Deborah Crooks has released several collections of critically noted original music, including her latest 9-song collection I Was Yours. Born and raised in California, Deborah grew up surrounded by nature, but close enough to San Francisco to be influenced by the city’s history of social, musical and political upheaval. Place-based and rooted in practice, her work has evolved over her years studying natural history at UC Santa Cruz, writing and poetics at The Naropa Institute in Boulder, CO; voice and yoga in Mysore, India, and co-writing and collaborating with her Bay Area peers. Having built an extensive solo catalog, she’s also co-founded the Americana band Bay Station with Kwame Copeland, and penned an avian-themed folk opera about Peregrine Falcons and people called ‘Flight Lessons,’ and regularly performs work from all three projects.
Press Release
Songwriter Deborah Crooks announces the release of I Was Yours, a 9-song collection released on streaming platforms, Friday, Dec 19. Known for her lyrical storytelling and place-based sensibility, Crooks continues to combine emotional intelligence with cinematic storytelling. Produced by Art Khu (Jacqui Naylor, Laco Deczi), who played many of the instruments on the album, many of the songs on I Was Yours are concerned with the consequences of internalized sexism in the lives of women as well as attempts at its transcendence.
‘Scratch in the Record’ is about learning to respond to, rather than react to, past traumas and upsets, and start anew. ‘41st Avenue’ details life as an unsupervised teen growing up too fast; ‘Marzipan’ is an ode to a favorite candy and the joy of having one’s preferences known. ‘Mendocino Triple Junction Fault Line’ is told from the perspective of a small-town widow; while the lush title track, ‘I Was Yours,’ recounts a lovelorn San Francisco idyll.
Deborah’s musical journey includes her multiple solo recording and performance projects; collaborating with Kwame Copeland in the band Bay Station and its ‘‘Love the Bay’ sailing and music video series; writing for publication and for the stage, and curating concerts and events (19 Voices in Solidarity, Octopus Songwriters).In 2025, she debuted ‘Flight Lessons,’ a two-act, multi-character folk opera about birds and people living at the intersection of urban and natural environments, garnering rave reviews from the press and the conservation community.
Mixed by Arielle Flinkman and Sammie Wallinga at Women’s Audio Mission and mastered by Jessica Thompson.Track list:
- I Was Yours
- Scratch in the Record
- Marzipan
- Mendocino Triple Junction Fault Line
- Lucky for a While
- 41st Avenue
- The Deep
- Conduit
- The Fox
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