PRESS
INTERVIEW: RHYAN SINCLAIR COMES OF AGE ON 'LETTERS TO ALIENS'
By Matt Wickstrom, The Boot
March 29, 2022
​
Rhyan Sinclair may only be 21, but she’s far from being a new face in the country and Americana music scenes. The Lexington, Ky. native has been writing, recording and touring since she was 11 and has found a tight groove in recent years with her backing band The South 65.
​
Sinclair documents her past decade on the road and the moments of self reflection and growth along the way on Letters to Aliens, her sophomore album released on March 4.
​
While a handful of the album’s dozen tracks were written prior to the pandemic, most of it was composed in the heat of the lockdown, a time of universal uncertainty that Sinclair at first struggled to produce under.
​
“I had the weight of everything going on in the world on my shoulders,” Sinclair tells The Boot. “It seemed frivolous to sit down and write music. I had to re-frame a lot of things because I was so used to traveling and playing music all the time. Now I had an endless amount of free time but didn’t know what to do with it.”
An introduction to therapy helped to bring her out of a creative funk, and to cope with her emotions and past trauma so that she can be the best version of herself.
​
“Therapy helped to inform a lot of the writing on this album,” says Sinclair. “Talking my problems out has helped me to overcome past trauma and escape the weight of some of the things that were tying me down emotionally.”
​
​
THE BOOT'S WEEKLY PICKS: 49 WINCHESTER, KAMARA THOMAS AND MORE
By The Boot Staff, The Boot
March 21, 2022
​
21-year-old Kentuckian Rhyan Sinclair sings of feeling out of place on “All Alone In Outer Space,” the de facto title track of her second full-length album Letters to Aliens, out March 4. On the psychedelic country jam, Sinclair recalls her childhood when she would “send letters to aliens on balloons into the unknown.”
The otherworldly tale is further lifted into another dimension with the theremin of Fats Kaplin, a long-time collaborator of Jack White and John Prine, among others, who appears throughout Sinclair’s new album.
-- Matt Wickstrom
​
RHYAN SINCLAIR: LETTERS TO ALIENS - REVIEW
By Rootstime.be (Translated, from original Dutch version, to English, via Google Translate)
March 6, 2022
​
Rhyan Sinclair is a very young 21-year-old singer-songwriter from Lexington, Kentucky, who made her solo record debut as a 17-year-old in 2018 with the album “Barnstormer” on which she put her musical sources of inspiration in the spotlight. She then also released an EP entitled “Marshmallow World” on which she musically paid tribute to classic country music greats. Before that, she was already active from the age of eleven to fifteen as the lead singer of the roots formation 'All The Little Pieces' with which the album "The Legend Of Lavinia Fisher" was recorded.
​
Her latest album “Letters To Aliens” is slightly different from her previous albums. The twelve self-composed songs on this album are a mix of folk, rock and country music with a strong 70s influence. She brings these songs together with her regular backing band 'The South 65' consisting of electric guitarist Danny Flanigan, bassist Jeff Binder, drummer Cary Shields and harmony vocalist and flute player Toni Karpinski, the mother of Rhyan Sinclair who sings all songs herself and also on playing acoustic guitar and piano.
​
For this recording, some established names from the music world were also invited as guest musicians in the studio as guest musicians, such as Ryan Allen on organ and piano on three tracks and Fats Kaplan on violin, mandolin, pedal steel guitar and theremin, the electronic instrument where magical sounds are created by playing with move the hands along two antennas without touching them. The singers Whitney Adams and Claire Kander were also called upon to sing along to the song “The Wounded Healer”.
​
We have added some videos to this story for you with three songs from the "Letters To Aliens" album: "Where I'll Be Found", first single "Dragon Spirit" and second single "Interstate Sailors". When listening to these songs, also pay attention to the very personal lyrics that Rhyan Sinclair has written for these songs, among others. She therefore sees her songs as a kind of therapy or healing process to deal with everything that happened and is happening in her young life.
​
For example, in November 2019 she and her mother were involved in a serious traffic accident that, after a months-long rehabilitation period, smoothly passed into the lonely seclusion caused by the worldwide corona pandemic. Her troubled relationship with her biological father and how she dealt with it is also discussed in her songs. Songs on this record that illustrate this are the beautiful “Skywriting”, the soft rocking “All Alone In Outer Space”, the emotional soul ballad “Should've Been Prepared”, “Bad Time”, the wonderful tribute to her great-grandmother and example of 'being a woman' in the song “Effie Jane” and the again very emotional album closing “With Every Goodbye” about the final goodbye to her biological father who died last year.
