2012 Festival Lineup:
Amos Lee
“Great songwriters don’t come around that often. Amos is an exceptional artist, a true story teller, unique to his generation.” —Willie Nelson
For Amos Lee, the key to his fourth album, Mission Bell, was time—taking the time to reflect, to write, and to record songs that lived up to his own expectations.
“My last two records were a little rushed, because I was touring so much and running around a lot,” he says. “On this one, I took a year and a half and I just sat at home and wrote. I spent more time alone with these songs than I ever did in the past,” he continues, “which I think was really helpful. It was like going to a yard sale or a thrift store—you go through the first time and you might see something, but then you have to keep going back and forth because you always find something else there.”
The result is Lee’s richest and most fully formed album to date. Mission Bell, which was produced by Joey Burns of the acclaimed band Calexico, displays both range and cohesion, an array of emotions unified by Lee’s eclectic taste and distinctive vocals. Songs like “Windows are Rolled Down” and “Flower” capture moments that are achingly personal, while “Stay” and “Out of the Cold” speak to Lee’s own confrontations with mortality, growing out of experiences with his own fans and performing at hospitals as part of the Musicians On Call program.
Since the release of the Amos Lee album in 2005, the Philadelphia-born and –based former schoolteacher has been one of his generation’s most celebrated songwriters. After being named one of Rolling Stone’s “Top 10 Artists to Watch,” Lee quickly went on to tour with such giants as Bob Dylan, Merle Haggard, Paul Simon, and Elvis Costello.
His next two albums—Supply and Demand (2006) and Last Days at the Lodge (2008)—continued to extend his audience and his reputation, and his songs appeared in numerous films and television shows. With a sound that’s rooted in both folk and soul, Lee has often been compared to artists like James Taylor and Bill Withers, though his own sensibility is shaped by an ever-widening range of influences.
Mission Bell is a dramatic leap forward for Amos Lee’s music, but it also feels like the first step in a new creative journey.
“Amos Lee knows how to use his voice to tell a story with a hint of mystery.” —Lucinda Williams
Official Website
Citizen Cope (solo/acoustic)
Clarence Greenwood (stage name Citizen Cope) is an American songwriter and producer. His eclectic mix of blues, laid-back rock, soul, and folk has a large and profoundly dedicated following, built over the past decade of touring due to solid word of mouth.
Citizen Cope’s compositions have been recorded by artists as varied as Carlos Santana, Dido and Richie Havens. He currently records and produces for his own record label, Rainwater Recordings, which he founded in 2010 after electing to no longer work with major labels. He previously had been signed to Capitol, Arista, DreamWorks and RCA.
Born in Memphis, Clarence Greenwood spent parts of his childhood in Texas and Mississippi, ultimately ending up in Washington, DC where he was primarily raised. While living in Washington, DC, Cope began writing songs rooted in his own poetry on the guitar and the drum machine. He made his first demo recordings and performed at open mic events in the DC area. Cope moved to Brooklyn in the late 1990s, where he currently resides.
He was signed to Capitol Records in 1997. In 2000, Citizen Cope signed with DreamWorks and released a self-titled album in 2002. Rolling Stone wrote, “…Cope melds hip-hop with folk, soul and blues…and ‘feels’ this combination deeply….Cope’s uncommon chords and harmonies combine delicate dissonance with unexpected flashes of beauty…” And the Washington Post called him the “City’s most soulful export since Marvin Gaye.” The album’s song, “Let The Drummer Kick,” is certified gold. Shortly afterward, Arista Records pursued the songwriter, prompting Cope to buy his way out of his DreamWorks contract. In 2004 he released The Clarence Greenwood Recordings, which he also produced. Upon hearing it, Vibe magazine called it “flawless throughout,” noting that Cope “makes music that feeds your soul…this is one of those CDs you hear at a friend’s house and rush out to buy.” Every Waking Moment followed in 2006 (also self-produced), and debuted at #69 on the Billboard 200 top-selling albums chart. In 2010, Cope decided to found and run his own record label, Rainwater Recordings. The move allowed him to exert full creative control over his music and career, free from the marketing entreaties of the major record labels he previously had been signed to. He released The Rainwater LP that year, producing the entire album. The Rainwater LP was critically acclaimed and newfound fan Ellen DeGeneres invited him to perform “Healing Hands” in April 2010. “Let the Drummer Kick” off his 2002 album Citizen Cope has recently gone RIAA gold. Citizen Cope is currently working on a new album, to be released in 2012.
A critically acclaimed songwriter, Citizen Cope’s work has been recorded by a number of vastly different musical artists, a testament to the indefinable genre he has created. In 2002, Carlos Santana requested Cope’s song, “Sideways,” for his Shaman album. Cope sang on the track and produced it as well. Shaman has sold over 5 million copies worldwide. Sheryl Crow asked to record the song with Citizen Cope in 2010 for her 100 Miles From Memphis album, and invited him to join her in concert on several occasions to perform it, including in front of 27,000 fans at the Crossroads Guitar Festival in Chicago (June 26, 2010). At the same festival, Eric Clapton brought Cope onstage to perform “Hands of the Saints” together. Corey Taylor, frontman for alt-metal band Slipknot, has also recorded a version of the song. In 2008 he wrote and recorded “Burnin’ Love” with Dido for her Safe Trip Home album. That same year, folk legend Richie Havens released his version of Cope’s “Hurricane Waters” and Chicago-based hip-hop artist Rhymefest recorded “Bullet,” featuring Cope. Citizen Cope’s songs have been licensed to appear in numerous films, soundtracks and commercials. His work appears in a number of soundtracks to films including 2006’s Trust the Man (Julianne Moore, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Billy Cudrup) and 2008’s Ghost Town (Ricky Gervais), 2006’s Accepted (Jonah Hill, Blake Lively), The Lincoln Lawyer (Matthew McConaughey), and Fracture (Anthony Hopkins). His “Bullet and a Target” appears in both 2006’s The Sentinel (Michael Douglas, Kiefer Sutherland) and Alpha Dog (Emile Hirsch). Cope’s songs have also been included in television shows Scrubs, multiple episodes of One Tree Hill, multiple episodes of Entourage, So You Think You Can Dance and on the soundtrack to the critically acclaimed television show Smallville. A new song, “One Lovely Day,” will appear in the upcoming film Battleship (Liam Neeson, Alexander Skarsgard), scheduled for release in May 2012.
Citizen Cope has toured incessantly throughout his career, building a dedicated following that returns to his concerts time and time again. He now headlines tours year-round in not just major markets in the US, but taking note to regularly perform in secondary markets where a great deal of his fan base resides. Cope performs an average of 100 concerts annually at clubs and major festivals alike. In 2002, he opened for Carlos Santana all across Europe. In 2010, he was invited to be apart of Eric Clapton’s U.S. Crossroads Festivals.
Official Website
The Black Lillies
Knoxville’s own The Black Lillies return for a rare hometown show!
Born in the rumbling cab of a stone truck and aged in the oak of Tennessee’s smoky night haunts, The Black Lillies have quickly risen to the forefront of the Americana scene. Founded by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Cruz Contreras (co-founder of Robinella and the CCstringband), The Black Lillies have created their own unique brand of country, roots, rock and blues via Appalachia. The group, formed in 2008, also includes electric guitar and pedal steel whiz Tom Pryor and drummer Jamie Cook, both formerly of the everybodyfields, bassist Robert Richards, and vocalist Trisha Gene Brady.
