Doors @ 7pm
Show @ 8pm
Full Bar
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All Ages

Marcia Ball

“Fifty years have passed in a flash,” says Texas-born, Louisiana-raised pianist, songwriter and vocalist Marcia Ball of her long and storied career. Ball, the 2018 Texas State Musician Of The Year, has won worldwide fame and countless fans for her ability to ignite a full-scale roadhouse rhythm and blues party every time she takes the stage. Her rollicking Texas boogies, swampy New Orleans ballads and groove-laden Gulf Coast blues have made her a one-of-a-kind favorite with music lovers all over the world. With each new release, her reputation as a profoundly soulful singer, a boundlessly talented pianist and a courageous, inventive songwriter continues to grow. Her love of the road has led to years of soul-satisfying performances at festivals, concert halls and clubs. The New York Times says, “Marcia Ball plays two-fisted New Orleans barrelhouse piano and sings in a husky, knowing voice about all the trouble men and women can get into on the way to a good time.” The Houston Chronicle says simply, “She’s as perfect as an artist can be.” 

With her new album, Shine Bright, Ball set out to, in her words, “Make the best Marcia Ball record I could make.” In doing so, she has put together the most musically substantial, hopeful and uplifting set of songs of her five-decade career. Produced by Steve Berlin (Los Lobos) and recorded in Texas and Louisiana, Shine Bright contains twelve songs (including nine originals), ranging from the title track’s rousing appeal for public and private acts of courage to the upbeat call to action of Pots And Pans, a song inspired by renowned Texas political writer and humorist Molly Ivins. From the humorous advice of Life Of The Party to the poignantly optimistic World Full Of Love, the intensity of Ball’s conviction never wavers while, simultaneously, the fun never stops. Shine Bright is exactly the album Ball set out to make. “It is a ridiculously hopeful, cheerful record,” she says, in light of some of the album’s more serious subject matter. The secret, according to Ball “is to set the political songs to a good dance beat.”   

Born in Orange, Texas in 1949 to a family whose female members all played piano, Ball grew up in the small town of Vinton, Louisiana, right across the border from Texas. She began taking piano lessons at age five, playing old Tin Pan Alley and popular music tunes from her grandmother’s collection. But it wasn’t until she was 13 that Marcia discovered the power of soul music. One day in New Orleans in 1962, she sat amazed as Irma Thomas delivered the most spirited and moving performance the young teenager had ever seen. A few years later she attended Louisiana State University, where she played some of her very first gigs with a blues-based rock band called Gum.  In

1970, Ball set out for San Francisco. Her car broke down in Austin, and while waiting for repairs she fell in love with the city and decided to stay. It wasn’t long before she was performing in local clubs with a progressive country band called Freda And The Firedogs, while beginning to sharpen her songwriting skills. It was around this time that she delved deeply into the music of the great New Orleans piano players, especially Professor Longhair. “Once I found out about Professor Longhair,” recalls Ball, “I knew I had found my direction.” 

When Freda And The Firedogs broke up in 1974, Ball launched her solo career, playing clubs around Austin, Houston and Louisiana. She signed with Capitol Records in 1978, debuting with the country-rock album Circuit Queen. Creating and honing her own sound, she released six critically acclaimed titles on the Rounder label during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1990, Ball— collaborating with Angela Strehli and Lou Ann Barton—recorded the hugely successful Dreams Come True on the Antone’s label. At the end of 1997, Marcia finished work on a similar “three divas of the blues” project for Rounder, this time in the distinguished company of Tracy Nelson and her longtime inspiration, Irma Thomas. The CD, Sing It!, was released in 1998 and was nominated for a Grammy Award. 

Marcia Ball has appeared many times on national television over the years, including the PBS special In Performance At The White House along with B.B. King and Della Reese, Austin City Limits and HBO’s Treme. She performed in Piano Blues, the film directed by Clint Eastwood included in Martin Scorsese’s The Blues series which aired on PBS television nationwide in 2003. Marcia also appeared on The Late Show With David Letterman with The New Orleans Social Club, where she not only reached millions of people, but also helped to benefit victims of Hurricane Katrina. In 2012, she had a role in the independent film Angels Sing starring Harry Connick, Jr., Lyle Lovett and Willie Nelson. In 2017 she performed on NPR’s A Jazz Piano Christmas, live from The Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.       

Ball joined Alligator in 2001 with the release of the critically acclaimed Presumed Innocent. The CD won the 2002 Blues Music Award for Blues Album Of The Year. Her follow-up, So Many Rivers, was nominated for a Grammy Award, and won the 2004 Blues Music Award for Contemporary Blues Album Of The Year as well as the coveted Contemporary Blues Female Artist Of The Year award. Her next release, Live! Down The Road, released in 2005, also garnered a Grammy nomination, as did 2008’s Peace, Love & BBQ (the album debuted at #1 on the Billboard Blues Chart). 2010’s Grammy-nominated Roadside Attractions and 2014’s The Tattooed Lady And The Alligator Man successfully grew her fan base even further. Altogether she holds ten Blues Music Awards, ten Living Blues Awards, and five Grammy Award nominations. She has been inducted into both the Gulf Coast Music Hall Of Fame and the Louisiana Music Hall Of Fame. The Texas State legislature named her the official 2018 Texas State Musician. As her hometown Austin Chronicle says, “What’s not to like about Marcia Ball?” 

Since joining Alligator, Ball has blossomed as a songwriter. Each album has been filled with fresh, original songs, never more so than on Shine Bright. Ball easily draws her listeners deep into her music with instantly memorable melodies and imaginative imagery. Her songs paint vibrant musical pictures richly detailed with recognizable characters, regional flavors, universal themes and colorful scenes, both real and imagined. Living Blues declares, “Her originals sound like timeless classics and southern soul masterpieces that no one else can imitate.” 

Now, with Shine Bright, Ball’s new, aggressively hopeful songs are energized by Steve Berlin’s inventive and exciting production, creating electrifying music that is daring, inspired, poignant and timely. The Boston Globe calls Ball “a compelling storyteller” who plays “an irresistible, celebratory blend of rollicking, two-fisted New Orleans piano, Louisiana swamp rock and smoldering Texas blues.” 

Of course, Ball will bring the party on the road, playing her new songs and old favorites for fans around the globe. “I still love the feel of the wheels rolling,” she says, “and the energy in a room full of people ready to go wherever it is we take them.” With both her new album and her legendary live performances, Marcia Ball will shine a light into the darkness, making the world a brighter place one song at a time. 

Carolyn Wonderland

“Mighty and joyous rock-injected blues…luxurious vocals and fine guitar work. Her voice is as muscular as her name is evocative.” – Austin Chronicle

“Carolyn Wonderland is the real deal. She’s an amazing guitar player. And damn, can she sing.” – Los Angeles Times

“With incendiary guitar chops and raw, powerful vocals, fiery Texas blues rocker Carolyn Wonderland draws instant comparisons to fellow Texans Stevie Ray Vaughan and Janis Joplin.” –NPR Music

“Hey, have you heard Carolyn Wonderland? She’s something else. She should be nationwide.” – Bob Dylan, talking to Asleep At The Wheel’s Ray Benson

The depths of the Texas blues tradition with the wit of a poet. She hits the stage with an unmatched presence, a true legend in her time.

She’d grown up the child of a singer in a band and began playing her mother’s vintage Martin guitar when other girls were dressing dolls. She’d gone from being the teenage toast of her hometown Houston to sleeping in her van in Austin amid heaps of critical acclaim for excellent recordings.

Along with the guitar and the multitude of other instruments she learned to play – trumpet, accordion, piano, mandolin, lap steel – Wonderland’s ability to whistle remains most unusual. Whistling is a uniquely vocal art seldom invoked in modern music, yet it’s among the most spectacular talents the human voice possesses.

That vocal proficiency was well-established in the singer’s midteens, landing her gigs at Fitzgerald’s by age 15. She absorbed Houston influences like Little Screamin’ Kenny, Albert Collins, Lavelle White, Jerry Lightfoot, Joe “Guitar” Hughes, Little Joe Washington, “borrowed” a car to sneak out and jam ended up swapping songs with Townes Van Zandt at Houston’s Local’s on White Oak, got involved in the underground theater scene becoming the first “Photochick” in Jason Nodler’s “In the Under Thunderloo” and soaked up touring bands like the Paladins, Los Lobos, and the Mad Hatter of Texas music, Doug Sahm. Her music played in television series such as “Time of Your Life” and NBC’s “Homicide.” The Lone Star State was as credible a proving ground for blues in the 1980s and 90s as existed, especially in Austin with Stevie Ray Vaughan & Double Trouble, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Angela Strehli, Omar & the Howlers, and Lou Ann Barton all in their prime. By the following decade, Austin’s blues luster thinned, but Houston, always a bastion of soul and R&B, boasted the Imperial Monkeys with the effervescent Carolyn Wonderland as ruler of the jungle.

In the early 1990s, Wonderland & the Imperial Monkeys were invited to the Guadalupe Street Antone’s in Austin. There, they were treated like royalty with the singer as the queen of hearts in the club’s post-Stevie Ray Vaughan stable, which included Toni Price, Johnny and Jay Moeller, Sue Foley, Mike and Corey Keller, and the Ugly Americans. It was a good bar for the Monkeys to hang, and Austin felt so comfortable that when the band called it quits a few years later, after a run-in with black ice and a semi that wound young Miss Wonderland in the hospital, she set her sights on Austin at the start of the millennium. Besides, Doug Sahm had told Carolyn while they were signing autographs together at the High Sierra Music Festival, she ought to move to Austin, as it was the land of free guitar lessons. She was there in months.

Living in Austin renewed Carolyn Wonderland’s focus on her multiple talents, underlining rich vocals with excellent guitar work, trumpet, and piano, as well as that remarkable ability to whistle on key. Despite spending two years homeless (or as she puts it, “van-full,”) Austin has been fertile ground for Carolyn. A series of each-better-than-the-next discs began with Alcohol & Salvation in 2001 (“songs about booze and God; records are a time capsule of what happened that year”) 2003’s “Bloodless Revolution,” The Bismeaux Releases: 2008’s “Miss Understood,” 2011’s “Peace Meal” (recorded at Bismeaux and Levon Helm Studios in Woodstock,) 2015’s “Live Texas Trio”; and here we are with 2017’s “Moon Goes Missing.”

Carolyn also got to stretch out with other bands and notably appears in Jerry Lightfoot’s Band of Wonder’s 2002 release, “Texistentialism” featuring Jerry Lightfoot, Vince Welnick (Grateful Dead, The Tubes, Todd Rundgren,) Carolyn, Barry “Frosty” Smith (Lee Michaels, Sly & the Family Stone, Rare Earth, Soulhat) and Larry Fulcher (Taj Mahal, Phantom Blues Band). She has released many songs for charity, 2016’s “Room at the Inn” (iTunes) benefits Doctors Without Borders, 2013’s “Money in the Game” (featuring Marcia Ball and Shelley King) benefits Planned Parenthood, “the Farmer Song” from “Miss Understood” benefits Farm AID, “Annie’s Scarlet Letter” from “Bloodless Revolution” benefits NORML, 1997 Justice Records released Carolyn’s version of Little Screamin’ Kenny’s holiday lament, “Blue Lights” (featuring Ian McLagan) benefitting MD Anderson Children’s Art Project.

Carolyn’s first appearance on vinyl? She’s with James Williamson (Stooges) on the April 2014 Record Store Day single, “Open Up & Bleed” AND on the full LP inspired by that fun session, “Re-Licked” featuring Raw Power Era songs with cool and risky guests.

Her circle of musician friends and admirers broadened to include not only Ray [Benson, who produced Miss Understood] but also the late Eddy Shaver, Shelley King, and yes, Bob Dylan, who likened her composition “Bloodless Revolution” to “a mystery movie theme.” She appeared on the same taping with Sharon Jones and the Dap-Kings when she made her debut on PBS’ “Austin City Limits” (Season 35.) and had the thrill of her life when Bonnie Raitt joined her onstage for “The Road to Austin” concert film featuring Stephen Bruton and all his friends, got to play with James Cotton, Pinetop Perkins, and so many others at Antone’s, she and Erin Jaimes put together a benefit for Uncle John Turner and Johnny Winter insisted on bringing his band by to play, Carolyn’s wedding to A. Whitney Brown was officiated by Mike Nesmith (Monkees,) who serendipitously introduced them on set at VideoRanch in 2010. (there is a video of the two of them on stage together that day!) She began co-writing with locals Sarah Brown, Shelley King, Marcia Ball, Ruthie Foster, Cindy Cashdollar, and Guy Forsyth; sat in with Los Lobos, Levon Helm, Vintage Trouble, Robert Earl Keen, and Ray Wylie Hubbard; and toured relentlessly for the past two decades, sometimes with luminaries like Dave Alvin, Buddy Guy and Johnny Winter, so far spreading her music in US, Europe, South America and Japan. She also claims membership in the all-girl Sis Deville, the gospel-infused Imperial Crown Golden Harmonizers, the Texas Guitar Women, and the Woodstock Lonestars.

