a&e features
Moments with Michelle Branch
After white-hot, early ‘00s run, ‘anti-Britney’ Branch returns with new album, new tour and new perspective on life
Michelle Branch says the pop music industry is working with outdated business models that aren’t fair to artists. (Photo courtesy Verve Label Group)
Michelle Branch
Friday, Aug. 4
8 p.m.
9:30 Club
815 V St., N.W.
930.com
$58-70
In 14 years, Michelle Branch went from making radio hits to people wondering, “Whatever happened to Michelle Branch?”
Branch came out with her first hit single “Everywhere” from her debut album “The Spirit Room” in 2001 at 18 years old. Known as the “Anti-Britney,” along with fellow alternative-pop queens Avril Lavigne and Vanessa Carlton, Branch’s angsty lyrics and guitar playing were the opposite of Spears’ bubblegum pop sound. Her music videos for “Everywhere,” “All You Wanted” and “Goodbye to You” propelled her to a frequent spot on the “TRL” Top 10.
Her next album “Hotel Paper” produced the hit single, “Are You Happy Now?,” a “You Outta Know” by Alanis Morissette for the early ‘00s generation that received plenty of radio airplay. She also collaborated with big-name artists such as Sheryl Crow. She even won a Grammy for her work with Santana on “The Game of Love” in 2003.
Then silence.
Branch married her bass player Teddy Landau and gave birth to their now-11-year-old daughter, Owen. Branch delved into country with her band the Wreckers, with musician Jessica Harp in 2005. After the duo disbanded, Branch found herself caught in a cycle of creating content that her label wouldn’t let her release. In 2015, the singer’s personal life also hit a rough patch when she divorced Landau.
Now finally free of her contract, Branch has released her first album since 2003, “Hopeless Romantic,” on a new label, Verve Records. The edgy, alternative sound is back but at 33 years old, Branch is no longer the angsty teen she was. This is also her first collaboration with the Black Keys’ drummer, Patrick Carney. Carney started as her music partner and went on to become her fiancé; the couple got engaged in July.
Her first solo tour in years stops by 9:30 Club (815 V St., N.W.) on Friday, Aug 4 for a sold-out performance.
Branch chatted with the Washington Blade right before a sound check about where she’s been these last 14 years, how much the music scene has changed and what it’s actually like being Carlton’s doppelgänger.
WASHINGTON BLADE: Since your 2003 album “Hotel Paper” you seemed to disappear from the mainstream as a solo artist. But behind the scenes you were battling your label. What were some of the label issues you were having post-“Hotel Paper”?
MICHELLE BRANCH: Well, post-“Hotel Paper” I actually first started a band called the Wreckers. It was like a country side project of mine. We were doing really successful. We had a Grammy nomination, a number one song, we went platinum and we were on tour. So everything was going great up until about 2007. That’s when the Wreckers broke up. That’s when it started getting complicated. I followed up the Wreckers with a solo country record. I had been writing a bunch of Wreckers material but then we broke up so I just decided to record it myself. That’s when I started getting problems. I had the president of that label tell me, “You’re not country enough to do this album by yourself.” So I took the record to L.A. and they said, “No, this isn’t pop enough. It’s too country for us.” So that record got shelved. I watched like four label presidents get fired while I was there. I basically ended up being a victim of corporate restructuring. I ended up turning in a full country album and then I followed it up with a full pop record that got shelved as well. They wouldn’t let me out of my contract. So I finally got out of my contract in 2014 and that’s when I started writing this record.
BLADE: On your new album “Hopeless Romantic” you collaborated with Patrick Carney of the Black Keys. How did that come about?
BRANCH: Patrick and I met at a Grammy party. But he was on my list of people to ask about producing. I wanted to find someone with more of a rock background and I liked another band that he produced called Tennis that I loved. And I walked into the party and saw him on the other side of the room and was like “Oh, this is perfect. I can actually go ask him myself.” So, we started talking and he was like, “Where have you been? What have you been up to? I love your voice. You should be making music.” When I told him what I’d been through at the record label he immediately was like, “I want to help. Send me music.” And that’s how it started.
BLADE: Even though you switched labels and had a new collaborator in Patrick did you fear this music wouldn’t see the light of day like your other material?
BRANCH: Once I signed with the new label and started recording, it all felt great. Between the records and getting off my record label there were moments. Like when I was on Warner Brothers I thought, “OK, maybe I’m never, ever going to get a record out again.” But once I switched labels it just felt completely different. There was a totally different energy.
