Vincent join in on  “Wayward Cain” and super-sideman Greg Leisz (Lucinda Williams, Eric Clapton, k.d. lang, Dave Alvin)  also appears on guitar. The drum chair is filled by Pete Thomas, a mainstay of Elvis Costello’s bands  The Attractions and The Imposters. Guest vocalist Gaby Moreno (recent Latin Grammy Award winner  as Best New Artist) sings on “Avenues.” Other vocal guests include Julie Miller (wife and collaborator  of Buddy Miller) and backup singers Terry Evans and Arnold McCuller, best known for their work with  Ry Cooder and James Taylor. Wickersham’s colleagues in Social Distortion, keyboardist Danny  McGough and bassist Brent Harding, join on a few tracks while Austin accordion luminary Joel Guzman  and bassist/punk kingpin Zander Schloss (Weirdos, Circle Jerks, Thelonious Monster) round out the  lineup. 
The roots-based sound of Salvation Town carves out new stylistic terrain for Wickersham, who joined  Social Distortion in 2000 after the untimely death of his friend Dennis Danell.  
A product of Southern California, Jonny Two Bags had already put together a formidable punk rock  résumé before joining Social Distortion. He co-founded the Orange County band Cadillac Tramps,  cutting three albums with the group, and subsequently recorded and toured with L.A. punk unit Youth  Brigade as well as pro skateboarder Duane Peters’ hard-edged U.S. Bombs. 
Wickersham, who co-wrote several songs with Ness for Social Distortion’s albums Sex, Love and Rock  ’n’ Roll (2004) and Hard Times and Nursery Rhymes (2011), was also penning songs of his own during  that time. He says, “I’ve always been a sideman, so I usually write songs with the hope that the singer will like what I’ve written, take it, tweak it and maybe add some verses of his own.” 
Producer Kalish had been urging Wickersham to make his own record for years. Finally, after  tempting him with the opportunity to record with Pete Thomas, one of his favorite drummers,  Wickersham could no longer resist and work on Salvation Town began. Over the next two years Kalish  helped iron out some new tunes and put the finishing touches on pre-existing tunes like “Then You  Stand Alone” and “Forlorn Walls” in between Wickersham’s stints recording and touring with Social  Distortion. 
The material reflects a multiplicity of musical styles and influences. Wickersham’s father, a  professional musician who played folk, rock ’n’ roll, and country-rock, instilled in him a love of  Southern California musicians like Jackson Browne, Warren Zevon and Linda Ronstadt. Wickersham’s own taste in contemporary performers runs the gamut from Lucinda Williams and Ryan Adams to  Calexico. 
Wickersham adds, “As a second- or third-generation punk guy from Orange County, the kings of the  music world for me were The Blasters, Los Lobos and X. That school of musicians was as real as it  could ever get. I connected with that really early on. That’s how I discovered music — basically,  through those artists, the L.A. rockabilly scene, the L.A. roots-punk scene. They schooled me when I  was still a little punk rocker on a skateboard."
Wickersham says he was set on making an honest-sounding album without resorting to an overly  manicured studio sound: “I was used to making raggedy-sounding music and I wanted to stay true to  that without making a punk rock record. It was important to me to record something that doesn’t  sound over-produced and still has some spirit.” 
The combination of Wickersham’s roots-music orientation and his dark, hyper-realistic compositions  made for a stylistic shift that even the musician himself didn’t anticipate. “The finished product is not  necessarily what I set out to do,” he says. ”It’s not a guitar record, and that’s something that I  wouldn’t have expected.” 
For many, the greatest revelation of Salvation Town will be Wickersham’s accomplished, fully-realized  songwriting, which grew out of his tumultuous youth in the L.A. and Orange County music scenes.  Writing and recording this album of streetwise and sometimes painfully frank songs about a life lived  with “one foot in the gutter and one foot kicking in the door to Heaven” proved to be somewhat of a  cathartic experience. 
He notes, “As I was making this record, I realized that in some of these songs I’m singing about things  that happened a lifetime ago for me and that was challenging. I just accepted the fact that I needed to  purge myself on this record. I wrote about things that happened when I was growing up, feelings and experiences that I have had … stuff that I have never been that open about. Even though my life is  different now all of those experiences are still hanging there, just below the surface. I guess it never  really goes away … those that have lived it know.”