Vocally, we find her voice in some songs somewhat similar to that of country singers such as Dolly Parton, Patsy Cline and Tammy Wynette, but with a clear 21st century stamp à la Stevie Nicks, Lana Del Rey or Norah Jones. She has that sob that is absolutely necessary for country music, which provides an emotional charge in the song. As a child she sometimes wrote personal messages on balloons that she then frolicking in the air let go as reading for extraterrestrials, hence the album title "Letters To Aliens". But the songs on this Rhyan Sinclair album are actually also intended for the earthlings who will certainly find enough food for thought and reflection in them. For us this is one of the most beautiful albums of 2022 so far.
RHYAN SINCLAIR: LETTERS TO ALIENS - REVIEW
By Mike Davies, FATEA Magazine
March 6, 2022
Hailing from Kentucky, with a previous solo EP and album as well as three as part of All The Little Pieces, Sinclair (who's also appeared in films since age 4) is no newcomer but this, a terrific return to songwriting following a 2019 car crash and the recent lockdowns that afforded therapy time to work through such demons as her troubled relationship with her biological gather, PTSD and anxiety, feels very much a new start, one that should deservedly give her a much wider profile.
​
Working with a four piece band, South 65, including mother Toni on harmonies, rather than hired hands, but also with contributions from Fats Kaplin on pedal steel, theramin and fiddle, it's couched in a cocktail of seventies folk rock and traditional country, opening with the presumably autobiographical uptempo country rocking 'Dragon Spirit' where, her vocal warble conjuring Dolly Parton, she declares "Never liked to stick around and live inside the damage I have done" and "I made all my decisions with reckless abandon/I didn't know to be brave, I just wasn't afraid", alluding to her mental health issues with "When I heard footsteps that felt like murder in pursuit of me/I locked all my doors and I bottled up the urge to scream/Now, every night I dream that my time's running out or someone's got an axe to the door of my house/I fight for my life every single time".
LISTEN: RHYAN SINCLAIR, "GASOLINE IN THE MORNING"
By BGS Staff, The Bluegrass Situation
March 3, 2022
"In Their Words: “During the writing of this album, I was working through past trauma in therapy. That experience strongly informed my writing for this album, and I think that’s especially present on ‘Gasoline in the Morning.’ The song, for me, is about mental health, its upkeep, and ultimately, reevaluating what you allow to propel you forward"
FIRES FROM OUR LINEAGE: RHYAN SINCLAIR ON LETTERS TO ALIENS
By Charlie Farmer, Sound and Soul
March 3, 2022
Listening to Rhyan Sinclair’s latest release, Letters to Aliens, during these short, brisk days delivers the comfort of furnace blast, a reminder of spring’s warmth and sunshine. The album also conjures the season’s promise of renewal and rebirth. If the Kentucky native’s 2018 debut album Barnstormer is the sound of a seventeen-year-old stepping out her own, testing her wings after fronting the alt-country All the Littles Pieces, Letters is a rocket blast of self-discovery, self-assertion, and inevitable paradox. “Dragon Spirit”, the album’s feisty first single, is part-proclamation, part-origin story: “Like a purple glitter dragon/shot out of a cannon/I made all my decisions with a reckless abandon.” Sinclair is dealt “the blessing and the curse of a fire-breather,” a complexity echoed in “All Alone in Outer Space”, where she struggles to live between worlds: “I’m on a mission to find a balance between the stars and the ground.” The album’s second single, the cosmic “Interstate Sailors”, is a victorious reclamation of identity, candied by a psychedelic swirl.
​
​
LtA is also a love letter to female empowerment. With her previous group, Sinclair used their record The Legend of Lavinia Fisher to explore the myth of the first woman to be hanged in the United States. Letters to Aliens again finds Sinclair embracing the female narrative, giving a voice to the voiceless. The songs are lineage-obsessed, whether it’s the ancestry that unites women who are persecuted for their opinions– or that “dance too freely, sing too loud”– in “Wounded Healer” or the women in “Gathering Dust” who are paralyzed by inaction. Sinclair finds herself in this sisterhood bonded by gall, circumstance, or in the case of her moving tribute to her great-grandmother, “Effie Jane”, by blood.
