Chris Knight
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLY CHRIS KNIGHT After 23 years as a recording artist, singer-songwriter Chris Knight remains boldly empowered to make music that always delivers the unflinching truth. In fact, the man raised in Slaughters, Kentucky uses a simple, direct barometer to regularly check his muse: “If I can’t believe myself, I won’t sing the song.” That brutally honest, no-frills philosophy fits his Americana-fueled, backwoods-grown merger of folk, country, and rock. It’s been at the backbone of nine studio albums, beginning with 1998’s acclaimed self-titled debut and traveling through scorchers such as the one-two punch of 2001’s A Pretty Good Guy and 2003’s The Jealous Kind, two demo-styled discs (2007’s The Trailer Tapes and 2009’s Trailer II), and the recent, electric guitar-fortified opus, 2019’s Almost Daylight. Because Knight’s music has always sat outside of the mainstream, onstage is where he makes his fans one show at a time. It is exactly where his searing tales of rural characters, fringe survivors, and tumultuous small-town existence find a captivated audience. A few edgy, raw gems that immediately come to mind are “It Ain’t Easy Being Me,” “Carla Came Home,” “I’m William Callahan,” and “Everybody’s Lonely Now,” the latter two from Almost Daylight. “I’ve written songs about a lot of different things going all the way back to my first record,” he says, “and some folks still think ‘somebody kills somebody’ is all I write about.” What Knight writes about is what he knows. He was raised in mining country, so it’s no surprise that he would earn a degree in agriculture from Western Kentucky University and then work as a mine reclamation inspector and then miner’s consultant. But eventually his passion for writing songs and playing guitar, both inspired by his musical hero, the late John Prine, led him to chronicle his surroundings in words and music. “I came from a big family and grew up in the woods six miles from two small towns, so there were a lot of stories,” he says. “There were always a lot of ideas to write about.”Those ideas have earned Knight praise from publications such as The New York Times (“the last of a dying breed…a taciturn loner with an acoustic guitar and a college degree”) and USA Today (“a storyteller in the best traditions of Mellencamp and Springsteen”), to name a few. Like his beloved Prine, whom Knight duets with on Prine’s chestnut “Mexican Home,” the cut that closes Almost Daylight, Knight fits comfortably in Texas honky-tonks, downtown Nashville venues, and cool Manhattan rock clubs. It’s no wonder that Knight has single-handedly scraped a reputation as one of America’s most uncompromising and respected singer-songwriters through 23 years and nine studio albums. He’s done this minus fanfare and artifice. The native son of Slaughters, Kentucky (population: 238) only sings songs he believes. He also speaks only when he has a potent message. “If I don’t have something worth saying, I’m not opening my mouth. I haven’t suited everybody, but every time I get a new fan it tells me I’m doing something right. I think all my records have set a precedent, if only for me at the very least. I just want people to think the latest one stands up to everything else I’ve done.” MIC HARRISON
Adeem the Artist
ALL AGESSEATED SHOW ADEEM THE ARTIST As they began working on a new batch of songs, Adeem the Artist was busy thinking about the way a lifetime of experiences can pile up in a person’s brain. “Traumatic events and warm events leave psychological imprints — there’s this pattern to it,” says the Knoxville, Tennessee-based performer. “Different moments and different impressions throughout our lives will ripple out and demand repeated engagement. They play out in little holidays that we celebrate over and over.” Those patterns and markers of time are a crucial thread running through Adeem’s new album Anniversary, due out May 3, 2024 via Thirty Tigers. Recorded live to tape over five days at The Butcher Shop (Nashville, TN) and produced by Butch Walker (Taylor Swift, Frank Turner) with the master musicianship of Megan Coleman (Jenny Lewis and Allison Russell), Nelson Williams (Jake Blount), Ellen Angelico (Wheeler Walker Jr.), Jessye DeSilva, Aaron Lee Tasjan, and Katie Pruitt, the 12-song collection is a stunning statement of empathy, humor, and deep introspection. The groundwork for Anniversary began in earnest after Adeem met Walker for coffee, having caught the producer’s attention with some spirited shitposting on social media. Adeem had been a fan since Walker’s solo album Sycamore Meadows, which they heard while living in the Syracuse, New York, area after high school. “I was absolutely obsessed,” they say. “I was a Christian worship pastor and having all these doubts. The religious questioning and soul searching Butch was doing on that record was so important for me.” Walker’s ability to blend sounds from classic to contemporary, commercial to experimental, gives Adeem license to play with a range of musical styles on Anniversary, while still remaining tethered to country and roots music. Fittingly, Anniversary also arrives on the date of Adeem’s marriage to their spouse Hannah, bringing with it a heightened sense of intimacy and urgency from a songwriter whose work is characterized by fearless, incisive lyric writing. “This one feels a lot more personal and earnest — a lot of it is very close to the chest,” Adeem says. “This record is a marker as well as a collection of individual markers. I’m saying, ‘This is who I am as an artist and this is the world I want to try to help create.’” SUG DANIELS Sug Daniels is a Delaware born, Philadelphia based, singer-songwriter, story teller, and producer who is using the tools around her to capture the emotions of an era. Daniels’ work is as colorful, vulnerable, and charismatic as her personality. She thoughtfully combines elements of folk, rock, and soul alternatives to create personal and tender music interlaced with messages of truth and positive change.
