In 2014, Lincoln Center Out of Doors launches Americanafest NYC, a new partnership with the Americana Music Association, the 15-year-old Nashville-based not-for-profit that advocates for the authentic voice of American roots music. Over the course of the last week of Out of Doors, including the concluding annual “Roots of American Music” weekend, Americanafest NYC will offer concerts by a range of artists—long-established and newer voices—drawing from the deep wells of folk, bluegrass, country, gospel, blues, jazz, rock and R&B. Film screenings and a symposium will also explore the elders and their legacies finding new expression among younger generations of musicians.
AUGUST 6
“Harris and Crowell’s chemistry class is a joy to attend,” is what The Tennessean wrote about Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell’s 2013 album Old Yellow Moon, the first duo album ever released by the longtime friends, bandmates and musical collaborators, and winner of the 2013 Grammy for Best Americana Album. Harris puts her unmistakable silver-voiced stamp on interpretations of country, rock, folk, and traditional songs. She is a 13-time Grammy winner, was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008 and was the first ever recipient of the Americana Lifetime Achievement Award for Performance in 2002. Singer/songwriter/producer Rodney Crowell has penned and performed some of country music’s best-loved songs and collaborated with artists Rosanne Cash, Vince Gill, Lucinda Williams, Norah Jones and many others. Crowell was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2003 and received Americana’s Lifetime Achievement Award for Songwriting in 2006. Rolling Stone called his just-released new solo album Tarpaper Sky, “eloquent and often elegiac” and Crowell, “a country music trailblazer.”
Based in Nashville, via Texas, 25-year-old singer songwriter Robert Ellis eludes categorization. With country nods to Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, his work also shows the meticulous craftsmanship and wordsmithing of Paul Simon and Randy Newman. He’s intent on exploring all the byways of blues, soul, pop and country. Ellis’ latest album The Lights From the Chemical Plant tells stories of difficult romance, broken lives and urban landscapes with help from members of Deer Tick and Dawes (he’s opened for both on tour) and a guest backing vocal from Jim Lauderdale.
AUGUST 7
The New Yorker called Tift Merritt “the bearer of a proud tradition of distaff country soul that reaches back to artists like Dusty Springfield and Bobbie Gentry.” The singer/songwriter has created a critically acclaimed body of work of “sonic short stories and poignant performances” says WXRT Radio. Two-time Grammy nominee and three-time Americana Awards nominee, Merritt will perform a set with guitar and pedal steel master Eric Heywood. This intimate performance will take place at Lincoln Center’s David Rubenstein Atrium.
AUGUST 8
Reviewing Cassandra Wilson’s recent 20th-anniversary performance at the Highline Ballroom of her “game-changing, breakthrough” album Blue Light ‘til Dawn, Downbeat wrote that the singer “demonstrated that she is in full control of one of the most flexible and dramatically expressive voices in jazz.” With that album in which she reworked songs by Charles Brown, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Ann Peebles and Robert Johnson, she rewrote the definition of what it means to be a jazz singer, incorporating blues, country, folk and more, paving the way for a new generation of singers. The two time Grammy Award winner continues her explorations with fresh, creative work that continues to defy categories.
The Campbell Brothers: A Sacred Steel Love Supreme (World Premiere) Featuring visuals by Brock Monroe. These torchbearers of sacred steel guitar reveal the full gospel affinities and spiritual transcendence of Coltrane’s masterwork in a world premiere honoring its 50th anniversary. Monroe’s improvised light show will weave ethereal, lace-like patterns in real-time dialogue with the musical mantra.Commissioned by Lincoln Center Out of Doors
AUGUST 9 - AFTERNOON
The winding road from picturesque rural Brattleboro, Vermont has taken The Devil Makes Three—singer/guitarist Pete Bernhard, upright bassist Lucia Turino and guitarist Cooper McBean—to the Newport Folk Festival, Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo and tours with Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris and Trampled By Turtles. The trio’s sound—garage-y ragtime, punkified blues, and old and new timey—is inspired as much by mountain music as by Preservation Hall jazz. Their newest album I’m a Stranger Here is about their journey, filled with road songs, heartbreak songs and barnburners. Last.fm wrote, “The Devil Makes Three are quite possibly the best band that you have never heard of.”
