2022 - Page 5 of 32 - STAGING Maverick

AMA UK!

UK Americana Music Week and it’s awards show are set for January 23rd -26th and the events that Stevie Smith, the CEO of AMA-UK, has curated looks set to make this the best year yet! Mike Scott of The Waterboys and Judy Collins have been announced as this year’s recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award and both artists will perform at the event. Meanwhile, a tribute will be paid to Loretta Lynn as multiple artists get together to honour the country music legend. The International Trailblazer Award goes to Nickel Creek, whilst the Bob Harris Emerging Artist Award goes to The Hanging Stars, a London based five-piece band who channel the sounds of The Byrds, Big Star and The Flying Burrito Brothers. This year’s Grassroots Award, which pays tribute to someone working in the industry who has made outstanding efforts to support Americana music from the grassroots up, goes to Northern Ireland’s Ralph McLean, whose BBC Radio Ulster show has been championing country, roots and Americana music for almost 25 years. We caught up with Stevie Smith to learn more about the week of events planned that takes place at the Hackney Empire. Americana Music Week is coming up, how important is that week for you and the association? It’s very important, it’s our flagship event and it brings the whole UK and International Americana music community together in one place at the start of the year. We showcase new emerging artists to bookers and promoters as well as celebrating the more established ones at the gala awards on the last day. How do you go about curating that schedule of shows? Members apply to showcase in July each year and a team of our board members that consist of promoters, radio DJs and managers select the line-up. We look to balance emerging with more known and UK with international. This alongside some guest hosts like Canada House and Jansen Records from Norway. I personally attend showcase events across the UK, America and Canada throughout the year to scout new talent for this event as well. What are you most looking forward to when it comes to this week of events? Seeing everyone is wonderful, bringing people together brings me joy! I also love when a new act is discovered at our event and gets booked at festivals for the summer – very exciting to see the efforts of the association working out in real time and making it clear why membership is valid and the support from the AMA-UK is really worth something. How do you help grow the genre in the UK and what support do you offer to emerging/independent talent? This is our 10th anniversary year. When we founded back in 2012 people had multiple names for this genre, lots of artists were feeling like no one understood them. The AMA-UK has managed to focus audiences, retail and media through our events: the conference, the showcases, the Awards and the official Americana chart that we founded with the Official Charts Company in 2016. Supporting emerging artists is key to the work we do. We work with festivals throughout the year and the country to host stages with emerging artists – this gets them to new territories and often to the attention of the main bookers for future years. Prior to the pandemic we were at 9 festivals a year – last year we did 2. I hope to slowly work back up to 9 and more once things get back to normal. The awards night is potentially the biggest night of the year in your calendar, how much goes into planning an event like that? Its a fine juggling act – it takes a year to plan but ultimately it all comes down to this moment, who will be nominated and who can be here to take part in the show. It’s a joyful event that really does make a difference to people’s careers, getting nominated and awarded for they work. We are delighted to be back at the iconic Hackney Empire for the awards. This means no one needs to leave Hackney Central from Monday evening until Friday morning, as every one of the 8 venues we use for the conference, showcases and awards are all within a few minutes’ walk of each other. As part of the 10th anniversary celebrations we are kicking off the week with a party hosted by legendary Radio 2 DJ Bob Harris, where almost all his past Emerging Artists recipients will be performing – it’s going to be a real celebration of where we have got to with the genre, and those emerging artist winners have all come so far since their award – The Wandering Hearts, Wildwood Kin, Robert Vincent and Lauren Housley, to name a few. Media Contact: Zoe Hodges, Editor Email: editor@maverick-country.com

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Mary Gauthier and Jaimee Harris in Manchester

