Vaughan Penn has been collaborating with Grammy nominated artist, Chynna Phillips, (Wilson/Phillips) since August 2007. What started out as a songwriting collaboration has developed into a Christian duo, now called Chynna & Vaughan. Vaughan also produced this faith oriented project for Chynna & Vaughan. This new cd, “One Reason” will be released October 6, 2009. A single, also titled One Reason, has already been released to Christian radio!
“From the age of 14, when I first picked up a guitar and started writing songs, music has been a way for me to share a message – to tell someone something,” says Penn.
Born in a small North Carolina town to a musical family – her mother was a jazz singer, her father an accomplished saxophonist – Penn was still in high school when she first took to the stage as the lead singer of a local cover band.
Her passion for music and a determination to take her career to the next level led her to Los Angeles, where she assembled an acoustic band whose live performances quickly generated a loyal following and artistic recognition – most notably a nomination for Acoustic Artist of the Year from the National Academy of Songwriters.
Penn migrated back east to Nashville and, later, North Carolina in order to spend more time in the recording studio, a move that would have a dramatic impact on her musical career.
She established a reputation for her powerful, atmospheric music and released several CDs, including “Somebody Besides Yourself” (2001), “Transcendence” (2003), “Angels Fly” (2005) and “Over My Head” (2007). Her song, “I Can’t Help Myself”, is on the MTV Laguna Beach Soundtrack CD (Interscope) along with Dashboard Confessional, New Found Glory, The All-American Rejects, Hillary Duff, and Lifehouse. And her song “Ready to Rise” is on the Rollergirls Soundtrack CD (Koch) along with other great artists like Ani DiFranco.
Many of her songs have added an emotional punch to some of America’s best-known TV shows and films including Universal Pictures’ “Kicking and Screaming”; ABC’s “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Ghost Whisperer”; MTV’s “The Hills” and “Laguna Beach”; CBS’s “Criminal Minds” and “Numbers”; and NBC’s “Providence” and “Las Vegas”. She has also earned a place on stage alongside some of the country’s foremost musical talents, from Melissa Etheridge and Emmylou Harris to The Indigo Girls to Huey Lewis and The News.
Penn considers her collaboration with Chynna Phillips to be a natural next step, both personally and musically.
“I’ve always written spiritual songs,” she says. “But to be able to record an entire CD of music that conveys my faith and my gratitude for every new day – and to share that experience with Chynna – was a genuine gift.”
Writing and recording with Phillips has taken Penn back to her folk and country roots: some of the new songs, with an evocative layering of lap steel guitar, strings and mandolin, have an authentic Southern accent. Yet at the same time the pairing of two distinctive female voices that are as perfectly matched as they are different has opened up surprising and satisfying new musical avenues.
“I love the way Chynna inspires me to be a better singer and musician,” she says. “We’re channeling something divine.”
