Once again I,m going to try to persuade you to purchase another CD by someone you,ve likely never heard of. What,s worse, you,re going to have to order it, you won,t likely find it anywhere between Vegas or Salt Lake. If it weren't for Steve Lemmon, I may never have heard of Jonatha myself, he was playing the CD over the sound system prior to the O.C. Tanner show that featured Stacy Lee and Ryan Shupe. As I listened to it, I thought for sure I knew who it was, but I finally had to break down and ask him.

With the possible exception of Patti Larkin, Jonatha Brooke is the most gifted female singer songwriter (that I know of) that has yet to capture a mainstream audience. 10 Cent Wings is as good as (and remarkably similar to), Shawn Colvin's masterpiece A Few Small Repairs. Repairs is among the best albums of the decade, and if you like today's bumper crop of female sirens (Lillith Faire, et. al.), do yourself a favor and and check out Jonatha. She may not be as precious as Jewel, as winsome as Sarah McLachlan, or as alluring as Fiona Apple, but as a crafter of gorgeous pop tunes, Jonatha is excellent and the Lillith bunch are closer to Faire.

It happens to me occasionally that I'll hear a song while I'm dreaming that's just cool beyond words--and when I wake up I try to figure out what song it was and realize that it doesn't exist. That's the best way to describe 10 Cent Wings. The first time I played it for my wife, she swore to me she'd heard these songs before, it was all I could do to convince her that it wasn't possible--unless I was dreaming awfully loud.

For many years Jonatha was paired with another songwriter Jennifer Kimball, and their collaboration, The Story, yielded two albums (Grace in Gravity and Angel In The House) while they were still together, and one (Plumb) about the time they disbanded. The knock on these earlier efforts was that they were unfocused, meandering and indulgent. My guess is they must've been pretty damn good if Jonatha had anything to do with them. 10 Cent Wings finds Jonatha flying a straight forward course to a land much closer to the mainstream, where verses pay off in catchy choruses, and finding the music of your dreams is as easy as ordering it.