Welcome to the Music Thursdays segment! Each week here on Geek Alabama, Music Thursdays will feature music related content. Music Thursdays will feature an artist or band and their latest song and / or music video. People love music, and we here at Geek Alabama love featuring artists and bands!
There is something beautiful about artists whose intuitive insight into the human condition opens them up to creating works that truly meet the moment. With the release of her infectious emotionally impactful third EP Showin’ Up, singer/songwriter Brooke Josephson pulls off the feat of creating a perspective-shifting six track collection that powerfully reflects the Zeitgeist of the pandemic era and contemporary social justice issues.
Ironically, she composed most of the set’s five original songs prior to 2020, without the foresight that her soulful pop/rock artistry would become more of a collective culture necessity than simply an intimate window into her own life. With initial recording sessions taking place at Zac Brown’s Southern Ground studio in Nashville and later dates completing the process after she was vaccinated in 2021, Showin’ Up makes the first time Brooke has taken the reins as producer of one of her own projects. From the material to her vocal performance, the vibe and overall sonic aesthetic, the EP showcases a newfound self-confidence and development as a forward-thinking, visionary artist.
Born and raised in the small town of Warsaw, Indiana, Brooke’s earliest musical memories came from singing songs like “Jesus Loves Me” in church and at her Christian school. She learned to play piano on a $200 red mahogany upright and her mom found her a voice teacher at age 13 to cultivate her talents further. While raised in a religious home where secular music was not allowed, she has a fond memory at age eight of attending a friend’s birthday party where she heard Madonna’s “Material Girl” for the first time.
Hooked on pop music from that point on, she became a huge fan of that song’s producer Nile Rodgers and grew up inspired by everyone from Alanis Morrissette and Annie Lennox to Brandi Carlile. She chased her dream of becoming a singer and actress to New York where she started in theater and later worked on “All My Children,” “Bones,” Disney’s “Enchanted” (on whose set she met her now husband), NBC’s “Good Girls” and other shows. Brooke later earned her Masters in Songwriting from Berklee College of Music.
