Willie Watson
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYWILLIE WATSON Soon before Willie Watson turned 18, he met God in an apple orchard. Or at the very least, he met there a man named Ruby Love, the older friend of a high-school buddy who had an enormous Martin guitar and a seemingly bigger understanding of the American folk songbook. Watson was existentially thirsty: A high-school dropout from upstate New York’s Finger Lakes, he was fast on his way to his first heartbreak and in a first band that didn’t take itself seriously enough. But that night in an apple orchard that had always seemed magical, at a graduation party for one of his bandmates and best friends, Watson and Love sang a few of those old songs together—“Worried Man Blues” and “Tennessee Waltz.” It was the first time Watson had cried while singing, the first time he had made the connection between making music and making sense of his life. He never saw Ruby Love again, but within months of that foundational 1997 rendezvous, he met the musicians with whom he’d soon start Old Crow Medicine Show. Call it revelation, fate, resurrection, whatever you will; for Watson, more than a quarter-century later, it was a duet with the divine. As told in the talking-gospel masterpiece “Reap ’em in the Valley,” that scene is the transfixing finale of Watson’s self-titled debut as a songwriter and as a human at last making music to make sense of his life. Yes, Watson has released two albums since he left Old Crow Medicine Show a dozen years ago and since his long-term collaborations with David Rawlings and Gillian Welch. But those records, both titled Folk Singer, were sets of tunes he knew, interpretations of the songbook he has diligently mined since even before that night in the apple orchard. At 44, however, he feels that Willie Watson is his first-ever true album, having finally lived and lost and simply witnessed enough to know he has something to sing with his exquisite rural tenor. Every memory, Watson likes to say, is surrounded by a shroud of sadness, whether it’s good or bad. And there are lots of memories in a life, all mixed: Though the band he started soon after that night with Ruby Love long gave him a purpose and career, it conscripted him into a role as an old-fashioned folkie, forever stuck playing a part that got tiring. Marriage and fatherhood became boons in their own time, but they kept him bound to Los Angeles, its sprawl and selfishness causing a country boy like Watson to lose himself again. And there was the stereotypical excess of it all, too, the habits of hard living nearly breaking Watson in his 30s. But after he lost those relationships, he slowly got sober and faced himself head on, working to be honest about the traumas of his childhood that had helped create the troubles of adulthood. Sobriety, though, was never enough for Watson. He wanted that shift to prompt change and growth, to force him into situations that were beneficial because they were uncomfortable and challenging. That, in many ways, is the motivation of these nine songs and the only album he’s ever felt deserved to bear his name. VIV & RILEY Viv & Riley’s sound is old-soul roots music to its core, elegantly combining a traditional backbone with the fresh iconic melodies of future-leaning indie-folk, and the tightly wound vocal harmonies of the old-time and classic country music they came from.
