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The Spares release new CD, Everything is Easy

“[Their music] might seem too beautiful, too ethereal, too country to be a product of gritty grey Chicago, but indeed it is.” – Alison Cuddy, WBEZ (Chicago’s NPR affiliate)

CHICAGO  — Americana artists The Spares released their new CD, Everything is Easy, at a sold-out concert at the 400-seat Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. This is the duo’s fifth album and their first studio release since Beautiful and Treacherous Thing, which was a national finalist in 2009 for Americana Album of the Year in the Just Plain Folks Music Awards.

The Spares’ original acoustic music has been described as “hauntingly gorgeous” (Maverick Magazine), “simple, aching and hearty” (NewCity Chicago), and “somewhere in heaven between Gram Parsons and Alison Krauss”  (Smother Magazine). “Their sound kind of tracks their personal journeys in encompassing the range of the American heartland,” says Alison Cuddy of WBEZ (Chicago’s NPR affiliate). “That may be why, in spite of the literal spareness of their music, it can be hard to categorize.” Indeed, the new songs on Everything is Easy fuse country, folk, blues and rock. The lyrics are thoughtful and honest, just as the music is raw, beautiful and compelling.

About the Spares

Jodee Lewis and Steve Hendershot formed The Spares in 2005. They write and sing twangy, bluesy, roots music about characters who are desperate and hopeful, buoyant and brokenhearted—sometimes all at once. The stories hint at love and truth in ways that the characters themselves don’t always recognize. Jodee and Steve are frequently joined on the road and in the studio by Jason Reed (vocals, mandolin), Jonathan Gilley (bass) and Nathaniel Strenger (drums).