FINALLY FRIDAY AT HOME: IAN NOE AND RHYAN SINCLAIR
By Craig Havighurst, WMOT.org
March 2, 2022
"Try to resist the effervescent and fresh “Dragon Spirit” with the line “Like a purple glitter dragon shot out of a cannon, I made all my decisions with a reckless abandon.” Or the risk-taking space chantey “Interstate Sailors” with its willowy, vintage background voices and its psychedelic undertow. If these singles are any indication, Letters To Aliens will reach all kinds of creatures whatever planet they’re from."
RHYAN SINCLAIR - INTERSTATE SAILORS
By Ken Sears, If It's Too Loud
February 1, 2022
​Kentucky's Rhyan Sinclair started off as the singer for All the Little Pieces between the ages of eleven and fifteen. Now on her own as a solo artist, her music can best be described as cosmic country. Based on her latest single, "Interstate Sailors," her sound has elements of classic 70's country mixed with psychedelia, but updated for a 2022 audience. "Interstate Sailors" is an absolute anthem of a song reminiscent of an artist like Dolly Parton meets Stevie Nicks but with the trippy alt-rock edge of early Flaming Lips.
RHYAN SINCLAIR - "DRAGON SPIRIT"
By Ken Sears, If It's Too Loud...
January 4, 2022
Kentucky's Rhyan Sinclair is definitely doing classic country on her latest single, but it has her own twist on the sound. "Dragon Spirit" has a cosmic, 70's rock vibe to it. It's almost as if Gram Parsons took a few more steps into rock while still keeping his music country. To those of us that listen to a lot of alt-country, "Dragon Spirit" is going to sound like it could be a huge crossover mainstream country hit, although we know it won't since mainstream country would never accept music that's actually country these days.
SONG PREMIERE: RHYAN SINCLAIR "INTERSTATE SAILORS"
By Melissa Clarke, Americana Highways
January 24, 2022
"Rhyan Sinclair’s songwriting crystallizes before your very eyes into something really wonderful, full of abstract and references and concrete imagery swirling together at once. 'A treasure for tomorrow now in the dark,' is Sinclair’s night riders’ anthem here in 'Interstate Sailors.'"
RHYAN SINCLAIR RECLAIMS THE ROAD WITH COSMIC SHANTY "INTERSTATE SAILORS"
By Rachel Cholst, Adobe & Teardrops
January 28, 2022
"Rhyan Sinclair knows how to handle herself on the road. In 2018, she released her first solo full-length, Barnstormer. Later in 2018, she released the holiday EP, Marshmallow World, which was featured on the Americana Music Association’s Holiday Playlist. But recovering from a car accident suddenly extended as lockdown settled in. In the spring of 2022, this impressive new voice in country returns with Letters to Aliens, which continues the theme of a woman on a journey, but this time the vibe is cosmic, seventies-esque folk rock with whispers of traditional country.
​
'Barnstormer was about finding my place and voice in relation to the world around me and expressing lots of raw emotions. Letters to Aliens is about the spiritual process of getting to the root of those emotions and breaking through them,” says Sinclair. “All of my roots show through in this music. Sonically, it draws inspiration from all of my greatest influences. Lyrically, the songs address my lineage and pieces of my story that I haven’t really shared before. I feel like the narrative of this album is particularly empowered, even in the most vulnerable moments.'
​
​Today, Sinclair releases her cosmic sea shanty of empowerment.
​
MUSICIAN WHO WROTE ALBUM ABOUT LEGENDARY CHARLESTON SERIAL KILLER RETURNS FOR OCTOBER SHOW
By Kalyn Oyer, The Post and Courier
October 16, 2019
Charleston ghost tales don’t just haunt the Holy City. The legendary spirits of the Lowcountry have entered many a tourist’s mind, including one who happens to be a Kentucky-based musician.
When Rhyan Sinclair, formerly of roots band All the Little Pieces, went on a ghost tour at the Old City Jail during a visit to town a few years ago, the story of Lavinia Fisher, who is thought to be the first female serial killer in the nation, stuck with her.