CANCELED: FREE PATIO SHOW: Jordan Smart
ALL AGES LIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVE ***THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED*** JORDAN SMART “A gut punch of simple honesty” – Glide Magazine Jordan Smart is a folk singer based in Latonia, KY. Covering a broad range of subjects — from parental epiphanies and questionable lavatory visits, scathing political commentary and hitchhiking cross country, satirical talking blues to love, loss, grief and even pickles — Smart aims to have a song for every occasion. If he can’t make you laugh, cry, or at very least think, feel free to approach him for a refund.
Yarn Holiday Ball
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLY YARN You might expect a band that calls itself Yarn to, naturally, tend to spin a yarn or two. “That’s what we do, we tell stories, live and in the studio, truth and fiction”,singer/songwriter Blake Christiana insists. “We don’t always opt for consistency. There’s a different vibe onstage from what comes through in our recordings. There’s a difference in every show as well, you never know what you’re going to get.” Yarn’s ability to persevere ought to come as no great surprise, especially for a band that spent two years honing their chops during a Monday night residency at the famed Kenny’s Castaway in New York’s Greenwich Village. In effect, it allowed them to rehearse onstage, mostly in front of audiences that often ranged in size from five to a hundred people on any given night. 10 studio albums followed — Yarn (2007), Empty Pockets (2008), Leftovers Part One (2009), Come On In (2010), Leftovers Part 2 (2011), Almost Home (2012), Shine the Light On (2013), This Is The Year (2016), and Lucky 13 parts 1 & 2 (2019). The band then took to the road, playing upwards of 170 shows a year and sharing stages with such superstars as Dwight Yoakam, Charlie Daniels, Railroad Earth, Marty Stuart, Allison Krauss, Leon Russell, Jim Lauderdale, Leftover Salmon, Amos Lee, The Lumineers and many more. They’ve driven nonstop, made countless radio station appearances, driven broken-down RVs and watched as their van caught fire. They’ve paid their dues and then some, looking forward even as they were forced to glance behind. Indeed, the accolades piled up quickly along the way. They have landed on the Grammy ballot 4 times, garnered nods from the Americana Music Association, placed top five on both Radio and Records and the AMA album charts, garnered airplay on Sirius XM, iTunes, Pandora, CNN, and CMT, been streamed millions of times on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon, and also accorded the “Download of the Day” from Rolling Stone. Shine the Light On found shared songwriting credits with John Oates (the Oates of Hall & Oates fame), and when audiences expressed their admiration, it brought the band a populist cult following of diehard devotees, popularly known as “the Yarmy.” It’s proof positive that the Brooklyn and Raleigh based band have made their mark, and in dealing with their emotions, scars and circumstances, they find themselves in a position to share those experiences with others who have juggled similar sentiments The beginning of the journey to these 2 albums began around April of 2022 when Blake booked a solo show at The Down Home in Johnson City, TN (a nod to Townes Van Zandt’s 1986 live show there and ultimate release) with the intention of making a live record. But he wanted it to be songs none of the fans and attendees had ever heard before. The problem was he hadn’t written most of them yet. He was at his crossroads, uninspired, bored, exhausted and fairly insecure about his entire career up to that point. But he got to work, and got more inspired with each new song he wrote. These songs all tell a story individually but they also tell a story as a whole, a songwriter and musician ready to dive deeper into the music and the art for a greater result that he believes most anyone can appreciate, relate to and enjoy.
