Musical career
Rock and jazz
In 1994, Levy released a solo EP, Grumbelina, followed by the 1995 single "The Scientist." [2]
Scott Miller invited Levy in 1997 to become a member of the Loud Family, filling a vacancy left by Paul Wieneke's departure. [3] Levy played keyboards and piano and provided backup vocals on the Loud Family's 1998 album Days for Days . [1] [4] On the group's album Attractive Nuisance (2000), Levy also wrote and performed lead vocals on the song "The Apprentice." [1] After Miller's death in 2013, she joined Miller's 1980s band Game Theory as lead vocalist for a reunion performance at a memorial tribute in Sacramento.
Describing Levy's contribution to the Loud Family, Miller stated, "To me she brought in that classic 1967 to '74 way of doing piano pop–rock that I’m all in favor of but can’t accomplish because I don’t play piano. She had the most sheer musicianly keyboard chops of anyone I’ve played with. And her vocals are pretty distinctive. More toward the soul end of things than other female singers I’ve had in the band. So that line-up had more of a Todd Rundgren, Cat Stevens, Rod Argent, Carole King approach." [5]
In 1998, shortly after the release of the Loud Family's Days for Days , Levy also issued her full-length solo debut, The Fog Show. She released a second solo CD, My World View, in 2000. [2]
In the late 1990s, Levy joined San Francisco psychedelic jazz collective Mushroom, and appears as keyboardist and vocalist on a number of their CDs. [6] [7] Levy also performed with British folk rock tribute supergroup The Minstrel in the Galleries, featuring John Wesley Harding. [3]
With Jad Fair's guitarist Chuck Marcus, Levy formed the experimental group Sonoptic, which released the album Chore Overload in 1999. [8] [9]
In 2008, with alternative rock musician Victor Krummenacher of Camper Van Beethoven, she formed the "Americana" rock band McCabe and Mrs. Miller. [2] [10] She has also performed in the Bay Area with the Brian Cline Band.
Children's music
Turning in the 2000s to children's music, Levy was a founding member of the Sippy Cups, with whom she released the CDs Kids Rock for Peas (2005), Electric Storyland (2006), and The Time Machine (2009), and the four-song mini CD Snail Song & Magic Toast (2005). [10] [11] [12]
Levy's first solo CD of children's music, World of Wonder, produced by indie pop musician Allen Clapp of The Orange Peels, was released in 2012. [10] [13] [14] She now performs with her band Big Time Tot Rock, which includes Clapp on guitar, drummer Andrew Griffin, ukulele player/backing vocalist Karla Kane and bassist Khoi Huynh. [14]
The Start of Things (2015), her second solo children's CD, contains upbeat music with subtle themes of self-expression, self-empowerment and self-acceptance. [15]
Geneviève Alison Jane Ballard is an English singer noted for her powerful bluesy contralto voice. She came to prominence as half of the duo Yazoo, but has since mainly worked as a solo artist.
Alison Maria Krauss is an American bluegrass-country singer and violinist. She entered the music industry at an early age, competing in local contests by the age of eight and recording for the first time at 14. She signed with Rounder Records in 1985 and released her first solo album in 1987. She was invited to join the band with which she still performs, Alison Krauss and Union Station, and later released her first album with them as a group in 1989.
Big Brother and the Holding Company is an American rock band that formed in San Francisco in 1965 as part of the same psychedelic music scene that produced the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Jefferson Airplane. After some initial personnel changes, the band became well known with the lineup of vocalist Janis Joplin, guitarists Sam Andrew and James Gurley, bassist Peter Albin, and drummer Dave Getz. Their second album Cheap Thrills, released in 1968, is considered one of the masterpieces of the psychedelic sound of San Francisco; it reached number one on the Billboard charts, and was ranked number 338 in Rolling Stone's the 500 greatest albums of all time. The album is also included in the book 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die.
Game Theory was an American power pop band, founded in 1982 by singer/songwriter Scott Miller, combining melodic jangle pop with dense experimental production and hyperliterate lyrics. MTV described their sound as "still visceral and vital" in 2013, with records "full of sweetly psychedelic-tinged, appealingly idiosyncratic gems" that continued "influencing a new generation of indie artists." Between 1982 and 1990, Game Theory released five studio albums and two EPs, which had long been out of print until 2014, when Omnivore Recordings began a series of remastered reissues of the entire Game Theory catalog. Miller's posthumously completed Game Theory album, Supercalifragile, was released in August 2017 in a limited first pressing.
