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“Atria with his 18-piece choir and orchestra leaves us in pieces.” — American Blues Scene
Many years ago, in a used bookstore called BookLover’s Cafe, I found an old box containing sixteen miniature, leather-bound volumes of Shakespeare. Written inside each book, in elegant calligraphy, was an inscription to Evelyn from Ralph with the month and the year 1914.
Late one night, taking a volume from the shelf, I studied the inscription and wondered about Ralph and Evelyn. Who were they? What happened to them? I knew, sadly, they must forever remain a mystery. But an idea came to mind: if I couldn’t know their story, I could imagine it. I could write it. So Juliet was born.
Recorded over four years, the album features forty-nine musicians, including a makeshift orchestra and an eighteen-piece choir.
Everything that happens to Ralph and Evelyn is true, though none of it really happened to them. It happened to my grandfather and my father; to my great uncle, the son of Syrian immigrants, who watched his best friend die in the war and came home a different man; to the woman who gave me the Orpheum acoustic guitar she bought her husband on their first anniversary in 1941 and as payment asked for a recording of “You Are My Sunshine,” the song he used to sing to her with it; to the family friend, nostalgic for the halcyon days when her boyfriend called her Cherry, who said the wonderfully odd phrase, “I’ve been dreaming Cherry”; and to me. Maybe some of it happened to you, too. If music be the food of love, play on.
—From the liner notes
“Atria with his 18-piece choir and orchestra leaves us in pieces.” — American Blues Scene
Many years ago, in a used bookstore called BookLover’s Cafe, I found an old box containing sixteen miniature, leather-bound volumes of Shakespeare. Written inside each book, in elegant calligraphy, was an inscription to Evelyn from Ralph with the month and the year 1914.
Late one night, taking a volume from the shelf, I studied the inscription and wondered about Ralph and Evelyn. Who were they? What happened to them? I knew, sadly, they must forever remain a mystery. But an idea came to mind: if I couldn’t know their story, I could imagine it. I could write it. So Juliet was born.
Recorded over four years, the album features forty-nine musicians, including a makeshift orchestra and an eighteen-piece choir.
Everything that happens to Ralph and Evelyn is true, though none of it really happened to them. It happened to my grandfather and my father; to my great uncle, the son of Syrian immigrants, who watched his best friend die in the war and came home a different man; to the woman who gave me the Orpheum acoustic guitar she bought her husband on their first anniversary in 1941 and as payment asked for a recording of “You Are My Sunshine,” the song he used to sing to her with it; to the family friend, nostalgic for the halcyon days when her boyfriend called her Cherry, who said the wonderfully odd phrase, “I’ve been dreaming Cherry”; and to me. Maybe some of it happened to you, too. If music be the food of love, play on.
—From the liner notes