BLADE: Prince used to say record contracts are like slavery and that he would tell young artists not to sign. Would you give the same advice?
BRANCH: Yeah. I mean I just think the record business is a dying business. So many of these huge companies are just following old, dinosaur methods of doing things and ultimately it’s all because of wanting to make money and the artists suffer. So I would definitely encourage younger artists to be as independent as possible.
BLADE: The way music is consumed now is so different from when you first hit the scene. You tweeted the other day you noticed how people had their cell phones out at your concerts now versus the last time you toured. Do you think people have lost the ability to be fully present at shows?
BRANCH: I don’t think everyone has. Fellow concert-goers get annoyed too. I had so many people comment back saying, “Yeah I was at that show and it was so annoying. I couldn’t see because someone’s phone was in my face.” I feel like there’s a certain time and place where you should be present. The whole point of live music is to actually see it, feel it and be a part of it. It’s a collaborative effort. The audience is just as much part of a show as whoever is on stage. If you want to film the whole thing you might as well just go watch YouTube videos of the show and not be at the show. It’s not at every show but just the last few shows I’ve noticed it and it bummed me out. I think that there’s definitely a time and a place for technology.
BLADE: You and Vanessa Carlton debuted around the same time and were always compared. Did it ever annoy you?
BRANCH: Not at all. She’s amazing. I think the only thing that gets annoying is that still to this day people are like, “Oh my god, will you please play that song ‘A Thousand Miles’”? I’m like, “That’s not me.” But she’s great. She gets it just as much as I do so we’ve just gotten used to being each other’s doppelgänger.
BLADE: You’ve shown your support for the Tegan and Sara Foundation. Why is it important for you to be an LGBT ally?
BRANCH: It’s so important because human equality, human rights, should be for everybody. It shouldn’t be for just one type of person. Love is love. There’s a line from one of the songs on my album called “Heartbreak Now.” It says, “You can’t help who you love” and I truly believe it. I think it’s completely preposterous to discriminate against someone based on who they love or how they identify. It’s completely a human rights issue to me.
BLADE: So what’s next?
BRANCH: More music. I was just talking with Patrick that the minute this tour gets done we’re going to go home and start recording a new record. My goal now that I’m free is to just make as much music as possible and be able to play shows whenever I can.
Michelle Branch says the pop music industry is working with outdated business models that aren’t fair to artists. (Photo courtesy Verve Label Group)
a&e features
New book celebrates 1970s dance music icons
‘A Night at the Disco’ features interviews with Donna Summer, Debbie Harry, more
If you’re a fan of 1970s-era dance music, don’t miss the irresistible new book by Christian John Wikane and Alice Harris, “A Night at the Disco,” which revisits more than 90 interviews conducted with some of the biggest names in pop culture.
“A Night at the Disco” (ACC Art Books) was published on March 24, and distributed by Simon & Schuster. It celebrates more than 100 artists who sparked a phenomenon in dance music from 1970-1979 and features excerpts from interviews with everyone from Donna Summer to Debbie Harry.
Lost City Books (2467 18th St., N.W.) will welcome author Christian John Wikane for a book signing and conversation about “A Night at the Disco” on Thursday, April 16 at 6 p.m. Details at lostcitybookstore.com. Bird in Hand Coffee & Books in Baltimore (11 E. 33rd St.) )will also host a Q&A with the author on Wednesday, April 15 at 6 p.m. Details at theivybookshop.com.
Below is an excerpt from “A Night at the Disco.”
“I’ll let in anyone who looks like they’ll make things fun.” Steve Rubell is guiding a New York Times reporter through Studio 54 as resident DJ Richie Kaczor dazzles the crowd with records by CHIC, Odyssey, and T-Connection. “Disco, that’s where the happy people go,” The Trammps sing as dancers spin and twirl underneath tubes of flashing lights. Seven months since Rubell and co-owner Ian Schrager opened Studio 54 in April 1977, it’s welcomed untold numbers of “happy people” … at least those lucky enough to pass through the doors.
“We were part of the chosen few,” says André De Shields, who immortalized the title role in The Wiz on Broadway at the time. “We could show up at Studio 54 and the doorman at the velvet stanchion would look over everyone and point to us from The Wiz to come in, that kind of thing.” As the lead vocalist in the GRAMMY-nominated Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band, whose debut modernized big band sophistication for the discothèques, Cory Daye had carte blanche in the club. “The energy was like a New Year’s Eve party every night,” she says. “I would go up to the mezzanine and watch the mechanical light pillars go up and down, metallic confetti falling from the ceiling, the spoon and the moon. I was so fascinated and enamored by it.