Carolyn recently joined John Mayall’s Band as his guitarist and is balancing life on the road with writing time at home and on the way. She’s been touring for over 25 years and ain’t done yet. Come and see it at a show! (seriously, she’s perpetually on tour.)

Shelley King

Superlative, powerhouse, smart and savvy are only a few of the adjectives used to describe Shelley King, who is debuting her 9th album, Kick Up Your Heels, in the late summer of 2019.

The blues, roots-rock, gospel singer stands out in the crowd as an award-winning songwriter, steeped in Americana music. Born in Arkansas, and raised back and forth between Arkansas and Texas, Shelley has surrounded herself with A-list mentors from Marcia Ball to John Magnie and Delbert McClinton.

Kick Up Your Heels is her best effort yet, with guest artists Delbert McClinton, The Subdudes, Marcia Ball, Carolyn Wonderland, Tony Redman, Byron Isaacs (Lumineers) and Cindy Cashdollar. Her band includes Sarah Brown on bass, Marvin Dykhuis on guitars, vocals and mandolin, and Chip Dolan on keys and accordion, and longtime drummer, Perry Drake.

Shelley says, “It feels like a party album. In a time when we have so many challenges as a people and as a country, we need this music. We can let it all go. We all have a weight to carry, but we need to have some fun. I feel that in some of these songs, there are trials and tribulations, but with good music and good friends, it always feels like we are going to come out on top.”

Kick Up Your Heels runs the gamut of emotions, beginning with an introspective memory of one of her musical heroes, Levon Helm. The album’s opening track, “Levon’s New Drumset” had its beginning as she was sitting on a porch in Woodstock, New York, collecting words and images for this song but not completing it. Over several more trips to Woodstock she reworked the lyrics, each time adding a little more to the story. Inspiration struck again when she was playing a Midnight Ramble with the Woodstock Lone Stars: a super-group including Carolyn Wonderland, Marcia Ball, Cindy Cashdollar, Amy Helm, and a Woodstock based rhythm section. “It completely fell together - magically.” she recalls. “I wrote another verse right there, and it came together seamlessly, without a wrong word.”

“Storming in the South” takes the listeners through the hurricanes that rip through the South and the high winds in a relationship between two people who have chosen to take it on, go through it together, and come out on the other side. It is a song of resilience, and of sticking together, and making it through the storm.

The album brings on the party full-force with “Hurricane Party.” Shelley said she was walking on a trail near her Texas hill country home, when her friend and mentor, Marcia Ball called to say her Florida tour was canceled because of a hurricane, “so, let’s play dominoes.” Shelley said,

“It’s a hurricane party!” and immediately started working on this song. She sang lines into her phone, texting song verses back and forth, co-writing with Marcia, it all came together before she got off the trail – in time for a game of dominoes! Delbert McClinton and Marcia bring guest vocals to this highlight of the album. It’s definitely a party. Levon Helm and Henry Glover wrote a song called “Blues So Bad,” that Shelley discovered on a 1977 Helm album. That song stuck with her. “Anytime I heard it, I sang along. It makes me feel cool. In the studio, Delbert (McClinton) played harmonica and sang backup on it.” Yeah, that’ll make anyone feel cool.

“One Shot At A Time” is a song Shelley wrote years ago about a bar in San Angelo, Texas. “People were having a good time and were so drunk.” she recalls. “They were sending shots to the band and eventually shots were lined up all the way across the stage. Everyone in the band gets to have some fun with this one: from Marvin Dykhuis’ and Tony Redmans’ duelling lead guitars to Sarah Brown’s low-end bass solo.

The title song, “Kick Up Your Heels,” is a co-write with another of Shelley’s heroes, John Magnie of the Subdudes. “John came up with the melody and turned it over to me to write the lyrics,” she says. “We were thinking about writing a song for Marcia (Ball), right after she recorded Tattoo Lady and the Alligator Man, feeling that Louisiana rhythm and how she kicks her heels when she plays piano. When I recorded it with my band, it was good, but it was missing something, so we got the Subdudes to add a little crazy.” Steve Amedée lays down a fun second line snare rhythm and the dudes add their rich harmonies and fun extras. Marcia Ball plays piano and John Magnie backs her on accordion, a first time musical collaboration for them.

One of Shelley’s inspirations has always been Aretha Franklin, and “Soulville” showcases that influence. “I first discovered Aretha Franklin’s version of this song and then later Dinah Washington’s version. Dinah was one of the songwriters, along with Henry Glover. I started doing a little research, and found that Henry was tight with Levon (Helm), and is even in one of the early photos of Levon building his barn in Woodstock.” Henry soon became another of Shelley’s songwriter favorites, (see “Blues So Bad,” a Helm/Glover co-write) and completes yet another circle of influence in her musical odyssey. Ask Shelley to tell you about rehearsing in Levon’s barn on the anniversary of his death with her good friends, a good bottle of whiskey, and a ghost for good measure.

“Heart of a Girl” showcases Shelley’s songwriter and vocal talent, and a backstory of romantic magic. “I still believe magic can happen. The idea came to me as I watched my mom fall in love again. Here was a no-nonsense businesswoman who reunited with my real father at one of my shows. They had not seen one another for more than 30 years,” Shelley says. “And suddenly, she had that soft heart of a girl, that innocence that believes in hopefulness. To see her like that was beautiful.”

Keeping the party going strong, Shelley brings “Crush” to the mix. “It’s a fun, groupie song. I won’t call any names out on this one. Someone close to me had a groupie crush on a bad boy musician, and I wrote that song for her just for fun.” With lines like “If you got somebody, I’ll make you forget her,” and “Would you rock my world like you rock that mic?,” it’s definitely a celebration song that makes everyone want to grab a mic and sing along.”

A pivotal moment in her career was in 2008, when Shelley was named Texas State Musician by the Texas Legislature, and found her voice resonating with fans across the state – and the nation. “‘How Eagles Fly’ is about hope and positivity: an anthem for America. There’s a whole lot of division out there,” Shelley continues, “but ultimately, we are all in this together. We have a lot more in common than that which separates us. Music brings us together, and everyone can agree with lyrics that speak to the common American dream.”

Kick Up Your Heels is a high-water mark for Shelley King. Through multiple incarnations of bands with friends and collaborators, and performing at hundreds of house concerts, honkytonks, theatres, festivals and solo shows, she has explored different avenues and attitudes, but she has hit her stride with this new project. She proves with this album, created with her musical friends and family, that music is much more than a career for her. “It’s all about connections,” she says. And Kick Up Your Heels brings Shelley King’s band family together for a reunion that is one hell of a party.

Doors @ 7:00pm
Show @ 8:00pm
All Ages
Full Bar
Free On-Site Parking

Crys Matthews, the poster child for intersectionality and Flamy Grant, the "Bible Belt Baby" are teaming up once again to pick up where the Winter Magic Tour left off, and they're bringing some friends. This December, the Make the Yuletide Gay tour is hitting the road with Jennifer Knapp, Heather Mae, and Spencer LaJoy to spread a little holiday cheer and a whole lot of faith-infused LGBTQ+ joy!

Armed with a bold lip and a blistering voice, Flamy Grant is brilliant, resilient proof that nothing is sacred (but everything is holy) and shame belongs in the closet. A preacher's kid and former drum major, troubadour of truth Crys Matthews is among the brightest stars of the new generation of social justice music-makers. With new releases under their belts, both Matthews and Grant are joining forces with three other artists who also use the art to light up these dark times.

Doors @ 7pm
Show @ 8pm
Full Bar
Free On-site Parking
All Ages

Sunny Sweeney, a genre-bending, songwriting spitfire who has spent equal time in the rich musical traditions of Texas and Tennessee, returns with Married Alone, the celebrated singer-songwriter’s fifth studio album and the follow-up to 2017’s critically acclaimed Trophy. Co-produced by beloved Texas musician and larger-than-life personality Paul Cauthen and the Texas Gentlemen’s multi-hyphenate Beau Bedford, Married Alone is Sweeney’s finest work yet, bringing together confessional songwriting, image-rich narratives and no shortage of sonic surprises for a loosely conceptual album about loss and healing.

Married Alone began as most of Sweeney’s projects do: with a visit to her deep vault of unreleased songs. Since debuting with Heartbreaker’s Hall of Fame in 2006, Sweeney has been a prolific writer, writing whatever is on her heart rather than with a particular project in mind. That habit afforded her a rich well of material for Married Alone, some of which is over a decade old.

“I have a lot of older songs that still make the cut of like, ‘Am I gonna put this on a record?’ And I always start with those songs, songs that have been important to me for whatever reason. And then I try to build around that. It doesn't necessarily have to be around a theme, but sometimes it turns out to be that there is one.”

Opener “Tie Me Up” declares that, despite its loose theme, Married Alone is not a somber record, with Sweeney in full spitfire mode and cheekily declaring to a would-be suitor, “You can tie me up, but baby you can’t tie me down.” Cauthen’s and Bedford’s production especially shines on the track, which would sound at home at a roadside juke joint or in front of thousands of fans at a festival.

Cauthen joins Sweeney on “A Song Can’t Fix Everything,” one of the album’s rawer moments. “That song can’t bring my mother back to life,” Sweeney sings at the song’s start, before recounting the many ways that music may be able to transport us to the past but can never fix it. “Want You to Miss Me” is an honest take on the complexities of a difficult breakup, with Sweeney’s nimble vocal wavering between defiance and doubt. “Easy as Hello” is Sweeney’s writing at its finest, channeling the heartache that comes with the end of a treasured relationship, for a track that recalls — vocally and lyrically — the work of Stevie Nicks.

“Someday You’ll Call My Name” reads as a break-up kiss-off — and it’s a great one, at that — but the song, pulled from Sweeney’s vault, was originally inspired by her early days as a musician, longing to be recognized by major country institutions like the Grand Ole Opry. She and co-writer Brennen Leigh reworked their 10-year-old version of the track to better fit Married Alone, and that session helped set the tone for what would become the full album.

The full potential of the album really revealed itself, though, when a friend sent Sweeney a demo of what would become its title track, “Married Alone.” Though she wasn’t a co-writer on the track, Sweeney felt her own story reflected in its lyrics. The song, which features a particularly emotional guest vocal from living country legend Vince Gill, charts the painful moments sometimes experienced in marriages that have run their course.

“There may be rings on our fingers, but we’re married alone,” she and Gill sing, over weeping pedal steel and reverbed guitar.

“My jaw hit the floor when I heard that song, because I had just gone through my second divorce, which is also cliche of a country singer,” Sweeney says, with a laugh. “I was still pretty raw about my divorce, but also very candid and trying to find levity in the situation. You have to be able to laugh at yourself at some point and not let it just totally get you down.”

A few months after securing the song and mining her own vault for a track list, Sweeney traveled to Dallas, TX, to record — alongside Cauthen and Bedford — what would become Married Alone.

Sweeney and team planned for Jeff Saenz to mix the album, but in the summer of 2021 — a few days before mixing would start — the widely loved, Dallas-based producer was electrocuted in a freak accident that left him without use of his arms. The group put the album on hold until they had word Saenz would pull through. While Sweeney was anxious to get her new music out, Saenz’s accident shifted her priorities.

“Jeff lost his arms,” she says. “His arms. Jeff’s never going to hold his fiancée’s hand again, never going to hold his baby again. I had a major, major turning point with his accident, personally, as did most of our friends that know him.”

About eight months later, Bedford had a surprise for Sweeney. When she arrived at the studio for one of their final mixing sessions, Bedford had brought Saenz along. Saenz was able to help the group finish up the album, a full-circle moment that was especially emotional for Sweeney.

“It was exactly how it should have been,” she says. “And it was really, really emotional. Jeff definitely is a part of this album; I really wanted him to be a part of the album. And Beau knew that. So, Beau went and he made that happen.”

In addition to releasing Married Alone, Sweeney is marking a new chapter in her professional life with a brand-new team by her side, most of whom are women. While it wasn’t a conscious choice, Sweeney says, she feels like she’s surrounded by the right group of people, who just happen to be “badass women.”

Like the narrator of “Someday You’ll Call My Name,” Sweeney is not the kind of artist you come across then forget. With Married Alone, she further cements her status as one of country music’s finest storytellers.

