Born into a musical legacy — her father Larry Brown once played in The Association and Smothers Brothers before joining Engelbert Humperdinck in the ‘80s, and mother Anne-Marie Brown sang with The Babys and Jon Waite — Dominique Pruitt is charting a path of her own with her new EP Praying for Rain. From the deep desert vibes of the title track, to the Nancy Sinatra nods in standout “High in the Valley,” to the tear-in-her-beer, tropical-tinged “Even My Roses Are Blue” (written with her father), Pruitt pays homage to the sounds of her youth while paving her own singular and refreshing trail forward.
Produced and co-written by Joseph Holiday, Praying for Rain trills the universal story of the struggle to follow a dream, set to a stylistic medley of spaghetti western, rockabilly, classic country, and surf rock (with a murder ballad for good measure).
While taking stock of the past and attempting to make sense of it is no new approach when it comes to making art, for Pruitt, such reflection also meant admitting what was working and what wasn’t, leading her to realize that the initial recording of the title track belonged in the “not working” pile.
“We recorded the very first take of “Praying For Rain” the day after the 2016 election with a different producer,” Pruitt recalls. “The materialization of our collective sorrows definitely showed on the track, and not in a good way. We recut it with Joseph at the helm and breathed an entire new life into it. It finally became the spaghetti western murder ballad I had fantasized about.”
Pruitt’s musical style recalls the aesthetic of bygone eras, updating her pop Patsy Cline and 60s beach vibes with hints of Nick Lowe and The Cramps. The aforementioned “High in the Valley” evokes a smoky concoction of forlorn spirits caught in grungy dive bars in nowhere middle America, much like what you might hear as the credits roll at the conclusion of a Tarantino flick.
“I saw the movie Cry Baby when I was nine years old, and it shaped the form of my life,” she remarks on her early influences. This love for and inspiration from all things vintage are readily apparent when you see her live, often in a rhinestones and fringe satin bodysuit, or on video – a rotary phone plays a primary role in the video for “High in the Valley” as Pruitt ruminates on “the life from the other side of the Hollywood sign.”
“I want to put on a show with a spectacle,” she says, citing also the movie Gypsy, starring Natalie Wood and Rosalind Russell, as carrying an equally indelible impact. Pruitt elicits imagery of vintage showgirls and the mystique of burlesque into her music and performances, transporting the listener and concertgoer into a world long gone.
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“Pruitt confidently struts between the realms of Americana and vintage pop.” – PopMatters
“Somewhere between Nicole Atkins, Jessie Baylin and the True Blood soundtrack.” – Rolling Stone
“Spaghetti-western inspired rhythms, intricately designed, act as propellant…while the Valley has its challenges, it’s not all that far from Bakersfield and its twang.” – LA Times
“Pruitt delivers a gem straight outta Marty McFly’s 1950’s Hill Valley, with detours through the tattered maps connecting John Waters and Quentin Tarantino soundtracks.” – PopDose
“Retro and jangly.” – The Boot
“Features everything you could ask for from the place that put the “Western” in Country and Western: steel guitar, reverb, spooky backing vocals, and that woodblock sound from all the cowboy soundtracks.” – Glorious Noise
“One of the most impressive lyrical tracks I’ve heard all year…From irony to just outright cleverness, it’s about the depths of sin and human identity but doesn’t feel preachy at all.” – Ear to the Ground
“A heavenly strip of music that worms through the noise of today’s music scene.” – B-Sides & Badlands
Publicist: Rachel Hurley
“For an independent artist, it can be scary investing in PR- but it’s also a crucial cog in the music machine! Rachel Hurley made the investment worth every damn penny. She truly kicked ass on my campaign and got me some killer press. Rachel was easy as pie to communicate with, quick to respond to everything, and made me feel supported EVERY step of the way. If I had to sum up my experience with Rachel it would be “above and beyond”!” – Dominique Pruitt