Two other acts, to be announced shortly, will grace the Hearst Plaza Stage. They are sure to inspire. Stay tuned.
In association with the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Out of Doors will present two free film screenings at 1 pm and 4 pm on August 9 at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center’s Amphitheater, 144 West 65th Street. Heroes of American Roots: From the Historic Films Archives, offers rare footage of musical performances from the archives of collector Joe Lauro, featuring such icons as Bill Monroe, Lead Belly, Elvis Presley, the Carter Family, Woody Guthrie, Sister Rosetta Tharpe and The Staples Singers, among others. Complimentary tickets will be distributed at the Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center box office starting one hour prior to each event. Limit: One ticket per person. Please note that while tickets will not be distributed until one hour prior to each event, the line may form in advance of this time.
AUGUST 9 - EVENING
“Cash comes full circle as a storyteller and singer of exceptional grace and grit. It’s among her finest work in a 35-year career, assured and at ease, and one of 2014’s first great albums,” is what The Boston Globe wrote about Rosanne Cash’s The River & the Thread. Daughter of Americana music legend Johnny Cash, the chart-topping singer/songwriter has carved her own path as one of America’s preeminent singer/songwriters. The River & the Thread is a kaleidoscopic examination of the geographic, emotional and historic landscape of the American South in which Cash draws from country, blues, gospel and rock to create a soulful mix encapsulating the region’s many musical strands.
Long-time friends Buddy Miller and Jim Lauderdale have been making music together from more than 30 years since they met in New York’s country music scene in the 1980s. Leading lights on the Americana and Nashville scenes, as singers/songwriters (and in Miller’s case, star producer)—the two only got around to doing an album together in 2012 and fans couldn’t be happier with the country-soul mix of originals and covers of Joe Tex, the Mississippi Sheiks, Jimmy McCracklin and Johnnie and Jack. Jim is the longtime host and Buddy music director of the annual Americana Honors & Awards and they co-host the popular “The Buddy & Jim Show” on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country Channel. Buddy and Jim’s excellent adventure returns to where it started, still packing a punch.
“Brooklyn Country” band The Lone Bellow released its self-titled debut album last December to wide acclaim including raves from USA Today, The New York Times, Paste, Forbes and Filter. NPR simply stated, “The world of acoustic music is about to get a new household name.” The Lone Bellow is lead singer and principal songwriter Zach Williams, singer and mandolin player Kanene Pipkin and singer-guitarist Brian Elmquist. Georgia-born Williams began songwriting in 2005, during a prolonged stay at Atlanta’s Shepherd Center after his wife had a near fatal accident. The band’s music reflects Williams’ Southern roots, incorporating elements of rock, gospel, country and blues.
AUGUST 10
The final day of Lincoln Center Out of Doors 2014 and closing day of Americanafest NYC features a free symposium at 1 pm at the David Rubenstein Atrium. The session kicks off with a screening of Heroes of Americana: From the Historic Films Archives, a collection of short performance clips from the collection of Joe Lauro featuring rare footage of such icons as Hank Williams, Gram Parsons, and Emmylou Harris, introduced by Lauro, to be followed by Talkin’ Blues: Music Makers Relief Foundation’s Beverly “Guitar” Watkins, Ironing Board Sam and Tim Duffy in conversation with Dom Flemons hosted by Lincoln Center’s long time “Roots of American Music” consulting producer Coleman “Spike” Barkin.
That evening, at Damrosch Park Bandshell, “The Screaming Eagle of Soul” and his eight-piece band, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, will close out Lincoln Center Out of Doors 2014 with delicious retro-soul. A testament to the power of perseverance, one-time homeless teenager, sometimes James Brown impersonator, then itinerant cook and janitor for most of his life, Bradley was discovered in Brooklyn in his mid-fifties by Daptone Records and hasn’t looked back. His albums No Time for Dreaming and most recent psych-influenced Victim of Love were on many “best of” recording lists and he’s rocked the stages at Bonnaroo, Austin City Limits and the Newport Folk Festival. His high-voltage performances combine James Brown moves with a tight backing band to highlight his greatest asset—“a voice expressive enough to wow the most demanding soul music fans” (Hollywood Reporter).
