As the folks at Allmusic.com write …

“Although she was born and raised in suburban New Jersey, Sharon Van Etten’s folk music evokes the open landscapes and lonely expanses of Middle America. A dedicated choir student during her childhood, she began writing songs on her guitar as a high-school student and, upon moving to New York, started playing them in concert. Van Etten signed with the Chicago-based indie label Drag City and issued her intimate official debut, Because I Was in Love, in spring 2009, followed by the lush, more band-oriented Epic in 2010.

Here’s an interview with Ms. Van Etten conducted by Rob Hakimian for One Thirty BPM from earlier in the year, and a gushing, well-written and entirely spot-on review by Jennifer Kelly in Dusted Magazine.

VanRamblings has loved Allison Moorer since the first time we heard her, when we were one of the few music critics in Vancouver writing about progressive country, when she was married to Doyle “Butch” Primm, an Oklahoma-reared musician who became her frequent songwriting partner and producer, and right around the time she had her first big hit (well, ‘big hit‘ is a sort of relative term when it comes to Ms. Moorer — but damn if we don’t love her), A Soft Place To Fall, from her debut CD, Alabama Song (still one of our favourites), which was tapped for Robert Redford’s oater, The Horse Whisperer, in 1998. Moorer also appeared in the movie.
Without further ado, then, here’s just a bit of Allison Moorer, from her most recent album, Crows …

In 2007, six-year-old British singer Connie Talbot wowed the audiences of Simon Cowell’s Britain’s Got Talent.

In this then and now posting, we see the pint-sized Ms. Talbot when she first came to the attention of the world; the second video shows Connie at age 10, as she performs Someone Like You, from Adele’s new album, 21.

Grammy winner in 2009 for Best New Artist, we’ve been waiting for an awfully long time for Adele’s new album, 21, to drop.
For those of you who have found the wait excruciating, we present a video of Adele performing at Liverpool’s Cavern Club on January 5th.
Update: Adele’s sophomore release, 21 — already available in Great Britain, where it’s topping the charts and earning rave reviews from the critics — is set for release in North America on Tuesday, February 22nd. Can’t wait!