CORINNE WEST

California songwriter Corinne West is a poet, a songwriter, multi-media artist & a stellar performer. Her tune-smithing is both veiled & direct, while untethered to a genre. To deep-dive into her songs is to free fall though an audio-landscape of lush powerful & sometimes haunting vocals, pristine instruments, & killer production.

KLCC Arts and Culture host Eric Alan, hails West as “of the finest singer/songwriters of the age.”    

In her album “Starlight Highway,” (Kelly Joe Phelps, John Burr, Pete Sears, Ricky Fataar, Mike Marshall.. 2016) West plays with the Americana style of her early recordings, while moving forward with a fresh sound. The self produced record features finessed string work, elegant harmonies & a profuse lyricism that weaves imagery of water, sky & light with themes of transcendence, renewal & earthly grace. This intimate recording suggests a sense of completion & a receptivity for whatever lies ahead. “Starlight Highway” has received rave reviews globally including The Daily Telegraph, UK selecting the album as one of the top records in 2016. “Starlight Highway” is West’s fifth album. Her previous recordings are “Bound for Living” (2004), “Second Sight” (Jerry Douglas, Mike Marshall, Tony Furtado, Darol Anger & more, 2007), “The Promise” (2008) and “Magnetic Skyline” (Duo project with the late Kelly Joe Phelps, 2010), & 5 singles.

West has toured extensively throughout North America and abroad. She has performed at a plethora of venues & festivals: Shrewsbury Festival (UK), Bergenfest (NOR), High Sierra Music Festival, Vancouver Folk Festival (CAN), Grassroots Festival, Joshua Tree Music Festival, Woody Guthrie Festival, Kerrville Folk Festival... Corinne has brought her music into prisons, women’s shelters, hospitals for terminally ill children, and those in rehab centers.    

While West has firmly established herself in the acoustic scene, she has also made her mark in the alternative folk-rock arena. In her innovative project, “Fire is a Phoenix,” she unleashes a more industrial landscape, floating ethereal vocals over ominous rhythms to create a compelling mélange of tension and mystery. Her song “Change My Ways,” was on the Starbucks National playlist in October 2015 and was also featured for a month on the primetime season two trailer for the HBO series “The Leftovers,” and in 2022 the song was featured on the Discovery Channel show “Hoffman Family Gold” promotion. 

West’s creative reach extends to both the visual and healing arts. A 77-piece collection of her original works in mono-print, Chine-collé and mixed media was recently featured at the Plumas County Arts Commission, & she has created commissions in both sculpture & visual art.    

Corinne is a certified alchemical hypnotherapist focusing on helping people remove blocks that obscure their livelihood, or creative process. Her approach, both in individual sessions and workshops, includes Creative Trance & exercises applicable for poets, songwriters, visual artists, writers, & those working outside of the creative fields. Through the therapeutic process of light hypnosis, the work empowers people to move through internal obstacles, by tapping into the innate wisdom within of each individual.    

 If there is a bedrock for West’s artistic pilgrimage, it is connectivity, not so much to any individual fixed experience but to something bigger. In her words, “Regardless of what you’re doing, the sun sets and the moon rises in predictable, dependable ways, with an exquisite, divine consistency. To be able to have trust... to lean into these dependable cycles... is also to be able to lean into our place on the planet & ultimately the unfolding of our life experience.”