In April 2009, The Black Lillies released Whiskey Angel, their debut recording, which was recorded live in Cruz’s living room. The album received rave reviews and appeared on multiple “Best of 2009″ lists across the country, winning the Independent Music Award for Best Album, Americana. The band’s current album, 100 Miles of Wreckage, spent more four months in the top 20 of the Americana radio charts – cinching the spot for the #32 album of the year on that organization’s Top 100 of 2011. Their video for the single “Two Hearts Down” was the number two most requested video on CMT for a two-month period – once again proving that a band with this much spirit can break through traditional industry boundaries to achieve success without the constraints of a major label.
Tour highlights have included stops at festivals including Bonnaroo Music + Arts, Pickathon, CMA Festival & Fan Fair, Americana Music Festival, Four Corners Folk Festival and Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion; appearances on National Public Radio’s Mountain Stage, four separate PBS concert specials, and in June 2011, the band’s debut on the Grand Ole Opry – which they have since played four times, a major feat for an independent act.
The Black Lillies continue to tour non-stop, and without a doubt, they’ll soon be appearing in a town near you. That’s a relative term, of course, but trust us on this – they’re worth the drive, however far it is, because you’ll leave feeling like you’ve witnessed an old-fashion Southern tent revival. These songs will haunt your thoughts long after the curtain closes, rattling through your head like a crooked screen door slaps against its frame when a storm is coming.
Official Website
Darrell Scott
Much of the commentary about Darrell Scott’s career has focused on the songs he’s written that have been recorded by famous names and voices – those known in music industry parlance as “artists.” But then there’s the actual word artist, whose definition has nothing to do with radio hits and red carpets. We refer of course to those who create artifacts of aesthetic and intellectual contemplation and wonder, built from experience, skill, reflection and emotional intent. That’s an artist. And that, at the end of the day, is Darrell Scott.
Scott’s performances at last year’s Rhythm n’ Blooms Festival were undeniably spectacular. The buzz from his first solo acoustic show – a performance that was so packed that people literally were lining up outside the venue to get in – was so strong and so loud that it resulted in an even more packed show later that evening, when he appeared with Casey Driessen. Folks who attended those performances proclaimed them the best of the festival, and more than one said that one performance by Scott was worth the price of an entire weekend festival pass.
We heard your demands for MORE DARRELL SCOTT and we’re bringing him back – this time with a full band. We’ll make sure the venues are larger this time so that everyone can experience the magic that this man creates on stage.
Official Website
Jessica Lea Mayfield
This uncommonly mature 21-year-old singer-songwriter balances the warm-hearted with the cold-blooded. Hey latest album Tell Me is a stunningly forthright 11-song set that addresses late-night longing, serial heartbreak, and intoxicatingly dangerous liaisons conducted in dimly lit barrooms or roadside motels. By the end, the only heart intact is Mayfield’s own. It’s as if she’d stripped the sentimentality and ruefulness from a bunch of classic country songs, leaving only stark emotion. The Black Keys’ singer and guitarist Dan Auerbach, who produced and engineered Tell Me at his Easy Eye Sound System studio in Akron, Ohio, matches Mayfield’s candor with eerily minimal, brilliantly constructed tracks that keep her mesmerizing, unadorned voice front and center.
Mayfield, at least as she portrays herself on record, could have walked out of a darkly dramatic Black Keys murder ballad like “Ten Cent Pistol.” In fact, many of the duo’s fans first learned of Mayfield through a soulful duet with Auerbach, “Things Ain’t Like They Used to Be,” that memorably closed the 2008 Black Keys disc, Attack and Release. Auerbach discovered Mayfield through her 2005 EP White Lies, self-pressed in a single run of 100 copies, that she’d cut at home with her brother, David. Auerbach was impressed enough with this bedroom recording to contact Mayfield via her MySpace page, leaving a simple message: “Hi, my name is Dan, and I play with a band called The Black Keys out of Akron.” Together, they embarked on recording Mayfield’s bare-bones first album, the independently released With Blasphemy So Heartfelt, which garnered an 8.2 rating on Pitchfork and uniformly enthusiastic reviews elsewhere. NPR’s World Café declared she has “a mature sound that seems evolved beyond her years,” while the New York Times added that her sound is “guarded, insinuating, mesmerizing … music that lets you hear all its details.”
Mayfield, who was born in Ohio and partly raised in Tennessee, has been performing since she was eight years old with her family’s bluegrass band, One Way Rider, and she was home-schooled along the way. As she dryly puts it now, “My parents made a point not to let school get in the way of my education.” They traveled in a 1956 tour bus previously used by Ernest Tubb, Bill Monroe, and Kitty Wells. The experience was as formative as it was unconventional: “It contributed to the way I am now, having to be somewhere different all the time, every day. My songwriting, the manner in which I write my songs, was really inspired by playing bluegrass music and playing bluegrass festivals. Sometimes you will hear a bluegrass song that’s upbeat in tempo but really sad in reality. Like, someone is cheating on their wife, ends up stabbing their wife, then killing themselves…”
When she was 11, Mayfield’s family returned to Ohio to care for her ailing grandparents and she started writing songs on her own: “My brother showed me a few chords, and I instantly developed this way that I sound. As a kid, I went through this phase of rebelling and listening to rock bands. I loved the Foo Fighters. So I have this mixture of bluegrass and all different types of music. When I think about it, I can see and hear every band that I’ve listened to in my music. That bit reminds me of the Foo Fighters, this reminds me of that Stone Temple Pilots song. It’s interesting to me to see what other people get out of it when I know where it really came from. People ask me, ‘Do you listen to Lucinda Williams?’ And I say ‘No, I’m just discovering these people. I’ve mostly listened to bluegrass and ’90s rock.’”
Official Website
Jake Shimabukuro
It’s rare for a young musician to earn comparisons to the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Miles Davis. It’s even harder to find an artist who has entirely redefined an instrument by his early thirties. But Jake Shimabukuro has already accomplished these feats, and more, in a little over a decade of playing and recording music…on the ukulele.
Yes, the ukulele. In the hands of Shimabukuro, the traditional Hawaiian instrument of four strings and two octaves is stretched and molded into a complex and bold new musical force. On his most recent album ‘Peace Love Ukulele’ (which debuted at #1 on the Billboard World Album Chart), Jake and his “uke” effortlessly (it seems) mix jazz, rock, classical, traditional Hawaiian music, and folk, creating a sound that’s both technically masterful and emotionally powerful…and utterly unique in the music world. No less than the New York Times recently noted his “buoyant musicianship” and “brisk proficiency,” adding, “the innovation in his style stems from an embrace of restrictions: the ukulele has only four strings and a limited range. He compensates with an adaptable combination of rhythmic strumming, classical-style finger-picking and fretboard tapping.” Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam who recently released his own album of ukulele songs had this to say about Jake: “Jake is taking the instrument to a place that I can’t see anybody else catching up with him.”
For Shimabukuro, his life has always centered on the ukulele. He started playing the instrument at the age of 4, at the urging of his mother (who also played). Originally raised on traditional Hawaiian music, Shimabukuro soon became entranced by the sounds of top 40 and rock. “I’d turn on the radio and try to play along to pop tunes,” he remembers.