SAVING COUNTRY MUSIC'S 2018 ESSENTIAL ALBUMS LIST
By Trigger, Saving Country Music
December 28. 2018
​
Rhyan Sinclair – Barnstormer
The 17-year-old Rhyan Sinclair proves this Kentucky wave of country music is no anomaly. It’s broad-based, and multi-generational. She like a chute of new country music life rising from the soil. But don’t slot her as just another name in a gaggle of artists emerging from Kentucky. She has the voice, the style, and songwriting to stand out, and at an age when most are busy navigating the throes of post adolescence, not penning songs that put them in superior standing compared to many writing songs in that state just south of the Kentucky border.
Sinclair has been writing and performing since she was 11 in the band All The Little Pieces. It was falling head first into the allure of the landmark Trio album combining Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt, and Emmylou Harris that inspired Rhyan’s country music roots to rise to the surface and manifest themselves in a way that felt less like a lark, and more like a lifelong passion to be pursued. What started out to be a tribute project to Trio gave rise to an album’s worth of original songs and a passion to want to share them, eventually resulting in her debut solo album Barnstormer.
REVIEW: RHYAN SINCLAIR CONTRIBUTES "MARSHMALLOW WORLD" EP TO HOLIDAY CATALOGUE
By Melissa Clarke, Americana Highways
November 2, 2018
Rhyan Sinclair’s 6 track EP It’s a Marshmallow World is a country Christmas EP produced by Sinclair and Jason Groves. Rhyan Sinclair is on vocals and acoustic guitar, Matt Meighan and Jeff Binder alternate on bass; Zachary Martin on percussion; Fats Kaplan on pedal steel, mandolin and fiddles; Josh Nolan on electric guitar, Paul Osborne on saxophone. Toni Karpinski contributes background vocals.
BEST COUNTRY & ROOTS HOLIDAY RELEASES OF 2018
By Trigger, Saving Country Music
November 25. 2018
"If you want something a little bit more rootsy, original, and interesting, try the Marshmallow World EP from Kentucky up-and-comer Rhyan Sinclair. The 17-year-old’s original song “Let The Light In (In The Name of Christmas)” might be the best new Christmas song of the season."
RHYAN SINCLAIR IS LIVING IN A MARSHMALLOW WORLD WITH NEW CHRISTMAS RELEASE
By Jessica Blankenship, Kentucky Country Music
December 4. 2018
​
With the holiday magic, the music fills the halls of businesses and throughout the shopping malls. However, probably one of this season’s best Christmas music releases would be that of Rhyan Sinclair of Lexington. “Marshmallow World” was released in November, much to the delight of those that enjoy traditional sounds of Christmas.
​
Overall, Rhyan Sinclair provides vocal talents that reminisce those of Brenda Lee when she started singing “Rocking Around the Christmas Tree.” Rhyan’s first single, “Santa How You Gettin’ In My House,” is a throwback country song style written about modern times as many don’t have a fire place for the jolly man in red to visit.
ESSENTIAL 8: RHYAN SINCLAIR
By The Daily Country
November 4, 2018
After receiving critical acclaim for her 2018 album, Barnstormer, Rhyan Sinclair returns with a joyful holiday album of classics and originals. Released on November 2nd, Marshmallow World touches on Sinclair's varied musical influences with originals that are both timeless and timely, fun, and poignant. "Santa How You Gettin’ in My House?" is a playful country romp that would be at home on an old Dolly Parton album, while "Let the Light in (In the Name of Christmas)" touches on the hope that the holiday season can bring us together. Here, Sinclair answers her Essential 8 and talks about the album, shares some of her favorite concerts (Cyndi Lauper, Steve Earle) as well as her must have albums for the road, and much more!
How did you choose the standards you put on the Christmas album?
I had a long list that I narrowed down. It was hard to choose, but it really came down to which songs I had the clearest, most fresh vision for, sonically and arrangement wise. I was kind of changing it up until the last minute, until the selection of songs felt right.
EXCLUSIVE U.S. PREMIERE:
RHYAN SINCLAIR DEBUTS HER BEAUTIFUL “LET THE LIGHT IN ( IN THE NAME OF CHRISTMAS)”
By Jonathan Newsome, Capture Kentucky
October 31, 2018
I want to begin by saying this song will be one of the most moving songs you will hear in 2018. I do not say that lightly. The compassion and heart within Rhyan Sinclair’s message will stop you in your tracks and when you find out that the wisdom within was written by a 17-year old young lady, you will have a little faith restored in humanity.
