So who are these Song Sprouts folks anyway?

We are Jennifer Spector (Tieman) and David Tieman -- two married songwriters & musicians living in the Seattle area. We have been performing together for almost 15 years and now perform under the name The Hayburners for our Folk/Americana project.

Dave moonlights on his wife as a Jazz guitarist, and he is a self-taught programmer that spent countless hours building this site. To pay the bills, he teaches private guitar lessons and Jennifer works canvassing for a great local tree preservation company.

Together, we are also the administrators for the only full-disclosure, completely-online, limited-entry songwriting contest called Indie International.

We love the global nature of the internet. To date we have independent artists from over 50 countries represented in our song contest, and 33 countries thus far at our new improved, & re-launched Song Sprouts site.

Here’s how we feel about giving away a free MP3 or two (or three…)

Musicians live their music heart and soul. It means so much to them. Sure, we would love to make more money with our art. But first and foremost we want people to HEAR it. In some ways it makes us feel like we exist! We all know that the more folks that hear our passion, the more likely it will be that we find new fans and supporters of our work – AROUND THE WORLD! It gives me great satisfaction to think of using this site to have a few more folks putting our music in their MP3 players in all continents on Earth. We encourage the fans that use this site to sample the MP3 they hear, and then go buy, attend local live shows of independent artists, and engage with the indie music makers of the world with messages and encouragement!

Here’s a bit of our musical history:



One of Jennifer’s favorite stories is visiting Dave for the first time in his apartment. He was sitting on his guitar amp, no other furniture, and practicing under the bare light bulb in the kitchen! Jennifer brought a lamp with her as a gift on the next visit back. Within a few weeks they were writing songs together and searching for a drummer. They found Sam Michalowski, overeducated literary buff he was, who helped name the group “The Bloomsbury Group” after their eccentric literary powerhouse namesakes, heres the Wiki. Jennifer was on guitar and Dave on bass. We also added two horn players: A trumpet player and trombone player. It was a sort of a Jazzy Rock band.

HERE is the Song Sprouts page for The Bloomsbury Group 1997 4-song EP.

Next incarnation of Jennifer and Dave’s Music was in the band “Treehouse”. Dave was on guitar and Jennifer lead vocals. Dave’s long time friend from Chicago Dave Olson played drums.

HERE is the Song Sprouts page for Treehouse from a 1999 ROUGH DEMO recording.

Jennifer and Dave were both honing their songwriting skills but Jennifer performed for a few years primarily as a solo artist. After playing every venue in the Phoenix Valley and other out-of-town Arizona venues, 2002 saw the release of Jennifer's first full-length recording Ahead of the Game. They produced it themselves in their spare bedroom, and Dave played bass and lead guitar on the CD.

HERE is the Song Sprouts page for Jennifer Spector from her 2002 Release "Ahead of the Game".


Jennifer was honored with her first major accolade as TELLURIDE TROUBADOUR NATIONAL FINALIST in June of 2004 at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. It was just the month before where she earned another National Finalist title at the Tucson Folk Festival there in her home state of Arizona. She had the honor of being asked to share the stage with respected national artists David Wilcox and Loudon Wainwright III (Acoustic Music Arizona, 2004-2005 season). She performed with folk great Christine Lavin in Las Vegas (Sept 25th, '04 Acoustic Routes Series) She had even been approached for a modest record deal from and Independent label (We still love you Zuckers!). Fiercely independent, she politely turned it down as she a) didn’t like the thought of owing a record company any money and b) wanted to be completely in control of her music.

David and Jennifer wanted a change of scenery. They moved to the Pacific Northwest in 2005 with no employment secured, almost on a whim. They wanted to be re-energized creatively and spiritually in a place as different as they could get from the desert life they had grown used to.


A lot of their “day jobs” came and went – but they finally finished up The Hayburners self-titled CD in Spring of 2008. It got them on the charts! The CD topped at #27 on the National Folk Music Charts in July 2008. Dave’s song "Bluegrass Band" landed on #19 on the National Folk DJ list in August 2008 and the same month, the CD made the Top 40 of the National Roots Report.

HERE is The "Hayburners" Song Sprouts page.

Now with Song Sprouts re-lauched, They will concentrate on finishing up their second Hayburners CD. They will be celebrating with their friends for a release this summer.

Of course we will post a few tracks to our Song Sprouts page as soon as the CD is mastered!


Thank you very much for supporting this site. You do so as an artist by signing up an account and letting your fellow artists know about it. Make a special track available here and send your mailing lists & fan lists to the site so they can also discover new fellow independent artists. They are doing this for you too -- so there and there are plenty of fans to share! As a listener and supporter of independent music, find a few new favorite artists here and download their tracks. They go to their websites and distributor pages and buy some more, go to live shows, and do things to support live local and original music in your town.