An outlaw country headliner whose music reaches far beyond the genre's borders, Sara Petite has built an award-winning career with songs that owe as much to the rock & roll roadhouse as they do the honky-tonk. 

Hers is a raw, rough-edged version of American roots music, delivered by a five-time International Songwriting Competition finalist who's spent nearly two decades calling her own shots. Sara has no interest in chasing trends. She's too busy chasing the muse instead, earning a wide range of accolades — including Top 40 success on the Americana charts, international airplay, and more than a half-dozen trophies from the San Diego Music Awards — along the way. 

"When I first began playing shows, people used to tell me 'You've gotta pick a sound,'" she remembers. "I didn't like that advice. I like to do things my way, and that means going all over the map, from country to rock & roll to soul to punk. This music is my own, after all. It should sound like me."

The Empress, her seventh record, marks a return to the intersection of country twang and roots-rock bang. It's a place Sara knows well, and she sketches its dimensions in sharp detail. These 11 songs take place in dive bars, trailer parks, the throes of passion, and the feedback loop of addiction, with Sara embodying her characters fully. From the heartbroken narrator of "The Mistress" — an old-school country/soul ballad about a lover's affair with alcohol, punctuated by pedal steel and electric piano — to the hell-raising hillbilly heroine of "Bringin' Down the Neighborhood," she maintains a strong female perspective, celebrating the full range of womanhood along the way. The Empress is an album for all genders, stocked with songs that tackle the universal struggles we all face. Even so, its central heroes are Joan of Arc, Mary Magdalene, and other woman who, like Sara, have pushed against imbalances in society for the sake of fairness. 

"'The Empress' comes from the idea that our world is out of balance," she says of the album's anthemic title track, which salutes the empowered rule-breakers of the past with fiddle and galloping drums. "Everything's gone off-kilter, and we all need that mix of feminine and masculine energies in our bodies. The more that women are respected and held to the same level of importance as men, the better off we're all going to be. On this album, I'm not writing about misogyny as much as I'm writing about my own life and the strong women I see in my world."

Produced by Grammy nominee Eric Corne, The Empress crackles with the energy of a live band whose performances match the material's unique punch. "Sara is a great lyricist and singer," says Corne, who recorded the bulk of the album during a pair of inspired weekends. "She deals with real emotions, real stories, real feelings. It's easy to understand why great musicians play with her, like piano player Bobby Fuego, who played with Leonard Cohen, and bass player Jorge Calderón, who worked with Warren Zevon. They're the real deal, and so is she."

With a voice that swoons one minute and snarls the next, Sara charges her way through The Empress like outlaw country royalty. "God Save the Queen," a Rolling Stones-sized rocker that kicks off the album, finds her singing about Mother Earth. "Take care of me; I am your home," she demands during the song's final moments, while stomping drums underscore her urgency. She reevaluates the Adam and Eve story with the greasy raunch of "Forbidden Fruit" — "Let's head east of Eden / Ain't the Garden, but it's nice / Cut them apron strings / Let's start our own Paradise," she sings — and even slips into French during the country-fried Cajun track "Le Petit Saboteur." For the album's two-part closer, Sara revisits "Lead the Parade" — a song that first appeared in 2008, back when it served as the bluegrass title track of her sophomore album — and slows the tempo to an elegant shuffle, turning the track into a New Orleans funeral procession. "Now here I am with a rose in my hand / All dressed up to go away / This ain’t no rehearsal; it’s the real thing today / So driver, let the hearse lead way," she sings, backed by fiddle and upright piano. The reimagined song then gives way to "Meet Me on the Other Side," a gospel rave-up that blends the energy of Saturday night with the emotional uplift of Sunday morning. Here, the mood is far more celebratory than crestfallen, with Petite asking the departed to "bring your dancing shoes and happy feet / 'Cause that's the day our souls will meet / When I meet you on the other side."

Released on the heels of Rare Bird, The Empress shines new light on a singer/songwriter who grew up in a tulip farming town in rural Washington, launched her career after moving to southern California, and continues to perform on both sides of the Atlantic. It's a rawly-refined record that's every bit as diverse as Sara herself, with songs rooted in history and experience. "I'm an ever-evolving person who refuses to stay the same, and The Empress reflects that," she says. "My work is very personal, so this record is me — a securely insecure, confidently unconfident person who's learned to be comfortable with the in-between."