Leave a Comment / Live events / Rochelle Mills

In what felt like a village church hall, complete with stackable chairs and a table at the back with refreshments, Jaimee Harris and Mary Gauthier took to the stage. Harris was opening, playing songs from her yet to be released album, ‘Boomerang Town’, the title track was an instant hit with the Manchester crowd. She had an endearing quality about her stage presence, and it wasn’t just her songs that were authentic and honest, she wore her heart on her sleeve as she addressed the audience too. A highlight was the song ‘Tattoo Zoo’ which had some clever lyrics throughout. Her voice was flawless and she remained professional as her guitar lead kept cutting out by she carried on the song, acapella at times. Without taking a break, once she had finished sharing her own songs, Harris invited Mary Gauthier to the stage. The pair went straight into the song ‘I Drink’ their voices working perfectly together. The revered songwriter made the crowd feel at ease instantly as she chatted through the songs, taking us back to the time which she wrote them and playing some of her classic material as well as songs from her latest album. She took us back to 1999 for ‘Drag Queens in Limousines’ talking us through the success of it afterwards. The audience hung on her every word as she told us about the book she’s written, ‘Saved by a Song’ and read from it on occasion, recounting tales of when she first arrived in Nashville. She made use of her Harmonica skills in ‘The Meadow’ one of those songs taken from her new album. The crowd listened intently to the stories behind ‘The War After The War’ a song written by Gauthier with soldiers wives, again the lyricism was truly something to be marvelled at. She was personable and funny, delivering each tune with strength and intent in a wonderfully intimate setting. Gauthier is one of the best songwriters of her generation, I felt honoured to be in that room, surrounded by just a few fans as she shared her stories with us but she deserved a larger crowd. Anyone unfamiliar with Gauthier’s songs needs to do their homework as I’m sure there will be at least one of her songs from her catalogue that will speak directly to your heart.

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Sam Hunt releases “Start Nowhere”

Leave a Comment / News / Rochelle Mills

Multi-Platinum-selling hitmaker Sam Hunt drops new song “Start Nowhere”. Hunt and co-writers Zach Crowell, Shane McAnally, and Josh Osborne lean into the comfort and ease of a life before distractions. “When you grow up in a small town, you love where you’re from, you are where you’re from, and you answer the call of adventure when you turn 18 and take off out into the big wide world,” shares Hunt on his socials. “If you stay gone too long without coming home, you can get a little disconnected. Sometimes the only way to get your feet back on the ground is to go back home where you grew up.”

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Australia’s Nigel Wearne ft UK Songstress Lauren Housley – ‘To The Edge’

Leave a Comment / News / Rochelle Mills

Australia’s Nigel Wearne released his new single To The Edge on November 17th, featuring award winning UK songstress Lauren Housley. Watch HERE! Ominous, poignant and mysterious; To The Edge is a potent lament of fate gone wrong. Two lovers by the riverside grappling with truth; that irrevocable moment when the past cannot be undone and everything changes. Why was the timing so wrong? “We needed truth / But now there ain’t time to heal”. Wearne’s lush Gretsch guitar swathed with spooky Hammond organ, drums and double bass set the scene. Morricone-esque horns tug at the heartstrings, as Wearne and Housley croon and cast shadows across the tale in all its mystery. A soulful, minor-key slow-burn that skirts the fringes of jazz and 60s rock ‘n’ roll. It was early 2019 in the bustling Arts Café in Montreal, Canada. Nigel and Lauren were both in town to showcase at Folk Alliance International and found themselves on camera as part of a documentary on theconference. Instantly hitting it off, they spoke about the future of folk music and their mutual admiration of John Prine, all the while sharing their dry wit. After reconnecting in New Orleans in early 2020, they got to work during the pandemic and the rest is in the tape-reel.