[EUROPEAN] PREMIERE:
RHYAN SINCLAIR - “LET THE LIGHT IN ( IN THE NAME OF CHRISTMAS)”
By Rune Letrud, Dust of Daylight
October 31, 2018
Forrige uke slapp Rhyan Sinclair singelen «Santa, How You Getting In My House?» her hos oss.
​
I dag har vi gleden av å gi dere verdenspremieren på låten «Let The Light In» – fra Rhyans kommende juleplate Marshmallow World. En lettbeint, deilig countryjuleplate som garantert vil falle i smak.
PREMIERE: RHYAN SINCLAIR - SANTA HOW YOU GETTIN' IN MY HOUSE?
By Rune Letrud, Dust of Daylight
October 26, 2018
Rhyan Sinclair fra Kentucky er et nytt bekjentskap for vår del, men siden undertegnede er i overkant interessert i julemusikk – så fanget EPen «Marshmallow World» min oppmerksomhet.
Når vi fikk muligheten til å kunne by dere på en verdenspremiere på den første singelen «Santa, How You Gettin’ In My House», så er det bare å erklære julesesongen for åpnet.
“I AM HUGELY INSPIRED BY SO MANY DIFFERENT ARTISTS FROM DOLLY, LINDA, EMMYLOU'S TRIO TO THE BEACH BOYS”
WE CHAT WITH RHYAN SINCLAIR
By Max Mazonowicz, TheDigitalFix.com
July 30, 2018
What can you tell us about your debut record, Barnstormer, in two sentences?
These songs are where I found my lyrical voice and learned how to be comfortable with complete honesty. I am hugely inspired by so many different artists from Dolly, Emmylou and Linda's Trio to The Beach Boys and I think all of those influences spinning around in my mind kind of melded together and created the sound of the record.
How do you go about writing songs? What’s your “process”?
I don't really have one process. It usually starts when I'm inspired by a little idea and I see if I can build from there. A lyric, a melody, a riff...something will come to me. I have 2,000 notes that I've written down on my phone of lyric ideas. It's insane. A lot of them get trashed and I'll ask myself 'What was I thinking?', but every now and then, they're something I can live with the next day and they end up becoming full songs. I get super inspired by traveling in the car from place to place, so most of those notes are from long car rides. All the little in-betweens and the scenery really trigger ideas for me and help clear my mind enough to write.
KENTUCKY NATIVE RHYAN SINCLAIR
ON DEBUT ALBUM, 'BARNSTORMER'
AND CO-WRITING MUSIC WITH MOM
By Guitar Girl Magazine
July 30, 2018
​
Kentucky native Rhyan Sinclair released her debut album, Barnstormer, last month which has a great classic country sound full of twang, heavy with guitar and bluegrass instrumentation. The album was recorded both in Nashville with Sean Giovanni at The Record Shop and in Lexington, Kentucky with Jason Groves at Sneak Attack Recording Co.
At the young age of 17, Sinclair has already accomplished quite a bit. She started a band All The Little Pieces at the age of 11 with all adults performing what they described as a combination of roots country, jazz, and blues. Over the years, they toured all over and released three independent, self-produced albums with Sinclair writing all of their original music.
ALBUM REVIEW - RHYAN SINCLAIR'S "BARNSTORMER"
By Trigger, SavingCountryMusic.com
July 02, 2018
It’s the decaying of what once was that gives life to what will be. In Kentucky, the decay of the coal industry and the husks of communities, lives, and families it has left in its wake has made life hard for many in the Bluegrass State. Even for those lives and communities not affected directly, they still feel the weight of hardship and broken hearts that hangs in the air.
If there is one silver lining, it’s that the hard times of Kentucky have gone on to help inspire some of the most meaningful country music we’ve heard in the last decade. The mournful romanticism captured by artists like Sturgill Simpson, Chris Stapleton, Tyler Childers, and Kelsey Waldon are fueling the country music insurgency. Times may be tough for many, but the spirit of Kentucky lives on, and manifests itself in music like it has since the early settlers first put stakes down in the state.