Birmingham, Alabama-based sextet St. Paul & the Broken Bones doesn’t look like your father’s country-soul band, but they sure sound like it, playing with grit, elemental rhythm and profound depth of feeling. Frontman Paul Janeway’s handle harkens to his beginnings in the gospel-inflected church music of his Pentecostal upbringing. But infusions of the Stylistics and Sam Cooke, not to mention time spent in a band that played Led Zeppelin covers, sent Janeway in another direction. Members of the band are all drawn from Alabama’s deep talent pool. Their raw, old-school album Half The City was done in three takes in the studio and the result is high-voltage deep Southern soul. Wrote The Austin Chronicle, “The horn-fueled Broken Bones don’t re-create one funky groove after another. They make them sound more like the truth than any band since the Seventies.”
The Music Maker Blues Revue, a bill that brings together three artists supported by the Music Maker Relief Foundation (MMRF) honoring the non-profit artist support organization’s 20th anniversary, kicks off the final evening-long concert ofAmericanafest NYC and the closing night of Out of Doors 2014:
“My style is real Lightnin’ Hopkins lowdown blues. I call it hard classic blues, stompin’ blues, railroad smokin’ blues,” is how Beverly “Guitar” Watkins describes her irrepressible guitar playing. This blues lady can play her guitar behind her head, belt out songs, and roll over to sweet gospel. Atlanta-born Watkins started setting the stage on fire with Piano Red in the 1950s and 60s and has worked alongside James Brown, B.B. King and Ray Charles. MMRF discovered her playing in small Atlanta clubs and helped her record her first CD and several more albums where her roadhouse, jazz-inflected and rockabilly blues influences are evident.
Dom Flemons, a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning Carolina Chocolate Drops (who have performed at Lincoln Center’s American Songbook series), is a native Arizonan and true example of the wide embrace of American roots music among today’s young musicians. He is a member of MMRF’s Next Generation Artist Program. The “American Songster” and former slam poet is also a multi-instrumentalist—guitar, harmonica, fife, bones, bass and snare drum and quills—but his slide-banjo is the center-piece of a dazzling repertoire (he also performs clawhammer, tenor and three-string banjo styles). He draws from folk, blues, early jazz, rock and country, and musical influences from Phil Ochs, to Howlin’ Wolf and Chuck Berry. When Flemons gives a concert don’t be surprised if you hear Ma Rainey, the Beatles and the Band in one pyrotechnic set.
Playing professionally for more than 55 years, Ironing Board Sam has amassed a staggering repertoire of original material and classic blues and R&B songs, and his soulful voice and remarkable piano prowess still bring audiences to their feet. He first made an impact on the Miami and Memphis scenes in the 1950s, where, lacking a stand for his electric organ, he propped it up on an ironing board. It was the start of a remarkable set of moves (Nashville, Iowa, L.A. Memphis, New Orleans) and music-making equipment including his “button board,” a wind-up toy to keep time, and an eight-foot high wooden jukebox he performed in on the sidewalks of the French Quarter. On stage, he’s been described as a slightly mellower Little Richard crossed with a somewhat saner Screaming Jay Hawkins and a bit less church Ray Charles. Presented in association with the Music Maker Relief Foundation
Bobby Patterson has been singing R&B and southern soul in his hometown of Dallas for over half a century. He released countless singles for local and regional labels in the 1960s and 70s, and his songs have been covered by artists as diverse as Little Willie John, Albert King, the Fabulous Thunderbirds and Jeff Tweedy. His new album, I Got More Soul, produced by Zach Ernst, the former Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears guitarist, will be released this coming summer, and has already earned advance praise from the Dallas Morning News: “The result is the best local record of the year — this one or 1968.”