Although a few well-received album releases on Sony Music Japan helped the musician earn some fame in Hawaii, his career really skyrocketed when a YouTube clip of him performing “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” in Central Park went viral – over eight-million views and counting.
The clip certainly broadened Shimabukuro’s audience. In the years since that clip aired, Shimabukuro has performed with Bela Fleck and Flecktones, Bette Midler, Yo-Yo Ma, Cyndi Lauper, Ziggy Marley, Levon Helm, Marcus Miller, Stanley Clarke, Les Paul, Dave Koz, Chris Botti, and Jimmy Buffett. He’s played on shows like “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” “The Late Show with Conan O’Brien,” “The Today Show” and “Last Call with Carson Daly,” was a featured artist on NPR’s “Weekend Edition,” and more recently was a featured artist on Rolling Stone Live. He’s landed slots on the Monterrey and Playboy Jazz Festivals, performed at Google and the influential TED conference, and performed in front of the Queen of England.
Despite the success, Jake remains humble and admittedly “awestruck” by how his love of the ukulele has propelled him to such great heights. For that, he gives full credit to the instrument he’s played with a passion since he was four years old. “If everyone played the ukulele, the world would be a better place,” says Shimabukuro.
Official Website: www.jakeshimabukuro.com
Big Sam’s Funky Nation
Big Sam’s Funky Nation is a driving force of urban funk. Ryan White, of the Oregonian, says the band is “tight enough (and hot enough) to turn coal into a diamond!” The band is led by trombone powerhouse, Big Sam Williams, formerly the trombonist for the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, who the San Francisco Chronicle calls “the top man on the slide trombone in the birthplace of jazz.” Big Sam refuses to let the audience sit still. Between the band’s solos, Big Sam’s signature dance moves and his distinctive trombone riffs, the energy level is high voltage when this band takes the stage!
The Funky Nation is a stellar group of world-class musicians who meet the challenges of their funky bandleader. BSFN’s signature Noladelic Powerfunk sound masterfully combines a rock sensibility with the improv-style associated with jazz and the horn-heavy front section that’s the hallmark of big band funk.
Big Sam began playing with the Dirty Dozen at the tender age of 19 before striking out on his own and creating the Funky Nation. While touring with Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint, in the Fall of 2006 and Summer of 2007, he earned consistent reviews as a musical force and star soloist. Big Sam has played with Karl Denson’s Tiny Universe, Dave Matthews, Ozomatli, and Widespread Panic. He has also shared the stage with U2 and Green Day for the emotional and energetic re-opening of the Superdome which was broadcast live on Monday Night Football.
BSFN is a festival favorite across North America and their contagious tunes and memorable live performances have attracted fans far and wide, ranging from New Orleans Jazz & Heritage, Gathering of the Vibes, Telluride Blues & Brews, Doheny Blues Festival, Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo Arts & Music Festival, Wakarusa, Voodoo Music Experience, Bear Creek Music & Arts Festival, LEAF & many more.
Official Website: www.bigsamsfunkynation.com
The Boxer Rebellion
“This band can alter your life.” – NME
UK-based alt-rockers The Boxer Rebellion return to North America following the phenomenal success of albums Exits, Union, and The Cold Still. With a fearsome live reputation – described by England’s Clash Magazine as able to ‘reduce stadia to rubble’ – they deliver epic and intimate in equal proportions with breathtaking musicianship and the evocative vocals of singer Nathan Nicholson, a Maryville TN native.
With a network TV debut from Letterman, a major motion picture appearance, sold-out tours, and unshakeable credibility, expect even bigger things from these guys as they march into 2012.
Chris Knight
“…the sound of Hank Williams with a gun and a Vicodin ‘script” -The Houston Press
Chris Knight is a singer/songwriter from the tiny mining town of Slaughters, KY, whose self-titled debut album invited comparisons to Steve Earle and John Prine. Knight started on his musical journey at just three years old when he requested a plastic guitar for Christmas. At 15, he became more serious when he began teaching himself dozens of John Prine songs on his older brother’s guitar. After earning an agriculture degree from Western Kentucky University, Knight went to work in land reclamation, but in 1986 he heard Earle on the radio and decided to try his hand at writing songs.
After six years of perfecting his story songs about the downtrodden of small-town America, Knight, a coalmine inspector by profession, came to Nashville and won a coveted spot on a songwriters’ night at the Bluebird Cafe. Performing songs like “Framed,” which would eventually wind up on his debut album, he caught the ear of Frank Liddell, who signed him to a publishing deal with Bluewater Music. Knight went back home and kept writing, and when Decca Records hired Liddell for an A&R position, Knight got a record deal. When Decca released his self-titled debut in 1997, Knight still lived in a singlewide house trailer on 90 acres in Slaughters (population 238, including Chris). He has since become a popular name in Americana music, releasing six more albums.
Official Website
Langhorne Slim (solo)
One of the most endearing and standout qualities of Langhorne Slim’s live shows is the sureness that one is always entering a genuine gospel-like musical experience full of little miracles. The charisma and spirit -the “hold your heart” moments and “raise a drink” dance vibes shine throughout. Langhorne’s raspy vocals lead the journey blending his poetry through the beautiful chaos and bearing a wisdom that reflects a broken heart battling the perils of true hope.
Since March 2008, Langhorne Slim has headlined over 150 shows and played major festivals such as Lollapalooza, Bumbershoot, Austin City Limits Festival, Newport Folk Fest, Sunset Junction, Pickathon, Rhythm and Roots, and SXSW. The band garnered heavy acclaim for their performance of “Restless” on the David Letterman show. Langhorne’s songs are staples in television shows and commercials – so even if you don’t think you know him, you probably do.
Gut wrenching lyrics and gorgeous merry melodies-it would be easy to categorize it as folk, but it’s much more complex than just that slice of pie. He’s a true troubadour, and he’ll sweep you off your feet as he commands the stage with his rollicking, passionate, mind-blowing performance.
Official Website
Hoots & Hellmouth
Hoots & Hellmouth are a busy bunch. Road warriors to the bitter end, they’ve somehow found time to enter the studio twice in the last year to produce two records showcasing their forward-thinking roots/soul music. The results speak volumes to the evolution of a band committed to pushing their boundaries and exploring new sonic horizons.
Lyrically, Sean Hoots has always endeavored to keep a keen eye on the craft of songwriting. This is the sound of a writer digging deep, planting seeds and harvesting a bumper crop of thought-provoking, soul-scraping tunes. Touring the old-fashioned way (relentlessly!), the band performs in all manner of venues on their own and with friends like Dr. Dog, O’Death, Heartless Bastards, Langhorne Slim, Grace Potter, etc. From rock clubs to folk festivals, they tour consistently and persistently, including triumphant stops at Wakarusa, the Philadelphia Folk Festival, SXSW, thousands of dive bars and more than a few farms in between.