Doors @ 7pm
Show @ 8pm
Full Bar
Free On-site Parking
All Ages

Join us for the 2nd annual Beat Root Revival Christmas Show, "Merry Christmas from Beat Root Revival!"

BEAT ROOT REVIVAL is a multi-instrumentalist roots duo, combining elements of Folk, Blues, Country, and Rock n Roll to create a melodic sound, made up of powerhouse harmonic vocalists Andrea Magee and Ben Jones.

Originally from England and Ireland, Ben Jones and Andrea Magee came to the USA 4 years ago like their ancestors before them, looking for a new life and to share their music far and wide. With just a guitar, a Bodhran and a hunger in their harmonies and songs, Austin, Texas became their adopted home and they have developed an ever-growing fan base gigging regularly while writing prolifically. The band's CD sales are higher than any other support act we’ve had at our label in years and they just recorded three brand new songs with legendary producer Paul Leary (Sublime, Slightly Stoopid, Ballyhoo!, Meat Puppets, Butthole Surfers), which includes a great rendition of Thunderclap Neman's, Something In The Air.

Doors @ 7:00pm
Show @ 8:00pm
All Ages
Full Bar
Free On-Site Parking

WAVEMAKERS~WOMEN IN MUSIC

SUPPORTING WOMEN 40+ IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY

WE ARE PASSIONATE ABOUT AMPLIFYING WOMEN’S VOICES — ON STAGE, IN THE STUDIO, IN THE BOARDROOM, AND EVERYWHERE DECISIONS ARE MADE.

JOIN US FOR OUR WAVEMAKER’S HOLIDAY CONCERT!

FEATURING AN INCREDIBLE LINEUP OF ARTISTS: SUZANNA CHOFFEL, LURLEEN LADD, WENDY COLONNA, AND ERIN IVEY.

OUR STELLAR "HOUSE BAND” INCLUDES LEGENDARY AUSTIN MUSICIANS: EDDY HOBIZAL, DAVID PULKINGHAM, KYLE THOMPSON, KEVIN MCKINNEY, AND CHRIS MARESH. THE HORN SECTION INCLUDES ANDRE HAYWARD - TROMBONE MIKE SAILORS - TRUMPET JOSEPH SERRATO - TENOR SAX WITH ERIN FRAZIER PROVIDING BACKING VOCALS.

GET READY FOR AN EVENING OF CHRISTMAS CHEER!

ENJOY SHOPPING TREASURES MADE BY LOCAL WOMEN MUSICIANS SHOWCASING THEIR UNIQUE WARES - JEWELRY, CERAMICS AND GIFTS - FEATURING NOELLE HAMPTON, BETTYSOO, SEELA, VANESSY LIVELY, SHAWNEE KILGORE, AND STEFANIE FIX.

JOIN US IN CELEBRATING THE SEASON AND SUPPORTING WAVEMAKER WOMEN IN MUSIC!

THE 04 CENTER

DEC 12TH DOORS & HOLIDAY SHOPPING STARTS AT 7 PM

CONCERT AT 8 PM

FEATURING:

SUZANNA CHOFFEL

Known for her distinct voice and reggae-inspired guitar technique, Austin native Suzanna Choffel's music has been described as "a unique sound equal parts Beat poetry, smoky soul grooves and indie-pop eccentricity." (Jim Derogatis).Having made appearances at ACL Music Fest, CMJ, SXSW, Voodoo Fest, as well as on screen in movies like "Catfish" and NBC's The Voice (earning singular praise from Rolling Stone as "the only artist you'd want to listen to a complete album from"), Choffel feels equally at home singing in a dimly lit club as she does front and center in front of (literally) millions.

WENDY COLONNA

For the better part of her life, Louisiana native Wendy Colonna has been communing with folks through the gift of live music. She was born and raised in Lake Charles, Louisiana, close to the Texas border. From church choir pews, to front porches and fishing docks, Wendy’s childhood and teen years were spent strumming guitars and belting out songs at gatherings. She grew up steeped in the swampy, music-rich culture of Cajun Country. Her musical lineage is part memory and part DNA melting pot: Italian, Portuguese & English via Trinidad, French, and Cajun. As Wendy carved out her place in Austin, she treated each opportunity as a blessing, forging musical partnerships that continue today. Along the way, she’s racked up accolades – Black Fret, Apple Music, Spotify, Wall Street Journal, New York Times – as well as commercial success, including landing an original song on a Coca-Cola ad. She’s released eight albums since her move to the Lone Star State, with time well-spent developing close relationships within Austin’s fertile musical community.

ERIN IVEY

Erin Ivey is a singer-songwriter whose intimate, confessional style, expressive voice, and emotionally powerful performances have won her a loyal following, national endorsements from Guild and Gretsch, and artist grants to create new work. Raised in Annapolis, Maryland at the U.S. Naval Academy, Erin moved to Austin to attend the University of Texas. She started playing open mics at the renowned Cactus Cafe and has since performed countless shows around the world in various solo and band scenarios, sharing stages with Norah Jones, Emmylou Harris, HEART, Indigo Girls, Shawn Colvin, Ralph Stanley, Stanley Jordan, and many others. Texas Monthly has called her a "superstar." Austin.com dubbed her the "queen of Austin songwriters." Roxy calls her "the darling of Austin's legendary music scene" and according to KUTX, Ivey has "quietly become one of our city's biggest critical successes." In 2020, Texas Music Magazine named Erin's breakout album Broken Gold one of 20 "albums that defined Texas music over the past 2 decades."

LURLEEN LADD

Growing up in Houston Texas, Lurleen Ladd found her calling in music after establishing a career in social work and healthcare. “The journey to bring music to the center of my life has been challenging but very rewarding”. Lurleen's strong connection to her audience is channeled through her experience helping those in need while addressing her own personal struggles. Her music radiates a compelling energy and intense honesty that characterizes her unique songwriting style - inspiring resilience and inner strength in her audience.

Wavemakers was born out of Lurleen’s desire to help others after overcoming personal struggles and following her passion for music. Wavemakers came to fruition after the release of Lurleen’s second album, ‘No Goin’ Back and correlating ‘Sing Out Loud’ challenge. Lurleen created the challenge - encouraging other women to share their stories, dreams and aspirations in the music industry. "A template has been set where we bring together the decision makers, the artists and the audience to challenge the status quo, champion female musicians 40+ and forge a path that celebrates creativity at any age."

ACCOMPANIED BY:

EDDY HOBIZAL / MUSICAL DIRECTOR / ARRANGER
Eddy has been producing local, national, and international artists for close to 20 years. With his own deep experience in songwriting and performance, he supports artists and bands in their songwriting and recording careers through work at his Treehouse Recording Studio, based in Austin, TX.

KEVIN MCKINNEY /GUITAR

Kevin McKinney is an Austin, Texas music Icon. With 5 solo albums, Kevin remains a respected prolific Austin staple. He performs with numerous Austin artists including Bob Schneider, Wrenfro, Fastball, Earthpig and Fire, Bruce Robison, and Martin Zellar. Kevin has built his reputation as much on the back of his live shows as anything else. Live, his shows range from solo acoustic stand-up to full-on power acts. Kevin’s songs, old and new, live on, making people happy and continually inspiring other Austin musicians.

DAVID PULKINGHAM / GUITAR

David Pulkingham grew up traveling internationally, recording and performing music. He was first published at age four and was on his first recording session at age seven. Deciding to pursue music professionally at age 20, David enrolled in the prestigious Jazz studies program at the University of North Texas. Upon graduation he moved to Austin, Texas where he has been a mainstay of that city’s thriving music scene ever since. Known for his abilities in numerous styles, he has been called on for many recording sessions whether it be Latin music or Rock and Roll. David currently tours with Patty Griffin and plays internationally under his own name.

CHRIS MARESH / BASS

Through his unique and tasteful style, Grammy® Award nominee Chris Maresh has firmly established himself as one of the most in demand studio and live performance musicians in Austin, Texas. As a virtuoso bassist and composer, Chris Maresh began his professional music career in Austin, Texas in 1984 after receiving a BM in Applied Double Bass Performance with an Emphasis in Jazz Performance from the University of Texas in Austin. Over the past 27 years, Chris has performed on more than 200 albums.

KYLE THOMPSON / DRUMS

Kyle Thompson, a native Texan, has been playing drums in the Austin area and beyond for almost 20 years. His musical range is extremely diverse and he can be seen playing jazz gigs, backing singer-songwriters, and rocking out. As Duke Ellington said, “There are two kinds of music. Good music, and the other kind.” Kyle focuses on good music and can currently be seen sharing the stage with the Dupree Organ Trio, Suzanna Choffel, Tacks the Boy Disaster, Drew Smith, Charanga Cakewalk, and countless others.

ERIN FRAZIER / BACKING VOCALIST

Erin is an American singer-songwriter and pianist in Austin, Texas.

ANDRE HAYWARD / TROMBONE

Andre Hayward is an extremely gifted trombonist with the sound and clarity reminiscent of the late J.J. Johnson. His gospel-tinged approach is refreshing and will warm the hearts of anyone he comes in contact with.

MIKE SAILORS / TRUMPET

Dr. Mike Sailors is a critically acclaimed trumpeter, arranger and educator who has toured the world as a leader and sideman.

JOSEPH SERRATO / TENOR SAX

Joseph Serrato is an Austin based saxophonist and composer. He has been one the city’s busiest musicians known for his versatility and tone. He has played with the scene’s top bands and toured with international artists.

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As the frontman, guitarist and songwriter for the band The Lost & Nameless Orchestra, Patrick Conway has spent the last fifteen years gigging all over the U.S. and playing every major folk festival and songwriter friendly venue in Texas and beyond. Highlights from his travels with his band include performances at the Americana Music Festival in Chicago, Kerrville Folk Festival, Old Settler’s Music Festival, Folk Alliance International, Fischer Festival, Minnesota State Fair and The Wildflower Festival in Dallas, as well as House Concerts and all of the wonderful listening rooms and grocery stores in his hometown of Austin, Texas. Patrick never turns down a gig for a listening crowd and tirelessly works to entertain when given an audience and a microphone. 

With years of working in recording studios and multiple releases under his belt, Patrick has a new album called “MERIDIAN”. The album is a celebration of and tribute to all that is important in Patrick's life. Love, Home & Family are some of the themes on “MERIDIAN”. It also touches on the inevitable, but beautiful... Loss. The album was produced mostly at home, late at night with everyone in the house sleeping, but features some amazing guest musicians on drums, violins, organ, backing vocals and saxophone. 

Patrick also composes instrumental music for an electronic and ambient music-for-film project called ENDELØS. Selected compositions are available for licensing through MusicVine.com in the UK and all other commissions are available at endelosmusic.com.

When he’s not writing, recording and performing his own music, Patrick works as a freelance music producer and audio engineer. With over twenty seven years experience working in studios and performing as a singer, Patrick enjoys assisting other singer/songwriters and bands with their music and is always open to assisting other dedicated artists.

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Kelley Mickwee has spent the past two decades making a name for herself in her home state of Texas. Within the past year, she’s re-focused her efforts on her solo work, beginning with a set of singles in 2021 recorded with singer-songwriter Jonathan Tyler and culminating with “Gold Standard,” out now. This set of four singles mark Mickwee’s first original releases since 2014’s You Used to Live Here, her debut solo record. Although she was already a seasoned artist at that point with a decade’s worth of experience under her belt, up until then all of her performing and recording experience had been as part of a unit, as one-fourth of the acclaimed Americana group The Trishas, with Jamie Lin Wilson, Savannah Welch and Liz Foster, previously one-half of the Memphis-based duo Jed and Kelley and most recently as part of Shinyribs’ Shiny Soul Sisters. But sometimes what gets lost in the shuffle of all the well-deserved acclaim for what she adds to other artist’s work is the music she makes in her own right. Full-length sophomore solo release, "Everything Beautiful," coming September 27th, 2024.

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An Irish singer-songwriter, Pat Byrne has come a long way since his first deal with Universal. In 2017, Byrne migrated to Austin, Texas. Immersed in the Texas music scene, Pat penned several new songs and released the “Rituals” LP in October 2018. In 2019, Pat took the U.S. by storm, with breakout performances at the 30A Festival, SWSX, Kerrville Folk Festival, and the Americana Festival. Along comes 2020 and live performance all but disappeared. Pat took full advantage and began work on his upcoming LP and launched his Wednesday livestream, now a residency at McGonigel’s Mucky Duck’s Live from Norfolk Street.

Pat recorded “Into the Light” at the Sound Emporium studio in Nashville in late 2020, set for release and tour in summer 2021—Covid-19 permitting.

