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August 14 Global Songstresses / Indie-Pop Singers

Carmen Consoli - Italian Chanteuse / Sicilian Sciantosa / Italian Cantatessa

The Sicilian-born Carmen Consoli is the most successful female singer-songwriter Italy has ever produced. The 33 year-old musician is known for her unflinching emotional live performances of songs that examine broad themes of love, illness, solitude and friendship from a feminine -- and feminist -- perspective. Her innovative mixture of Italian song with indie-rock influences, bossa nova rhythms and jazz and blues-inspired riffs have engendered a sound unique on the Italian music scene.

This Italian chanteuse, or better yet "Sicilian Sciantosa," has been likened to ani  diFranco and Alanis Morissette. Consoli's albums sell in the millions and she has been a multiple honoree at the MTV Italy Music Awards as well as at the Taormina Film Festival  for the soundtrack of the international hit film "L'Ultimo Bacio" (The Last Kiss).

Consoli is serving as Artistic Director of the summer 2008 Etna Music World Festival in  Sicily. In May 2006 she was named a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and in 2005  Consoli was chosen to represent Italy at the Africa Unite concert in Ethiopia celebrating  the 60th anniversary of Bob Marley's birth.

Tonight's concert is Carmen Consoli's debut performance in California, a long-awaited  and much-anticipated premiere!

Juana Molina - Argentinian Avant-Garde Singer

Juana Molina is a respected and popular singer/songwriter from Argentina who has achieved great popularity in several countries around the globe. Her quirky, atmospheric songs bring to mind other modern chanteuses, as Juana is often compared with Bjˆrk, Beth Orton, Lisa Germano and KT Tunstall.

Juana Molina is not easily classified though - as her music blurs lines between simple categorization. The lyrics on her albums are sung in her native Rioplatense Spanish, accompanied by acoustic guitar, among other instruments, and features elements of ambient and electronica. Juana's idiosyncratic, genre-bending music most easily might be described as Folktronica.

Juana has released four albums: Rara (1996), Segundo (2003), Tres Cosas (2004) and Son (2006). Her second album was named "Best World Music Album" by Entertainment Weekly and "Tres Cosas" made the New York Times Top Ten Records of 2004.

Samantha Crain & the Midnight Shivers

Sometimes music is a collision of opposites. Realities clash and coexist, and the tension, while sometimes strange and unpredictable, results in something undeniably beautiful. For Samantha Crain, these colliding realities stem most notably from her unlikely artistic heritage; a Native American from Oklahoma, the state that gave us both The Flaming Lips and Woody Guthrie. Her artistic vision embodies equal parts Radiohead and Bob Dylan, balancing darkness and light, life and death.

Her sound is deeply rural and southern, but also itinerant and urban. Like Jack Kerouac before her, Crain is lost on the subway, sleeping in boxcars, leaving lovers behind, and dining in small town obscurity all within a few short days. At the age of 21, that's saying something about this emerging artist who kicks off this special night of Global Songstresses.

August 21 The British Invasion once again...on the Santa Monica Pier!

Peter & Gordon

First came The Beatles, then came... Peter & Gordon! In June 1964, Peter & Gordon became the very first British Invasion act after The Beatles to take the number one spot on the American charts with "A World Without Love." Dubbed the "Everly Brothers of the British Invasion," Peter & Gordon scored Top 40 hits with "I Don't Want to see you Again," "Nobody I Know" and "Woman" - all written by Paul McCartney - plus "Knight in Rusty Armor," "Sunday For Tea" "I Go to Pieces" "Lady Godiva" "To Know You is to Love You" and "True Love Ways."

After Peter & Gordon broke up in 1968, Peter Asher became an enormously successful producer, first as the director of A&R at Apple Records, where he worked on James Taylor's first album. After relocating to Los Angeles, he became one of the principal architects of Californian rock in the 1970s, producing Linda Ronstadt, James Taylor and others.

Peter Asher and Gordon Waller reunited for a special benefit after over 35 years in 2005 and this will be their first concert appearance in Los Angeles since the '60s!

Gerry & the Pacemakers

Gerry & the Pacemakers came from the same Liverpool scene at the Cavern that spawned the "Mersey Beat." One of the top Liverpool beat groups of the early 1960s, Gerry and the Pacemakers followed the Beatles and many other British music groups on the "British Invasion" of 1964. Remembered for such hits as "I'm The One," their biggest U.S. hit "Don't Let the Sun Catch you Crying" and "Ferry Cross the Mersey," which became the title of a touching and beautiful film homage to their home town.

Gerry Marsden wrote much of the soundtrack for the film, sometimes referred to as Gerry & the Pacemakers' version of A Hard Day's Night. The band played themselves, winning a sort of Battle Of The Bands. The Fourmost, Cilla Black and a number of acts from the era had cameos in the film and live performances were filmed in the now world famous Cavern Club.

Gerry & the Pacemakers were TV regulars on The Ed Sullivan Show, Hullabaloo, Shindig, Ready Steady Go! and featured in the legendary TNT/T.A.M.I. Show concert. Today, Gerry Marsden has been featured on PBS music specials and is in great demand in the UK, where he is booked for months at a time at seaside resorts, making his U.S. appearances quite rare.

August 28 Toots & the Maytals - Jamaican Reggae Legend!

Toots Hibbert is one of the great voices in music; a legend whose career spans every development in Jamaican music, from ska through rock-steady to reggae. Toots and the Maytals, originally called simply The Maytals, shaped the sound of Reggae with a unique, original combination of gospel, ska, soul, reggae and rock. Comprised of leader Frederick "Toots" Hibbert, Nathaniel "Jerry" Matthias, and Henry "Raleigh" Gordon, the childhood friends are credited with giving the music its name, first using the word "reggae" in the song "Do the Reggay" in 1968.

Toots & the Maytals won the 2005 Grammy award for best reggae album "True Love." The album consisting of new versions of their classics recorded with legendary musicians such as Bonnie Raitt, Willie Nelson, Eric Clapton, and Keith Richards, as well as today's most popular artists today such as No Doubt, Ben Harper, The Roots, and Shaggy. Their latest "Light Your Light" has again been nominated for Grammy for Best Reggae Album. Also nominated in the reggae category are Burning Spear, Stephen Marley, Lee Perry & Sly & Robbie. This marks the 4th nomination for Toots since the Grammies have had a reggae category. "Light Your Light" is the 1st album recorded for Concord Records on their Fantasy label. Produced by Toots & Richard Feldman, it is a must have for all Toots fans.

Toots and the Maytals have helped to chart the course of Jamaican music with unrivaled delivery and dynamism, setting new standards of excellence, and becoming the most enduring of all Jamaica's groups.