Victoria Canal
ALL AGESSEATED SHOWLIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLEVICTORIA CANAL For almost two years, singer-songwriter Victoria Canal used her gift primarily as a way to process grief. The result of this transformative period was 2022’s Elegy EP, a bittersweet collection of tracks. Now, after experiencing creative and emotional catharsis, Canal is turning the camera back on herself and zooming in further than ever before. Grown from heartache and made with unabashed honesty, her upcoming release finds the artist at her most vulnerable—and her most courageous. Canal, who received the 2023 Rising Star award at the prestigious Ivor Novellos, embraces the discomfort of self-analysis. “These days I’m writing mostly to confront things about myself in order to gain more of an understanding and acceptance of them,” she shares. She first started sowing the seeds of her new project during quarantine, in part while watching the TV show Parenthood. She recognized herself in a people-pleasing character, remarking, “I’ve definitely shrunk myself down before to please everyone else. I deserve to take up space.” Canal challenges the habit of self-shrinking across all of her work, magnifying parts of herself that she’s never openly shared before. The gentle gut-punch of opener “Shape” delves into the complex and intimate topic of body dysmorphia. Against folky guitar and airy backing vocals, her retrospective lyricism brings to the surface internalized moments, like the lasting impact of passing cruelty and the relationship between self-image and faith. These experiences are all too common for anyone who sits outside the status quo, and Canal reclaims her own power by bringing them to the surface on her own terms. “She Walks In” continues to explore body image, this time from a more current perspective. “The idea of this song stems from a beautiful girl turning heads when she walks into a room. I have the experience of people staring at me, but it’s because of my limb difference,” Canal shares, “There’s an inherent yearning for people to look at me the way that they look at her.” This vulnerability comes through in her poignant reflections set against waltzing watery instrumentals. Its candid delivery and gentle rocking almost makes you forget its devastation. But she ensures that it can’t be ignored. LUCY CLEARWATER Lucy Clearwater was born in a bathtub in a cookie factory in Northern California. The “sweet” and slightly granola nature-lover is a folk singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist with a background in classical violin. The grassroots artist independently released her debut EP “Feel Again” in 2020, followed by 3 self-produced EP’s “Casual” (2023), “Augenlieder” (her German-language EP in 2023) and “April” (2024). Her songs are incredibly emotive, topical, and melodically driven with influence from Joni Mitchell, Eva Cassidy, Gregory Alan Isakov, and Laura Marling, to name a few. After 3 solo, DIY tours in Europe and Australia, Clearwater joined queer pop artist Lie Ning on tour in Germany in 2023, and has since toured all over the US, EU, CAN and UK supporting artists such as Victoria Canal, Philine Sonny, Luca Fogale, and others.
[CANCELED] Mama’s Broke + Allison de Groot and Tatiana Hargreaves
ALL AGESSEATED SHOWLIMITED NUMBER OF PREMIUM SEATING TICKETS AVAILABLEMAMA’S BROKE Mama’s Broke is a powerful duo that deliver a compelling performance with heart and raw energy. Although highly influenced by their Canadian roots, Lisa and Amy are based out of nowhere and everywhere. Their two strong voices blend to create haunting harmonies, while they artfully juggle fiddle, banjo, guitar and mandolin, and incorporate traditional dance and foot percussion into their performance. Their original -and often dark- compositions push the boundaries of tradition and the constraints of genre. Drawing from old-time, Quebecois, blues, punk, celtic, balkan and doom metal, they create a soundscape that is both familiar and new. ALLISON DE GROOT & TATIANA HARGREAVES Traditional music is not static; it shifts with the times, uncovering new meanings in old words, new ways of talking about the communal pathways that led us to where we are today. For master musicians Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves, traditional banjo and fiddle music is a way to interpret our uncertain times, to draw artistic inspiration and power from the sources of meaning in their lives. History, family, literature, live performance, and environmental instability all manifest in the sounds, feelings, and sensations that permeate their music. Their 2022 sophomore album, Hurricane Clarice is a direct infusion of centuries of matrilineal folk wisdom, a fiery breath of apocalyptic energy. Individually they are both leaders in the young generation of roots musicians, de Groot being known for intricate clawhammer banjo work with Bruce Molsky, and Hargreaves bringing powerhouse fiddling to the stage with Laurie Lewis and David Rawlings in addition to teaching bluegrass fiddle at UNC-Chapel Hill. Their first self-titled album released in 2019 garnered attention from CBC Q, Paste Magazine and Rolling Stone Country, earning the duo the Independent Music Awards “Best Bluegrass Album” and a nomination from IBMA for “Best Liner Notes of the Year.” The duo has been booked at festivals and venues such as Newport Folk Festival, Savannah Music Festival, Winnipeg Folk Festival, the Red Hat Amphitheater in Raleigh, NC, and Red Wing Roots Music Festival. Allison de Groot & Tatiana Hargreaves create a sound that is adventurous, masterful, and original, as they expand on the eccentricities of old songs, while never losing sight of what makes them endure.
