Riding high from her 2015 release "Long Way From Home" (#14 on the Freeform American Roots Charts), award-winning singer/songwriter Martha Fields’ newest release, "Southern White Lies" is an Americana tapestry that prolifically weaves together her Appalachian birthright, soul and struggles. Martha's voice and songs are both intimate and powerful – taking listeners on a twangy - heart-pounding ride through a range of country, blues, folk and bluegrass, steered by a band with extremely impressive acoustic chops. Martha is a passionate and raw alto, who sings with her emotions on her sleeve. It has been said that her voice is like rich cream that "wraps around you like a warm blanket" - comparisons abound to Lucinda Williams, Gillian Welch, Joan Baez, Bonnie Raitt, and Rosanne Cash. Recorded over 5 days in a creative flurry, with “cream of the crop” pickers, Manu Bertrand, Olivier Leclerc and Serge Samyn (who also tour Europe with her), Martha wrote the majority of the songs whose themes include love and loss, poverty and materialism, liberty and immortality. Also in the mix are a couple of requisite honky-tonk detours. An international collaboration, the new CD was mixed and mastered by highly acclaimed engineer, producer and musician Tommy Detamore, (Cherry Ridge Studios, Floresville, Texas). "Southern White Lies" is a Southern Gothic Folk Opera searching for self-discovery, a sense of place, veracity and Martha’s musical taproot. The album is filled with mature mountain twang, crackerjack dobro, fiddle, banjo, guitar, resonator, mandolin and double bass - awash with beautiful harmonies and backing vocals throughout by two Okies, Travis Fite and Monica Taylor (the Cimarron Songbird – on Dead End). The new CD is fused with Martha’s soulful vocal power, authentically penned and delivered. In the opening song, Martha confirms that she is a “Soul on the Move” and lays bare, like an aching troubadour/philosopher that her “eyes are wide open for the promised land”, wondering if she’s ever heard the truth, and reveals that “all I want is a simple life full of love and song”. Martha confesses she has spent her life travelling some twisted roads. The new CD is melancholy, introspective, questioning and fragile while consistently remaining powerfully defiant. The new album is a kaleidoscopic vision of Martha’s complicated life, her experience in the American South (where she often railed against the status quo and the powers that be) seasoned with fleeting moments of beauty, grieving and the naked truth, always with an eye toward a brighter future and the search for common ground. Martha Fields is a child of both Appalachia (Kentucky/West Virginia)) and Red Dirt terra firma (Texas/Oklahoma), an heir apparent to a true bluegrass and country pedigree. Her first memory is of sitting on her mother’s lap in the hills of Appalachia where her mother’s sweet songs and melodies were inherently sealed into young Martha’s sense of being. There she spent countless hours with her family in living rooms, porches and churches in mountain hollers, absorbing her musical legacy. Her maternal ancestors were mountaineers who arrived centuries before, bringing their Anglo Saxon songs and instruments which anchored them in the new world. Martha savored those moments each year, either in Eastern Kentucky or West Virginia, when she re-connected with her Appalachian musical roots. Between such moments, she sought solitude, shutting herself off in her adolescent bedroom to write songs (and short stories and poems). Her parents sacrificed much in order to buy her a guitar and a small recorder, given to her when she was ten years old. Today, Martha Fields has taken those powerful, magical mountain sounds and adapted them to her modern condition – "Southern White Lies" continues this rich tradition. In both her more acoustic formations and in her incarnation as Texas Martha and the House of Twang, Martha has appeared at numerous renowned Americana festivals on both sides of the Atlantic and now divides her time between Texas, Oklahoma and Europe. Some recent press reviews: - "The Band You Dream of Stumbling On in a Nashville Bar. Just when you thought Country Music had lost its edge, Martha Fields, sounding a bit like Lucinda Williams’ country cousin fronting the Tennessee Three has come along and not just blown the dust off our beloved music; but given it a hefty kick up the backside at the same time." (A. Harrison, The Rocking Magpie, Maverick and No Depression). - "This is one ace and versatile country/rock/americana outfit ...and she puts on a great show with her formidable voice. (John Conquest, 3rd Coast Music Magazine, Austin, TX). - “Martha Fields has a voice which is a beautiful instrument and the band is overall a warm, creative, professional country / roots / Americana enterprise!” (Francois Braeken, Beale Street). - “Long Way from Home is really enjoyable, a large and varied repertoire of energetic country music tinged rock, folk and blues, filled with fun, determination and conviction, freshness and an obvious deep love for these sounds. It's the spirit that pervades all these ten songs making it successful and one of the most enjoyable of recent times.” (Remo Ricaldone, Lonestar Times).