Nick Shoulders and The Okay Crawdad: “All Empires Fall Tour”
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLY NICK SHOULDERS AND THE OKAY CRAWDAD All Bad, the latest album from Nick Shoulders, ultimately encapsulates everything that makes Shoulders’ inimitable form of country music so vital: a heady balance of dazzling musicianship and punk defiance, coupled with gritty eccentricity and a generational connection to the roots of the genre. With a singing style inherited from his family’s vocal lineage, Nick’s songs achieve the rare feat of imparting difficult truths while inciting a certain joyful abandon, balancing a sound forged by years of hard travel with a heartfelt reverence for the origins of country music. In the spirit of Hazel Dickens and Jimmy Driftwood, the incisive yet wildly jubilant All Bad vocally objects to the reckless destruction of the natural landscape and development run rampant, while still offering plenty of joy and dance-ready rhythms. Spanning a variety of early country styles, the album’s infectious harmonies shine alongside everything from jangling cajun waltzes to surf-rock infused bluesy ballads–all tied together by a voice seemingly out of place in this century, yet ever ready to speak up about its problems. Released via Gar Hole Records (a label founded and co-owned by Shoulders), All Bad marks the first LP made with his longtime band, the Okay Crawdad, since 2019’s premier full-length Okay, Crawdad and their subsequent pandemic-imposed hiatus. After writing most of the album from the front seat of a tour van, the Fayetteville, AR-based musician and bandmates Grant D’Aubin (harmonies/bass), Cheech Moosekian (drums) and Jack Studer (lead guitar) recorded the album in a home studio on the banks of the Mississippi River with New Orleans collaborators Ross Farbe and Sam Doores. JACK STUDER Jack Studer is your neighbor. He’s your buddy sitting on the porch picking tunes with a smile on his face, flipping over an old bucket for you to pull up a seat. Jack’s music is as welcoming as the man himself, but don’t let its easy-going nature fool you. He has been honing his singular voice for over a decade, and after traveling endless miles and countless stages, he still makes time to sing a song all his own. Jack’s prowess as a guitar player has earned him a place as the newest member of Nick Shoulders and The Okay Crawdad and he continues touring with his long time friends the West King String Band. HEARTS GONE SOUTH Hearts Gone South plays original, old style country and honky tonk full of heart and soul, laced with wit and woe. Bringing fire and feeling to the age old stories of love, loss, heartache, and victory for the underdog. Entertaining audiences from Asheville to Alaska, Hearts Gone South has a “vintage sound with modern production values” Their catalog is a range of barn burners with smoking leads, to tear soaked ballads, and everything in between.Hearts Gone South is JP Parsons – tele, acoustic guitar, and harmonies, Ian Wade – electric bass, upright bass, and harmonies, Scott Thomas- Drums, Silas Hamilton – pedal steel, Tricia Tripp – lead vocalist and song writer. The band is based in Asheville, with members living in Asheville, Bristol and Shelby. They ride back and forth across the mountain range to bring their absolute best to the stage.
JD Clayton
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLY JD CLAYTON The Fort Smith Arkansas native, JD Clayton, released his debut album Long Way From Home, early last year which has received overwhelming critical acclaim. There’s no artifice surrounding the Arkansas-born singer and songwriter. No glitz. No pretension or mythology. JD Clayton’s sound, and where he chooses to make it—Arkansas, the most western of the southern states—is a bridge between the southern rock on which he was raised, and the truth telling tradition from the 70s era of country music that he most favors. As a result, the songs on his thrilling new album Blue Sky Sundays, feel both lived in and completely free. Like any great songwriter, Clayton is both leader and follower, telling his own story but reveling in how it unfolds in live time and relates to listeners individually. “The album is about clarity. It’s about leaving the things that let us down behind,” Clayton says. “It’s about love and family and joy. It took me about four months of being sober to have a clear enough head to process this. I think I finally understand that piece of the puzzle at least.” LEON MAJCEN Leon Majcen is a musician whose story is one of resilience and determination. He grew up on the Gulf Coast of Florida, the son of Bosnian war refugees who had fled their homeland in search of a better life for their children. From a young age, Leon was drawn to the power of storytelling through music, particularly the work of artists like Townes Van Zandt, John Prine, Bob Dylan, and Guy Clark. Leon began playing in local bars while still in high school, honing his craft and building a loyal following. After graduating, he decided to pursue his passion for music in New York City, while attending college at New York University and playing shows around town. After a while, Leon came to the realization that the hustle and bustle of the city wasn’t where his heart was at. He returned home to Florida and took a job at a commercial fishing dock, filleting and packing fish while he planned his next move. And that move was to Nashville, where Leon hoped to make his mark as a singer-songwriter. Since arriving in Nashville, Leon has continued to develop his unique blend of Americana, folk, and country music, drawing on his experiences and his love of the outdoors to craft songs that are both poignant and powerful. With his heartfelt lyrics, soulful voice, and deft guitar work, Leon has built a strong following in Music City and beyond. He is currently set to release three new singles starting on June 2nd, leading up to a full-length album in the Fall, as well as embark on a tour across the United States, playing shows and searching for the next great fishing spot along the way.
