Joanne Rand

Joanne Rand Biography 
2014-2015

For 30 years visionary songsmith Joanne Rand has brought her “Psychedelic-Folk-Revival” across the United States. Matrix Magazine calls Rand’s stage presence “electrifying,” Portland Southeast Examiner calls her “An unforgettable force of nature,” and the N.Y.Times-owned Santa Rosa PD called Rand’s music “Nothing short of brilliant.” This year Rand released her 14th CD of original songs, Still a Real World, co-produced with Stephen Hart (David Bowie, White Stripes, Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan) and featuring violinist Jenny Sheinman (David Byrne, Ani DiFranco, Norah Jones).

Born and bred in the Deep South, studying classical piano and guitar, Rand was steeped in southern rock-and-roll, gospel, and the inflammatory folk of the ‘70s. At 14 psychedelic rock blew her mind and she branched into her own compositions, later earning a BFA at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. At 22 Rand cut her performance teeth in Alaskan bars, then launched her career in earnest in California’s North Bay area, where North Bay Bohemian readers’ poll voted her “Best Acoustic Band.” By the late ‘90s Rand was a fixture in Seattle’s thriving music scene. She then retuned to California to raise a child and earn a degree in Music Composition. Rand’s 2010 CD, Snake Oil and Hummingbirds, was submitted for a Grammy nomination by San Francisco’s Recording Academy president.

Rand’s songs are snapshots of humanity: our potential and our foibles. They uplift and inspire the listener. Through it all she remains hopeful and “Captivated with the human race.”

“My singing has led me on many adventures:” writes Rand, “I have sung in the Amazon Jungle for Indigenous peoples, in Alaska, Hawaii, Manhattan, L.A., Toronto, Atlanta, Seattle. I have sung for the head of the Mormon Church in Salt Lake City, sung before mosh-pit audiences of 60,000, sung for the dying, at births, weddings, memorials and high profile nudist colonies, at rallies, in prisons and churches and in the 100-year-old small town ranch built by my great grandfather. I have led marches with my voice, sung for underpaid workers, for the reveling rich, performed on a redwood stump stage in the heart of the ancient forest, and at glittering new age conferences in posh hotels, extravagant outdoor festivals. I have sung for outlaws and politicians, (invited by City Hall to sing the National Anthem), for kindergarteners, rebel teens, and the elderly. I have sung for Native Americans, Hell’s Angels, Microsoft billionaires, Buddhists, goddess worshippers and good old, rural salt-of-the-earth folk. I have sung for my supper, for the forests and rivers and fish, for human rights, gay pride, hemp, baby showers, and in shopping malls. Always aiming to pollinate ideas, raise spirits, give hope, inspire forward motion, and to bring freedom for the soul.”