Related Exhibition
We are the Music Makers
July 9 - August 29, 2014
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
Corridor Gallery
We are the Music Makers, an exhibit at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts and developed by Music Maker Relief Foundation, will educate and engage viewers in the cultural history of Southern traditional music. We are the Music Makers features photo and audio documentation of Southern Roots musicians active in the past 20 years, photographed and recorded by Tim Duffy, Music Maker Relief Foundation’s founder in his quest to preserve Southern traditional music by partnering with the artists who make it. The multi-media materials will highlight how issues of poverty, geography and age have limited the exposure of these artists, causing the widespread idea that the musical traditions they perform have “died out.” Open during Library hours: 12–8 Monday and Thursday; 12–6 Tuesday, Wednesday,Friday and Saturday.
The non-profit Music Maker Relief Foundation was founded in 1994 to preserve the musical traditions of the South by directly supporting the musicians who make it, ensuring their voices will not be silenced by poverty and time. Music Maker works to give future generations access to their heritage through documentation and performance programs that build knowledge and appreciation of America’s musical traditions. Visit: musicmaker.org
The Americana Music Association is a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to advocate for the authentic voice of American roots music around the world. The Association sponsors events throughout the year including the annual Americana Music Festival & Conference presented by Nissan in Nashville, and the critically acclaimed Americana Honors & Awards program at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. Visit: americanamusic.org
CALENDAR OF EVENTS
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 6
7:30 pm
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Americanafest NYC
Emmylou Harris & Rodney Crowell
Robert Ellis
Presented in association with the Americana Music Association
THURSDAY, AUGUST 7
7:30 pm
David Rubenstein Atrium
Tift Merritt with Eric Heywood
Presented in association with the Americana Music Association
FRIDAY, AUGUST 8
Americanafest NYC
7:30 pm
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Cassandra Wilson
The Campbell Brothers: A Sacred Steel Love Supreme (World Premiere; 50th anniversary celebration of John Coltrane’s A Love Supreme commissioned by Lincoln Center Out of Doors)
Featuring visuals by Brock Monroe, Joshua Light Show collaborator
Presented in association with the Americana Music Association
SATURDAY, AUGUST 9
Americanafest NYC
1:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m.
Elinor Bunin Munroe Film Center Amphitheater
Heroes of American Roots: From the Historic Films Archives
1:30 pm
Hearst Plaza
TBA
The Devil Makes Three
TBA
Presented in association with the Americana Music Association
6:00 pm
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Rosanne Cash
The Lone Bellow
Buddy Miller & Jim Lauderdale
Presented in association with the Americana Music Association
SUNDAY, AUGUST 10
Americanafest NYC
1:00 pm
David Rubenstein Atrium
Symposium
Heroes of Americana: From the Historic Film Archives introduced by Joe Lauro
Talkin’ Blues: Music Makers Relief Foundation’s Beverly “Guitar” Watkins, Ironing Board Sam and Tim Duffy in conversation with Dom Flemons.
Presented in association with the Americana Music Association
5:00 pm
Damrosch Park Bandshell
Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires
St. Paul & the Broken Bones
Bobby Patterson
Music Maker Blues Revue*
Featuring Dom Flemons, Beverly “Guitar” Watkins, Ironing Board Sam
Presented in association with the Music Maker Relief Foundation
Presented in association with the Americana Music Association
*Related Exhibition
We are the Music Makers
July 9–August 29, 2014
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center
Corridor Gallery
Exhibition Hours: 12–8 Monday and Thursday; 12–6 Tuesday, Wednesday, Fridayand Saturday. Closed Sunday.
ALL EVENTS ARE FREE; no tickets required (unless otherwise noted)
Events take place on LINCOLN CENTER’S PLAZAS between Broadway and Amsterdam Avenues, from West 62nd Street to West 65th Street (except where noted). Take No.1 IRT to 66th Street/Lincoln Center Station) OR the A, B, C, D and No. 1 trains to 59th St/Columbus Circle.
Visit LCOutofDoors.org for complete schedule or call 212-875-5766 to request a brochure.
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