Birds of Chicago

Birds of Chicago
Birds of Chicago in Nashville, Tennessee, 2017
Background information
Origin	Chicago, IL
Genres	Folk, Americana
Years active	2012–present
Labels	Signature Sounds
Website	birdsofchicago.com
Members	JT Nero Allison Russell

Birds of Chicago is an Americana/folk band founded in March 2012 in Chicago, Illinois, United States. The band is led by husband and wife, JT Nero and Allison Russell. Russell is formerly of the Canadian roots act Po' Girl.^[1] The duo-fronted band refers to their music as "secular gospel".^[2]

Nero, a Midwesterner with strong family ties to Chicago, Illinois, has made the Windy City his home since 2002. Russell grew up in Montreal and has lived with Nero in Chicago since 2009.^[3] In 2014, Russell gave birth to their first daughter and hit the road with her four weeks later.^[4]

History

Prior to officially forming in March 2012, Nero and Russell were in other musical projects. Russell began collaborating with Nero on his solo project, mountains/forests in 2011, while she continued with Po' Girl. Nero was also in another band called JT and the Clouds. The two developed a working relationship as Po' Girl and JT and the Clouds traded shows across the Canadian/US border -- Po' Girl would open for JT and the Clouds in the States and vis versa. In 2007, Nero opened as a solo act for Po' Girl's international Home To You CD Release Tour, their last record under Nettwerk Records in Vancouver.

At that point, Nero and Russell started getting serious about working together after their experience of recording mountains/forests together in 2011. They began by calling themselves 'JT Nero and Allison Russell' and doing duo shows here and there. They started incorporating and collaborating with various members of their extended musical families - many alumni of JT and The Clouds - and felt they needed a better name that would better describe the musical collective they were creating. Birds of Chicago was the name they chose for their first studio album and decided to make that their band name.

They self-released their first self-titled Birds of Chicago album in June 2012 after a successful Kickstarter campaign. The band played guerilla-style showcases at Folk Alliance in Memphis, Tennessee in February 2012, just before their record was out. That's when they really kicked it into high gear and started touring 200 days out of the year. Among their first performances were sets at Delfest, Strawberry Festival, and High Sierra Festival. Their first national tour saw them opening for Sean Hayes throughout October and November 2012 and it didn't stop there. Throughout 2013 and 2014, they toured around North America, parts of Europe and the United Kingdom.

In 2013, the duo got married to each other and had a baby girl, Ida Maeve, touring throughout the pregnancy until Russell was 40 weeks pregnant. They hit the road with Ida Maeve when she was only 4 weeks old at the end of January 2014. The Netherlands was her first tour, and then across the US and Canada. They haven't stopped since.

On December 5th, 2014, they released their live record, Live From Space recorded at Space in Evanston, Illinois, just outside Chicago, Illinois.

In 2015, Joe Henry agreed to produce their next record, for which they were feverishly putting another Kickstarter campaign together. They launched the campaign and met their initial 40K goal in just 9 days. The final amount ended up being almost 81K. The success of their Kickstarter campaign allowed them to hired Sacks and Co. as publicists and make their first national press push. They recorded their forthcoming album, Blue Midnight throughout 2015 at Joe Henry's Garfield House, which had been his main studio for a decade. It was the last project in the Garfield House -- a bittersweet experience.

In 2016, Birds of Chicago released their second studio album, 'Real Midnight', produced by Joe Henry (Bonnie Raitt, Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell, Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint, Ani DiFranco.)^[5] This album got the band their first NPR coverage in February.

In 2017, Birds of Chicago signed with Signature Sounds Recordings in Northampton, Massachusetts and released their label debut on November 17, American Flowers, a digital-only EP.^[6] The EP was produced by Jim Jam and Borgo Entertainment (aka Norene and Ben Lindsay) and Koitz International (aka Gretchen, David, and Kevin Koitz).

In 2018, the band released their third studio album, Love In Wartime, produced by Luther Dickinson and Nero himself.^[7]

• 
  Birds of Chicago in Nashville, TN where they currently reside.
• 
  Birds of Chicago's cover photo for Love In Wartime

Accolades

In 2014, Paul Kerr of Blabber 'n' Smoke included Live From Space on his "Best Of" list.^[8] The album was also named one of 2014's best country albums by The London Telegraph, describing it as "An atmospheric live album from Birds of Chicago, which captures the stylish music of JT Nero and Allison Russell, whose self-titled, debut album last year was such a treat."^[9]

2016 proved to be a big year for the band. Paste Magazine premiered their first single "Real Midnight," the title track of their 2016 release, calling the band an "Americana gospel dream team."^[10] For the month of March, Real Midnight was #1 on the Euro-Americana Chart,^[11] and NPR included their "Dim Star Of The Palisades" single on "Heavy Rotation: 10 Songs Public Radio Can't Stop Playing" on March 8th.^[12]

NPR's Folk Alley included Real Midnight in their top 10 favorite albums of the year, coming in at #6;^[13] and it also landed #1 on Josh Hurst's All For The Sake of the Song's Favorite Albums of 2016 list.^[14]

In 2017, Slant Magazine named "American Flowers" 19 on their "25 Best Singles of 2017" list.^[15]

Discography

References

External links

• Official website
• Birds of Chicago on Youtube
• Birds of Chicago on Bandcamp