For those unaware, Nashville-based singer-songwriter James DiGirolamo, has extensive experience as a session musician and touring sideman.

As a keyboard player, he has worked with Mindy Smith, Holly Williams, Peter Bradley Adams, Alice Peacock, Robby Hecht, Fognode, The Bittersweets, Judson Spence, and many others.

DiGirolamos latest solo work, the upcoming EP Paper Boats (due out June 11th, 2021) draws on a wide array of influences including Paul Simon, The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Elliott Smith, Kate Bush, Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, Harry Nilsson, Thomas Dolby, Steven Sondheim, XTC, Steely Dan, Ben Folds, Ron Sexsmith, and to no small degree many friends and peers from his time in Nashville, such as Sarah Siskind.

In his own words, These are not always overt, or even apparent, but they are in there- that is part of the beauty of the DNA of songwriting.

1. Same Boat
2. The Girl Who Has Everything
3. Sail Away
4. Pure Joy
5. Top of The World
6. On Paper

This amazingly open, honest, raw and at all times melodic and masterfully constructed new recording opens on the gentle guitar, catchy hipsway of Same Boat and backs that up with the delightfully airy piano ballad The Girl Who Has Everything, before bringing us my own personal favorite, the lusciously free flowing, Summer breeze ambiance of Sail Away.

Next up is DiGirolamos heartfelt gratitude for love and life on the dulcet Pure Joy which is backed by the soothing storytelling of loves lost youth on Top of The World, with the EP coming to a close on the hypnotic, post-divorce ode On Paper.

The title Paper Boats is a playful combination of the first and last tracks. As DiGirolamo himself puts it, In my mind, each of the songs is a tiny boat I constructed, which I now hope to launch across a glassy pond, or - more like it - turbulent seas.

www.jamesdigirolamo.com

James DiGirolamo @ YouTube

James DiGirolamo @ Twitter