Salt Of The Earth (6)

St. Louis, Missouri Salt of the Earth began out of the ashes of defunct alt-country group Belle Starr in early 2003, when guitarist and vocalist Lynne Reif and then guitarist Mike Schrand agreed to start a new musical project, based around the idea of a roster of almost all original roots and Americana music. Work then began on the first release, "Against the Muse" with engineer/producer Mike Martin at The Broom Factory. Shortly after the January 2005 release of "Against the Muse", cellist Jake Brookman became a full-time member of SOTE, making the band a "roots string quartet". In early 2006, Jim Hieger joined as the full time lead guitarist and banjoist in SOTE. In Summer 2006, the band went back to The Broom Factory to record their second release with Mike Martin, "These New Days", released in January 2007. SOTE's third album, "So Sing to Me" was released on November 7th, 2009 and is available at a show, at iTunes (http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/so-sing-to-me/id399116233) or at CDBaby.com (http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/SaltoftheEarth). SOTE's fourth album, an eponymous double-live album recorded at St. Louis' Focal Point, was released at the end of 2013 and is available at http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/saltoftheearth3. Salt of the Earth's fifth album, "Unspoken", was released in September of 2016. The album of original material (and one Prince cover) was recorded in New Haven, MO. SOTE has been playing live steadily, and has built an over 100 song roster of original material, and a few cover songs to boot.