“When a certain song came on, the people would just rush to the dance floor. There was no contact dancing — the hustle was pretty much on its way out — but it was just an amazing experience to see all the cultures together. It was a fusion of cultures, which described my life and my band, so I was right at home there.”
“Studio 54 was the place,” adds Linda Clifford. “Crazy parties. If you could think it, you would see it. It was like a circus. Just an amazing place to be. I worked 54 so many times. It was like a second home to me. The people there treated me so well. The crowd always seemed to enjoy my show. I always had a good time with them. That was the most important thing: making sure that they had fun.”
Well before Studio 54 opened, disco had become a business juggernaut. “A four billion dollar market and still growing,” Billboard announced in February 1977, with dance music offering more variety than ever. “There is no longer a single, readily identifiable disco beat, but a kaleidoscope of sounds that are melodic and danceable,” Tom Moulton told the magazine. In the clubs, records by veteran artists like Stevie Wonder and the Bee Gees were mixed in with a range of new acts like Grace Jones, Boney M., and The Ritchie Family, while everyone from ABBA to Marvin Gaye scored number one pop hits with songs that had club-centric storylines.
Beyond the charts, disco itself remained as idiosyncratic as ever, especially on several productions by Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis, whose studio creations, El Coco (“Let’s Get It Together,” “Cocomotion”) and Le Pamplemousse (“Le Spank”), joined their own “Lust” from Seven Deadly Sins (1977) among the most tantalizing releases on AVI Records. Rinder & Lewis also produced acts for the newly hatched Butterfly Records in Los Angeles, where Saint Tropez (“On a Rien à Perdre”) and Tuxedo Junction (“Moonlight Serenade”) reflected the duo’s high gloss sound, spanning everything from European sophistication to a more literal translation of the ’40s sensibilities popularized by Dr. Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band.
12-inch singles had also grown as the preferred format to approximate the club music experience at home. Nearly a year after Atlantic Records introduced its series of promotional 12-inch singles for DJs, New York-based Salsoul Records released the industry’s first commercially available 12-inch single, “Ten Percent” by Double Exposure, in May 1976. A year later, T.K. Records was the first label to certify a gold record for a 12-inch single when Peter Brown’s “Do You Wanna Get Funky With Me” tallied one million sales.— Christian John Wikane
(From “A Night at the Disco” by Alice Harris & Christian John Wikane. Published by ACC Art Books.)
The Blade may receive commissions from qualifying purchases made via this post.
a&e features
Award-winning D.C. chef reaching new culinary heights
Anthony Jones of Marcus DC competing on ‘Top Chef’
In Anthony Jones’s kitchen, all sorts of flags fly, including his own. Executive chef at award-winning restaurant Marcus DC, Jones has reached culinary heights (James Beard Award semifinalist for Emerging Chef, anyone?), yet he’s just getting started.
Briefly stepping away from his award-winning station, Jones took a moment under a different set of lights. Recently, he temporarily gave up his post at the restaurant for a starring small-screen slot on the latest season of “Top Chef,” which debuted in March. (The show airs weekly on Bravo and Peacock).
Before his strategic slice-and-dice competition, however, Jones, who identifies as gay, draws from his deep DMV roots. In the years before “Top Chef” and the top chef spot at Marcus, he was born and raised in Sunderland, Md., in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake.
Early memories were steeped in afternoons on boats with his dad bonding over fishing, and wandering the garden of his great-grandparents spread with fresh vegetables and a few hogs. “It was Southern, old-school ethics and upbringing,” he said. “Family and food went hand in hand.” Weekends meant grabbing bushels of crabs, dad and grandma would cook and crack them. Family members would host fish fries for extra cash. In this seafood-heavy youth, Jones managed time to sneak in episodes of the “OG” Japanese “Iron Chef” show, which helped inspire him to pursue a career in the kitchen.
Jones moved to D.C. after graduating from college, ending up at lauded Restaurant Eve, and met famed chef Marcus Samuelson, who brought him to Miami to be part of the opening team for Red Rooster Overtown. After three years, Jones moved back to D.C., where he ran Dirty Habit, reinventing and reimagining the menu, integrating West African flavors and ingredients.
