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NPR Music: Tiny Desk Concerts
Tiny Desk Concerts from NPR's All Songs Considered features your favorite musicians performing at Bob Boilen's desk in the NPR Music office. This is the AUDIO only archive.Are you a fancy A/V nerd and need video? Visit our new Tiny Desk Concert video channel. Eye-popping video and all of the music you've come to expect.

Jessica Lea Mayfield: Tiny Desk Concert

By Bob Boilen
Published September 6, 2014 at 6:03 AM MDT

These days, Jessica Lea Mayfield is all contrasts, starting with the way she sets her wistful voice against her shimmering guitar. It's got a harder edge to it than the rootsier music of her past. Then there's that cotton-candy hair and all the glitter; her guitar glitters, her eyes glitter, her shoes glitter. It's easier to talk about what isn't glittered — and mostly that'd be her lyrics. In the final song from both her album Make My Head Sing... and this Tiny Desk Concert, "Seein* Starz," she starkly sings:

When it's just us two in the dark

You've got a stranglehold

On my heart

When she speaks of her unicorn-adorned guitar knobs, she sounds about 13. But then there are lines like these, from "Party Drugs":

Party drugs just make us argue

Don't know why they didn't used to

In those moments, you're hearing an older, hopefully wiser character. All those schisms in her sound beguile me. On the record, her songs often rock with abandon. Here, they hypnotize.

Set List

  • "Standing In The Sun"

  • "Party Drugs"

  • "Seein* Starz"

    • Credits

    Producers: Bob Boilen, Denise DeBelius; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait; Videographers: Denise DeBelius, Colin Marshall

    Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

    Tags
    Tiny Desk Concerts
    Bob Boilen
    In 1988, a determined Bob Boilen started showing up on NPR's doorstep every day, looking for a way to contribute his skills in music and broadcasting to the network. His persistence paid off, and within a few weeks he was hired, on a temporary basis, to work for All Things Considered. Less than a year later, Boilen was directing the show and continued to do so for the next 18 years.
    See stories by Bob Boilen
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