Sierra Hull is having an eventful freshman year in college.
She entered the Berklee College of Music last fall with the promise and pressure that comes with Berklee’s prestigious Presidential Scholarship, and found herself juggling the arduous first year class load with a busy touring schedule. She was gone for 25 days in October/November on the American Revival Tour and a week at the IBMA World Of Bluegrass, but managed to keep up with her studies.
This next week Sierra will see the release of her AcuTab mandolin instruction DVD, Secrets Songs & Tunes, on Tuesday (3/16) while she begins tracking for her next Rounder CD in Nashville.
Barry Bales will be producing for this project, and tells us that he is excited to get to work next week.
“We are tracking at Brent Truitt’s studio with a great line-up of musicians. Stuart Duncan, Bryan Sutton, Randy Kohrs, and Ron Stewart, as well as all the members of her band – Clay Hess, Cory Walker, Jacob Eller and Christian Ward – on various tracks. It was a wonderful surprise to get a bunch of great original material from her. Probably 9 or 10 will be from Sierra herself. I think she has all the potential in the world to do whatever she wants to in this business, so I’m just thrilled to be involved.
There’s no definite time set for finishing up, but hopefully we can wrap up everything by the end of April.”
Rounder won’t even think about discussing a potential release date until the album is completed. 2010 is shaping up as a big one for Ms. Hull.
Bales will have a bass DVD from AcuTab in the near future as well.
UPDATE 3/14: Sierra also shared a few words about the new project…
“I’m SO happy to be working on a new album! So much has changed for me since the release of Secrets, and I certainly feel I am going in to the studio very fresh and eager.
It’s been a long, but short process of nailing down songs, deciding where to record, who to guest on the record, etc. It’s a bit of a challenge because I had so many of my favorite players on the last record. I’m thrilled to have some new people coming in to play and sing on the new record, as well as getting the chance to work with the guys in my band. It’s been tough to get everything all planned out with being so far away and in college – thank goodness mid-terms are now over! 😉
Working with Barry has been great, and I’m really honored to have him help me with this project, as he is by far one of my favorite musicians. It’s always a different experience to work with someone new, and so far it’s been great!
I can’t wait to get in the studio Monday and get started!”