The Cactus Blossoms
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYTHE CACTUS BLOSSOMS “Hey baby, do you wanna take a trip with me? / I’ve got a feeling there might be a silver lining all around.” So begins One Day, the captivating new album from critically acclaimed Minneapolis duo The Cactus Blossoms. Written and recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, the record explores the tension between optimism and despair that’s defined much of the past few years of American life, examining the power (or naïveté, depending on your perspective) of positive thinking in the face of chaos and uncertainty. The songs here are tender and timeless, with straightforward arrangements centered around brothers Jack Torrey and Page Burkum’s airtight harmonies, and the performances are warm and intimate to match, delivered with a soulful, ’70s-inspired palette of playful Wurlitzer, breezy guitars, and muscular percussion. The Cactus Blossoms broke out nationally in 2016 with their JD McPherson-produced debut, You’re Dreaming. Dates with Kacey Musgraves, Jenny Lewis, and Lucius followed, as did raves from the New York Times and NPR, who praised “the brothers’ extraordinary singing.” The band was further catapulted into the spotlight in 2018, when David Lynch tapped them to perform in the return of Twin Peaks, and continued to build on their success with their 2019 sophomore LP, Easy Way, which led Rolling Stone to laud the duo’s “rock-solid, freak of genetics harmonies.” ERIN RAE Three years after the release of her critically acclaimed debut, Putting On Airs, Nashville-raised singer-songwriter Erin Rae shares an intimate, honest, and playful version of herself through her sophomore album Lighten Up. Produced by Jonathan Wilson, and recorded in the musically hallowed grounds of California’s Topanga Canyon, the album represents a sonic and inner shift for Rae. In it, she embraces more of her influences, like baroque-pop, cosmic country, and indie-folk songs while mirroring a more compassionate self-view she calls “accepting my humanness”. Although she grew up in a musically oriented family, Rae’s pursuit of music happened by accident. After being gifted a Martin acoustic guitar on her 18th birthday, Rae decided to drop out of college after just one semester. Her goal at the time had little to do with making music into a career, and everything to do with spending more time and energy with the community of musicians and writers she knew back home. Looking back on those days, she recalls the initial high of playing live at an open mic during winter break and realizing, “this is how I connect with people. I have to pursue this.” Rae has continued to connect with people through her music ever since, performing at mainstays like Newport Folk Festival, Red Rocks Amphitheater, and sharing stages with Father John Misty, Hiss Golden Messenger, Jenny Lewis, Jason Isbell, and Iron & Wine. The success of Putting On Airs also earned her a nomination for Emerging Act of The Year at the 2019 Americana Music Awards alongside other trailblazing artists like Yola, Jade Bird, and J.S. Ondara.
Copperhead
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYCOPPERHEADFormed around the campfire at the French Broad River Festival in 2016, Copperhead began playing gigs in 2019. The band works to take your old favorite songs new places and has an array of accessible original songs to complement their catalog. Copperhead is Michael Thurman on guitar and vocals. Jay Copley on guitar and vocals. Eric Snoddy hangs out in the lowlands on Bass. George Hodges,Jr. adds guitar and sings . Mark Murphy plays piano, Hammond, and also vocals. Jenn Webb holds us all together on the drum kit.
PATIO: Jennifer Niceley
ALL AGESLIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVEJENNIFER NICELEY Tennessee songwriter Jennifer Jane Niceley’s latest collaboration with visionary musical artist/producer Feathered Mason and multi-instrumentalist Jason Goforth marks over two decades of releasing deeply sensitive and strikingly original material. Preternaturally under the radar, she’s stepped in and out of the music world, torn between pursuing success and living a quiet life close to the land. Previous albums include the lush sounds of Luminous in 2008 produced by Joe McMahan (Kevin Gordon, Luella and the Sun), and the bare and eclectic Angels, Demons, Red-Tail Hawks with Eric McConnell (Loretta Lynn, Todd Snider, Sierra Ferrell) in 2017. The expansive, sonic shift of “Built to Last” and “Flight Patterns” is a harbinger of what to expect on her upcoming album, Not Lost (release date July 5, 2024). The third single, “Desert Dreams” drops April 19, 2024, and features a powerful symphonic backdrop by pedal steel player Jason Goforth as well as the impeccable touch of Clint Mullican (Watchhouse) on upright bass.