Official Website
Chris Brubeck’s Triple Play
“Triple Play is what jazz always was and always should be about: good-time rhythm, unbridled joy and the sweet release but bittersweet aftertaste of the blues. If there’s a better old-time blues and jazz harmonica player out there than Madcat Ruth, I’d sure love to know where he lives.” - Paul deBarros, Seattle Times and Downbeat
Triple Play is the name given to three outstanding and versatile musicians, Peter Madcat Ruth (on harmonica, guitar, jaw harp, percussion & vocals), Joel Brown, (folk and classical acoustic guitar and vocals) and Chris Brubeck (electric bass, bass trombone, piano & vocals). Collectively they bring a rare level of joy, virtuosity, and American spirit to the folk, blues, jazz and classical music they perform. Triple Play’s musical roots go way back (nearly 40 years!) in each member’s history. Chris and Madcat have toured and recorded together in different settings since 1969, first as young rock musicians in the group “New Heavenly Blue” (with albums on RCA and Atlantic Records), “Sky King”(on Columbia), and then as jazz musicians touring the world with Dave Brubeck. With an ever-expanding repertoire, the Trio continues to play in concert halls, clubs and festivals all over the country, including the Monterey Jazz Festival as well as performing many of Chris’ symphonic arrangements with orchestras across the U.S.
David Wax Museum
Why do we need museums? They show us something familiar and traditional, while at the same time documenting our innovation, showing us possible directions for the future. This is the same reason we need David Wax Museum – to give us music that is somehow familiar, as if it has always existed somewhere in our cultural ether, but is at the same time undeniably fresh.
Recently anointed as Boston’s Americana Artist of the Year (2010 Boston Music Awards), the David Wax Museum has been called “pure, irresistible joy” (Bob Boilen, NPR) and hailed by TIME.com for its “virtuosic musical skill and virtuous harmonies.” It is no surprise that its acclaimed performance at the 2010 Newport Folk Festival was hailed as one of highlights of the entire weekend by NPR, and that TIME magazine selected theirs as one of the top ten performances from the 2011 South by Southwest. The Museum fuses traditional Mexican folk with American roots and indie rock to create an utterly unique Mexo-Americana aesthetic. Combining Latin rhythms, call-and-response hollering, and donkey jawbone rattling, they have electrified audiences across the country and are “kicking up a cloud of excitement with their high-energy border-crossing sensibility” (The New Yorker).
David Wax’s circuitous journey from mid-Missouri to the back roads of Mexico inspires the Museum’s blend of traditional Mexican and American folk music. While attending Deep Springs College, an unconventional school that doubles as a cattle ranch, David spent his summers working in rural Mexico with the American Friends Service Committee. He finished his degree at Harvard University before heading back to the Mexican countryside to study its rich folk music tradition on a year-long fellowship. It was there that he first began blending Midwestern folk with the instruments, rhythms, lyrical themes and song structures of son mexicano.
Homeschooled by her father on a small farm in rural Virginia, Suz Slezak was reared on music — traditional Irish, classical, old time and folk. She graduated from Wellesley College, traveled around the world on a Watson Fellowship to study textiles, and then found herself back in Boston where she met David Wax, recently returned from his Mexican travels. He convinced her to track down a donkey jawbone, a traditional percussion instrument from Veracruz, and join his band. Suz is the Museum’s anchor to American roots music and helps fashion its distinctive sound with her fiddling and harmony vocals. Since 2007, David and Suz have formed the core of the Museum.
The Museum is closely associated with many of the most innovative Americana bands active today, having toured nationally with The Avett Brothers and the Old 97’s and having shared bills with such acts as Carolina Chocolate Drops, Langhorne Slim, Ben Kweller, The Low Anthem, and Nathaniel Rateliff. Though the band is now packing clubs and theatres across the country and touring with national acts, David Wax Museum cut their teeth playing in living rooms and backyards throughout the country. In these unique settings, the band’s fiery and heart-wrenching shows have created an undeniable buzz and a devoted following.
Official Website
Sam Quinn and Taiwan Twin
In an effort to keep the the good times rolling in a gleefully depressing way, Sam Quinn brings you his latest incarnation of Honest American Music, Taiwan Twin.
Sam Quinn and Taiwan Twin offer toe-tapping and cheek-salting songs of liberation and release to quell the longings of the soul, quiet the whispers of your fears, and quench the spirit that is this great country. The band plays some of the high points from the everybodyfields records, but also a lot of new stuff and, well, just some things that make them feel good. Cause if it feels good you should do it. Right?
Music: let it be fun again, and with a Q.
About Sam: Native son of Southeastern Tennessee. Takes joy in Sakura Pygma Microns, Steve Martin, Oregon, F-100 pickup trucks, and beets; a founding member of the everybodyfields. Left knee was injured in a cycling accident in Portsmouth NH and never made Eagle Scout. Has no pets.
Official Website
Danny Barnes & Tony Furtado
Part southern gentleman, part humble artist, Barnes is widely regarded as one of the most innovative and genre-bending artists of his craft. Barnes’ musical interests are both varied and adventurous and although he demonstrates an appreciation for the history of the bluegrass, country and folk music from which the banjo’s reputation was born, his inventive take is what truly separates him from his contemporaries…using the banjo as his ‘weapon of choice’ to play non-traditional music like rock, fusion and jazz with electronic percussion and loop elements.
On his new album Rocket, Barnes continues to push the envelope and reinvent the wheel with the creation of the ‘Barnjo’; a prototype of a hard body electric banjo with pickups that allow him to showcase his love for rock and roll, and his passion for melding genres together in a style that is quite frankly, all of his own making.
Tony Furtado established himself as a prodigious picker early in his careerᾢhe won two National Bluegrass Banjo Championships, in 1987 and in ‘91. However, during the course of a 20-year career, he’s deftly navigated through several musical styles, in addition to being a fiery slide guitarist and itinerant folkie. Golden, his 15th full-length CD, is his most polished release yet, incorporating several genres while retaining his inherent charm. The gutsy opener “Toe The Line” is a bluesy rocker that weaves finger- picked acoustic strains with harrowing electric guitars. “Can’t Slow Down” addresses his nomadic lifestyle, blending eerie slide guitar and warm banjo, while “Devil’s Dust” is a heartbreaking, blues scorcher. “Angelina” is a lovely, yearning, Latin-tinged ballad, and the instrumental “Portlandia” showcases his exquisite banjo picking.
Official Website – Danny Barnes
Official Website – Tony Furtado
Alice Smith
There comes a time in every artist’s life when they have to step into the spotlight on their own terms. For for Alice Smith, it’s the art (and hard-won battle) of simply being herself.
The NYC-bred singer/songwriter/producer, known for her 4-octave vocal range and stunning stage presence, made a name for herself with her critically-acclaimed 2006 debut album, For Lovers, Dreamers & Me, released on BBE Records. At the time, her artful blend of bluesy, soulful vocals and mid-tempo grooves garnered a passionate following that packed venues like NYC’s Mercury Lounge and Joe’s Pub, while Vibe Magazine gushed that her sound “evoke[s] Fiona Apple’s finest material.” Her single “Dream” was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Urban/Alternative category.
For a young performer who had until recently cut her teeth within the New York Afro-Punk scene—where she sang with Black Rock Coalition and Tamar Kali, and collaborated with Zero 7’s Sia Furler and Imani Coppola—the spotlight attention was a surprise.