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Black Deer announce 2023 line-up

Leave a Comment / Live events, News / Rochelle Mills

The award-winning Black Deer Festival today reveals the first wave of artists on the bill for the 2023 edition of the festival, taking place at Eridge Park, Kent on June 16-18 2023. From established and legendary performers to fresh, exciting newcomers, the line-up is an eclectic and diverse mix of incredible talent from the world of Americana, Folk, Country and beyond. Priding themselves on a true sense of community, one that is accessible to all, Black Deer Festival is on a mission to bring the authentic Americana way of life to the UK, with festival-goers able to immerse themselves in the music, food and storytelling of a culture like no other. Following 2022’s triumphant event that hosted some of the biggest, brightest and most notable artists including Wilco, Van Morrison, The Waterboys and more, Black Deer is excited to announce the first set of artists for 2023. Joining Black Deer’s 2023 line-up is one of the defining faces of Americana, Bonnie Raitt. In a career spanning 50+ years, Bonnie has won 10 Grammy Awards (as well as the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award), released 18 acclaimed studio albums, and has been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She continues to inspire, with her 2022 Grammy-nominated Americana Album Of The Year, Just Like That… being a timely reminder of her songwriting prowess and exquisite precision over her slide-guitar. She is no doubt an artist who has inspired many other names on the Black Deer bill and definitely not one to be missed. All the way from Colorado, Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats have established themselves as an exhilarating and unique offering, effortlessly weaving the sonic styles of folk, R&B and rock ‘n’ roll into a genre-hopping sound that flourishes even more in a live setting. The band, spearheaded by multi-instrumentalist Nathaniel Rateliff, released their third LP in 2021 entitled The Future – which was capped off by a triumphant performance of their single, ‘Face Down In the Moment’ on The Tonight Show, capitalising on the marker set by 2016’s Billboard Number One, ‘S.O.B.’. The Teskey Brothers have rapidly amassed a legion of fans around the world with their soulful recordings and stunning live shows that have made them a festival favourite. The four friends from Melbourne, Australia, have warmed the hearts of listeners via their melancholic, analogue tones, with their recent cover of The Zombies’ classic, ‘This Will Be Our Year’ showcasing this, alongside their own international hit ‘So Caught Up.’ Another legend on the Black Deer 2023 line-up is Lucinda Williams. Widely considered one of the greatest songwriters of all time, with Time magazine making it official by naming her “America’s best songwriter,” Lucinda is a fiercely independent artist who had to fight for the creative freedom that has allowed her to do her best work. The trailblazing artist has an incredible back-catalogue of hits and deep cuts to cherry-pick from for her performance that will no doubt be one of most memorable sets across the weekend. Calexico has spent the better part of the past three decades exploring the dusty musical borderlands of the American Southwest, crafting singular, cinematic songs as mysterious and magnificent as the arid desert landscapes that inspired them. Their 2022 album, El Mirador is one of the year’s standout releases, blending a kaleidoscopic mix of sounds and influences. Canadian singer-songwriter, musician and activist Allison Russell, is another 2022 Grammy-nominated artist playing Black Deer. The singer has been part of several successful bands including Birds of Chicago and Our Native Daughters , but it was her 2021 debut LP that really catapulted her to international acclaim, with Variety describing it as an album flowing with “emotional potency, melodic fluency, social significance and heartrending beauty.” The rest of the first wave of artists announced for Black Deer Festival 2023 includes smoky-voiced Americana Award winner Elles Bailey, Amythyst Kiah who was described by Rolling Stone as “one of Americana’s great up-and-coming secrets,” Liverpool’s ‘Scouse Springsteen’ Robert Vincent, hotly-tipped Canadian bluegrass star Bella White and Arkansas’ Dylan Earl – a Black Deer favourite who wowed crowds at this year’s event during the inaugural Ozark Holler Hottenanny. With many more big names and upcoming artists set to join the bill, as well as news on the festival’s much-loved artisan streetfood & drink offering (including the hugely popular ‘Live Fire’ Arena names, brought to you by Grillstock founders and popular authors Jon Finch and Ben Merrington), The Great Americana Songbook, The Songwriter Sessions, Gospel Brunch, Ozark Holler Hootenanny, Arkansas Porch Sessions, Young Folk area, and much more, be sure to keep an eye out for further exciting updates and announcements for Europe’s premier Americana playground, Black Deer Festival. Founders of the Black Deer Festival, Gill Tee and Debs Shilling, add: “We are thrilled to reveal the first names for Black Deer Festival 2023. Bonnie Raitt, Nathaniel Rateliff, Lucinda Williams, Allison Russell… it reads like a who’s who of Americana music past and present. We can’t wait to welcome our community back into the deer park to enjoy it all!” A limited amount of Tier 1 day & weekend tickets, along with add-ons and VIP upgrades are now available here.

