Across the Hemisphere Places Marianne Flemming in the Pacific Northwest Folk-Rock Scene
The Ridgefield, Washington Songwriter’s Fifth Album Carries Three Decades of Folk Circuit Miles
A steady beat and a bluesy electric guitar line open Something Has to Give, the first song on Marianne Flemming‘s Across the Hemisphere. The room behind that sound sits just north of Portland. Flemming recorded most of the eight-song album at a home studio in Ridgefield, Washington, and released it on 15 February 2022. It is the fifth album of a career that began in 1994.
Marianne Flemming’s title track plays in our Soft Rock, Acoustic Rock playlist below, and every feature on the songwriter’s records sits on the Marianne Flemming artist profile. Across the Hemisphere reached IndieRock.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, which verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news desks. Press play on the title track first, then read on for where the record sits in the Northwest scene.
Across the Hemisphere Sets a Fisherman’s Story at Cape Disappointment, Where the Columbia Meets the Pacific
Ridgefield is a small Clark County city on the Washington side of the Columbia River. Portland’s clubs are a short drive south. As a result, the album keeps that geography close.
Desdamona looks out from a bluff over the point where the river meets the ocean. Cape Disappointment rises above the water there. The song’s characters drink at the union hall and read the names of the missing on the wall. Meanwhile, a fisherman named Jean Jerome, who went to sea in the 1980s, comes home to an empty house. One line about the bar taking lives reads, in that setting, as the Columbia River Bar. Indeed, that crossing has long been known as the Graveyard of the Pacific.
That regional strand sits inside a folk-rock record made by real players, with electric guitar out front. However, the rest of the album widens the frame. Ruby Red Slippers, for example, takes its title image from The Wizard of Oz, and its video sits further down this page.
From Fort Lauderdale Sessions to the Bluebird Café, Marianne Flemming Has Worked the Troubadour Circuit
Flemming’s route to the Northwest runs across the whole country. To begin with, Good Music Radar reports that Flemming was born and raised in Florida. The debut album, III Chords & A Bridge, then followed in 1994. A bonus track on the Bandcamp edition of Across the Hemisphere, Fly Away, goes back to that era. In fact, it was recorded at Rose Guilot Studios in Fort Lauderdale in the 1990s.
Later, by 1999, the work had moved to Madison, Wisconsin. There, Flemming recorded So Much to Learn with Rachel Bissex on backing vocals. That song has a new life, too, as a pick for the FOLK NOW compilation for September and October 2026.
Along the way, Flemming has shared bills with Leon Russell, Bo Diddley, Rory Block, Carrie Newcomer, Peter Mulvey and Southern Culture on the Skids. The venue list is just as wide, and it also takes in the Bluebird Café in Nashville, the Bitter End in New York and the Folklife stage in Seattle. Then came a long stretch with a day job. After starting a family around 2000, Flemming retrained as a special education teacher.
Kevin Neil, Michael Henchman and Kari Newhouse Form the Circle of Players Behind the Eight Songs
Across the Hemisphere marks a return to record-making with trusted players rather than a hired studio band. The credits show that circle clearly. For instance, Kevin Neil plays lead guitar on four of the eight songs, including the opener. Michael Henchman also plays bass on four.
Kari Newhouse sings on three songs, including Lucky Me. In addition, Olivia Duffy adds violin to Moonpie, and Kevin Revolinski plays bass on Ruby Red Slippers. The mixing was shared out among the same people. Finally, Carlos Severe Marcelin mastered the album at House of Tomato Studios.
Some of the songs are older than the record. For example, Flemming played the title song with Jack Shawde on Folk & Acoustic Music, Michael Stock’s show on 91.3 WLRN in Miami, in July 2016. A video of that radio session is still online, six years before the album came out.
Across the Hemisphere Sits Near Brandi Carlile’s Harmonies and The Decemberists’ Story Songs
Two Northwest acts make the clearest neighbours for this record. Brandi Carlile was born in Ravensdale, Washington, and built a career on folk songs with rock guitar and stacked harmonies. By the Way, I Forgive You won the Grammy for Best Americana Album in 2019. Similarly, FVMusicBlog singled out the harmonies on Desdamona, while Neil’s lead guitar gives several of Flemming’s songs a rock edge.
The Decemberists formed in Portland in 2000. Colin Meloy’s songs have long put named characters on ships and shorelines, and the band’s album The King Is Dead debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 2011. Desdamona works the same seam, with a fisherman, a dangerous bar and a union hall, written a short drive from the band’s home city.
The press picked up on the range. FVMusicBlog reviewed the album in February 2023 and called it an alt-folk release. The review praised the storytelling on Desdamona and the way Small Hope Bay closes the record. Good Music Radar, meanwhile, heard retro pop and surf rock with plenty of blues in Ruby Red Slippers. Hot New Songs also listed the album among its acoustic and alt-folk picks that month.
For listeners who follow Northwest folk rock, Across the Hemisphere works best in order. It moves from the strained household of the opener to the coast of Desdamona. Then it passes through the Oz detour of Ruby Red Slippers to a quiet close. At 35 minutes, it rewards a single sitting.
From the IndieRock.News Curator Team: “Small Hope Bay is the one to save for last. Michael Henchman plays almost every instrument on it, so the album ends as a two-person record: Flemming’s voice and acoustic guitar against Henchman’s piano, bass and synth.”
Stream Across the Hemisphere on Apple Music or buy it on Bandcamp. Follow Marianne Flemming across platforms: Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Bandcamp, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and ReverbNation, or visit the official website.
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