​
The 17-year-old Rhyan Sinclair proves this Kentucky wave of country music is no anomaly. It’s broad-based, and multi-generational. She like a chute of new country music life rising from the soil. But don’t slot her as just another name in a gaggle of artists emerging from Kentucky. She has the voice, the style, and songwriting to stand out, and at an age when most are busy navigating the throes of post adolescence, not penning songs that put them in superior standing compared to many writing songs in that state just south of the Kentucky border.
AT 17, THIS LEXINGTON MUSICIAN FOUR ALBUMS, AND THE LATEST IS HER SOLO DEBUT.
By Rich Copley, Kentucky.com
June 28, 2018
"Barnstormer" represents a huge turn in Sinclair's career, as it finds her stepping away from her band All The Little Pieces, which she recorded three albums with, and completing a move from an indie rock sound to traditional country, which is often referred to as Americana music these days.
​
The Lexington musician wrote or co-wrote all 14 songs on the album, which she co-produced in Lexington and Nashville.
​
All that, and Sinclair is only 17 years old.
​
"All of her songs are written from such an authentic place, and she has such great traditional influences, plus she's young and hip — it's a really cool blend," says Sean Giovanni, owner of The Record Shop recording studio, where Sinclair recorded two songs on the album. "What really drew me to her music when I first heard it was how much passion is in her voice and how effortless it is.
"It's her. It's what she was meant to do."
LEXINGTON 17-YEAR-OLD SHOWS 'MATURITY WELL BEYOND HER YEARS' ON SOLO DEBUT
By Matt Wickstrom, Kentucky.com
June 27, 2018
​
Following a handful of releases leading the band All the Little Pieces, Lexington-based singer-songwriter Rhyan Sinclair has stormed onto the scene under her own name with her solo debut album "Barnstormer."
Combining touches of Americana, country and pop, the 17-year-old Sinclair shows a maturity well beyond her years on the record, having written or co-written all 14 tracks along with co-producing the record with Jason Groves of The Sneak Attack Recording Co. in Lexington and Sean Giovanni at Nashville’s The Record Shop. However, that’s not where the album’s ties to the Music City end.
RHYAN SINCLAIR, 'SELFISHLY, HEARTLESSLY' [EXCLUSIVE PREMIERE]
By Amy McCarthy, TheBoot.com
May 30, 2018
​
Kentucky-born singer-songwriter Rhyan Sinclair is premiering her new song "Selfishly, Heartlessly," and its accompanying music video, exclusively for readers of The Boot. Press play above to listen and watch.
Sinclair tells The Boot that she wrote "Selfishly, Heartlessly" about "universal heartbreak" -- not just the romantic kind, "but every type, however you can relate to it." Melodically, Patsy Cline was a major inspiration for the track.
SONG PREMIERE: RHYAN SINCLAIR "SKELETON SAM"
By TheDailyCountry.com
May 24, 2018
Today, TDC is incredibly proud to premiere one of the album's tracks, "Skeleton Sam." With standout performances by Eliza Mary Doyle on banjo and Sherri McGee on the spoons, as well as BoDiddley breakdowns and jovial group vocals, "Skeleton Sam" is a a bluegrass-gospelesque barn burner where Sinclair's classic and commanding vocals project a tone that merges the playful with the cautious...just like Halloween itself.
MOST ANTICIPATED ALBUMS & RUMORS FOR THE 2ND HALF OF 2018
By SavingCountryMusic.com
May 22, 2018
​
Rhyan Sinclair – Barnstormer – June 22nd
With the way quality music has been pouring out of Kentucky lately, anyone with a song and a guitar from The Bluegrass State has to be taken seriously. This young singer and songwriter put her first band together when she was 11-years-old. Recently inspired by the Trio album from Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris, and Linda Ronstadt, she decided to write and record her own country music heartbreaker which became Barnstormer.
“I hope people know that I can be counted on to share raw emotions, whether it’s heartbreak or joy,” says Sinclair. “I just want it to feel as real and intimate to someone listening to the album as it felt to me when I wrote it. My hope is that these songs will speak to people on a soul level. I think it is such a liberating thing when you hear a song that understands you and what you’re going through. That’s always my goal.”