“When you combine the transcendent poetry of Bob Dylan with the gritty, real-world rock-n-roll storytelling that Bruce Springsteen made so famous, and then add a dash of the political activism embodied by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seger, you’ll have Irish singer-songwriter Pat Byrne”—Folk Alley at 30a Songwriters festival

“The raspy melodic soul of Byrne’s voice recalls the emotional spells the late Austin troubadour Jimmy LaFave used to cast, though Byrne’s songwriting bears a distinctive Irish stamp. He’s more contemporary than strict traditionalists, putting him more in the league of Glen Hansard or Luka Bloom; yet at times he conjures a deeply old-school feel.”—Peter Blackstock, The Austin American Statesman

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Del Castillo is a cross-cultural power uniting music lovers of all ages, creeds and colors. Their original music blends rock, Latin, blues and world music into a cinematic celebration of sound that lifts your soul.

“Whether Del Castillo works in Spanish or English, it rocks righteously. The Spanish guitars’ flamenco vibe gives a dramatic flair, abetted by Alex Ruiz’s passionate vocals. They pull together Latin music’s romance and rock’s grit.” says Billboard magazine.

It started with two brothers, Mark and Rick del Castillo collaborating on a recording project that was initially intended as a gift to their parents and family members for the holiday season. As accomplished electric guitarists in different bands and not having played together, they decided to join forces on acoustic nylon string guitars, creating a rich, romantic, more traditional sound in honor of the Spanish music they grew up listening to at home. The brothers invited their long time, home-town musical friends to also play on the songs and the music soon came to life. Once the album was finalized, it was titled after their namesake, “Brothers Of The Castle” and they performed their first public concert for family and friends to celebrate the release.

Their plan was to perform “one night only.” However, the very positive turnout was unlike any of their other bands. From their inception, Del Castillo became something uniquely special and soon the word spread about the new band. The more the band played, the more their audience grew. They continued writing and recording music, building their repertoire, making more fans and quickly becoming one of Austin’s most recognized bands. One of the instrumental songs from the first album, “Spanish Castle Tango” was later hand picked by Robert Rodriguez and fueled the inspiration for, “Mexico and Mariachis”. Another track from their first album, “Dias de Los Angeles” was placed in the film and soundtrack for “Once Upon A Time In Mexico” starring Johnny Depp, Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek.

“… tumbling brilliance on nylon-string guitars… These eruptions of technique and taste conjure images of Eddie Van Halen fronting early Santana (with an assist from the Gipsy Kings).” says Rolling Stone magazine.

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Tish Hinojosa is a singer-songwriter from Austin, Texas. Hinojosa’s blend of folk, country, Latino, and pop has an undeniable far reaching appeal, garnering her accolades such as a White House concert at the invitation of President and Mrs. Clinton and teaming up with artists such as Joan Baez, Booker T. Jones, Flaco Jimenez, Pete Seeger, and Dwight Yoakam. She has recorded as an independent artist as well as for A&M, Warner Bros, and Rounder Records and has been a featured artist on Austin City Limits, A Prairie Home Companion and other NPR programs. With seventeen CDs to her name, Tish’s distinct sound has gained her much critical acclaim. Tish has toured extensively throughout the U.S. and Europe and continues to draw a loyal and growing audience.

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Emerging singer-songwriter Anna Larson is fusing her diverse musical roots with piano-driven originality. Growing up on gospel, and through years spent as a classical pianist, Larson has followed her own path.

Larson's latest release "Cocoon", 7 original songs plus an accompanying short film, is out Jan 29, 2021, and was made completely in isolation during 2020. Larson has appeared on NPR Music’s “All Songs Considered”, as well as placing in the 2019 Woody Guthrie Songwriting Competition. She made her solo album debut in February 2019 with “Shifting Sand”- a distinctive collection of songs rife with soul and Americana.

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Despite the name, Matt the Electrician is no longer an electrician, focusing instead on a music career that has spanned the course of two decades, a dozen records, and  thousands of shows. His music, however, remains rooted in his blue collar beginnings, with lyricism that embraces the day-to-day, the mundane, the beauty of the ordinary. 

Before moving to Austin, TX and launching his career as a working-class folk musician, Matt Sever grew up on the West Coast.  His parents played John Denver and Pete Seeger songs on the family record player, and Matt spent his earliest years surrounded by the things that would later fill his own music: acoustic guitars, timeless melodies, lyrics that celebrated the joys and heartaches of everyday life, and — above all else — a strong work ethic. 

That work ethic served him well in the mid-1990s, when he moved to Austin in search of new horizons and better opportunities. Matt was already playing music by then, and in need of a steady day job, he began working as an electrician, spending his days wiring houses in the Texas heat.  Once quitting time came, he'd grab his guitar and drive himself to an evening show, usually taking the stage in his work boots and sweaty clothes. "Hi; I'm Matt the Electrician," he'd tell the crowd, hoping his occupation would help explain his appearance. The name stuck, even after his growing fan base at home, as well as abroad, allowed him to hang up his pliers for good. 

Matt’s most recent release, a double CD called The Doubles, is the culmination of a 2-year vinyl 45 collaborative project.

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Here’s what we know about Southpaw Jones:

He is a software developer by day (and some nights). Visit LinkedIn for all that.
By night, he makes music for open-minded folks who dig singable melodies and one-of-a-kind lyrics.
He responds well to prompted creativity, particularly when the prompter has a budget.
He can write a decent song about anything.
He is left-handed.
He plays a right-handed guitar upside down…
…without a high E string.
He treads lightly on the thin ice of irreverent honesty.
He has lived in Houston, Nashville, and Los Angeles.
He currently lives in Austin.
He performs solo if not with Matt the Electrician.
He has had the honor of opening for Dan Bern, Terri Hendrix, James McMurtry, Slaid Cleaves, Fred Eaglesmith, and Lisa Loeb.
He has performed with 5 instruments in 17 states during the past 20 years.
Critics say he has “that most amazing ability to be hilarious and heartbreaking at the same time.”
Author Spike Gillespie calls him “the left-handed Elvis Costello and the best songwriter in the land.”
Southpaw calls himself “Slim” and sleeps in the fetal position.

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Joshua Radin

Joshua Radin emerged in 2004 as an empathetic, engaging, and often enthralling troubadour. Over the years, he’s tallied north of 1 billion streams, moved 1 million-plus albums worldwide, and scored a gold certification for the single “I’d Rather Be With You.” His music has appeared in over 200 films, television series, and commercials. In addition to multiple showstopping appearances on Ellen (who also enlisted him to perform at her wedding) and Today Show, and performances on The Tonight Show, Jimmy Kimmel LIVE!, and Conan, he contributed “Brand New Day” to a commercial in support of the troops at the request of First Ladies Michelle Obama and Dr. Jill Biden. He’s played to sold out crowds around the globe and shared the stage with the likes of Ed Sheeran, Sara Bareilles, Ingrid Michaelson, Sheryl Crow, Tori Amos and more. Not to mention, he’s a staunch philanthropist who supports Little Kids Rock and North Shore Animal League America (NSALA), among others. Thus far his catalog consists of nine full-length offerings highlighted by fan favorites such as We Were Here, Simple Times, Underwater, Wax Wings, and Here, Right Now.

Following the release of his 2021 acclaimed album The Ghost and The Wall, Joshua left his material existence in the rearview, grabbed a backpack, packed his guitar, picked up a pen and a pad, hit the road in search of new stories to tell. Those stories comprise though the world will tell me so, part 1 [Nettwerk], the first of a pair of forthcoming EPs.

Ron Pope

In the months following the release of his critically acclaimed album “Bone Structure,” Nashville-based singer-songwriter, Ron Pope, felt lost. A hometown tornado and a pandemic will do that to a person. Unfortunately for Pope, tangled amongst the rubble was an album release and months of touring that abruptly came to a halt. For an album that he penned while reflecting on his own mortality, it seemed almost apropos.

While his career was put on pause, he effectively became a stay-at-home dad. Slowly, his priorities shifted as he realized that not only could this time be looked at as a gift, but it could be used as an opportunity to reimagine what his life could look like in the future. Why sit in the same formulaic cycle? Why seek validation from places that didn’t care to give it?

In asking these questions of himself, he realized that the community his music created was also seeking answers to similar questions. Weekly online shows allowed free conversations and inspired creativity. Pulling from unreleased songs and reimagined fan favorites, Pope decided to embark on a year of connecting and leaning into the community that has supported him all along.

It was time to let go of preconceived notions about what was expected of him. It was time to take a step back and focus on what really mattered. It was time to rebuild.

After completely scrapping early recording sessions for his album Bone Structure (March 6, 2020), Pope set out on a new path, crafting incredibly candid songs directed squarely at his newborn daughter. Some songs speak to her directly and muse on the experience of fatherhood, while others reflect on a personal experience that has a lesson or a moral. Pope's 2017 release, "Work," drew comparisons to Tom Petty and Bruce Springsteen, while also refusing to put him squarely into one category. Uncompromising and relentless, Pope has evolved into one of the top grossing independent acts in the business while garnering a legion of devoted fans the world over. Taking the industry-road-less-traveled and holding fiercely to his independence has proven fruitful for Pope; to date, he has sold out shows on three continents and in more than 20 countries, sold over 2 million digital tracks, has nearly half a billion streams on Spotify, 880 million plays on Pandora, 150 million views on Youtube, and has generally crushed every metric used to measure what is possible for most independent artists.

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The Pepperland Players with Ben Jones, Miles Zuniga, Bruce Hughes, Darin Murphey & Heath Allyn present Let It Be & Abbey Road!

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Dar Williams’ lyrics contain bouquets of optimism, delivered on melodies alternating between beguiling lightness and understated gravity. Williams strongly believes that all of us possess our own power and ability to achieve, and she rejects the exceptionalism that encourages us to “admire that yonder star,” while making us feel small and insignificant; unworthy of shining on our own but hoping to catch enough distant light to inspire some tiny accomplishment. Williams has always been very interested in how to control our future and this album has to do with the fact that at some point, you just can’t.

Like everyone else, Williams spent 2020 in that state of non-control. She and longtime producer Stewart Lerman tracked most of the album, her 12th studio recording, in November of 2019. In late February of 2020, she cut the title tune in Woodstock with bassist Gail Ann Dorsey and Larry Campbell, who produced the track and played guitars, pedal steel and twangy baritone guitar. When told they had to postpone a mid-March mixing date, Campbell said he wasn’t feeling well anyway. Turns out he’d contracted a serious case of COVID-19. That was a clear sign that at some point, you have to meet life where it meets you …the common thread throughout that these songs, the willingness to meet life as it arrives.

Dar Williams was always in the right place at the right time for the success she’s had over a 25+-year career. She rose out of the vibrant mid-90’s Boston scene, inspired by the eclectic influences of alt-rockers, Berklee jazz musicians, slam poets, and folk artists, like Patty Griffith, Melissa Ferrick, the Throwing Muses, Vance Gilbert, and Jonatha Brooke. After a year of touring non-stop with her first album, The Honesty Room, in 1994, she was invited by Joan Baez to tour in Europe and The United States.

“Good and bad things happen, and it’s not necessarily a reward or indictment. I’ve just got to meet it.” Williams observes. “Like, I’m bringing my whole life to this moment; it will surprise me, challenge me, show me where I was wrong, even make a fool out of me, but my job is to show up and not take adversity personally. Real happiness doesn't have to feel like Snoopy dancing with Woodstock; it can just be knowing you have the resilience to meet whatever comes to you. I will call that a good life.”

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When T Bone Burnett was making his new record The Other Side, he was thinking a lot about “you.”

“I was reading a news story that some shocking percentage of number one hit songs had the word you in the title,” says the Oscar -and Grammy-winning composer-producer-songwriter well known for his work with everyone from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to Brandi Carlile to Elton John and on iconic soundtracks including O Brother Where Art Thou and Walk the Line. Burnett started contemplating who all those “you”s are and what it means when an artist puts them in a song.

Burnett says he realized that for many years, when he worked on his own solo albums as a singer-songwriter — in between acclaimed stints of coaxing the best work out of a wildly diverse set of artists as a producer or curating ideal soundtracks for an equally disparate group of films and series —he had been “tough” on listeners.

“I view the purpose of art as creating conscience, so I was constantly appealing to people's consciences,” he says of a solo career that stretches back to the mid-‘70s and includes several well-reviewed albums including 1992’s The Criminal Under My Own Hat. “But I realized when a songwriter use the word you, he is, of course, in the world of conscience, but he’s also in the world of people's dreams. And when you enter into people's dreams, you have to be very careful with them.”