PATIO: Americana Troubadour Round ft Wyatt Espalin, Caitlin Cannon, Jack McKeon
ALL AGES LIMITED PATIO SEATING IS FIRST COME FIRST SERVEWYATT ESPALINIn 2022, Wyatt Espalin shakes things up with his new band the Riverstones and a collection of songs that invites his fans to examine his songwriting through a different lens. After returning to his roots to live at the rustic campground where he was raised by his grandparents in the North Georgia Mountains, he found a setting that would inspire “DIAMONDBACK”, a collection of mysterious songs released in 2020 that gave his audience a bird’s eye view of an artist rediscovering himself. Well, this fiddler/singer and champion clogger has discovered more and before the Year of the Rabbit, all may be revealed. Let the enlightenment begin! After releasing Songwriter/Singer” in 2015, Wyatt went on to win the 1st Annual New Song Songwriting Contest at North Carolina’s popular L.E.A.F. festival. He has also spent the last few years sharing the stage opening for some of his songwriting idols Indigo Girls, Jennifer Knapp, Kevn Kinney, Chely Wright, Michelle Malone, Shawn Mullins, Patty Loveless, to name a few. During his performances, the haunting, intimate songs juxtaposed with the hilarious stories that he sharesin the banter between them create a beautiful tension.CAITLIN CANNON“She’s not a songwriter for the winners. She’s a songwriter for the broken, the downtrodden, the losers, the motherfuckers. She sings about real shit that most other songwriters don’t have the guts to broach. A crack pool player and a hilarious person on stage that could have a second career as a comedian, Caitlin Cannon is one of those country artists that slides so criminally under the radar, it angers the blood”— SAVING COUNTRY MUSIC JACK McKEONA Nashville-based singer-songwriter with an honest, plainspoken vocal, an eclectic-roots sound and a knack for bringing crystalline characters to life, Jack McKeon is a different sort of musician. A student of the greats drawn to the timeless, rather than the trendy, he hails from Chatham, New York and harbors a deep love for the written word. First inspired by literary music icons from Hank Williams and Guy Clark to Tom T. Hall and John Hartford, McKeon arrived in Nashville in 2021 and has since established a reputation for his own message-drive lyricism – a value which shows up in its full sonic serenity on his 2024 album debut, Talking to Strangers.
Odie Leigh: Carrier Pigeon Tour
– ALL AGES – STANDING ROOM ONLYODIE LEIGH Odie Leigh would never have called herself a musician before the depths of the 2020 pandemic, when her rapper roomies made a bet: Whoever records a song that goes viral first, wins. Slightly ticked off that they hadn’t included her in the wager, she decided to hit them with her best shot, and Odie was crowned the victor when a track she wrote blew up on TikTok. “I was like, ‘I’m gonna show y’all. I’m gonna win,’” she recalls, laughing. “Then I woke up to a bunch of comments on TikTok being like, ‘Oh my God, release this. This is amazing!’ Now, I’m a musician.”Four years after posting what she calls “that silly joke song” on TikTok, Odie Leigh has continued to transform and evolve as an artist — from what she calls “acoustic, ethereal folk sad girl music” to a harder-edge tunes that flirt with early Aughts pop-punktivism. That trajectory culminates in her first LP, Carrier Pigeon. “All the music I’ve released up until this point can kind of be thrown into the indie folk acoustic genre,” Odie says. “But I never set out to make Americana music. I never set out to make folk music. I’m just a girl with an acoustic guitar.”The fact that Odie Leigh never set out to make music is key here. Unlike a lot of musicians who grew up picking out tunes on toddler guitars or belting it out in garages, Odie never pictured herself on stage. Born and raised in Louisiana, she sang in the church choir, sure — her grandfather built the building, after all, and her family attended three times per week. But after moving to New Orleans to study English, she fully intended on making her bones in the film industry. That 2020 wager changed things, though, when she realized that she could win hearts in addition to bets. Although she’d taught herself to play guitar as a child, Odie didn’t know that much about music from the get-go, but she was inspired by the likes of ‘50’s singer-songwriter Connie Converse and her out-of-the-box style. Coming from the film world, she found songwriting freeing, unbound from the rigidity of screenplay and discovered that simplicity can be a strength.After her early releases began gaining steam on social media, Odie Leigh started hitting