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Alexa Rose & Amythyst Kiah
- Date:
- Saturday, October 5, 2019
- Time:
- 8:30PM
- Venue:
- The Main Stage
- Price:
- $12 / $15
- Status:
- Tickets on Sale Now
- Details:
- Main Hall Seated - Limited Tables Available with a Dinner Reservation :: All Other Seating is First Come First Serve General Admission :: Please Call Venue for Dinner Reservations
Alexa Rose’s debut album Medicine for Living out Oct 4, 2019 on Big Legal Mess! This will be Alexa’s Album Release Show.
Self described Southern Gothic Folk Singer – Amythyst Kiah is on the verge of an international breakthrough in 2019.
Alexa Rose · 9:30pm
https://www.alexarosemusic.com/
Alexa Rose was born in the Alleghany Highlands of western Virginia, raised in the tiny railroad town of Clifton Forge. Though no one her immediate family played or sang, she inherited a deep musical legacy.
“Growing up I would hear stories of my great-grandfather Alvy who, for a time, lived and played with [bluegrass great] Lester Flatt when they were both young men,” says Rose. “Apparently, Lester tried to get him to move to Nashville and pursue a career. But my great-grandfather decided to stay in the mountains with his wife on their farm.”
“There are so many musicians where I’m from, people who just play on their porch or in some local bar -- and they’re amazing. They don’t do it commercially, that’s not the essence of what they do. There’s a deep connection between their sense of place and the music they make. That’s what really inspires me about the musical culture in the South and the mountains, especially.”
That visceral connection is at the core of Rose’s debut album, Medicine for Living (Big Legal Mess). A stunning ten-track effort, it finds the 25-year-old singer-songwriter bringing a wellspring of tradition to bear on an enlivening collection of contemporary roots songs.
A mostly self-taught musician, Rose picked up the guitar as a teen. “I always grew up with traditional mountain music in my ear and in my community, but I don’t think I actualized its influenced on me until I moved to North Carolina in 2013.” It was there, as a music major at Appalachian State University, that Rose was fully exposed to a wealth of old time music, regional stylists like Doc Watson, and most crucially, the ancient folk ballads carried over from the British Isles.
“Those traditional songs are presented in a stark way that preserves the stories. It’s all about the storytelling,” she says. “That really affected the way I started crafted my own songs and how I sang.”
Despite her studies, playing music was never a bloodless academic pursuit for Rose but rather a deeply intimate act. “I was a bedroom singer and songwriter. I didn’t perform out very much. Music was a very personal practice. I used it as something to come home to at the end of the day, and it always made me feel better. I don’t think I ever really considered it as a ‘career’ or had ambitions of performing – I was maybe like my great-grandfather in that way.”
Amythyst Kiah · 8:30pm
Born in Chattanooga and now based in Johnson City, Amythyst Kiah’s commanding stage presence is matched by her raw and powerful vocals—a deeply moving, hypnotic sound that stirs echoes of a distant and restless past.
Accompanied interchangeably with banjo, acoustic guitar, or a full band, her eclectic influences span decades, finding inspiration in old time music, alternative rock, folk, country, and blues.
Our Native Daughters, her recent collaboration with Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Allison Russell (Birds of Chicago), has delivered a full-length album produced by Rhiannon Giddens and Dirk Powell, Songs of Our Native Daughters (out now on Smithsonian Folkways). NPR described the opening track, Black Myself, written by Amythyst, as “the simmering defiance of self-respect in the face of racism.” The supergroup will hit the road in July with a series of special dates that include performances at Washington D.C.’s Smithsonian Museum of African American History & Culture as well as Newport Folk Festival. Most recently, the group has been nominated for Duo/Group of the Year at the 2019 Americana Honors & Awards.
Amythyst regularly tours the United Kingdom and has performed at Celtic Connections, Southern Fried Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, the Edinburgh Jazz & Blues Festival, and SummerTyne Americana Festival. She is a crowd favorite at Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion in the U.S. and has shined at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts, Smithsonian Folk Life Festival, Winnipeg Folk Festival, and opening for artists such as the Indigo Girls, Rhiannon Giddens, Dom Flemons, Old Crow Medicine Show, First Aid Kit, Darrell Scott, and Tim O’Brien.
Provocative and fierce, Amythyst’s ability to cross boundaries is groundbreaking and simply unforgettable.