And the man born Joseph Henry Burnett knows about the power of dreams. As a teenager, he had a recurring nightmare. He and other members of his Episcopal church were lined up around the walls of the parish hall where people’s right hands were being replaced with electronic tracking devices that could be controlled by shadowy black figures who lorded over a larger dystopian landscape.

“As I was already playing guitar at that time, I would wake up in a cold sweat saying ‘I can't do this. I've got to get out of here!’” says Burnett, now 75, but still crystal clear on the details of the dystopia. That nightmare sent him off on a study of writers and philosophers, including Marshall McLuhan and Jacques Ellul, whose ideas about the ways in which technology threaten humanity would inform much of his work over the course of his career including, most recently, his sci-fi-oriented The Invisible Light series.

“In the early 2000s, I walked into a coffee shop and saw everyone on their phones,” he recalls. “I realized, ‘Oh, they didn't have to cut our hands off. They just put the control device in our hands.’ I began going deeper and deeper into this dystopia until I decided several years ago that I wanted to write my way out of it which is how the Invisible Light project started.”

Burnett often wondered what would happen if he ever did make it to freedom from the hellscape of that dream. Now he knows: The Other Side, a clutch of songs that reflect a new outlook and approach Burnett didn’t even know he was seeking and featuring old friends Rosanne Cash and early bandmate Steven Soles, newer artists Lucius and Weyes Blood, and longtime trusted musical companions including Dennis Crouch, Stuart Duncan, Jay Bellerose, and Rory Hoffman.

The album is a haunting 12-song collection that has a loose love story at its center following a couple that may no longer be of this plane. The mood is by turns eerie and spectral — the graveyard-set “Sometimes I Wonder” featuring Weyes Blood and the ghostly “Waiting For You,” one of several songs dusted with Lucius’ vocal magic — and suffused with both melancholy and playfulness — the warmly Cash-backed “(I’m Gonna Get Over This) Some Day” and the catchy couplets of “Everything and Nothing,” co-written with Gary Nicholson and inspired by the witty, economic wordplay of Broadway genius Frank Loesser. The album also features some of the richest vocals of Burnett’s entire career, as he deploys a more melodic tone throughout, creating a new accessibility where he had previously been more idiosyncratic.

Co-produced by Colin Linden — whose Nashville studio served as home base — and Mike Piersante, in that high-fidelity fashion for which Burnett is known that makes you feel like you are in the room with the band as they make their way through the songs like the dreamy, Orbisonian ballad “Hawaiian Blue Song,” featuring Soles, Burnett calls The Other Side a country blues album. That rootsiness is quite the 180 from the mechanized electronics of the Invisible Light records from 2019 and 2022.

While at work on the planned third installment in that series, Burnett says, “I invented some people called ‘the listeners’ who were able to hear pure tone, and therefore were able to distinguish, for instance, between an AI voice and a human voice. They were able to distinguish between fact and faction. Inventing those people and finding tone as the way through this dystopia, the way through the lies, I found a hole in the dystopia that I was able to pass through. And when I passed through that hole, all of these songs on this record started pouring in.”

He set aside the Invisible Light project as songs from The Other Side arrived, seemingly unbidden, as he played some new guitars he had recently bought.

“I had to record them because I loved them,” says Burnett who attributes the variance in his vocals to his discovery of a new tone for himself.

“I shifted from writing in my head to writing in my chest, and I shifted from singing in my head to singing in my chest because I realized my tone had been in service of this complete other drama that I was living in,” he says. “But now that I had escaped the dystopia, a whole other world opened up to me and it was thrilling to just have a melody come out of a guitar. There were all these songs in these guitars. And they just came all at once, over probably a three-week period.”

He augmented this musical bounty on the other side of the nightmare with a few songs that he had been tinkering with, including “Town That Time Forgot,” co-written with Peter More for a theatrical project, “Hawaiian Blue Song,” which dates back to the mid-‘70s, and the mythical album opener “He Came Down” which was inspired by Burnett’s wife, the Oscar-winning screenwriter-director-producer Callie Khouri (Thelma & Louise, Nashville).

“That was just an ad-lib trying to explain something to her about folk music one morning at the kitchen table and Callie said, ‘record that right now.’ She knew,” says Burnett, of his partner’s keen instincts. “In a way all the songs are about Callie, because I have to say, she's a very loving woman,” he says. “I’m so grateful to her for the way she's opened me up to the possibilities of love.”

Those possibilities extended to two other parties: his audience, of the “you” outside of himself to whom he wanted to be more inclusive and, crucially himself. Burnett sought to care for himself as an artist in the same manner he has helped shepherd so many others in the studio.

“With this record, I tried to treat myself as kindly as I would try to treat other people,” says Burnett, who likens his producing approach to that of a photographer. “I try to find the person's best angle and light them so they look the most like themselves or the best version of themselves. And this time, rather than staying in the romantic notion I previously had of myself—of a rebellious artist, a firebrand or whatever I thought I was trying to be—I just tried to be kind to myself.”

Ultimately, in looking for “you,” T Bone Burnett found himself on The Other Side.

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Dave Scher grabbed onto an electric guitar at age 10, and has spent little of his waking time ever since without having one in his very capable hands. That is, unless, he happens to be playing mandolin, fiddle, bass, piano, organ or any number of other instruments, just to keep things interesting. He’s been known to dabble in jazz, funk, or even a little country whenever he temporarily wanders from his beloved blues, but basically he does it all. Dave ScherAnd then there’s his voice—powerful and sensual enough to convey every emotion on the spectrum, a natural extension and perfect complement to his work on the guitar.

It is Dave’s honor and pleasure to play as a sideman for many well-known local acts, and his versatility and enormous talent enable him to really up the ante and make any band sound incredible. But he mostly shines as a solo performer or when leading his own trio, belting out original material in addition to his own exciting, inventive arrangements of popular and classic covers of all genres.

“One of the best guitar players I’ve ever heard …”

Van Wilkes, “Texas Music Hall of Fame”

“I just wanted to tell you that you sound really great!”

Tony Bennett

“A great, great player.”

Kym Warner, founding member of The Green Cards

“My hero!”

Chris Gage, multi-instrumentalist and premier guitarist for Jerry Jeff Walker

“Truly one of the best guitarists I’ve ever heard.”

Carlton Dillard, host of Bridge Radio with Carlton Dillard on Sun Radio, Austin.

But don’t just take their word for it—come on out to a live show soon, and see for yourself!

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Despite the name, Matt the Electrician is no longer an electrician, focusing instead on a music career that has spanned the course of two decades, a dozen records, and  thousands of shows. His music, however, remains rooted in his blue collar beginnings, with lyricism that embraces the day-to-day, the mundane, the beauty of the ordinary. 

Before moving to Austin, TX and launching his career as a working-class folk musician, Matt Sever grew up on the West Coast.  His parents played John Denver and Pete Seeger songs on the family record player, and Matt spent his earliest years surrounded by the things that would later fill his own music: acoustic guitars, timeless melodies, lyrics that celebrated the joys and heartaches of everyday life, and — above all else — a strong work ethic. 

That work ethic served him well in the mid-1990s, when he moved to Austin in search of new horizons and better opportunities. Matt was already playing music by then, and in need of a steady day job, he began working as an electrician, spending his days wiring houses in the Texas heat.  Once quitting time came, he'd grab his guitar and drive himself to an evening show, usually taking the stage in his work boots and sweaty clothes. "Hi; I'm Matt the Electrician," he'd tell the crowd, hoping his occupation would help explain his appearance. The name stuck, even after his growing fan base at home, as well as abroad, allowed him to hang up his pliers for good. 

Matt’s most recent release, a double CD called The Doubles, is the culmination of a 2-year vinyl 45 collaborative project.

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Dave Barnes

Although born in South Carolina, singer/songwriter Dave Barnes spent most of his childhood in Mississippi, where he formed an early attachment to hip-hop but was also exposed to classic soul, blues, and R&B by his parents. He later enrolled at Middle Tennessee State University and began writing songs for other artists. Barnes also played solo shows on campus, and by the time he graduated with a degree in recording industry management, he'd decided to pursue his own music career. Barnes moved to Nashville, Tennessee, and gravitated toward the city's acoustic folk scene, though, the desire to make more groove-oriented music convinced him to assemble a full band.

Barnes' soulful pop songs won him the support of artists like John Mayer, while the spiritual tone of his lyrics earned some support from the Christian music scene. He remained independent for two albums -- 2004's Brother, Bring the Sun and 2006's Chasing Mississippi, both produced by Ed Cash -- before moving to Razor & Tie for 2008's Me and You and the World and 2010's What We Want, What We Get. The latter album became a surprise Christian hit, debuting in the Top Five on the Christian charts thanks in part to the single "God Gave Me You." A year later, Blake Shelton recorded "God Gave Me You" on his Red River Blue album and his version topped the country chart, earning Barnes a Grammy nomination in the process.

Following the 2011 holiday set Very Merry Christmas, Barnes returned with Stories to Tell in 2012, working with producer John Fields in Los Angeles. The singer's second holiday outing, A December to Remember, was released in late 2013, followed a few months later by Golden Days, both of which arrived via Barnes' new label, 50 Year Plan. For his next studio release, 2016's Carry on, San Vicente, Barnes channeled a sunny, '70s-inspired Southern California vibe. A similar laid-back pop approach continued on 2018's Who Knew It Would Be So Hard to Be Myself. He’s since released 2020’s Dreaming In Electric Blue, 2021’s Notes from Paris, and 2022’s Remembering: Greatest Hits Acoustic.

Dave has had over 100 songs recorded by other artists such as Florida Georgia Line, Tim McGraw, Reba McEntire, Dan + Shay, Carrie Underwood, NEEDTOBREATHE, Billy Currington, and countless more. Of those songs, he has landed two #1's with "God Gave Me You" (Blake Shelton) and “Craving You” (Thomas Rhett and Maren Morris), a #2 with “You” (Dan + Shay), and a #13 with “Like a Lady” (Lady A). His past collaborations include artists Lindsey Stirling, Ingrid Michaelson, and Ben Rector, just to name a few. Dave's new album, “Featherbrained Wealth Motel” (October 20, 2023) is overflowing with feel-good vibes and throw-back melodies.

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Abbie Gamboa, an integral songwriter/worship leader in the UPPERROOM community, has been known for her unrestrained, dynamic anthems for the church since her debut appearance on the first Moments album covering “Tremble” & “Defender” in 2018.After years of keeping her personal artistry tucked away in hiddenness, Abbie releases her first solo project, “pure,” to communicate the core of who she is — a daughter, sister, wife, & mother.

As Abbie grows into all of these parts of herself, her music has a direct emphasis on becoming a daughter. Her internal rerouting taking place through her relationship with God as Father has become the theme & heartbeat behind the song she sings. The idea behind this album, “pure,” was intentional in solely focusing on where her heart stays - partnered with God to meet people where they’re at. She loves that the beauty of music transcends age groups, demographics, & different phases of life. Abbie invites listeners to engage with her songs in a space where they can open their hands & reflectively open their hearts to meet with a God who sees & intimately knows them.

It’s the little things in life that make her come alive; the simple joy found in a rainy or sunny day, fresh flowers, eating her favorite foods, or something new her son does. She's discovering where she’s headed in her music career after learning the seemingly melancholy music she began to write over 10 years ago wasn’t always coming from a sad place, rather from an honest place.

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In 1992 Tab Benoit released his first recording Nice and Warm on the Justice Label. The title track became a AAA Radio hit and Benoit’s touring career kicked into high gear. Nice and Warm prompted comparisons to blues guitar heavyweights like Albert King, Albert Collins and even Jimi Hendrix. Tab began playing two-hundred and fifty shows a year, a schedule he has kept up for over twenty years. He recorded four albums for Justice Records before being signed to the Vanguard label, and became Louisiana’s Number One Blues export. Vanguard allowed Tab to produce his own recordings; Tab wanted to record the sound that he was trying to create and in 1999 Vanguard Records released These Blues Are All Mine.

Tab Benoit’s music evolved again after he signed with the Telarc International/Concord Music Group in 2002. He began to strip it down to a three-piece group, where he found more freedom as a guitarist. He was also on a mission in wanting to use his music and his energy to bring attention to Louisiana’s coastal erosion issues. Tab began to spend more time in the Wetlands and it was where he began to write his songs. Wetlands was the title of his first Telac/Concord International release. The record combined many musical styles that are indigenous to Louisiana, while he began to play accordion lines and washboard on guitar. Wetlands was a mile marker that definitively marked Tab’s further musical progression into his own original sound and style.

Following the release of Wetlands in 2004 Benoit founded the Voice of the Wetlands non-profit organization and began to use music and gather other musicians to use their platforms for getting the message out. He put together an all-star band that featured Cyril Neville, Anders Osborne, George Porter Jr, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, Johnny Vidacovich, Johnny Sansone, and Waylon Thibodeaux that became The Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars. The Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars have released two CDs and occasionally tour throughout the country.

