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Roots powerhouse duo The Small Glories are Cara Luft & JD Edwards, a musical tour-de-force partnership planted on the Canadian Prairies. Thrown together purely by accident for an anniversary show at Winnipeg’s venerable West End Cultural Centre, The Small Glories could almost make you believe in fate.

With a stage banter striking a unique balance between slapstick and sermon, these veteran singer-songwriters have a way of making time disappear, rooms shrink, and audiences feel as they are right there on the stage with the band — writing the songs, living the songs, performing the songs. It’s not uncommon for listeners to find themselves laughing, dancing, crying, or caught up in a good ol’ fashioned sing-along. “We’re folk singers, we try to write stuff that people can relate to,” says the multi-instrumentalist Edwards, whose looming stage presence and penetrating eyes find him the yin to Luft’s petite, snort-laughing yang. The material of a Small Glories concert is welcoming in terms of subject, folk-pop melody and instrumentation — songs of love, loss, and environment, delivered with soaring, interwoven vocals on various combinations of stomping clawhammer banjo, guitar and harmonica. However, a Small Glories performance is really about what happens in-between the songs. “The feedback we get from a lot of audiences is that it’s not just about the music for them,” Luft says. “It’s the whole package.”

On record, The Small Glories take the musical synergy honed from hundreds of shows together, and expand it into a new soundscape amplified by pounding drums and other textural embellishments which only reinforce the magic of Luft and Edwards’ innate chemistry — a chemistry labeled the “Lennon-McCartney syndrome,” by Americana UK, writing, “Some things just work together… to witness a performance by The Small Glories is a rare opportunity to experience that indefinable quality that creates perfection.” But don’t just take a European reviewer’s word for it — the band’s debut album, 2016’s Wondrous Traveler was also praised in Pitchfork by legendary American rock critic Greil Marcus, who wrote, “…in moments (The Small Glories) find the darkening chord change the best bluegrass — from the Stanley Brothers to Be Good Tanyas — has always hidden in the sweet slide of the rhythm, the tiny shift where the person telling the story suddenly understands it.”

It’s this yearning for understanding which finds the band often taking more time to introduce a song than it actually takes to play it. Luft, an original member of harmony sweethearts The Wailin' Jennys and whose parents were folksingers influenced by the great activist Pete Seeger, knows that sometimes a song is all you need to bring people together. But often, it is more. “(Seeger) was the king of uniting people through singing,” Luft says. “There’s so much animosity and divisiveness in our world these days… as artists, part of our job is to somehow create unity.”

The Small Glories duplicate and reinforce each others’ many strengths and yet allow their distinct personalities to shine through, resulting in a live show that is as heartwarming as it is hilarious, as finger-picking proficient as it is relatable, and as Canadian as, well… it’s very Canadian. But that hasn’t stopped them from winning over audiences from Nashville to the Australian outback. Their highly anticipated sophomore album “Assiniboine & the Red” comes out June 28 on Compass/Red House Records.

Miss Tess has always been known for creating an eclectic array of vintage blues, country, and jazz sounds. Currently residing in Nashville, she finds no shortage of inspiration in the roots scene there. However varied Tess’ music can be, front and center sits her voice that has been described as "alternately seductive and sexy, and a pure joy to listen to” (Pop Matters). Her music is further heightened by her partner, Thomas Bryan Eaton, who helps to shape the songs and arrangements with a deft touch on guitar & pedal steel. No slouch herself, Tess brings along her Weymann archtop guitar, often trading leads with Thomas.

This past winter the two teamed up with veteran producer Andrija Tokic (Alabama Shakes, Hurray for the Riff Raff) at his studio in East Nashville to create a new record that both reaches back to Tess’ roots, yet also signals a new chapter in her career. The record, to be titled “The Moon is an Ashtray”, is getting its finishing touches and will be released Feb 7.

