Tristan Prettyman
Anya Marina

"If someone were to say to me, 'Tell me about yourself,' I would just hand them a copy of Hello and say, "Here, this is everything you need to know,'" says singer/songwriter and guitarist Tristan Prettyman. Indeed, Hello, Prettyman's second album, is an appealing portrait of this freewheeling San Diego, CA, native as she narrates stories about her life, loves, and heartbreaks in her seductive, smoky alto. "I really wanted the album to be a reflection of me," Prettyman says.

       With laid-back melodies springing from finger-picked acoustic guitar, plaintive pedal-steel guitar, Wurlitzer, Hammond organ, and strings, Hello explores Prettyman's love of country-blues and folk from the '60s and '70s, artists like The Band, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan. "There's something really pure and uncontrived about what they do," she says. "I really connect with that simplicity, and I think it made me write more bluesy songs." Recorded over six weeks in London with British producers and songwriters Martin Terefe (KT Tunstall, Ron Sexsmith) and Sacha Skarbek (James Blunt, KT Tunstall), Hello delivers on the promise Prettyman raised with her Virgin Records debut twentythree - a critically well-received collection of "bright, breezy ditties about romantic bliss" as People magazine put it in its review.