OUTPOST: Erika Lewis & Liliana Hudgens
– ALL AGES- STANDING ROOM ONLY- RAIN OR SHINE Erika Lewis: Known for her lengthy tenure touring and busking with beloved New Orleans jazz band Tuba Skinny, prolific songwriter and singer Erika Lewis has been churning out American originals all her own for the past several years and now makes her home in the mountains of WNC. From classic country to cosmic Americana to dreamy indie folk, Lewis continues to dip her toes more deeply into an ever-expanding pool of roots music styles. Her latest album, A Walk Around the Sun brings Lewis’ solo work out from the wings to center stage, beneath a spotlight nearly impossible to ignore. Liliana Hudgens: The Appalachian region is spilling over with terrific up-and-coming musicians these days, many clustered around the beautiful artists’ haven of Asheville, North Carolina. That includes Liliana Hudgens, a singer-songwriter whose new seven-song EP Last Line explores the blurry boundaries between country, folk and a retro brand of pop rock descended from The Everly Brothers whose “So Sad” is covered here. Meanwhile, Hudgens’s originals demonstrate both her knack for writing memorable melodies and her considerable vocal capabilities. Few can flutter around a prolonged note like her.
Josh Joplin Group
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLY JOSH JOLPIN GROUP Josh Joplin, is not given to reminiscing much about the glory days of chasing a song around the world. Camera One notched up the charts making it the first independently released song to land #1 at Triple A Top 40 on legendary showbiz titan’s, Daniel Glass and Danny Goldberg, storied label, Artemis Records, (J. Mascis, Steve Earle, The Pretenders, Kittie, AND infamous hit makers, The BaHa Men)… Though Josh never quite “let the dogs out” with his only hit, it is featured on the cult classic, Scrubs. He followed it up in 2002 with The Future That Was produced by Rob Gal (Magnapop, Rock-a-Teens) and later the critically praised albums, Jaywalker, Among The Oak & Ash, and Devil Ship. Recently, Joplin has returned to recording music with his friends and collaborators. Their latest effort is Figure Drawing. Joplin will also soon be celebrating the 25th Anniversary of his album Useful Music (featuring “Camera One”). Figure Drawing is the eleventh full-length album of new songs that Joplin has releasedAll of Joplin’s experiences, from his early days as a Dylanesque troubadour to his mid- career success as an indierocker, are reflected in this new recording, the broadest, deepest and most balanced of his career. -Geoffrey Himes (Washington Post)
Fruition: How To Make Mistakes Tour
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLY FRUITION Three songwriters. Five bandmates. More than 15 years together, building a grassroots audience with a combination of stacked vocal harmonies and collaborative, song-driven Americana. Fruition is proof that there’s strength in numbers. How To Make Mistakes, the band’s first studio album in four years, showcases a reinvigorated group at the peak of its powers. This is American roots music at its broadest and boldest — a melting pot of rock, soul, folk, and pop. What began as a busking string band has evolved into something more eclectic, rooted not only in the unique delivery of three different singers, but also the cohesion of five friends who prefer their music to be homegrown and honest… mistakes and all. “This is the first studio album that we’ve recorded entirely live,” says Jay Cobb Anderson, who shares frontperson duties with fellow multi-instrumentalists Mimi Naja and Kellen Asebroek. “We recorded 17 songs in 7 days, with everybody playing together in real time, and we didn’t overdub anything. The songs sound honest and real. They sound like us.” Co-produced by the bandmates themselves, How To Make Mistakes restores the momentum that Fruition nearly lost in 2020, back when Covid-19 forced them off the road and into quarantine. At the time, they’d been playing some of the biggest shows of their lives, crisscrossing the country in support of their most recent release, Broken At The Break Of Day. The album’s lead single, “Dawn,” had even become a hit on Americana radio. Years of relentless work had taken a toll on Fruition’s mental health, though, and cracks were starting to show in the band’s foundation. “We were so deep into the tour hustle that a lot of our cohesive vision might’ve gotten lost,” Naja admits. “Like anybody in any work