With its laid-back melodies springing from finger-picked acoustic guitar, plaintive pedal-steel guitar, Wurlitzer, Hammond organ, and strings, Hello explores Prettyman's love of country-blues and folk from the '60s and '70s, artists like The Band, Joni Mitchell, and Bob Dylan. "There's something really pure and uncontrived about what they do," she says. "I really connect with that simplicity, and I think it made me write more bluesy songs."

Recorded over six weeks in London with British producers and songwriters Martin Terefe (KT Tunstall) and Sacha Skarbek (James Blunt, Tunstall), Hello delivers on the promise Prettyman raised with her Virgin Records debut twentythree - a critically well-received collection of "bright, breezy ditties about romantic bliss" as People magazine put it in its review. Following twentythree's August 2005 release, Prettyman toured for two and a half years, with such artists as Ray LaMontagne, Chris Issac, Jason Mraz, and G. Love and Special Sauce.

Now with Hello, Prettyman says she's "stepped it up a notch," chalking up the artistic leap between twentythree and Hello to the confidence that comes from incessant touring ("we were able to record pretty much everything live because I had toured for so long") and just the passage of time. "I have grown so much in the last two years," she says. "I've gone through so many changes and I think the album definitely reflects that. It's more grown-up, and it just feels legit. I've never been more excited about anything in my life as I am with this record. It is so me."

Look for "Madly" the first single from Hello, to impact radio early January. Prettyman has confirmed spring tours for February 14 - March 7 (supporting G. Love & Special Sauce) and a headline run from March 19 - April 27 with routing and cities to be announced soon.

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