Benoit recently launched his own imprint, Whiskey Bayou Records, with partner and manager, Rueben Williams. The label has thus far released albums by such established artists as Eric McFadden, Damon Fowler, Eric Johanson, Jeff McCarty, and Dash Rip Rock. In 2019 Benoit hits the road for a major U.S. Tour, the Whiskey Bayou Revue, featuring Benoit and several of his label’s artists.

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The tapestry of southern music in America is rich, vivid and diverse. Adam Hood is an artist who exudes that substantial musical lineage each time he straps on his Telecaster for a show or picks up his pen to write a song. The roots of his Opelika, AL upbringing inform his musicality and guide his soul-stirring lyrics. He paints the characters of his songs with the wisdom that can only be derived by thousands of miles spent behind the steering wheel chasing the next musical adventure from one coast to the next. While initially making waves as a performer of his own songs, it has been other folks singing those songs over the past decade that have added a new layer to Adam Hood’s formidable career. Always a capable and relatable songwriter, Hood has found his way by adeptly crafting songs that created stirring scenes and powerful emotions. An impressive roster of artists have recorded songs from Adam Hood’s pen, including: Miranda Lambert, Little Big Town, Whiskey Myers, Cody Jinks and Travis Tritt. While Hood’s songwriting profile has continued to shine over the years, his own recorded and touring output has remained a vital part of the broader country music landscape. Hood’s latest album is titled Bad Days Better. An effort that was recorded in the famed Capricorn Studios in Macon, GA with Brent Cobb at the helm and BlackBerry Smoke’s band playing on the 10 track album.

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People ask Warren Hood a lot of questions at the end of a show – what was the name of that song you played – it sounded like Stephane Grappelli maybe, right after the Doug Sahm cover? How did you learn to play fiddle like that? Are you playing anywhere else this week? How old are you? Warren always obliges to answer all of the questions, that’s just his character (the answers are usually something like, “Black Cat”, hard work and listening to the right records, yes, definitely, and older than you think). He cares deeply about the experiences of the people who come to his shows and buy his records and works hard to create memorable live performances and albums.

Warren started playing classical violin at age 11 in the school orchestra, later studying privately with Bill Dick. He won classical music competitions, including the Pearl Amster Youth Concerto Competition and the Austin Youth Award, which gave him the opportunity to perform as a soloist on “Lalo Symphonie Espagnole” with the Austin Symphony, conducted by Peter Bay. Warren later balanced studying at Austin High with touring with Charlie Robison and the South Austin Jug Band. After high school, Warren earned a rare scholarship to Berklee College of Music where he majored in Violin Performance, played with Steven Tyler and formed an acoustic string band, Blue Light Special. At Berklee, Warren earned the coveted String Achievement Award, an award chosen by faculty to honor talent and as a vote of confidence on future success.

Leaving Berklee, Warren returned to Austin and was in demand as a sideman, playing with Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis, Alejandro Escovedo, Joe Ely, and joining The Waybacks, a band he would play with for the next ten years. Through all of this, Warren played with the South Austin Jug Band when he could, especially as a part of their Sunday night residency at Momo’s on W 6th St in Austin. When the residency ended for SAJB, Warren gathered a group of friends and took over Sunday nights under his own name, starting his first solo venture and releasing his first studio record, “Warren Hood”, an eclectic mix of both songs and legendary Austin players including Marcia Ball, Cindy Cashdollar, and Ephraim Owens.

The Momo’s Sunday residency lasted seven years and was a testing ground for Warren where he found his sound, learned how to lead a band, and gave the artists he shared the stage with space to shine - something he had plenty of experience with from the other point of view, having been a sideman for 10+ years. The way Warren ran Sunday nights had a lot in common with the residencies he grew up around in Austin – his father, Champ’s, ‘Singin for your Supper’ at Threadgill’s (Marcia Ball, Butch Hancock, Ruthie Foster, Sarah Elizabeth Campbell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore) and Toni Price’s ’Hippie Hour’ at The Continental Club.

The band Warren plays with now (Marshall Hood and Willie Pipkin on guitar, Nate Rowe on bass, and Jordan Cook on drums) is the current version of the band he started back in 2004 at Momo’s. This band plays every week at ABGB, drawing a mix of “old Austin” and newcomers, musicians and music lovers, and dancers who stay on the floor from the first to last song. The Warren Hood Band plays a mix of their own songs, classic country, and blues, with a nod towards their Texas roots with a few Uncle Walt’s

Band songs mixed in. Warren recorded “Warren Hood Band” in 2013, an album produced by Charlie Sexton and released by Red Parlor Records. A multi-instrumentalist (violin, guitar, mandolin) and accomplished singer-songwriter, Warren is described in the press a lot of different ways: “virtuoso” ”seven time Austin Music Award winner - Best Strings” ”Texas fiddler” ”Chet Baker crooner” “bluegrass picker” – but for him it all kind of blends together into everything he does (and what he does doesn’t always have fiddle). Warren says slyly that “playing different styles of music is like speaking different languages - the difference between violin and fiddle is how you roll your Rs. The more languages you speak the more people you can talk to.”

Warren's greatest influence is certainly his father, Champ Hood. Champ was a member of Uncle Walt’s Band, an acoustic folk trio from Spartanburg, South Carolina that also included Walter Hyatt and David Ball. They moved to Austin in 1975, prime time for the zeitgeist of the Austin heyday, playing at Waterloo and the Armadillo and building a cadre of lifelong fans. Their intricate harmonies and creative songwriting inspired their contemporaries, many of whom are today’s best loved and most respected songwriters and artists, and continue to touch those who discover their records today. Warren spends as much time with his band as he does playing and recording alongside other artists: David Ball, The Bodeans, Hayes Carll, Joe Ely, Alejandro Escovedo, Robert Earl Keen, Ben Kweller, Little Feat, Lyle Lovett, Joan Osborne, Toni Price, Bob Schneider, South Austin Jug Band, Redd Volkaert, Jerry Jeff Walker The Waybacks, Bob Weir, Bruce Robison and Kelly Willis and more.

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Native Texan and new-ish Nashvillian, Taylor Leonhardt is first and foremost a craftsman. Whether she's penning tunes for her solo project or for her duo Mission House with Jess Ray, it’s always about the song. The Gospel Coalition recently called Taylor “one of the most promising singer-songwriters in Nashville these days", naming her latest project Hold Still one of the best albums of 2021. In addition to touring and writing, she spends time across the US leading music and conversations for spiritual retreats, creative workshops, and faith communities. When she’s not on the road, you can catch Taylor on a long run at Shelby Park or pursuing her newest hobby - fly fishing. She is convinced God songs are everywhere.

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Singer/songwriter Owen Stroud has been formed by a variety of musical influences - regional folksingers, classical masterworks, jazz standards, and high-church hymnody, to name a few. A native of Austin’s northwest suburbs, Owen spent several post-college years living in other states, including a few years in Nashville, before returning to south central Texas in 2020. He has written and produced two albums to date: If There Are Other Places (2019) and The Handwriting Was Mine (2023). Part recollection, part rediscovery of home turf, Handwriting’s vibrant mix of songs features Owen settling into his signature blend of humor and poignance, whether he’s singing about winter storms, piquin salsa, or even the perils of I-35. When not performing, Owen is usually out hiking at a state park, working on a new batch of songs, or reading a book about some arcane aspect of Texas geography.

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Singer/Songwriter Max Gomez grew up in Taos, New Mexico, where he fell under the influence of country blues early on and developed a songwriting style that was uniquely his. He received critical acclaim upon the release of his debut album Rule The World (2013, New West Records); and his subsequent EP, Me and Joe (2017, Brigadoon Records), contained a freshly minted classic, “Make It Me,” which has gained over 4 million listeners on Spotify alone.

As a budding performer, Max apprenticed in the rarefied musical micro-climate of northern New Mexico, where troubadours like Michael Martin Murphey and Ray Wylie Hubbard helped foster a Western folk sound both cosmic and country.

He has shared billing on hundreds of stages with stalwarts of the genre like James McMurtry, Buddy Miller, John Hiatt, Patty Griffin, Tommy James & The Shondells, Jeff Beck, and Johnny Depp. Judging by the company he keeps, Gomez is poised to emerge as a prominent voice of Americana’s next generation.  The forthcoming album, Memory Mountain, will release this summer.

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Thomas Csorba is getting to the good part. On his forthcoming album, Windchimes, he delves into the slow, reflective and “at-home” nature of starting a family as well as the hopes and fears you encounter along the way. Windchimes unfolds as an exploration of life's seasons, a delicate dance through the past, present, future and the tension that arises as you navigate through it all. 

When he last released a record in 2020 Thomas was unmarried, childless and cooped up in his house like much of the rest of the world. Now married, a father and releasing an album with a full team it can feel like a lot more is at stake. “Modern life can make you feel like you have to prove yourself to others constantly. I don't know if that's always great, but it's definitely something that’s a part of me,” says Csorba. Luckily, starting a family and the process of making Windchimes have helped to find a counterbalance to the pressures that come along with ambition - honest and open collaboration. Collaboration in a family unit, with business colleagues and of course with fellow artists.

In the months leading up to recording Windchimes, Csorba dove deep into co-writing with other musicians. He says of the process - “There's an aspect to co-writing that's therapeutic. The start of any session usually involves sitting down and catching up. Asking each other questions about our lives, troubles and goals. These conversations helped me prepare myself for the new season in life I had ahead of me”. They also helped him write his most personal collection of songs to date. 

On songs like "Getting to the Good Part" and "Give it Time" Csorba invites the listener to embrace the unknown on the other side of tomorrow. Whether it's the sometimes exciting and sometimes frightening chaos that comes with parenthood or the inevitability that nothing lasts forever, his lyrics find ways that are both poetic and playful to describe the cosmic roller coaster we're all on.

The theme of perspective and gratitude continues on in the beautiful and nostalgic slice of the American Dream that is "Worth the Wait". A song that feels like the soundtrack to a home movie of all your best childhood summers. Complete with sno-cones and lazy days sitting by a pond with a fishing rod. 

"I'm in a stage of life where I want to be focused on those playful things. I want to teach my kid that this world isn't a place to walk through with your head hanging down - but instead - look up, embrace all the beauty in this life, and don't take yourself too seriously.

"Back Up the Hill" is a rollicking number that bubbles over with buoyant horns and soaring background vocals. It asks the existential question "Am I capable of making something of myself?" The answer with a joyful wink and nod is that "There's only one way to find out".

The achingly beautiful "Grieving Angel" explores love that can't be broken by death, and the desire to continue caring for those you've left behind. "I don’t wanna be a stranger / Just another memory slipping through your hands / Let me be your Grieving Angel / If I can’t be your man."

The album, produced by Robert Ellis & Josh Block, was recorded almost entirely live and in one room. The production is classic and simple which allows Csorba's introspective songwriting and warm vocal performances to remain the focal point. While the recording is built around acoustic guitar, upright bass, and drums, the instrumentation isn't without surprises - pedal steel, mandolin, saxophone, flute (and yes, chimes) all weave deftly into the tapestry of Windchimes. The musicians’ performances are so stellar they feel effortless and create the perfect space for these songs to exist in. 

With Windchimes, the 26 year old has found a voice that is wise, playful and only getting better. It's true that the path to success for an artist is steep and riddled with pitfalls, but if this album is any indication, Thomas Csorba is ready to dig his heels in and keep rolling the rock up the hill. 

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The sound and imagery of the 20th release by Chris Smither, All About the Bones, (release date: May 3, 2024 on Signature Sounds/Mighty Albert, distributed by Redeye) is as elemental as the inky black shadows cast by a shockingly bright moon. The listener is welcomed into some gothic mansion on an imaginary New Orleans street, and there in the lamplit parlor confronts the band, a minimalist skeleton crew: Smither’s inimitable propulsive guitar and rumbling baritone are joined seamlessly to producer David Goodrich’s carpetbag of instruments, Zak Trojano’s rock-steady, primal drumming, BettySoo’s diaphanous harmony vocals, and the flat, mournful flood of Jazz legend Chris Cheek’s saxophone.

Recorded at Sonelab Studios in Easthampton MA by Justin Pizzoferrato (Sonic Youth, Dinosaur Jr., the Hold Steady) All About the Bones has a feel that is somehow baroque and austere at once. Smither and his longtime producer David Goodrich have been refining their musical conversation for decades, both in the studio and onstage, and by now, their bond verges on the telepathic. Goodrich plays on nearly every track. His sound is by now so translucent that it seems to function as a swath of silence, allowing the songs to burn like ciphers in the crackling air.

