julia

    Welcome to the Whispers Page! 
                   Here you will find:
I.  Julia's National TV Appearances
II. Julia's National Radio Appearances
III. Julia makes National News
IV. Some interesting press and reviews

Important Note: Julia garnered every radio and television
appearance, every bit of press solely by herself. She had the aid
of no one---not even a PR agent, producer, manager or record label!
 

National TV Appearances:
Julia performed her little ballad
for Vice President Al Gore, 4 Mr. Gore on
these respected national television shows...

National Radio:
Julia poured her heart out, live, and unplugged..
Her song, Senseless, a tribute to the Victims
of the DC Sniper on
The Drudge Report with Matt Drudge

When Julia made national news (see below),
she was interviewed on the highly esteemed
NPR program, Whadya Know? with Michael Feldman

Her song for Senator John Kerry, Kerry Us Through
at one time could be heard on a NIGHTLY basis
on the nationally syndicated show The Lionel Show,
plus she performed the song on Air America

National & local Press, 2003

Washington Post Style Section
"names and faces" July 26, 2003
Saturday night Edition
(this article appeared right next to Liza Minnelli's pic. Fancy that!)

Baltimore singer-songwriter Julia Rose has been banned from performing at the Borders Books & Music store in Fredericksburg because she described the president as having bird legs.
Rose, who is a fitness buff, said during a concert at the store last week, "George Bush has chicken legs. He needs to pump some iron."
Though the audience chuckled, employees of the store did not-even though Rose had made similar comments at other Borders establishments. "The audience in Fredericksburg laughed when I said this," Rose said. "The reaction was nothing different than typical crowds I've had." -Compiled by Anne Schroeder from staff and wire reports

Funny what total strangers say about you when
you make national news...
When Julia made nat'l news, Hesiod, an online blogger, posted Julia's pic
after her story drew national media attention.
Many people responded, and Julia found their
comments "flattering" in a strange way.

angel in white

'Uh, like, wow'...-Brian S.
'She can enter my bookstore any time she wants...REALLY hot'   - Jesse
'She can tell anyone they have chicken legs and get away with it' - Don
'wow....stunning. hotter than anne coulter' - Tim

'being a chick and a semi-militant barefooter,
i noticed the bare feet. how does she get away with it there?'
- pansypoo

'Nice rack'- tom

'Only airhead liberal women have any
interest in a presidents legs and their underware'-richard
'As opposed to their hardware? Nyuk, nyuk'- DavidD

'That's a pretty person' -Kynn

'She may cross my Borders any time.
yuk yuk, if she looked like Michelle Shocked in the 80s she'd
still be right and border's books in
fartburg, vaginer would still be wrong wrong wrong'-Bigfoot

'Okay, I have to say it. This would explain why it
was a woman manager who banned her.
Odds are she could have been singing "Stinky Cat"
and no guy would ever complain. BTW, nice dress.
P.S. is it just me, a really large guitar or is she about 4ft. nothing?' - sac666

'A woman that good looking I'd hate to show my legs!
Love those bare feet reminds me of the old days'- Chuck in Tx

'I just hope she keeps her mouth shut about my physical shortcomings'-mikeinpr
whew! holy smokes..She could slap me silly, and not use her hands'....

'Gods above. With that body, she could recite a 500-page
manifesto on the greatness of Pol Pot in a Fran Dreischer voice,
and I'd sit through it; are the residents of Fredericksburg sexless?'-Phalamir

'If I were her publicist, I'd be uncorking the Taittinger's.
After this publicity, she probably won't have to do the
Borders circuit from here on in.
Unless she really is terrible, She could be opening on a national tour--
if not the Dixie Chicks, then the Indigo Girls--
for which I say, more power to her.And after all, Woodrow Wilson
had chicken legs--not to mention Benjamin Harrison'--pbg

'didn't anyone else mention that she's hot? oh' --the worm

'Hesiod, will you kindly post a picture of a hot male
so the women bloggers can have a go at making bawdy comments?'-Librul
Librul | 07.28.03 - 5:37 pm | #
 

CD review, Washington Post

"Julia specializes in intimate and earnest balladry,
 singing mostly of love and loss..She's very much a romantic,
 the sensitive and searching kind, though she punctuates the
 album's reflective moods with the upbeat "Hounded by Hormones."

Live review
49 West
Music Monthly

"Julia Rose is a character. She 'doesn't play covers
'cause she isn't a cover girl", and she has a profound
sense of what it means to communicate to an audience
from the heart. Her beautiful songwriting and voicings
on the guitar are only augmented by her strong, siren
song lilting above the sweetly singing strings in a
playful world of piercing emotional vision.
     Julia can peer into the audience as if it were the real
reason she was sharing her heart and bearing her soul.
She wants to help others through music. She wants to
heal herself and in so healing her own wounds heal those
with her strength. She is in full command of the guitar
with her extraordinary fingerpicking shining through it all.
She played all of her work, and in some cases played songs
again for the ones who wanted her to play through
something just once more. She took requests from her
audience and involved them in some very funny sing
alongs, most notably a rousing version of "Hounded by
Hormones", with three fellas acting out the song. She
even took the chance and sang a song asking only for the
subject matter from the audience. She winged a song off
the cuff about my favorite person in America, George Bush
Junior, in the White House with some blonde and some
other stuff, and had one woman so worked up she had to
take a break from it all. Folks were asking for advice and
help with understanding relations and love and spirit,
it was fascinating to witness. My favorite song she
played that night was "Distance", 'cause me and Prettykins
are going through that now. She even played it again for me.
     All of her songs hit it right on the note and she has the
gift of seeing through some of the glitch of relationships.
Her brave take on life, coupled with her depth of understanding
and artistic vision, she can catapult you through your life,
leaving you asking for more emotional nudges to spur you
on through another process of healing. She really is
an Angel of Baltimore."
-Laurin Wollan

Live Review
Blues Alley Debut
The Journal

"A Rose Without Thorns"
During a recent performance at DC's Blues Alley, singer-
songwriter Julia Rose mesmerized the audience with her
remarkably rich, full-bodied voice. Wearing, appropriately
enough, a rose dress, she belted out dozens of songs that
she has written in recent years and charmed her
audiences during two sets.