force, we’d all learned to put our heads down and keep moving forward, even if that wasn’t the best thing for us.” When they reunited one year later for a long-overdue band practice, they took stock of everything that had changed during those 12 months apart. Some members had started families. Others had gotten sober. All of them had made the conscious decision to return to music. Fruition funneled that growth and maturity back into their new songs, which doubled as rallying cries for a band eager to chase down success once again. “We all had the time to ask ourselves some big questions like ‘Do we want to keep doing this?'” Naja adds. “The fact that we reunited in such a reinforced way after all that time apart… I think it says a lot about who this band truly is.” JOELTON MAYFIELD Raised in small town central Texas and based in Nashville, Tennessee, Joelton Mayfield crafts hard-hitting alt-country that’s at home in dive bars and DIY venues alike. Mayfield’s distinct take on the genre blends Wilco-esque musicality with the dynamics and melodic edge of fourth-wave emo to create a sound all his own. This musical innovation underscores Mayfield’s deft lyricism, which draws a Southern Gothic literary sensibility and deals intimately with the tensions embedded in family, religion, masculinity, and love in the American South.
JD McPherson with special guest Kate Clover
ALL AGES STANDING ROOM ONLY JD MCPHERSON Over the course of 12 years, four studio albums and two EPs, JD McPherson has blazed a singular musical trail, one steeped in a deep affinity for foundational rock ‘n’ roll, rockabilly and r&b (among other mid-century American-made sounds), and filtered through a unique and alluringly idiosyncratic songwriting sensibility. While the Broken Arrow, Oklahoma native testifies that he “really loves those classic styles, and the driving force of those old songs,” he also affirms that he doesn’t approach his music like a museum piece. Rather, McPherson says, “I think about it like, ‘Why not throw some of those rhythms and sounds into a blender and see what comes out?’ ” Why not, indeed. And to be sure, what has emerged from JD’s musical blender this time out is something unlike anything in his catalog. The new Nite Owls, his fifth studio full-length, shows McPherson further sharpening his songcraft in the service of ten tight, dynamic and hard-hitting rock ‘n’ roll tunes. At the same time, he also reached deeper into his stylistic toolbox to incorporate elements of glam, new wave, post-punk, surf rock and other sounds into the mix. “To me, the thread between Duane Eddy and Depeche Mode is that single-note, reverb-y guitar style,” McPherson says about connecting some of these sonic dots. “So it felt natural to blend that kind of big-string guitar thing with the classic stuff and a dash of surf. It made sense.” To make the version of Nite Owls that we have before us, McPherson retreated to familiar environs, Reliable Recorders in Chicago, with a core group of musicians that have been in his orbit for years – guitarist and “auxiliary” player Douglas Corcoran, bassist and “good friend” Beau Sample, and drummer (and Reliable proprietor) Alex Hall. “I went back to where I made my first record, and it was a wonderful experience,” JD says. “We pretty much did everything in-house, and we recorded the thing quick and fast and live.” That electricity and immediacy is baked into every groove of Nite Owls. “I’m just trying to share an infectious enthusiasm,” JD says about his musical intentions. “That’s something that’s missing in a lot of bands. Like, everybody’s so sullen and serious! But me, I want to enjoy myself and make the music I want to make, and I’m so full of gratitude that I get to make it for a living.” He pauses. “I guess you could say I’m kind of a professional enthusiast, you know?” KATE CLOVER Kate Clover is a songwriter and musician from Los Angeles, California. From the local lineage of bands like X, Germs, and The Gun Club, to the glamorous destitution of the downtown streets, Clover is inspired by the city that raised her, exploring the intricacies of self-discovery, self-creation, and self-preservation in the place where dreams are born to die. With the live-wire energy and crackling force of defiant fists raised in the air, Clover’s music is the rallying cry of a natural born killer. Leading an ace band of rangy, rowdy boys, Clover cuts an electric figure–a next-gen underground hero for the would-be believers.