The glow dimmed rather quickly, however, when it came time to record her sophomore album. She signed to Epic Records after a bidding war and re-released For Lovers in 2007. The next four years were dedicated to writing and recording new material. Meanwhile, the label went through numerous, well-documented changes to its executive staff. For an artist who had always been self-reliant, Alice suddenly found herself at an impasse. Though she was producing new material at a steady clip, it was being held back by the inner workings of her label. Though she recorded countless tracks, they lingered on the shelf. While her reps tried to mold her into something she was not, fans showed that they love her as she is—they packed her performances, demanding new music. It was a wake-up call for the fiercely independent singer. “It’s almost embarrassing, to be performing a sold-out show and people are asking me where the new music is,” recalls Alice, adding that she had so little control over her own music, that she didn’t even know when her fans might get the chance to hear it.
Today, Alice looks forward to finally giving her fans a hotly anticipated dose of new music. The new collection reveals the same passions of the “country at heart” singer, raised between Washington DC and Augusta, Georgia. Surrounded by everything from go-go, to gospel, to pop, she crafted her own stories blending elements from her favorite genres. Alice takes a unique approach to soul, tempered by a heady dose of rock and her own personal take on matters of the heart.
With notes of ‘60s pop, Burt Bacharach-style melodies and that intoxicating element of attitude, Alice’s sound has evolved, adding lush, orchestral arrangements and multi-hued melodies. Though she has always been an artist at heart, Alice is now a mother, and she’s been through some powerful experiences over the past few years. She emerges with new insights to realize through song. Still singing, of course, but today, stepping out independently, she has all the more reason to give ‘em something they can feel.
Official Website
Paleface
Paleface was discovered by Danny Fields (The Stooges, The Ramones, MC5) at an NYC Antifolk open mic in the early 90′s. He has since released over a dozen records including two major label releases (Sire, Polydor). He’s toured nationally with acts such as The Breeders and Billy Bragg, and has influenced a wide range of artists including Grammy Award recipients Kimya Dawson and Beck, who called Paleface “a big influence on my early work”.
After a long recovery from alcohol abuse which nearly claimed his life in the late 90s, Paleface returned to NYC’s Antifolk scene in the 2000′s and befriended, influenced and inspired a new breed of artists including The Moldy Peaches, Regina Spektor, Langhorne Slim, and Jeffrey Lewis among others. It was around this time that Paleface began self-releasing some of his best work yet. After finishing his self-released Americana gem, Just About To Burn, Paleface met The Avett Brothers, who loved his work. Seth Avett has said the album is his “favorite all-time record by a friend”. Paleface has collaborated and guest-performed on three of the Avett’s latest records.
On April 2009, Paleface returned with his Ramseur Records debut and first label release in over a decade, The Show is on the Road. Soon after the record released it landed on the CMJ Charts and PASTE Magazine featured the duo as ‘Band Of The Week’. Paleface and drummer Mo spent the next year touring from coast to coast in support of the album, including performances at festivals such as Pickathon (Portland, OR), Riverbend (Chattanooga TN) and Bristol Rhythm And Roots (Bristol, VA-TN), as well as showcases such as Tennessee Shines @ Bijou Theatre, (Non-com (WXPN & World Cafe Live, Philadelphia PA), and South By Southwest Festival (Austin, TX).
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Yarn
Brooklyn-based Americana/Alt-Country band Yarn’s sound owes as much to Gram Parsons and Earl Scruggs as to Jerry Garcia and Exile On Main Street-era Rolling Stones. Following in a fine tradition that includes forward thinking roots bands like The Flying Burrito Brothers and New Riders of The Purple Sage, Yarn weaves roots music idioms into a fresh sound that turns on hipsters and fans of country music alike, with technically impressive song-crafting and universal tales from the road of life.
On Yarn’s latest release, Leftovers, Volume 1 you’ll hear vintage tracks recorded during the band’s first studio sessions back in 2006 and 2007. With this retro-collection, listens witness the poignant emotion and emotive story-telling that has come to define the sextet’s sound, which straddles the genres of Americana and alt-country, with a dash of jam-band.
Their self-titled debut record reached No. 14 on the AMA and R&R Radio Charts, and ranked No. 79 on the AMA’s Top 100 Albums of 2007. Yarn’s 2008 follow-up, Empty Pockets, spent months in the top 5 on the AMA chart and was honored with eight first round 2009 Grammy nominations in several categories. Yarn’s third release, Come on In, held it’s own as the #25 record on the top 100 Americana chart of 2010.
Yarn is touring intensively and their impressive live shows continue to build the buzz and the fanbase fueled by their first four records.
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Kris Delmhorst
Kris Delmhorst has built a thriving career and a devoted following from the ground up, and without major label hype. The same independence of spirit that led Delmhorst to spend some early years working on subsistence farms, cooking on a schooner off the coast of Maine, or hitch-hiking the back roads of Ireland with a fiddle on her back, is evident in the arc of her musical evolution: a willingness to work on her own terms and her own time. Along the way she’s parlayed a decade of successful cross country and trans-Atlantic touring into one of the most distinct voices in American music.
With her arresting new album Shotgun Singer, Delmhorst has trained that voice on a series of gracefully open lyrics and figures that transcend genre, ranging into the borderlands between indie-rock and folk, that nameless territory inhabited by such hard-to-classify artists as Juana Molina, Feist, Iron & Wine, and Laura Veirs. Holed up in a rural cabin with minimal recording gear and a houseful of instruments, Delmhorst recorded her new songs alone and off the clock, in late night sessions that yielded layers of intimate vocals combined with nylon string and electric guitars, cellos, keyboards, and percussion. She treated the work like oil painting, allowing the canvas to breathe and change over the course of many months until the picture emerged. With the core of each song patiently assembled, she brought in a diverse cast of players to add sparse backing lines of drums, keys, guitar, and vinyl-based samples, and then signed on co-producer Sam Kassirer (Josh Ritter) in arrangement and mixing, enlisting him meanwhile to play keyboards and percussion on several songs. The result is collection of songs fully realized and even lush at times, but retaining a hushed intensity, a spirit of lo-fi intimacy and unhurried exploration.
Adventurous, elegant, lucid, and haunting, the record is the work of a musician at full stride who has found a musical language equal to her vision.
Mandolin Orange
Mandolin Orange is songwriter Andrew Marlin and Emily Frantz. The Chapel Hill, NC duo ornaments lyric and harmony focused tunes with acoustic and electric guitars, fiddle and mandolin. Their instrumentation draws on bluegrass and rock-and-roll alike, keeping Marlin’s dark lyrical themes at the forefront of their country sound. The duo released a sophomore double LP entitled Haste Make | Hard Hearted Stranger on November 8, 2011, and will continue to tour in support of the album in 2012.
Haste Make was recorded with bassist Jeff Crawford and drummer James Wallace in winter 2010/2011 at Arbor Ridge Studios West in Franklin, NC and at Arbor Ridge Studios in Chapel Hill, and was produced by Crawford and Mandolin Orange. Hard Hearted Stranger was recorded in summer 2011 at Rubber Room Studios in Chapel Hill and features Andrew and Emily alone, produced by Andrew Marlin.
Quiet Little Room was produced, recorded and engineered by Marlin and Frantz at Rubber Room Studios in Chapel Hill. The intimate and sparse style of the tracks met critical acclaim in several reviews. Independent Weekly’s Rick Cornell states that “all across the record is the sound of voices and instruments in the dark, finding light.” Swampland.com’s James Calemine likens the album’s harmonies to those of Gram Parsons and Emmylou Harris. Muzzle of Bees notes that their “focus moves from the instrumentation to the melody and ethos of songs … a little bit grassy, a little bit country-folk, a little bit something else.”
