Jenny & Tyler
Encyclopedia
Jenny & Tyler are a husband-wife pop
-folk
band originally from Newark
, Delaware
, and currently based in Nashville
, Tennessee
, United States
. The group consists of singer-songwriter
s Jenny Somers and Tyler Somers. Their style is a fusion of folk
, pop
, funk, rock
, soul
, and bluegrass
, that has been called “soul-grass.” They are joined by additional musicians for recording and occasional live performances. The duo has independently released two full-length albums, and two E.P.s, and regularly tours the United States. For these live performances and recording, they collaborate with artists such as Mac Powell
, Levi Weaver
and Joel Rakes
.
They cite Alison Krauss
, Sixpence None the Richer
, Jennifer Knapp
, Nichole Nordeman
, Amy Grant
, jazz, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor
, and Jack Johnson
as influences.
. She found a home for self-expression in the art of songwriting at an early age.
Tyler was born in Wilmington, Delaware
, and exposed to jazz and Barbra Streisand from a young age. Tyler’s father, Wilson Somers, is a jazz pianist and composer,
and Tyler’s mother was a vocalist.
, and Jenny continued to write and perform as a solo act. Before long, Jenny and Tyler began dating and in the summer of 2006 they began work on an album together.
The couple tied the knot in June 2007, in between the production and release of Jenny & Tyler's first record, A Prelude, which was released in December the same year. The pair spent the next year touring the mid-Atlantic states and in August 2008 decided to move to Nashville to focus more on music. Jenny and Tyler still live in Nashville, close to their friends and musical collaborators Joel Rakes
and Levi Weaver
.
Jenny & Tyler toured extensively in support of their new record in the Spring and Fall of 2009.
Jenny & Tyler performed live on NBC 10 Philadelphia’s The 10! Show on November 24, 2009 to promote This Isn’t a Dream and their November 29 homeless benefit concert with Wilson Somers at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, DE. They returned to the 10! Show in 2011 to perform "This Is Just So Beautiful."
Tyler does most of the recording process, including production, engineering, editing, and mixing (with the exception of final stem-mixing and mastering) in his house using a software product Pro Tools
.
front man Mac Powell
, who provided backing vocals for the song "Carry Me." The couple met Powell when they opened for him at at a men's conference in Wilmington, DE.
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
-folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
band originally from Newark
Newark, Delaware
Newark is an American city in New Castle County, Delaware, west-southwest of Wilmington. According to the 2010 Census, the population of the city is 31,454. Newark is the home of the University of Delaware.- History :...
, Delaware
Delaware
Delaware is a U.S. state located on the Atlantic Coast in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It is bordered to the south and west by Maryland, and to the north by Pennsylvania...
, and currently based in Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
, Tennessee
Tennessee
Tennessee is a U.S. state located in the Southeastern United States. It has a population of 6,346,105, making it the nation's 17th-largest state by population, and covers , making it the 36th-largest by total land area...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The group consists of singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
s Jenny Somers and Tyler Somers. Their style is a fusion of folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
, funk, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
, and bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, that has been called “soul-grass.” They are joined by additional musicians for recording and occasional live performances. The duo has independently released two full-length albums, and two E.P.s, and regularly tours the United States. For these live performances and recording, they collaborate with artists such as Mac Powell
Mac Powell
Johnny Mac Powell , originally from Clanton, Alabama, is an American singer-songwriter and producer who formed the Christian rock band Third Day with guitarist Mark Lee...
, Levi Weaver
Levi Weaver
Levi Weaver is an American singer and songwriter. Born in Colorado and raised in Texas, Weaver moved to Birmingham, England in 2005 after his former band broke up. He released his first EP, the self-recorded "Civil War Between My Heart and Mind," in April 2006...
and Joel Rakes
Joel Rakes
Joel Rakes is an American singer-songwriter and musician based in Nashville, Tennessee. Rakes first began releasing his music independently on his own, starting with 2005 release Third Person Present Tense. His 2008 sophomore release was entitled A Sudden Change in the Atmosphere...
.
They cite Alison Krauss
Alison Krauss
Alison Maria Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer, songwriter and fiddler. She entered the music industry at an early age, winning local contests by the age of ten and recording for the first time at fourteen. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in...
, Sixpence None the Richer
Sixpence None the Richer
Sixpence None the Richer is an American rock/pop band that formed in New Braunfels, Texas, eventually settling in Nashville, Tennessee. They are best known for their songs "Kiss Me" and "Breathe Your Name" and their covers of "Don't Dream It's Over" and "There She Goes". The name of the band is...
, Jennifer Knapp
Jennifer Knapp
Jennifer Lynn Knapp is an American-Australian folk rock, and formerly contemporary Christian musician. She is best known for her first single "Undo Me" from her debut album Kansas , and the song "A Little More" from her Grammy Award-nominated album Lay It Down . The Way I Am , was also nominated...
, Nichole Nordeman
Nichole Nordeman
Nichole Ellyse Nordeman is an eight-time Dove Award-winning contemporary Christian American singer–songwriter.-Biography:Nordeman was raised in Colorado Springs, Colorado, where she played the piano in church...