A guitarist who writes and sings romantic ballads, Rose-
who grew up in Baltimore-has also gained air time on radio
stations from WHFS and WRNR in Annapolis to WASU in
Arizona.

Moreover, she has performed at dozens of venues up and
down the East Coast-from the Ram's Head Tavern in
Baltimore to the Bitter End and CBGB's Gallery in New
York, to clubs in Philadelphia and around the DC area,
which includes a benefit at the Birchmere.

Blues Alley is another of her favorite places to perform.
She said she was elevated for days after singing there
and still has a residual high from it.

"It was the best musical experience of my career thus far,"
says Rose. "I think the ultimate high was having the audience
and people at Blues Alley acknowledge my music."

Rose started singing for a living a few years ago when
she lived on the streets of Baltimore in Fells Point.
"In a weird way it was the hardest and best time of my
life," she explained. "It made me strong. And it was rough
but it was cool because I had people look out for me. That's
when I really started singing and really tailored what I was
doing musically. Sometimes I was out there on the street
playing 12-13 hours a day. "But I was spoiled by people.
I had people bringing me food and blankets and telling
me stories about their lives. And they would sit and listen
for hours to my songs. I had it good compared to a lot of
people out there. They couldn't play music so they were
begging for their lives, it hurt seeing that. I was just fortunate
that I could sing and play music."

Rose explained that 90 percent of her songs are inspired
by members of the opposite sex. She says that women
are always telling her to write about women but she
pointed out that she can't get the same level of
inspiration.

"Up until this point I have been my own everything,
booking, managing and promoting myself, which
is pretty much a full-time job. I've kind of embraced
the business in a way and I've grown to love it.
I've gone to a lot of seminars where they teach you
the business side of doing it."

At Blues Alley, she was accompanied by a group of
well-known local performers, all musicians
who know a good thing when they hear it.

Ron Holloway, the well known jazz saxophone player
who formerly played in Dizzy Gillespie's band,
said "Julia Rose is a very dedicated young artist
who is determined to reach her full potential.
She has a very strong voice and sings from the heart.
It will be very interesting to watch her development
over the next few years. She obviously loves
what she does."

Sit-down Interview with Julia (her first ever)
Rockville Gazette

"A Rose is a rose-or is she?"
There's no figuring out Julia Rose, the young
singer/songwriter who brings her nostalgic, lilting and sometimes
punchy brand of alternative acoustic folk music
to Barnes and Noble.

She swaggers into the Silver Diner in Reston
with a grudge. Her birthday was a few days earlier.
To celebrate, she went to the Tyson's Corner Silver
Diner and asked the waiter if she could get the birthday
treatment, which typically involves a piece
of cake, a couple of candles and a
lyrically impaired staff bellowing
happy birthday. Julia said she got snubbed-
no cake, no candles, no song, and she's angry.
Angry enough to drive 15 minutes out
of her way protesting the Tyson's Corner
location. She tells the host and asks for redemption.

"I don't mean to be a pain, but..." and proceeds
to bombard the host with her story and would
they be so kind to do something today
and thank you so much.

A brash attitude, one you would not expect
out of someone who professes to be so shy
she's reluctant to ask for assistance when
shopping. But that's the puzzle of Julia Rose.

When you talk to her about her past, a
past she protects jealously,
she gets so emotional she grasps for a hand to
squeeze and begins to stutter. On stage, that same
intimacy is a central part of her
show as she tells stories behind her songs.
 

But here she sits, the shy girl at the window
booth demanding to be embarrassed, the private girl
spilling her guts out on her debut CD, "Suspended in Air,"
and on stage the naive girl
telling war stories about her life on the streets.

One hot and humid night in the summer, a frustrated
and despondent Rose resolved to take her guitar and herself
and throw them both into the harbor.
A friend she met on the streets, James Watkins,
convinced her otherwise.

"He told me that I have a gift and that I have
to keep at it," she said.

That night she sat down and penned "Angel of Baltimore,"
one of the strongest songs on her debut CD, and dedicated it to
the bums, freaks and goths who supported, inspired and
watched her back while she wrote songs and performed
them at the Waterfront Hotel stoop from morning til
midnight. She says she owes them a debt she can never
repay. She remembers the first time she ever played on
Baltimore's streets. "It was the most liberating experience,"
she says. "When I did that, I felt like I was a part of everything.
When I play my music, it's the only thing I'm confident
at," she said. "It validates my worth as a human being,
it makes me not jump off a building. When I'm singing
I'm invincible-nothing can kill me."

Now with her first CD complete and a second in the
works, she thinks back to all the sneers, snubs and
smiles. "I'd walk through Tower Records and look at all the CDs
and think, 'some day,' she says. "At the time, I was real
naive, I didn't know how it was done. It's kind of
narcissistic, but it's neat to see someone looking at your CD."

Rose's ruminations are interrupted as the entire diner
staff comes clapping, offers a slab of chocolate cake and
begins to sing. Rose bounces like a sixth grader just told
that the homeroom heartthrob has a crush on her. She
shakes her head, laughing hysterically and covers it on
the table. She blows out the candles.
What did she wish for?
"I can't tell, " she says, hair dangling in front of her eyes.
"That's private."
-Daryl Khan