In over a decade of touring Miss Tess has won fans from New York City to New Orleans and Alabama to Alaska. Over the years she has shared the stage with the likes of Lake Street Dive, NRBQ, The Holmes Brothers, Eilen Jewell, and Todd Snider. Her band has graced stages at Blissfest, Cayamo, Clearwater Jazz Holiday, Floydfest, Ossippee Valley Music Festival, Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, Burlington Jazz Festival, Green River Festival, Red Wing Roots, Shakori Hills, and more. Miss Tess’s music has been heard from coast to coast on taste maker programs such as XM/Sirius’s The Loft, NPR’s Folk Alley, Santa Cruz’s KPIG and Boston’s WUMB. Her 2016 album, “Baby, We All Know” lived in the top 20 on the Americana Charts for six weeks.

Miss Tess grew up in Maryland, where she took piano lessons at an early age. She went to college in Baltimore, intending to be a graphic artist. While there, she dabbled in guitar, but it wasn't until the end of her studies that she began taking it seriously. Once she became more interested in becoming a musician, she started studying jazz and writing songs, and put together her first band. Having grown up listening to her parents' bands playing big band swing, folk, country and dixieland music, rootsy styles came naturally to her.

After a move to Boston, Miss Tess took a few classes at Berklee College of Music and formed a new band with a few fellow jazz students. Miss Tess quickly established herself as a songwriter and performer in the storied Boston music scene, playing regularly at local clubs. Over four years she won a Boston Music Award, and was nominated several other times in the Folk and Jazz categories of the BMAs, as well as the New England Music Awards. Miss Tess later moved to Brooklyn for a 5 year stint in the big city, followed by a move to Nashville, where she is currently based. She has since developed her sound to include more classic country, rockabilly and vintage rock 'n' roll, all combining into her ever-developing sense of self and eclectic taste in American roots music.

Miss Tess has been releasing albums and leading a band for over a decade, spanning her career over many different cities including Baltimore, Boston, NYC, and her new home base of Nashville, TN. Straddling her move from New York to Nashville, the new album was recorded in both cities. The recording cast includes her steady band mate and co-producer, Thomas Bryan Eaton, producer Dan Knobler (Rodney Crowell, Tift Merritt), Robin Macmillan, Jake Silver (Lee Fields), Roy Williams, Stefan Zenuik, Eric Frey (The Revelers), Dominic Billet (Andrew Combs), Kai Welch, John Pahmer, Aaron Shaffer-Haiss, Oliver Craven (The Stray Birds), Maya De Vitry (The Stray Birds) and Caitlin Canty.

A follow up to 2012’s Sweet Talk and 2013’s The Love I Have for You, both released on Signature Sounds Recordings, 2016’s Baby, We All Know was released independently and received accolades in the press as well as reaching the Top 20 in AMA Radio Charts and being included in the top 100 albums of the year for 2016.

As she expands and grows more into her own sound, Tess is still hard to categorize. She says “Many times after the show somebody will come up to compliment the band and ask me what kind of music we just played. After mumbling through a few different genres I usually just tell them it’s my music and hope they enjoyed the show”. Enjoyable is just what her music is, propelled by the classic quality of Tess’s vocals, compelling and totally believable. The production throughout is the right balance of punch and rhythm, without getting in the way of the vocals or songwriting, giving this collection of songs a plentiful dose of old-school swagger. Time after time, Miss Tess is able to utilize sounds and styles from a past era combined with modern sensibilities to present an authentic and engaging presence.

Jimbo Mathus was born James H. Mathis, Jr., in Oxford, Mississippi, to Jimmy Mathis and Jeanella (Malvezzi) Mathis. His genealogy is of Scottish and Italian origin. His early life was filled with music, as his father and relatives were skilled instrumentalists and singers. He began joining the family musical circle at an early age and by age 8 was proficient at mandolin. By 15, Jimbo had been taught the rudiments of guitar, piano and harmony singing. The family's repertoire consisted of hundreds of folk, bluegrass, country blues and pre-recorded songs passed down through the Maths and Byrd families. His father was an avid outdoorsman, traveler and also raised hunting dogs and horses. Thus, Mathus' early life consisted of much hunting and fishing in the Corinth, Mississippi, area.