Samuelson, however, wouldn’t let a talent like Jones stay away for too long. Pulling Jones back into his orbit, Samuelson elevated Jones to help him open his namesake restaurant Marcus DC, which has been named a top-five restaurant by the Washington Post. Since then, Jones has been nominated as a semifinalist for the RAMMYs Rising Culinary Star in 2026 and won the Eater DC’s Rising Chef award in 2025.
Samuelson’s Marcus is a tour de force interpreting the Black Diaspora on the plate, from the American South to West Africa, along with his signature “Swedopian” touches. Yet it’s Jones who has deeply informed the plate, elevating his own story to date. Marcus DC is primarily a seafood restaurant, which serves Jones well.
“Where I’m from is seafood heavy, and as I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve moved away from meat.” Veggies and fish are hero dishes. His own dish, Mel’s Crab Rice, was not only lauded by the Washington Post, but is framed by his youth carrying home the crustaceans from Mel’s crab truck. It’s a bowl of Carolina rice, layered with pickled okra, uni béarnaise, and crab. Jones also points to a dish on the opening menu, rockfish and brassica, paying respect to a landmark D.C. institution, Ben’s Chili Bowl. Jones reverse engineered a favorite bowl of chili that’s seafood instead of meat forward, leveraging octopus and rockfish along with different riffs of cauliflower: showing his intellectual, creative, and cultural sides.
While “Top Chef” is showing Jones’s spotlight side, he also lets his identity show at work. “In the kitchen, I make sure we’re inclusive. We don’t tolerate discrimination. Everyone that’s here should feel confident to express themselves. There are so many different flags in the kitchen.”
Jones says that he didn’t fully express his gay identity until fairly recently. He felt reluctant coming out to certain family members, “you’re scared to tell them about being different,” he says, and while that anxiety ate at him, “I’m lucky and fortunate to have unconditional love and that weight off my shoulders.”
Today, “I’m me all the time, Monday to Sunday. I’m honest with people, and my staff is honest with me.”
“Being a chef is hard,” he says, “and being a chef of color is even more difficult.”
Yet his LGBTQ identity is a juggling act, he says. “I need to keep that balance, because once someone finds out something about you, their opinion can change, whether you want it or not.”
Being on a whole season of TV cooking competition, however, might mean millions more might have an opinion of him (Jones has appeared on TV already, on an episode of “Chopped”). To prepare, he says, “I’ve just kept a level head. It’s just an honor to be on top chef with amazing people happy to be there.”
Plus, this season is set in the Carolinas, and Jones attended Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a full story of my life, now a monumental moment for me.”
Jones also recently was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. “JBF has been a north star, a dream for so long. I always had this goal on my wall.”
Being at the top spot at Marcus DC, making waves through his accolades, and cooking on Bravo means that Jones is highly visible. “I think that if someone has a similar background to me, and can see our story, trajectory, and success, they can have more ability to be themselves. This is my goal.”
Back at Marcus, Jones has plenty up his chef’s white’s sleeves. A new spring menu is in the works. He’ll be launching a new tasting menu “dining experience,” he says, and has plans to work on more events and collaborations with chefs and friends to bring in new talent and share the culinary wealth.
a&e features
Introducing the Torchbearers Awards honoring queer, trans women and nonbinary people
Meet the Legends and Illuminators lighting new paths
The Torchbearers Awards are more than recognition—they are a continuation of legacy. They honor the quiet architects of progress in our community: those who organize, advocate, build, and protect, often without fanfare but always with purpose. Rooted in a belief in intentional recognition, this honor names those who carry our movements forward—those who make room for others, who remind us that change is both generational and generative. In a time marked by uncertainty and challenge, these leaders push forward with courage, clarity, and an unwavering commitment to expanding opportunity and equity.
This year’s honorees reflect the full breadth of our community, spanning generations, backgrounds, identities, and industries. From Legends, with decades of leadership and having created pathways for others, to Illuminators, who are lighting new paths with creativity and innovation, each Torchbearer represents the power of intergenerational leadership and the strength found in our diversity. They are organizers, advocates, artists, policy leaders, healers, and changemakers whose lived experiences shape a shared vision for equity and liberation.
This award is our love letter to queer and trans women and nonbinary people who carry the flame when it would be easier to let it dim. To those who consistently show up, who use their voice and visibility and stand firm, often without recognition, so that others may live more freely and fully. The Torchbearers Awards celebrates not just what has been done, but the enduring spirit, responsibility, and collective care that ensure the work continues, and that the flame is always passed forward.