And oh, the songs on All About the Bones. Chris Smither, after six decades of sharpening his knife as a songwriter, can at this point open damn near anything with a flick of his wrist. God and the Devil are opened here. Mortality is too. Politics, consciousness, renewal, family, vulnerability, surrender… Smither has sat with these topics like so many Zen koans, for so long, that every line is a pearl. The title track, “All About the Bones,” kicks the record off with “Consider your high station/ think about your fame. All of your creation depended on your frame.” Irony, wit, the double meaning of “depended”… each verse is a master class in songwriting.

Yet the stark, elemental sage always has a twinkle in his eye, a light touch at your elbow as he guides you along. From the wickedly funny defense of the Adversary in “If Not for the Devil” to the unsentimental open-heartedness of “Still Believe in You,” he is as human as we all long to be. The disjointed imagery of “In the Bardo” and the dystopian mirror of “Close the Deal” find Smither unflinchingly staring down the mortality of both individuals and republics, and yet he is at peace, among loved ones in his cover of Eliza Gilkyson’s “Calm Before the Storm,” and turning his gaze to the future in “Completion”. He sends us on our merry way, startled, dazzled, unsettled and then comforted, with Tom Petty’s “Time to Move On.”

As noted by the New York Times, Rolling Stone, MOJO, NPR, and others, in the decades of travels to All About the Bones, Chris Smither has gone from up-and-comer to journeyman to veteran to icon, and yet the whole time his path has more closely resembled Joseph Campbell’s “Hero with a Thousand Faces”- an unblinking, fearless trek into the depths of struggle and revelation, and a return back to the land of the living, to share the hard-won treasures found along the way. His restlessness is long gone, and his eyes are fixed “where the moonlight falls on some never-to-be-seen horizon” (“Still Believe in You”). The light given off from his music casts our own lives into a sublime and welcome clarity.

All About the Bones, the new record by Chris Smither (Signature Sounds/Mighty Albert, out May 3, 2024).

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Kelly Willis is Back Being Blue, to take a color-coded cue from the title of her seventh album. It’s a shade she wears well, though long-patient fans might just say: You had us at back. They’ll take a new Willis record in whatever hue it comes, now that it’s been 11 years since her last solo release, 2007’s Translated from Love. The Austin-based singer/songwriter has hardly been MIA in the intervening years, having recorded and toured as part of a duo with Bruce Robison. But she’s setting the duet Mm.Oo. aside for do-it-alone mode, at least as far as the spotlight is concerned. (Robison hovers just outside it this time, as producer.). Hers is a solo voice again, but it’s not necessarily sotto voce: This is an album of songs about lonesomeness that also happens to be a cracklingly good time.

Willis wrote six of the 10 tracks on Back Being Blue by herself, the first time she’s penned that big a portion of one of her albums without outside assists. That doesn’t mean she’s gone into deeply confessional territory for her “Blue” period.

Lyrically, “it’s not an extremely personal record,” she says, downright cheerfully. There may be profundity within, but what Willis was really after was a sense of playfulness. “I wanted to make a fun, interesting record that leans on the influences that first inspired me to make music,” she says. “I don’t think of it as even being so much about my vocals as an album about vibe.” Explaining, “The important thing to me was to take these songs and to get them just right musically. And in my mind, I was thinking of where maybe Skeeter Davis meets Rockpile, or Marshall Crenshaw meets the Louvin Brothers.”

Who wouldn’t want to hang out at either of those intersections? Not ignoring the fact that in Willis’ world, as the album title might augur, high times and heartache are inextricably tied, “I guess the songs I write can be more sad than I think they are,” she admits with a laugh. “The lyrics are always sad in country music. I mean, we sometimes wonder why people hire us to do weddings. We’re like, ‘Really? You wanted this? Well, okay!’ But the music, more than ever, I think, is very fun.”

The title song, which brings a slight R&B vibe to her trademark country, was key in setting the tone. “When I wrote ‘Back Being Blue,’ I felt like I made a discovery,” she says. “Up until writing that song, my songs were all feeling a little bit wordy and complicated and personal, and they just weren’t clicking. Then I wrote that one, I just felt like, oh!­––what I need to do is try to simplify, and write these stories in a way that feels like you’re not quite sure what era they were written in.”

She makes it sound like a fresh epiphany, but some might say that sending the hands of the clock spinning––in a word: timelessness––has always been a hallmark of her career. As the New York Times wrote, “Kelly Willis looks back to country music before Nashville embraced power ballads and cute happily-ever-after songs. She has an old-fashioned country voice with a twang, a breathy quaver, a break or a throaty sob whenever she needs one… Whether she was wishing for comfort, admitting to a bruised heart, yielding to illicit romance or trying to say goodbye, her voice was modest and true, illuminating the delicate tension and pain in every line.” No Depression noted that her music transcends throwback appeal: “There’s no point in being nostalgic for the generic delineations of the past. We are in the present. That’s where Kelly Willis lives. And it’s there that she sings, as keenly and movingly as any singer in the country or pop or rock present.” Rolling Stone zeroed in on the eternality of her tone: “Willis’ Okie soprano still crackles like no other, and her control and phrasing make it more devastating than ever.”

The native Okie-ness Rolling Stone noticed in her honeyed voice is tempered by a whole lot of Texas. Romance and music brought her to Austin while she was in her late teens, fronting a celebrated but short-lived rockabilly band, Radio Ranch. Famed singer/songwriter Nancy Griffith took a shine to her voice and recommended Willis to producer Tony Brown, one of the titans of Nashville country, who signed her to a deal with MCA. Her three major -label albums yielded plenty of critical acclaim, with enough media attention that she even found herself representing for Texas on People magazine’s annual “50 most beautiful people” list. But, not for the first or last time, mainstream radio didn’t quite know what to make of a youthful neo-traditionalist who appeared to have been transported from a less trendy era.

Then came the album that set the template for the second act of this American life: the 1999 Rykodisc release What I Deserve, her debut as an independent artist in all senses of the term.

“I feel like I’ve never really quite fit into any one group,” Willis says. “I wasn’t really country enough to fit in with the Nashville mainstream, and I didn’t quite fit in with that alt-country stuff, either. But What I Deserve was a huge turning point, because that was the first time I was able to just do my record my way, and the first time I had really grown as an artist and was writing more songs and aware of how to get my ideas across musically. I also looked at that as potentially being my last record. I felt kind of washed up, which was a really strange place to be as a 25-year-old. But to accomplish that record and have it be so well -received gave me a lot of confidence. From then on, I knew I could continue to be a musician, and whatever it was going to look like, I was gonna make it up as I go along, and there could be real satisfaction in that.”

There were personal and creative detours to come. Easy (2002) and Translated by Love (2007) generated equal love from fans, the press, and fellow musicians. Meanwhile, motherhood competed for her attention, to put it mildly. “I had four babies in the space of five years. As challenging as work/family balance became, it led to a pleasing mid-career wrinkle when she backed into a side career with Robison, who conveniently happened to be not just her spouse but her creative and popular equal in the Americana world. A series of annual Christmas shows led to a holiday album, which led to two non-seasonal duo projects, Cheater’s Game (2013) and Our Year (2014).

“We could feel this excitement and electricity at our performances together,” Willis says, “and so we finally just started doing that, even though we’d been keeping it at arm’s length, professionally. We just couldn’t deny it, and so we just decided to take a chance that it wouldn’t destroy our marriage,” she laughs. “But now it’s really important to both of us to get out there and do our own thing.”

So what did Willis do when it came time to reassert her artistic independence with Back Being Blue? Hire Robison as producer. “As I was going through the process, I realized he understood what I was trying to do, and that nobody cared more about how it turned out than he did. I didn’t have a bigger fan out there in the world.”

Choosing Robison as her producer, ironically, made for a long commute to work each day as she was recording the album, since Robison’s studio, the Bunker, is on a rustic five-acre plot with a fishing hole 40 minutes south of Austin. But it was worth the daily drive, she figures: “It’s kind of its own vibe out there, and you can hear it, I think, in the recordings. It feels old school to me. It’s got a real reverb chamber, and we did it on analog tape with an old board;” — old enough that “ the tape machine broke down six times while we were recording, but he’s got a guy he talks to up in Nashville that walks him through fixing it every time.”

That analog mentality filters into “Modern World,” one of the few songs on the album less about single-gal dilemmas and more about where Willis is now. “I can’t put my phone down,” she admits. “I’m trying to keep it away from my kids, but I’m not able to keep it away from myself. When we used to not have the stuff, we were forced to be more engaged. I was thinking I wanted to write about that, but I wanted to write about that in maybe the Louvin Brothers would have written about it.” “Freewheeling” is about how “everybody wishes they could let go of their anxiety or some of those old, comfortable pains that won’t go away. And I think we always look around and see other people that seem to be able to handle everything much easier.”

Sources for the four outside songs range from Rodney Crowell, who recommended that Willis cut “We’ll Do It for Love Next Time” (from his 2003 album “Fate’s Right Hand”),. to Skeeter Davis, whose “I’m a Lover (Not a Fighter)” is the one pick you could pinpoint as being tied to a place in time, thanks to its lyrical reference to Cassius Clay. “We were trying to come up with other, more contemporary rhymes that might work there, like ‘Sugar Ray,’ but ultimately I liked the dated reference.”

Willis is hardly ashamed of looking backward for touchstones. “With this record I was trying to go with the styles of music that have really impacted my life, especially when I moved to Austin as a teenager, and make it country-sounding like Austin used to sound,” she says.

“Nick Lowe was a real north star for me on this record. ––Llike, ‘What would do Nick Lowe do?’ He was able to write modern songs that were like old songs—––that had a cool soul/R&B/Buddy Holly kind of a thing that had sounds from that early rock and roll era—––but that felt really fresh and exciting and now. I just love the A-B-C’s of rock and roll. Before everybody had to start piling on different things to make it sound different, it had all been done. With this record I was trying to go with the styles of music that have really impacted my life, especially when I moved to Austin as a teenager, and make it country-sounding like Austin used to sound.”

Nick Lowe may be Willis’ north star, but she’s been around just long enough to be a beacon for some acolytes of her own. That’s true even with appreciative fans from upstream in the generational river, like outlaw-era legend Ray Wylie Hubbard, who recently tweeted, “Kelly, you are the gold standard that I compare other artists to,” tTo which Kelly replied that she would put that in her bio.

“I know I’ve been around through many different phases of my genre of music. Whether it was the New Traditionalist, or Alt. Country or Americana. I ought to be able to write a book about it all. But in spite of my long career, I still think of myself as a teenager! I still feel like the underdog who’s trying to find her way”

That Willis still feels like that scrappy young comer, six albums and four kids later, is good news for anyone about to take a shine to the only slightly broken-hearted-feeling spunk of the new album. Blue definitely continues to be her color, but more than anything, she’s back feeling new.

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Singer-songwriter, Giulia (Julia) Millanta, is a native-born Italian from Florence who now calls Austin, Texas home.

A creative and prolific artist, she has released seven solo albums, touring  nationally throughout the USA and internationally. An accomplished guitarist, Giulia also plays ukulele and sings in four languages. She has been called smart, pensive and cool and credited with psychedelic grooveability whilst “baring her clairvoyant soul” to “deliver musical mojo.” 

Giulia began her life in music as a child of eight years when taught to play guitar by her father she began to perform traditional folk songs. She continued to sing and began writing songs and making records. Performing at the Acoustic Guitar Meeting in Sarzana in the spring of 2010 her accomplished guitar style and songs earned her the “New Sounds Of Acoustic Music” award. This led to an endorsement by the renowned guitar makers Eko, choice of the most famous 60’s-80’s era singer-songwriters throughout Italy.

In April 2024, Millanta is poised to release her ninth solo album (her sixth in the US), Only Luna Knows, along with an Italian cookbook, "Dinner with Giulia- Flavors, Songs and Stories of a Florentine Troubadour".

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Elena Diaz is a musician and vocalist originally from Houston, Texas. Her voice has earned comparisons from Karen Carpenter to Rosa Passos and is known for singing in different languages. 

Elena's musical journey began at a very young age when she became an alum of the prestigious Houston Children's Chorus. Over the years, Elena has had the privilege of performing in several iconic venues including, The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts, Stude Concert Hall at Rice University, and the Grand 1894 Opera House. These experiences allowed her to work with acclaimed artists such as Maureen McGovern, Heather Headley, and Shirley Jones. 