Since their debut release, Mandolin Orange has shared bills with Rosanne Cash, Chatham County Line, the Steep Canyon Rangers and Abigail Washburn, and performed at festivals such as Shakori Hills Grassroots, Hopscotch Music Fest, Beaufort Music Festival, and Albino Skunk Festival (SC).
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Cheyenne Marie Mize
Whimsical, haunting, dreamlike music that eschews the traditional formulae, Cheyenne Marie Mize presents a rainbow of juxtapositions. The New York Times described her 2010 debut, Before Lately, as “sweet without being cloying, weary without hopelessness,” noting the vast space between notes, yet lack of air.
Before Lately was a slow-burning, introspective, meditative affair. Her follow-up EP, We Don’t Need (out Jan. 24, 2012 on Yep Rock) offers an expansion of the sonic palette she’s established – with more dynamic moods, instrumentation, and experimentation. Using only a dense array of percussion, the opener “Wishing Well” nods to both classic R&B flavors and adventurous modern pop. A somber funeral march provides the backbeat of “Don’t Call Me Beautiful” before Cheyenne showcases her upbeat troubadour chops within the resplendent piano swing of “Going Under.” “Keep It” and “It Lingers” conjures a bombastic form of classic college radio songwriting. Instrumental album closer “Back Around” goes full desert chamber rock – monolithic walls of cavernous sound fill the backdrop behind spacey vocal samples and cinematic strings.
We Don’t Need does not fit easily into a box. The record does work as a whole, though, thanks to the constant winding its way through this varied landscape. Lending a cohesion to this sonic kaleidoscope is voice that Daytrotter described as “a tone that allows you to stretch your head back to that last great and true love that you experienced – the best form of it that ever came your way – and feel as if it never left.”
Mize introduced herself internationally on the 10″ release Among the Gold with Bonnie “Prince” Billy – an inventive take on a variety of late 19th century American parlor music handpicked by Mize and Oldham. She continued her alliance with Ben Sollee and Daniel Martin Moore as a major player in the Dear Companion tour supporting their collaborative Sub Pop release in early 2010. After the release of her debut later that year and subsequent performances at South By Southwest, Mize was chosen by NPR as one of their ten “Discoveries at SXSW 2011.”
Official Website
The Ragbirds
Like a mix tape made by a well-traveled friend, The Ragbirds’ music is diverse and foreign, yet somehow familiar. The voice at the front of The Ragbirds carries the freshness of the journey itself, and the lyrics point out the scenery like a friendly tour guide.
Their music is the soundtrack of the observant road-warrior, with layers of world grooves that stir the listener to move. The songs strike a balance between home and adventure, drawing upon elements of Pop, Gypsy, Afro-Cuban, Celtic, Middle Eastern and African sounds, with a little Cajun spice.
The energy of multi-instrumentalist Erin Zindle demands attention. She is the songwriter and front woman of the band, skillfully switching between violin, mandolin, accordion, banjo and percussion, all while dancing. Zindle wears an infectious smile and a positive message, always spun through a poetic loom. This interest in world music came first from her own roots. With two Irish grandmothers, the young violinist struck ancestral gold when she discovered Celtic fiddling as a teenager. At this same time the music of artists like Paul Simon, Rusted Root, and Peter Gabriel stirred up a deeper longing, bringing distant ethnic sounds into her small suburban Buffalo, NY bedroom. She began seeking out the source of these sounds and her love for travel and world music became a life-long passion.
Zindle and percussionist Randall Moore, her husband, began their relationship busking on the streets of Ann Arbor with Celtic and gypsy fiddling over tricky beats of tambourine, Middle-Eastern doumbek and tabla. In 2005 the duo gathered three band mates and began to record Erin’s original songs. This recording was released a few months later as The Ragbirds debut album “Yes Nearby”.
2007′s travel-themed “Wanderlove” was Homegrown Music Network’s #1 selling album in the fall of 2008. Erin’s brother, guitarist T.J. Zindle, joined the band in 2008 and brought a grittier rock-n-roll edge to The Ragbirds’ sound while multiplying the band’s stage energy. The 2009 international release of “Finally Almost Ready” saw the band invade Japan with the single “Book of Matches” reaching #1 on the charts in Osaka. In 2010 the current lineup came together with bassist Brian Crist and drummer Loren Kranz ,and The Ragbirds reached yet another milestone in their young careers when they independently marketed and sold their 10,000th album.
The Ragbirds’ albums have received local and national praise, hailed “Highly impressive!” by USA Today and touted as “Astounding international eclecticism” by Reveal Arts. In just six years the band has performed in over forty states to a tune of 150+ shows a year. Crisscrossing the nation in their converted diesel bus that runs on recycled waste vegetable oil, promoting environmental sustainability, The Ragbirds have become festival favorites. They have won over crowds at Rothbury, 10,000 Lakes, CMJ Music Marathon, Summer Camp, Electric Forest, Wheatland, Blissfest, Wookiefoot’s Harvest Fest, Ann Arbor Folk Festival, Hookahville, and many more.
Official Website
King Super and the Excellents
King Super and the Excellents are a new breed of Knoxville supergroup … accomplished musicians each in their own right who come together for debauchery, fun, and most of all, a hell of a good show. It’s what Steve Wildsmith of the Maryville Daily Times calls “zany insanity” … it’s cover tunes like you’ve never heard them before … and it’s a late night performance that will leave you dancing as hard as you are laughing.
Spirit Family Reunion
Spirit Family Reunion has only been a band for three years, but you wouldn’t know it from listening to their songs. All dusty acoustic guitars, wailing fiddles and weeping accordions, with a woozy-yet-skintight rhythm section—and topped off with burr-edged vocals that sound like they’ve been soaked in a Mason jar for generations—it’s the type of music that blurs the line between past and present so thoroughly, and so deftly, that time feels irrelevant.
All of which is intentional, according to vocalist and guitarist Nick Panken. “I like it when you can listen to music and nothing disqualifies it from being a really old song or a new song,” he explains. “I mean, I love Hank Williams and Woody Guthrie, but I also love artists that were influenced by them, like The Band and Neil Young. And then I love people who were influenced by them, like Gillian Welch. When we play longer sets, we’ll play our songs and their songs, and it’ll all even out—and hopefully nobody is able to tell the difference.”
The band is hardly alone in its acoustic-driven approach—old-time instruments are the new black, popping up on indie rock records and newgrass albums with equal frequency—but if Spirit Family Reunion is part of a trend, Panken says it’s an accident. “It’s a good time to be doing this,” he admits. “For whatever reason, this kind of rootsy thing is on a lot of people’s minds now. That isn’t why we’re playing what we’re playing, but I think the fact that it’s appealing to so many people right now has helped create a lot of opportunities for us—and helped make it so we’re not just dismissed outright as some kind of tribute act.”
To hear Panken tell it, the band has always been more about the—pardon the pun—spirit than the craft. “We’re lucky that it just kind of comes out,” he says of their sound. “We don’t really work out the harmonies so much—or anything, really. You know, the band kind of came together on the street—playing at the farmer’s market, or the train, or the parks and stuff. To do that, we have to play really loud to be heard. I have to sing really loud. The keys that I need to sing really loud are the same ones that everyone else needs to do their thing. It just fits right in—it works. When we started playing together, it felt like something really special.
