finetune artist: Joni Harms

b. 5 November 1959, Canby, Oregon, USA. Singer-songwriter Harms has a traditional approach to country music, emphasised by her employment of a Stetson hat in publicity photos. However, that image is based on her own authentic childhood as a cowgirl. She still lives on the Oregon ranch she grew up on, which has been passed down the family from her great-grandfather onwards. She became a local "rodeo queen" before winning a Future Farmers Of America talent contest. She has enjoyed a more nomadic existence in the music industry. Soon after graduation she made the first of several trips to Nashville, linking up with producer/publisher Byron Gallimore. The four-song demo tape that they recorded was eventually played to Jimmy Bowen at MCA Records, who offered her a deal. It resulted in two singles, "I Need A Wife" and "The Only Thing Bluer Than His Eyes'. However, a projected debut album never materialised, and when Bowen took over as head of Capitol Records' Nashville division, Harms followed him. However, the impetus achieved by the singles had been lost, and 1990"s Hometown Girl under-performed. Capitol trimmed their roster and Harms was among the casualties. It took her several years to find a sympathetic new home at Warner Brothers Records. Produced by Bill Watson, her 1998 comeback album, Cowgirl Dreams, incorporated routine, saccharine country ballads such as "A Woman Knows" alongside more engaging, narrative-based material such as "Catalog Dreams".

Listen to Joni Harms at Finetune.

(1998) Cowgirl Dreams

Blue Montana Moon
Long Hard Ride
Old-Fashioned Girl
Belle Starr
That's the Way I Feel About You