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Opry Country Christmas Kicks Off November 27

Leave a Comment / News / Rochelle Mills

The Grand Ole Opry® kicks off Nashville’s newest holiday tradition with the return of Opry Country Christmas at the Grand Ole Opry House. Hosted by Grammy®-winning Opry member Larry Gatlin, Opry Country Christmas will showcase songs of the holiday season beginning Nov. 27 and running through Dec. 22 for a total of eight shows. Each show features Opry members The Gatlin Brothers, Riders In The Sky, Mandy Barnett and Country Music Hall of Famer Charlie McCoy. Other Opry members, special guests, and spotlight artists will round out the shows made up of artists’ original songs and timeless Christmas favorites. Spotlight Artists for this year’s run include Steve Wariner (November 27); Lauren Alaina (Dec. 1), Scotty McCreery (Dec. 4), Steven Curtis Chapman (Dec. 8); Chris Janson (Dec. 11), Josh Turner and Chris Young (Dec 15), Lorrie Morgan (Dec. 21), and Ricky Skaggs (Dec. 22). Additional artists scheduled for various Opry Country Christmas shows include John Berry, Jason Crabb, Louise Mandrell, Kathy Mattea, Jeannie Seely, and Rhonda Vincent. Tickets are on-sale now starting at $55.00 at opry.com. All Opry Country Christmas shows air on WSM Radio as well as WSM and Opry digital platforms. For Opry Country Christmas tickets and more information on the full Opry schedule including Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday night performances, visit opry.com.

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Lainey Wilson Debuts “Smell Like Smoke” on Yellowstone

Leave a Comment / News / Rochelle Mills

CMA 2022 Female Vocalist of the Year, CMA 2022 New Artist of the Year, ACM’s 2022 New Female Artist of the Year and CMT’s 2022 Breakout Artist of the Year, Lainey Wilson, debuted her original song “Smell Like Smoke” yesterday (Sunday, 20th November) during episode 503 of Paramount Network’s smash hit series, Yellowstone. Now part of Bell Bottom Country, you can listen to the song here. The fiery song depicts a powerhouse woman not scared of who she is or where she’s been, including hell. Wilson made her acting debut in the Season 5 premiere as a musician named ‘Abby,’ a role creator Taylor Sheridan created specifically for her, and one that will see her sing more original music throughout the season. Last month, Wilson released her new album, Bell Bottom Country, which now features 15 tracks (with the inclusion of “Smell Like Smoke”), including hit single, “Heart Like a Truck,” which is currently Top 20 (US) and climbing, as well as “Watermelon Moonshine” and “Hold My Halo,” both of which will be featured this season on Yellowstone. In March 2023, Wilson will return to the UK to perform on the main stage at C2C: Country to Country in London, Glasgow and Dublin. Tickets and additional information can be found here: https://c2c-countrytocountry.com/

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Kelsea Ballerini on tour with Kenny Chesney

