Free Dirt Records announces the signing of deeply rooted American songwriter Vivian Leva. Her debut solo record, Time Is Everything (featuring Riley Calcagno), will be released on March 2, 2018. This impressive record spans archaic ballads, classic country and honky-tonk, and contemporary Americana, all charged with a hearty emotional punch from this rising star who’s been quietly making a name for herself with some of the most passionate members of the American music community.
Vivian Leva's voice is the sound of living tradition. Raised by parents who absorbed ancient tunes and ballads during visits to legendary old-time musicians, Leva grew up steeped in the Appalachian and country music of her Lexington, VA home. On Time Is Everything, her label debut, Leva earns a spot in the lineage of great neo-traditional songwriters like Gillian Welch and Sarah Jarosz. And much like these singers, Leva finds inspiration in the past without being stifled by it.
Though still in college, Leva’s musical roots run deep. She grew up going to fiddle festivals with her parents, both acclaimed roots musicians themselves who perform as the duo Jones and Leva. Her father, James, is a respected multi-instrumentalist who learned knee-to-knee from old-time legends like Tommy Jarrell and Doug Wallin, while her mother, Carol Elizabeth, picked up bygone songs from a now lost generation of singers and recorded with the pioneering bluegrass duo Hazel Dickens and Alice Gerrard. Leva soaked up this influence at a young age, and, at age 9, began penning songs and performing with her father at venues like the prestigious Carter Family Fold.
“The biggest part of traditional music has always been the community,” she says. “It’s really special that you can travel almost anywhere and share tunes with a group of people that you’ve never met.” In this spirit, she joined The Onlies, a young stringband that won the coveted traditional band competition at the 2017 Clifftop festival in West Virginia.
The sonic and lyrical palette of Time Is Everything, which was recorded at Joseph DeJarnette’s Studio 808A in Floyd, VA, is influenced in equal parts by classic storytellers like Kitty Wells and Texas Gladden, the harmony singing of the Stanley and Everly Brothers, and the pop sensibilities of Mandolin Orange. Leva’s writing effortlessly shifts between archaic ballads, classic country and honky-tonk, and the best of contemporary Americana. For her first solo record, she enlisted the talents of multi-instrumentalist Riley Calcagno (The Onlies) as well as other top-notch collaborators (Jack Devereux, Eric Robertson, Nick Falk, and Joseph "Joebass" DeJarnette) to add fiddle, banjo, pedal steel, and percussion to the album’s tastefully minimal production.
It’s rare to find such a mature and confident voice in a young artist—someone whose music springs so organically from a grassroots connection to the traditional music community in which she was raised. Time Is Everything is indeed a bold statement from this rising star of deeply rooted American music. Vivian Leva is a voice that deserves to be listened to in the coming years.
