ISIS NEWSONG TROUBADOUR SERIES
PRESENTED BY ASHEVILLE SCENE AND WNCW
SEP. 12 – NOV. 7, 2013, TICKETS ON SALE NOW
FEATURING ROBBY HECHT, SARAH LEE GUTHRIE & JOHNNY IRION,
GRANT PEEPLES, SCOTT MILLER & RAYNA GELLERT, AND SARAH SISKIND & TRAVIS BOOK
Isis Restaurant and Music Hall is proud to announce the lineup for its autumn 2013 NewSong Troubadour Series, featuring some of the finest singer-songwriters on the contemporary folk circuit. From NC native Sarah Siskind to Nashville favorite Robby Hecht and Woody Guthrie’s granddaughter Sarah Lee Guthrie, the NewSong Troubadour Series at Isis was imagined and organized by folk music reporter Kim Ruehl and Isis owner Scott Woody. With the help of Gar Ragland at NewSong Music – an Asheville-based independent music organization dedicated to supporting and promoting great singer-songwriters – they secured media sponsorship from the Asheville Scene and WNCW.
“The artists on tap for the NewSong Troubadour Series at Isis cover different areas of the singer-songwriter aesthetic – from earnest to sarcastic, poetic to plainspoken, well-established to up-and-coming,” says Ruehl. “But, what they all have in common is their commitment to delivering great music, for the sake of the songs themselves. We thought that Isis, with its impeccable sound system and quiet, comfortable atmosphere, would be the perfect listening room for sharing these five great troubadours with Asheville audiences.”
NewSong’s partnership with Ruehl and Woody has been part of the firm’s ongoing effort to draw attention to Asheville’s vibrant and burgeoning music community by introducing local artists to the national stage as well as attracting world class national touring acts to Asheville’s finest venues. Gar Ragland, speaking for NewSong Music, says, “We’re very excited to be involved in presenting this series at Isis. Our goal is to introduce outstanding performing songwriters to the Asheville community, and to also showcase great local talent and Asheville’s vibrant music scene to a national audience.”
All shows will be general admission. Doors 5pm, Shows begin at 8pm. Limited tables will be available with dinner reservations for each concert. There is also theater-style & balcony seating and standing available on a first come first serve Individual ticket prices are listed below. In addition, a ticket for the full series is available at a discount, for $45, and will be available now through Sep. 12.
THURS 9/12 – ROBBY HECHT, $10: Robby Hecht is a romantic realist. He writes melodic and captivating songs that don’t shy away from the complexity of human relationships and delivers them with a smooth tenor that evokes both sorrow and hope. His new record, and second solo effort, takes the listener through a broad spectrum of emotions touching on forgiveness, love, indifference, joy, self-doubt and more. He writes with an honesty that captures the truth of a sentiment, building allegorical themes that allow anyone to relate the songs to the experiences of his or her own life.
FRI 9/20 – SARAH LEE GUTHRIE & JOHNNY IRION, $12adv/$15dos: Nearly a decade after folk-rock duo Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion put out their first album together, the husband-and-wife pair feel like they’ve finally hit their stride on Wassaic Way, a collection of 11 new songs to be released August 6th on Rte 8 Records. Produced by Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy and Patrick Sansone at the Loft in Chicago, Wassaic Way finds Guthrie and Irion pushing further beyond the folky sound they established on 2005’s Exploration, their first studio LP. After Irion’s solo album Ex Tempore in 2007, the pair began expanding their sonic horizons on 2011’s Bright Examples, an album that drew praise fromAmerican Songwriter magazine for its “lush, dreamy sound.”