, Amy Grant
Amy Grant
Amy Lee Grant is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, media personality and actress, best known for her Christian music. She has been referred to as "The Queen of Christian Pop"...
, jazz, Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
, and Jack Johnson
Jack Johnson (musician)
Jack Johnson was born May 18, 1975 is an American folk rock singer-songwriter, surfer and musician known for his work in the soft rock and acoustic genres. In 2001, he achieved commercial success after the release of his debut album, Brushfire Fairytales. He has since released four more albums, a...
as influences.
Musical background
Jenny grew up immersed in bluegrass and southern gospel. Her father was in the Air Force- meaning Jenny grew up everywhere from New York to Mississippi to Delaware- and was also a bluegrass musician and a LuthierLuthier
A luthier is someone who makes or repairs lutes and other string instruments. In the United States, the term is used interchangeably with a term for the specialty of each maker, such as violinmaker, guitar maker, lute maker, etc...
. She found a home for self-expression in the art of songwriting at an early age.
Tyler was born in Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington, Delaware
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, United States, and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley...
, and exposed to jazz and Barbra Streisand from a young age. Tyler’s father, Wilson Somers, is a jazz pianist and composer,
and Tyler’s mother was a vocalist.
Jenny & Tyler
Jenny and Tyler first met in the fall of 2004 while students at the University of Delaware. Almost immediately they began writing songs together, but weren't a duo for some time. Instead, they helped each other with songs and backed each other up at shows. Tyler formed a band with his roommate, Joel RakesJoel Rakes
Joel Rakes is an American singer-songwriter and musician based in Nashville, Tennessee. Rakes first began releasing his music independently on his own, starting with 2005 release Third Person Present Tense. His 2008 sophomore release was entitled A Sudden Change in the Atmosphere...
, and Jenny continued to write and perform as a solo act. Before long, Jenny and Tyler began dating and in the summer of 2006 they began work on an album together.
The couple tied the knot in June 2007, in between the production and release of Jenny & Tyler's first record, A Prelude, which was released in December the same year. The pair spent the next year touring the mid-Atlantic states and in August 2008 decided to move to Nashville to focus more on music. Jenny and Tyler still live in Nashville, close to their friends and musical collaborators Joel Rakes
Joel Rakes
Joel Rakes is an American singer-songwriter and musician based in Nashville, Tennessee. Rakes first began releasing his music independently on his own, starting with 2005 release Third Person Present Tense. His 2008 sophomore release was entitled A Sudden Change in the Atmosphere...
and Levi Weaver
Levi Weaver
Levi Weaver is an American singer and songwriter. Born in Colorado and raised in Texas, Weaver moved to Birmingham, England in 2005 after his former band broke up. He released his first EP, the self-recorded "Civil War Between My Heart and Mind," in April 2006...
.
Jenny & Tyler toured extensively in support of their new record in the Spring and Fall of 2009.
Jenny & Tyler performed live on NBC 10 Philadelphia’s The 10! Show on November 24, 2009 to promote This Isn’t a Dream and their November 29 homeless benefit concert with Wilson Somers at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington, DE. They returned to the 10! Show in 2011 to perform "This Is Just So Beautiful."
Writing and recording process
Jenny & Tyler describe themselves as having a very collaborative process of songwriting, where they constantly bounce ideas off of each other for a product that is equally balanced.Tyler does most of the recording process, including production, engineering, editing, and mixing (with the exception of final stem-mixing and mastering) in his house using a software product Pro Tools
Pro Tools
Pro Tools is a digital audio workstation platform for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X operating systems, developed and manufactured by Avid Technology. It is widely used by professionals throughout the audio industries for recording and editing in music production, film scoring, film, and television...
.
Collaborations
On their 2010 release, "Faint Not" Jenny & Tyler collaborated with Third DayThird Day
Third Day is a Grammy award-winning Christian rock band formed in Marietta, Georgia during the 1990s. The band was founded by lead singer Mac Powell, guitarist Mark Lee and former member Billy Wilkins. The other band members are bassist Tai Anderson and drummer David Carr...
front man Mac Powell
Mac Powell
Johnny Mac Powell , originally from Clanton, Alabama, is an American singer-songwriter and producer who formed the Christian rock band Third Day with guitarist Mark Lee...
, who provided backing vocals for the song "Carry Me." The couple met Powell when they opened for him at at a men's conference in Wilmington, DE.
Artwork
All the original artwork on A Prelude, This Isn’t a Dream, and Jenny & Tyler’s website was created by Tyler's sister Bethany Somers, a freelance artist in Nashville.Faint Not
Jenny & Tyler told The Celebrity Cafe, “Faint Not chronicles our journey of faith, from God’s pursuit of us, to first believing, to the really high highs and the really low lows; it’s an honest telling of our relationship with the Lord and with each other.”Studio albums
| Year | Title |
|---|---|
| 2007 | A Prelude |
| 2009 | This Isn't a Dream |
| 2009 | A Prelude Acoustic E.P. |
| 2009 | Love Came Down: A Christmas E.P. |
| 2010 | Faint Not |