Biography
After a five-year hiatus from recording and performing, Jessica Stone has returned with her sophomore album, Melting, a collection of nine original songs and two Willie Nelson covers. Produced by Jon Evans of San Pablo Recorders in Berkeley CA, Melting is a sophisticated blend of pop, jazz and folk, with heavily acoustic arrangements that were recorded and mixed in an intimate style. The record was mastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios.

Jessica released her first record, Seven Letters, in 2002, which garnered indie acclaim. She was selected as one of Femmusic's Top Five Independent Solo Artists and she received Independent Songwriter Magazine's 'Best Independent Songwriter on the Internet' and 'Best Website' awards. Jessica's song 'Got To Be Me' spent over 10 days at #1 on the MP3.com AAA chart in the US, and was a finalist theme song for Sports Illustrated Women's Magazine. The title track ‘Seven Letters’ made it into heavy rotation on an Oakland, CA radio station and other songs were spun on college radio and internet radio across the country.

Prior to releasing Seven Letters, Jessica graduated from the LA Music Academy in Pasadena, CA and founded Maidenstone Music, her record label and publishing company. With a five-person band based in the Los Angeles area, Jessica performed at the Knitting Factory, Genghis Cohen, and The Derby in Hollywood, the Poetry Café in London, and at Marz, and The Crocodile in Tokyo among other venues.

In 2004, Jessica was given the unique opportunity to relocate to the San Francisco Bay Area to join the management team of a music start-up that would later come to be known by millions in the US as the internet radio service Pandora.com. Jessica is an active member of the leadership team at Pandora, serving as their SVP of Business Development. She put her own music on hold while pouring her time and efforts into Pandora’s mission – to help independent musicians get their music out to radio listeners across the country and to help music fans discover new music they love. After five years of that single focus, and with Pandora’s audience now approaching 30 million listeners in the US, Jessica has finally carved out time to return some of her attention to her own music. The result is Melting, a project that she can be proud of.

Jessica Stone's music is not easily classified along traditional genre lines. Raised in a folk-music tradition, she combines strong melodic hooks, harmonies, and singer-songwriter style lyrics with occasionally complex meter and sometimes jazzy chord progressions. Jessica’s songwriting style ranges from straight-ahead pop tunes to country ballads, folk tunes and jazz standards. Her vocal delivery is intimate - at times soft, warm, and suggestive, and at other times high, clear, and sweet. Jessica Stone is not a powerhouse vocalist, but her honest, pure vocals will enchant you if you let them – alternatively making you cry, dance, and lean in for another listen.

About Melting
Melting reflects the jazz influences that crept into Stone’s songwriting after attending the LA Music Academy. Those influences are combined with the country, pop, and blues themes she explored on Seven Letters. Her jazzy tunes ‘Need You’ and ‘The First Dance’ could be mistaken as coming straight out of the Great American Songbook, while ‘Forget Me Not,’ ‘Melting,’ ‘Fading,’ and ‘In That Moment’ might be played on pop radio today. ‘Sort Of’ stands out as the only rocker on the album, with a Rolling Stones-influenced arrangement complete with horns and a gospel chorus. Her covers of Willie Nelson’s lesser-known but brilliant songs, ‘Wake Me When It’s Over,’ ‘Summer of Roses,’ and ‘December Day’ are sparse, jazzy arrangements that trace only the thinnest of threads back to their country origin. ‘Flowers In Her Hair’ and the final track, ‘Lullaby,’ are sweet, folksy ballads reminiscent of Peter, Paul and Mary’s infectious simplicity. Overall, Melting is a very satisfying collection of songs with great arrangement and production value.