THURS 10/3 – GRANT PEEPLES, $10: Grant Peeples has been dubbed a “guitar-slinging poet” by Music News Nashville, has a voice that No Depression says “sounds like a ’57 Chevy with glass mufflers…”, and a style that Peeples proclaims Leftneck. “I’m a vegetarian that watches NASCAR, a tree-hugger that keeps a gun under the seat,” he says. His latest release, Prior Convictions, produced by Americana icon Gurf Morlix, earned top ratings on national and European Americana/ Roots charts. This summer Grant completed a 13,000 mile cross country tour which included a feature performer slot at The Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in Okema, OK, and shows at The Blue Door in Oklahoma City, The Living Room in NYC, Sam Bond’s in Eugene, OR, and The Triple Door in Seattle. Grant has toured both east and west coasts, Texas, and every shore in his home state of Florida, playing at venues that range from concert halls to biker bars to Unitarian church services. Of his latest record, The Americana Gazette says, “Grant Peeples’ Prior Convictions is real as hell, and beautiful to boot…”
THURS 10/17 – SCOTT MILLER & RAYNA GELLERT, $10: Scott Miller is not a simple study; he manages the family cattle farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, but he also has a degree in Russian and Soviet Studies from William & Mary and tours the country as an esteemed singer/songwriter. In 1990, armed with his prestigious but ultimately useless degree, Miller moved to Knoxville, where he started scraping out a living playing local bars and clubs. Subsequently he became a member of Knoxville roots-rock unit the V-Roys, the first band signed to E-Squared, an indie label founded by the late Jack Emerson and Steve Earle. The band found moderate success but ultimately dissolved. Miller signed with Sugar Hill Records, recording three studio albums and a live record with The Commonwealth. After meeting renowned old-time fiddler Rayna Gellert (Uncle Earl) at “Mountain Stage”, the two began touring together performing original songs that Miller had tossed out of the tune stack he was compiling for his next release. Fans began requesting these new songs so Miller and Gellert put together an EP, “CoDependents” (2012) to sell at their shows.
THURS 11/7 – SARAH SISKIND & TRAVIS BOOK, $10: NPR calls singer-songwriter Sarah Siskind “an under-exposed treasure.” Born into a musical family in North Carolina, Sarah started writing songs at 11 and by the time she was 14, released her first full-length album. Two more followed at 17 and 21, at which point she relocated to Nashville, Tennessee to further immerse herself in a musical community. A veteran in the studio at age 22, Siskind set out to make Covered and enlisted producer Tucker Martine (The Decemberists, My Morning Jacket). One of her biggest musical heroes, guitar giant Bill Frisell, joined the project. Performing Songwriter called that album “utterly captivating.” Siskind went on to release Say it Louder, which won Nashville’s “Americana Album of the Year” followed by tour dates with Swell Season, Paul Brady, Bon Iver and more. As word continued to spread, other singers across genres started covering them, most notably Alison Krauss, who earned a Grammy nomination for her performance of “Simple Love”.
The Isis Restaurant and Music Hall is a family-owned and –managed business based in the heart of West Asheville’s Haywood Road. Opened in Dec. 2012, the Music Hall is renovated from an old movie theater, with a state of the art sound and lighting system, high quality kitchen and full bar, including more than two dozen beers on tap.
Kim Ruehl is a music reporter whose criticism and feature stories about American folk and roots music have appeared in Billboard, Yes!, Seattle and CityArts magazines, and online at NPR, Folk Alley, No Depression, the Bluegrass Situation, and elsewhere. She moved from Seattle to Asheville in 2010 to write a book about folk music collector and labor activist Zilphia Horton.
NewSong Music is an independent music organization now based in Asheville at Echo Mountain Recording Studios. In addition to producing a performance and songwriting competition in parntnership with NPR’s Mountain Stage and New York’s Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, NewSong runs a boutique record label (NewSong Recordings) and produces and promotes great live music in New York City and throughout the Southeast.
CONTACTS:
SCOTT WOODY | ISIS RESTAURANT & MUSIC HALL: SCOTT@ISISASHEVILLE.COM
KIM RUEHL: ANYMEDIA@GMAIL.COM
GAR RAGLAND | NEWSONG MUSIC: GAR@NEWSONG-MUSIC.COM
At NewSong, we love getting to know the artists we work with. For that reason, we are thrilled to have been able to sit down with 2013 NewSong Contest Finalists, Josh Threlkeld. Josh with be joining the rest of the 2013 finalists in the live performance finals at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in NYC on October 19th. You can our full interview with Josh below – Hope you enjoy! 
