Winnie Raeder

From the moment Winnie Raeder began exploring her father’s record collection, she knew music was central to her life. Soaking up blues, soul, gospel, funk, and more, her father taught her how to listen, and how to appreciate, the nuances and intricacies that make songwriting special. “That was my entry into music,” she recalls. “It opened me up for other worlds.”

Winnie Raeder’s feelings go deeper than most. She’s able to channel something, something honest, with no dividing line between her and the audience. “A song is capturing an honest moment, trying to figure out what you feel as you write it” she says. “All I really care about is the music, and the creativity.”

Simple but enormously profound meditations, Winnie Raeder’s work has the emotional impact of Jeff Buckley, the rawness of Joni Mitchell and the emotional connection of Thom Yorke. The root of Winnie’s music is honesty, that ability to channel some deeper feeling. “I’ve always been really, really bad at talking about my feelings,” she admits. “Songwriting works a little bit like therapy for me. The beauty of music is when you feel something that resonates with you.”