Marty Duda's artist of the week

Sometimes it helps to have friends in high places. In Jesca Hoop's instance, that friend is Tom Waits. Hoop was employed as a nanny to Wait's children and when he heard her demo of Seed Of Wonder he helped bring her to the attention of various radio and record label folks. That was in 2006. Since then Jesca has carved out a career for herself. Her latest album is a collaboration with Iron & Wine's Sam Beam. The duo wrote 13 songs together and released them just this week as Love Letter For Fire.