“Ken, our bass player, had been away for a little while,” Panken continues. “He was traveling, working on some farms, and he came back to the area to play with us and do a little touring. Last month was actually the first time he’d toured with us, and he said ‘I think we should call the band Spirit Family Vacation, because this is a lot of fun!’ Music is definitely the glue, but this feels like family.”
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Angel Snow
The highest caliber of artistry is often intertwined with the deepest sincerity. Such is the case with rising star Angel Snow, whose music is the truest and most honest reflection of her life. Her story plays out in self-penned songs, where detail by detail she lets the listener in on her innermost thoughts, hopes, and dreams. Sometimes sorrowful, often hopeful, and always looking toward faith, Snow’s music is nothing if not sincere. Combine this honesty with sweeping folk melodies and bluesy guitar riffs, and the result is the captivating landscape of sound.
Fate and faithful perseverance have brought Snow to the present, as she prepares to release her second full-length album. With a major boost from acclaimed star Alison Krauss, Snow’s lifelong dreams are coming to fruition. Krauss and Union Station recorded three songs written by Snow for the deluxe edition of the band’s latest album. Additionally, Alison introduced Snow to her brother Viktor Krauss. Snow was the lyricist that instrumentalist Viktor Krass had long been searching for—and the two immediately began collaborating.
Much like the music of her greatest influences, Snow’s songs veer between imagined stories and real-life experiences, always showing incredible sympathy for the suffering and downtrodden. Among her favorite songwriters are Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, Peter Gabriel, Brian Eno, Bob Dylan, Trent Reznor, and Elliot Smith.
Fans may be surprised to find out that Angel Snow is her given name, chosen by her brothers who were five and three at the time. The lofty moniker proved fitting, and she was living up to it at an early age. Snow started singing in the church choir at age six and was soon stealing the spotlight with solo performances. She wrote her first song at age nine, but it would be several years later before she realized that music was her life’s calling.
Kevin Abernathy
When hot shot rock guitarist, storyteller Kevin Abernathy leaves his Les Paul and amp at home, the listener gets the stripped down version of his songs. This occasional downshift has been the preview to a new acoustic based solo album due out in late spring entitled “Some Stories.” Abernathy, with the help of some of East Tennessee’s best musicians, recorded six new tracks as well as new versions of familiar songs like “Noticed The Moon” and “The Ring Line.” Album co-producer Sean McCollough (of The Lonetones) and multi-instrumentalist Greg Horne accompany Abernathy in a collaboration that turns down the volume and gets to the essence of Abernathy’s moving and sometimes humorous songs.
Jeff Barbra & Sarah Pirkle
Jeff and Sarah are longtime, integral, and essential members of the Knoxville area music scene. They are a husband and wife team who perform as a duo, as solo artists, and as members of some of the Knoxville area’s favorite bands. Whether they’re together, solo, or part of a band, they are successful and award winning songwriters and top-notch performers.
Jeff and Sarah play original acoustic music seasoned with flavors of American roots music: bluegrass, classic country, old-time, and folk. With Jeff on guitar and mandolin and Sarah on fiddle, this duo combines experienced voices with solid musicianship to create new sound with an old fashioned twist.
They were 1st Place Winners of the Merlefest Songwriting Contest and have performed their winning song, “When I Come Home” for a crowd of 50,000 people at Merlefest. Along with her solo and duo work, Sarah plays fiddle and sings with the Naughty Knots. Jeff plays with our favorite hardcore honky tonkin’ band The Drunk Uncles.
Josh Oliver
East TN native Josh Oliver has spent the past five years as a side man, touring all over the United States, singing harmony, playing lead guitar and piano with the likes of the everybodyfields, Sam Quinn + Japan 10, and Jill Andrews. And now, with his debut album, Troubles, he’s taking a stab at being out front. The album features both original and traditional material, including a unique take on Townes Van Zandt’s, “White Freightliner Blues,” and a mournful rendering of the Carter Family tune, “I Never Will Marry.” The album features Oliver on lead vocals, guitar, and keys, as well as familiar faces Brandon Story on upright bass, Megan Gregory on fiddle and vocals, and Sam Quinn on harmony vocals. Troubles, a warm and inviting collection of songs, harkens back to a simpler time, whether it’s through the contemporary renderings of traditionals or the traditional style of Oliver’s self-penned tunes. This album, from start to finish, is a piece of classic, easy Americana.
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Jamie Cook
While well-known as a sideman and the anchor of the rhythm sections of such renowned bands as the everybodyfields and The Black Lillies, Jamie Cook is equally at home at the front of the stage. The multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter’s honeyed vocals and delicate musicianship come together to create a sound that is both compelling and infinitely soothing.
Canon Blue
Rumspringa is the 11-song orchestral pop marvel from Canon Blue, the solo project from American singer-songwriter Daniel James. The record was written while touring the world with Danish indie rock band Efterklang, and primarily recorded in the off-hours at their Copenhagen studio. A tour de force if there ever was one, Rumspringa is a classical exploration of emotions, with nuanced arrangements of woodwinds, brass and percussion lending a unique tenderness to modern melodies and lyrics.
After recording the record’s skeleton in Copenhagen, James traveled to Iceland to record orchestral arrangements with renowned string quartet Amiina (most famously recognized as Sigur Rós’ string section). The expansive, gleeful result is an ingenious combination of the old and the new, a lush minimalism that allows James’ graceful lyrics to float through the air as if time is suspended. Rumspringa’s songs combine the soulful intimacy of Jeff Buckley and the playful whimsy of Sufjan Stevens with the stately meditation of Steve Reich and Philip Glass.
Canon Blue’s auspicious beginnings are rooted in the 2007 debut album, Colonies, a bedroom electronic folk collaboration with Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor. Rumspringa sees James fully realizing his role as both composer and songwriter, something he has learned through his years on the road. Having explored the world and explored his own musical potential and desires, this is the result—a record that is neither new nor old, neither completely contemplative nor completely giddy, but certainly complete, and certainly a wonder to behold.
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Katie Powderly
Katie Powderly’s music permeates the boundaries of genre, inhabiting a space somewhere between alt-country and folk. It transcends the confines of linear chronology, as well; it is vintage and current, nostalgic and prophetic. Respectful of tradition while remaining relevant, Powderly presents a promising musical hybrid in her painstakingly hand-hewn tunes.
The key elements of her music are her harrowingly honest lyrics sung with an almost rebellious resolve to endure in the face of immense loss. She is weary, but never weak; bewildered, but never broken; discouraged, but never defeated. There is defiance in her delivery, suggestive of an unseen strength simmering just below the surface. Her hopefulness is at times fragile. But it is there. She might be lovelorn, but she is not lost. Not for long, anyway.
One listen is all it takes to become consumed by Powderly’s songs, convinced of the depth of her conviction and captivated by her voice and its intense vulnerability. The themes in her work-loneliness and love, desperation and deliverance, rejection and redemption-resonate within all of us, so her listeners experience each one of her salted wounds and hard-won triumphs alongside her.
She does not rest upon the laurels of her singing voice. Rather, her rhythm guitar is the foundation upon which she carefully places pedal steel, fiddle, electric guitar, baritone guitar, and a melody and harmony so in sync with one another you’d think her melody was a horse upon which harmony galloped across her songs’ vast auditory landscapes.