Co-Creators of the Torchbearers Awards: Shannon Alston, June Crenshaw, Heidi Ellis
Torchbearers Awards Advisory Board: Aditi Hardikar, Lesley Bryant, Jasmine Wilson-Bryant, Stephen Rutgers
ILLUMINATOR AWARDEES
- Representative Sharice Davids (she/her), (D, KS-03)
— U.S. House of Representatives - Greisa Martinez Rosas (she/her/ella)
— Executive Director, United We Dream - Paola Ramos (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Meagan A. Fitzgerald (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Jessica L. Lewis (she/her)
— Founder / Producer, Play Play DC - Savannah Wade (she/her)
— Founder, OAR Agency - Suhad Babaa (she/her)
— Filmmaker/ Former Executive Director of Just Vision - Ashlee Davis (she/her)
— Global Head of Inclusive Outcomes, Ancestry - Jazmine Hughes (she/her)
— Journalist and Former Editor at New York Times Magazine - Queen Adesuyi (they/she)
— Policy Advisor & Organizer, ReFrame Health & Justice - Michele Rayner, Esq. (she/her)
— Civil Rights Attorney, State Representative (Florida House of Representatives) - Gaby Vincent (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Jenny Nguyen (she/her)
— Founder & Owner, The Sports Bra - Denice Frohman (she/her)
— Independent Artist, Poet / Performer - Vida Rangel (she/her)
— Founder, Our Trans Capital - Roxanne Anderson (they/them)
— Executive Director, Our Space - Ann Marie Gothard (she/her)
— Co-Founder & President, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Diana Rodriquez (she/her)
— Co-Founder & CEO, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Wendi Cooper (she/her)
— Founder / Executive Director, Transcending Women - Toya Matthews (she/her)
— City of San Antonio, Texas - Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Charity Blackwell (she/her)
— Poet, LGBTQ Advocate & Community Leader - Wilhelmina Indermaur (she/her)
— Director of Communications, Tyler Clementi Foundation - Em Chadwick (she/her)
— CMO, For Them & Autostraddle - Kylo Freeman (they/he)
— CEO, For Them & Autostraddle
LEGEND AWARDEES
- Sheila Alexander-Reid (she/her)
— Executive Director, PHL Diversity, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau - Cassandra Cantave Burton (she/her)
— Interim Director of Thought Leadership & Senior Research Advisor, AARP - leigh h. mosley (she/her)
— Photographer / Educator, PhotoFlo Photography - Jenn M. Jackson, PhD (they/them)
— Assistant Professor of Political Science; Author & Columnist, Syracuse University - Jordyn White (she/her)
— COO, Washington Prodigy / VP of Leadership Development & Research, HRC Foundation - AJ Hikes (they/them)
— Deputy Executive Director, ACLU - RaeShanda Lias (she/her)
— Digital Creator, RL Lockhart - Donna Payne-Hardy (she/her)
— Educator, EEO Specialist, Founder of NBJC, Former Leader at the Human Rights Campaign - Courtney R. Snowden (she/her)
— Principal, Blueprint Strategy Group - Gaye Adegbalola (she/her)
— Musician & Activist, Musician / Inductee of the Blues Hall of Fame - Cheryl A. Head (she/her)
— Independent Author, Novelist (Crime Fiction) - Letitia Gomez (she/her)
— The American LGBTQ+ Museum, Board Chair - Lynne Brown (she/her)
— Publisher, Washington Blade - Shay Franco-Clausen (She/Her/Ella/Queen)
— Political Strategist and Organizer - Melissa L. Bradley (she/her)
— Founder & Managing Partner, New Majority Ventures - Meghann Burke (she/her)
— Executive Director, NWSL Players Association - Victoria Kirby York, MPA (she/they)
— Director of Public Policy & Programs, National Black Justice Collective - Joli Angel Robinson (she/her)
— CEO, Center on Halsted - Jeannine Frisby LaRue (she/her)
— CEO, Moxie Strategies - Alice Wu (she/her)
— Film Director (Saving Face, The Half of It) / Screenwriter - Storme Webber (she/her)
— Interdisciplinary Artist / Educator, University of Washington - Kim Stone
— CEO of the Washington Spirit, Washington Spirit - Mickalene Thomas
— American Visual Artist, Mickalene Thomas Studio - Erika Lorshbough (any/they/she)
— Executive Director, interACT - J. Gia Loving (she/ella)
— Co-Executive Director, GSA Network
Calendar: April 10-16
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Trump budget would codify expanded global gag rule
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