Mathus was involved in rock-and-roll music in Corinth High School and was recorded first in 1983 at Sam Phillips Memphis Recording Service in Memphis, Tennessee, in a group called The End. He also helped found Johnny Vomit & The Dry Heaves, which was one of the first punk rock/experimental noise bands in the state of Mississippi.

He left home at age 17 to study philosophy at Mississippi State University and began writing songs and performing in the Starkville, Mississippi, area. He was recorded and records released in the mid-1980s under the name Cafe des Moines. In 1987, Mathus joined the Merchant Marines working as a deckhand and tankerman for the Canal Barge Company on the Mississippi, Illinois and Tennessee Rivers. He used his shore leave to travel the country extensively, usually alone, camping and sleeping in his pickup truck. Upon a chance trip to North Carolina, he decided to move to the Chapel Hill area and began his music career in earnest.

Educating himself in the libraries of UNC-Chapel Hill, Mathus learned Latin, studied theater, poetry, First Peoples culture, literature and medieval alchemy, as well as music. It was during this time that he changed the spelling of his last name from "Mathis" to "Mathus," to reflect his respect for his and his mother's Latin studies. He was first known in this area as a drummer, and his group — Metal Flake Mother — is recognized as one of the great bands of the 1990s on the North Carolina alternative music scene.

SQUIRREL NUT ZIPPERS

In 1993, Mathus met and soon married Katharine Whalen. Together they formed Squirrel Nut Zippers. This group utilized Mathus' knowledge of theater, early American music and leadership and, along with Whalen's fashion and vocal style, created an almost overnight sensation. The group toured extensively throughout the 1990s, appearing at many prestigious events,[1] including Prairie Home Companion, the Second inauguration of Bill Clinton, and the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. Over the years they've also performed on many on major television programs, including The Tonight Show, Late Night with David Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve in 1998. Their albums have been awarded gold and platinum records by the Recording Industry Association of America, and Billboard chart history includes #18 for the album Perennial Favorites, and #27 for the album “Hot.”


SOLO CAREER & THE TRI-STATE COALIATION

In the mid-1990s, Mathus' frequent trips back to Mississippi led to his meeting Jim and Luther Dickinson, which resulted in Mathus writing and recording "(Jas. Mathus & His Knockdown Society) Play Songs for Rosetta". This was a benefit project to aid Mathus' childhood nanny, Rosetta Patton, daughter of the near mythical Mississippi musician Charley Patton.[3] This rekindled Mathus' interest in Mississippi music and set him on a new path. During this time, Mathus also began recording and producing on his own.

The Squirrel Nut Zippers disbanded in 2000 amid disastrous lawsuits filed by ex-Zippers Tom Maxwell and Ken Mosher. Left penniless by these events and after a decade of relentless work, Mathus and Whalen divorced in 2003, at which time Mathus returned to his home state of Mississippi.

Simultaneously, Mathus was gaining recognition for his blues guitar knowledge through his work with blues legend Buddy Guy.[4] Mathus toured with Guy off and on from 2001 to 2003. He also recorded with Guy on his album Sweet Tea, and the Grammy Award winning album Blues Singer.

Mathus started his first studio in his mother's hometown of Clarksdale, Mississippi,[5] in 2003. Using antique ribbon microphones and tube pre-amp, Mathus set up Delta Recording Service in the abandoned Alcazar Hotel in downtown Clarksdale and recorded hundreds of artists there, including Elvis Costello. In 2007, Mathus relocated the studio to Como, Mississippi.

Through the mid- to late 2000s, Mathus performed hundreds of shows in the deep South, mostly in Mississippi. He became a regular and favorite performer at Morgan Freeman's Ground Zero Blues Club in Clarksdale, Mississippi, and acted as bandleader for the National Public Radio broadcast of "Toast of the Nation" on New Year's Eve in 2004.

