Have Gun, Will Travel’s Casting Shadows Tall as Giants (BOTB winner for Best Local CD), Will Quinlan’s Navasota (winner for Best Comeback CD), Toby Bonar’s Deeper Roots (which earned him Best Acoustic Guitar Picker) Rebekah Pulley’s BOTB-winning Best Career Milestone Back to Boogaloo and Ronny Elliott’s captivating Jalopypaint represent the finest Americana releases of the past 12 months. The common thread? Steve Connelly. At his Zen Recording Studio in Pinellas Park, he produced, co-produced, recorded, mastered and/or played on each disc. Connelly’s skills go beyond the roots-rock set, though. He’s also worked with electronica-rockers GreyMarket and the experimental-leaning indie outfit Lush Progress. Now, if Connelly, a singer/songwriter and gifted multi-instrumentalist best known for his guitar prowess, would just have time to complete the solo record he’s been promising for the past year … zenrecording.com
This article appears in Sep 10-16, 2008.