stages hard — an impressive show of hustle for someone who never really dreamed of life on the road. Nevertheless, she toured Europe, North America, and played Newport Folk in 2023; she also has festival gigs like Shaky Knees and Kilby Block Party, among others, later this year. Odie eventually achieved many an indie musician’s dream when she signed with Mom + Pop in 2023, mostly due to their diverse catalog: Yes, she’s made Americana music in the past, but she’s no one-trick pony. She craved the room to stretch and change and scream. And for Carrier Pigeon, she did just that, teaming up with a producer/musician Derek Ted — and infusing the 10-track suite with a more hard-edged sound, and plenty of fun. “I wanted to call it Carrier Pigeon because as I was writing these songs I just kept on thinking how silly it is that I’m writing all these thoughts and feeling down about someone and for someone who is only going to hear it months if not years after I write it,” she says. “I was like ‘I might as well be putting letters in bottles and throwing them into the ocean or just strapping it to a pigeon and hoping it lands at the right house.’ This album is the carrier pigeon and the songs are the messages.” ANGELA AUTUMN
Jackie Greene
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYJACKIE GREENE Americana and roots singer-songwriter Jackie Greene is a jack-of-all-trades, and an artist who can croon over soulful piano ballads as much as he can shred a bluesy guitar solo (like he did as the lead guitarist for The Black Crowes in 2013). A road warrior and musician’s musician, Greene’s new EP ‘The Modern Lives – Vol 2’ (out October 2018 on Blue Rose Music) finds him at a new chapter in his life: his first months of fatherhood, time off his relentless touring circuit, and a cross-country move from Brooklyn to his birthplace of Northern California. This new collection of six original songs is a thematic extension of ‘The Modern Lives – Vol 1’ EP (released in 2017 on Blue Rose Music), imbued with a Brooklyn basement DIY feel and ethos. He is a student of American music, transfixed upon its progression through time, as well as how regional sounds fit in a contemporary context. Whereas ‘Vol 1’ saw Greene experiment with the Delta blues as a canvas for his examinations of modern society, ‘Vol 2’ sees Greene embrace the sounds of the bluegrass and folk tapes of his youth. Greene partnered with Academy Award-nominated “king of indie animation” Bill Plympton for a series of music videos for ‘The Modern Lives – Vol 1’ that would eventually become an animated short film titled ‘The Modern Lives’. The film is currently making the rounds at film festivals where it has already won the Jury Award at the USA Film Festival in Dallas, TX, and the Grand Remi Award / Best in Show at WorldFest in Houstin, TX. The short is also being exhibited at the 71st Festival de Cannes/Court Metrage, Melbourne International Animation Festival, and ASIFA-East Festival, amongst others. RAINY EYES “I really love “You Just Want What You Can’t Have”…It’s a great song, very well produced and Rainy’s an awesome singer -she really jumps out of the speakers! That track could easily be nominated for Americana record of the year. – DON WAS Norwegian-born, Lafayette, LA-based alt-country artist Rainy Eyes has released her second album, Lonesome Highway, via Royal Potato Family. The 11-track collection was produced by Dirk Powell and features appearances by Sam Grisman, Ric Robertson, Chris Stafford and Eric Adcock among an exceptional cast of accompanying musicians.Rainy Eyes was born and raised in Bergen, Norway. After fleeing a troubled upbringing and moving to Denmark at 18, she met and fell in love with an American free jazz musician. By 19, Rainy had eloped to San Francisco where she immersed herself in the local music community, befriending musicians like Peter Rowan, Sam Grisman and Ric Robertson while launching the West Marin Fiddle Camp.Following the demise of her marriage, Rainy and her son left the Bay area for South Louisiana, drawn by the music and culture of the tradition-rich region. Once there, Rainy forged a collaboration with acclaimed musician and producer Dirk Powell (Rhiannon Giddens, Loretta Lynn) who encouraged her to further develop the songs she’d been working on while in California. Together, they hunkered down in Powell’s bayou studio, determined to fulfill the promise of what she’d begun. It ultimately resulted in her second studio album, Lonesome Highway, a hope-filled and assertive collection of 11 alt-country and Americana-based songs that present Rainy breaking cycles, trusting the universe, and allowing her higher self to lead the way.