2010 was tremendously productive for Mathus: He wrote and produced a successful historical musical revue entitled "Mosquitoville," and he led the 11-person cast in performances for communities across the state of Mississippi. He also helped form the South Memphis String Band with long-time collaborators Luther Dickinson and Alvin "G.E." Youngblood Hart and once again signing with a label - Memphis International Records. In this same year, Mathus married Jennifer White Pierce, an Arkansas actress and writer.

In 2012, Mathus embarked on a relationship with Fat Possum / Big Legal Mess Records that continues to this day. Since then, he has released six records between the two labels. He has also produced and performed as sideman and studio musician for many of their other releases. At the same time, Jimbo developed what has become a lasting and close relationship with guitarist, singer and producer Eric “Roscoe” Ambel. Their collaboration on Ambel’s Solo Sounds projects have been numerous and critically-acclaimed. Several songs from this period have found their way into film and television use, most notably “Hiway at Night” and “Fallen Angel” (House of Cards), “Haunted John” (Shameless) and “Butcher Bird” (Ray Donovan).

ADIOS is Cory Branan’s death record. Not the cheeriest of openings, but like all of Branan’s mercurial work, it’s probably not what you think. As funny and defiant as it is touching and sad, this self-dubbed “loser’s survival kit” doesn’t spare its subjects or the listener.

Not even Branan’s deceased father is let off the hook. In the tender homage “The Vow” he drolly cites his father’s favorite banality “that’s what you get for thinking” as “probably not the best lesson for kids.” For most songwriters that would be the punchline but Branan pushes through words and, in his father’s actions, finds a kind of “genius in the effortless way he just ‘did’.”

Not all the death on ADIOS is literal mortality. “Imogene” is sung from the wreckage of a love that once “poked fun at the pain, stoked the sun in the rain” but ends with the urgent call to “act on the embers, ash won’t remember the way back to fire.”

The trademark lyrical agility is mirrored sonically. Never a genre loyalist, ADIOS finds Branan (much like his musically restless heroes Elvis Costello and Tom Waits) coloring outside the lines in sometimes startling shades of fuzz and twang. While unafraid to play it arrow-straight when called for (“The Vow,” “Equinox,” “Don’t Go”), ADIOS veers wildly from the Buddy Holly-esque rave up “I Only Know” (sung with punk notables Laura Jane Grace and Dave Hause), through the swampy “Walls, MS” to the Costello-like new wave of “Visiting Hours.”

The blistering punk of “Another Nightmare in America” bops along daring listeners to “Look away, look away, move along, nothing to see here” (the song is written from the point of view of a racist killer cop). And as the mourning singer on “Cold Blue Moonlight” shifts from paralysis to panic, the song’s jazzy drone shifts to an almost Sabbath fury. The tonal shifts are always deliberate and not just simple genre hopping; while the turns can be jarring you can trust Branan to take you somewhere unexpected.

The 14-song album was self-produced and recorded in the spring of 2016 at Tweed Studios in Oxford, MS with a tight three piece: Branan on lead vocals and guitar (both electric and acoustic); Robbie Crowell (formerly of Deer Tick) on drums and percussion, keys, and horns; and James “Haggs” Haggerty on bass. Additionally, Amanda Shires contributes on fiddle and vocals, and Laura Jane Grace of Against Me! and Dave Hause provide guest vocals.

Cory Branan has four previous full-length releases: The Hell You Say (2002, Madjack Records), 12 Songs (2006, Madjack), Mutt (2012, Bloodshot Records), and The No-Hit Wonder (2014, Bloodshot). His music has received critical praise from the likes of Rolling Stone and Rolling Stone Country, NPR All Things Considered, Noisey, Wall Street Journal, Paste Magazine, Oxford American, Consequence of Sound, Southern Living, and many others.