Leave a Comment / Live events, News / Rochelle Mills

Having won the 2021 Country Music Association Vocal Event and Video of the Year for “Half of My Hometown,” as well as being nominated for 2022 CMA Single of the Year, there was only one choice for Kenny Chesney’s I Go Back 2023 Tour: triple GRAMMY nominee Kelsea Ballerini, the songwriter/dreamer from Mascot, Tennessee. “Kelsea understands everything about where I come from, because she’s from there, too,” Chesney says. “She knows how hard it is to leave, how much you miss all those things that make you who you are… but also how the only way to chase the kind of dream she has is to do just that. It’s a tough call when you love home the way we both do, but for kids like us, there was never really a choice. “When she texted me to sing on the song she’d written with some of our friends, I said, ‘Let me hear it,’ knowing she knew everything about who I was,” Chesney continued. “As soon as I heard that first verse, I was in. And I have been one of Kelsea’s biggest fans ever since. She’s a writer, a girl who sings from her heart and isn’t afraid to honor where she comes from. To me, there was no other choice for this tour.” Having played to over 1.3 million fans on 2022’s Here And Now Tour, including breaking his personal best at many of the 21 NFL stadium plays, Chesney knew he wanted to take his music to the people who live beyond the major markets. Always committed to bringing the best musical experience, his choice of Ballerini recognizes an artist who has a strong sense of roots, but it also invested in pushing where country music can go. “Music has taken me so many incredible places,” Ballerini says. “Around the world, singing with some of my heroes in pop, alternative and contemporary music, but singing with Kenny is going home. He was the only voice I heard on ‘half of my hometown,’ and when he comes in, it’s just like hitting the Knoxville city limits. So to be able to go out to those cities like the place he and I grew up with an artist who’s accomplished what he has, it’s a lot like going home.” Like Chesney, Ballerini has caused a sensation since taking her debut “Love Me Like You Mean It,” follow-up “Dibs” and “Peter Pan” all to No. 1 on the country charts, a trifecta that matches her with Wynonna’s solo emergence in the ‘90s; it helped earn the honeyed alto a Best New Artist GRAMMY nomination. Fresh-faced and fashion-forward, she’s drawn on her own young woman coming of age in today’s world for some of modern country’s most personal songs. “half of my hometown,” written with Ross Copperman, Nicolle Galyon, Shane McAnally and Jimmy Robbins, reflects Ballerini’s journey, but also both artists’ way of seeing the world around them. It’s that passion for taking risks, but remembering where one comes from, the desire to have big dreams and never lose the ability to enjoy the simplest kinds of fun and friendship.

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Allie Colleen Announces Exclusive Booking Representation with APA

Leave a Comment / News / Rochelle Mills

Promising Country Music artist Allie Colleen has announced that she’s signed an exclusive booking representation with APA Agency. With over 35 successful festival and theater performance dates across the country in 2022 and internationally, Allie has been building her following and winning over audiences with her engaging personality, wit and a sound that is like no other artist. Follow her tour schedule on Bandsintown and her official artist website for current updates and more information.“My team and I are very excited about this new road season with APA. We are so grateful to have spent the time we did at our previous agency regardless of the decision for change. We cannot wait to return to previous venues as well as see some new places and faces along the way. Come see me on the road everyone!! APA will assist on all booking inquiries going forward and I cannot wait for the opportunities ahead.” “APA is excited to welcome Allie Colleen to our expanding roster. Allie’s undeniable talent, rising star power and work ethic are a great fit for our team and new culture at APA. We are all looking forward to getting her and the band out on the road to new audiences” –Jeff Hill – APA.

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Cody Johnson Awarded with Pandora’s Billionaires Plaque

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Signifying more than One Billion streams on Pandora, COJO Music / Warner Music Nashville Platinum recording artist Cody Johnson was awarded the internet radio and streaming service’s Billionaires plaque commemorating his status as a Pandora Billionaire. Cody, a two-time CMA Awards winner for Video of the Year and Single of the Year for “’Til You Can’t,” was surprised last week just after his CMA performance rehearsal during an interview with SiriusXM’s Buzz Brainard. Cody’s current Pandora streams are 1.5 billion, and he has been added to Pandora’s Country Billionaires Radio in celebration of the honor. “This is all because of the fans, they did this,” said Cody expressed. “They’ve stuck with me for many years and never cease to surprise me in their constant support and involvement.” For all of your favorite Cody Johnson tracks in one place on Pandora go HERE.

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