The Vandoliers
ALL AGESSTANDING ROOM ONLYVANDOLIERSVandoliers are a uniquely Texas band, distilling the Lone Star State’s vast and diverse musical identity into a raucous, breakneck vibe that’s all their own. After spending much of the last three years furiously writing and recording music, this Dallas-Fort Worth six-piece is back with The Vandoliers, a new album that proves these rowdy, rollicking country punks are tighter, more cohesive and more sonically compelling than ever. Recorded with Grammy-winning producer Eric Delegard at Reeltime Audio in Denton, TX, The Vandoliers is an album interrupted. The band’s original two-week recording session ended abruptly in March 2020 as shutdowns began across the globe. The band didn’t get back into the studio until November, at which point they realized that, like many of the best-laid plans, their original strategy for the record had to change. “We wanted to make an album that had the same power as our live performance — a tight, big sound,” Fleming says. “Through trial and error, label closure, fatherhood, sobriety, relapse, the album grew on its own stylistically. After the hardest two years of my life, we created a collection of songs that push us as musicians, songs that reaffirmed my place as a songwriter and a faith in ourselves as a band I don’t think we had before.” Amid all that uncertainty, Vandoliers did what they knew best: they made music. First came “Every Saturday Night,” a pandemic-era appreciation of all the rowdy, late-night shows that we all missed while stuck at home. “I thought for sure that this would be the last song I would ever write. I missed all the little things about the life I lived up until that point,” Fleming says. “I missed the smells and tastes of a smoky dive bar, the long overnight drives listening to our favorite bands.” Those thoughts clearly struck a chord with listeners, earning the song heavy rotation on the radio, especially Sirius XM’s Outlaw Country, and jumpstarting the band’s plans to head back into the studio to encapsulate their electric live shows into the album that would eventually grow into The Vandoliers. MYA BYRNE Mya Byrne is a celebrated country-punk Americana rocker, singer-songwriter, and firecracker guitarist, combining influences from countrypolitan to glam-pop, blues, and ghostly incantations into a singular voice and vision. It’s been a banner year for Mimi. In 2023 she released “Rhinestone Tomboy”, produced in Nashville by Grammy-nominated songwriter Aaron Lee Tasjan. CURTIS McMURTRY Curtis McMurtry is a singer-songwriter, composer, and multi-instrumentalist from Austin, TX. Influenced by Fiona Apple and Tom Waits, Curtis’ songs combine sinister lyrics with sophisticated orchestration. His new album, The Pollen & The Rot (May 2024) delights in depicting characters that are at once rebellious and seductive. Curtis specializes in writing “sad songs and mean songs” and considers his catalogue to be “music for people that like to read.” He frequently performs as a duo with cellist/singer-songwriter Diana Burgess.