The result is as real as it is riveting: an endearing mixture of immediacy, intimacy, and imperfection. It is acoustic American music with that you-know-it-when-you- hear-it authenticity. And it is anything but commonplace.
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Lydia Salnikova
Born and raised in Russia, Lydia originally made her stand in the U.S. music scene as a lead vocalist and keyboard player for the Grammy-nominated band Bering Strait, which released 2 albums on Universal South Records and was featured in a “60 Minutes” episode, as well as a full-length documentary, “The Ballad Of Bering Strait”. The band toured throughout the U.S., sharing the stage with such artists as Trisha Yearwood, Diamond Rio, Steve Azar, Carolyn Dawn Johnson, Collin Raye, Wynonna, Phil Vassar, B-52s, Ricky Skaggs, Kenny Rogers, Kathy Mattea and Bela Fleck.
While having developed an appreciation and love for both classical and country music, Lydia eventually found that when it came down to just her and her piano and her writing, she was tapping into quite a different musical place, its flavor being soulful, emotional and highly introspective. She was compelled to leave Bering Strait in 2006 to start searching for her own voice, not that of a singer or a player in a band but that of a solo artist. Between experimenting in the studio and playing live in a trio setting, she began finding it.
Lydia’s first solo offering, album titled “Hallway”, was recorded in her home studio. She has written or co-written every song on the album, and one of those songs scored her a nomination for a 2011 Hollywood Music in Media Award.
Finally, Lydia has recently had the honor of performing for NASA at Space Center Houston, where she was overjoyed to discover that some of her music had already been played in space!
Official Website
Farewell Milwaukee
On May 17th, Minneapolis based Farewell Milwaukee released their sophomore album, When It Sinks In. Formed in 2008, Farewell Milwaukee has charted a course down familiar paths blazed by folks like Jackson Browne, Ryan Adams and the Jayhawks; all focused on the power of honest, confessional songwriting with no pretense or ulterior motives.
Every winter Ben Lubeck (principal songwriter and lead singer) holes himself up in his lakeside home with the goal of writing as many songs as he can. The winter of 2009/2010 provided no reprieve from brutally cold ice and snow but Lubeck’s writing focused on warmth, hope and love.
When Spring broke Farewell Milwaukee narrowed down Lubeck’s writings, creating When It Sinks In. Recorded in Nashville with producer/engineer Brad Bivens (Kings of Leon, Cold War Kids, Norah Jones), the album finds Farewell Milwaukee transitioning from the heavier subject material of their first album Autumn Rest Easy to a joyful exploration of love in all its forms.
Sonically, When It Sinks In is full of rich acoustic work with slow burners, like the title track as well as rough-and-tumble rockers, such as “Ain’t No Rules”. The opener “The Wallpaper’s Gonna Swallow You Whole” is a rousing start fueled by keys and the group’s strong use of four vocalists.
The heart of the album is reached on the closing track, “Lovable/Kind” providing the perfect synopsis of the unabashed hope you’ll find throughout When It Sinks In. All five members of Farewell Milwaukee make no attempt to conceal their pride for their respective hometowns in the Midwest and the place they now call home, Minneapolis/St. Paul, MN.
Farewell Milwaukee holds value in connecting with the people and the landscape that produces such diverse talents as Bob Dylan and Prince. This Midwestern identity makes When It Sinks In the perfect accompaniment on a trek west to the Black Hills or the ideal jukebox pick at the backroads bar you would find along the way.
Official Website
Fort Atlantic
The Winter Sounds
“The Winter Sounds opt for national attention, churning out a well-coalesced mixtape of indie rock’s finer moments from the past 10 years, resulting in a familiarly anthemic wall of guitars, electronics, strings and melancholy meoldies that all add up to a no-brainer for critical acclaim.” - Seth Graves, The Nashville Scene
“The Winter Sounds [are] the hardest working, most under appreciated band that you haven’t heard of but should.” - Rube Ambler, Atlalist.com
“Do they really sound like winter? Yes, because keyboards-and-beats-infused bleeding heart anthems in the key of Mumford conjure warm refuge from icy roads and bleak skies.” - Chris Deville, The Columbus Dispatch
“Patrick Keenan sings about in a way that mysteriously sounds like the very definition of what the British blokes cream themselves over. Yet, there’s this very subtle American emotionalism to it that savors – oddly enough – the fragility of a thousand compressed feelings, once all strewn about, but now collected and focused upon specific loves of tragic consequence and dimensions.” - Sean Moeller, Daytrotter
The Seedy Seeds
“For all the whirling bits and pieces… the band generates a surprisingly cohesive sound… It’s dizzying, perplexing and wonderfully fun.”
—Claire Blaustein, NPR (Song of the Day)
“I assumed that a band using an iPod, accordion, kazoo, guitar and banjo had to be kitschy and, well, not too great. I was humbled. They tore it up.” — Sean Cannon, BUZZGRINDER
“We are a brainy band from Cincinnati, Ohio. We know we want world domination, we just don’t want to be jerks about it.” – The Seedy Seeds
Annabelle’s Curse
Hailing from Bristol, VA, Annabelle’s Curse has moved beyond roots in traditional folk to create something truly different with a style all their own. Founded in 2010, Annabelle’s biggest challenge has been to define their music to someone who has not heard it. The band was started in hopes to play the kind of music they wanted to see in their hometown; something that was grounded in the tradition of the area but came off as modern and inventive.
Within weeks of booking their first shows, the band had many followers eager to stomp their feet, sing along, and howl to their dynamic and soulful live show. Their kinetic energy has drawn an array of crowds at festivals and events such as Bristol’s Rhythm and Roots Reunion, The Blue Plum, Rhythm N’ Blooms, The Red White and Bluegrass Festival, BorderBash, etc.
Instead of looking for ways to get noticed, Annabelle’s Curse refused to let their ambitions get ahead of their own self-evaluations and instead focused on crafting an album truly representative of their unique musical style. The result is their 2011 freshman release “Monsters”, a supercharged full length 13-track album that captures the spirit of their live performance intertwined with the climactic dynamism of their songwriting.
With an album moving them into the next chapter of the band’s quickly growing history, the brothers that make up Annabelle’s Curse are ready to throw the chips in and play anywhere if someone will listen.
O Youth
“O Youth! The strength of it, the faith of it, the imagination of it!” novelist Joseph Conrad insists in his autobiographical short story “Youth”. The phrase “O Youth” is common in English literature, and the belief in the power and beauty of youth is the basis for all the songs and goals of Knoxville’s Doom Folk / Art Punk band O Youth.
While all six of its members are East Tennessee natives, five are currently transplanted to Middle Tennessee State University and Belmont pursuing knowledge in music performance and audio production. These kids enjoy both fruit snacks and good cinema, and while many of them have been friends for years, they only recently formed their permanent lineup as of November 2011. Brad Fugate, Zach Gilleran, Travis Bigwood, and Zoë Nutt all graduated from high schools in Knox County, later meeting Will Houston of Athens, TN and Matthew Campbell of Chattanooga, TN in college. Their music ranges from alt country train stomps and four part harmonies to rock and roll story songs and classic guitar solos. With plenty of songs of learning and even more songs of hope, O Youth is excited to have a great time with you.
