Born in Memphis and raised between Los Angeles and Nashville, Angie spent her childhood living in two very distinct and distant worlds. “My parents split up, soon after we moved to L.A. for my father to train with the surgeon who created the cochlear implant, Bill House,” she recalls. “ My dad had fallen in love with another woman, but my mom made it clear she wasn’t going anywhere, content in California, so that’s how I ended up going back and forth in order to spend time with both of my parents.”
After dropping out of college in her third year, it dawned on Angie that she might be an artist. “I was very withdrawn and very much in my own head,” she explains. “If I had a different family life, I think I might have been a songwriter at a younger age. I wanted to express myself, but somehow I just wasn’t ready. I never thought I had the ability, but then once the first song came, I wanted to keep writing. “I’m looking forward to sharing all this music live, for the very first time.”
Now in Brooklyn, Angie is readying the release of The Land In Between, out on November 11.
The first few songs Angie wrote for the album leaned country, so it seemed natural that the band should be called “Moon Shine.” Though, there’s more to it than just that: “The Moon is a female symbol,” says Angie. “The name ‘Moon Shine’ refers to women shining.”
The Land In Between was overseen by acclaimed producer and guitarist Teddy Kumpel (Joe Jackson, Feist, Rickie Lee Jones) at Atomic Sound in Brooklyn, and together they assembled an impressive array of veteran A-list session players, including bassist Cat Popper (Jack White, Willie Nelson, Levon Helm), drummer Steve Williams (Sade, David Byrne, Keith Richards), keyboard player Todd Caldwell (Stephen Stills, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt), fiddler Charlie Burnham (Martha Redbone), with Mark Spencer on pedal steel (Son Volt, Lisa Loeb), Michael Blake on tenor saxophone, Bruce Harris on trumpet and the late Don Heffington (Emmylou Harris, Bob Dylan, Lucinda Williams), playing drums on “I Tried to Keep on Loving You.”
“The Promise,” premiering on Adobe & Teardrops, is a shimmering retro country confection of hope, doubt, and commitment.
“’It’s about the early stages of dating, when you’re wondering what you’re feeling, what the other person’s feeling, and if it’s real,” Angie explains. “I wrote it after a couple of dates with a songwriter I was enamored with. When I wrote ‘I don’t wanna be a moth caught in your flame,’ it was about wanting to be on equal footing as a songwriter and a lover.”
Diving into the deep end of the NYC music scene, Angie will be performing her first gig with the band at Pete’s Candy Store on September 17, 2022.