SONG PREMIERE: RHYAN SINCLAIR DEFIES THE COSMIC BLUES WITH 'RETROGRADE'
By Bobbie Jean Sawyer, WideOpenCountry.com
May 17, 2018
By the time Rhyan Sinclair was 11 years old she had already formed her own country band, All the Little Pieces, and started headlining venues in her hometown of Lexington, Ky. Now, still in her teens, Sinclair is gearing up to release her debut solo album Barnstormer (out June 22).
The album, which Sinclair co-produced, is a striking collection of songs that recall the Appalachian-born heartbreak and perseverance of Dolly Parton, Emmylou Harris and Linda Ronstadt’s timeless Trio album.
Sinclair cites the album as a major inspiration, along with the music of Miranda Lambert, the Dixie Chicks and Maria McKee of the influential alt-country band Lone Justice. But Sinclair says the album’s first single, the groovy “Retrograde,” which Wide Open Country is premiering today, stems from another group that built their sound on dreamy harmonies.
RHYAN SINCLAIR ANNOUNCES DEBUT SOLO ALBUM 'BARNSTORMER'
By GoSeeLiveMusic.co
May 16, 2018
​
Kentucky native Rhyan Sinclair announces her highly anticipated, solo debut album, Barnstormer, set for release onJune 22, 2018. Recorded in both Nashville with Sean Giovanni at The Record Shop and Lexington, Kentucky with Jason Groves at Sneak Attack Recording Co., Sinclair’s desire to make a deeply personal connection with listeners is evident by her thoughtful lyrics and refined harmonies.
GHOST TOUR INSPIRES ALBUM FOR ‘RHYAN SINCLAIR & ALL THE LITTLE PIECES’
By Matt Wickstrom, Big Blue Tunes
May 24, 2017
It’s not often that you hear of a musician writing a concept album centered around an 1800s legend, but if you knew Rhyan Sinclair you’d understand her musical stylings are far from ordinary.
Sinclair, the 16-year-old frontwoman for Lexington-based Rhyan Sinclair & All the Little Pieces pens music heavily influenced by Jack White, Nora Jones, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Cyndi Lauper and more. Forming the group when she was only 11, Sinclair was writing music that fit the mold of a big band, resulting in a carousel of musicians performing with All the Little Pieces over the years along with occasional solo performances from Sinclair.
ALL THE LITTLE PIECES' RHYAN SINCLAIR CREATES A CONCEPT ALBUM ABOUT LAVINIA FISHER
By Vincent Harris, Charleston City Paper
March 29, 2017
By the time All the Little Pieces’ Rhyan Sinclair went on a ghost walk with Bulldog Tours last spring, she’d already written the music for the Kentucky band’s next album. In Charleston to perform during the Cooper River Bridge Run, the band didn’t have lyrics yet — but that all changed once Sinclair learned the story of Lavinia Fisher.
​
If you don’t know the tale, Charleston’s Lavinia Fisher is purported to be the first woman hanged in the United States, for the crime of highway robbery, which at the time was a capital offense. Fisher and her husband, John, owned an inn called the Six Mile Wayfarer House, where legend has it that guests would occasionally disappear along with their possessions.
FOR LOCAL MUSICIANS, IT'S IMPORTANT TO PUT THEIR MUSIC ON THE RECORD
By Walter Tunis, Lexington Herald-Leader
January 26, 2017
​
“There is so much of your heart, hard work and time that goes into a record, and there’s a ton of build-up to that moment when you can finally hold it in your hand,” Sinclair said. “It’s incredibly surreal. I got to tour Musicol in Columbus, where our vinyl was pressed and pick up the vinyl records. Watching them press those records one at a time makes each one feel so special.”
ALL THE LITTLE PIECES BRINGS HAUNTED LEGEND TO LIFE ON NEW ALBUM
By Jordan Simonson, Lexington Herald-Leader
October 28, 2016
​
“It started by wanting to write a song about Lavinia,” Sinclair said. “But it just kept expanding. I had a few previous songs written (for a future album) that fit in like puzzle pieces to the story that I wanted to tell.”
The concept album “The Legend of Lavinia Fisher” begins in the present “with a traveler who wants to get out of the small town he’s in,” she said. “The road he’s on shifts to the past, and he ends up at the Six Mile Wayfarer’s House. The rest of the album is Lavinia.”