A testament to her versatility as an artist, Elena has had the privilege of opening for Alejandro Escovedo in 2014. Furthermore, she has shared the stage with Jon Herington of Steely Dan and Adam Scone, known for his work with Sharon Jones and The Sugarman 3.Elena's musical journey has taken her far beyond the borders of her hometown. In 2017, she moved to the South of France and began performing on the French Riviera and Europe where she delved deep into the world of Latin jazz and formed her band The FR Collective. 

Elena's talents extend beyond performing. She has also made her mark as a producer and co-writer, garnering recognition for a song she wrote for a film nominated at the Cannes Film Festival in 2022. In addition to her own original compositions, Elena released an arrangement of Led Zeppelin's classic "Stairway to Heaven.” 

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Alex Ruiz is the lead singer for Del Castillo, Chingon & The Night Mothers.

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Jenny Reynolds lives her life following her mission statement of “Work hard, be nice, keep moving.” She is currently at work on a new record with Mark Hallman and André Moran at Cedar Creek Studio.

Her latest record “Any Kind of Angel” was also produced by Mark Hallman and André Moran at Congress House Studio, and was released on June 19, 2020. The recording features Jaimee Harris, BettySoo, Warren Hood, Oliver Steck, and Scrappy Jud Newcomb. It is her fourth release.

A native New Englander, Reynolds has worked with Boston-based artists Duke Levine, Kevin Barry and Catie Curtis. She has played the Old Settlers Music Festival, the Kerrville Folk Festival, The Philadelphia Folk Festival, Club Passim, the Cactus Cafe, and the Bluebird Cafe, and has worked with Grammy Nominee Ruthie Foster, and Rock n’ Roll Hall of Fame inductee Ian McLagan. She was an Official Showcase Artist at SXSW 2008 and 2018, and was named “Best New Local Act” in the Austin Chronicle’s 2005 Critics Poll.

Her music has been on major network television and independent film, including ABC’s “All My Children.” She is also the producer of Austin's “Williams Nite: A Tribute to the Music of Hank and Lucinda Williams,” a “kinda annual” show that will happen for the tenth time in 2021. Proceeds benefit the SIMS Foundation.

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Keith Grimwood and Ezra Idlet formed Trout Fishing in America in 1979 as a means of survival.  They traveled to California as a part of the Texas-based five-piece band St. Elmo’s Fire with hopes of being discovered and signed by a major record label.  When no such opportunity arose, and the promising tour dissolved, Keith and Ezra peeled off from their bandmates to fend for themselves.  Busking on the streets of Santa Cruz with an acoustic guitar, and an upright bass, the pair quickly learned that engaging listeners instantly was the only path towards dollars and coins in the open guitar case.  When entry in a music contest required them to have a name for their act, they chose Trout Fishing in America as an homage to Keith’s love of writer Richard Brautigan and Ezra’s love of fishing. 

They returned to Texas and continued performing as a duo, landing gigs in the southeast United States.  For a band comprised only of a guitar, a bass, and two vocalists, Keith and Ezra could sonically fill whatever space they played.  Trout’s genre-defying musical style and unique stage presence did not lend itself to standard marketing strategies so their following developed through word-of-mouth recommendations from fans and club owners.   No one could explain what kind of music Trout played but would also tell you that theirs was not a show to miss. 

Rather than waiting for a record label’s attention, they formed their own Trout Records label in the 1980s and released two vinyl albums and two cassettes.  Drawing inspiration from childhoods spent listening to top-40 AM radio, the two songwriters seasoned their music with stylings from rock and roll, blues, folk, country, bluegrass, funk, Latin, and reggae…whatever sound would best bring out the flavor of the lyrics they wrote.  From the beginning, they were a song writing team with Keith typically being the lyrical generator while Ezra developed the music.  Their collaborative natures allowed them to edit each other’s contributions without egos clashing.  

Through hard work, strong musicianship, solid friendship, supportive families, and a genuine ability to connect with their audience, Trout’s homegrown success and appeal exploded in the 1990s.  This led to regular touring throughout the US and Canada in their infamous red truck, Robert RedFord.  They retired The Red Truck in 1997 after accumulating over half a million miles.  The 1990s ushered in the era of compact discs and Trout released 9 more albums from 1990 – 1999 on their label.  They were nominated for Grammy awards in 2001, 2004, 2006, and 2008.  

Keith and Ezra have always been road dogs, driving tens of thousands of miles throughout the United States every year.  In March 2020, years of touring came to a halt.  After a month apart, they reunited at the Trout House Studio and did what they do best:  they wrote songs together.  With live gigs disappearing, Keith and Ezra had lots of time to experiment and create.  The studio became their safe house. They wrote over a dozen new songs and performed monthly live streams to stay connected with their fans.  The result is Trout’s 25th album, “Safe House”. 

It is not unusual for three or four generations of a family to show up at a Trout performance and this is a point of pride for both Keith and Ezra.  It may still be impossible to tell you what kind of music Trout plays, but after attending a show, you’ll know exactly what you’ve witnessed:  two guys who still love what they do and are excited to share it with you.  ​

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Twin brothers Josef and Jan Prasil were born in Germany but grew up in Italy. Their parents have roots in the Czech Republic and Australia. Seeking to advance their music career, they later moved to Australia. In 2019, the duo decided to relocate back to Europe.

Amistat's musical identity finds resonance in the modern soundscapes reminiscent of Simon and Garfunkel, while drawing influence from artists like Ben Howard, Kings of Convenience, and Kodaline. Their music truly comes to life in a live setting, offering a haven for emotional connection, healing, and inspiration. Their vocal harmonies, which result from the interplay of their distinct personalities and musical inclinations, create a distinctive synergy that's best experienced firsthand.

Their lyrics are deeply authentic and reflect the wisdom they've gathered from their experiences in life and love. Their songs are a medium through which they share their personal stories and the insights they've gleaned along the way, many of which were written during their travels.

As twins, Josef and Jan share a unique bond that infuses their music with an exceptional connection. Their harmonies are impeccably intertwined, reflecting their shared closeness and understanding. This fusion is further enriched by their sincere and narrative vocal delivery. Amistat is able to translate their sources of inspiration, often drawn from their life on the road, into their music. Their sentiments, aspirations, and dreams blend seamlessly to convey a genuine and unfiltered message to their audiences.

In a world where authenticity and relatability resonate deeply with listeners, Amistat's music speaks to the heart and mind, offering a testament to the power of personal experience and the universality of emotions.

Since 2012, Amistat have released six EP’s and their debut album ‘Parley’ which saw them embark on a number of Australian and European tours including performances at some of Australia's finest Festivals such as Woodford Folk Festival, National Folk Festival, Fairbridge and Nannup. The duo further won the Marton Guitar Emerging Artist of the Year 2018 Award at the Port Fairy Folk Festival 2018.

Following a two month tour with Australian band "Sons of the East" playing 49 shows in 15 countries, Amistat followed up with their own headline tour through Europe and the UK in autumn 2019 before heading to their second home Australia for a national tour. In 2022 the duo played over 150 shows in less than 7 months across 10 countries including shows South Africa and Italy.

Following their highly successful European tour in April 2023, with packed venues across multiple continents totaling over 10,000 tickets sold, Amistat returned to the stage again in 2024. With sold-out maiden performances in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Belgium, along with performances at renowned venues like Munich's "Tohalle" and three consecutive sold-out shows at Vienna's WUK, they doubled their ticket sales compared to last year with close to 20.000 tickets sold.

Join them on their musical journey as they continue to inspire and connect with audiences around the world!

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There is a certain resilience, albeit sometimes desperate to The Wealthy West’s songs. The solo moniker for The Rocketboys’ frontman Brandon Kinder, The Wealthy West sings songs that fully encapsulate someone who has chosen to step away from the comfortable, from his friends and easy relationships, and is trying to figure out his place in life. As if leaving the house with the door flung open and marching into the unknown, he periodically turns around to make sure that his real life is still there before plunging forward. 

Kinder, raised in - and now returned to - Memphis has spent all of his adult life in music. Forming The Rocketboys during college in Abilene, TX, he and the group moved to Austin thereafter, gaining much critical praise for their several EPs and albums. They continue to grow, having recently toured the US for the 6th time, as well as a soon-to-be-repeated tour of Germany. 

However, along the way, and in search of a more personal voice Kinder took a handful of demos and released “The Wealthy West Volume 1”. As with The Rocketboys, these songs released in 2011 found much success with TV and film music supervisors, landing numerous placements and touching The Rocketboys’ fanbase. This success was followed with his first full-length, “Long Play”, which was an iTunes Best-of-2016 LP and featured fan favorites “The Highest Tide” and “That Silver Line”.

Musically The Wealthy West sits between the storied troubadours of the 60’s and modern solo artists such as Bon Iver and Father John Misty; there is a gritty quality to his delicate voice - with just enough pain hidden behind fragile beauty to keep the listener guessing.

While “Long Play” was essentially a record about traveling and searching, The Wealthy West’s new album “The Right Regrets” is the record for when you arrive and realize there are no easy answers.  A self-described “depressing record”,  as beautiful and wide-ranging as it is, it keeps emotions close to the surface: Many of the songs are conversational as Kinder talks about his fears, hopes and frustrations. “Wasting Time” is exasperated. “Underneath The Rubble” brings respite. “Help” is a plain acknowledgment that the game of life cannot be won alone and several of the other songs echo the need for the succor of love and kinship.

As with the last record, the listener is not left with a sense of finality, but more with the notion that another chapter in a much larger story has been told, and a new one has yet to begin. In this respect Kinder is truly creating a body of work, charting an uneasy path through a uncertain world, spurred on by just enough hope to keep going, but not enough to stop questioning. 

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“It’s been quite a while since the release of the last album, and in that time an awful lot has happened.” is the opening line from Greg Carmichael’s notes for the band’s brand new album, 33 1/3 , and never a truer word has been written. The last studio album from the band, ‘Roseland’, was released in 2011, followed by a live double album, ‘Live In London’, in 2014. “It has almost become a running joke, “ says Miles Gilderdale, “after every single show we are constantly being asked, ‘When’s the new album coming out?’ It’s nice to finally have an answer for them.”

There are two main reasons for the amount of time fans have had to wait for this album. The first is that the band feel very passionately that you should only write and album when you have something to say. “We’re quite lucky in that respect, “ says Miles, “we don’t have a record label breathing down our necks telling us we need to put out something every year.” Greg; “ For us, the only time we even consider going into the studio is when we have some material that we really believe in. It’s been quite a while since I’ve had the space to even  think about being creative.” Greg’s wife Jan was tragically and suddenly struck with meningitis shortly before an American tour in 2015, “It’s one of those things that you hear about, but never imagine happening to you or your loved ones. One day she was absolutely fine and the next we were in hospital with Jan in a coma and the doctors telling me there was a chance she would never come out of it.” Fortunately she did recover, though the ferocity of the infection has left her permanently affected. It’s just incredible that something can do that to someone so quickly, so as you imagine I couldn’t even think about writing or playing.”

With the help of guitarists Steve Oliver and Nate Najar, Acoustic Alchemy continued to tour the United States with Greg flying in as and when he could, “I couldn’t believe how great they were. I’m not sure I could do that, just take a whole set of songs and learn someone else’s parts and just go up and play it so incredibly well. I’m really grateful to them, and Jan’s incredible strength and determination have been such an inspiration, and that’s what made me want to get back to writing.”

For over three decades the band have been at the forefront of contemporary jazz, even if the band’s signature eclectic mix of styles  has meant they have never comfortably fit snugly into any one genre; “We’ve had a lot of labels over the years, at the start there were all these names flying around like New Adult Contemporary, New Age music, and then it became Smooth Jazz, but we’ve never really thought about ourselves as being in any one particular genre. We just make music we like.” Says Greg, “At the core it’s always been about one simple concept: the sound of the nylon and steel guitars working together, but that leaves a lot of scope for exploring all sorts of musical ideas.”

That is certainly the case with 33 1/3, and album which touches on Jazz (such as the track ‘A Little Closer’), Blues (‘Blues for Mr. Mu’ being a tribute to the late Steely Dan founder Walter Becker), Caribbean (the band have a long history of incorporating the sounds of the Islands into their songs, and ‘The Girl With A Plan’ follows that tradition from such past hits as ‘Mr. Chow’ and ‘Jamaica Heartbeat’), Eastern (found in the opening track of the album ‘East of Babylon’) and even Classical music (‘Allemande’ and ‘Prelude in D Minor’ two pieces that Greg has always loved playing since his early days at the London College of Music), and yet with all the diversity of styles, the album manages to still sound like classic Acoustic Alchemy, as Miles explains, “The band has changed a lot over the years, different personnel, different eras, different influences, but we always somehow make it sound like Acoustic Alchemy. I think every band tries to do that, to make something that’s new and interesting, but the fans still hear it and go, that’s them!”