The Loud Family was a San Francisco-based power pop band formed in 1991 by songwriter and guitarist Scott Miller, who previously led the 1980s band Game Theory. The Loud Family released six studio LPs and one live LP from 1991 through 2006. After Miller's death in 2013, three Loud Family members participated in recording sessions for Supercalifragile (2017), Miller's posthumous Game Theory album.
The Sir Douglas Quintet was an American rock band, formed in San Antonio in 1964. With their first hits, they were acclaimed in their home state. When their career was established, the band relocated to the West Coast. Their move coincided with the burgeoning San Francisco psychedelic rock scene of the mid 1960s to early 1970s. Overall, the quintet were exponents of good-times music with strong roots in blues and Texas-regional traditions.
Allen Gordon Clapp is the singer, guitarist and principal songwriter for the California rock band The Orange Peels. Since 1990, he has also periodically released material under his own name and under the moniker "Allen Clapp and his Orchestra."
Interbabe Concern is The Loud Family's third full-length album, and their first to be produced by Scott Miller instead of Mitch Easter. With the exception of keyboard player Paul Wieneke and Miller, this was a new line-up of the band.
Days for Days is an album by the Loud Family, released in 1998. The band's leader, Scott Miller, and the bass guitar player, Kenny Kessel, are the only members of the band remaining from the previous album. Gil Ray, who had been a member of Miller's 1980s band Game Theory, joined Miller for the album.
Attractive Nuisance, released in 2000, is The Loud Family's fifth full-length album. It has the same line-up as the 1998 album, Days for Days. At the time of its release, it was announced as the final Loud Family album.
From Ritual to Romance is The Loud Family's sixth full-length album. It is a live album released during a six-year hiatus from studio recording, which followed the expiration of the group's recording contract with Alias Records in 2000.
What If It Works? is the Loud Family's seventh full-length album, a studio collaboration with Sacramento-based pop musician Anton Barbeau released in 2006. A March 2022 reissue of the album, with eleven bonus tracks, was announced by Omnivore Recordings.
Victor Krummenacher is an American bass guitarist and guitarist. He is a founding member of alternative rock band Camper Van Beethoven.
Alison MacCallum, also written Alison McCallum, is an Australian rock singer from the late 1960s and 1970s. Her two studio albums are Fresh Water and Excuse Me. In March 1972 she issued her most successful charting single, "Superman", which peaked at No. 12 on Go-Set's National Top 40. In August that year MacCallum provided lead vocals for the Labor Party's campaign theme song, "It's Time", for the 1972 election. By the late 1970s, she had concentrated on session work and then "disappeared from public view". According to Australian musicologist, Ian McFarlane, MacCallum was "a soul/blues stylist of considerable flair and passion". In September 2014 Sony released a 2× CD compilation album, The Essential Alison MacCallum.
Scott Warren Miller was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known for his work as leader of the 1980s band Game Theory and 1990s band The Loud Family, and as the author of a 2010 book of music criticism. He was described by The New York Times as "a hyperintellectual singer and songwriter who liked to tinker with pop the way a born mathematician tinkers with numbers", having "a shimmery-sweet pop sensibility, in the tradition of Brian Wilson and Alex Chilton."
Christopher Xefos is an American multi-instrumentalist musician/engineer/producer and former member of band King Missile. He plays various instruments such as accordion, bass, piano, and synthesizer, among others. He began recording/producing various groups in New York City during the 1980s, including indie-rock legends Phantom Tollbooth. In 1989, he joined the New York City avant-garde spoken word/art rock group King Missile. Five years, four albums and a number of alternative rock “hits” later, King Missile disbanded. Xefos also played with the group When People Were Shorter and Lived Near the Water during this time. Following this period, he relocated to San Francisco.
Mushroom is a musicians' collective based in the San Francisco Bay Area. The group's sound has been described as a "diverse and eclectic blend of jazz, space rock, R&B, electronic, ambient, Krautrock and folk music".
George Gilbert "Gil" Ray was an American rock drummer, guitarist, and vocalist, best known for his recordings in the 1980s and 1990s as a member of the bands Game Theory and The Loud Family. In late 2012, he joined Rain Parade as drummer for a series of reunion performances.
Pat Thomas is a San Francisco-based musician, music journalist and compiler of music reissues.
Supercalifragile is the sixth and final studio album by Game Theory, a California power pop band founded in 1982 by guitarist and singer-songwriter Scott Miller. At the time of his death in 2013, Miller had started work on the recording, which was to be Game Theory's first new album since 1988. Producer Ken Stringfellow and executive producer Kristine Chambers Miller enlisted the participation of numerous past collaborators and friends of Miller to finish the album after Miller's death, using Miller's partially completed recordings and source material. Supercalifragile was released in August 2017.