Born out of the house show scene in Philadelphia, Mo Lowda & the Humble is an indie rock band that has since evolved into a nationally and internationally touring act. Coming off of their latest full-length release, 'Creatures' (2018), the band averages 100+ tour dates a year, including festivals like Firefly, Peach Fest, Mountain Jam, and more. Their tight grooves provide the foundation for textural guitars and memorable vocal melodies. Toeing the line between precision and spontaneity, the band creates a unique, interactive experience every time they hit the stage.
They might go to the bar with you after the show... but be cool, man. They're currently working on their third full-length album.

Born out of the house show scene in Philadelphia, Mo Lowda & the Humble is an indie rock band that has since evolved into a nationally and internationally touring act. Coming off of their latest full-length release, 'Creatures' (2018), the band averages 100+ tour dates a year, including festivals like Firefly, Peach Fest, Mountain Jam, and more. Their tight grooves provide the foundation for textural guitars and memorable vocal melodies. Toeing the line between precision and spontaneity, the band creates a unique, interactive experience every time they hit the stage.
They might go to the bar with you after the show... but be cool, man. They're currently working on their third full-length album.

Livingston Taylor picked up his first guitar at the age of 13, which began a 50-year career that has encompassed performance, songwriting, and teaching. Born in Boston and raised in North Carolina, Livingston is the fourth child in a very musical family that includes Alex, James, Kate, and Hugh. Livingston recorded his first record at the age of 18 and has continued to create well crafted, introspective, and original songs that have earned him listeners worldwide.

From top-40 hits “I Will Be in Love with You” and “I’ll Come Running,” to “I Can Dream of You” and “Boatman,” the last two recorded by his brother James, Livingston’s creative output has continued unabated. His musical knowledge has inspired a varied repertoire, and he is equally at home with a range of musical genres—folk, pop, gospel, jazz—and from upbeat storytelling and touching ballads to full orchestra performances.

Livingston has never stopped performing since those early coffeehouse days, shared the stage with major artists such as Joni Mitchell, Linda Ronstadt, Fleetwood Mac, Jimmy Buffett, and Jethro Tull, and he maintains a busy concert schedule, touring internationally. He is a natural performer, peppering his shows with personal stories, anecdotes and ineffable warmth that connect him to his fans. His relaxed on-stage presence belies the depth of his musical knowledge, and fans might just as often be treated to a classic Gershwin or something from the best of Broadway.

Livingston is a full professor at Berklee College of Music, where he has taught a Stage Performance course since 1989. He teaches young artists invaluable lessons learned over the course of an extensive career on the road; the course is consistently voted the most popular at the College. His high-selling book, Stage Performance, released in 2011 offers those lessons to anyone who is interested in elevating their presentation standards to professional standards.

Livingston's 50th year of making music was celebrated by Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker, both declaring January 18, 2017 "Livingston Taylor Day".

Fans fell for Nick Fradiani as he soared through American Idol, claiming the champion title and releasing his debut solo project, Hurricane. Now based in his home state of Connecticut, Fradiani returns to the soul of his work, crafting songs with melody and rhythm that remind him why he chose music in the first place. Fradiani is gearing up for the fall release of his latest song collection, Where We Left Off.

“When we got back into the studio, I wanted to find a way to express how far we’ve come and the direction we’re headed,” shared Fradiani. “These songs encompass the feelings I had as we created Where We Left Off and I hope that it shows.”

Growing up on the east coast, Fradiani was mesmerized by the live renditions of his heroes: Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen and Billy Joel, to name a few. He initially gained recognition fronting trio Beach Avenue before breaking off to pursue his own endeavors. Now settled from the whirlwind of television shows and record deals, the poetic singer/songwriter is focused on translating his next body of work to live performances because, at the root of it all, his fans make him the artist he is today. Fradiani has shared the stage with notable acts like One Republic, DNCE, Rachel Platten, James Bay and Rob Thomas. He will kick off the Where We Left Off Tour in September, headlining venues across the country with stops in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Nashville.